Pols bet on casino plan at Suffolk

The idea of a casino at Suffolk Downs has some political support. (Item File Photo)

By Thor Jourgensen

The Daily Item

REVERE - State Rep. Joyce Spiliotis thinks building a casino at Suffolk Downs is a good idea if the Legislature can approve casino gambling in September, but a real estate developer has different ideas and wants Massachusetts voters to weigh in on them.

Like Spiliotis, Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino wants a casino at Suffolk Downs if the Legislature acts on gambling.

"We want full-blown expanded gambling. If that could include one competitively bid slot parlor, then let's get it done," Ambrosino said on Thursday.

Gov. Deval Patrick, in broader terms, supports a similar arrangement.

Patrick, according to his spokesman Alex Loftus, supports siting up to three resort casinos in the state and he is willing to support a competitively bid slot parlor.

In a statement released by Loftus quoting remarks Patrick made to radio show host Jim Braude on July 28, the governor said: " ... if it helps get a deal, I will accept one slot parlor that is competitively bid anywhere in the commonwealth."

Spiliotis backs a Suffolk Downs "race casino" combining live horse wagering and casino gambling, but any legislative debate on the topic must include, she said, proposals for minimizing traffic around Revere and Logan International Airport generated by an expanded Suffolk Downs.

"I've heard we are going to do some sort of bill in September," the Peabody Democrat said, adding, "The issue is, can everybody get together?"

Past legislative debates about legalizing gambling in Massachusetts have fallen short, with recent efforts doomed by disagreements between Patrick and legislators about combining casinos with slot parlors or separating the two venues.

Self-described real estate syndicator David Nunes on Thursday said he will wait and see what action legislators take on casinos this fall before he makes a bid to ask Massachusetts voters to weigh in on bringing gambling to the state.

If the Legislature does not act by Nov. 1 on the issue, Nunes said, he will set in motion an effort to collect 68,917 signatures required to place a referendum question on the November 2012 state election ballot.

"I'll spend the dollars on a campaign for this knowing full well that Connecticut neighbors are spending money against me," he said.

Nunes, who said he has assembled real estate deals in Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, wants to see casinos sited in western, central and southeastern Massachusetts.

Nunes, in an electronic mail statement, defined his referendum question as "a petition for a law permitting casino gambling in three locations," including land owned by a federally-recognized Native American tribe; a location near Milford bordering I-495; and another location in Western Massachusetts.

Nunes said he has experience advocating for casino gambling, including a 2004 effort based in Rhode Island. He wants casinos to run 24 hours a day and to be able to serve alcohol around the clock, but his casino plans proposes sending tax payments by casino companies back to Massachusetts communities for tax relief.

"I propose all money that comes into the state goes back to homeowners," he said on Thursday.

American teenager falls 20 feet from a escalator, gets away with a fractured elbow

By Ali Plumb
From: http://www.asylum.co.uk/

Back in May last year, we brought you the video footage of a Turkish toddler who fell off a moving escalator, only to be caught in the nick of time by an eagle-eyed passer-by. But as this clip below proves, there isn't always someone there to catch you...

This time around, the escalator-faller-offer wasn't a tiny wee tot, it was a fully grown man – an 18-year-old boy called Shane O'Malley from Massachusetts, no less – who had gone to a gig nearby before he started larking about on the moving escalator and promptly fell off.

Amazingly, the 20 foot drop only resulted in a fractured elbow, according to his family, but he's also currently complaining of a very sore back – no surprises there then.

But there's one thing we haven't told you about the incident which might explain why it happened – our boy Shane was drunk. Dead drunk. He'd been drinking so much at the concert that he doesn't even remember the incident properly, but he definitely remembers the pain, that's for sure.

Check out the CCTV footage of the incident below, and remember kids, don't drink and ride escalators. No, wait, that's not right, we mean: always hold onto the handrail. There. A good deed done.

Amazingly, the 20 foot drop only resulted in a fractured elbow, according to his family, but he's also currently complaining of a very sore back – no surprises there then.

But there's one thing we haven't told you about the incident which might explain why it happened – our boy Shane was drunk. Dead drunk. He'd been drinking so much at the concert that he doesn't even remember the incident properly, but he definitely remembers the pain, that's for sure.

Check out the CCTV footage of the incident below, and remember kids, don't drink and ride escalators. No, wait, that's not right, we mean: always hold onto the handrail. There. A good deed done.

Big Day For Medical Marijuana in Mass?

by Chris Faraone

0

From : http://thephoenix.com/

It's hard to make stoner jokes about this week's hearing for House Bill 625 (and corresponding Senate Bill 1161), which would “regulate the medical use of marijuana by patients approved by physicians and certified by the department of public health.” Sure some token pot smokers were on hand at the Massachusetts Statehouse, sporting homemade jewelry and Rasta head wraps for their testimonies before the Joint Committee on Public Health. But the pachouli stench was overpowered by compelling words from folks who need weed just to stand up and hold down food.

Select Massachusetts legislators have been trying to sanction medical grass for decades, according to veteran Amherst senator Stanley Rosenberg, a lead sponsor of the Senate bill. Still for a number of reasons, the commonwealth has yet to deliver for its most vulnerable citizens. Despite marijuana decriminalization, and reduced risk for those carrying less than one ounce, anyone caught growing cannabis faces severe penalties. To medical marijuana advocates, that's unacceptable.

Bolstering the state's most sophisticated push for prescription weed yet – 27 legislators co-sponsored the House bill – more than 80 citizens filled hearing room A-1 for several hours of testimony yesterday. Setting the tone, Brookline representative (and lead House sponsor) Frank Smizik described the measure – formally known as the Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Act – as a matter of “compassion,” explaining the obvious but oft-ignored fact that trees are less harmful than most legal drugs.

Anyone interested in the detailed mechanics of the bills should read them in full. But for the sake of clarity here are some basic elements:

-First and foremost, this is an “act to protect patients with debilitating medical conditions, as well as their practitioners and designated caregivers, from arrest and prosecution.” In other words: THIS IS NOT FULL-OUT LEGALIZE AND TAX LEGISLATION!!!

-This bill would set up a marijuana prescription and dispensary system similar to those currently in 13 other states, including neighboring Maine and Rhode Island. If passed, however, there won't be a might-as-well-be-legal free-for-all like in California, but rather a maximum of 19 licensed (and heavily regulated) medical treatment centers statewide.

-These medical treatment centers will be not-for-profit entities that are permitted to “acquire, possess, cultivate, manufacture, deliver, transfer, transport, supply, sell, and/or dispense marijuana” to qualifying patients and other approved cardholders like primary caregivers and treatment workers.

-In order to obtain a marijuana card from the Department of Public Health, patients must get written certification from a licensed practitioner (just like any other prescription drug). Qualifying ailments include cancer, glaucoma, and post traumatic stress disorder.

-Qualified patients (and their caregivers) can either use not-for-profit resources, or grow marijuana on their own (cardholders can legally possess up to 24 plants, and between four and eight ounces of smokable weed).

Presentations to the joint committee ranged from fact-filled to frightening, with one bill proponent pleading – while holding up two soda can-sized pill bottles – “What are you saying? That I either have to take these or break the law? Why should I be a junkie just so I don't have to be in pain?” Another gentleman, testifying from his wheelchair, spoke through a computer on account of his suffering from Lou Gehrig's Disease. “I can't function without it,” he said, explaining how weed relaxes his his nerve and muscle spasms. “But I don't want to go to jail for it.”

Some legislators seemed to get it. Medford representative Carl Sciortino, who sits on the committee and co-sponsored H625, even pressed a bill opponent to justify claims that marijuana is a gateway drug. Joint committee co-chair and Jamaica Plain representative Jeffrey Sanchez also showed a sincere understanding, asking questions that demonstrated an apparent commitment to advancing meaningful reform.

Other lawmakers, however, gave insight into why Mass has yet to make this happen. Lincoln senator Susan Fargo suggested the potential benefits of THC alternatives. Worcester senator Harriette Chandler touted the testimony of former Worcester commissioner of public health Leonard Morse – even though she admittedly missed most of it! One of the few outspoken opponents of H625 in the room, Morse rejects this particular measure on grounds that doctors don't know enough about weed.

Others in the packed conference room took issue with the House and Senate bills for other reasons. Attorney Steven Epstein, who founded the Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (MassCann/NORML) 20 years ago, believes H625 is unconstitutional on grounds that “people have the right to self-medicate.” He's also skeptical of the bill's livelihood, since powerful law enforcement officials are lobbying hard against marijuana prohibition. (It should be noted that legislators heard powerful testimony from members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), who hopefully convinced some that the war on drugs is a sham).

But for most people in the crowded room, it's too risky to hold out for legalized weed. “This is an issue of life and death for a lot of people,” said Erik Wunderlich, a board member of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, in an interview outside of the conference room. A chronic pain sufferer whose wife also has severe ailments, Wunderlich says there are countless people who count on marijuana just to make their final days tolerable. “This is not about getting high. This is about social justice.”

Guy Survives a Tornado and Videotapes the Aftermath in Brimfield MA

Uploaded by sidewaysdrifter0 on Jun 1, 2011

We survived under stairs

SJC: Odor of marijuana not enough to order suspect out of car

Posted by Martin Finucane 

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The odor of burnt marijuana is no longer enough for police officers to order a person from their car, now that possession of less than an ounce of marijuana has been decriminalized in Massachusetts, the state's highest court ruled today.

"Without at least some other additional fact to bolster a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the odor of burnt marijuana alone cannot reasonably provide suspicion of criminal activity to justify an exit order," the court ruled in a decision written by Chief Justice Roderick Ireland.

The court said the people's intent in passing the ballot question decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana was "clear: possession of one ounce or less of marijuana should not be considered a serious infraction worthy of criminal sanction."

"Ferreting out decriminalized conduct with the same fervor associated with the pursuit of serious criminal conduct is neither desired by the public nor in accord with the plain language of the statute," the court said.

Justice Judith Cowin, who has since retired, penned a dissent.

She wrote that up until today, state law has allowed police to perform a warrantless search if they smelled burnt marijuana in a car.

"Even though possession of a small amount of marijuana is now no longer criminal, it may serve as the basis for a reasonable suspicion that activities involving marijuana, that are indeed criminal, are underway," she wrote.

"Our case law is clear that 'the odor of marijuana is sufficiently distinctive that it alone can supply probable cause to believe that marijuana is nearby.' The advent of decriminalization certainly has had no effect on the distinctiveness of marijuana's ordor. Nor has decriminalization affected the criminal status of numerous other activities involving marijuana," Cowin wrote.

Voters in November 2008 overwhelmingly approved Question 2, which decriminalized marijuana, with baackers calling for a "more sensible approach" to marijuana policy and focus by law enforcement on more serious and violent crimes. Opponents argued that the law would promote unsafe drug use.

Charlie Sheen Has Angered A Society of Warlocks

article written by: Andy Green
From: http://www.forkparty.com/

So, just when you think your brain couldn’t possible force in any more glorious Charlie Sheen winning, the internet goddess shines upon those of us who really don’t have much to do and from her tantalizing nether-regions squeezes out a golden game-changing egg filled with awesome like this.Charlie Sheen’s comparison of himself to the warlock community has set off a fiery seed within these harbinger’s of might and magic. Nay, shall they tolerate the insolence of someone who does not understand what it is to control the cosmos that goes around saying things that make “REAL” warlocks look silly!

A group of obviously unemployed mystics of the craft from Salem, Massachusetts performed a ceremony in which they “intervened” in Charlie’s use of the term “Warlock.”

Well, little do they know..that Charlie Sheen is not only a real warlock… he is one of the mightiest warlocks in the galaxy. Fueled by enough cocaine tiger’s blood to obliterate three solar systems.

Charlie Sheen continues his centuries long march across the sands of time to fulfill the curse placed upon his head by some mightier warlock…probably Gary Busey. This curse that sentenced Charlie to an insatiable zombie-like desire to bang as many prostitutes as possible while on the search for the ultimate state of mind.

So Salem warlocks/virgins, in the words of Iron Maiden — RUN TO THE HILLS… RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! You have tried to impose your will on the face of the almighty Sheen… and he proclaims with an echo through the mountains and a crash of lightning through the sky — “IT’S ON!”

'B****, your pancakes look fine to me': Video of catfight over maple syrup in Denny's goes viral

By Mark Duell
From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

It’s hard to believe that a fight this bad could erupt when the only thing she asked for was some maple syrup for her pancakes.

A mass brawl ensued when one girl asked another table if they could have some syrup, and got the response: ‘B****, your pancakes look fine to me’.
The fight started in a Denny's restaurant in Chicopee, Massachusetts, when one group of girls did not have enough maple syrup.

Scroll down for video

One girl starts hitting another after a disagreement over pancake maple syrup...

...before she knocks her to the floor and continues the Massachusetts attack

Two girls begin to have a stand-up argument and another gets involved
while one of them approaches a filming camera and says ‘YouTube it'.
The video, posted on YouTube by viral group BuzzFeed, shows one girl in a
white shirt and black trousers start rapidly punching another in the
face.

The girl being punched, who is wearing a light blue top and jeans, is then
pushed over to the ground and her black underwear is partially exposed.
As she gets up, another girl in a blue stripy top and jeans is pushed
over by the same girl who started punching the first victim.

While the fight happens, some people run out of the way, others clap and
everyone else watches in disbelief as a chef comes up and tries to
break up the fight before sending out one of the girls.

Calm down: A Denny's chef comes up to the girls in an attempt to break up the fight in Chicopee after another is pushed over onto her seat

Since the video went viral, police have said the brawl started following an argument that allegedly stemmed from a traffic incident in the car park outside the restaurant.

Captain Steven Muise told The Republican that the fight began after one man punched another in the head. The men were accompanied by the three women in the video.

The incident comes just one month after two other videos of female brawls were posted on YouTube.
Police in South Carolina asked for the public to help

identify people involved in a brawl inside an International House of
Pancakes restaurant in Orangeburg in January.

And an all-female brawl outside a Florida gas station was also caught on
video last month, as some of the women had their clothes and hair
extensions ripped off.

Fight videos are becoming increasingly common on YouTube, although
they are often taken down soon after being posted if they infringe the
website’s usage policy.

Watch the YouTube video here

Rich Massachusetts Town Caught Dumping Snow in Poor Town Next Door

by colej
from http://www.thenayshun.com/

The void between the haves and have-nots can’t be filled with the huge piles of snow found on the corner of your street. Just last week the Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts spotted 42 trucks hauling plowed snow from North Andover, Massachusetts to a river bank in Lawrence. If you’re unfamiliar with Lawrence and Andover, I’ll give you a couple quick facts:

• Andover is home to Philip’s Academy – the alma matter of George Bush, George W. Bush, JFK Jr., Humphrey Bogart, Bill Belichek, and many, many others. Lawrence High School fights to retain its accreditation every year.
• The average family income in Andover is $138, 475, and 1.7% of families live below the poverty level. The average family income in Lawrence is $29,809 and 21.2% of families live below the poverty line.
• Andover is globally known as one of the wealthiest and prestigious towns in Northeast America. In 2000 Lawrence was proclaimed the auto-fraud capital of the country.

Needless to say, these towns – who border each other – might as well exist on separate planets. So anyway, somebody in the rich town of Andover figured it would be no problem to take all the snow of the streets and just dump it into Lawrence. And even worse, they decided to dump it into a river in Lawrence, which is illegal.

The Mayor saw them and told authorities (I have no idea what the Mayor was doing out so late), and absolutely nothing happened.

It’s just another example of how the rich continue to fuck over the poor in any way they can.

Summer of the Shark: Great White Sightings Off Cape Cod

boston.com — It may be Discovery Channel's 'Shark Week,' but it is shark summer in Massachusetts.

Please click here for Gallery: Summer of the Shark: Great White Sightings Off Cape Cod

McDonald's Apologizes For Condoms In Happy Meals

From: http://www.crystalair.com/

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (CAP) - McDonald's executives were left with egg (McMuffin) on their face this week, when over 5,000 Happy Meals were distributed with colored condoms instead of a plastic toy from the movie The Last Airbender.

The condoms were intended for the Provincetown, Mass. school system, which recently established a policy making them available for students of all ages; they were delivered to McDonald's distribution center in Barnstable, Mass. in error.

"They were so bright and colorful, they were mistaken for Happy Meal toys," explained McDonald's vice president of public relations Robin Anderson. "Unfortunately most of the workers there don't read English, and they thought 'Ribbed Latex' was a character from The Last Airbender."

"Who ever heard of The Last Airbender anyway?" added Jose Estevez, president of McDonald's Distribution Union 8801, in defense of his fellow workers.

The mistake led to an incident in a Brewster, Mass., McDonald's, where more than a dozen 8-year-olds attending a birthday party all opened their condoms at once, and immediately blew them into balloons and started batting them around the restaurant.

Shrieks of horror ensued from several other patrons, and one elderly woman fainted when a condom balloon landed in her Filet O' Fish.

"She'd apparently never seen one that size before," explained Brewster Police Chief Bradley Heffernan, who noted that there were some similar concerns when Congress instituted its "Cash For Condoms" program.

The McDonald's incident also caused problems in Provincetown, where the schools accidentally received the restaurant's shipments of Last Airbender toys, and several were released to students who went into their school's nurse's office seeking condoms.

"This was actually very successful among the younger grades, where students would much rather get a stuffed 'Momo' doll than a condom," admitted School Superintendent Beth Singer, who in recent weeks has had to defend the school district's policy of distributing condoms to any student who asks, and not notifying parents.

"But unfortunately there was an issue with Last Airbender Aang Water Cannons being distributed to high school students, resulting in several unwanted pregnancies," said Singer.

"Dude, I followed the directions and everything," said Provincetown High School sophomore 'Josh,' who convinced his girlfriend 'Jennifer' that everything would be okay if they assembled the Water Cannon correctly and used it according to the specifications on the accompanying instruction sheet. "It was fun, but no way did it keep her from getting knocked up."

Parents in Provincetown have been understandably upset at the mix-up, particularly coming off the controversy about the condom distribution.

"It was bad enough to hear my first grader could get a condom in school, but to hear they could be given that plastic McDonald's crap and the school wouldn't have to let me know, well, that's just unacceptable," said parent Sally Cooper. "At least a condom has some practical use to it."

Meanwhile, the producers of The Last Airbender have issued a formal thank you to the Post Office, McDonald's and the Provincetown School System for "doing something that might actually get somebody to notice our lame movie."

Why Are Windmills Always White?And why do they always have three blades?

By Brian Palmer
From: http://www.slate.com/
 
WindmillsThe federal government has green-lighted the nation's first offshore wind farm, to be built off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass. Opponents claim that 130 white, three-bladed turbines will detract from the natural beauty of Nantucket Sound. Why do all modern windmills look the same?

So they're unobtrusive. A windmill's noise is directly proportional to the speed of its rotor tips. Two-bladed turbines have to spin faster than their three-bladed competitors to generate the same amount of energy. As a result, the whooshing sound they emit is somewhat louder. Two-bladed windmills would be a sensible choice for a remote, offshore wind farm like the one in Cape Cod, since they're just as efficient as the three-bladed models and cheaper to produce. But manufacturers—who cater to the densely populated and wind-power-oriented countries of Europe—have switched almost exclusively to producing the latter.

The placement of rotors relative to the tower is also a design controversy with acoustics implications. The downwind design, with the tower between the blades and the wind, is more structurally sound. (Think of a pinwheel: If you don't grip it tightly, it will tend to rotate into the downwind position.) The problem is that the tower creates a dead spot for airflow, which stresses the spinning rotors and generates a repetitive whop that can carry for miles. Right now, most manufacturers favor the upwind layout.

The white paint, which many localities require by ordinance, is also a matter of aesthetics. City planners seem to think white windmills are less of an eyesore. The white also reflects sunlight, which minimizes expansion and cracking of the gel coat that protects the fiberglass composite rotors. Not all windmills are white, though. Some Midwestern turbines are yellow to match the grain. (This doesn't work so well in the spring, when the crops are green.) German windmills are sometimes painted dark green at the bottom to blend into the forest. European rotors usually have a red stripe to make them visible to aircraft. Engineers once tried painting the rotors black to absorb sunlight and prevent icing, but it didn't seem to help much.

---

Hollow, tubular towers have vanquished the old girder design, because they discourage birds from landing on them. (Birds and windmills don't mix.) The tubes are also favored by construction crews, who can climb up a tower to repair it from the inside, protected from the elements.

The biggest design question for most engineers is rotor length. The energy a windmill generates is proportional to the area of the rotors' circular sweep, so energy increases proportionally to the square of the blade length. However, the volume of the rotor, which determines the cost, is proportional to the cube of the length, and increases faster than energy production. As we get better at materials engineering, the rotors will get longer. But at any given time the arms of a windmill will be built out to the length that maximizes energy return relative to the cost of production. The rotors on modern windmills are sometimes as much as 200 feet long. As such, transportation can also be a problem.

Explainer thanks Douglas E. Adams of the Purdue Energy Center, Scott Larwood of the University of the Pacific, James Manwell of the University of Massachusetts Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, and Jonathan Naughton of the University of Wyoming Wind Energy Research Center.

VOTE Martha Coakley - Marijuana Re-crim Protest With Senator Scott Brown Video

Part 1

MikeCann.net: Marijuana Re-crim Protest With Senator Scott Brown Video Part 1

 

Part 2

http://www.mikecann.net/2009/04/marijuana-re-crim-protest-with-senator_01.html

Massachusetts cops can arrest you for making them famous

From: http://rawstory.com/

By Daniel Tencer

If you plan to videotape police officers at work in public, just be sure you're not in Massachusetts -- or you might end up in jail.
A report from the New England Center For Investigative Reporting has chronicled a pattern of what civil liberties advocates say is a misuse of police powers: Massachusetts police are using the state's stringent surveillance laws to arrest and charge people who record police activities in public.

It's a situation that is pitting new technologies against police powers. With recording equipment now embedded into cellphones and other common technologies, recording police activities has never been easier, and has resulted in numerous cases of police misconduct being brought to light. And that, rights advocates argue, is precisely what the police are trying to prevent.

In October, 2007, Boston lawyer Simon Glick witnessed what he said was excessive use of police force during the arrest of a juvenile. When he pulled out his cellphone to record the incident, he was arrested and charged with "illegal electronic surveillance."

In December, 2008, Jon Surmacz, a webmaster at Boston University, was attending a party that was broken up by police. Thinking that the police were being unnecessarily rough in the encounter, he pulled out his cellphone and started recording. He, too, was arrested and charged with illegal surveillance.


In September, 2002, citizen journalist Jeffrey Manzelli was arrested and charged with illegal surveillance after recording police officers cracking down on protesters at an anti-war rally.

Massachusetts is one of 12 US states that require "two-party" consent for surveillance. (The others include California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania.) While two-party consent laws were originally designed to stop private detectives and others from invading people's privacy, in Massachusetts the law's application has now broadened to include what civil libertarians say is an attempt by police to stop public oversight of their activities.

“The statute has been misconstrued by Boston police,’’ June Jensen, the lawyer who recently succeeded in having the charges against Glick thrown out, told investigative reporter Daniel Rowinski. “You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want; you can do that.’’

But that's not necessarily how Massachusetts' highest court sees it. As Alexandra Andrews reports at ProPublica, in 2001 the state's Supreme Court upheld a conviction of a man who was arrested in 1998 for recording an encounter with police. "Since then, such arrests have continued to occur," she reports.
Read the complete report from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting here.

TERROR LAWS AND TOURIST PHOTOS
Civil libertarians have been arguing for years that the beefed-up anti-terrorism laws that have come in to force in much of the Western world in recent years also present an opportunity for abuse of police power.
Earlier this year, a new anti-terror statute in Britain -- known as Section 76 -- allowed police to arrest anyone found "eliciting, publishing or communicating information" about soldiers, intelligence agents or police officers that is "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

Since that definition is so broad, it has allowed police to arrest virtually anyone who takes a photograph of a police officer. Since the law was enacted last year, it has been used to delete tourists' photos of London, and to arrest and fine visitors who take pictures of landmarks.

Scituate Man Catches Largest Mako Shark

August 31, 2009

Total Pro Sports - If you thought catching the King of Common Carps would put up the fight of a lifetime, think again.

Taylor Sears, a 20-year-old man from Scituate, Massachusetts reeled in a 624-pound mako shark on Thursday. The 10-foot monster is the largest male mako shark ever to be recorded in the Atlantic Ocean may even be the largest male mako ever caught anywhere. As stated by Dr. Greg Skomal of the state division of Maritime Fisheries, "we didn't think they got this big basically."

Sears is no stranger to fishing the deep seas, but the Massachusetts Maritime Academy junior will remember not be forgetting the feeling of this big catch anytime soon.

“I’ve caught a million sharks before, but never anything this feisty."

We are impressed with the sharpshooter he put on the giant shark, but would have been even more impressed had he caught this baby while fishing from a kayak.

Check out the pics of this trophy catch.

Mako in the sharpshooter

Mako shark

Hat Tip - [Barstool Sports]

Marblehead uncovers letter from rising star

Future VP wrote missive in 1775

By Jazmine Ulloa Globe Correspondent / August 19, 2009

MARBLEHEAD - Tucked among mundane file documents in the damp basement of Abbot Hall, historical commissioners have found a little piece from the 18th century, a letter dated Sept. 19, 1775.

Addressed to “ye Selectmen of Marblehead in Town,’’ the historic missive was from Elbridge Gerry, who would go on to serve as a US vice president and as governor of Massachusetts.

On a sheet of ivory rag paper, Gerry wrote to the town board to accept his seat at the Continental Congress, amid growing revolutionary fervor and only years before he became a political bigwig. Jackie Belf-Becker, today’s chairwoman of the Board of Select men, said she felt a sense of pride in the discovery.

“I am actually in awe,’’ Belf-Becker said. “You get a sense of the continuity of life and politics.’’

Gerry had retreated from the public sphere a year before the letter was written, when as representative of the General Court in Marblehead, he supported smallpox isolation and clashed with popular opinion, said Peter Drummey, a librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society. But he could not stick to the sidelines for long in the events leading up to the Revolution and soon began his ascent into political prominence, Drummey said.

The Marblehead native signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, refusing to sign the original Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights. He became governor in 1810 and later reached his political peak serving as vice president under James Madison, until his death on Nov. 23, 1814.

But not all of his contributions have been grandiose.

Though he did not invent it, the term “Gerrymandering,’’ or the redrawing of district lines to favor a political party, rose from his name (though it is actually pronounced with a hard “G’’).

Still, the ardent war patriot deserves a place among the country’s founding fathers, Drummey said, though today he might not be as famed as John Adams or Thomas Jefferson.

“You could not have invented a life like the one this man led, so to find new documents about it is wonderful,’’ he said. “Every new piece of information adds to the story.’’

Historical Commissioners Wayne Butler and P. Chris Johnston stumbled upon the letter about two weeks ago, as they cleaned out a small room in the basement of Abbot Hall in preparation for the historic, red brick building’s restoration, Butler said. It was packed into one of the five metal cabinets in the room, which hold receipts, lists of stockholders, and other town documents that date back to the 1800s.

But there might be other golden finds between the folders with labels like, “Gas Electric Vouchers.’’ Butler and Johnston also discovered former Governor John Hancock’s stylish signature in another letter dispensing state funds. The commission is deciding whether to put the Gerry letter on display.

Before their discovery, Butler had ventured into the cramped cellar room only once in his seven years of volunteering at the commission. Now the history buff and voracious reader can be found down there daily, rummaging through the documents and taking them up to his office on the second floor to catalog them.

One cabinet drawer, he estimated, holds up to 35,000 individual documents, and all five might hold up to 80,000.

“If I worked five hours a day, I would be 110 years old by the time I finished sorting through all of them,’’ said Butler, who is 77 and a retired boat builder. “I might get me some help down here so I don’t have to survive until then.’’

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Pot law leaves cops high & dry: Many blow off $100 fines

By Edward Mason and Jessica Van Sack

Photo by Herald file

Thumbing their noses at the state’s lax new pot law, Bay State stoners are brazenly lighting up in front of cops and then refusing to pay fines - leading some frustrated police chiefs to all but give up the fight.

Local police report widespread defiance of the six-month-old law, and a Herald review shows a vast majority of potheads cited by cops blowing off their $100 fines.

Some egregious examples of tokers flaunting the law include:

• In Arlington, a public works employee was cited by the local police chief for smoking a pot pipe as he stood next to his town-issued tractor.

• At bustling Park Street Station, a pair of nonchalant lovers out on the town openly lit up a joint and continued toking even after confronted by off-duty Milton Chief Richard Wells.

• In East Boston, four teens spotted in a “smoke-filled vehicle” unabashedly told a cop they were “just smoking marijuana.”

• A man caught near a Dorchester playground laughed when police said he faced a $100 fine - and then taunted the cops with an expletive-laced tirade.

All told, a staggering 83 percent of 415 tokers cited in Boston since the law took effect in January have refused to pony up the $100, a Herald review shows.

In Braintree, 15 of 28 citations went unpaid, while in Brookline 26 of 33 blew off the fines.

Somerville Deputy Chief Paul Upton said his officers are now writing few if any citations, in part because enforcing the law costs more money than it’s worth.

“If we send an officer to court, it’s going to cost us $250,” Upton said. “We’re not getting a lot of (citations) written.”

In Milton, Chief Wells said the new pot law is unenforceable because there’s nothing encouraging scofflaws to pay fines or even give their real names to police.

Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless, head of the state prosecutors group that fought against relaxing pot sanctions, said, “It’s exactly what we were afraid of, and what we predicted would happen. They’d issue citations, and they’d be ignored.”

Proponents argued pot convictions made youthful indiscretions into lifelong liabilities. But while unpaid parking tickets can cost drivers their licenses, unpaid pot fines carry no repercussions.

“There’s nothing that can happen,” Capeless said.

Thomas Kiley, the Beacon Hill powerbroker who crafted the measure, insisted the law has teeth.

Tucked in the law is language that places pot possession on par with other citations, and police can haul a scofflaw into court, Kiley said. “We did (anticipate) this,” Kiley said.

But Cheryl A. Sibley, chief administrator for the Boston Municipal Court Department, said police are powerless because that provision is neutralized by language clearly stating the only penalty the offender pays is the $100 fine.

Meanwhile, in Braintree on Monday night, police spotted a suspected perv smoking pot in a car filled with coils of rope, a pair of handcuffs and bottles of NyQuil. But they had to let the man go, even though he was awaiting trial on child sexual assault charges.

Said Deputy Chief Russell Jenkins, “Had the law not been changed, he absolutely would have been placed under arrest.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1185193

Fireworks in Marblehead, MA. July 4, 2009

Preston Beach, Marblehead, MA.!!

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Fort Sewall, Marblehead, MA.

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Fireworks in Marblehead, MA.
taken from Fort Sewall
July 4, 2009