On Tuesday we wrote about how Governor Deval Patrick's intellectually lazy casino job creation numbers gave ammunition to the skeptical of gambling Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi. Yesterday, however, Patrick got some good news from the Chamber of Commerce, who released numbers much more helpful to his cause. The previous criticism was related to Patrick's projection that the three proposed casinos would create 30,000 new construction jobs, while a more balanced analysis in......

Sean Garballey, 23, a grad student at Suffolk, soundly defeated two opponents yesterday to gain a seat in the commonwealth's House of Representatives. Garballey will represent Arlington and part of Medford. Garballey is a recent graduate of UMass Lowell and has served on the Arlington School Committee. On his campaign website he exclaims, "Public Service is my life!" He credits a volunteer tour guide position at the State House when he was 16 with......

The Commonwealth's Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi has long been seen as the biggest obstacle in the way of Governor Deval Patrick's plan to build three luxury casinos in the Bay State. DiMasi lived up to that reputation yesterday by delivering a blistering attack against the governor's projections for how many jobs the initiative would create. A Globe piece made clear on Sunday that Patrick's numbers are lazy at best, and exceedingly misleading......

Boston's King of Boogie-Woogie With his long hair and white beard, Preacher Jack may look like a wild-eyed holy man descended from a lonely mountaintop. He's actually a living piece of boogie-woogie/rockabilly history who grew up and resides on the North Shore. Pounding the keys for fifty years, he may not keep a weekly residence at Frank's Steak House anymore, but Preacher Jack comes down to Cambridge & Boston every couple weeks to spread......

Bostonist can't resist the lingo of the BPD Blotter! Anyway, texting is wonderful, handy ... and addictive. While the State House mulls over banning texting-while-driving, another warning flag is flying for avid texters, especially Sidekick users. It's normal to see someone deeply embroiled in a Sidekick conversation or at least looking like they are embroiled in a conversation while on the T. Some thugs are taking advantage of that distraction and swiping Sidekicks from users.......

--The Massachusetts House voted overwhelmingly in favor of preliminary approval to pour $1 billion into life sciences investment over 10 years. [WBZ Radio] --Of course Manny Ramirez would forget about $10,000 that the state of Massachusetts owes him. And if you think the state owes you some money, too, go to findmassmoney.com. [Boston Herald] --Is it just us, or is Bridget Moynahan looking better and classier than ever? Or is it just extended Super......

Well, City Councilor John Tobin has a solution for low voter turnout, and it's not a MoFee Style Public Kvetch-Fest. If Mayor Tom Menino thought he didn't like the idea of Kvetch-Fest 2008, he must have blown his stack when he heard what Councilor Tobin proposed. Tobin wants to limit mayoral and city council terms to 12 years. Menino, who is an institution along the lines of the Old South Meeting House, has already served......

On the way out of the TDB Garden last night, we weren't completely thrilled about the Celtics' victory over King James and the Cavaliers last night. It was a kind of sloppy game, Paul Pierce was way off-target all night, and the effects of jet lag were obvious. Then we stopped for a second and remembered where this team was a year ago. In one season, we've gone from plummeting towards ignominy, to beating the......

It seems that the Bruins' approach to the NHL trade deadline - to hold steady and remain as is - might just pay off. On Tuesday night, against an Ottawa Senators team that the Globe kindly referred to as "thoroughly disinterested" (read: someone's will to play didn't arrive at the TDBN Garden with the rest of the Senators' gear), the Bruins cruised along to a 4-0 win, extending the winning ways that began out on......

The Commomwealth's Speaker of the House, Sal DiMasi, is well-known for his opposition to Governor Deval Patrick's casino plan. There's no turning back now. The Globe reports today that DiMasi played golf at exclusive South Florida clubs with Joe O'Donnell, owner of Eastie's Suffolk Downs horse track, who wants a gaming license. They also report that DiMasi met the famously rich casino magnate Donald Trump "...at a cocktail party at the Mar-a-Lago Club, an......

You'll have to forgive the Celtics if they felt like they arrived in Portland having lurched their way up the Oregon Trail. Three losses in a row doesn't quite compare to running out of buffalo meat and spilling a wagon into the Big Blue River, but combine that with the debacle in Phoenix, and you can understand why some of the team felt like they died of cholera. Things reached the lowest of the low......

Whatever your thoughts on presidential candidate/political rock star Barack Obama borrowing a few points of Deval Patrick's rhetoric, you have to think it's good for the Governor. He's getting nation-wide press and it's not his fault that his speeches are so catchy and profound that Obama can't help copying them. Meanwhile, even a new gubernatorial haircut can lead to a stretch of publicity. In more substantial news, the House and Senate passed Patrick's plan to......

--Someone shot a Brockton cab driver in the head yesterday morning. The shot caused the driver's foot to hit the gas, sending the car crashing into three other ones. The driver, Edward Conley, had been sent to the street where he died to fulfill a cab request. However, the motive is hazy. Conley still had money on his person, according to sources. All that is known about the subject is that he wore a gray......

--Flu isn't just prevalent in Boston right now. It's "raging." Don't leave home without the Purell. [Boston Globe] --Comm Ave is getting a 5-foot-wide bike lane on both sides between Kenmore Square and the BU Bridge by summer. [Boston Herald] --Chinatown continues to evolve into Condo Central. [Boston Herald] --GateHouse Media is cutting about 60 staff positions. Brighton Centered analyzes how that will impact one of GateHouse's local papers. [Brighton Centered] --Enjoy a slideshow of......

--Old hotness: Late trains on the Worcester-Framingham line. New hotness: Changing the timetables so they don't look late anymore. [WBZ] --House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi has offered up a budget with a sizable tax cut for corporations that would drop the percentage from 9.5 percent to 7 percent. Let's see--the state is in a budget crunch, so he wants a tax cut? The budget also didn't include casino licenses, which sets up another Battle Royale......

Look outside the window. Grimace. Then realize that somewhere, in a magical land known as Florida, spring is only one day away. Pitchers and Catchers Day is almost here, which means that spring is creeping closer to our frozen city. Ballplayers will be ready to welcome in the season when they finally get back to Fenway. The journey just happens to take them to Florida, Japan, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Toronto before spring finally reaches......

--Word is out that former House Speaker and current WRKO radio-show host is going to drop his plans to become a lobbyist, finally realizing that lobbying while being a talking head might be a conflict of interest. Adam G. joked, "The WRKO job must pay more." [Boston Globe, Universal Hub] --Former Massachusetts governor and now former presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he won't try to be vice-president. But he's changed his mind before. [WCVB]......

Last night was one of the strangest games we've seen in a while at the TDBG. With the unremarkable Clippers in town, the second quarter had a playoff-like intensity to it, with technicals, an ejection, and some really scrappy play. The fourth quarter showed a surprising lineup, as Doc left the second unit (House, Powe, Davis, Posey, Tony Allen) in for almost the entire time. Most surprising of all - the bench played some fantastic......

--Are you a smoker? House Speaker Sal DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray are considering raising the cigarette tax. [Boston Globe] --The head of the firefighters union is blaming the press for their current bad reputation. Would it be too terrible of a pun to say, in defense of the media, that where there's smoke, there's fire? [Boston Globe] --An 83-year-old woman was crossing train tracks in Medford when she was hit by an......

Massachusetts' legendary senior Senator and national liberal icon, Ted Kennedy. Massachusetts' junior Senator and the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Massachusetts' precedent-shattering Governor, Deval Patrick. None of the endorsements were enough for Barack Obama to win the Massachusetts primary. While we gave a lot of attention yesterday to Senator Obama's epic Boston rally, Seth Gitell was reminding people that--press attention and celebrity status aside--the two strongest political machines in the state belong to Boston's......

The Publick House is known primarily for its beers – a selection of Belgian brews too vast to enumerate. The food menu is not quite as long, but there are some fantastic eats to go along with the great drinks. The Veggie Burger is the top cheap eat pick at $9. The burger is actually made of vegetables – a rarity in the land of veggie burgers. It’s packed with peas, carrots and zucchini, a......

Deval Patrick has been making news lately with the State of the Commonwealth and his public support of presidential candidate Barack Obama. But what of Massachusetts' other top dog, Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi? Bostonist read Paul McMorrow's lengthy Boston Magazine profile of the Speaker of the House and found the article too interesting not to sum up. McMorrow shows how DiMasi's success has been the result of good instincts, understated intelligence, a quick......

"Bye-weeks. Bronco Nagurski didn't get no bye-weeks! And now he's dead! Well, maybe they're a good thing." - Moe, The Simpsons These are the times that try fan's souls. The cavalcade of ridiculousness that is Media Day is long over, but the actual game is still three looooooong days away. But with 564,000 media members stomping around Greater Phoenix, stories will be filed even if there's no story there. And we have to talk about......

--A Brazilian doctor pled guilty today of manslaughter after allegedly killing a woman in a botched liposuction surgery that took place in a Framingham house in 2006. However, the judge has rejected the guilty plea. [WBZ] --The elderly and disabled are understandably unhappy that the Rolling Rally will be held the same day as Super Tuesday should the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl. During a Rolling Rally, it is impossible to cross......

The mayors of Boston and New York City, Mayors Menino and Bloomberg, are engaging in the standard "friendly wager" based on the outcome of the Super Bowl. If you compare the two lists, it's pretty clear which city has the better food options, and we're not talking about the Big Apple here: --100 cups of New England Clam Chowder from Legal Sea Foods; --42 pounds of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts in honor of Super......

Governor Deval Patrick testified this morning at the State House about his plan to create an Executive Office of Education. This would consolidate authority and responsibility for the commonwealth's education system from pre-kindergarten to higher education to one cabinet-level position in the State House. Patrick referenced his recent trip to China, saying that Massachusetts is known throughout the world for its educational institutions. Education is "our calling card." In addition, as home to America's......

The House of Blues has bought the Lansdowne Street clubs, including Avalon and Axis. How is this going to affect the renovations of Avalon and Axis, which has had a negative impact on performers and fans since the venues shut down? The Globe reports: "The only thing that has changed is in place of a sign that says Lansdowne Music Hall, it will say House of Blues," Lyons said yesterday. He will continue to own......

--Two employees at the International House of Pancakes in Brighton got into a knife fight yesterday evening at 5:00, just in time to scare the hell out of the early birds. Bostonist nominates O'Ryan Johnson for best crime-writing line of the year thusfar: "A knife duel between two workers at a Brighton greasy spoon turned the eatery into the International House of Pain." While the fight's setting makes it funny, the fight itself was anything......

Another week, another political clapfest. Governor Deval Patrick's State of the Commonwealth may have lacked the drama (what are the firefighters going to do?) and surprise (dismantling busing) of Mayor Menino's State of the City, but it did showcase Patrick's trademark optimism and plans for progress. Now how are we going to pay for it? Bostonist arrived unfashionably early, and with no idea of where to go. Thankfully, after three or four consultations with......

The House voted 107-47 to ban the use of handheld gadgets while driving. Using a headset is OK, but anyone caught with a gadget in hand will be fined $100. According to the AP, anyone who can show they are making an emergency call won't be fined. Now the bill goes to the Senate. Given the strong approval for the bill, start shopping for headsets. Bostonist has also provided tips on how to get through......