CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

What's up with all the turnovers?
I think it has something to do with the new turf.

I was not aware that of this book. It does have one of the funniest titles I seen recently, "Secular America under Seige." I doubt people of faith think so.

One thing is for sure, politicians will continue to say dumb things.
Earlier this week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) in explaining the shift in Congress, said he continues to believe in two party rule in Washington,to give balance to the federal government.
Now that the Ds control both houses of Congress, who exactly will Harry Reid be rooting for President in the 2008 election? A Republican to maintain the 2 party balance? Or will he be willing to concede the House and or the Senate back to the Rs to get a D elected President?
The newly minted Senate majority leader is an idiot.

As for the Town of Yarmouth stopping the cable from the wind farm from landing there, they will be about as successful as they were with the Keyspan pieline and the biketrail.
Towns cannot withold the public right of way from a utility.

The Cape towns on Nantucket Sound went for Healy, bucking the statewide trend. Probably because of the wind farm. But the islands, which have an even better view of the windmills, went overwhelmingly for Patrick.
I think, rather, it was a referendum on the Cape Cod Times. Where they don't read the CCT, like Falmouth and P-town,(and the Islands), Patrick won.

Winning with less than 50% is still winning. Winning with more than 50 % of the vote is a mandate. Winning by more than 10 points is a blowout. Winning with anything close to 20 points is a landslide, and a repudiation of the opponent.

It's there own fault circulation is plummeting. The Boston Globe advocated "bi-lingual" education in the public schools, instead of insisting on English immersion.

Remember when The Globe tried printing a supplement in Spanish? They couldn't read that either.

All together now, Thank You Mitt Romney! The flyover was his "pet project". It' supposednto get 2nd homeowners to their waterfront estates without the traffic inconvenience. It doesn't hurt that it detours traffic away from New Hampshire, where Mitt has his vacation home.

Try www.capecodhomeschoolers.com
(Contacts page). Stick with it, the contact names change often.
Also the Mass Home Learning Association www.mhla.org maybe helpful off Cape.

Julie's right, Saturday mornings are out, but Saturday afternoons are OK for kids. Especially if we can drop them off :).
Start a video library for teachers to borrow. Still alot of video teaching going on in school.
Don't forget the private schools. They can visit in small groups during the school day. And the Homeschoolers can visit anytime, with parents! (There are 350 homeschoolers on Cape.)
I hope you can find some old sea captains around here who can volunteer their time for lectures and exhibits, but you've already thought of that one I bet.
Your location is fabulous, please have regular fundraising parties in the spring and fall evenings with beer, wine and music.

Consider yourself lucky, Bill. The CCTimes endorsement has been the "Kiss of Death".

Actually, Mitt Romney put Kerry Healy in charge of electing Republicans to the Legislature 2 years ago. A harbinger of things to come.

Why does everyone presume that Kerry Healy is a multi-millionaire? She never made more than a salary in her life. Her husband was the second highest paid CEO in Massachusetts last year. He's the self-made millionaire. All of Kerry's wealth derives from him. Romney chose Healy because of Sean Healy's success. Exactly what has Kerry Healy accomplished that she can't give a man credit for?

Solon, the fact remains that the opponnents of Cape Wind want to use PAVE PAWS to stop it.

Reasonable officials, including the military, should study the radar issue and be looking for a solution to the problem if it exist, like they did in the UK. Not looking for an excuse to kill Cape Wind.

You know we really don't have to have PAVE PAWS on Cape Cod either. It could just as easily be re-located in Plymouth.

I bet the same folks who oppose Cape Wind, would have opposed PAVE PAWS if they were around at the time.

Senator Warner should stop using the military to do his bidding, like he did with the wind farm moratorium in the Mid-west. It is an abuse of power. It has nothing to do with protecting the military, it has everything to do with supporting his family in Osterville.

The Senator from Vermont could just as easily ask the Center for Desease Control (CDC) to study PAVE PAWS to see if it is causing the unexplained cancers on Cape Cod, as a way to kill some weapons program, or stop the war in Iraq.

Cynthia - Exactly how does Rep. Atsalis fit into this discussion?

Kerry Healy is in full campaign mode now. She suddenly cancelled a meeting of a state economic development council in Pocassett on Friday to campaign with republican supporters in Plymouth.
To be fair, meeting with a bunch of policy wonks on the Cape was probably not a good use of her time. But the least she could have done is given the group some advance notice. Because meeting by themselves was not a good use of their time either.

Deval Patrick supports Cape Wind in the primary and wins the state and the Cape. Combined with Gabrieli votes they win each by a 3 to 1 margin. Reilly campaigns against Cape Wind and and comes in 3rd.
If Deval Patrick wins the election in November, and carries the Cape, shall we call it a referendum on Cape Wind?

The very first poll done on Cape Wind was by The Cape Cod Times about 21/2 years ago. They tried to slant the outcome by coiunting only those for or against and ignoring those undecided. That gave them a majority opposing. However when they factored in undecided they did not have a majority, only a plurality. The Cape Cod Times lost credibility since then and they dragged down WCAI (the NPR station) in the process, so they no longer do Cape Wind polls.

The other surveys that you mention are not statistically relevant, when the voters select themselves in, it is not a representative sample or outcome. Election are the same, althouygh you can just as easily point to Matt Patrick beating Larry Wheatly twice when the main campaign issue was Cape Wind.
The only good recent polls were conducted by the Boston Globe and and independent public research organization that found the same thing. About 80% of Massachusetts residents and about 60% of Cape Cod residents support Cape Wind.
But so what? The real question is what happens to the candidate that campaigns on Cape Wind as an issue?

It cuts both ways. Look at the Patrick - Wheatley races, in '02 and '04. Wheatly made Cape Wind the central issue in the campaign. The Cape Cod Times turned the race into a referendum on the wind farm. Voters came out to vote against Whealty and for the wind farm.
Lesson; don;t make the election about any one issue and certainly don't cram it down the voters throat.
People can process the candidates' positions on many issues and vote for them despite their position on any issue.
I'm not sure that Healy and Mihos have learned this lesson. Cape Wind polls with significant majorities on and off the Cape.

Disregard previous suggestion.

Kerry Healy woke up on Tuesday and realized that she could actually come in 3rd behind Christy Mihos, just barely ahead of Grace Ross.

Kerry, time to fire Rob Gray, before he does for you what he did for Gail Lese.

What do you think the next Sufflok poll is going to say about the Gov's.
Too close to call, too early to call, too many undecideds? It depends who hires them. POLLS, WE GET RESULTS.

Are bird experts considered bird brains?

You forgot about Gabrieli. But for the 17 votes that Riley gave him at the convention to qualify him for the primary ballot, he wouldn't have spent $8.5 million helping both of them lose to Deval Patrick.

Not only did Patrick do better on Cape Cod, but together with Gabrieli's tally, almost 80% of voters in the Democratic primary yesterday voted for PRO Cape Wind candidates.

Still good news for Deval Patrick. But siting the Sufflok University poll is not a good idea. They are a the poll-results-for-hire outfit that the Alliance to Save the Sound used when they wanted favorable polling results.

If you noticed, last month Channel 7's Andy Hiller used them to create a story for a news cycle. Sufflok had Gabrieli ahead, while the Channel 4 (USA)and The Globe (UNH) polls had Patrick ahead significantly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How soon before we get porn in this site?

Andrea ran for Lt. Gov while campaigning for Secretary of Economic Affairs. As a result she will be neither.

Isn't Joe's Lobster Mart Parking lot public property?
Anyone want to attend with a Chris Gabreili sign is welcomed, well, at least they can't throw you off the lot.

Douglas Ann who?
Is this relevent because Bohman didn't endorse another Selectmen from Chatham running for them same seat?
As an independent you can go either way, R-Buckley or D-Bergstrom.

And let's not forget the honorable mention he received from The Globe article as someone who could be called on to help Killer Coke smear Deval Patrick.
Maybe he just needed a drink when he heard that The Globe was going to endorse Deval Patrick.

Ron Bergstrom has shown he has the the "courage" to oppose Cape Wind. I wonder if he will use the Patrick endorsement in his hometown. He deserves to be elected the next Selectmen from Chatham.

Are we still talking about taxes?

Which is more likely:
An oil spill into Nantucket Sound by the federally approved containment system at Cape Wind, or a fuel leak at one of the many Christy gas stations around the Cape inspected by the state, contaminating the local ground water?
Did I mention that Christy Mihos is Chairman of the Alliance to Save the Sound (ASS).

Is that Don Howell I hear smiling?

"In respect to the homeowner, I request that this issue be dropped."??? What load of BS!
Why did you bring it up in the first place? What is this, grammar school?
You're running for a State office in a very political state. Better get used to this sort of thing. They don't play nice on Beacon Hill.

But what you fail to realize most is that this sort of whining and that in today's newspaper, (calling the cops?) doesn't help you. It only makes you look ridiculous.

Speaking of Tax Cheats! Way to ruin a good blog, guys.

You know that this site is now being monitored by Homeland Security, as well as the CIA, NSA, FBI and a host of other secret agencies.
Then again it can't hurt to have the folks at Foggy Bottom reading CapeCodToday!

No whining please. We all choose to live on the ocean. The Cape is suseptable to hurricanes. And in the last three years our house values have doubled. And the total value of all house has skyrocketed, (think McMansions). In other words, if your house blows or floats away, it now costs twice as much to replace it. What did you think was going to happen to insurance premiums?

We Cape Codders are too few, too old, and too sick to be able to construct Cape Care. Even if we exclude Medicare, Medicaid, VetAdmins, and the other federal program participants, we would have to RATION care or go broke trying. Are we really talking about that? The State would never approve a sceme like Cape Care.

Oh what fun. The Association to Save the Sound (ASS) has changed its name to the Advocates for Nantucket Sound (ANuS).

It's becoming clearer now. The Times buys the Barnstable Patriot. Moves all local news to that weekly publication. They can fire all their remaining reporters and print only news wire stories, (check out today's Sunday edition), so that their editors can live anywhere but here. Good thing the publisher still lives here. No wait, on second thought.

I was wondering when Barbara was going to get around to the birds. The experts at Mass Audubon do not expect any kills. 6600 bird deaths per year is an outright fabrication. But you know that. It's another example of Alliance members promulgating the BIG LIE.
It might work with bird brains. But it won't with anyone else. Speaking of which, I have never heard Sue Nickerson or Charles Vinick mention 6,600 bird deaths. But I bet you can get Christy Mihos and Bill Koch to repeat it.

johnp where are you from? The Cape Light Compact representatives from Dennis and Yarmouth are holding up the Cooperative. They are appointed by the Selectmen in those towns.

Eventually Cape Wind is going to sell it's power to a supplier. That supplier will pass on the savings to their customers. Some of us who sign up with that supplier will benefit. Why not all of us? Because the CLC is playing politics and covering the asses of the Selectmen who appointed them, who do not support the wind farm.

Real benefits could accrue to Cape residents in the form of a long term stable price electricity contract from Cape Wind, like the SEMASS trash deal the Cape has enjoyed for 20 years.

In case you don't know who the culprits are, Bob Mahoney (Dennis) and Charlotte Streibel (Yarmouth),Chair and Vice Chair of the CLC.

Actually Don, on land it is done exactly the same way. Electricity is such an important commodity that the municipalities GIVE AWAY the right of ways in order to get a UTILITY to provide the service.
Ever wonder how much NSTAR, VERIZON or COMCAST pay your town for use of that telephone pole? NADA.

How about a national referendum;
Cape Wind get approved with 90% of the vote. Or a statewide ballot; Cape Wind wins by with 80%. Or maybe a Capewide vote, with 60% support for Cape Wind?

But I suspect the commentaters had a different idea. Maybe a vote of Osterville residents who belong to the Wianno and Oyster Harbors clubs? Everyone knows Nantucket Sound really belongs to them.

Barney Frank's letter deserves better than a comparison to Tom George's legacy on MMR. But since you brought it up, maybe you can get Tom to go public with his support of Cape Wind. He'll be in good company.
By the way Monponsett, how does it feel to be in the minority, again?

Actually, most of the $5000 each whale costs the businesses, left the Cape. Only $500 went to the artist. And the charitable donations come from an auction of the whales at the end of the season, and not from the $5K. Otherwise, they are cool, and I like them. Maybe the local organizations sponsoring the whale trail can take it over next year and keep the money on the Cape.

Anybody remember Pinsky, and his sculptures on Rt.6A ? He was chased out our Barnstable a few years back for displaying his art in a historic district. Of course there is no provision for displaying art publicly in a historic district.
So can anyone please tell me, how the Lion & Lamb gets to put a whale, a rather obnoxious one at that, on Rt. 6A in front of their B&B?
These things look more like signs than art at most locations. But I guess that was the point in getting the businesses to pay for them.

Dennis is the fried clams capital of the world. Kream n' Kone, and The Original, to name two more.

"You can hear the justice in his voice." - Delegate to the Convention.

Tom Reilly came to play. Deval Patrick came to win.

You fail to mention the most obvious junket; WE pay them to travel to Washington to give away OUR money everday.
These 4 guys are all politcally damaged goods. They can never be elected to anything other than the office they hold. They have nothing to lose by folllowing Ted's orders.
But isn't it more interesting that Ted got only 4 out of 10 Mass Congressman to go along?

Let's not forget the Cape Cod Times not mentioning Chris Gabrielli's support for Cape Wind.

Wonder how the conversation with the Senator went?
Chris: "You know Ted, if you really are for renewable energy, you have to be for the wind farm."
Ted: Well Chris, you need me to get elected."
Chris: "Uh Ted, I have more money than you."

Looking forward to reading a local byline from Washington on CapeCodToday, instead of the usual AP wire story in the Cape Cod Times. Well, someone had to state the obvious!

Let's not forget, the good Senator will piloting a sailing vessel on Nantucket Sound in a couple of weeks. Good thing there aren't any obstructions in the water.