Up date on the Mobi-Chair . The Mobi-Chair is now on site at Graydon and ready for use. Yes, It’s great looking. Find a friend, neighbor, or relative who would love to get back into the water and try it out.
Note: for the third summer in a row, anyone from any town may buy a Graydon season badge; however, day passes are sold only to Ridgewood residents. Badge holders who are residents of Ridgewood may invite guests for the day ($10 each).
Nonresidents who pay local property taxes to the Village of Ridgewood and employees of the Village of Ridgewood and Board of Education with documentation of their status pay the Ridgewood resident badge rate.
The Village Council and the Ridgewood Department of Parks and Recreation announce that memberships are on sale for the upcoming summer season and all are invited to join the Graydon Pool facility as season members for the 2013 summer season. Come enjoy fun in the sun so close to home!
Pool features include a shaded playground, water play fountains, shade kites, Adirondack chairs, picnic area, sheltered pavilion, charcoal grills, and The Water’s Edge Café. Additional amenities include a lending library of reading books, volleyball, basketball, ping-pong tables, shuffleboard, four-squares and hop-scotch. Special programs include “Storytime Under a Tree” for the little ones and swim instruction for children and adults, as well as an adaptive swim class. The Graydon Swim Team welcomes youth members, ages 8 to 14.
Resident fees are $110 per adult, $100 per child (ages 2 through 15) and $20 for seniors (62 and older). Non-resident adults will be charged $175 and children, ages 2 through 15, will be charged $155 for the13 week season.
Badges are on sale and can be purchased from the comfort of home on Community Pass at www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass (Visa and MasterCard are accepted). In person registration assistance is available at the Graydon Pool Badge Office, 259 North Maple Avenue. Badges may be purchased daily throughout the operating season, June 1st through Septemer 2nd.
Details are available at www.ridgewoodnj.net/graydon or you may call the Recreation Office at 201-670-5560 with any questions or if special accommodations are needed.
Analysis: Public awareness is key to living with Big Data
Saturday June 15, 2013, 11:48 PM
BY DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Head into a bank lobby and withdraw money from an ATM, or send a text on a cellphone. Log on to a computer to search profiles on social media, pay a bill, renew a car registration, or reserve a library book. Turn on a GPS device to help drive from one place to another.
Few people give much thought to what happens to the personal information left behind by such routine tasks, even though it’s all collected, stored — and at times shared — contributing to a towering mountain of data about people and their habits.
In recent days, that’s all changed. In a dizzying series of revelations, it became known that the federal government is mining chunks of that mountain in the name of national security, casting a light onto the world that’s known as Big Data and raising questions about who has access to it and how it is used.
Government officials are stressing that the National Security Agency’s previously secret program to analyze data about cellphone use and Internet activity is narrowly tailored to identify potential terrorists and other threats.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Analysis_Public_awareness_is_key_to_living_with_Big_Data.html#sthash.9BUUOw5z.dpuf
The Gosnell nightmare: Ideas have consequences
By Gene Tarne – 06/14/13 03:00 PM ET
The horrors revealed at the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell have put abortion advocates on the defensive. One Pennsylvania newspaper has characterized the Gosnell case as “the abortion industry’s worst nightmare.”
The trial is over, but the details of Gosnell’s crimes are haunting. Gosnell would “snip” the spine of newborn infants, killing the child — a grisly circumvention of the partial-birth abortion ban, which involves puncturing the skull of a born-alive infant and suctioning out the brain.
The abortion industry dismisses Gosnell as an “outlier” not reflective of most abortionists. However, that assertion should not obscure the fact that arguments justifying late-term abortions and infanticide are not outliers among abortion advocates. Indeed, over the past 40 years, such arguments have been repeatedly made.
In 1972, Michael Tooley published “Abortion and Infanticide.” Tooley offered an ethical rationale for both. He expanded on this in a 1983 book by the same name.
In his books Practical Ethics (1979) and Rethinking Life and Death (1994), Princeton University Professor Peter Singer offers a similar argument in defense of abortion and infanticide. “If we can put aside these emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants.”
CBS News confirms Sharyl Attkisson’s computer hacked
CBS News/ June 14, 2013, 12:22 PM
CBS News announced Friday that correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by “an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,” confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.
CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said that a cybersecurity firm hired by CBS News “has determined through forensic analysis” that “Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012.”
“Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion. CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.”
Knowing how to read dog body language is a vital part of communicating with dogs, and an important step in keeping both people and dogs safe. Misinterpreted cues can lead to a dog becoming stressed or overly excited which often leads to a dog who feels he has no choice but to bite. The goal of this workshop is to help you avoid saying “I had no idea that dog was going to bite!” With the use of video and live demonstrations you’ll learn how to tell the difference between a dog who is having a good time, one who is tolerating interactions and one who has had enough and is about to bite. Canine and human volunteers will demonstrate how to use your own body language to create a non–threatening interaction with a dog you’re meeting for the first time.
Who Should Attend This Workshop?
Pet Dog Owners –
Understanding your dog’s body signals is a big part of knowing what your dog is thinking and feeling. When you can “read” your dog quickly, you can help interactions with people and other dogs go in a positive direction. It’s important for you to know when your dog is having a great time and when he feels it’s “time to leave the party”.
Parents And Children –
Whether you own a dog or not, parents fear their children may one day be bitten by a dog. Learning how to recognize the signals a dog gives before a bite will keep you and your children safe. Even young children can learn the proper way to approach a dog, interpret what their body is saying and respond appropriately. Quick and easy tips will make it easy to quiz your children when interacting with dogs.
People Who Don’t Own A Dog –
If you’ve ever been approached by a dog and wondered if they wanted to be patted on the head or left alone this workshop is for you. Even if you have never owned a dog, you’ll find that the canine language is a puzzle you can easily put together once you understand the pieces.
Please leave your dog at home, but do bring the whole family to learn more about the way dogs use their bodies to communicate.
Super Bowl warning: Towns told not to violate NFL license
Friday, June 14, 2013 Last updated: Friday June 14, 2013, 9:29 AM
BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
The committee in charge of the 2014 Meadowlands Super Bowl has sent a letter to all 565 municipalities in New Jersey encouraging them to participate in a statewide celebration of the Super Bowl coming to MetLife Stadium on Feb. 2.
But the letter — a copy of which was obtained by The Record — also warns the towns very specifically to make sure they don’t violate the National Football League’s licensing rules while promoting their events.
The New York/New Jersey Super Bowl Host Committee “is extremely sensitive to events that are sponsored by or connected with products or companies that are competitors to the Host Committee or NFL sponsors,” according to the letter.
The caution provides a lesson in the big business that is the NFL, and in particular how zealously it guards the branding of the “Super Bowl,” its premier annual event. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that companies that use the phrase without authorization can expect “a simple phone call or letter” alerting them to the violation. Failing swift cooperation, companies can expect more pressure from NFL attorneys.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/sports/211515061_Towns_warned_not_to_violate_NFL_license.html#sthash.zul4oFXD.dpuf
What is wrong with this country? Don’t we ever learn? We just saw our president and Secretay of State, over the last two-plus years, purposely destabilize Africa and the Middle East, and it is still being done, except that John Kerry is now Secretary of State instead of Hillary.
The US, led by Obama and Hillary, helped implement the so-called “Arab Spring”. After Tunisia, freedom-minded people in Egypt and Libya began a grass roots revolt to have free elections, remove restrictions on their basic rights, and freedom of religion. The US then hi-jacked that revolution by backing a third party – the Muslim Brotherhood and their proxies, including members of Hamas, who wanted to create an Islamist Theocracy. We gave them money and arms and probably intelligence. Why?
Egypt and Libya, for many years, have not caused any problems for the US. They also kept their Governments secular, knowing the danger of giving power to the Islamists, and protected non-Muslims, such as Christians, from being attacked.
Because of US help, the militant Islamists took over the revolution, pushed aside the original, ligitimate protestors, and establised far worse Governments in Egypt and Libya tan existed under Mubarak and Kadafi. Now the Mullahs and Imams are in charge. They are bringing back the old, brutal customs and Shariah law. Christians are being openly slaughtered and their churches are being burned, and it is because of the policies of Obama and Hillary. Almost nothing of all this has been reported in the Media. Why?
The US should have backed the original protesters, who were moving to oust their oppressive Governments and establish free elections, and rights for the people. Instead, we backed Islamist, terror-connected groups, who wanted to create Governments that would be Theocratic and anti-American. I believe that was Obama’s goal from the beginning. Many today do believe he is a Muslim, and I am reminded of his own words, something like, If the winds blow ill I will stand with the Muslims. How does one explain what he did, backing the Muslim Brotherhood, who have sworn to destroy us, establish Shariah law as the law of the land in the US, and fly the flag of Islam over the White House?
So, now that I’ve given some background, I will get to the main reason I am writing. Syria. Bashar Assad is not a nice man, but neither were Mubarak and kadafi. Syria is not a threat to the US, just as Egypt and Libya were not. They were, and are, a threat to Israel, but not with any sense of urgency. I constantly hear and read, in most of he Media, incredible cheers for the “Syrian” rebels, and wishes for the quick demise of Assad. First of all, an awful lot of those rebels are not Syrian. The movement has been taken over by the Muslim Botherhood, with help from Al Quada, Hamas,and other terorist groups. They are supported by Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and others. Oh, yes, don’t forget The US. Bad as Assad is, he is far better than the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Government that will replace him, the same people now running Egypt and Libya. It was a mistake or the US to back the Muslim Brotherhood in its overthrow of Egypt and libya. and it is a serious mistake for us to back the overthrow of Syria. Why do you think the murder of our Ambassador and three others in Benghazi happened? Obama had us secretly sending arms to the so-called Syrian rbels, arranged through our people in Benghazi, shipped to Turkey, and then sent over the Turkish border into Syria. It was all supposed to be “okay”, because the terrorists receiving the weapons were supposedly being checked, to make sure their names were not on any list of Muslims who fought against us before. Well, not every terrorist is on a list, and even if some were, do you really think none of them received some of the weapons arranged by us? As before, just like Egypt and Libya, this is all part of Obama’s plan to assist the radical Islamists in creating a Caliphate, under a single banner. That banner will be waved by the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama caused the overthrow of Egypt, breached the War Powers Act to help overthrow Libya (an impeachable offense), and now has to do a cover-up of Benghazi because of his help to the Syrian Islamist-terrorist “rebels”, (another impeachable offense). Already, the groundwork has been being laid to topple Jordan next.
Most of the American people don’t know what is going on, are fooled by the Media crying for Assad’s defeat, or just don’t give a damn. Well we should give a damn. All the Islamic countries united as a single entity, under Muslim Brotherhood control, would present far greater dangers for us than we can imagine.
Currently, Muslims, most with ties to terrorist organizations, are and have been, infiltrating all key institutions of America, including the six that Obama has brought into the White House. They have, at the urging of the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist organizations, joined our military, our police forces, our political parties, our education system, and our Judicial system. Some have been able to do this because of our ignorance, and others with the help of Americans in high positions, who know very well what they are doing. This is how Nidal Hassan was able to kill or wound more than 40 American soldiers at Fort Hood. There were many warning signs for a long time, but they were ignored because of Political Correctness. Then, our President, not wanting to give the appearance that our system failed to heed the warning signs, refused to call it a terrorist act, even though Hassan yelled Allahu Akbar repeatedly. Obama called it “workplace violence”, which deprived those killed and wounded from receiving benefits and purple hearts.
Those killed andwounded by the bombs at the Boston Marathon may not have become the victims of terrorism if we had heeded the warning signs. We ignored a warning from the Russians, and stopped tracking the older brother. Political Correctness allowed Muslims with ties to terror organizations to dictate that the FBI alter their training manuals and videos, deleting training materials that would help their agents combat terrorism. The word “terrorist” and many others, have been banned in most areas of our Government by White House orders, and by much of the Media by choice.
The purpose of all this infiltration is specifically to learn the procedures used by our military, FBI, Homeland Security, Police, etc. so when the time comes to make a serious attempt to force Islam and Shariah upon us, they will have people on the inside to assist in bringing us down. Their mosques distribute literature specifically directing Muslims not to assimilate, or to cooperate with any of our authorities.
One example of the infiltration of our Judiciary is the appointment of Sohail Mohammed, to the Superior Court of NJ by Governor Chris Christie. Christie has long been a close friend of Imam Mohammed Qatanani, of the Passaic mosque. When he was a Prosecutor, Qatanani was an admitted member of Hamas, in the country illegally because he lied on his immigration papers, omitting the fact he had been in jail in Israel on terror-related charges. When immigration found out and tried to deport Qatanani, Christie jumped to his defense. When Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer whose only clients seem to have relationships to terrorism, got Qatanani off, Christie appointed him to the NJ Superior Court. I personally sent Christie a detailed account of the reasons Mohammed should not be appointed, mainly because as a practicing Muslim he MUST submit to Shariah law first, not to our Constitution. This did not disturb Christie. At first, Muslim judges will use US law, but when they have a larger representation on the Judiciary, they will begin ruling in a show of favoritism for Mulims over non-Muslims.
I pray that Syria does not succumb to the rebels. If Americans don’t stop our Government from ousting Assad, it will have the same outcome as in Egypt and Libya, with Jordan next. The Islamists will not be deterred from creating a new Caliphate, a union of all Muslims, and attempting to force Shariah law on the world. President Obama seems determined to assist them in reaching their goal. He mus be stopped, and Syria is the place where American Patriots must make a stand, and force an end to assisting the so-called rebels.
What you spend. Where you eat. Who you call. Where you travel. What you Google. What you give to charity.
Recent reports of government access to records from phone companies, Internet providers and credit card companies raise anew questions of just how much other people can know about you, especially in the age of the Internet and high technology.
They watch from the air, from cameras, from computers. And you help them, volunteering vast amounts of information about yourself in the magnetic stripe on the back of your credit card, the SIM card in your phone, the sites you visit on the Internet.
The government has access to some of it. And might have access to more from the vast corporations that compile it.
Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/13/193487/the-government-is-watching.html#.UbrVPNgvwuc#storylink=cpy
Obama’s Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers
Posted 06/12/2013 06:34 PM ET
Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won’t snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.
That’s right, the government’s sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: https://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/061213-659753-all-intrusive-obama-terror-dragnet-excludes-mosques.htm#ixzz2W8Eqclv7
July 4th Fireworks Ticket Information – Purchase in Advance for Discount
Thursday, July 4th, 2013
Alternate Date – Friday, July 5th
Veteran’s Field, Ridgewood, New Jersey
Entrance gates open at 6:00 PM and close at 9:00 PM
While the Parade is free, Fireworks Tickets are required for entrance to Vet’s Field. Donations for Fireworks Tickets is one of the Celebration’s largest sources of income. Tickets are available for advance purchase at stores for $8. Tickets are on sale at the gates for $15 for adults and $10 for children ages 6-12. Buy your tickets in advance for big savings! Children 5 and under are admitted for free.
Tickets will be on sale at the following vendors for $8 each. Children 5 and under are admitted free.
Backyard Living- 235 Franklin Avenue, Ridgewood, 201-689-9111
ConnectOne Bank- 171 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood, 201-670-8484
JT’s Wines and Spirits- 605-607 N. Maple Avenue, Ho-Ho-Kus, 201-652-2220 – Open July 4th until 5:00 PM
Ridgewood Auto Wash Co.
Ridgewood Cycle Shop- 450 South Broad Street, Glen Rock, 201-444-6037
The Wine Seller- 6 West Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood, 201-444-3300 – Open July 4th until 5:00 PM
Town & Country Apothecary- 60 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood- 201-652-0013 – Open July 4th until 1:00 PM
Thanks to our ticket vendors! All ticket vendors are volunteers and make no money for their efforts.
At the Ridgewood Library- Monday, June 24 – Saturday, June 29 from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and Sunday, June 30 from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Thank you Hobbyist and HILT volunteers!
Tickets are available online for $9 each including postage and handling.
Don’t Come Crying to Us, NSA; You Guys Are the Ones Who Hired This Goofball.
June 11, 2013
Jim Geraghty
To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
Everybody’s going to have an opinion on Edward Snowden, today the world’s most famous leaker.
In the coming days, you’re going to see a lot of people talking past each other, conflating two issues: One, did he do the right thing by disclosing all these details of the vast NSA system to gather data on Americans? And two, should he be prosecuted for it?
Of course, you can do the right thing and still break the law.
John Yoo argues that the government has to pursue prosecution of Snowden, considering what they’ve done in response to much lesser leaks:
The NSA leak case will reveal if the Obama administration really means what it said about its foolish and unconstitutional pursuit of the AP and Fox News in other leak cases. Recall that the Obama Justice Department claimed that Fox News reporter James Rosen was a co-conspirator in the alleged leak of classified intelligence. If the Justice Department truly believed what it told the courts when seeking a wiretap on Rosen, then it should indict the reporters and editors for the Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers who published information on PRISM. They clearly “conspired” with Snowden to publish classified information, information that was much more harmful to the national security than in the Rosen case (on North Korea’s predictable response to sanctions). Personally, I think that the Post is protected by the First Amendment, but Holder’s Justice Department clearly doesn’t think so.
So either the Justice Department will indict not just Snowden, but also the Post and Guardian reporters, or it will have been shown to have been untruthful to the courts in the Rosen case (which I think has become clear) . . .
Yoo also points out that Snowden’s claim to noble motives is muddied quite a bit by his decision to run to Hong Kong. (By the way, the last guy to run to Hong Kong, certain that he was beyond the reach of American law enforcement and extradition treaties, was Mr. Lau, the money-keeper for the Gotham City mob. And we all remember how that turned out.) When Snowden declares, “Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People’s Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech,” we have to wonder if A) he’s already working for the Chinese or B) he’s an imbecile.
This may be a story with no heroes. A government system designed to protect the citizens starts collecting all kinds of information on people who have done nothing wrong; it gets exposed, in violation of oaths and laws, by a young man who doesn’t recognize the full ramifications of his actions. The same government that will insist he’s the villain will glide right past the question of how they came to trust a guy like him with our most sensitive secrets. Who within our national-security apparatus made the epic mistake of looking him over — completing his background check and/or psychological evaluation — and concluding, “Yup, looks like a nice kid?”
Watching the interview with Snowden, the first thing that is quite clear is that his mild-mannered demeanor inadequately masks a huge ego — one of the big motivations of spies. (Counterintelligence instructors have long offered the mnemonic MICE, for money, ideology, compromise, ego; others throw in nationalism and sex)
Snowden feels he has an understanding of what’s going on well beyond most of his colleagues:
When you’re in positions of privileged access like a systems administrator for the sort of intelligence community agencies, you’re exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale then the average employee and because of that you see things that may be disturbing but over the course of a normal person’s career you’d only see one or two of these instances. When you see everything you see them on a more frequent basis and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses.
What’s more, he feels that no one listens to his concerns or takes them seriously:
And when you talk to people about them in a place like this where this is the normal state of business people tend not to take them very seriously and move on from them. But over time that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about. And the more you talk about the more you’re ignored. The more you’re told its not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who was simply hired by the government.”
My God, he must have been an insufferable co-worker.
“Look, you guys just don’t understand, okay? You just can’t grasp the moral complexities of what I’m being asked to do here! Nobody here really gets what’s going on, or can see the big picture when you ask me to do something like that!”
“Ed, I just asked if you could put a new bottle on the water cooler when you get a chance.”
Of course, all of this is presided over by a guy who thought that civil liberties were a useful cudgel against a Republican president back when he was outside the Oval Office. John Sexton turns the wayback machine to 2005, when then-senator Obama, from the floor of the Senate, sternly declared that the PATRIOT Act “didn’t just provide law enforcement the powers it needed to keep us safe, but powers it didn’t need to invade our privacy without cause or suspicion” and added:
If someone wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document — through library books they’ve read and phone calls they’ve made — this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear their plea, no jury will hear their case. This is just plain wrong.
Ace of Spades: “James Rosen could not be reached for comment, but secret government surveillance into all of his phone calls and emails indicates he’s pretty pissed.”
Found this graphic on the site of Jeff Boss, one of the token Democrats running for governor in New Jersey this year:
Glenn Reynolds, in USA Today yesterday:
As for abuse, well, is it plausible to believe that a government that would abuse the powers of the IRS to attack political enemies, go after journalists who publish unflattering material or scapegoat a filmmaker in the hopes of providing political cover to an election-season claim that al-Qaeda was finished would have any qualms about misusing the massive power of government-run snooping and Big Data? What we’ve seen here is a pattern of abuse. There’s little reason to think that pattern will change, absent a change of administration — and, quite possibly, not even then. Sooner or later, power granted tends to become power abused. Then there’s the risk that information gathered might leak, of course, as recent events demonstrate.
Most Americans generally think that politicians are untrustworthy. So why trust them with so much power? The evidence to date strongly suggests that they aren’t worthy of it.
Plan B: Obama allows morning-after pill for under-17s
President’s reversal means emergency contraception drug will be available to women of all ages without a prescription
The Obama administration will stop trying to limit sales of emergency contraception pills, making the morning-after pill available to women of all ages without a prescription.
The US justice department said in a letter on Monday that it planned to comply with a court’s ruling to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step and that it would withdraw its appeal on the matter.
The move is the latest in a lengthy legal fight over the morning-after pill, which was until recently only available without a prescription to women 17 and older who presented proof of age at a pharmacist’s counter
Senator Menendez addresses the large crowd at The Valley Hospital’s recent Celebration of Life event. Senator Robert Menendez Joins The Valley Hospital in Celebrating Cancer Survivors
June 10, 2013
Ridgewood NJ, Valley was privileged to have United States Senator Robert Menendez in attendance at the hospital’s recent “Celebration of Life” event held at the Luckow Pavilion. Senator Menendez joined more than 200 cancer survivors in celebrating the personal and clinical victories made against cancer.
“This event recognizes cancer survivors, their family and friends, healthcare providers, and those engaged in cancer research. The National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation defines a ‘survivor’ as anyone living with a history of cancer from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life,” said Valley Hospital Oncology Program Coordinator Nancy Palumbo, R.N. “There are more cancer survivors in the U.S. today thanks to research, advances in technology, and the daily commitment of physicians, nurses, social workers, and others.”
This annual event is the 24th time Valley has welcomed cancer survivors back to Valley. The day featured remarks from Senator Menendez; Cancer Center Medical Director Robert Korst, M.D.; and cancer survivor Dawn Terlizzi and her son, residents of Totowa.
Today is a day to celebrate, smile and be thankful for all the victories made against cancer,” Senator Menendez said, while also referring to Valley as “one of the most exceptional healthcare centers in the state.”
Mounting controversies are all about trust
Jun 10, 10:51 AM (ET)
By LIZ SIDOTI
WASHINGTON (AP) – As a candidate, Barack Obama vowed to bring a different, better kind of leadership to the dysfunctional capital. He’d make government more efficient, accountable and transparent. He’d rise above the “small-ball” nature of doing business. And he’d work with Republicans to break Washington paralysis.
You can trust me, Obama said back in 2008. And – for a while, at least – a good piece of the country did.
But with big promises often come big failures – and the potential for big hits to the one thing that can make or break a presidency: credibility.
A series of mounting controversies is exposing both the risks of political promise-making and the limits of national-level governing while undercutting the core assurance Obama made from the outset: that he and his administration would behave differently.
The latest: the government’s acknowledgement that, in a holdover from the Bush administration and with a bipartisan Congress’ approval and a secret court’s authorization, it was siphoning the phone records of millions of American citizens in a massive data-collection effort officials say was meant to protect the nation from terrorism. This came after the disclosure that the government was snooping on journalists.
Also, the IRS’ improper targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status has spiraled into a wholesale examination of the agency, including the finding that it spent $49 million in taxpayer money on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.
At the same time, Obama’s immigration reform agenda is hardly a sure thing on Capitol Hill, and debate starting this week on the Senate floor is certain to show deep divisions over it. Gun control legislation is all but dead. And he’s barely speaking to Republicans who control the House, much less working with them on a top priority: tax reform.
Even Democrats are warning that more angst may be ahead as the government steps up its efforts to implement Obama’s extraordinarily expensive, deeply unpopular health care law.
Credibility Crunch for Tech Companies Over Prism
By AMIR EFRATI, SHIRA OVIDE and EVELYN M. RUSLI
With Silicon Valley’s credibility in protecting consumer privacy on the line, many of the largest Web companies on Friday emphasized they aren’t giving the U.S. government a direct pipe into their networks as part of a secret program to monitor foreign nationals.
But the denials of involvement by Google Inc., GOOG +1.75% Microsoft Corp. MSFT +2.03% and others, which come at the same time the Obama administration confirmed the existence of such a program, raised questions about how data is ending up in the hands of the government.
The issues are especially acute for companies who make their business by collecting and processing customers’ most personal data and secrets.
Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a blog post that the company doesn’t give U.S. government investigators “open-ended access” to its network and hadn’t “joined” a program known as Prism and run by the National Security Agency.
The executives said Google only hands over data based on legally-authorized requests that it reviews individually.
