Bitching about Boston

And an hour of Wilco. nice! Thanks, wgbh

April 14, 2010 — Sarah Palin's speech at the 2010 Boston Tea Party

Giving until it hurts? What is she getting? Millions of dollars.
Spending? She is looking good. Money is not a problem for her.

Live from the Sarah Palin/Boston Tea Party Rally: Are These People Idiots?
(this is Chris Faraone's opinion)

Live from Sarah Palin-palooza, Boston Phoenix staffwriter
CHRIS FARAONE goes behind the scenes to interview Tea Partiers, counter-protestors,
the Tranny Response Team, and some dude who thinks he's at the Pot Rally.
Plus: the most annoying signs of the day.
Recorded April 14, 2010 on Boston Common.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO2KSDxRxL8

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/e...articles/2010/04/15/palin_celebrity_in_chief/

...(T)he crowd on this balmy April morning in Boston didn’t seem sinister, just disgruntled over what is short-handed as “too much government.’’ That complaint did not extend to the extensive police and security details needed for the gathering.

Click to expand...

Was a lovely day in the Boston area. I stayed home and read a book outside.
The male turkeys are romancing the females, in my back yard.
The males make the strangest and deepest bass sounds, at this time of year.

Boston's flag ought to incorporate the images of a good-looking white man, beating his ugly wife while simultaneously drinking himself into a stupor and stepping on a black man's throat.

(Oh - and having road rage while driving to a sporting event as a fair-weather fan...of a team with no players from Massachusetts.)

gotsnowgotslush said:

Was a lovely day in the Boston area. I stayed home and read a book outside.
The male turkeys are romancing the females, in my back yard.
The males make the strangest and deepest bass sounds, at this time of year.

Click to expand...

About 8 inches of new wet sh*t shit in my yard today........and more coming

Spring snow provides mucky and messy Mountain bike trails. Slip and slide!

The tulips have not flowered, yet. A late snow- flurry in April, is not counted out.
Tulips remind me of Froot Loops cereal, when it snows on them. Sugar frosted!

On the other hand, you can expect snow in the New Hampshire mountains,
any month of the year. Fourth of July snow? It happens. :amused grin icon

114 th Boston Marathon 2010. What a mess. International runners? Delayed.
Iceland's volcano is delaying flights in and out of Logan and other USA airports.

When will the International runners get to Boston? Monday, if they are lucky.

Monday is the day of the Marathon. It is a big deal. It involves massive crowds of people.

The situation is going to be very snarled. I would hate to be someone,
who works at a hotel in Massachusetts. This weekend will be causing headaches.

They showed a quick shot, of some young people stuck at an airport.
They were doing a group sing of Greenday's When I Come around.

Boston TV news said that Iceland's volcano had multiple eruptions for a year,
back in 1821.

It is a good thing, that we have the interwebs and cell phones.
Otherwise? Utter madness.

Bike Porn 3: Cycle Bound Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50dG6ckXPHc

Yup, Bike Porn gets to play Boston for the 1st time ever!

Cambridge, really. At the Brattle tomorrow.


This is the third year for the Bike Porn tour, but the first time it has come to Greater Boston. Boston organizer Aliza Shapiro, who heads up Truth Serum Productions and CineMental, thinks it’s about time. “Boston is still fairly repressed sexually.” Given her ventures with TraniWreck and Dr. Sketchy, she should know.

When I ask Reverend Phil, who hails from Portland, Oregon, about the origins of Bike Porn, he gives me a pat rundown about a venue for filmmakers to take risks and be inspired, but quickly adds, “As for the beginning of bikesexuality, people have been getting on bikes as long as they have been getting off.”

Portland? Hmmm....

MWRA water warning. A water supply pipe from the Quabbin reservoir has ruptured. You must boil your tap water.
The spokesman said it should be fixed in three days.

Towns on the list-
Arlington Belmont
Boston
Brookline
Canton
Chelsea
Everett
Hanscomb AFB
Lexington
Lynnfield Water District
Malden
Marblehead
Medford
Melrose
Milton
Nahant
Newton
Norwood
Quincy
Reading
Revere
Saugus
Somerville
Stoneham
Stoughton
Swampscott
Wakefield
Waltham
Watertown
Winchester
Winthrop

from the website-
Page Last Updated Saturday, May 1, 2010 9:07 PM

Updated - Go to latest update

Water service to all MWRA customer communities east of Weston has been interrupted by a major water pipe break in Weston. Due to this break, A BOIL WATER ORDER IS BEING ISSUED FOR DRINKING WATER FOR ALL MWRA COMMUNITIES EAST OF WESTON UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. In addition, emergency water conservation measures are being implemented for all impacted communities. A complete list of MWRA water communities is included on this page.

http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/updates/leak.html

WESTON -- A State Police dive team ended its search today in the Charles River for a steel collar that held two pipes together before Saturday's massive water main break, but a contractor will launch a dredging operation tomorrow morning, authorities said.


The collar, officials say, is in two pieces, with a combined circumference of about 31 feet, and weighs at least a ton.

Because of its weight, the collar would not be lifted out of the water, according to State Police Lieutenant William Freedman, the diving unit commander.

Update- The water emergency is over. The pipe has been repaired.

There is a mystery to be solved. It was the most recent project completed.

Why did the metal collar and rubber gasket fail?

One of the components was found up in a tree.

The video shows the start of a disaster.

The Charles River was filled with an equivalent of itself.

(annoying short advertisement, first )

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/23435857/index.html

Catastrophic Break-

The Quabbin reservoir has lost millions of gallons of fresh water.

The citizens of the city have lost millions of dollars of business .

Boston made it into the New York Times because of the water ban.
(Big sister NYC, noticed!)

May 2, 2010

The problem began Saturday about 10 a.m., when the pipe, which was 10 feet in

diameter, broke in Weston, about 15 miles west of Boston, sending about 8

million gallons of water an hour gushing into the Charles River at the high point

of the spill. The rupture affected water service to nearly two million people in 30

cities and towns.

Workers managed to stop the spill on Sunday and to begin repairs on the pipe — which was buried 20 feet underground. Officials with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said that the water pressure was steady Sunday night. After the pipe is repaired, the next step will be to test for other leaks. Officials advised residents to continue to boil water for three minutes.

Seems like old times. The last time this happened,some terrorists were living in a motel near the Atrium Mall, that was close to Bloomingdales and Filenes, in Newton MA.
(Chestnut Hill Mall)

Arrests made, in connection with Shahzad and the failed car bomb,
in Times Square. (seems as though he did much of his transactions, in cash)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/05/authorities_sea_4.html

In today's news-
Federal agents searched a home in Watertown and a gas station in Brookline and arrested two people today in connection with the investigation of the attempted terror bombing in New York City earlier this month, authorities said.
(and more questions asked, at a second gas station)

On the local Boston news, they had mentioned a big bag of money.
And commented that the money trail is what led to the arrests.


Local man, who lives across the street from the Waverley Avenue home, said he was watching TV at about 6 a.m. when he heard a commotion outside and the words, "FBI, don't move, put your hands up!"

He looked outside to see about 20 agents with guns drawn. "They all had their guns drawn, pointed at the house," he said.

Soon afterward, a man whose age he estimated at 25 to 40 was taken from the house and put into an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement van.

Police tape on Harvard street in Brookline MA.

(Nice quiet neighborhoods)
The TV news was told, they always had too many cousins visiting the rented
apartments.
Maybe too many questions would get asked, if they stayed at a motel?

The GPS doesn't work in Boston

Another group of June brides will be weeping. And it will not be for joy or cold feet.

The Boston Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal became public 12 years ago.

And Vatican started looking for ways to get money to pay off the victims.

Many churches and schools were closed and sold.

Churches in wealthy communities, on expensive land. Or in busy and productive areas.

Churches built around the 1950s. Good structure. Good materials. Well tended.

No money was spared in keeping up the property and buildings.

(The people who gave the money, had pride and were generous.)

People had weddings, at the same church for generations.

Now, these grand daughters and great granddaughters, will be forced to look elsewhere.

(These were sold and became condos and yuppie offices and University and College property and parking lots)

But grandmothers and grandfathers were able to occupy the churches as a protest.

Some of the tactics used by the church to remove these brittle and vulnerable old people, were brutal.

The church got some bad press. But they got the money they needed, from the state where the victims were living.

Some churches were left untouched. The vigils went on for years.

(But, the Vatican took revenge. No heat. No water. No light. No electricity.
The Vatican got the cash they needed from the people of that church.
They would not spend the money, that they had taken.)

Maybe the people that were protesting, had some influence and power to fight back with?

Now, in 2010, there will be another sell off?


Boston Globe

May 17, 2010

Ten Boston-area churches that were closed by the Archdiocese have lost their final appeal to the Vatican to remain open, according to a spokesperson for the Council of Parishes, which includes eight of shuttered churches.

Three of the 10 parishes have maintained constant vigils in protest of their closure for years: St. Francis Cabrini in Scituate and St. James the Great in Wellesley have been in vigil since October 2004, and St. Jeremiah in Framingham has been in vigil since May 2005.

Thank you, Boston Globe

Maybe, they will sell the Vatican, some day?

My heart sank, when I had heard that Kitchen Arts was closing.

Kitchewares will be in the same space.

The people who will be moving into the Kitchen Arts space, are foodies.

Rumors of an in-store kitchen for demonstration.

Sharp knife obsession? That will still be catered to.

:nolstagia sigh icon

Must be close to summer. Hope that Bunker Hill Day, was a good one.

235the anniversary of 1775 battle against the British.

Better to wear those heavy, thick costumes today, than this weekend.

Summer temperatures are here, for the moment.

I am glad that I did not go shopping today. Then, again, there is a young woman, who is glad that a Marine,
who had learned rescue swimming, came along and saved her, from her floating car. Poor young lady could not swim.

http://wbztv.com/slideshows/july.10.flooding.20.1797888.html

Who has set up shop, with a base at Government Center and the ugly city hall of Boston?

I have not been down to Spring Street, in a long time.

Who was filming a wedding scene at Post Office Square?

What's Your Number? The film is at listed at IMDb.

Chris Evans? Anna Faris? Zachary Quinto? Matt Bomer?

Carl Alleyne twitters from Nantucket, during July 4th weekend?

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRgwgCC8ORsA


Bankers Who Broke Big Dig With Swaps Gone Awry Get Paid for Fix
By Michael McDonald

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The same bankers who sold Massachusetts interest-rate swaps that blew up the debt financing for the so-called Big Dig road and tunnel project in Boston -- costing taxpayers $100 million -- are getting even more money to fix what they broke.

UBS AG bankers showed up at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority in 2001 with a solution to a growing deficit at the state agency overseeing the $15 billion project. The bank gave the authority $29.1 million for an interest-rate swap linked to $800 million of Big Dig bonds, an agreement meant to cut the cost of paying back the debt and cover part of the budget shortfall. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. made similar deals.

The deal with UBS backfired as credit markets faltered two years ago, costing toll payers $36.3 million in extra interest and leading the Zurich-based bank to demand as much as $400 million to end the arrangement when the Big Dig bonds’ insurer lost its top credit ratings.

“There was really no mention of any downside of these swaps,” said Christy Mihos, a turnpike board member from 1999 to 2004 who voted for the UBS agreement. “It was portrayed as a no-brainer that we could not lose.”

The same Wall Street banks that triggered the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression also helped government borrowers from Greece to California paper over deficits with derivative deals promising savings on borrowings. Many of the agreements failed when credit markets seized up in 2008 and swap payments from banks no longer covered rising debt costs.

Swap Betting
States, cities and nonprofits have spent about $5 billion unwinding the transactions since then, said Peter Shapiro, managing director of Swap Financial Group in South Orange, New Jersey, an adviser to state and local governments.

“Use of these types of derivatives is making a bet,” said Joseph Giglio, a business professor at Northeastern University in Boston and former head of municipal securities at Chase Manhattan Bank. “If it seems too good to be true, it is.”

The fallout from the Big Dig swaps didn’t stop Massachusetts from giving new business to many of the same banks and officials who arranged them.

Governor Deval Patrick, 53, hired UBS in September 2007 to advise him on overhauling the state’s transportation finances. The agreement came about nine months after he named former UBS banker Henry Dormitzer undersecretary for administration and finance. The former UBS banker was a member of a team that sold the firm’s swap to the turnpike, according to Mihos.

Buried Bodies
“If you want to find out where the bodies are buried, you’ve got to go talk to the gravedigger,” Patrick, who’s seeking re-election this year, said in an Oct. 29 interview in Boston regarding his use of UBS as an adviser.

Dormitzer, who left the Patrick administration in 2008, declined to comment when reached by telephone.

Massachusetts also hired Paul Ladd, a former turnpike official who authorized the UBS swap in 2001, as part of an investment-banking team that refinanced about $2 billion of Big Dig debt this year.

The state signed up underwriters that would get Massachusetts the best price on its bonds, said Jay Gonzalez, the governor’s secretary of administration and finance.

“Whether or not a particular individual happened to work at the firm that has some history or another was not an overriding concern,” Gonzalez said in an interview. “We wanted to make sure we got the breadth in the underwriting team with the banks that were capable of selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds that have a real story behind them.”

Downtown Transformation
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority was created in 1952 to oversee a 138-mile (229-kilometer) section of what is now part of Interstate 90. In 1997, the Boston-based agency was put in charge of the Big Dig, the most expensive public works project in U.S. history, which transformed the city’s downtown by replacing an aging elevated highway with tunnels.

While the project’s cost was estimated at about $5 billion when work began in 1991, expenses soared, sparking federal and state probes and criminal charges against contractors. No charges were brought related to the bond sales and derivatives.

To help cover budget shortfalls, the authority took the projected savings from swaps as upfront payments instead of waiting for them to accrue over time, according to Fitch Ratings. It collected $5.3 million from JPMorgan in 1999, $29.1 million from UBS in 2001 and $35 million from Lehman in 2002, according to its annual report.

‘Humongous Deficit’
“It’s easy to sit back now and say it was a terrible decision,” said Jordan Levy, a board member from 1997 to 2004 who voted for the swaps. “We were sitting there with this humongous deficit and they presented us a way out.”

In a swap transaction, two parties exchange payments, typically a floating one for a fixed. State and local governments usually sold variable-rate bonds and negotiated with banks to leave them paying fixed interest that was lower than prevailing municipal rates.

In addition to the expenses of the UBS swap, the authority paid $408,000 of extra interest since 2002 on a JPMorgan derivative linked to $100 million of Big Dig bonds, said Cyndi Roy, a spokeswoman for the state’s administration and finance office. The contract is set to last until 2029, according to a copy of the agreement.

The turnpike also had to set aside as much as $19.6 million of cash as collateral against the JPMorgan contract as central banks slashed benchmark rates amid the credit crisis, according to bond documents.

Justin Perras, a JPMorgan spokesman in New York, declined comment.

Lehman Payment
The authority paid $3.2 million to end the Lehman Brothers swap after the New York-based bank declared bankruptcy. Lawyers for what remains of the firm are disputing the amount paid, according to bond documents. The turnpike was told by bankers in 2007 that terminating the derivative contract could cost as much as $43 million.

The UBS swap backfired in January 2008 when the exchange of payments began. The agency, rated close to below-investment grade at Baa2 and Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service, was unable to refinance $800 million of its bonds into floating rates to match the agreement. It paid an extra $49.9 million in interest through the end of March this year and received $13.6 million from the bank, Roy said.

The UBS burden worsened last year when a unit of Ambac Financial Group Inc. that insured both the Big Dig bonds and the swap lost its top credit ratings. UBS sought a payment to end the swap, which the state said would cost as much as $400 million.

$100 Million
The demand forced Governor Patrick to step in. The Democratic-controlled Legislature dissolved the turnpike authority and pledged $100 million a year from a sales-tax increase to a new transportation agency so it could refinance the bonds. UBS dropped its payment claim and Patrick refinanced all of the highway’s Big Dig debt, including a sale of $800 million of floating-rate bonds to match the bank’s swap.

Doug Morris, a spokesman for UBS in New York, declined to comment.

“I’m glad the governor is cleaning up these messes,” Mark Montigny, a Democratic state senator from New Bedford who last year sought a formal probe of the turnpike swaps, said in an interview. “However, until we investigate and assign blame and find out if in fact there is criminal behavior or at a minimum serious civil recovery, then we learn nothing.”

The governor’s new transportation department in November hired Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase, Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc. to refinance the turnpike’s Big Dig bonds, paying the underwriters $7.7 million for securities sold in March and May this year, according to sale documents.

Working With Massachusetts
Ladd, the turnpike’s former chief financial officer who authorized the UBS swap, according to a copy of the contracts, represented Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America working with the state to sell the bonds, said Jonathan Davis, the official who oversaw the offering.

Ladd left the turnpike in 2002 and is based in Boston. He declined to comment in a telephone call.

Paul Haley represented Barclays in a role similar to Ladd’s, Davis said. Haley was the Lehman Brothers banker who sold the turnpike a swap in 2002, according to Mihos, and a former chairman of the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee. He joined Barclays when the London-based bank bought Lehman’s investment banking and trading operations after its bankruptcy. He declined to comment.

‘Brink of Ruin’
The state used Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo PC, the turnpike’s bond counsel on the derivative, according to Mihos and Levy, as its disclosure counsel. John Regier, a lawyer at the Boston-based firm, said it verified the accuracy of information on the state’s finances given to investors for the bond sale and had nothing else to do with the transaction.

“The turnpike authority was on the brink of ruin because of the financial decisions made earlier this decade,” said Mary Connaughton, who served on the turnpike’s board from 2005 to 2009 and is running for state auditor this year as a Republican. “It doesn’t make sense to bring back the same old players.”

Sounds like a job for...

George Steinbrenner does not suck! He is dead. :sad face icon

We will miss taking pot shots at you, old guy.

Looks like the "What's Your Number" film will be a great way, to see much of Boston.

They decided to put Anna Faris on the red line T, on this past Sunday,

and caused people to wait longer than usual, while they shepherded her.

gotsnowgotslush said:

George Steinbrenner does not suck! He is dead. :sad face icon

We will miss taking pot shots at you, old guy.

Click to expand...

What you mean is George Steinbrenner doesn't suck anymore.

This storm front must be enormous! It is supposed to be happening in-
(I can seethe impressive lightning and hear the loud thunder from here.)

western providence county in Rhode Island, southeastern worcester county in central Massachusetts, northeastern tolland county in northern Connecticut, this includes the city of mansfield, northern windham county in northern Connecticut, this includes the city of putnam

and-
north of mansfield, and was moving east at 30 mph.
Some locations in the warning include, ashford, chaplin, eastford, southbridge, hampton, woodstock, pomfret, dudley, brooklyn, webster, thompson, danielson, killingly, foster, douglas, burrillville, glocester, uxbridge, millville and north smithfield.