Archive for September, 2006

Swedish voters have ditched the governing Social Democratic Party in favor of a coalition of four center-right parties. The latter snagged 48.1% of the votes, while the Social Democrats and its two supporting parties (Greens and Communists) managed 46.2% of the vote. All other parties combined for 5.7% of the vote, but none of them [...]

Adam links to a Boston Globe story on rats invading Back Bay, but guess what? Boston University’s student newspaper The Daily Free Press scooped the broadsheet on this one. Here’s from the paper’s report yesterday from a city council meeting where the rats apparently figured prominently: “We have community members who have lived here for [...]

Your team isn’t likely to ever get shafted as badly as Brazilian team Atletico Sorocaba got shafted by refree Silvia Regina de Oliveira in a match against Santacruzense. A Santacruzense player kicked the ball wide of the goal, but then a ballboy, for whatever reason, leisurely kicked the ball into the goal – and Slivia [...]

Swedish daily Aftonbladet reports a drunk 18-year old was arrested inside the U.S. embassy’s fence. The man was reportedly trying to dig a hole in the dig ground to hide in when police arrived. The report doesn’t mention whether he was armed, but I’m guessing he wasn’t. Drunk kids are the pride of Sweden! Link [...]

The New England Patriots’ search for a new touchdown song is over, and the winners are U2′s elevation and the 1812 Overture. Patriots.com announces that “fan reaction to BOTH of these songs was phenomenal when they were played at the two pre-season games.” Maybe they just reacted phenomenally to New England scoring touchdowns?

The New England Patriots 19-17 victory over the visiting Buffalo Bills in both teams’ regular season-opener at Gillette was neither pretty nor acheived with much efficiency. Patriots fell behind on the first play from scrimmage when quarterback Tom Brady was blind-sided by a blitzing Takeo Spikes whose hit jarred the ball lose. Buffalo’s London Fletcher [...]

Vice President Dick Cheney visited Boston today to attend the birthday party for a Republican fundraiser at the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue. As I walked down Beacon Street on my way home from work I noticed that traffic was backed up in every which direction, as police blocked off access to Storrow Drive. The [...]

Ireland’s opposition Fine Gale/Labor Rainbow Coalition wants to get rid of the Garda Inspectorate, the Irish police quality-assurance commission headed by former Boston police chief Kathleen O’Toole: Senior sources in both parties have confirmed that they intend to remove policing strategy from the Department of Justice, following five damning reports on garda behaviour published by [...]

Boston’s bi-lingual Chinese-American bi-weekly newspaper Sampan has a timely story on Asians gambling at the tribal casinos in Connecticut and how those casinos aggressively market themselves to Boston-area Aisans. The upshot is of course that plenty of Asian-Massachusettsians become addicted to casino gambling. It’s just another reason for why we should open a casino in [...]

Richard Gilman will resign from his position as The Boston Globe’s publisher on September 12. He will be raplaced by Steve Ainsley, currently the head of New York Times Co. Regional Media Group. Mr. Gilman at least partly failed to navigate a very tough business environment for the Globe, marked by decreased circulation, a no-growth [...]