Saturday, November 10, 2018

Slow Saturday Special: Good Morning!

It is if you have the Good Life

I suppose the Globe and I will never $ee things the same:

"Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company valued at more than $7 billion, is plotting to raise $500 million in what would be the sector’s largest-ever initial public offering......"

"Chick-fil-A plans to open first Boston store in Back Bay" by John R. Ellement Globe Staff  November 09, 2018

Chick-fil-A, the restaurant chain the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino wanted kept out of Boston, is pushing ahead with plans to open its first store in the city at a Back Bay location, the company confirmed Friday.

The Atlanta-based chain has a devoted following in much of the country for its chicken sandwiches, its iced tea, and its waffle potato fries, but it was publicly rebuked by the late mayor in 2012 for the founding family’s support for groups opposed to same-sex marriage, the Globe has reported.

In the years since, the company has steadily expanded and it, along with franchisees, now operates 2,100 restaurants nationwide including 11 in Massachusetts, according to the company website. The restaurants close on Sundays.

Meg Mainzer-Cohen of the Back Bay Association said she expects Chick-fil-A to become a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Moreover, Mainzer-Cohen said, a company official who contacted her this summer told her the “company really is focused more on chicken than politics . . . I think it will be good for the Back Bay to have different dining options.”

The Globe has asked for Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s view on the arrival of Chick-fil-A; he has not yet responded.....

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When there is money to be made the controversies fade!

Momentum builds for Springfield-Boston rail service

Can go the other way, too:

"GE’s stock falls below $9 for first time since the financial crisis" by Larry Edelman Globe Staff  November 09, 2018

General Electric Co. shareholders who thought the worst was behind them when Larry Culp took over as CEO last month got a nasty surprise Friday when the shares plunged below $9 for the first time since the financial crisis in 2009.

The drop came after JP Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa painted a bleak picture of the company’s future, saying that six of the shrinking conglomerate’s eight divisions for which financials are broken out will be unprofitable by 2020, CNBC said.

GE responded with a statement that it is “fundamentally a strong company with a sound liquidity position.” In other words: It has plenty of money to work with as it cuts debt, sells at least $20 billion in assets, and focuses on its jet engine, power turbine, and renewable energy businesses.....

Keep that in mind for later. It will be a theme and more in my richer's pre$$.

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Related:

"Meredith Corp. will sell Fortune magazine to a Thai businessman for $150 million, the company said, as it continues to offload some of the storied brands it acquired with its purchase of Time Inc. last year. The deal comes almost two months after Meredith said it would sell Time magazine to billionaire Marc Benioff for about $190 million. Chatchaval Jiaravanon, a board member of Charoen Pokphand, a Thai conglomerate, will own Fortune as a personal investment, according to a statement from Meredith. “Our vision is to establish Fortune as the world’s leading business media brand, with an always-on reach and global relevance,” he said. “The demand for high-quality business information is growing, and with further committed investment in technology and brilliant journalism, we believe the outlook for further profitable growth is excellent both for the publication and the events business.”

Also see:

Federal judge blocks construction of Keystone pipeline

Because of the effect on climate change.

Which gets us to the agendas they are now pushing on the front page:

MBA programs see fewer foreign students

Of course, the nominal lead was drowned out by the stunning photograph regarding the California fires:

From north to south, California does battle with furious wildfires

I know you are going to think I'm out there, and I don't know what types of arson account for such things; however, it's strange that the flair-ups coincide with the agenda-pushing (not over yet, either). Some are saying drone lasers, some think flat out arson, some could be natural, sure, but the government and pre$$ insistence on drought, etc, rings like a hollow cover story in light of their focus. Sorry. That's the way I see it through the haze of my pre$$.

Meanwhile, the "shooting" event, such as it is, has been pushed all the way back to page A11.

[flip to below fold]

After years of LePage, Maine went very blue Tuesday

The stink of massive Democratic fraud (we used to say the fix was in) is beginning to emanate from the entire country, and I guess Collins will be retiring now.

More noise:

"Residents sue over a racket at the Ritz" by Nestor Ramos Globe Staff  November 10, 2018

Outside the Ritz-Carlton Boston, the drumming starts around 7 in the morning — every day.

A block from Boston Common, just around the corner from the Boston Opera House, striking employees of the Ritz-Carlton’s parent company, Marriott, march in an oval, chanting and beating on orange buckets with drumsticks. It’s often only a couple of dozen people but in the grand tradition of public protest, they’re making an unholy racket: Anything to make sure their message is heard.

What kind of an example is that to set in these times of politically correct speech and action?

It might be working a little too well.

Residents of the swanky condos above the cacophony say the constant drumming and occasional brass-band section have made their homes nearly unlivable, and now, the battle between the Haves and the Have-buckets is playing out in court.

Meanwhile, the people outside say they’re picketing because it shouldn’t take three jobs to live in a modest apartment in Mission Hill. Many are immigrants. Nearly all are people of color.

Many undocumented, which is why the Globe picked up a sign (I only go on Saturdays).

“It’s perfectly within the rights of white millionaires to take legal action to try to silence black and brown working-class people,” said Brian Lang, president of Unite Here 26, the hospitality workers union.

Given that dynamic, it’s not hard to choose a side, and as white people all over the country continue to earn stern rebukes — and mocking nicknames — for calling police on black people performing everyday activities? Well, this all sounds a little like BBQ Becky goes to court.

You can get that at Chick-Fil-A!

So it is tempting to wave away the concerns of those whose lives are comparatively quite comfortable — at least until about six weeks ago, when the strike began at seven Boston hotels and in seven other cities around the country. You want to put on the Ritz? You’ll have to put up with it, too.

And yet . . . it’s really loud.

I wouldn’t want to live there, that’s for sure.

Me, neither.

On Friday morning, a reading on a sound meter in the lobby of one of the buildings registered over 120 decibels. Residents have also been taking videos of the protest, and in one, a man holding two megaphones in front of his face unleashes a series of screams that sound like a large animal is being tortured.

Once or twice? I’d be down there marching right along with megaphone man, but seven days a week, 12 hours a day? There’s no other way to say this: I can’t.

If this had been clattering away outside my house for six hours, I’d be duct-taping pillows to my head and setting up the sprinklers.

“I’m sure anyone would feel the same way they feel,” said Marvin Martin, a striking bartender who has worked at the Ritz for 17 years. “But if we’re not talking about it, they’re not hearing about it.”

It’s true. The tradition of public protest, union and otherwise, suggests that it is effective not in spite of being inconvenient but because of it. Marching in the streets was a hallmark of the civil rights movement, and it worked.

Unless you are protesting wars or Israel, and all the protest coverage we get now are nothing but controlled-opposition crap.

Whether the prolonged torment of neighbors whose connection to the labor dispute is tenuous is less clear. Some Marriott employees work in the residences, which offer luxury services from the Ritz-Carlton like housekeeping and room service, but the condos are separately owned. Others affected, such as residents of a nearby retirement home, have even less to do with the dispute.

“We have no problem with the idea that they’re picketing out there,” said Jean Bachovin, the president of the Millennium Place North High-Rise condo association, the taller building set back from the north side of Avery Street. “That is between the Marriott Hotel and their workers. I just want the city to please respect my rights as a resident.”

In affidavits, residents of the surrounding condos described the effect of the daily cacophony on their lives. Residents of other buildings affected by the strike have complained, too.

In the towers above the Ritz, residents have hired sound professionals to take measurements and held community meetings to complain. They’ve sent letters to the mayor — a former union leader — and the police, who appear to have cracked down on the megaphones but have done nothing more to quiet the strikers.

I will go through the mail later.

“For political reasons, they choose not to do so,” said the condo associations’ lawyer, Ed Allcock.

The city and Police Department, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

In court on Friday, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Robert Tochka appeared considerably more sympathetic to the residents’ plight than to their court papers.

In an extended back-and-forth with Allcock, Tochka wondered how he would even begin to craft a court order instructing the police to enforce the law. He mused at one point that the next step would be to go out on Avery Street and point out who to arrest, discretion that Tochka said belongs to the police. He did not rule, but when Tochka turned his attention to the city’s legal team, he urged the city to find some sort of “happy medium” that did not come via court order.....

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Remember when unions used to mean something in this country?

How odd that the Globe has not made one comment on the protests at Tucker Carlson's house -- when you considered how much they care about reporters and their safety in light of Khashoggi.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

"Henriquez steps down from city post" by Milton J. Valencia Globe Staff  November 09, 2018

The appointment of Carlos Henriquez, the former state representative who was forced from office after he was convicted of assaulting a woman in 2014, to a taxpayer-funded antiviolence position, was the subject of a Globe story last week, and community advocates questioned whether someone with a history of assaulting a woman should be working for the city in such a role.

Once a promising, rising public figure, Henriquez served six months in prison for his conviction in 2014 for punching a woman who refused to have sex with him.

He never accepted guilt for the incident, however, fueling criticism of his appointment. His role had been described as special assistant for community engagement, working on antiviolence. The position paid $89,000 a year.

Henriquez’s expulsion from the House of Representatives was the first of a member of the Legislature in nearly 100 years, but the treatment of Henriquez, while rattling Beacon Hill, also polarized the minority community, including many who felt he was treated unfairly......

Yeah, believe the woman, BUT!

What is also lost here amongst the #MeToo frazzle is the domestic abuse aspect, a far more dangerous aspect of women's lives that has once again been submerged in the discussion. OJ changed nothing.

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Looks like he has been walled off from the life he knew, huh?

Same as this guy:

"Ousted conservative says he wasn’t motivated by hate" by Stephanie Ebbert Globe Staff  November 08, 2018

Representative James J. Lyons Jr., one of the people who had spearheaded the effort to repeal transgender rights, had been “taken out.”

The four-term Republican legislator from Andover had become Massachusetts liberals’ favorite villain this election cycle, his reelection hopes dashed by frustrations they couldn’t take out on anyone else.

Lyons was one of just 41 Republicans who make up a little over one-quarter of the state Legislature, and his ultra-conservative bent kept even some fellow Republicans at a distance, but in these highly contentious times, his ouster carried more than its proportionate weight. His loss to a female candidate who once said he had an “anti-woman agenda” also contributed to the further diminishing of Republican ranks on Beacon Hill.

Meaning the corruption under that dome will flourish.

Lyons was defeated by Tram Nguyen, a 32-year-old legal services attorney and first-time candidate whose campaign attracted support not only from reproductive rights organizations but also Emily’s List, former president Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. The newcomer won by 10 points.....

I just caught a whiff of fraud here, folks.

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If only we could stop it:

The T has a lot of weekend rail closures coming up

Better grab a bike then:

"A Boston University graduate student riding a bicycle was fatally struck by a dump truck Friday morning in Cambridge on the Boston line near the Museum of Science, officials said. State Police said the cyclist, a 24-year-old Cambridge man identified as Meng Jin, a graduate student from Shanghai, was hit around 8:12 a.m. at the intersection of Museum Way and Monsignor O’Brien Highway......" 

Let's hope it doesn't turn into an international incident.

"Tennis coach arraigned for alleged indecent assault of girl during lesson in Brighton" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff  November 09, 2018

A tennis coach faced a judge Friday for allegedly having “improper, unwanted, and repeated physical contact” with an underage female student during an August lesson in Boston, authorities said.

The suspect, Eric Rosales, 57, of Allston, was arraigned in Brighton Municipal Court on three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 stemming from the Aug. 8 incident, Suffolk District Attorney John Pappas’s office said in a statement.

A not-guilty plea was entered on Rosales’s behalf.

He was released on personal recognizance and ordered to stay away from the alleged victim or any child under 16, even though prosecutors had recommended $5,000 bail with conditions including the no-contact order and GPS monitoring if he posted, the release said.

A lawyer for Rosales declined to comment. Rosales couldn’t be reached for comment.

Rosales “allegedly had improper, unwanted, and repeated physical contact with the girl during a tennis lesson at a Nonantum Avenue court,” the statement said. “The victim later disclosed the incident to a family member and participated in a forensic interview at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Suffolk County. Based on that interview and evidence developed in the investigation that followed, Boston Police detectives obtained a complaint charging Rosales with the assault.”

Pappas said the case shows that parents and caregivers must be “open and accessible” when children need to talk.

“It’s up to us to make clear that they can come to us for help with anything that makes them uncomfortable, whether it’s online or in real life,” Pappas said in the release. “Prosecutors know how tough those conversations can be, and we always put the victim’s safety, comfort, and well-being first — no matter who they are, where they’re from, or how young or old they might be.”

Yeah, right!

Rosales is due back in court on Dec. 7.

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Related(?):

More hateful graffiti found at Reading Memorial High School

They found two swastikas and a set of “threatening remarks impacting ‘white people’ ” in two bathrooms, have no suspects and are “aggressively reviewing” camera footage. 

With all due respect, I'm tired of the self-serving supremacist false flags and mind-bending psyops regarding a certain tribe. It's been sooooo played!

Healey, other AGs call for Whitaker to recuse himself from Russia probe

How about worrying about what is going on in the state for a change?

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Takes us right into my National lead, though:

Trump says he hasn’t talked to acting attorney general about Russia probe

And he is off to Paris.

Michelle Obama had miscarriage, used IVF to conceive girls

I guess Joan Rivers what right about her all along (so when are they going to be on Maury?).

I swear, some people never know when to go away and retire (maybe they should be made to).

The rest of the section is devoted to the Democratic theft attempts in Arizona, Florida, and Georgia.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

In a first, Moscow prepares to host Afghan talks between Taliban and Kabul envoys

It's the whole world wondering how in the hell they are going to get the U.S. military to leave (like in Syria).

Merkel warns of modern racism on Kristallnacht 80th

Oh, yeah, there was a terrorist attack in Australia.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

This next article proves that the Globe and the rest of the agenda-pushing pre$$ and ma$$ media care not one wit about the environment:

"To fight climate change, environmentalists say yes to nuclear power" November 10, 2018

On Thursday, the venerable Cambridge-based Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report on nuclear power endorsing measures to keep financially struggling nuclear power plants alive to combat climate change.

In the report, the group outlined a hard truth about the future. With climate change accelerating, as a new UN report underscored, the time to be fussy about how to reduce emissions has passed.

(Blog editor just shakes his head as the Globe presents a "hard truth" regarding the big lie. Yeah, it's no time to be fussy)

There is no doubt that nuclear power carries risks, as the Union of Concerned Scientists has documented over the years. Policy makers need to start putting those risks in perspective, though. Yes, regulate plants closely, but don’t let such a massive source of zero-carbon electricity disappear, since it will inevitably be replaced with fossil fuels. 

(Look at them downplay the risk even as Fukushima leaks 300 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific every day, as it has for the last 7+ years.

Which reminds me. The push for nuclear power sure would help GE! They are the ones who designed the reactors! So the Globe certainly has a $elf-$erving interest here, does it not?)


Massachusetts gets a big chunk of its electricity from Seabrook Station in New Hampshire — the plant that the Union of Concerned Scientists, among many others, criticized in the 1980s. That plant is thought to be profitable for now, but the state and the region should have a contingency plan to make sure that it doesn’t fall victim to the same trends claiming nuclear plants throughout the United States.

The ongoing woes of the nuclear industry have put a tremendous amount of non-emitting electricity at risk, and the potential to lose those resources could undo the nation’s recent progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

(Which is all really about a carbon tax on you so that Wall Street can literally create money out of thin air and then package your future projected footprint of farts into CDO $hit)

It’s hard to imagine a group with stronger historic anti-nuclear bona fides than the Union of Concerned Scientists — in the same way that Nixon was an anti-communist beyond reproach. Hopefully the group’s climate pragmatism now will carry more weight with nuclear power skeptics and help ensure that states will have the full toolbox they need in the years ahead.....

(Yeah, let's hope lying, looting government has a "full toolbox" to shove up your a$$.

Does that include journalistic condescension and insult?


They care so much for the environment yet never challenge the over-polluting and environmentally destructive war machine)


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Time to open some letters:

"One of your “Nine political lessons from the 2018 election” (Editorial, Nov. 8) suggests that the position of Democratic officeholders and candidates on Question 1, the nurse-staffing ballot initiative, should be remembered when they next ask for political support. Question 1 was an awkward and cumbersome effort to deal with a very real problem of understaffing at many of our hospitals and other health care providers. It may not have been the best approach, but to label all those who supported the measure as caving to “special interests” is no more valid than accusing those politicians who opposed the measure of being in the pockets of the health care CEOs and industry lobbyists who opposed passage. Why charge Representative Joe Kennedy and Senator Elizabeth Warren of having catered to special interests by backing the yes campaign, while lauding Representative Seth Moulton and state Attorney General Maura Healey for taking no position on it? Reasonable people have disagreed over Question 1. That doesn’t mean that supporters or opponents should be labeled as cowards or heroes. Instead, we should all cheer the open, extensive, and sometimes heated public debate of this issue. It demonstrated that, despite all of the anti-democratic trends in news that we have been subjected to over the last two years, democracy is alive and well in Massachusetts."

Despite the Globe.

"You write in your Nov. 8 editorial that “Question 1 was an acid test for Democrats.” Referring to the supporters of the ballot question as a “special interest” is laughable when the hospital industry spent about $20 million to defeat it. They aren’t a special interest? It is ironic that the same paper recently featured an article about Laura Levis’s tragic death, which refers to overburdened staff as one of the causes of her having been overlooked outside Somerville Hospital......"

Globe disconnect and delusion is nothing new.

"I actively opposed Question 1, and it is a relief that it was defeated. Despite its laudable intent, it was a poorly written law that would have added an additional administrative burden on our nurses and could have caused chaos in health care delivery; however....."

He's a doctor.

"I am a retired nurse, and looking back over my more than 30 years of nursing, I have never seen such a poor, broken system to deliver our health care....."

That is one heck of an indictment of both Romneycare and Obamacare.

Also got a love letter from a former girlfriend (can nurses cure broken hearts?).

Why don't you take her to a movie instead (and a friend, if you can find one).