--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......

Bostonist is looking back on the year in weird, silly, or just plain creative crimes. Yesterday, you met some pugnacious bowlers, but you haven't seen anything until you meet a certain postal employee, overeager college students, and an exceptionally creative gravedigger. 7. Going Postal. A postal worker didn’t honor her profession when she nearly hit a detail officer. Police realized why. She was driving while on the cell phone and "with a cigarette in one......

Scratch this subject off the list of what Senator Edward Kennedy will talk about in his memoirs--the love child the National Enquirer accused him of having with a Massachusetts woman. In 2006, the Enquirer claimed that Kennedy fathered a child with Caroline Bilodeau-Allen in 1984 and that a cover-up ensued. Bilodeau-Allen filed a lawsuit in Boston claiming that is completely false and that she and her 22-year-old son, who is also a plaintiff, have suffered......

The story about a Boston priest getting arrested for stalking Conan O'Brien keeps getting weirder, if that's possible. Reverend David Ajemian, 46, who attended Milton and Harvard and who was a local priest, was nabbed trying to get into an O'Brien taping. The Smoking Gun has documents that show Ajemian may be even stranger than previously thought. Letters indicate that Ajemian was mad at John McEnroe as well, and he claimed that McEnroe assaulted them......

We thought it was weird when a former Nader advisor filed suit against Bill Belichick for Videotapegate. But Paul Flannery at the Boston Magazine blog came across what may be the weirdest lawsuit of all time. Jonathan Lee Riches is a convicted felon who likes to file lawsuits. Flannery writes that Riches filed 36 of them in September. In the Pats-related suit, according to the Smoking Gun, Richman hand-writes, "Defendants cheated in the 2005 Superbowl......

--Beauty and the Geek: The challenges this week are for the geeks to compose and perform a rap song and for the beauties to debate current-events issues. Dave from Somerville is not happy because his partner, Jasmine, is slow on the uptake - and, in a burst of antisocial behavior, he tells her so! But he sucks it up and works on his rap song. One look at him (image left), and you can guess......

A man is as good as the company he keeps, right? If so, then former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney needs to make some new friends as soon as possible. Last week, someone linked to Team Romney was accused of putting up a website called "Phoney Fred." The website criticized fellow presidential candidate/TV actor Fred Thompson, who is already smoking Romney in the polls. The site offers the many moods of Thompson, including......

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......

It's college-ranking time. Of course, these rankings are about as scientific as a game of pin the tail on the donkey, but schools have a lot of fun learning about how other campuses see them. For example, the University of New Hampshire was named one of the top party schools. UNH is no West Virginia University, which appears to have abandoned the pretense of higher education altogether, but UNH was number seven on the party-hearty......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Update: Reader Ron points to Davis Square Live Journal, which has numerous harrowing reports from local residents following the crash. Somerville News and WBZ are reporting that the man who died was in the taxi. His name was Paul Farris. He was only 23 and a recent graduate of Tufts. --The action isn't stopping in Somerville. After a bank robbery in which an employee was tied up and left in the basement, a wild early-morning......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

The Globe brings us a story of crime fighting success by the MBTA police. The T has installed a number of cameras in subway and bus stations over the last few years. The cameras have helped solve some crimes which have occurred on T property. A string of robberies on the Orange Line by a group of young people has reportedly been solved. The incidents occurred late last year and into the early part of......

While we're waiting to see BU and BC face off in the Beanpot next Monday night, we gotta make do with what we have - the Bruins and the Celtics. Aw, that's not fair. The Bruins won one against the Washington Capitals last night in a shootout. It was the night of a thousand shootouts across the NHL (actually, five shootouts), and the Bruins enjoyed one of the victories. And who scored the winning goal?......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

Every town and city seems to hang on to their home-grown celebrities. Boston's got those we're proud to call Bostonians and those we'd rather dismiss. Lawrence, Mass. is home to Godsmack front man Sully Erna. The key to the city is symbolic these days, it really doesn't open any locks. Theoretically it gives you an "in" however. The bloggers at AOL's music blog reported earlier this month on the ceremony:Erna, who spent his formative years......

There's a widely known secret that an ad on Craigslist with that little "pic" indication next to it gets more clicks. No matter what the category, including a pic of some sort will likely get the posting a little more attention than the next guy. If you title your post "Most Fun Post You'll See on CL Today - GUARANTEED! – 27" and include many pictures, only disbelief will draw us in. Earlier this month......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

The BPD must've smelled a lot of weed Wednesday night. One of their early reports describes what happened when they served a warrant: "Officers, on approaching suspect’s room, were immediately assaulted by the smell of burning marijuana." Can marijuana "assault" the senses? If so, it must have been some terrible weed. Upon further inspection, the officers found "a plastic sandwich bag containing green leafy vegetable matter believed to be marijuana." Bostonist wishes that the officer......

It's rare when we dare to merge sports with the blotter because Matt Taibbi at the Phoenix has that department covered. But a high-school hockey game between Amesbury and Newburyport got ugly when Amesbury fans threw golf balls and squid onto the Newburyport ice. What were these teens thinking? And who found the squid? Real squid? The Globe writes that the Amesbury kids found enough stuff for a "deluge" that "lasted 5 to 10 minutes."......

We don't know about you, but it's been friggin warm out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, it's just confusing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown......

The only things certain in life are death, taxes, and problems with Fung Wah buses. Mac Daniel reports that the latest Fung Wah problem involved two tires coming right off the bus as it headed down the Turnpike. But here's the real howler - the bus passed its state inspection on November 29. Surely, whoever inspected that bus was smoking something absolutely magnificent. How on earth can someone whose line of business it is......

Today The Smoking Gun posted a copy of the federal court complaint filed by New England Patriot's own Tom Brady against Yahoo!. The suit was dated November 20, and filed November 29. It points out Brady's gripe, or more precisely his management company's gripe, that our very own superstar of football's image was ripped off by Yahoo! and used without his permission to promote their Fantasy Football endeavors. Four counts of illegal action are cited......

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up. -Chicagoist had fall on their mind as they made squash and fudge, read "House of Leaves" and ">tried to figure out what's next for the Cubs. Not fall related, but still of utmost concern, the whole skinny black pants thing. -Torontoist fought off an evil scourge of raccoons and went to go see who......

Bostonist likes to think that we know a thing or two about the black market, and that we have at least heard about most of the major subcultures out there. But apparently, there is one practice going on right here in Boston that we never even imagined: The trading of stuff stolen from hotel rooms. Don't believe us? Just look at this craigslist ad: will trade "No smoking sign" [sic] for.... I have a 2"-3"......

It’s been a while, but now we’ve got to do some spring cleaning. Bostonist is cleaning out our ears and putting them to good use eavesdropping. We hope you’ll help us by sending in the things you overhear on your commute, at lunch, or as you’re waiting for your TurboIce at Gate B of Fenway Park. Drop them into an email and send it off to us cyber-space style to the address overheard –......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies. In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries. One moviegoer who can be in three places at once. Wednesday 3/29: Thank You For Smoking Bostonist saw Thank You For Smoking last week. We were impressed with its clever writing and relentless bipartisan satire, and even more impressed that it managed to be heavy-handed and cynical to the point of pointlessness. And even more......