Dan Dunn

First off: Yes, it has been more than 6 months since my last post.  Yes, that is lame. I have had the writing itch for a few weeks, though, so maybe this post is a harbinger of things to come.  Or maybe it’s the only post between now and Town Meeting 2012.  You never know. […]

Commonwealth Magazine continues to be the most well-written, well-investigated publication covering Massachusetts. An article in the Winter edition described how the state is making extra money when lottery winners take a smaller lump-sum payout rather than the per-year option.  Why would these winners leave money on the table?  “Our players were not doing very well […]

As I’m sure you remember, I’m running for Selectman. There’s not a lot of definitive guidance I’ve found about running a legal campaign for municipal campaign.  I’ve slogged my way through a fair amount of it the last few weeks, so I figured I’d write it up here for future interested candidates. The first is […]

I didn’t vote for Deval Patrick four years ago.  I kinda liked the guy, but I expected four more years of standard Beacon Hill special interest protection, waste, and corruption.  I have been delighted and surprised by the kind of governor that he’s turned out to be. Do you own a car?  Have you noticed […]

So on Tuesday Massachusetts will have its first open Senate election since 1984.  A 26 year wait, and this is the best crop of candidates we can come up with? Kinda depressing, if you ask me. The candidate I’m most passionate about is Scott Brown – and why he should never be a US senator. […]

I was watching state Senator Galluccio’s legal problems as 2009 drew to a close, and I cynically was thinking to myself about how my post would be different if he made it to 2010 before he resigned.  And he did make it to 2010, making half of my lines obsolete.  Multiple arrests, multiple innocent victims […]

I’ve been lazily watching the Boston Globe’s pursuit of Menino aide Michael J. Kineavy’s emails.  It was obvious from the start that the guy was violating state law – he was deleting emails that the law required be retained.  But it looked like more smoke than fire.  Yeah, he should be keeping the emails, I […]

Ted Kennedy is dead, and that is all I have to say on the topic of Ted Kennedy.  But the questions of who will succeed him and how that person will be selected – now those are things I can write about. The last time the Republicans won a Senate seat in Massachusetts was 1972: […]

Today former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi was indicted for “conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, aiding and abetting, and honest services wire fraud” related to the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract to Cognos software. For most of us, this isn’t a shock.  The Globe has been writing investigative stories about this for a year […]

My friends and I play a silly game online.  We send each other news headlines on instant messenger under the headline of “Real or Onion.”  To win, you have to fool your opponent into mis-classifying the headline.  “Congressman Wants to Talk with Rodriguez” – it’s real, on nytimes.com right now.  “Genetic  Experiment Goes Horribly Right” […]