Daily Feed: Red Sox Making History … Unfortunately Not the Good Kind

Red Sox Making History … Unfortunately Not the Good Kind. It’s been nearly 80 years since the last time the team managed to lose their first three games in a row, two seasons in a row — and as ESPN reports, it’s also the first time they’ve lost out after pulling together two multiple-run leads from the ninth inning on. As Bobby Valentine phrases it oh-so-diplomatically: “We’re trying to figure out what to do.” Okay, but the team’s now 23 losses into their last 30 games, and playing the Blue Jays tonight, so could they figure it out sooner than later? The one saving grace? The Yankees don’t have any wins either yet. There’s a bright side to everything. [ESPN]

MBTA Looks to the Obvious to Shore up Savings. Specifically, it’s putting a stop to the unofficial freebies on the commuter rail that it’s been so blithely allowing for its 12-ride pass riders. You know, the kind that it gives out every time the conductor doesn’t get around to punching your pass card (or more annoyingly, your neighbor’s) — the kind that’s apparently costing it $3 million dollars in completely wasted cash. And sure, that’s just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the MBTA’s debt issues, but hey: 1) every little bit counts when you’re hemorrhaging cash as badly as our public transit system and b) just imagine how much they’d save if they also cracked down on the crowds of riders who cheerfully climb on the back of the green line cars with their CharlieCards entirely unscathed? (Not that we’ve witnessed that after paying our own fare and been bitter about it, or anything.) [Boston Globe]

Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu: BFF? Yes. Totally. Turns out, the Israeli leader and the looking-more-and-more-inevitable Republican frontrunner have been the best of friends since well before either of them had ever even gotten into politics, according to a New York Times weekend expose of their connections (a piece which, it has to be said, reads very slightly like a treatment for a political relationship dramedy):

The two young men had woefully little in common: one was a wealthy Mormon from Michigan, the other a middle-class Jew from Israel.

But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.

That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue.

Oh, and:

“We can almost speak in shorthand,” Mr. Romney said in an interview. “We share common experiences and have a perspective and underpinning which is similar.”

Touching, but more importantly, in this political climate, a wild firecracker of a political tie. Depending on where a given person falls on the political spectrum, it’ll either score the Romneybot serious brownie points, or it could be even worse than his French lessons. [New York Times | Townhall.com]

Nix the Bonfire Party, Put Away the Barbecues, and Keep an Eye on That Cigarette Butt. As Universal Hub reports, more or less the entire state — heck, pretty much all of New England — faces some critical fire conditions today. It’s dry as a bone out there, windy as heck, and as of last night, firefighters have already been doing battle on at least four separate fires all across Massachusetts. Be smart! [Universal Hub | Boston.com | National Weather Service]

Remember How We All Wore T-Shirts Through March? Yeah, that wasn’t normal. In fact, it broke damn near every record in the book — 15,292 records, when you combine the upper Midwest with the Northeast. And it’s a month that comes on the heels of a snowless winter, which itself had followed the second-warmest summer on record.

No one’s definitively pointing their fingers to man-made climate change yet, but come on: it’s definitely the elephant in the room here. And while it’s nice to air out our toes and all, this year-round flip-flop weather comes with a big potential cost, not least of which are the fires burning through the state right now. [Climate Central]