Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The Benefits and Significance of Private Platform as a Service

A US Court of Appeals has ordered Yelp to identify anonymous reviewers who slammed a cleaning company.

In his ruling this week [PDF], Judge William G Petty, sitting in Virginia, told the review-sharing website to turn over personal information on seven of its users who had panned Hadeed Carpet Cleaning on Yelp.com.

The family-run cleaning biz had alleged those seven critics were not customers it says it has no record of the services the reviewers are complaining about. The cleaners believe the Yelp users deliberately posted negative reviews in order to harm the company.

Hadeed, based in Virginia, is seeking to sue the seven for defamation. Yelp has a contact email address, ZIP code and IP addresses from which the site was accessed on file for each account holder, all of which are crucial for the cleaning biz's litigation.

The legal battle started in 2012 when Hadeed subpoenaed Yelp for the identities of seven users who had posted the bad reviews. Yelp turned to the Court of Appeals to quash the subpoena, claiming the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and, in some cases, ensures the anonymity of those who post opinions and reviews on the internet.

According to Judge Petty, however, the rights of Hadeed to protect its reputation from defamatory statements overrides the protections of anonymity, and thus Yelp should be required to hand over identifying data on the seven reviewers.

"The freedom of speech and within this, the freedom to speak with anonymity is not absolute ... If we assume that the Yelp reviews of Hadeed are lawful, then the John Does may remain anonymous," the judge wrote in his decision.

"But if the reviews are unlawful in that they are defamatory, then the John Does veil of anonymity may be pierced, provided certain procedural safeguards are met. This is because defamatory speech is not entitled to constitutional protection."

Yelp, meanwhile, stood fast in its assertion that the case threatens the rights of its users to discuss their experiences honestly and freely. It will appeal to a higher court to scrub the subpoena.

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Judge orders Yelp.com to unmask anonymous critics who tore into biz

James Bornemeier

In a way we planned it. In a way we didnt.

I suppose there are many people who find themselves living exactly where they want to be after weighing this factor and that factor, absorbing the surprises life dishes out and building on thoughtful decisions. The fact that for the last decade we have divided our time between Manhattan and the Island can be partially explained by some of the classic determinants like jobs and family. But on this frigid day, watching the birds snack on suet and seed and hearing the wind howl as it does only at the front of the house and nowhere else, the wintry Island tableau outside the bay window contrasts so mightily with the mix of urban sights and sounds of two days ago that I could be living in a fantasy.

When an ornamental birdhouse awaits you under the Christmas tree in Queens or some falling ice hitting the Manhattan air conditioner 16 floors up sounds exactly like a window bird-strike in Island summer, you know your dual lives have blurred in ways you could never have predicted. Take Christmas tree-buying for instance. Two paths to ownership; neither superior to the other.

Around the block on Second Avenue awaited the woman from Quebec. She has sold us our last half-dozen trees and seems to remember us from year to year. We certainly remember her, with the French lilt, stocking cap, cheery country manner and sweater littered with evergreen parts. In the city, you tend to place undue importance on such human connections. How many people in Manhattan do you see annually for about 10 minutes over a six-year span whose reunion is inspired by the acquisition of a Douglas fir? It has become the official opening act of the city holiday season: exchanging friendly greetings with our Quebec amie; being shown a tree she had for us; and savoring the three-block trip to the apartment, tree hoisted on my shoulder, banking smiles and glances all along the way.

Breaking the spell, our favorite tree saleswoman didnt show this year. But we managed to find a handsome New York apartment tree, hiding behind some pushy Frasier firs, all by ourselves. Despite this minor hitch in our routine, this recently concluded city-based holiday endurance contest was the most stress-free in memory. Mostly, because we paced it well.

I corralled the music event by getting tickets to the choral concert at St. Barts, an Episcopalian cathedral in the Byzantine style noted for its occasionally thunderous pipe organ and chorus larded with professional singers. The sounds rising from the throats of the girls and boys choirs would have melted the heart of Putin had he attended. Although the concert program was, for my taste, too heavy with Handel, the opening O Come All Ye Faithful snuck up on me and stole my voice as I redeployed resources to deal with tear duct-control issues.

My wife looks forward every year to taking in the Rockefeller Center tree and somehow prevails on her son and daughter and their spouses and kids to join her. This quest is preceded by a meal at the apartment, a very snug affair that makes considerable demands on my personalitys better half. Or third. Or fourth. Over the years I have brokered a deal: I bail out on the tree visit in return for cleaning up. Seeing as how I clean up all meals, all the time, under all circumstances, this is a meager bargain indeed.

The gift exchange was held Christmas Eve with this same crew at the step-sons abode in Queens. Christmas Day was a rack of lamb and trimmings in the apartment. New Years Eve was crab cakes and the sound of renegade fireworks in our Upper East Side neighborhood. As usual I missed the ball-drop. A few days into the New Year we went with friends to Birdland, the venerable Midtown jazz club, to hear a very good big band. And that was our city Christmas.

Before the advent of grandchildren, who tend to pin us down in Manhattan, there was Island Christmas. I still like the AWOL Quebec woman, but nothing beats the North Fork Christmas tree-buying experience. You know the drill. Ferry to Greenport, take a right off Route 25 in Mattituck into (our favorite) Shamrock Christmas Tree Farm. Trooping through the designated field of trees dredges up distant memories from another life of searching for the perfect one in an unnamed forest in Vermont. With spousal accompaniment, selection can take a while; alone, my radar finds the right tree in minutes. One of the Shamrock guys fells it, trundles it to wrapping central, drills a hole for the stand, lashes it to your car and youre off.

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Weekend Edition: Christmas memories of there and here

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Wherever you are, you are standing in a watershed. Whatever you do, you impact that watershed.

This includes all water use at home, all the things you consume that require water to make, transportation, all the things thrown away -- and how you dispose of them -- how much energy you consume, and all the things you do in your yards.

We only have two choices for our drinking water: surface water and groundwater. Groundwater and surface water are connected, so we need to protect both.

Surface water, such as lakes, streams and reservoirs need clean watersheds to provide us with clean water.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that as population increases, one town's water intake is not that far from the last town's sewer outfall.

Private water systems, along with public systems, are an important part of the water infrastructure for Pennsylvania.

One million homes and 3.5 million residents are served by a private water system that accesses groundwater.

Ninety percent of these systems are drilled wells, but there are shallow hand-dug wells and springs, as well.

We are one of two states left that have no private water well construction or location standards or regulations. Poorly constructed water wells are more vulnerable to contamination.

Many municipalities also rely on wells to provide public drinking water. This is why groundwater protection strategies are so important.

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Masterful Gardening: Take steps to protect water quality

New Church construction

By: Ken Davis

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New Church construction - Video

The northbound lane of Alii Drive in Kailua Village will be closed starting Monday while crews connect the under-construction St. Michael the Archangel Church to a county water main.

Pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists are advised to be prepared for the closure and, if possible, seek alternate routes because delays are anticipated, said Bill Prince, who is managing the construction of the new facility for Konas oldest Roman Catholic Church. The closure of the northbound lane will occur between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, he said.

Prince said the closure is necessary to allow for excavation work by Heartwood Pacific LLC to connect the new facility to a Hawaii County Department of Water Supply water main that crosses beneath Alii Drive fronting Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Waterfront Row.

Department of Water Supply spokeswoman Kanani Aton confirmed the connection was to occur this week. She said DWS crews will be working at the same times as the contractor to upgrade water services to provide for fire protection and meter size. The church will then tap into the water main, she said.

The southbound lane will remain open during the work, Prince said, adding that traffic control personnel have been contracted to contraflow traffic around the work. Crews plan to place steel plates over the work at night to allow traffic to flow in both directions.

People will be managed in the area, he said. Pedestrians are asked to use the makai sidewalk for safety, he added.

As the crews work to connect to the water main fronting the church, construction continues on the actual facility. Construction Committee head Dick Leander said that steel work has begun; vertical construction is planned to begin Jan. 20.

If all goes as planned, construction will be completed by November, he said. The first services are slated in the new facility for Christmas.

Ground breaking for the new St. Michael the Archangel Church was held Sept. 28, 2012. The former church building was deemed unsafe by structural engineers in 2007 following Oct. 15, 2006, earthquakes. Since then, services have been held in a tent on the Alii Drive property, and, more recently, at a facility off Honokohau Street in Kailua-Kona.

Completed in 1850, St. Michael the Archangel is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Kona, according to the Kona Historical Society. Gov. John Adams Kuakini gave the land beneath the facility to the Catholic Church in 1841. The original building was completed under the Rev. Marechal.

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Church construction to close Alii Drive lane

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