If what you want out of a movie is moral clarity -- or even coherence -- you should probably avoid the new Irish gangster flick In Bruges. It's a credit to screenwriter and director Martin McDonagh's clever contrivance to hear critics complain that its superlatively violent ending breaks the moral deal. To paraphrase Arthur Penn, the father of critically reviled ultraviolence, we're killing people every day in Iraq, and you're upset that this movie is......

A few days ago, everyone cared about the Commonwealth. Senator McCain was here, Senator Obama was here, Senator Clinton was in Worcester, the Kennedys were everywhere. Now we won't even have our ex-governor parading around the country insulting us. It all happened so fast. To figure out exactly what went wrong, we headed to the epicenter of right-wing commentary: the National Review. And as it turns out, Romney's defeat was caused by something we're pretty......

--Last night, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis was unable to get out of her home and died in a fire in Wellesley. Wellesley's fire chief said a space heater was the cause. [WCVB] --A fire broke out on the third floor of the Boston Marriott Cambridge last night. No one was hurt, but those who were evacuated were probably freezing. [Boston Globe] --A reporter checks in on the father of Alex Jimenez, the......

--After such nice weather, a Nor'easter? You're kidding, right? Oh, no. You're not. At least it's scheduled to arrive Sunday, which will make the Pantsless T Ride much more pleasant. [WBZ] --A report indicates that a terrorist attack on Everett LNG would be a bad thing. Gee, ya think so? [Boston Globe] --Alex Jimenez, the soldier from Lawrence who went missing in Iraq last May and who still has not been found, has been......

--A truck crashed on the Revere Beach Parkway last night. No one was hurt, but the incident shut down the parkway in both directions. According to WBZ, "State police officials said a truck went under the overpass on Route 107 North heading toward Chelsea and smashed into the top of the Route 16 bridge, bringing concrete down onto the roadway and damaging Route 16." The road has since been reopened. [WBZ, WHDH] --Two suspects......

Jim McCue Book Launch Party Comedy Connection Faneuil Hall (T: Government Center) Sunday, December 16, 8:00 pm, $15 Free for veterans and military personnel Official Jim McCue Site AnySoldier.com The troops could use a lot from us right now, whether it be body armor or sunblock. But one local performer is using his specific talents to make the lives of the troops a little bit better. Comedian Jim McCue, who is also co-founder of the......

During the recent elections in Cambridge, a Boy Scout troop set up stations at polling places to collect goods for troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The items collected would have been bundled into care packages. Somebody complained that the collections were too political, and Cambridge officials made the Boy Scouts leave. The stage was set for a political ruckus, with the Boy Scouts and the troops as the victims and the hemptastic citizens of......

-- 18 protesters were arrested during yesterday's Veterans Day ceremony at City Hall Plaza. They were members of Veterans for Peace, an organization of former soldiers opposed to the Iraq War. The American Legion had placed the group in the rear of the Veterans Day parade and told them that they could not carry signs protesting the war. The Veterans for Peace responded by blocking the official ceremony podium with gags in their mouths and......

The United States has a lot to be afraid of: the war in Iraq, the mortgage crisis, wildfires, the gulf between the haves and have nots, and Dick Cheney. But former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney thinks that the nation should really be afraid of Hillary Clinton. In an attempt to celebrate Halloween and trash an opponent at the same time, Mitt Romney told an audience in Iowa, "What do you think about Hillary's House of......

Yeah, yeah, "Obama" as in "Barack" as in Deval Patrick's buddy sounds similar to "Osama" as in the despicable terrorist. But those are two names that you don't want to mix up in polite company. You don't want to mix up those names in impolite company. Alas, that's exactly what former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney did. Marc Ambinder has the quotation from a Romney presentation in Greenville, South Carolina: Actually, just......

The MLB is no fun! A kind tipster just gave Bostonist the heads-up that the Chris Dodd Red Sox Raffle is now OFF and that anyone who donated will get a refund. The e-mail from Dodd HQ states, We have some bad news. Major League Baseball has asked the campaign to end our contest you entered to get a chance to go to a Red Sox game with Chris Dodd. Apparently, Post-Season tickets are different......

--Semi-Finals: Thursday, October 11, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Semi-Finals: Friday, October 12, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Finals: Saturday, October 13, Cutler Majestic, 8:15 pm During the last night of the preliminaries, many of the comics tore into their routines like it was the last show of their lives. Everyone is burning out after four days of endless stand-up shows, but the comics of the last preliminary round made it all worth......

--Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley and police commissioner Ed Davis were able to be in the same room this weekend despite their ongoing public spat. But someone has BPD detectives have been distributing flyers around Government Center denouncing Conley's actions. The flyer pulls no punches and even likens Conley to a feudal lord: "Dan Conley is a politician who only wants to flex his political might over the serfs beneath him." Can everyone involved in......

John Kerry just can't catch a break. First there was that whole losing the presidency to G.W. thing, then the lack of education lands you in Iraq comment, and now this. A local Florida news station is reporting that a University of Florida student was tasered after asking John Kerry possibly controversial questions that included whether Kerry was in the "Skull and Crossbones" society with George W. Bush. That's the short story. Upon reviewing the......

Ari Brown-Weeks, 23, of Leyden in Western Mass, died in Iraq in a truck accident. Weeks was with the Army's 82d Airborne Division. He was one of seven paratroopers who died when their vehicle rolled over on Monday in Western Baghdad. The truck fell 30 feet from an elevated highway. The Recorder notes that he had been in Iraq for over a year and was scheduled to return in October.......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Yet another Massachusetts resident has died in Iraq. Jeremy Bouffard of Middlefield was one of the soldiers killed in Wednesday's Black Hawk helicopter crash in northern Iraq. Bouffard, 21, was married and had a son. He was in the 25th Infantry Division. The crash killed 14 soldiers in all. The military says that mechanical problems were the cause.......

This has been a terrible week for Massachusetts when it comes to the war in Iraq. The Pentagon has announced that a third resident of the state has died. Green Beret Robert Pirelli, of Franklin, was killed in Iraq. He was in the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based in Fort Carson, Colorado. He was 29. The Pentagon has released information that Pirelli died in small-arms fire in Diyala Province. Pirelli was supposed......

Update: Birchett's family has said that she was killed when the truck's brakes failed as she changed the tire. The Pentagon has announced that Army Staff Sergeant Alicia Birchett, 29, died last Thursday in Iraq. She was from Mashpee. One of Birchett's cousins said that she was changing a tire by the road in Baghdad and was somehow crushed. The Pentagon said that the incident is "under investigation." Birchett was with the 887th Engineer Company,......

Army sergeant Joan Duran, 24, of Roxbury, died in Iraq. A report on Fox 25 said that Duran was on his second tour of duty and was scheduled to get out in two months. He attended Boston Latin and joined the Army right after graduation. He was based out of Fort Bragg. Fox 25 interviewed his fiancee, Andrea Silva, who said he had plans to be a math teacher once he left the Army. The......

Do you have any spare toiletries? Books? Magazines? Anything to relieve the irritation and boredom that the troops in Iraq feel when they're not getting shot at? Bring 'em down to South Station today, then. A coalition of people, including the Commuter Rail Union, the Firefighters Union, the Teamsters, MBCR, and the MBTA are at the station. They have large bins decorated with American flags both inside and outside the station. The items must be......

Ordinary folks out for a stroll this past Saturday night in Harvard Square must have been wondering what the fuss was about at the Brattle. A crowd of people gathered on the stairs and around the main entrance of the movie theater while the staff valiantly tried to corral overeager fankids into a line. Stern-looking people with professional lighting and video cameras were shooting the action and talking to men who were being treated like......

--Why can't we just have a light day with the Bonbon Bandit instead of the carnage that has filled the Blotter as of late? Last night, a 9-year-old got shot in a house in Mattapan. Two teenagers were found shot outside. A party was going on at the time, which raises the question of what a 9-year-old was doing at the party and the even more important question of what guns were doing at the......

Dave Zirin reads from Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports on Wednesday, June 27, at 7:00 pm, at Brookline Booksmith. At first, sports seems like a welcome escape from the day-to-day grind of politics. Most people would rather talk about their favorite team than the state of the war in Iraq. But, although the talking heads on ESPN rarely utter the word "politics," sports is nothing but politics – people......

UPDATE: From the AP: "US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday his agency will seek to "terminate" the deportation case against the wife of a Massachusetts soldier missing in Iraq so she can stay in the country and apply for permanent resident status." Unless we're mistaken, that sounds like Yaderlin Jimenez will be able to get her green card. Yesterday, word spread all over the Web that Yaderlin Jimenez, wife of missing......

The US government is considering deporting the wife of Alex Jimenez, the soldier from Lawrence who has been missing in Iraq since May 12. Jimenez is a citizen of the United States. His wife, Yaderlin, is not. She came here illegally from the Dominican Republic, and they married. She was in the process of getting a green card, but, according to WBZ, an immigration judge stopped the process when Alex Jimenez went missing. Her lawyer......

--More details have emerged about the stabbing death of Adam Rich at The 6 House Bar in South Boston. The fatal fight started over spilled beer. A witness, the victim's best friend, said someone spilled beer on the victim, and the fight got out of control. The victim's best friend is also an Iraq War vet, and he saved some choice words for the murderer: “Whoever did this is the new breed of scumbag who......

Michael Beschloss will read from Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 tomorrow, Tuesday, June 19, at 6:00 pm at Coolidge Corner Theatre. Tickets are $5 and available at Brookline Booksmith. When a president dies, who are the networks gonna call? Historian and brainy talking head Michael Beschloss. Beschloss' latest book evaluates the moments when a president made a lonely, unpopular, and ultimately correct choice. Many of the leaders we admire were......

We hear Mitt Romney doesn't do caffeine. That's a Mormon thing, but it's not unusual – plenty of non-Mormons eschew caffeine. But there's more to the no-caffeine-Romney connection than dietary choices. Now that Romney has taken the lead in the New Hampshire polls, people are starting to wonder if he is the real deal – or if he's like caffeine-free Coca-Cola. --Whether he's the real deal or not, he's launching a soda-pop-worthy ad campaign and......

--The last thing the Boston brass wants to hear is someone comparing Dorchester to Iraq. But that's exactly what a guy told the Globe after a man got shot several times in the head yesterday afternoon. The victim must be made of steel. He was able to run to a friend's house after getting hit, and he is in "critical but stable condition." As for the Iraq comparison, a neighbor said, "There's something always going......