Yes, it’s a swing and a miss for Chris  :).

Here’s how eastern Connecticut’s Journal Inquirer called the play  (emphases added :)

Major League Baseball has put a stop to U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd’s raffle of two tickets to see the Boston Red Sox play the Cleveland Indians for the American League Championship.

Dodd, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and self-professed lifelong Red Sox fan, last week offered a chance at the coveted playoff tickets to supporters of his long-shot bid for the White House.

There were a couple of critical catches.

The first was that the winner had to sit in the seats next to Dodd’s.

The other was that entrants had to either make a campaign contribution of $20.04, a number that represented the last time the Red Sox won the World Series three years ago, or recruit two dozen friends who would sign up on the Dodd campaign Web site.

The tickets were for Game 6 of the playoff series, and, if that didn’t happen because the Sox eliminated the Indians, the winner could go to Game 2 of the World Series.

Should the Sox lose the playoffs, Dodd was promising the winner free airfare to Iowa or New Hampshire to join him on the campaign trail.

But Dodd spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said Friday that Major League Baseball had "scuttled" the plan…

Here’s a Boston Globe take.  / The "Contribute" page linked from Chris’s campaign website states:

"NOTE: The Chris Dodd Fenway Tickets contest is no longer active. Thank you."

:)

Some people say Joe Lieberman is not liberal enough. I say he’s not literal enough!

The Newington High School football team improved to 4-0 on Friday with an "epic" 31-28 win over Bloomfield. WFSB has video highlights. Way to go, Indians!

Back in June, Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt announced she was cancelling the annual UConn-Tennessee rivalry series. Turns out, UConn coach Geno Auriemma is pissed at her:

“I think she should just come out and say she’s not playing us because she hates my guts,” Auriemma told The Courant. “And I think people would buy that. Then everyone [who seeks a reason] would be happy. She should just say that [Geno is] a dope, a smart-ass, and then everyone could say that they agree with her.”

Geno added that he would never have cancelled the series: “You know what? I would never want to. This game is bigger than any individual.”

“Besides,” he added, “Brendan Loy just moved to Knoxville, so it’s really poor timing to end the series now.”

Okay, maybe he didn’t say that last part. But it’s true! (Hat tip: my dad.)

There was a big-time high-school football grudge match just down the road from us this evening, as West Knoxville archrivals Farragut and Bearden played their annual game. The traffic was insane, and there were cars parked all over the place; the game apparently draws thousands. I didn’t go, but it seems the home team, Bearden, lost a heartbreaker in overtime, 35-28. Farragut has now won eight consecutive games over the Bulldogs, dating back to 2001. (That includes two playoff games.)

Speaking of high-school football, back in Connecticut, Newington won its opener tonight, 30-12 over Hartford Public. Nice!

The start of the Indians’ season got me thinking — and I know anyone reading this who graduated from NHS in the late ’90s or early ’00s will find this just as mind-boggling as I do — this year’s crop of NHS seniors have never seen the Indians have a losing season. Never! To them, Newington has always been a winning team!

(After ten straight losing seasons from 1994-2003, including a whopping 3-38-1 record during my four years there, Newington has gone 9-2, 7-3 and 6-3-1 the last three years. And now they’re 1-0 and counting. Go Indians!)

In what was thought to be a possible Standoff situation, a Newington PD K-9, followed by the SWAT team,  entered Congregation B’nai Sholom  (Children of Peace) this morning. The search turned up nobody. Evidence suggests that some dirtbags had boosted some dirt bikes from a shed on neighboring property, parked them behind the synagogue while they busted in there to see what else they could find, and then abruptly fled (perhaps when the Burglar alarm sounded) leaving the stolen bikes behind and apparently taking nothing from the house of worship.

(Hat tip: Brendan, on his Lunch break. :)

The D.C./netroots rumor mill is churning tonight with the suggestion that Senator Joe will become Attorney General Joe. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.) And then there’s the ultra-paranoid kicker, that Lieberman will subsequently be elevated from A.G. to V.P. to replace a resigning Cheney, thus setting him up to run for president in 2008 as Bush’s hand-picked choice*. Attorney General Joe? Vice President Joe?? President Joe??? Oh, the Joe-manity!!!

The veep stuff is obviously nonsense, but will the A.G. rumors come to anything? I doubt it. As James L. at Swing State Project notes, “if you’ve believed all the rumors, Lieberman should have been one or all of the following by now: Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, Ambassador to the United Nations, and George Bush’s running mate in 2004.”

Also, Ron Beasley (not to be confused with Ron Weasley) says, “I really can’t see Lieberman giving up another five and half years in the Senate for 16 months as AG.” I agree. I also, of course, don’t share the Left’s (plainly irrational) belief that Lieberman is a power-hungry closet “Rethuglican” who wants nothing more than to get all Larry Craig with President Bush and his cronies… so I can’t see him taking this post unless he honestly believes he could do more good for the country in it than in his current capacity. And that seems doubtful.

Still, if Lieberman were appointed, that would bring about something truly remarkable: President Bush would have managed to find an attorney general who is, at least arguably, hated even more viscerally by the Left than John Ashcroft ever was. Wonders never cease!

*Why would anyone want to be Bush’s hand-picked choice in the 2008 election? Just asking!

West Nile Virus has reached Newington’s shores. Or it would have, if Newington had shores. But I suppose it’ll have to be satisfied with reaching Newington’s arbitrarily drawn borders. Anyway, the point is, a mosquito in Newington tested positive for the virus. As they say on Fark, “EVERYBODY PANIC.”

Okay, probably not, but still, this is a little scary:

Police are investigating the discovery of what appeared to be a partially detonated pipe bomb that had to be blown up by members of the Hartford Bomb Squad Monday evening.

Witnesses reported to police about 8 p.m. that they thought they saw a vehicle take off from the wooded area around the intersection of Brookside Road and Main Street seconds before a flash or explosion went off in the woods, Lt. William Darby said.

“Our officers went to investigate and found what appeared to be a pipe bomb that someone attempted to light but the pipe itself didn’t explode,” Darby said. “We called in the Hartford Bomb Squad and they also confirmed that it appeared to be [a] pipe bomb and detonated the device for safety.”

The intersection of Brookside and Main is less than a half-mile from my parents’ house — it’s practically in their backyard.

Heh:

I don’t like Daily Kos, but Dodd is right: O’Reilly makes the anti-Kos position seem cartoonish and ridiculous. Oh, and O’Reilly did in fact say what Dodd claimed he said.

Boldly making a principled stand for truth, justice and the American way, Connecticut’s senior senator and presidential candidate Chris Dodd is bravely standing up for the rights of candidates polling in the single digits. :)

From the good senator’s interview with Hugh Hewitt:

HH: Would you accept a place on a Giuliani, a Romney or a Thompson ticket if offered to you?

JL: No, I think I got that bug out of my system. But…the national bug, I mean. It’s nice of you to ask, and I don’t think any one of them in their right mind would ask me, but my wife will appreciate that you asked.

HH: Is that an unequivocal no, Senator?

JL: Yeah, that’s unequivocal. Actually, my wife probably would not appreciate that.

Of course, Hewitt only asked about “a Giuliani, a Romney or a Thompson ticket” — in other words, a Republican ticket. He didn’t ask about an independent McCain-Lieberman ticket, which would be the most obvious possibility, IMHO. (Though, as I mentioned previously, such a ticket presumably couldn’t win in the current political climate vis a vis Iraq, and would just serve to throw the election to the Democrats.)

P.S. Speaking of Lieberman… Sean Paul Kelley at The Agnoist thinks Lieberman’s “Sense of the Senate” resolution (PDF here) wagging the Senate’s collective finger at Iran — approved by a vote of 97-0 — opens the door for an Authorization of the Use of Military Force down the road. The amendment, as characterized by Kelley, basically says (not in so many words), “It is the sense of the senate that Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States.” Which seems to lend itself rather nicely to a rather powerful pro-war argument down the road: “How could you not support military action against a country committing acts of war against the United States?” (Hat tip: My Left Nutmeg.)

Personally, I doubt this vote will have any real effect on later debates. If going “on record” in such a way had the kind of rhetorical power envisioned by Kelley, nobody would be able to gripe about “Bush’s” rejection of the Kyoto Accords (which were rejected in principle on a 95-0 “Sense of the Senate” vote in 1997), nor about “Bush’s” decision to pursue regime change in Iraq (a policy explicitly endorsed in 1998 by a vote of 360-38 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate). Yet nobody seems to feel shamed by those votes, so I doubt they’ll feel shamed by this one. If war in Iran comes up for a vote, Democratic senators aren’t going to feel obligated to authorize it just because they voted for this unanimously approved legislative nullity.

Still, it’s an interesting development nonetheless. The storm clouds continue to gather, I fear.

If Becky wasn’t going to be in her eighth month of pregnancy by then, I’d seriously consider making a trip to Boston for this game:

The UConn men’s basketball team will face Gonzaga on Dec. 1 at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston in the second annual Basketball Hall of Fame Challenge. …

The Huskies and Zags have met twice previously, with UConn taking both meetings. The Huskies knocked off upstart Gonzaga in the 1999 NCAA Tournament West Regional final on their way to a first national title. UConn took a thrilling victory in the title game of the 2005 Maui Invitational thanks to a buzzer-beating baseline jumper by Denham Brown.

Newington High School junior Amber Polo is one of five finalists in a nationwide competition to have MTV throw her a “Super Sweet 16″ party. The winner will be announced tomorrow. More here.

Why is Joe Lieberman again making headlines for stating the obvious?

“I’m going to chose whichever candidate that I think will do the best job for our country, regardless of the party affiliation of that candidate,” the Connecticut senator told reporters in the state capital Hartford.

First of all, Lieberman already said this, back in January. Why is it “news” that he said it again? Can we expect the wire services to publish a new “Lieberman may back Republican” story every few months between now and the conventions?

Secondly, as I said back then, there’s nothing remotely objectionable about his statement, especially if “do the best job for our country” is defined broadly. Some would say that the party can trump the person in certain cases, but Lieberman’s statement doesn’t deny that possibility — he’s not saying the candidate’s party won’t be a factor in his decision, just that it won’t be the only factor. I’m confident that, as between two candidates whose stances on the war against terrorism are equally acceptable to him, Lieberman would choose the Democrat. But he’s not going to support someone with an unacceptable stance just because he (or she) has a “D” next to his (or her) name. In that regard, Lieberman is firmly ensconced in the majority, not to mention common sense. Whatever one’s ideology, party affiliation, or opinion about any particular issue, surely we can all agree that ultimately, country is more important than party.

The more intriguing bit is the second part of his statement:

“I’m not going to get involved until after both parties have their presumptive nominees and, frankly, to see if there is a strong independent candidate,” he said.

Hmm. Could Lieberman be angling for another vice presidential nod — on an independent ticket? Especially in light of his recent praise for John McCain, coupled with the Arizona senator’s growling struggles in the race for the Republican nomination, it’s enough to make one wonder if the concept of a John & Joe ticket could make a comeback. (Of course, in light of the current political climate vis a vis Iraq, a ticket of two pro-war mavericks almost certainly wouldn’t carry the day in ‘08, no matter how much I might like it to.* In all likelihood, such an independent candidacy would just split the dwindling conservative/hawkish vote and guarantee a Democratic landslide. In which case, shouldn’t all you Lieberman-haters be rooting for it to happen? :)

*I mean it when I say “might.” It’s not a foregone conclusion that I would vote for such a ticket. I have plenty of misgivings about McCain — and a few about Lieberman, even! Though I’d take him over most alternatives. But anyway, a Brendan Loy vote for McCain-Lieberman would not be pre-ordained. I’d love to have the option, though.

P.S. About that other potential third-party candidate, Nanny Bloomberg, Wonkette looks at the polls and concludes: “So if Bloomberg jumps in, we’ll have another tie decided by the Supreme Court, and then Scooter Libby becomes President of Earth.” Sounds right.