Suz!

also “Hi” to all you Suzians I don’t usu see

ellie! how’s it going tonight?

Aloha, Ellie, Suz, and lln pups…! ;-)

pups… don’t forget to turn on the closed captions for this video…. the lyrics are forking great!

Love the vid!

aloha tut — how’s paradise tonight?

Hey, Suze! How’s tricks tonight?

they really captured a lotta the gaga moves in their parody. i thought it was very well done — and was glad to see that it won a regional emmy

hey tejan — how’s tx tonight?

tis another drippy day here. not enough rain to measure – but enough to drip off any overhangs… will be nice to see the sun again… maybe this weekend

Evening, Suz et al.

bat romance — another parody

hey bg — how’s abq tonight?

I want equality of outcome.I vote socialist.

bad project

Hey Pups! Cold and clear here — in CLeveland. No snow, no rain. Just 30 degrees and calm.

hey alice — how ya doing tonight?

ce! i’ve always said that if it is gonna be cold enough for snow, it should forking snow! how was your day?

It is fucked and will continue to be.

i hear that… what kinda fuckery are they up to now?

Hello Suzanne,

I guess I slept through the SOTU, anything different than last week?

A great day, but very long. 9:00 a.m to 9:30 p.m. We had a wonderful class of Museum Associates. It was wonderful and so full of information.

hey nonq — i didn’t watch it this year so i’m the wrong person to ask. how’s wi tonight?

It used to be we had a decent city maybe even county government. No longer. There is a proposed project in my neighborhood that they just gave 32 YEARS of tax free status, about 160 units with 21 parking spaces on site. The development partner is BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY. Unbelievable. The worst is that our neighborhoods received an e-mail this afternoon saying the vote would be deferred, so I did not attend the meeting, which I had been planning to do for a MONTH.

I am so furious, really have not been this mad since they fucked us out of our elected representation through redistricting. I can’t begin to say how angry I am right now.

weird al chose a different gaga song

geebus bg.. that’s wrong on so many fucking levels… you gonna diary it?

I don’t know. I am going over there tomorrow and get in someone’s face, I guess. Fuck.

Hi, Suze, I wandered off to facebook and very old cartoons. (1929, 1933). It’s going down to 40 tonight, so I persuaded my feral kitteh to stay in. Even last night it was cool enough to turn on my electric blanket. With it on, my toes actuallly stay warm and comfy.
But it makes it even harder to get out of the bed in the morning. I’m doing badly at that lately, with no court dates or appointments at specific times to force me out. Sigh.
I looked at snow pictures from Boston and CT with mixed envy and relief (that I’m not in it). Envy, because perfect for having beef stew and/or drinking hot chocolate while gazing out at the falling snow. I miss that.

It’s sunny and warm here. Hehehehe.

The latest household disaster has been fixed. Had a pipe break under the house and it was spittin’ out 1000 gallons a day. Our lovely public utility service, very nicely informed me of the fact immediately upon reading our meter for the month, which was 8 days before the bill showed up.

i’m getting up a solid hour (or more) later than i was before it got so dark and cold. am hoping that i can flip that back around once winter breaks its grip. the down side to getting up after the crack of noon is sunsets around 4pm… makes for a dayam short day for sure

holy moly tuez — you had no idea it was leaking?

Wisconsin is here for the moment. I feel asleep with the POTUS coverage about to start on PBS and woke to Aldo Leopold’s life retrospective on at the moment.

First national watershed restoration project historical film footage. Rejuvenation, good theme.

Just brewed some tea,

what kinda tea?

That didn’t wash out your foundation? Oh wait, I’ll bet your house is built on a concrete slab.

Wow, tuezday…was the bill huge? So glad they called, though. Hope the fix wasn’t too expensive.

Suzanne, I just watched your video…great, really great. I love so many things about it, not least, the dancing in the old-fashioned costumes; the (young) man reading the note from his mom, then voting “aye”…very, very well done.
Thanks for posting that.

Celestial Seasons sleepy time.

Hope there is no settling or other problems now that the pipe is fixed. That is one of many nightmares, water is a crushing destroyer.

glad ya liked it tejan — i though it was special… if ya watch the gaga video, you can see how closely they matched so many scenes (and costumes) from it…

Ouch, I keep forgetting what a difference the north-south location makes to sundown. In Boston winter sunsets were around 4:30 much of the season.
I noticed at my mom’s in Maryland it was about an hour earlier than here.
Right now sun sets between 6:30 and 7:00 here. Four o’clock is reeeally early for darkness.

i used to drink that back when i was a tea drinker. both times i was pregnant, i could not stand even the smell of coffee and switched to herbal teas

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

its later now and finally after 5pm — but at its worse its an early sunset above the 45th parallel

Oh yeah? Don’t think I’ve ever watched a Lady Gaga video. Perhaps I will have to make an exception for comparison purposes.

mary mac! how’s sacramento tonight senator?

tis striking… i would suggest ya do it… unfortunately, there are no closed captioning on hers :( the visuals are spot on tho

Sac is good. Nice weather today. Took a long walk.

I really like Lady Gaga.

Oh my lord, was today Mardi Gras? So much news today I never heard a mention of it. Plus, I turned off both radio and tv in the afternoon, didn’t watch SOTU or anything. Read a book (and watched Castle re-runs at the same time)

San Antonio’s Mardi Gras parade was Saturday, I think.

i’m waiting for a sunny day to take a walk. am still waiting — not sure if that is a good thing or not…

tonight is fat tuesday

What is happening with Gaga lately? She was everywhere for a while, now have not seen her in ages.

Do they have to do a water consumption, enviro impact study and all that to get permits? Is it “affordable,” rent controlled housing in order to get the tax breaks? I’ve seen those kind of developments and the construction standards didn’t make it appear the buildings would even stand for 20 years.

What does that do to your established neighborhood? Doesn’t sound good from your perspective tonight. Our zoning has spots for that. They are stuffing a bunch of four-plexes in my old neighborhood and out of town project owners will be pulling big money out of circulation from the local vicinity in rents.

Nah, couldn’t tell the pipe was leaking because it was under the living room which is a slab. Interestingly, the water pressure didn’t drop at all.

Even more interesting, even gushing at 1000 gallons a day, it was only costing about $2 a day (I figure at most it had been leaking 20 days), so it only added $40 to the bill. I’ve known people who had their water mains break and they didn’t discover it until a 1k bill showed up. So, I’m tickled to death the utility company noticed and notified me immediately and then followed the door tag up with a postcard.

Least caffeine for this time of the morning. I will get a few more hours of sleep in a bit.

she’s gotta injury and has postponed some shows

what a lucky break … so to speak. in ca that wudda costs ya $$$

Fortunately, we have a septic tank so only pay for water in one direction and since it’s a public utility, rates aren’t inflated. We even had a 9% electric rate reduction last year.

They even showed up at 9 pm on a Sunday, when I got the big idea to change the washers in an outside spigot, and forgot to turn off the water main, and couldn’t get it to turn after the fact, for free.

That’s right. And, at Mardi Gras they say, ” the phatter the better “. Or, laissez les temps, rouler. All night long!

Hey, Elliot!

i love having a public utility for electricity. i pay a whole lot less than i expected to… on the other hand, i pay for water what i expected for electricity and visa versa so i guess it balances out

hey wynota — how ya doing tonight?

hey loohoo — how’s socal tonight?

Your water bill is that high? Jaysus. Mine is normally all of 10 bucks, which, I think for conservation purposes, should be much higher. There is no reason to conserve, on the other hand, things like irrigating the lawn are really noticeable, so maybe it has the same effect.

I like your emphasis on public utility.

I assumed most water utilities were still public, but maybe I’m wrong.

Back when Texas encouraged towns to sell/privatize electric utilities San Antonio chose not to, and maintains City Public Service as city-owned.
And our rates are the lowest in the state, I believe.

Public utilities are a good thing.

pay $80 every two months to the town to cover the sewer…. water is expensive up here. my bill including sewer is about $135/every two months and in teh summer with no ac i was paying $25/month for electric. even with electric heat i’ve not had an electric bill go above $100 this winter.

in the sf bay area of ca it was not unusual to have a $200/month gas and electric bill in the winter. thank goodness i didn’t have ac or it wudda been that in the summer too

Amen, I’ll send your comment to the Walker (wrecking) crew who passed legislation to give him the power to sell off public utilities in no-bid contracts last year. I’m not sure he has actually done that yet. Kochs will likely be getting their payback for campaign investments eventually.

in ca pg&e is not a public utility but is ‘regulated’ by the state. that’s why their gas pipes blow up — there is no regulation left anymore. its all about how much $$$ can they make now and to hell with any consequences

Private well water, private septic that just passed county inspection as working properly. Electric plus propane for hot water and heat totals maybe $110 month/average. Haven’t needed AC, furnace for winter heat is fairly efficient.

Edit: Propane is private companies but their are 4 that compete for rural bulk tank deliveries. I can lock in a price in August with a small down payment that gets me through each heating season with no surprises. State public service commission sets electric rates in a few different regions around the state. Reasonable so far.

Anytime friends and I are talking utilities, I emphasize our public utility. And tell me why privatization is such a good thing?

the only thing privatization is good for is the private company’s bottom line

Wow, your bill is inverted. I thought the PNW had tons of water.

I’d probably have heart failure if my electric bill was only $25. One reason I ignored my utility’s first notice about my higher than normal water usage is because when I accessed my account online it was saying, what I thought was electric and water combined was $90. That would be a low. Turns out that was only electric, so it took me 4 more days to realize the water was high, when the combined bill showed up online.

You know it.

Good luck.If I still thought any of those folks cared about the effect of privatization (or anything else) I’d be pleased to gather info for you to send ‘em.
But I no longer believe they care at all; it’s all about keeping the power, which requires fund-raising, which requires doing the bidding of the donors. So they don’t care about constituents’ well-being at all.

Heard an interview with a Democrat who was part of the post-Watergate class in the ’70′s in the House (crap, I’ve forgotten what state) left some years ago and ran again last year and was elected. He sounded shocked at how different things are, first of all, how much less they work. From full work days 50 weeks a year, he says now it’s only 2 or 3 days a week, 30 or 32 weeks a year, and instead of spending the day in committee work or in session, they start around 6:00 in the evening!

He attributed some of the hostility and willingness to dig in to the fact that they don’t work in committees with members from the other side, and therefore getting to know them and develop some respect for each other.

I figured that also explains some of the appalling ignorance and failure to learn about bills, attend briefings (say, on Benghazi), etc., etc. They aren’t working or learning about the subjects they vote on, they’re spending all that time fund-raising.

It’s really depressing. And crap like Barbara’s council pulled, which Wisconsin’s legislature has been modeling since 2010, is just becoming the regular thing. Pretty soon it won’t even produce outrage.

Sigh. I should go to bed before I really depress myself; it’s pretty late. If it’s sunny tomorrow think I’ll go out and bask in it for awhile to cheer up. Sorry to be such a downer.

tis good water too…. fairly new facility. its the sewer that is costing so much… guess the city has had to redo a lotta sewer pipes etc. the costs get passed on

I do hope that was a rhetorical question! I used to actually think maybe some privatization might be a good idea, but now I’m convinced it’s just terrible in all circumstances.

Back when the privatization movement began, it was sold as not only more efficient, but money-saving for the government entity. We now have the proof that that is not true; pretty much always turns out more expensive, with all kinds of incentives for corruption.

not a downer. its fucked — at least we know why we are getting fucked

we do not matter to them at all. its all about the benjamins they can get from their corporate masters.

Ah well, it’s been lovely chatting with y’all, but I’d better really head off to bed. Sleep well, everyone.

On a related note, Daniel Ellsberg stated on a DN piece last week, I think it was last week, that he didn’t even know if he could withstand the current corruption levels in the government. In other words, it’s so bad even he would be corruptible. That says a lot.

g’nite tejan

Before I say good night, from a well informed WI blogger at Badger Democracy, here’s what we are fighting.

A final quote before sign-off…a warning shot across the bow of our fragile democracy:

When democracy granted democratic methods to us in times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we…never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that we used the democratic methods only to gain power, and that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any consideration the means which were granted to us in times of our opposition.

No, that was not from a Walker secret conversation with Robin Vos.

It was Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, 1935 propaganda pamphlet, quoted in Vol. I “Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression,” US Government Printing Office 1946

Vigilance. Always vigilance.

Say goodnight nonqui, “good night nonqui.”

Thanks Suzanne, glad to be able to stop by with you all.

Oh definitely rhetorical question, which is why I always emphasize public utility.

g’nite nonq

token’s giving me the LQQK that means either he goes out now or i have to get a new rug. guess i had better let him go save a blade of grass.

thanks for letting me hang out with ya tonight. g’nite all

Goodnite all!!!!

Suz, put your teeth in first ;)

Your local laws must require notice to abutters and any notice given would have been nullified by the email.

If this is important to you and you have any time and energy to devote to it at all, you should be able to overturn this ruling.