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Your daily video from Pintastic NE 2023 today is a glimpse of the Extra Ball Lounge consisting of games Gabe has brought from his own large collection for people to play
Pintastic NE 2023 the story so far:
Yesterday the rain came in a way it hasn’t been in about 35 years when one of the bridges in Fitchburg over the Nashua river was washed out in a storm, yesterday it was Leominster’s turn the rain kept coming down and the city was drenched, bridges washed out, basements flooded, sink holes appearing and route two the major artery east into Boston impassable.
I’ve not gone outside to shoot any video myself because the last thing Leominster needs is another person on the roads filming while they’re trying to clear to get blog posts.
Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzerella has been in office practically forever and it paid off yesterday here he is from facebook
and from a press conference today:
There is likely no mayor in the area more familiar with the various departments of his city and it seemed to me that they were really on the ball in terms of getting people out. You really can’t stop the rain if a front decides to pause over your area but the various crews allowed the city to weather the storm without loss of life and given the degree of flooding is quite an accomplishment.
Last night people were in dire straights in they had to head west or east on Route 2, to wit:
That is the primary exit from Route 2 for people going into the center of Leominster or into Fitchburg and it’s the primary exit to take route 2 east To Boston or 495 or Devens etc. People were stranded for literally hours on this road
With route 2 flooded people needed to take side routes such as 117 and with the side roads in conditions like this:
That simply added to the disaster because it diverted cars to these locations which the police and fire had to deal with.
What’s really going to hit people for six as the British would put it is the fact that many of the places that got nailed don’t get a lot of flooding. I suspect few if any of the residents whose basements are underwater or foundations were washed out had flood insurance so the cost of repairs is going to be astounding.
I have never had a better illustration of the parable of the house built on a solid foundation then when I saw this video:
The damage to personal property is likely going to be at least in the tens of millions possibly in the hundreds of millions, perhaps the governor can divert some of that illegal immigration emergency money to help rebuild and re-locate the people here.
Given that Massachusetts is one of the most reliably blue states in the country one might except the Biden Administration to come through, but given what we’ve seen in Maui located in an even bluer state I don’t know if that will matter. Time will tell in terms of how both the state and the feds do here.
On a personal level I was briefly trapped on the road with DaWife and my oldest who had just finished Eucharist Adoration together in Fitchburg as we were going to go to dinner together. We were on airport road when the emergency message came through and frankly there was no place for us to go so it took about an hour to turn around and hit a restaurant near my home in Fitchburg that had no issues.
But the real good fortune for me was that Pintastic NE 2023 had been moved and because of that move I had requested this day off weeks ago. If not I would have if I was luckily barely made it to work in Devens for around 3 pm. (the first drops of rain began at 1:10 pm in Fitchburg) and getting out at midnight I would have found every road home impassible at best and at worst would not have been able to clearly see dangers in the road that would have been submerged by water. I’m frankly a little iffy on what route I can use to get to work today but I guess we will see.
By Christopher Harper
The Associated Press, a critical news operation and one-time bastion of political neutrality, has turned leftward in its coverage.
In recent months, the evidence has mounted that the AP no longer stands above the political fray. For example, a recent AP article said that the U.S. Supreme Court had “tossed out the heart” of the Voting Rights Act, when in reality, the court ruled that nine southern states would no longer have to “pre-clear” election law changes with the federal government. The AP lamented in another story that “far-right conservatives” in Tennessee were elected to city council seats. Another news report said that “GOP election tactics” intentionally disenfranchised black voters in Wisconsin.
As a result of these and other stories, AllSides, a group that tracks media bias, has changed its rating for the AP from “center” to “leans left, citing an increase in “word choice bias” and “bias by omission of views” in AP coverage. AllSides said it closely monitored AP content because the organization is “broad and far-reaching.” The AP is by far the largest news organization in the world, with more than 3,000 employees around the globe in nearly 100 countries. The AP provides news and information to more than 1,300 news organizations.
What has changed?
Last year, the AP announced a series of partnerships to subsidize reporting of climate change, race, and democracy. The Washington Free Beacon reviewed the list of donors, which showed the vast majority funded left-wing political causes. For example, the Ida B. Wells Society, founded by Nikole Hannah-Jones and the suspect “1619 Project,” gave money for “more inclusive storytelling.” The AP is also taking money to fund coverage in its “democracy journalism initiative” and “the intersection of race and voting.” The donors include the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, which also backed Stacy Abrams, the leftist Georgia politician. The AP also got money from Take Back the Court, which advocates expanding the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation spent $2.5 million on the AP’s climate and education reporting initiatives and $400,000 on its democracy journalism initiative. The foundation also funds Planned Parenthood and Advocates for Youth, which promotes transgender ideology. The Public Welfare Foundation, which backs reduced penalties for various crimes, ponied up $200,000.
The Rockefeller Foundation awarded the AP a total of $750,000 to increase reporting “on the increased and urgent need for reliable electricity in underserved communities worldwide.”
Associated Press spokeswoman Nicole Meir told The Washington Free Beacon that the organization maintained “complete control” over content produced through its philanthropic partnerships, and that “no funder has any influence over AP journalism.”
Anyone who’s ever dealt with donors knows that foundations often play an active role in how money gets spent.
The leftist tilt of the AP is particularly bothersome since the organization hired me in its Chicago bureau in 1974 straight out of graduate school, and I learned from some of the best editors I ever had. The renowned news editor Dick Ciccone, who became the managing editor of The Chicago Tribune, told me: “Get it fast. Get it right. Keep your opinions to yourself!”
–Hat tip to my wife
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