Looks like there is more heavy snowfall predicted for early this week, so it looks like I may be eating snow and not posting as much as I may like the next couple of days.
Region digs back toward routine
Hudson wins Mass. snowfall jackpot
3 FEET of snow, huh? We got lucky out here.
Luck of an accurate forecast helps Baker, Walsh
Resourceful Bostonians rise to a ritual challenge
Working parents fret over 3rd no-school day in Boston
Allston parties hard, glad for snow day
Snow day is a workday and payday for many
Taking measure of walk to school after the blizzard
For truck after truck, Boston snow farms are the destination
Teens care for siblings as adults go back to work
Kerry fined for failing to shovel sidewalk outside home
Yarmouth man, 97, found dead in snow outside home
Yarmouth man, 97, ‘tough until the end’
May the home team be as well.
(Almost) all bets are on for the Super Bowl
Harvard business professors to tweet about Super Bowl
I wonder what Dershowitz will have to say.
US agents tackle fake Super Bowl items
For Patriot fans, luck is just part of the game plan
For Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell, air still isn’t clear
Boston says rowdy Super Bowl celebrations will get ‘no tolerance’
Noshing picks for your Super Bowl Sunday
Super Bowl-goers go to site Airbnb for housing deals
Gillette Stadium pavilion gets new sponsor
For the Super Bowl, an inside look
UMass Amherst to ban dorm guests, hold viewing parties to prevent Super Bowl riots
I'm going to a party, but there will be no riot:
"Super Bowl may have something to teach Boston about security; City’s Olympic planners may be taking notes" by Nestor Ramos, Globe Staff January 29, 2015
PHOENIX — No specific, credible threats have been made against this year’s Super Bowl, said US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was in Phoenix on Wednesday to tour University of Phoenix Stadium in nearby Glendale.
Police departments in Phoenix and Glendale have eliminated leave time for their employees in the days leading up to the game. The NFL has hired thousands of private security workers. A federal homeland security agent, Matt Allen, was assigned to oversee the event. Dozens of agencies spent more than a year planning and coordinating.
Nothing is going to happen. Bu$ine$$ won't let a false flag ruin this elite party.
“The majority of people view the Super Bowl as an exciting culmination of the football season,” said Glendale Police Chief Debora Black at a news conference Wednesday. “Others see these events as a high-profile target on a world stage.”
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing nearly two years ago, such stages are treated with special care. The Marathon bombing forced the NFL to change its security policy for games, including the Super Bowl. Fans must bring their belongings into the game in small, clear plastic bags. Only small clutches — not purses or shoulder bags or fanny packs — are allowed in. Everything gets scanned.
In Boston, where Olympic ambitions have been tempered by trepidation about what hosting the games might entail, Phoenix’s experience could be instructive. Securing a city known for its sprawl makes for a particularly useful comparison to an Olympic Games, where various venues host different sports daily.
“It’s like a Super Bowl every single day — multiple Super Bowls every day,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former candidate for governor, founder of a private security firm, and member of the Boston 2024 executive committee.
And a former member of the Department of Homeland Security.
From a security standpoint, a Super Bowl would most closely resemble an Olympic opening or closing ceremony, Kayyem said.
But comparisons are tricky, Kayyem said, because making Boston’s would-be Olympics walkable for fans is so fundamental to the city’s bid. From a security standpoint, a better comparison to a Boston Olympics might be a presidential inauguration, she said.
What the events have in common, she said, is the need to coordinate communications among many agencies that each have their own leadership and routine. Such events receive federal designation as “national special security events,” which come with federal oversight and resources.
And taxpayer dollars!
Further complicating matters is the need to prepare for threats that are not yet obvious.
When planning for the London Olympics began, cyber attacks were little understood and barely considered.
PFFFFT!
When planning for this year’s Super Bowl began more than a year ago, the threat of the Islamic State was not well known.
Threats “change from year to year, from month to month, from week to week,” acknowledged Johnson. “The key is vigilance.”
Johnson pointed to a renewed push to encourage the public to report suspicious activities through a “see something, say something” campaign.
Before Wednesday’s news conference, new television ads repeated earnest requests to tip off police if something seems amiss.
And disrupt the staged and scripted hoax or false flag attack?
Black said dozens of people lodged reports during last week’s Pro Bowl, an NFL all star game that was until recently held exclusively in Hawaii.
But the definition of “suspicious” changes somewhat when more than 100,000 people descend on your town to party. And the Olympics are bigger still.
“The challenge for an Olympics is that it’s a much bigger conversation,” Kayyem said.
The mood may be festive in Phoenix, but the backdrop is sometimes severe....
Except it is right in front of you.
--more--"
Remember last year, readers?
Related: Globe Olympics Coverage Sucks Up All the Oxygen
I don't want to spoil the moment, but....
Jury pool now at 30 for Aaron Hernandez trial
Aaron Hernandez jury process to go into next week
Judge closing in on Aaron Hernandez trial jury
Last jury round in Aaron Hernandez case set for Monday
18 seated for jury in Aaron Hernandez trial
Hernandez prosecutors want to bar mention of PCP use at trial
Aaron Hernandez’s murder trial starts Thursday
Lawyers offer divergent portraits of Aaron Hernandez
Graphic testimony in Aaron Hernandez trial rattles victim’s mother
Related: The Other Hernandez Trial
Trial begins in 1979 slaying of boy in NYC
It's a frame job so some Jewish family can have piece of mind and a scapegoat, but that's AmeriKan JU$TU$ these days.
Speaking of frame jobs:
Search for jurors in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial continues
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev judge in 4th day of questioning
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team again seeks new venue
Separately Thursday, the court released a statement saying jury selections are “taking longer than originally anticipated,” and the slated Jan. 26 start of the case “is not realistic.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev case jury is slow to form
Lawyers hunt too-eager Tsarnaev jurors
98 queried so far for Tsarnaev jury panel
Tsarnaev defense cites finish line shoveler in seeking venue change
Her decision, their life
Maine woman accused of defrauding One Fund
The whole event was a fraud!
The third biggest trial in Boston:
Ruling due on evidence release in Philip Chism case
Judge orders Philip Chism interview video be released
Investigators tell of finding body of slain Danvers math teacher
Jurors’ names ruled public record, SJC says
That's where the air went out of the coverage for me.
"Flu-related hospitalizations of the elderly are the highest since the government started tracking that statistic nine years ago, indicating that this is a particularly bad influenza season."
Tell me about it.
Related: Measles flare-up expands
Could it be the vaccines that are giving it to them? That is what the evidence in the alternative media suggests.
"Liberia closer to normalcy as Ebola threat subsides" by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times February 01, 2015
MONROVIA, Liberia — Life is edging back to normal after the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.
New cases in Liberia, where streets were littered with the Ebola dead just a few months ago, now number in the single digits, according to the World Health Organization. In neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other two nations in the Ebola hot zone, new cases have fallen sharply in the last month, to fewer than 100 in a week at the end of January — a level not seen in the region since June.
With a virus as deadly as Ebola, officials warn that the epidemic will not be over until cases reach zero in all three countries. But after nearly 9,000 deaths from the disease, the WHO announced last week that it was focusing on a goal that had seemed out of reach for much of last year: ending the Ebola epidemic.
While many have emphasized the enormous aid hauled into the region by the United States and international organizations, there is strong evidence, especially here in Monrovia, that the biggest change came from the precautions taken by residents themselves.
Must be mission accomplished then.
“Fundamentally, this is about the extent to which societies change their behaviors, how they change them, and the speed at which they change them,” said Dr. David Nabarro, the UN special envoy on Ebola.
Reeling from the explosion of infections in August, volunteer Ebola watchdog groups sprang up in many neighborhoods, typically overseen by local elders and led by educated youths, drawing from a long history of community organizing to survive war, poverty, and government neglect.
Like a team.
With little or no outside help in the early months, the groups educated their communities on Ebola, a disease new to this part of Africa, and collected money for hand-washing stations.
They kept records of the sick and the dead. Many also placed households under quarantine and restricted visits by outsiders. As the sick were turned away at the gates of treatment centers because of a lack of beds, people inside homes began protecting themselves better, covering their arms in plastic shopping bags as they cared for ailing relatives....
That's all I need wear for protection? Then why all the hazmat gear?
--more--"
Related: Only 5 people being treated for Ebola in Liberia
It's a dramatic turnaround as the outbreak has begun to wane.
"American Sundays are defined for many by two things: church and football."
I have a church of my own to attend this morning, the church of old man's pickup basketball where I have some unfinished business.
NDUs:
Patriots rally to beat Seahawks in Super Bowl
Super Bowl victory a validation of the Patriot way
Local Patriots fans caught in ups, downs of Super Bowl
Patriots superfan in Phoenix gets dream gift
I will also admit I watched the Super Bowl halftime show, and I liked it. I don't know what subliminal imagery was cast about to work on my brain even though I looked for it (the glowing red eyes of the tiger a cat from hell?)
Tsarnaev jurors have differing views on death as ultimate price
Storm blankets Midwest in snow
Region prepares for up to a foot of snow
It's been more than forecast already and I've already been out once.
