Monday, December 30, 2013

Anger in Michigan

"Power returns as anger burns in Mich." Associated Press, December 30, 2013

DETROIT — The lights are back on for all but about 3,900 of the 666,000 Michigan customers who lost power during an ice storm that hit the state more than a week ago, but anger at the municipal power company in the state’s capital continues to surge....

Because it is not about the power being out per se anymore. It's about this entire rank and corrupt $y$tem that has $crewed us all and the neglect and rot is being to show. The gobbling up off profits above all else and the worship upon the latar of greed has done this. The vast majority of AmeriKa is approaching what they call Third World status: opulence surrounded immense poverty and neglect. It's become a two-tiered $ociety on nearly anything you name.

The Lansing State Journal reports some residents showed up at a utility news conference Saturday, shouting questions and demanding to know how much longer they must live in cold, dark homes or stay with friends or in hotels.

Must have scared the $hit out of 'em!

“When it first happened, I had all the confidence in the world because they said all hands on deck,” Matthew Oney, an East Lansing resident, told The Detroit Free Press. Oney and his family, including 2-week-old Olivia, have been living in a hotel.

Now, he said: “It seems they don’t care about us at all.”

The Board of Water & Light promised that it would do an ‘‘in-depth analysis’’ of its storm response.

That going to get the heat on now?

--more--" 

Also see:

Banging on Doors in Detroit
Slow Saturday Special: Detroit Dreaming

Gue$$ they got a lot to be angry about this holiday season.

And I saw snow in Chicago yesterday, so.... ????

"Thousands in Maine still lack power, a week after ice storm" by Eric Moskowitz |  Globe Staff, December 28, 2013

Thousands of Maine residents who endured Christmas week without power could remain in the dark into the middle of next week or even longer if more snow and ice hit the state Sunday night....

Stories cropped up of frustrated residents harassing repair workers, including one man in Hancock County who called Bangor Hydro Thursday threatening to kill someone after learning a nearby crew he had questioned was fixing an adjacent circuit, but was not yet due to fix his.

Police investigated but did not arrest the man, but appreciation far outweighed anger, with many residents offering thanks and restaurants serving free meals or opening during off-hours to feed hundreds of out-of-state crews who worked strings of 17-hour shifts, far from their families during Christmas week....

It's called New England hospitality, and that is why I have always bristled at the "can't get th're from h're" stereotype. We are good, generous people up here (like everywhere else despite the endless stereotypes and divisions pushed by my newspaper). 

James Brown, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Gray, Maine, said a fast-moving low pressure system could bring sleet, freezing rain, or significant snow Sunday night into Monday in parts of Maine. But temperatures first should reach the 30s across the state Saturday.

As if that is a heat wave?

“That would be a huge relief,” he said, saying the warm-up could spare significant additional line damage. “[Thirties] doesn’t sound like a real high temperature, but you put that together with solar radiation and you take a lot of that ice off.”

It is “Mother Nature at her best” I am told, and I agree. She is putting the lie to human-caused global warming. What's warming things up is the fart mist.

--more--"

But let's not focus too much on that and put such things way back on page B10.

"High winds, torrential rain, and crashing waves killed two people and temporarily shut a Spanish opera house, while blustery weather elsewhere in Europe delayed trains and caused severe flooding, authorities said Friday. In Britain, Friday’s foul weather complicated efforts to clean up from a previous storm which hit just before Christmas, lashing the island nation with driving rain, causing floods, cutting power, and snarling travel for thousands." 

And yet pathetic stinkers still try and $ell the ca$e. 

Who can blame people for being angry?