Bitching about Boston

Another day, another power outage. Are they testing, out at Quincy ? Or, is it all the vehicle accidents, knocking over the telephone poles ? (Many new people, getting confused about where they are going ?) The drought is drying up the ponds. There are baby turtles, everywhere. I thought they dug themselves in for hibernation, at this time of year. Brrr! It is cold, now.

TD Bank Mayor's Cup @MayorsCupBoston · 3h

Looks like @The_Hollywood is our official winner! @AOcycling ! #mayorscupbos

https://twitter.com/MayorsCupBoston

Boston was jealous of Le Tour de France ?

I was half way expecting someone to drop a section of orange fencing on the riders.
Who decided not to fence the tourists in ?

Massachusetts homeowners fight back-

Lose property rights, suffer property damage and quality of life, and pay a tariff to support the pipeline ? No way!

A proposed surcharge added to electric bills that would force every ratepayer in New England to help pay for the interstate pipeline, which is expected to cost $2 billion to $6 billion.

When Kinder Morgan comes into a community for the first time, they don’t make a very good first impression. It seems as if they aren’t even trying, as if they don’t even care. They give stock presentations at the community level, complete with pro-pipeline ringers to ask pre-planned questions about all the awesome jobs that a pipeline would create.

At community meetings, Kinder Morgan representatives show no sign of listening, of taking local opinion into account, or of adjusting their plans in an effort to cooperate and accommodate local concerns. Kinder Morgan frequently threatens to use state agencies like DPU and Federal powers of eminent domain against just plain ordinary folks who are trying to live their lives on their own property. When they can’t squelch dissenting opinions, Kinder Morgan will strategically time major announcements to distract from opposition efforts. And while we have never caught their spokespeople in a direct blatant lie, they are masters of spin who withhold important information and deflect important questions.

Kinder Morgan's pet scumbags are surprised that their job is not easier-

Kinder Morgan has been taken by surprise by the opposition it has met here. Winchendon’s local paper reports that a company representative lamented to the town manager, “We let them get ahead of us.” In other parts of the country, opposition often hasn’t even formed until after the company gets to FERC. Here, we have already had part of our Congressional delegation and a growing number of state legislators come out against the proposal, the Governor has expressed “skepticism” about the project, and in July, we had a statewide pipeline resistance march and rally in Boston.

http://www.nofrackedgasinmass.org/latest-news-blog/

All that was just the warm-up phase. Some among the opposition have observed that, by seeking to cut across northern Massachusetts, Kinder Morgan has chosen “the path of most resistance.” “Don’t Mess with Texas” is meeting the modern-day Shays’ Rebellion.

“Hostility” from a publicly funded group

“They have taken a ‘we-can-do-this-without-you’ position,” Cleveland continued, adding, “They’ve been pretty hostile.”
ChurchWithRene-Lake-Gagliardi

South Royalston, Mass., property owner René Lake-Gagliardi awaits the start of a forum in the Community Church of North Orange and Tully. She fears that the intrusion of a huge pipeline through her property would destroy the peace and sanctuary of the life she has built for herself and her family.

In response to that hostility, the Conservation Law Foundation has been busy filing public records requests — and appeals when they fail — to obtain NESCOE documents. The acquired documents reveal, Cleveland said, that the outline for a major pipeline project in New England and a funding tariff that would pay for it was drafted by a Maine attorney who sent his proposal to Maine’s Public Utilities Commission Chairman Thomas Welch.

It was Welch, Cleveland said, who forwarded the pipeline proposal to NESCOE. Cleveland also added: “Industry lobbyists in Maine want to provide their pulp-and-paper mills with access to natural gas at ‘Louisiana prices,’ and they believe that the tariff would spur Kinder Morgan to build a bigger pipeline for that cheap gas coming out of Pennsylvania.”

If a publicly-funded group such as NESCOE is focusing its efforts on corporate rather than public concerns, it’s not surprising, Cleveland observed, that “they have not been remotely transparent.”

“One of the memos we acquired through a public records request quotes a NESCOE staffer as expressing support for a ‘closed door’ deal strategy because ‘the court of public opinion can be fickle and recalcitrant,’” she said.

If there’s still any doubt that NESCOE has been guided by industry stakeholders in Maine, it may have dissipated in the wake of a ferocious reaction to a recentAssociated Press report saying Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick had requested a delay in the pending New England Power Pool, or NEPOOL, vote on NESCOE’s proposed tariff.

NEPOOL is a voluntary association whose members include abroad spectrum of energy stakeholders. On Aug. 14, Maine Gov. Paul LePage sent a letter to the Bangor Press imploring Gov. Patrick to support the NESCOE initiative to bring Pennsylvania gas (and Canadian hydropower) to New England.


Maine gov. blasts Massachusetts gov.

Gov. LePage has described Gov. Patrick’s position as a “colossal mistake” which will “increase our already-high gas prices” and “raise fundamental questions about Maine’s partnership with the rest of New England with respect to our energy collaboration.”

But Gov. Patrick “has not withdrawn his support or backed away from the process,” Patrick spokeswoman Krista Selmi told MintPress. “There was some [energy supply] analysis completed in 2013, but a lot of it is outdated because it doesn’t include the most recent decisions to retire capacity in the near future [such as the 2014 decision to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant]. So, we would like to update that analysis.”

If the update persuades Gov. Patrick to formally endorse the tariff, and NEPOOL endorses its submission to FERC, it would mark “the first time in the agency’s history that it’s been asked to approve an electricity tariff to fund a gas pipeline,” Cleveland said, adding, “It would be like asking ratepayers to pay for railroad tracks leading coal trains to a power plant.”

Meanwhile, Kinder Morgan maintains that the tariff has nothing to do with its pipeline proposal. Wheatley, the Kinder Morgan spokesman, said the company does not need any financial assistance to build the pipeline because its financing will come from customers who sign contracts for a share of pipeline capacity.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/massac...wners-rising-pipeline-tariff-help-pay/196073/

A month-long “rolling rally,” during which residents marched across Massachusetts, culminated in a huge rally on Boston Common on July 30th. Responding to questions regarding his stance on the TGP, Governor Deval Patrick said he was “skeptical” of the project. “One wonders why they want to use a new right of way when they already have an existing right of way.”

September 17, 2014

Kinder Morgan applied for prefiling with FERC for the Northeast Energy Direct project on September 15. Among the 24 files in their application are many new maps with much more information than they’ve been sharing up until now. Additional compressor stations are now confirmed to be slated for Canaan, NY, and in Conway and Townsend, MA. Meter stations are identified as well. Documents “Appendix D” to the application are classified as “privileged” information and subject to Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.

http://www.nofrackedgasinmass.org/latest-news-blog/

I have not read the Boston Herald for decades. The GB Wingnuts are probably falling out of their tree, over the editorial cartoon.

*disgusted, but not surprised*

( Boston Magazine is hosting the cartoon, today.)

The last rain that we had was a throwback to earlier times.
Gentle rainshowers all day long. Today, another throwback
to the 1990s- Straight line winds, thanks to a microbursts.
Who got a stab, thanks to the Possible Tornado Dartboard?
A little town near Tornado Alley East. East Hampton, MA
has the downed trees to prove it.

Then, again witnesses saw swirling.
Hail, lightning, high winds.
Springfield, MA newspapers and
Boston Tv channels carried the story.
masslive

Jetblue does not like disabled people, sick people, seeing eye dogs and people who tweet jokes about them.

She was not allowed to fly home to Boston.

Ebola hysteria at Boston's Logan airport, today.
At least, they are paying attention.

In other news, Art New England is paying attention to breakthroughs-
douche canoes and arse-clowns are being observed forming oppostition.

Logan Airport is not on my list of favorite places. Y'all have some dumbass screeners working there and I'm talking about going way back to 1980.

New England joins The West and South in misery.

Fry and freeze. Polar vortex dive after hot, sticky weather.

Will there be Halloween snow, this year ?

Tornado Alley East seems to want to expand.

heh, i'm actually moving to boston in a couple weeks. i'm mostly excited for el pelon taqueria on a regular basis.

It's raining, it's pouring
No baseball, no scoring

Turned up the gravity,
floored Mr. McTavity

Sally Ann Brown
sat herself down

Freakout Fred
never got out
of bed

Bob Seeger sings Hey Gypsy
'cause Stevie Ray Vaughan
is long gone

summery, obama is cancer

Story zips by on local Tv station-

They moved the cemetery, but they left the forgotten dead in the forgotten
graveyard.

Along comes a construction crew, with heavy earth moving equipment.

Surprise! Happy Halloween! eeeeee

October 2014

The Olde State House, the scene of a citizen uprising in 1770-
The crowned lion and the unicorn were removed for restoration.

The symbols of British domination are made of beaten copper, and were covered with gold leaf or palladium They are the replacements for the original carved wooden figures that were lost in the fire.

They are each, the size of a modern horse.

The Restoration society took X-rays of both. The rumored time capsule box was inside the head of the lion.

The time capsule has been there, for 113 years.

The box was packed with pictures and documents, and nails from historic buildings.

Fuck Boston and the nipple headed titwits that live there

I love wonkette, for this one-

It is not the fact that college students raised drunken ruckus all day long, and destructive ruckus all night long, that is terrible.

According to Ruth Sterling, the most terrible thing is that a journalist recorded and commented on the mess.

Does Ruth really believe no one would have noticed the Pumpkin Festival was overtaken by drunken college students, if he did not say anything about it ?

Ruth must be part of the "we do not talk about that" tradition.

(Their version of anti-attention whoring ? )

Then, again, how many selfies were taken while the immature arse- clowns ruined a family oriented celebration ?

Eye of the hurricane, eye of the tornado-
The strange, bruised colors of the skies are proof of their comings and goings.
(Why are these strange colors of foreboding, backed behind a beautiful, sunlit tree of Autumne ?)

It is just so very weird- A double rainbow against a storm dark sky, opposing the other side of the sky, which is sunny and cheerful.

Just, weird!

Mayor Menino is dead.

RIP

Long live the Mayor.

Marty Walsh is still wet, behind the ears.

What is this thing on Arlinton Street ? What happened to Downown Crossing ? Well, at least Vornado the Tornado is no longer keeping a deep crater there.

December 4, 2014 Hiz Onnah Mayah Menino will only attend the Boston Common tree lighting in spirit.

Mr. Walsh will be filling in, at the festivities.

A cold morning, to go to Plymouth and watch the parade.
Each season brings a crowd to a town.
Native American Day of Mourning
Runestones are still here.

The lion and the unicorn, are back in their niches, on top of the Olde State House. They have lost their vintage look. The lion coated with gold leaf, the unicorn newly covered in palladium. They look like fraudulent copies.

After spending five million dollars on renovation, the 300 year old building looks like they finished building a recreated copy, today.

Then, again, no tourist will be injured while they take a selfie. Nothing will fall off and kill them.

I suppose we should be grateful that they did not tear it down to make room for another luxury apartment block for Boston's wealthy elite.

In the meantime, we have many gigantic plastic Christmas trees for Mr. Walsh our new mayor to pose with.

Downtown Crossing is half dead, thanks to Vornado the Tornado.
Half the stores are closed. The chain stores did not order much new stuff.
At least, the facade of Filenes has been buffed and polished.

December 4th a real tree will be lit up on Boston Common.
An enormous white spruce.
But, Boston Common has been abandoned.

Everyone is busy shopping at the new Ass- embly Square mall.
The taxpayers of MA and the little suburb of Slummerville
took a 160 million dollar bite in the arse, so that the yuppies
could have shopping next door to their luxury apartments.

The developers promised a commuter parking lot. It was a switch and bait.
They talked the MBTA into building a T station just for them.

A hundred million for a train station that floods. whoopee

The weather reporters for Massachusets told us to expect heavy rain, snow, and sleet. Why did they leave out hail?

The clicking sound that reminds me of a dog with toenails that need to be cut, alerted me to the fact that the hail is making a visit.

The weather has been offering cycles of mixtures, since 2007. Probably slipped their minds, like it slipped past mine.

The abnormal of the past, is the new norm of now.
I keep thinking of it as an exception, out of a lifetime's
habit.

Thursday, December 4, 2014 Boston Common
The usual lighting of the gigantic Chritmas tree
will be accompanied by voices of protest.

Eric Garner's death did not matter to the NYPD.
So many are demonstrating against the injustice.
It is 11:00 at night, and people are marching
and chanting in NYC.

Man shot in the hand and upper back with buckshot, while jogging with his dog.

http://m.wcvb.com/news/man-shot-after-being-mistaken-for-deer-in-hyannis/30125932

The deer are tramping through my yard, and the postage stamp sized conservation lands.

The herd blew through the area back in early fall. They have returned.
I am guessing that they are hiding out from the deer hunters.

Maybe, the deer do not like wet feet. It rained so much, there are plenty types of places with floods. I am in the high lands.

I was caught by surprise when I saw the lights flash on and off, outside.
Powerful amount of light pollution. Like fireworks, when the switch is thrown off and on.
Out of habit, I keep a flash light near my bed.
Complete darkness is a pleasant change.