Is Direct Air in operation out of Worcester now? Have any flights actually arrived or departed? I can't get a hold of anyone from Direct Air and I have a scheduled flight tomorrow from Worcester @ 5:15 pm which I'm trying to confirm.

One of Worcesters City Councilors just contacted me via direct message on Twitter. While that may not sound very impressive to people who live online, it’s a giant leap forward for constituent relations on a local level. Councilor, video of you kicking puppies could show up on youtube between now and next November and you [...]

It takes alot of guts to talk about one tax rate for commercial and residential, but it needs to be done. The question is will the other city councilors work with him or attack him for not being for the "lowest residential tax rate". Although I hope the former, I predict it will be the later.

Better yet where is:

1. Destination Worcester
2. Chamber of Commerce
3. Choose Worcester
4. Prominent Commercial Property owners

The first DirectAir flight out of Punta Gorda, Florida will be arriving at the Worcester Regional Airport tomorrow morning.

This article talks about Direct Air's commencement of operations for Punta Gorda. It says that the first flight from there to Worcester will leave the Charlotte County Airport at 7 am tomorrow. According to the DirectAir website timetable page, the flight should arrive in Worcester at 9:50 am.

Watch this video in full!!

Sarah Palin "pardons" a lone turkey for Thanksgiving on a farm in Wasilla as then stands outside and gives a 3 minute interview directly in front of a worker sytematically killing the birds not 20 feet behind her.

And listen to her speak thoughout this video, she reads a horrbile proclaimation, and then rambles for another 3 minutes. Thanks goodness she is back in Alaska!

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone that came out for the 4rilla/Real Worcester blogger meetup at the Worcester Sharks
game! We all got to see a Sharks comeback win in a game that had a couple fights, a borderline dirty hit on Kyle McLaren and 2 periods of heckling the Admirals goalie!

After reading about this guy
today who invited 600 people to a party via Facebook and had 1 person show up has me feeling even better about last night's impromptu affair. I heard there were a couple folks in attendance last night who had never been to a hockey game, let alone a Shark's game so that is pretty cool. The folks over at
Train Stopping
seemed to enjoy themselves. And thanks to:

Real Worcester
My 5 Senses
Punkystyle
Linnea Loves
Fujichia
Ms. C
Third Floor Dweller
for making it out as well!

After an article in the T&G showed up on Tuesday, a post at No Drumlins appeared, questioning whether the reporter at the T&G might have some conflict of interest.

It got even more interesting yesterday.

Today is Rep (D) James P. McGovern's birthday. He's 49 years old today. Jim shares his birthday with Sean Young, Bo Derek, Joe Walsh, Duane Allman, Norman Greenbaum, Dick Smothers, Jim Garrison, Joe Biden (VP-elect), Alistair Cooke, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edwin Hubble.

Word is since the Presidential election loss, Sarah Palin has gotten
back to her routine of running.

Since there are alot of folks who are trying to pin the "L" on Palin,
to which there is an online petition, started by Erick Erickson of
redstate.com aptly titled "Operation Leper", Palin has been spotted
running the streets of Wasilla, Alaska.

Check out Palin getting her RNC-sponsored sneaker shopping spree in
New Hampshire.

(Photo courtesy of Shealah Craighead & Newsweek)

In many cases, police have insisted that you're violating the wiretap laws if you videotape them in public, while they are in uniform.

Well, I suppose they can insist all they want, but it can get expensive.

.
"Once upon a time, live music reigned supreme in Worcester."

- Janice Harvey in WoMag

(There's actually a lot more live music here in town these days than there ever was in the 60's, 70's, 80's OR the 90's.)
.

A perplexing incongruity from Strange Maps:

Andrew Sullivan has discovered the legal underpinnings for arguing in favor of setting the secular law to deny homosexuals in California the right to get married.

Nice to see how they'll actually use the money.

Nice to see how they'll actually use the money.

Mexico's top Interpol representative was arrested Sunday.

More than 4300 are dead so far this year in the Mexican drug war, more than the official US count of servicemen killed during the entire Iraq War. This is all happening right across our border. And for what? They're fighting over agricultural products that, because they are declared illegal here in the United States, are worth a whole helluva lot more than they would be if they were legal.

"There's no easy solution to it unless you put an end to the criminalization of drugs, and that's not going to happen," said Robert Pastor, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter and now a professor of international relations at American University in Washington. He has been studying Latin America for more than four decades.

Sadly, Mr. Pastor speaks the truth when he says that putting an end to the criminalization of drugs isn't going to happen.

It won't happen because too many powerful interests are making too much money.

Heh.

I'm glad to see that Dianne Williamson was willing to find out what's going on with Don.

I used to be acquainted with Don Davison, the Shrewsbury school bus driver who's been vilified for "reckless endangerment of a child" over the past several days. Actually, I haven't had any slightest contact with him for years, but he was one of the older crop of kids that I grew up with in Grafton. He's five years older than me, so it isn't like I hung out with him. But his family were members of the same church my family went to. I had plenty of interactions with him, none of which I could have ever characterized as negative. I knew his younger sister and brother. I knew his Mom and Dad.

They were and are, everyone in that family, good people.

Frankly, I can't believe that the local press is so starved for content that a story such as this could even merit the ink that was used to print it before the rest of the story, as Dianne has now revealed, makes it such a non-event.

Unfortunately for Don, it all had to happen in a town where all the children are perfect, and about whom there could be no question.

An article in the Herald today rambles on about the potential sale of NYT assets here in Massachusetts. It goes at the subject from the angle of "who will save" the Globe, something that doesn't seem likely to me. It doesn't seem likely because I can hardly imagine Arthur Sulzberger Jr. buying high and selling low...

The Globe and the T&G were purchased by NYT in 1996. They got the Globe for $1.1 billion, and they got the T&G for $296 million. In 2003, the New England Media Group was formed, which includes the Globe, T&G, and Boston.com. (It may have other assets, but I'm too lazy to keep searching.) Since January 2007, the value of the NEMG has dropped by $980 million. That decrease would, proportionately, put the T&G's value down to around $88 million at that point. But I suspect that it's much worse than that now.

The really painful thing about this is that the prospect of NYT selling assets would be based on how much it could raise to pay off debt. The debt could not be discharged by selling the T&G, that's for sure! The entire NEMG probably isn't enough, either. So, ultimately, the article settles on NYT's 17% piece of the Red Sox as the carrot on the stick that might do the trick... and the NEMG would be tossed in, just to get rid of the constant red ink.

It's a somewhat ugly situation, isn't it?

The question really isn't "who will save" either the Globe or the T&G, though. The question should be, "What are all those talented reporters and columnists doing to prepare for the inevitable?"

I really don't think they get it. I'd be willing to bet that most of them are still spending more than they make every month. Yet, over the past few years of staff cuts and chronic attrition, I suspect that even the ones no longer there could've pooled their resources and started their own local daily, well before the axe fell on them.

Sadly, all those talented people have simply been demonstrating, one after another, how the frog gets boiled. Really. It ain't the damn banner that needs "saving", it's the writing talent and the reportage.

With Joe Lieberman holding onto his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair, it should be noted by those of us out here in the weeds that the differences between Democrats and Republicans in Washington D.C. is practically nonexistent, when compared to the blind partisan loyalties in the public... that those politicians play to every election.