Your 2007 World Champion Red Sox continued their celebratory tour with a visit to the State House yesterday. The event was hosted by Governor Patrick and numerous elected officials. Both (!) trophies were prominently displayed on the front lawn of the State House, the golden flags matching quite nicely with the gleam of the famous golden dome. Governor Patrick kicked off the event, and while his oddly-accented proclamations made some chuckle (JAAYYsun VARRRiTECCKK), his enthusiasm......

Mitt Romney, who is in the news sometimes, turned down a wager from fellow presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo. The stakes? If the Sox prevail in the World Series, the Colorado Congressman would drop out of the race, and Romney would do likewise in the completely unthinkable event of a Rockies victory. To be fair to Romney, who has spent $17 million of his own money -- not to mention his invaluable integrity -- on the......

Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey, last seen basking in praise for his support of public television at the opening of WGBH's new building, isn't getting much applause from the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET). During a House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection hearing, Markey said that BET represented “the lowest common denominator of cheap and tawdry music videos and other questionable programming.” As connoisseurs of lowbrow culture, Bostonist would like to point out......

WGBH held a ribbon-cutting yesterday morning to commemorate its new studio space in Brighton. After president Henry Becton cut a bright orange ribbon in front of a stage inside the complex, a digital mural along the side of the building facing the pike made its debut. The gigantic, 30-by-45-foot mural might outdo the Citgo sign, which can be always seen looming over the city. Anyone driving east on the Pike will be able to see......

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Republican straw poll in Iowa tonight with about 31% of the vote. Of course, it wasn't that hard since John McCain and Rudy Giuliani opted out, and the straw poll was Romney's to lose. Lisa Wangsness at the Globe pointed out that Romney outspent his opponents by an "almost comical degree." Adam Nagourney of the New York Times noted that everything wasn't all Romney all the time. Presidential......

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank is wearing a sling. And, according to Wonkette, he sent an e-mail to Congressional offices announcing that he doesn't want anyone nosing into how he wound up in that sling. Frank sent out a statement saying that he hurt his left arm "using a curling machine at a gym" and underwent surgery. We aren't using the scare quotations to say we don't believe him. But we will say that the phrase......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

Tonight the State of the Union speech will be delivered in our nation's capital. While we're hitting the booze and playing the State of the Union drinking game, the media will talk about possible ramifications of the President's statements. But the focus has already started to shift from the current commander-in-chief to who's going to take over his job. The Democratic field of contenders is growing fast. Below you'll find Bostonist's guide to the field......

Trains are safe. That's the declaration from Michael Chertoff, head of the US Department of Homeland Security, after he took a ride on the MBTA Green Line. Perhaps malicious individuals looking to cause harm to Boston's subway system have also been thwarted by the introduction of the CharlieTicket system. If regular riders of the T, occasional patrons, and tourists are finding the new fare system a little cumbersome there maybe a built-in safety factor preventing......

Say what you will about Somerville Congressman Michael Capuano's questionable policy on accepting gifts and trips. When it comes to blowing stuff up, he and Bostonist are on the same page. The Herald reports today that Capuano is arranging with "an unnamed liquefied natural gas company" to shoot a missile at a huge tanker in the ocean, "to see what happens." We realize that this may be useful in terms of planning for terrorist attacks,......

You all know how Bostonist loves its random news stories and this one definitely fits into this category. (Now we must preface that we just find the story a bit odd and once we saw that ABC News reported on it, we just had to talk about it.) It seems that U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (RI) took a hammer to the face today at the least likely violent environments, an economic meeting in lovely Pawtucket,......

This afternoon Al Franken rocked Air America’s AM airwaves* from right here in the Hub. As part of a nation-wide book tour Franken made his appearance in Boston and coupled it with a broadcast of his three hour program from the Wilbur in the Theatre District. Harvard alum Franken pulled on the alumni network to fill his show's time slot. Robert Putnam from the Kennedy School of Government, Laurence Tribe from Harvard Law School,......

Have you ever walked down Boylston and seen weird people with funny accents and large tote bags? These people from all over the country come to the Hynes Convention Center to pay large sums of money and hear important people talk. Nothing upsets Bostonist more than an event too expensive to attend, and for once we have found a different solution than charging the guards at the front gates. AIGA has decided to podcast all......

While the MBTA faces extensive budget slashing and service cuts, the Mitt Romney administration today committed to major T expansion -- commitments originally made nearly two decades ago. In the late 1980's as the Commonwealth sought federal funding for then-fledgling Big Dig, the state was required to commit to a number of mass-transit related projects in order to mitigate the environmental and traffic related impacts of this major undertaking. Among the promised projects was restoration......

The pictures of Bush and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah holding hands last week gave us a chuckle. This week Wonkette points out the pictures of our own congressman Barney Frank playing what looks like grab ass with a young buck. The Washington Blade, the DC area’s weekly gay community news source, had self-described "spies" at the Philadelphia Equality Forum scoping out good gossip. As far as Bostonist can tell the best tidbit that came......