February 6, 2013 7:41 AM
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ– The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. Saturday mail cutback would not begin until August.
The move allows the USPS to focus on package delivery which has increased by 14% since 2010, At the same time technology which aids in package delivery has caught up with the delivery of letters and other mail declining significantly with the ever increasing use of email and other Internet based technologies. .
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. and Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.
The Postal Service for some time has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages . The US Postal Service is an independent agency that gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
The agency would need congressional approval to make the change and It was not immediately if that would be forth coming or even necessary.
Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general , says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
6 Fixes to America’s Fiscal Crisis
Amy Payne
November 30, 2012 at 9:09 am
President Obama made his first offer to congressional Republicans yesterday in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff”—an economic catastrophe of tax hikes just a few weeks away.
The White House’s proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to raise the debt limit—so that all this spending could continue.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn’t contain his laughter at these suggestions.
One congressional aide said the offer “amounts to little more than reiterating the President’s budget request—which failed to get a single vote in the House or Senate.”
Perhaps House Republicans could simply bring President Obama’s latest proposal up for another vote to see if anything has changed.
The “fiscal cliff” is man-made. Congress—primarily the liberal-led Senate—and the President built it themselves through their legislative decisions over the past four years, and then they turned away and tried not to look at it until after the election.
Elected officials in Washington keep enacting short-term patches to keep the government running, which is not a real solution. We need to reform the programs that are causing the runaway spending and deficits today and in the years to come—the large, lumbering entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
>>> As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama said he’d like to reform entitlements in his first term. We’re still waiting. Watch the video.
In a new paper, Heritage’s J. D. Foster, Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy and Alison Acosta Fraser, director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, point out that
Obama’s tax hikes would reduce the rise in federal debt over the next 10 years by 15 percent. The President is silent about the other 85 percent. The numbers confirm that President Obama’s tax hike demands are at best tangential to attaining a balanced budget.
The real issue is federal spending, and Foster and Fraser describe the bottom line this way:
When this year’s kindergarteners enter college, just 13 years away, spending on these two programs [Social Security and Medicare] plus Medicaid and interest on the debt will devour all tax revenue.
To make meaningful changes to the nation’s unsustainable budget policies, Foster and Fraser lay out four “simple, commonsense, and thoroughly vetted solutions” that already enjoy broad support across the political spectrum:
1. Raise the Social Security eligibility age to match increases in longevity. People are living longer, and entitlement programs need to be updated to reflect that fact. According to the Social Security actuaries, continuing to increase the eligibility age to 69 by the year 2034 and allowing it to rise more slowly thereafter to reflect gains in longevity could go a long way toward reducing Social Security’s funding shortfall. While this would not reduce today’s budget deficit, it would strengthen Social Security’s finances and put it on a path toward sticking around in the future.
2. Correct the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in Social Security. The annual COLA benefit adjustment is determined today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI). However, the CPI, an antiquated measure, generally overstates inflation, meaning that benefits are increased a bit too much each year to offset inflation. Again, according to the Social Security actuaries, using a more modern inflation measure would substantially reduce Social Security’s shortfall over time.
3. Raise the Medicare eligibility age to agree with Social Security. Medicare has an eligibility age problem, but unlike Social Security, the Medicare eligibility age remains stuck at 65. An obvious solution is to wait five years and then slowly raise the eligibility age to align eventually with the Social Security eligibility age. While the short-term budgetary savings would be negligible, the long-term savings in Medicare would be profound.
4. Reduce the Medicare subsidy for upper-income beneficiaries. In 2012, the average Medicare beneficiary received a subsidy of about $5,000. Subsidizing Medicare benefits for low-income seniors—and perhaps for some middle-income seniors—makes sense, but upper-income seniors do not need and should not receive a $5,000 subsidy to buy Medicare health insurance.
In addition to those reforms, Foster and Fraser list two bonus proposals that have not been considered as closely by lawmakers, but would be simple and effective:
5. Phase out Social Security benefits for upper-income retirees. As a nation, we need to ask whether today’s working families should pay payroll taxes so that upper-income retirees can continue to receive their checks. In short, Social Security should be social insurance against poverty rather than a government-run pension scheme.
6. Consolidate Medicare’s elements and collect a single higher premium. Medicare is actually three distinct components, referred to generally as Parts A, B, and D, reflecting the fact that Medicare was built up over many years. This antiquated structure is confusing and inefficient. An obvious reform is to consolidate the three distinct parts into a unified Medicare program, with a single premium, and then raise the premium to cover 35 percent of related program costs.
Continuing to raise America’s debt limit every few months is irresponsible and dangerous. And failing to address the budget deficits that give rise to this debt limit pressure every few months is equally irresponsible and dangerous. Raising taxes would weaken the economy, kill jobs, and hold down people’s wages. This is not a “solution.”
Congress and the President should instead consider these serious fixes to the drivers of out-of-control government spending. All that’s missing is for the President to take the lead, which is what Presidents are supposed to do.
Ridgewood News editorial: The shopping season
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2012
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The turkey leftovers are in the fridge, and maybe a bit of stuffing. If you’re lucky, there’s still a piece of pumpkin pie. But if you want to work off some holiday calories, check out the tradition of post-Thanksgiving shopping.
Today is Black Friday, when retailers begin the big commercial push to the Christmas holidays, and brave shoppers looking for bargains battle crowded malls and highways leading to the stores. If you’re up to the physical challenge, head out and face the crowds.
Dear Maple Avenue Neighbor, On behalf of Audrey Meyers, Maria Mediago, Robin Goldfisher and myself, thank you for making the time to attend our meeting this past Sunday. We all look forward to working with you. Next week I will send meeting minutes via both regular email and mail, asking those who were not able to attend to provide their email address so we can quickly and efficiently communicate any news. In the interim, I wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. Regards, Megan Fraser Vice President – Communications, The Valley Hospital (201) 291 6306
• HealthGrades recognition as one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Cardiac Care, Cardiac Surgery, Coronary Intervention, Orthopedic Surgery, Joint Replacement, and Gastrointestinal Care; numerous Clinical Excellence Awards for cardiology and women’s health.
• Designation as one of only 65 hospitals in the nation to be a Leapfrog Group Top Hospital; recognition as Grade “A” for patient safety.
• J.D. Power and Associates Distinguished Hospital Program Awards for Outstanding Inpatient and Emergency Department Care.
• Magnet Designation for Nursing Excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center since 2003.
• 11 Joint Commission Gold Seals for Cardiac, Oncology, Joint Replacement, and Stroke Care.
• Best Places to Work in New Jersey Designation from NJBIZ.
For more information please visit www.valleyhealth.com/awards
We don’t normally agree with the Ridgewood News but in this case we think the Villages cornucopia of religions and spiritual options is defiantly one of its strengths
Leading Proponent of Global Warming Hysteria Dr, Kevin Trenberth will speak at the Ridgewood Public Library : Friday, 8/31/12 @ 7:30pm
PJ,
Just received the following email from the Library Overlords to let us know that this guy is going to tell us how bad we have behaved and how screwed we are going to be.
Having never heard of him, I checked him out. Yeah, yeah – I know, it’s all the human’s fault. But when I found a few contra positions, I was amused by what I read – especially this article about Dr. Trenberth and the global warming hoax.
Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence [on the climate].
The “null hypothesis” in science is the condition that would result if what you are trying to establish is not true. For example, if your hypothesis is that air pressure affects plant growth rates, the null hypothesis is that air pressure has no effect on plant growth rates. Once you have both hypotheses, then you can see which hypothesis is supported by the evidence. In climate science, the AGW hypothesis states that human GHG emissions significantly affect the climate. As such, the null hypothesis is that human GHG emissions do not significantly affect the climate, that the climate variations are the result of natural processes. This null hypothesis is what Doctor T wants to reverse. As Steve McIntyre has often commented, with these folks you really have to keep your eye on the pea under the walnut shell. These folks seem to have sub-specialties in the “three-card monte” sub-species of science. Did you notice when the pea went from under one walnut shell to another in Dr. T’squotation above? Take another look at it.
The first part of Dr. T’s statement is true. There is general scientific agreement that the globe has been warming, in fits and starts of course, for the last three centuries or so. And since it has been thusly warming for centuries, the obvious null hypothesis would have to be that the half-degree of warming we experienced in the 20th century was a continuation of some long-term ongoing natural trend. But that’s not what Dr. Trenberth is doing here. Keep your eye on the pea. He has smoothly segued from the IPCC saying “global warming is ‘unequivocal’”, which is true, and stitched that idea so cleverly onto another idea, ‘and thus humans affect the climate’, that you can’t even see the seam.
The pea is already under the other walnut shell. He is implying that the IPCC says that scientists have “unequivocally” shown that humans are the cause of weather ills, and if I don’t take that as an article of faith, it’s my job to prove that we are not the cause of floods in Brisbane. Now, lest you think that the IPCC actually did mean that ‘humans are the cause’ when they said (in his words) that ‘global warming was “unequivocal”‘, here’s their full statement from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary For Policymakers (2007) (PDF, 3.7 MB): Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level (see Figure SPM-3).
Despite the vagueness of a lack of a timeframe, that is generally true, but it says nothing about humans being the cause. So he is totally misrepresenting the IPCC findings (which he helped write, remember, so it’s not a misunderstanding) to advance his argument. The IPCC said nothing like what he is implying.Gotta love the style, though, simply proclaiming by imperial fiat that his side is the winner in one of the longest-running modern scientific debates. And his only proffered “evidence” for this claim? It is the unequivocal fact that Phil Jones and Michael Mann and Caspar Amman and Gene Wahl and the other good old boys of the IPCC all agree with him. That is to say, Dr. T’s justification for reversing the null hypothesis is that the IPCC report that Dr. T helped write agrees with Dr. T. That’s recursive enough to make Ouroboros weep in envy …
And the IPCC not only says it’s true, it’s “unequivocal”. Just plain truth wouldn’t be scientific enough for those guys, I guess. Instead, it is “unequivocal” truth. Here’s what “unequivocal” means (emphasis mine):
unequivocal: adjective: admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion (“Unequivocal evidence”)
Notice how well crafted Dr. T’s sentence is. After bringing in “global warming”, he introduces the word “unequivocal”, meaning we can only draw one conclusion. Then in the second half of the sentence, he falsely attaches that “unequivocal” certainty of conclusion to his own curious conclusion,
that the normal rules of science should be reversed for the benefit of … … well, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s claiming that normal scientific rules should be reversed for the benefit of Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the IPCC and those he supports. Probably just a coincidence, though. For Dr. Trenberth to call for the usual null hypothesis (which is that what we observe in nature is, you know, natural) to be reversed, citing as his evidence the IPCC statement that the earth is actually warming, is nonsense. However, it is not meaningless nonsense. It is pernicious, insidious, and dangerous nonsense. He wants us to spend billions of dollars based on this level of thinking, and he has cleverly conflated two ideas to push his agenda.
I understand that Dr. T has a scientific hypothesis. This hypothesis, generally called the “AGW hypothesis”, is that if greenhouse gases (GHGs) go up, the temperature must follow, and nothing else matters. The hypothesis is that the GHGs are the master thermostat for the globe, everything else just averages out in the long run, nothing could possibly affect the long-term climate but GHGs, nothing to see here, folks, move along. No other forcings, feedbacks, or hypotheses need apply. GHGs rule, OK? Which is an interesting hypothesis, but it is woefully short of either theoretical or observational support. In part, of course, this is because the AGW hypothesis provides almost nothing in the way of a statement or a prediction which can be falsified. This difficulty in falsification of the hypothesis, whileperhaps attractive to the proponents of the hypothesis, inevitably implies a corresponding difficulty in verification or support of the hypothesis. In addition, a number of arguably cogent and certainly feasible scientific objections have been raised against various parts of the hypothesis, from the nature and sign of the forcings considered and unconsidered, to the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms.
Finally, to that we have to add the general failure of what few predictions have come from the teraflops of model churning in support of the AGW hypothesis. We haven’s seen any acceleration in sea level rise. We haven’t seen any climate refugees. The climate model Pinatubo prediction was way off the mark. The number and power of hurricanes hasn’t increased as predicted. And you remember the coralatolls and Bangladesh that you and the IPCC warned us about, Dr. T, the ones that were going to get washed away by the oncoming Thermageddon? Bangladesh and the atoll islands are both getting bigger, not smaller. We were promised a warming of two, maybe even three tenths of a degree per decade this century if we didn’t mend our evil carbon-loving ways, and so far we haven’t mended onething, and we have seen … well … zero tenths of a degree for the first decade. So to date, the evidentiary scorecard looks real bad for the AGW hypothesis. Might change tomorrow,
I’m not saying the game’s over, that’s AGW nonsense that I’ll leave to Dr. T. I’m just saying that after a quarter century of having unlimited funding and teraflops of computer horsepower and hundreds of thousands of hours of grad students’ and scientists’ time and the full-throated support of the media and university departments dedicated to establishing the hypothesis, AGW supporters have not yet come upwith much observational evidence to show for the time and money invested. Which should give you a clue as to why Dr. T is focused on the rules of the game. As the hoary lawyer’s axiom has it, if you can’t argue facts argue the law [the rules of the game], and if you can’t argue the law pound the table and loudly proclaim your innocence …
So now, taking both tacks at once in his paper, Dr. T. is both re-asserting his innocence and proposing that we re-write the rules of the whole game … I find myself cracking up laughing over my keyboard at the raw nerve of the man. If he and his ideas weren’t so dangerous, it would be truly funny.
Look, I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, Dr. T, but you can’t change the rules of scientific inquiry this late in the game. Here are the 2011 rules, which curiously are just like the 1811 rules.
First, you have to show that some aspect of the climate is historically anomalous or unusual. As far as I know, no one has done that, including you. So the game is in serious danger before it is even begun. If you can’t show me where the climate has gone off its natural rails, if you can’t point to where the climate is acting unusually or anomalously, then what good are your explanation as to why itsupposedly went off the rails at some mystery location you can’t identify?
(And of course, this is exactly what Dr. T would gain by changing the rules, and may relate to his desire to change them. With so few examples to give to support his position, after a quarter century of searching for such evidence, it would certainly be tempting to try to change the rules … but I digress.)
But perhaps, Dr. T., perhaps you have found some such climate anomaly which cannot be explained as natural variation and you just haven’t made it public yet. If you have evidence that the climate is acting anomalously, then Second, you have to show that theanomaly can be explained by human actions. And no, Dr. T., you can’t just wave your hands and say something like “Willis, the IPCC sez you have to prove that what generations of people called ‘natural’, actually is natural”. There’s an arcane technical scientific name for that, too. It’s called “cheating”, Dr. T., and is frowned on in the better circles of scientific inquiry …
(N.B. – pulling variables out of a tuned computer model and then proudly announcing that the model doesn’t work without the missing variables doesn’t mean you have established that humans affect the climate. It simply means that you tuned your computer model to reproduce the historical record using all the variables, and as an inevitable result, when using only part of those variables your model doesn’tdo as well at reproducing the historical record. No points for that claim.) Third, you have to defend your work, and not just from the softball questions of your specially selected peer reviewers who “know what to say” to get you published in scientific journals. In 2011,curiously, we’ve gone back to the customs of the 1800s, the public marketplace of ideas — except this time it’s an electronic marketplace of ideas, rather than people speaking from the dias and in the halls of the Royal Society in London. If you won’t stand up and publicly defend your work, it’s simple – you won’t be believed. And not just by me. Other scientists are watching, and considering, and evaluating.
This doesn’t mean you have to reply to every idiot with a half-baked objection and a tin-foil hat. It does mean that if you refuse to answer serious scientific questions, people will take note of that refusal. You must have noticed how such refusal to answer scientific questions totally destroyed the scientific credibility of the website RealClimate. Well, they’re your friends, so perhaps you didn’t notice, but ifnot, you should notice, here’s an example. (PDF, 147K) Running from serious scientific questions, as they make a practice of doing at RealClimate, makes you look weak whether you are or not.
And Always, you have to show your work. You have to archive your data. You have to reveal your computer algorithms. You have to expose everything that supports and sustains your claims to the brutal light of public inquiry, warts and all. Dr. T., I fear you’ll have to get used to the sea change, this is not your father’s climate science. The bottom line is we’re no longer willing to trust you. You could publish in the Akashic Records and I wouldn’t believe what you said until I checked the figures myself. I’m sorry to say it, but by the actions of you and your colleagues, you have forfeited the public’s trust. You blew your credibility, Dr. T, and you have not yet rebuilt it.
And further actions like your current attempt to re-write the rules of science aren’t helping at all. Nor is trying to convince us that you look good with a coat of the finest English whitewash from the “investigations” into Climategate. Didn’t you guys notice the lesson of Watergate, that the coverup is more damaging than the original malfeasance?
Dr. T, you had a good run, you were feted and honored, but the day of reckoning up the cost is has come and gone. Like some book said, you and the other un-indicted co-conspirators have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. At this point, you have two choices — accept it and move on, or bitch about it. I strongly advise the former, but so far all I see is the latter.
You want to regain the trust of the public, for yourself and for climate science? It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Here’s my shortlist of recommendations for you and other mainstream climate scientists:
• Stop trying to sell the idea that the science is settled. Climate science is a new science, we don’t even have agreement on whether clouds warm or cool the planet, we don’t know if there are thermostatic interactions that tend to maintain some temperature in preference to others. Or as you wrote to Tom Wigley, Dr. T, How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowingwhere energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopelessas we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty! SOURCE: email 1255550975
Curious. You state strongly to your friend that we’re not close to knowing where the energy is going or to balancing the energy budget, yet you say in public that we know enough to take the most extraordinary step of reversing the null hypothesis … how does that work again? At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.
• Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.
• Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.• Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother uswith them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.
• Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately.
As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdomof the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.
• Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?
• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread ffood riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor atStanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.
His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, itdoesn’t increase confidence in your claims.
• Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.
• Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.
• Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails “unequivocally” favor the latter possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.
• STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.
• Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.
• Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?
If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak inpapers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record. Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?
Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point peopledon’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone?
Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science. That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions. But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:
In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.
Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do. SOURCE: email 1177158252
Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims … w.
Ridgewood News editorial: Frequent the downtown
FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2012
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
After several years of struggle, downtown Ridgewood is coming alive again. Vacant storefronts are being replaced with new businesses; parking lots are filling up again, especially on weekends. Special events in the Central Business District are bringing in lots of visitors.
Valley Hospital named in Becker’s Hospital Review Names 100 Hospitals with Great Orthopedic Programs
Chicago, Illinois (PRWEB) July 29, 2012
Valley Hospital of Ridgewood named in Becker’s Hospital Review 100 hospitals with great orthopedic programs across the country.
The editorial staff of Becker’s Hospital Review recognizes these hospitals as leaders in orthopedic treatment and research. To develop this list, the editorial team analyzed data from U.S. News & World Report, HealthGrades and Thomson Reuters, as well as the American Nurses Credentialing Center for Magnet status and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association for Blue Distinction status.
After examining rankings and accolades, the team performed additional research into each hospital and analyzed the list with industry experts. The final result is a list of 100 hospitals from across the country that have demonstrated continual innovation in orthopedic treatments and services. Additionally, the hospitals included emphasize patient-centered care and forward-thinking research.
About Becker’s Hospital Review Becker’s Hospital Review is a bimonthly publication offering up-to-date business and legal news and analysis relating to hospitals and health systems. Our content is geared toward high level hospital leaders, and we work to provide valuable content, including hospital and health system news, best practices and legal guidance specifically for these decision makers. Each issue of Becker’s Hospital Review reaches more than 18,000 people, primarily acute-care hospital CEOs and CFOs.
Long-vacant “Town Garage” back on in the news again
THURSDAY JULY 26, 2012, 1:49 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Village Council members are expected next month to resurrect a discussion initiated by the Ridgewood Planning Board, which has asked the governing body to review the stipulations and intentions of the North Walnut Street Redevelopment Area and Redevelopment Plan.
The Village Council will reopen discussions next month on what to do with the Town Garage property.
Ex Chief Bombace looks to resuscitate image after behavior was blasted by judge in Reilly verdict
Kevin Reilly alleged that he reported two incidents in which firefighter safety was compromised because of violations by his superiors.
The recent decision by Judge Menelaos W. Toskos reducing Firefighter Kevin Reilly’s 3.5 million dollar jury award to $500,000.00 told only half of the story.
Firefighter Reilly’s “whistle blower” claim that he and his colleagues were ordered to clean up an unknown chemical spill at The Valley Hospital was proven to be false during the court proceedings. The chemical had been identified by The Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team, which was called to The Valley Hospital at 7:30 PM on Sunday, August 12, 2007, at the request of the Fire Department, for what was then an unknown spill in the area of the Hospital Pharmacy. I was also called to the scene by the on duty Fire Captain.
The members of the Ridgewood Fire Department and Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team contained and then identified the spilled material, which was identified as 1000 cc of Glacial Acetic Acid. Bergen County Hazmat and Fire Department members then used an absorbent to pick up the liquid. Once all of the liquid had been picked up they double bagged the absorbent and the broken bottle for disposal. The bagged material was turned over to a Hospital Representative for disposal in the Hospitals normal hazardous waste flow. This action was documented in a report filed by the Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team (BCDHS Case Number 2007-8-71) see attachment.
The next day, Monday, August 13, 2007, Deputy Chief David Yaden and I returned to Valley Hospital in the morning to speak to the Valley Hospital Safety Officer about incident and to insure that the already contained and bagged material was going to be disposed of properly. When we went to check on the hazardous material it was noticed that the outer bag had been torn at some point. We called for the on duty firefighters to respond to The Valley Hospital and I instructed Firefighter Reilly and the other Firefighters to wear their appropriate respiratory protection with gloves and to place the torn bag into another bag and then place a hazardous materials label on the new bag.
None of the already bagged absorbent material had spilled from either of the inner bags. No spill was cleaned up by Firefighter Reilly or the other Firefighters. At no time were these Firefighters placed in any danger and because there was no spill there was no need to call the Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team for this situation.
Mr. Bombace has been working directly with Paul Arohnson for the past 3 years to get a super majority of “like-minded” council persons
Mr. Bombace has been working directly with Paul Arohnson for the past 3 years to get a super majority of “like-minded” council persons elected. At first it was the “Crowd” (Cronk and Dowd); now its Albert Puccarelli and Gwen Haulk.
The problem with allowing Paul Arohnson to control a super majority (who have been telling anyone who will listen; that they intend to elect him as Mayor) is that these three will jam their agenda through over and over again and the Village will be changed forever. It should be no suprise they have been having private (read: secret) meetings with various development partners to construct new retail, garages and apartments in various locations in downtown (this is the kind of stuff that leads to jail time, just look what happened in other urban areas around us these past few years).
The current Council is composed of five individuals, none having a lock on control and all having “independent”, not “like-minded” or “lock-step” thinking.
In this Tuesday’s election there will be three non aligned candidates; they are: Keith Killion, Jane Shinazoka and Russ Forenza. Anyone who knows these three; knows they are very different people with very different ideas, all respectful of eachother and the tax payer.
“Citizens for a Better Ridgewood ” tainted by the Bombace scandal
It seems “Citizens for a Better Ridgewood ” is more than just a group of complainers looking to “urbanize Ridgewood ” at taxpayers expense while reaping huge profits . The group seems to also be composed of and represented by a group of bullies who will do almost anything to get their way.
Also noted in the Judge’s decision “Plaintiff received a disturbing anonymous mailing at his home which was later found to have been sent by Former Chief Bombace”
Has Bombace been charged with anything? It seems he has culpability in this matter, costing Village Taxpayers, he should not escape without being held accountable. If the Judge found a disturbing anonymous mailing having been sent by Bombace, where is the investigation from the Ridgewood Police Department or the prosecutor’s office?
This lies on his shoulders of James Bombace as Director of the Fire Dept. for the years that this harassment to place. To find out that in the Judge opinion he active participated in the harassment is telling on the type of leader he was. This is the same man that now is actively spreading rumors about our mayor is even more telling of the kind of person he really is. He should give back his pension .
This the same Bombace heading up the “Citizens For A Better Ridgewood”? Was this group formed to advance the Aronsohn/Puciarelli/Hauck ticket?
This is the same Bombase that runs the fake misinformation blog or flog known as the “Ridgewood Views” under the Andrew & Sue moniker while on the taxpayers dime ?
This is also the same James Bombace who wrote the letter in today’s Ridgewood News supporting Paul Aronsohn, Gwenn Hauck, and Albert Pucciarelli for Village Council making these candidates complicit in a premeditated plan of lies and deceit to take over the Village?
Andrew & Susan finally admit they are James Bombase , and support Paul Aronsohn
Andrew & Susan Ridgewoodblog.blogspot.com 174.226.201.196 Submitted on 2012/05/02 at 8:20 pm
Wrong! Unlike this blog we post opposing views. Many posters have told us that this blog will not post anything against Killion or for Arohsohn. You PJ have been bought and paid for by Killion and his lapdogs and that is so obvious it is sickening.
Andrew and Sue?? Ha ha!! finally Jim Bombace reveals himself in his reply to the post. Hey Jim, the James referred to is the James from the Patch not you James Bombace. Everyone knows that “Andrew and Sue” is Jim Bombace and that you have such venom for Keith. How dare you knock Keith and what he has given back to Ridgewood over the years. At least he took a shower and showed up to work in a clean shirt.. yuck!! You really need to find a hobby and get a life. Your obsession with Village affairs is over the top. You should have had that much energy when you were on the job. Small minded individuals like yourself perpetuate the negative image of Ridgewood to others, Do something positive for the Village. Volunteer your time and talent. Take your $100K plus pension and enjoy life!
“Andrew/Susan” post: Sorry, I don’t think that’s true. I have posted things both against Killion and also for Aronsohn on this blog before.
I’ve certainly read many opposing views on this blog on a wide variety of topics.
And at least for me — I’m nobody’s lapdog, thank you. I often disagree with people on one issue who I might completely agree with and support on other issues. To me, it’s not about personalities but issues.
I’m not the moderator nor owner and this isn’t my blog. Personally I try to read info from many sources, including your blog too. And the fact is, the moderator posted YOUR post here too– did he not?
I don’t expect any blog to have completely “unbiased” views since by nature people on all sides (many with agendas all their own) are going to post on them. What is wrong with that? I certainly have many times perceived a def. point of view and agenda over at your blog too.
People can read your stuff and agree or disagree. And if they feel you consistently have a viewpoint or agenda they really can’t agree with, they can decide NOT to read your stuff, too. The choice is theirs.
It’s like an editorial page or letters to the ed section. Do you expect that to be strictly a “just the facts” news report? I hope you don’t.
Many times the REAL facts are not very clear with many issues, and questions need to be asked and info uncovered about the story behind the story and how often there are other agendas and forces at work that are not at first blush apparent.
Blogs can be a great way the little guy can have a voice in that, and help raise awareness and ask the questions that many news sources don’t ask.
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