Tuesday Night Links

I've had a busy week at work and at home, so I've once again been on a too-light posting schedule lately. Here are a couple of things that I've come across that are worth passing along, but I haven't had the chance to write a full post on.

• Congressman Barney Frank (D-Newton) leads the pack in number of trips paid for by private entities with 84 trips at a total cost of over $100k. The prize for the costliest travel, however, goes to the former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) at nearly $221k. When ranked by cost, Frank isn't even in the top 50 (via Political Wire)
• Below Boston reminds us of the previous remarks of Senator David Vitter (R-LA), frequenter of brothels, in which the Senator trashed "Massachusetts Values" at the same time he was seeing prostitutes.
• Tomorrow, July 11, Governor Deval Patrick is hosting a Volunteer Expo in the Great Hall at the State House from 11AM to 2PM. Just once, I'd like to see them schedule these sorts of things at times people who work for a living can make it. In any event, they're supposed to be holding more of these around the state in the coming months.
• Governor Patrick's Insurance Commissioner is reportedly considering deregulating the auto insurance rate-setting process even as insurers ask for lower premiums. This seems counterintuitive to me. If rates are going down for everyone under the current system, why guarantee that they will go up for some people by deregulating? It would make more sense, I would think, to push for deregulation in a time of increasing premiums to give some drivers a break on rates.
• Former Green-Rainbow Party gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross is now seeing an at-large Worcester City Council seat. It will be tough, despite the name recognition she gained from last year's run since all of the incumbents are currently still running. She'd have to knock one of them off. If she does, though, she could find herself Mayor of the city and the highest ranking Green-Rainbow elected official in Massachusetts.
• The Boston Globe had more examples of why the telecom property tax exemption is bad policy. Telecoms have been abusing the law since a 2005 SJC case decided that telecommunications companies that were organized as limited Liability companies were exempt from taxes on polls, wires and other property. After reorganizing, Verizon Wireless' tax bill in Boston went from $3 million in 2004 to $8,984 in 2005. In Newton, their bill went from $118,000 to just $296.15.

Saturday Evening Links

• Another candidate has surfaced in the race to replace state Senator Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) as he's slated to leave the legislature next week. The Cambridge Chronicle reports that Jeff Ross has announced his intention to run. Ross once worked with California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and founded the Brockton Civil Rights Task Force to address social justice issues.
• No sooner did yesterday's Boston Globe say that localities were lobbying for power to levy meals taxes, did I get a letter from the mayor of Revere, Thomas Ambrosino, who also serves as chair of the Metropolitan Mayors' Coalition urging me to take action in favor of the Municipal Partnership Act, part of which would do just that. As I've said before, I'm not sure that meals taxes are a good fit for Watertown, but that doesn't mean that I think I should have any say over whether Revere (or Cambridge, or Boston, or Nantucket, etc) should be able to enact them.
• Also in yesterday's Globe, Ellen Goodman had a great column responding to the alarmist claim that Massachusets would turn into the gay Las Vegas if the 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying were repealed. The short version -- even if it did, good! If you missed it, it's well worth a read.
• State Rep Rachel Kaprielian (D-Watertown) -- a friend of the blog -- had a good week last week. Not only did the bill she filed that would allow municipalities enter into the state's health insurance plan pass the House, but she was also named legislator of the year by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
• Just down the street from the .08 Acre homestead, the Watertown Fire Department dedicated a flagpole to the memory of the late Fire Chief Robert O'Reilly, who passed away last year. Here are my pictures from the dedication ceremony. Ed O'Reilly, a former Watertown firefighter himself and one of Chief O'Reilly's sons, was there. He has announced he's running against Senator John Kerry in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Sunday Night Links

We had a house full of company this weekend, and so this is the first chance I've gotten to post anything since Friday, and I apologize for the light content this week. Of course, every time I go a few days without posting, I have to clear off my desktop with another link dump.

• State Senator Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) has submitted his resignation letter and the dates for the special election have been set. The primary will be on Sept. 11th and the general election will be Oct. 9th. So no one has officially announced their candidacy, but many people have expressed interest. Look for more on this race as the summer progresses.
• If you still think that opponents of marriage equality have nothing in common with those that were against interracial marriage last century, please read this and see if it changes your mind.
• Last week Boston Mayor Tom Menino delivered a letter signed by 260 restauranteurs in support of the proposal to allow cities and towns to raise their own meals tax. The mayor has been getting unlikely support from the Boston restaurant owners, telling them that the money the city gets from the meals tax would go toward helping reduce the property tax.
• Governor Deval Patrick told a tourism group this past week that, if they want to encourage tourism, they should make sure the state promotes a welcoming attitude. With a house full of vistors this weekend, I say the easiest way to do this is to put up street signs at intersections that show the names of both streets. I've always thought that our failure to do this in Massachusetts was our way of saying, "if you don't know where you are, you don't belong here."
• David Bernstein has an interesting article in this week's Boston Phoenix on the fight to keep the anti-marriage ballot question off the ballot. What does it say, he asks, if the most powerful people on Beacon Hill -- the Governor, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, and the Attorney General -- all want something, but can't get it accomplished? Why don't they "have the juice?" The article also gives as much detail as anyone outside Beacon Hill has on the efforts to sway legislators into voting against the ban, and concludes wondering where former Governor Mitt Romney has been.
• In Mississippi, almost every 4th grader can read, but in Massachusetts only half can. Why? Because some states are gaming the No Child Left Behind tests, a study found last week. Massachusetts, it turns out, is not one of them. We have one of the smallest gaps between state assessments and national tests.
• Last week, lawmakers held a hearing to have the state bail the MBTA out of $2.9 billion of it's $5.1 billion debt. That of course, led to cries that we shouldn't be giving state money to the T until it gets its own fiscal house in order and we can be sure that that money wouldn't be wasted. The problem is that even if you eliminated all of the T's mismanagement and waste, of which there is apparently no shortage, the T would still be in debt -- the T pays as much in debt service as it actually collects in fares. You could shut down all the trains completely, but the T would still have to find some way to pay off its obligations. Is the best way to handle the situation to let the state give the agency a fresh start? I'm not sure, but it's clear that the way we fund the T is broken, and that's one big reason why we're stuck with the system that seemingly keeps getting worse and more expensive every year.

Tuesday Night Links

I didn't have a lot of time this morning, and I didn't have a lot of time this evening. So, you loyal readers get another link dump.

• Check out Lynne's summary of Monday's fifth district candidate's debate sponsored by the Mass AFL/CIO. Marie Sweeney also has her impressions of the forum on Dick Howe's blog.
• Last week the Wall Street Journal profiled the Health Care Connector Board. Why is it that the out-of-town papers do this sort of thing and the local media don't?
• House Majority leader paid his ex-business partner almost $200k to manage two uncontested (or nearly uncontested) elections. Nice work if you can get it...
• The Revere Journal has Carlo Basil running for Anthony Petruccelli's statehouse seat after Petruccelli inevitably wins the uncontested election in former Senate President Robert Travaglini's district. I don't know anything about Basil, but he's the only potential candidate I've seen discussed at all for the East Boston House district.
• Senator Barack Obama knows what's really important.
• Only in the world of the Boston Herald is Legislators Who Live Furthest Away Collect Most Travel Compensation a news story.
• In another setback for Hess LNG and Weaver's Cove Energy, the state Department of Environmental Protection has halted the review of the proposed Fall River LNG plant, pending a positive determination by the Coast Guard later in the summer. Given what the Coast Guard said last month, the LNG proposal may finally be defeated.

Wednesday Morning Links

Not much time this morning, but here are a few items worth pointing out:

• I spent about 45 minutes on yesterday's Left Ahead! podcast talking about the MA-05 race. Give it a listen. I magically appear around the halfway point and pretend to be an expert.
• After reading this comment at BMG asking what would happen if "Joe Sixpack ever puts his entertainment interest into politics?", I was reminded of this Washington Post piece by William Arkin lamenting that War reporting was not enough like sports reporting. "[T]here are more reporters covering the Sox, just one baseball team, than cover the Pentagon."
• Is former Governor Mitt Romney's campaign surging? Not so fast! says a recent ARG poll.
• Somehow, Governor Deval Patrick managed to give the commencement address at his daughter's high school without completely embarrassing her. As a new parent myself, I'm not sure how he resisted!
• Seth Geitel has a strange article in Boston Magazine (via David Bernstein and BMG) telling supporters of the Governor to not be so concerned that he's hired insiders, because insiders know how to get things done. Who exactly is he writing to? A couple disgruntled bloggers? From my conversations with fellow supporters, I haven't talked to anyone who's unhappy with the shakeup of his senior staff, and in fact I had more conversations when he first hired his "outsider" team with people who didn't think it was such a great move Frankly, I've heard more complaints about Patrick hiring so-called insiders from his political opponents than from his grassroots supporters.

Wednesday Morning Links

I don't have a whole lot of time this morning, so here are a few articles I found interesting this morning:

• In the Boston Herald, Brett Arends has a column about his conversation with Congressman Ed Markey (D-Malden) on energy independence. The Congressman notes that "If we improve fuel economy from 25 mpg to 35 mpg over the next 10 years, that backs out the equivalent of all the oil we import from the Persian Gulf."
• Also in the Herald is Margery Eagan's column about Diane Patrick's triumphant return to the spotlight.
• In the Boston Globe, Senator John Kerry has a piece on the Healthy Businesses, Healthy Workers Reinsurance Act he plans to introduce this week. The bill would reimburse companies for their health insurance costs for the most chronically ill employees, thereby driving down their expenses. His prediction is that health insurance premiums would go down 10% for everybody under his plan>
• Ever wonder what Mitt Romney's favorite novel is? Frankly, I'm more surprised that it's not one of the Left Behind novels, than the fact that it's by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology (via Universal Hub).

Privacy and Public Information

Before the Deval Patrick campaign's inadvertent creation of a searchable statewide voter registration database, someone else caused controversy for posting public information on the Internet. Author and journalist Stephen J. Dubner noted yesterday a Roanoke, VA reporter who received death threats after publishing a database that contained the names and addresses of citizens in the region who had received a concealed handgun permit earlier this month. He did it half as a public service -- saying in part that "parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box" -- and half as an exercise to show how much of a hassle it is to get information from the government.

Needless to say, gun owners complained that this was a breach of their privacy, possibly put people on the list in danger, and the newspaper took the database down. In response to the hubbub, Dubner wrote:

This raises an interesting conundrum for journalists, bloggers, and anyone else who has access to public records — which, these days, is pretty much anyone with a computer: At what point does the aggregation and dissemination of public records cross the line into a violation of privacy? For instance, the real-estate sales data that Chad Syverson and Steve Levitt analyzed in their paper about agents’ misaligned incentives was derived from public records; but real-estate agents strongly objected to the accumulation of all these data.

That is a discussion we sort of had here in Massachusetts over the past few days. At what point does the government's duty to give us access to information end and the individual's right to privacy begin? Why is it so important to have some small barrier to get this information -- even one that would certainly not deter someone determined to use it for unsavory purposes? The drive to town hall or the fee one would have to pay to get public records seems to be like a security blanket; for some reason it makes us feel better, even if it doesn't keep the monsters away.

My personal feeling, as I mentioned previously is that public records should be public. That means, yes, they should be on the Internet so that people who can't make it down to stand in line at City Hall during business hours can still have access to information. Of course, with regard to voter rolls, the risk would be to disenfranchise those who would rather keep their false sense of security. That does not seem to be worth the benefit.

By the way, if you have not read Freakonomics, which was co-authored by Dubner, and you are the kind of person who is fascinated by data, like I am, you're missing out on a fun read.

Evening Tidbits

• I got polled by SUSA on the gubernatorial primary this afternoon at work. It was a recording of Joe Shortsleeve (favorite newscaster name ever, by the way), who read off the questions, and asked for push-button responses. I imagine the poll results will come out in the next few days.
• I got a call today from a source saying that Treasurer Tim Cahill is endorsing Deval Patrick for Governor. From the sound of it, Cahill is also going to be offering the Patrick campaign some logistical support, so while the endorsement may not matter much in terms of publicity, it might help get people on the phone for Deval in the next week.
• Lambda, the Harvard Law GLBT organization, is co-sponsoring a debate between the democratic candidates for governor tomorrow, September 12 from 1:45 pm to 3:00 pm in Ames Courtroom. The debate is free, open to the public and will focus on LGBT issues, though there will be no public Q&A at the end. Both Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli have confirmed their attendance.

Monday Morning Catch-Up

Sorry for the absence this past week, but I felt like I needed a little blog vacation to go with my real-world vacation. I have recovered from the numerous needle-stick injuries I received in New York, and just wanted to quickly point out some things that I didn't get a chance to last week.

• Monitor Profiles Mihos' Ad Man: The Christian Science Monitor had a profile of Bill Hillsman last week. Hillsman is doing ads not only for independent gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos, but also is working for underdog candidates like Kinky Friedman in Texas and Ned Lamont in Connecticut. He's won awards for the work he did on successful campaigns in Minnesota, particularly the election of the late Senator Paul Wellstone and wrestler-turned-Governor Jesse Ventura.


• Mihos Comes to town: Speaking of Christy Mihos, he was in Watertown recently, just a short walk from the .08 Acre homestead, working the Greek festival for votes. The Globe notes that reaction to Mihos here in Tom Reilly's hometown was mixed.


• Dunklebarger vs. Lynch: Last weeks Phoenix had the first in-depth story I've seen on Phil Dunklebarger's primary challenge to Steve Lynch in the Ninth Congressional district. The article notes that Dunklebarger blames lack of media coverage of the race for the fact that few people know about his candidacy. These days, though, it's never been easier for candidates to make their own media coverage. If the TV stations won't cover your stump speech, record it yourself, slap it up on the Internet (Youtube will do it for free, even!) and email it to your supporters, bloggers and reporters. Post it to sites like Universal Hub and Blue Mass. Group. An Internet buzz might not reach everyone in the ninth, but it may cause more traditional media outlets to start paying attention.


• Question of the Day: Can Kerry Healey point to a single instance where she influenced Mitt Romney's decision to veto or not veto anything? The Herald's Wayne Woodlief noted last week that the Lieutenant Governor has yet to demonstrate her political independence from Mitt. What struck me about that column, though, was how Healey refused to comment on whether or not she 'counseled' the governor to refrain from vetoing money in the budget for a work-force training program. Healey said she wouldn't have vetoed it, but when reporter Janet Wu asked her if she gave her opinion to the governor, Healey declined to answer. (via Kerry Healey -- Out of Touch)


• Play Nice or Else!: The Mass Dems have created a watchdog panel to monitor their candidates for negative campaign ads as the primary season heats up. Candidates Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli are withholding their judgment, but a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Reilly noted that this was something he'd expect from a "good government group" and not a state party. Personally, I'd like the Democratic party to stand for good government, but that's another issue. The problem, of course, is figuring out exactly what constitutes a negative ad, which is why this effort could devolve into typical intraparty bickering. I'm hopeful, though, that candidates will eschew negative advertising. While it does often work, it does so by driving down turnout. The Democrats cannot afford to have more people sitting at home during this year's election, and if we can get people out in September, we're more likely to keep them in November.


• State GOP Losing Dough: The Herald reports today that the Mass GOP spent $50,648.84 more than it took in this past quarter. During the same period, the state Democrats netted $397,438.90. Of course, this won't matter for the gubernatorial race, which will be funded on the Republican side by AMG, but it shows how little support Republican legislative candidates can expect from their state party.

Friday Sampler

Another Friday, another list of things that I didn't get a chance to point out over the past week.

• Perfectly Legal: The Globe reports today that Independent Gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos used a perfectly legal scheme to avoid sales and excise taxes on his 36-foot yacht. Mihos had his lawyer create a corporation in Rhode Island, where there is no sales tax on yachts, which bought the vessel. If you've read Perfectly Legal by David Kay Johnston, you know that this sort of thing goes on all the time and the super rich have ways of avoiding taxes that are not accessible to your average person.


• Star Profiles Sullivan: Speaking of Mihos, the Winchester Star this week profiles local boy John Sullivan, Mihos' hand-picked running mate and Winchester Town Moderator. If you know nothing about this guy, which is probably everyone other than Dan Kennedy, it's a decent enough introduction.


• Lynch on North-South Rail Link: Congressman Stephen Lynch along with Massachusetts Sierra Club Director James McCaffery wrote an Op-Ed in Wednesday's Globe in support of linking North Station and South Station by rail. The project, they estimate will cost $5.7 billion, but that figure, I understand includes enhancements not related to digging the mile long tunnel -- electrification of existing track, for example. The idea is a good one, and would finally create an uninterrupted transit line from Maine down to Florida, and being a regional project, the state would have help with funding. That said, I think area residents just will not have an appetite for large-scale transit projects any more, no matter how much sense they make. We're going to need a few years to forget about the Big Dig before anyone has the stomach for another tunnel under the city.


• Half-Time Governor: The year is about half over and Governor Mitt Romney has spent half of it out-of-state. Channel 5 crunched the numbers and found that in the first five months of 2006, "Romney has been on the road part or all of the day for 75 of the 151 days" -- just shy of 50%.


• Second Suffolk Write-In Primary: Be sure to check out last Sunday's Globe article on the Second Suffolk senate race where incumbent Senator Diane Wilkerson failed to get enough signatures to appear on the primary ballot and is now fighting off challenges from activist Sonia Chang-Diaz and Republican candidate Samiyah Diaz who are all trying to win the Democratic primary as write-ins. I wouldn't count out Wilkerson, but when no one's name appears on the ballot, anything can happen.


• 100 Grand for Watertown Square: The folks over at the Globe's blog suggested we look through the $700 million supplemental spending bill (PDF). Our share of it: $100,000 for the repairs and renovation of the Charles river landing at Watertown square. Does anyone know any more details about the renovation?

What's on your mind?

Punditry Roundup

First, on Sunday Joan Vennochi compared Deval Patrick to Howard Dean. It's a comparison I made just last week. What Vennochi leaves out in her parallel is that both candidates are seen as more liberal than they are by virtue of their supporters. Both are liberal-by-association more than anything else -- Dean was pilloried in Vermont by environmental groups, and Patrick spent most of his career as a corporate lawyer.

The Herald's Margery Egan has a very flattering column today on Patrick. Egan asks of Patrick, "What does he offer your semi-employed middle-aged guy in Waltham? Defeat of cynicism?" and then answers her question in the very next paragraph:

If I were Deval, I'd become Mr. Property Tax Relief Man, something he says he's working on.

Patrick, to me, is the only sane person talking about property tax relief. He needs to talk more about that and contrast his plan to increase local aid with Christy Mihos' scheme. Also, note the quote at the end of the column from former state Senator George Bachrach who briefly describes our early morning caucus planning sessions at the Watertown diner.

In today's Globe, Scot Lehigh gives some publicity to Patrick's grassroots strategy. He even mentions the community tool, which is the centerpiece of the campaign's Internet-based effort. Lehigh asks whether a strategy that focuses on organization at the local level can win in today's media saturated environment. Personally, I'm willing to give it a try. Democrats certainly haven't won by relying on campaign ads recently.

Last, but not least, Herald Reporter/Blogger Jay Fitzgerald posts part of an email I sent him before the convention in response to his claim that out-of-control moonbats would doom the Democrats' chances this November. I disagreed, but mostly I rejected his premise that Deval Patrick would walk away from this past weekend's convention as the sole remaining candidate.

Friday Roundup

It's been a busy week and unfortunately I've missed some of the things I've wanted to talk about. Here are a couple of things that got left as half-formed posts in the past few days.

• Liveblogging the Labor Forum. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO has posted the liveblog of their candidate's forum yesterday in Falmouth. It is well worth checking out for a better feel for what happened at the event than the Globe article. (Via Political Intelligence)
• Is There Any Way They Can Both Lose? Massport and the Turnpike Authority are sparring over who gets Tobin Bridge tolls. Currently, they go to Massport, but a commission recently recommended that responsibility for the bridge be transfered to the Turnpike Authority. This is, of course, starting a turf war as both agencies really want that toll money.
• Phoenix Demystifies Auto Insurance. This week's Boston Phoenix has an editorial on the auto insurance battles that have been playing out on the airwaves. The Phoenix comes out against Governor Romney's plan to "reform" the Commonwealth's auto insurance industry and ends up admonishing Attorney General Tom Reilly for not going far enough in trying to reduce the rates that Massachusetts drivers pay.
• Sam He Was: Lieutenant Governor candidate Sam Kelley announced yesterday that he is dropping out of the race for the number two spot. This comes the very day he was to face the tough questions from the Watertown Democratic Town Committee. He claims that it was because he was having trouble getting enough certified signatures but we know better.
• Weld Loses NY Conservatives. In New York, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld has lost the Conservative Party's nomination to fellow Republican John Faso. No statewide Republican candidate in New York has won without Conservative backing since 1974. (via Political Wire)

As always, consider this an open thread, and enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend!

Friday Combination Platter

Sorry for the light posting this week. I feel like I'm still catching up from my vacation and I've got a million things I should be doing. In any case, here are some of the things I didn't have time to talk about this week:

• Overrides on the Rise: The Globe reported this that the number of Proposition 2 1/2 override attempts almost tripled between 2000 and 2005. Cities and towns are being starved of local aid, and that is putting a lot of pressure on their budgets. Without that extra money, the only tool in their toolbox is to raise property taxes. This is why talk of lowering the income tax doesn't make sense to me. It's the wrong tax! Let's handle the property tax crisis first before we potentially cripple the state's ability to help cities and towns.


• Globe: Gabrieli too Boring to be Gov: Yesterday's Boston Globe had this curious article in advance of Chris Gabrieli's announcement. I'm not sure why they felt they had to write a whole article which basically said "some people think Gabrieli is boring" rather than make this a sidebar in the article they knew they would be writing for today. It's almost as if they went out of their way to have a negative article about him on the day he made his run for governor. Anyhow, judge for yourself.


• Patrick Endorsed by DFA: Deval Patrick has been officially endorsed by Democracy for America. The endorsement sites how he "earned the support of DFA members across Massachusetts by empowering people to participate in his campaign and the democratic process" and could bring in donations from out of state, as well as publicity. In other Patrick related news, his campaign has upgraded their blog and is starting to fill it with audio and video content. The Phoenix's Adam Reilly is excited, and I think it has a lot of potential.


• Bloodsucking Vampire, Tom DeLay: I really liked this post from Whitescreek Journal. I'm not even sure how I came across it, but it's really well written and worth checking out.


• Good News for Fish: Mercury levels in fish from Massachusetts lakes and streams are down by as much as 32% in the seven years since tough regulations were put on local incinerators. This is great news because it really shows how changes in the law can really effect the environment, even in the short term. Not only that, but these results prove that local efforts can have a dramatic effect on the local environment, and we can make strides to clean up Massachusetts even if the Federal Government is not interested.


• It Could Be Worse: Even though Congressman Marty Meehan (D-Lowell) wants to hamstring political blogs with campaign finance regulations, it could be a lot worse. In Singapore, they just banned political podcasts in the weeks before an election. (via BoingBoing)

There are also a few other things that I feel I owe larger posts, so look forward to that. It's been another busy political week in Massachusetts. What's on your minds?

Friday Roundup

Last week, I was too busy to do my usual Friday roundup, and to my surprise people actually noticed! Here is my effort to give the people what they want:

• Support Local Bloggers: Voting is open for the 2005 Koufax Awards for excellence in progressive blogging. Our own Blue Mass. Group was nominated for best local blog. If you haven't already, cast your vote for them here by just leaving a comment on that thread.


• Blame Romney?: The National Review asks whether a Healey loss hurts Mitt Romney with his presidential ambitions. Would Republican voters blame Mitt if Democrats take back the corner office? I don't think so. Republicans already think of Massachusetts as a lost cause, despite the fact we've had Republican governors for 16 years now. (via Talking Politics)


• Two Don't Miss Articles: This week's Boston Phoenix has two must-read articles on Kerry Healey. Adam Reilly asks us: should we believe Healey when she says she's a moderate? At present, Massachusetts Republicans are changing their issue stances right and left (mostly right). Witness Governor Romney and former Governor Weld who have both recently moved right as they run for president and NY governor, respectively. David Bernstein wonders why, if Healey is such a great criminologist why she hasn't stopped crime from rising? "Urban crime strategies" was one of her responsibilities as lieutenant governor, yet crime has risen in most of Massachusetts' major cities under her watch. (Via KHooT)


• LNG or Hot Air?: Yesterday's Globe featured an op-ed piece on the proposal to build LNG terminals on Outer Brewster Island. While there are good reasons to oppose the move, let's not pretend that Outer Brewster is a pristine, unspoiled paradise. The island is already home to, among other WW2-era buildings, an abandoned water-desalination plant that makes the island too dangerous for the public.


• Who?: The Boston Globe reported today that Bolton Republican Earle Stroll wants to run for State Auditor against Joseph DeNucci. Is this the first Republican candidate that's announced for a statewide office besides Governor or Lieutenant Governor?


• Anyone Else Get Polled?: Yesterday I got a call from some anonymous 'pollster' asking me who I supported at the convention for governor. They hung up abruptly as soon as I gave my answer which made me wonder which campaign they were working for. Is Gabrieli still trying to find undecideds?

It's been quite a week! What's on your mind?

Friday Link Dump

Once again, I find that it's Friday and I have a big list of things that I want to post about before the weekend. Here are a few of them:

• Romney Still Off National Radar Screen: There was a new WNBC/Marist Poll out this week that showed Governor Mitt Romney getting a whopping 4% of the Republican primary vote. This is up from less than 1% in October. At this rate, he might be able to break double-digits by the end of the year. Good thing he doesn't have a pesky re-election campaign to worry about. (Via Political Wire)


• Leone Under Fire: Middlesex DA candidate Gerry Leone is now getting criticism for raising his profile by talking about the Entwhistle murder case to anyone who'll ask. Why? Because he'd end up prosecuting that very case should he win the DA's seat.


• Astroturf LNG Blog: According to today's Globe, the Coalition for LNG Solutions is not the grassroots effort it claims to be, but is the product of a big PR firm trying to push the proposed terminal on Outer Brewster Island. I had added their blog to my blogroll, but I did wonder who was behind that effort. I still agree with their basic premise -- better Outer Brewster than Everett or New Bedford -- but I don't appreciate the trickery.


• Must Read Articles: First, read Adam Reilly's piece in the Phoenix about how Christy Mihos must distance himself from the state GOP if he wants to win the governorship as an independent. Then read Laura Kiritsy's piece in Bay Windows about, in part, how the state GOP must distance itself from the national GOP if it hopes to win elections. In particular, Kiritsy argues, the state Republicans have been unsuccessful lately as they replace the Weld model (socially liberal/fiscally conservative) in favor of a more socially conservative model -- particularly one that alienates the LGBT community.


• Ban on GOP Adoption: An Ohio state senator introduced legislation to ban Republicans from adopting, and is currently 'looking for cosponsors.' The bill was filed as a tongue-in-cheek retaliation for the ban on gay adoption that is currently being discussed in that state's legislature. (via DailyKos)

Also, I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been completely transfixed by the Olympic curling games. I'd never watched curling at all in my life, or even really knew anything about the game, but NBC has been televising most of the matches over on CNBC and I've found the them completely fascinating. The US men play for bronze today, so here's wishing them good luck.

What else is going on out there?

Friday Desk Clearing

Another Friday, another chance for me to clear my desk of all the things I didn't get a chance to talk about. This was a big Gabrieli week, so most everything else fell by the wayside. Here are a couple things that I came across but never posted until now.

• If you wouldn't vote for Frist...: What are the national Republicans offering Peter Blute to run against Ted Kennedy? It's not money; their goal is to force Kennedy to spend it, not to drain their own resources tilting at windmills. What's in it for Blute? Redemption?


• Three children orphaned after Nonantum Rd. crash: Three Waltham children are trying to get to Korea to be with what remains of their family after their mother was killed in an accident on Nonantum Road last week. The end of the article has a suggestion if you're willing to help them. Just as a reminder, the Romney administration didn't think that road was worth a traffic study.


• Leone rasing his profile: Middlesex DA candidate Gerry Leone was on Greater Boston last night as part of a panel talking about the Entwhistle case. I wonder if the Hopkington prosecutor will use the case as an opportunity to raise his profile or if that was just a one-time appearance.


• Candidates Side by Side: Marry in Massachusetts has a nifty three column chart comparing the positions of gubernatorial candidates Deval Patrick, Kerry Healey and Tom Reilly. If nothing else, it certainly proves that only one candidate has cared enough to put out detailed position papers this early in the game.


• Who Got Shot By Dick Cheney?: Now you too can get shot by Dick Cheney, or at least create a fake CNN.com page that says you did.


• You spent how much?: According to Ad Week, the Bush administration spent $1.4 billion taxpayer dollars on advertising agencies in ju