Bill Clinton: Mitt Romney’s business record ‘sterling’
President Bill Clinton veered sharply off message Thursday, telling CNN that Mitt Romney’s business record at Bain Capital was “sterling.”
“I don’t think that we ought to get into the position where we say ‘This is bad work. This is good work,'” Clinton said. “The man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold.”
Clinton also went on to say that Romney’s time at Bain Capital represented a “good business career.”
War on Women: House democrats reject bill penalizing doctors for creepy sex-selective abortions
By Pete Kasperowicz – 05/31/12 02:15 PM ET
The House on Thursday rejected a Republican bill that would impose fines and prison terms on doctors who perform abortions for the sole purpose of controlling the gender of the child, a practice known as sex-selective abortion.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), H.R. 3541, was defeated in a 246-168 vote. While that’s a clear majority of the House, Republicans called up the bill under a suspension of House rules, which limits debate and requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass. In this case, it would have required more support from Democrats.
NJ Transit Police to conduct LightRail Emergency Drill Sunday, June 3rd
NY WATERWAY
SECURITY ADVISORY for Sunday, June 3rd
The New Jersey Transit Police will be conducting an Emergency Drill across the street from Port Imperial in and around the Light Rail Tunnel this Sunday from 9:00am – 12:00 noon. All Roads will remain open; however you may notice a very large Emergency Responder Presence and a large number of Emergency Response Vehicles across the street near the light rail.
There is no need for alarm as this is only a drill.
If you have any questions about this or anything else please contact our customer service department at 800-533-3779 and be sure to check our website and social media platforms for advisories and updates.
Real Estate – Benefit Concert for Nick Currey Fund June 24th at 7 PM Kasschau Shell on Veteran’s Field
Real Living Gateway Realtors presents Real Estate A Benefit Concert for the Nick Currey Fund for Ewing Sarcoma Research Sunday, June 24th at 7 PM Kasschau Memorial Shell Ridgewood, NJ .
Opening for Real Estate will be Toasted Plastic and Spook Houses from Ridgewood, NJ Nick Currey Fund: In 2005, 19-year-old Nick Currey of Ridgewood, New Jersey, lost his life to Ewing sarcoma, a cancer of the bone (and at times soft tissue) that develops in young people.
Nick’s parents, Nancy and Ralph Currey, established the Nick Currey Fund in his memory to support research that will speed the day when no young person’s life is cut short by Ewing sarcoma. Nick survived leukemia as a child (he was treated between the ages of four and six) only to succumb to Ewing sarcoma as a young adult. Being a leukemia survivor may well have caused Nick to develop Ewing sarcoma. Childhood cancer survivors are nine times more likely than the general population to develop a sarcoma. In addition, the lifetime dosages of chemotherapy Nick received directly contributed to his death. His body could not survive the intense chemotherapy associated with the autologous stem cell transplant that was his last, best hope. If more targeted, less toxic therapies had been available, Nick might be alive today.
While survival rates for childhood cancer have shown impressive improvement, those statistics only capture patients who survive five or 10 years. They do not reflect the survivors like Nick who suffer an early death from secondary cancers or devastating long-term side effects such as heart disease that result from the toxicity of current therapies. The Nick Currey Fund is dedicated to finding new and improved therapies for Ewing sarcoma that either represent a real cure or are less toxic than conventional chemotherapy.
(Martin and Alex of Real Estate graduated High School with Nick Currey) Real Estate: October 17th 2011, New Jersey’s Real Estate released Days, their second album and first for Domino. A gorgeous suite of guitar-pop songs, Days is a testament to the fact that the sonic formula Real Estate developed and shared with their debut album (Real Estate, Woodsist,2009) heralded the arrival of a new, genuine and enduring group of voices in American independent music.
Days sees the band tighten and refine their brand of timeless, melodic and genuine music- consolidating the breezy sketches of their earlier work into considered, graceful pop songs. In the summer of 2008, high school friends Martin Courtney (Guitar and Vocals), Matt Mondanile (Guitar) and Alex Bleeker (bass) graduated from their respective colleges and returned to Ridgewood – the New Jersey suburb in which they had all grown up and first learned to play music. The band spent the two years since the release of their debut touring around the world, working out the album’s songs live, improvising their structures and allowing them to breathe enough to reach their most natural and refined end. Days, months and eventually years went by, seasons changed, and with that change Real Estate came of age.
Concert is FREE but a donation in any amount would be most appreciated. Those making a $15 dollar advance donation will have access to a VIP section and will be entered into a free drawing to be held at the event. Prizes include Autographed Real Estate CD’s and other Items. Mail checks made to the Nick Currey Fund to Real Living Gateway Realtors, 27 North Broad St, Ridgewood before June 22 or online at https://www.wepay.com/events/real-estate-benefit-concert Call Mary Ellen or Cheryl at 201-445-2011 w/ questions
Top Italy banker says risk of euro breakup growing
TRENTO, Italy | Fri Jun 1, 2012 5:07pm EDT
(Reuters) – A top Italian banker said on Friday that the European single currency was “on the edge of the abyss”, and indicated that national regulators were helping to cripple interbank lending across the euro zone by urging banks to lend domestically.
“The Greeks will decide on their own whether to stay in the euro or leave it, but if they leave and we haven’t decided what to do to keep the others in, everything will fall apart,” Alessandro Profumo, chairman of Italy’s third-largest lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), told an economic conference in Trento, Italy.
“We are on the edge of the abyss … The risk that (the single currency) may fall apart rises every day.”
Homes Prices Drop 2% to Post-Crisis Lows: Case-Shiller
Published: Tuesday, 29 May 2012 | 9:11 AM ET
Home prices fell in the first quarter to new post-crisis lows, but prices were up in March from February for the first time in seven months.
The increase is the latest evidence of a slow recovery taking shape in the troubled housing market.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index showed that prices increased in 12 of the 20 cities it tracks.
Still, the major indexes ended the first quarter at new post-crisis lows, the report said. For the first quarter, prices were down 2 percent, compared to a 3.9 percent decline in the last three months of 2011.
Prices increased in Tampa and Miami — two of the hardest hit markets.
Cases of ‘Truman Show’ delusions on the rise as more people believe they’re the stars of their own reality TV programs
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Reality TV shows are making increasing numbers of people convinced that they’re the stars of their own, unwanted television programs.
Psychiatrists are treating more people for so-called ‘Truman Show’ delusions — named after the 1998 movie starring Jim Carrey as a man who spends his entire life unwittingly at the center of a fictional world that’s being broadcast to millions of homes.
The startling cases often afflict successful people who develop paranoid fantasies that they’re being filmed at all times and that the world that’s in front of them isn’t real.
“Human barcode’ could make society more organized, but invades privacy, civil liberties
As tech companies work to develop ID chips, how long until we’re no longer anonymous?
BY MEGHAN NEAL / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Would you barcode your baby?
Microchip implants have become standard practice for our pets, but have been a tougher sell when it comes to the idea of putting them in people.
Science fiction author Elizabeth Moon last week rekindled the debate on whether it’s a good idea to “barcode” infants at birth in an interview on a BBC radio program.
“I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached — a barcode if you will — an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals,” she said on The Forum, a weekly show that features “a global thinking” discussing a “radical, inspiring or controversial idea” for 60 seconds .
Moon believes the tools most commonly used for surveillance and identification — like video cameras and DNA testing — are slow, costly and often ineffective.
In her opinion, human barcoding would save a lot of time and money.
Participation in Komen charity race drops after Planned Parenthood funding fight
By Elise Viebeck – 06/02/12 08:13 AM ET
The Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure that is taking place Saturday in Washington, D.C., has about one-third fewer participants than last year, according to reports.
Komen races around the country have seen similar declines following the national outcry over the organization’s now-reversed decision to stop giving funds to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings.
Deadline Fast Approaching for PSEG Environmental Education Grants
Ridgewood teachers encouraged to apply
(June 1, 2012 – Newark, NJ) – Teachers in New Jersey and Delaware have two weeks to apply for a 2012 Environmental Education Grant from PSEG. The energy company provides grants every year to educators who can link their students’ understanding of science, mathematics, computer science and/or technology with an enthusiasm and appreciation for the environment. The PSEG Foundation will award a total of $35,000 for the purchase of equipment, materials and field trips that would not normally be provided by the school or school district. Applications are due June 15.
“Education is critical in helping young people develop an appreciation for the environment,” said Sheila Rostiac, PSEG director of corporate responsibility, and President of the PSEG Foundation. “I’m proud of our investments in programs and partnerships that provide opportunities for students to experience real-life application of skills, as well as those that expose them to career possibilities in science, technology, engineering and math.”
Teachers of grades K-9 are encouraged to apply. Grants of up to $3,500 per project are available. Specific budget criteria are provided on the grant application. Applications that focus on ideas for the development of one or more classroom units, expansion or refinement of an existing course or curriculum, and extension of classroom work to community or after-school activities will be considered. Projects must be conducted over at least two years. Grant winners will be announced in the fall.
Teachers from schools in PSE&G’s utility service area and PSEG’s Estuary Enhancement Program area may apply, as well as all schools in New Jersey’s Salem and Cumberland counties and the State of Delaware. Public, private, parochial, and charter schools may apply for funding. For more information on the eligible towns, and to download an application, visit www.pseg.com/eegrants. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, June 15th.
The PSEG Environmental Education Grant Program began in 1991 as a partnership with the New Jersey Business/Industry/Science Education Consortium (NJ BISEC) and it is designed in cooperation with the Alliance for New Jersey Environmental Education (ANJEE). The goal is to provide financial resources to help inspire teachers to implement an interdisciplinary approach to teaching about the environment and to foster new ideas. Since its inception, PSEG has awarded more than $388,000 to fund 160 projects in over 105 school districts.
This Summer an ‘Eerie Echo’ of Pre-Lehman: Zoellick
Published: Thursday, 31 May 2012 | 9:14 PM ET Text Size
By: Jean Chua
Writer for CNBC.com
The summer of 2012 is looking like an “eerie” echo of 2008 but euro zone sovereign debt has replaced mortgages as the risky asset class that markets are anxious about, said Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank.
Banks are under stress and depositors have begun to “jog,” Zoellick wrote in an editorial in the Financial Times on Thursday.
“The European Central Bank, like the U.S. Federal Reserve in 2008, has sought to reassure markets by providing generous liquidity, but collateral quality is declining as the better pickings on bank balance sheets are used up,” he added.
To prevent investors from fleeing in panic, Europe must be ready with more than liquidity injections to contain the consequences of a possible Greek exit. “If Greece leaves the eurozone, the contagion is impossible to predict, just as Lehman (Brothers’ collapse) had unexpected consequences,” Zoellick said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers: Medical Costs to Jump 7.5% in 2013
Written by Bob Herman | May 31, 2012
Growth in healthcare spending is projected to increase 7.5 percent for 2013, the fourth straight year of relatively flat growth compared to inflation, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute.
The PwC report recorded commentary from health plan actuaries, industry leaders, employers and numerous other healthcare reports and surveys. Historically, the medical cost growth has been in the double digits, but since 2009, growth has slowed considerably.
PwC analysts said as patients become more cost-conscious healthcare consumers and healthcare providers and drug manufacturers place a bigger emphasis on value over volume, the mild increases in healthcare spending growth could become indicative of a broader economic shift. “If the structural forces in the industry take hold, the U.S. health system may be entering a ‘new normal,'” the report said.
Four main forces, which PwC analysts called “deflators,” could continue to slow the medical cost trend in 2013:
• Medical supply and equipment costs will decline under market pressure.
• New delivery methods of primary care, such as retail health clinics and telemedicine, will become more popular.
• Price transparency will exert pressure to lower hospital and healthcare prices.
• The “pharmaceutical patent cliff” will increase the use of lower-cost generic drugs.
Two factors that will inflate the medical cost trend in 2013 include an uptick in utilization and medical and technological advances.
New Yorkers Leave Like East Germans Fled Communism
Posted 05/30/2012 06:42 PM ET
Big Government: New York thinks of itself as the place to be, but its high taxes have made it a place to flee. Those who have escaped the Empire State tax man could fill a major city.
From 1949 to 1961, more than 2.6 million of East Germany’s 17 million population escaped to West Berlin or West Germany, a hemorrhage of humanity that led the Communists to construct the infamous Berlin Wall in 1961.
The state of New York, with about 19.5 million people, has no known plans to erect concrete barriers or barbed wire fences. But from 2000 to 2010 it suffered an exodus of some 3.4 million New Yorkers — nearly a million more people than in Germany’s post-war experience and more than that of any other state.
And the outflow hasn’t stopped. The income loss for the state is $45.6 billion, the Tax Foundation says.
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