Boston Sports Morning Report — Thursday, Oct. 8

Not for nuthin'…. But….. tonight's a doubleheader, folks. The Bruins host Utah at the Garden and the Celtics are out in Cleveland, both at 7. Nobody from Boston played last night, so we're rested and ready.

Short version: B's and C's both go at 7 tonight. Pats get the Raiders at Foxborough Sunday at 1. Red Sox season is done.

New England Patriots

• Yesterday: No game (last out: W 29–26 @ Buffalo Bills, Sun. Oct. 4)
• Today: No game
• Next: Sun, Oct. 11 — 1:00 PM ET — vs Las Vegas Raiders (home, CBS)
• Then: Sun, Oct. 18 — 1:00 PM ET — vs New York Jets (home, CBS)
• Standings: 2-2 · 2nd in AFC East · Buffalo 3-1 leads · Jets 1-3 · Dolphins 0-4 · No. 7 seed in the AFC right now per ESPN

Raiders are 3-1 and sitting one spot ahead of us in the AFC pecking order. Big one at home Sunday.

Boston Red Sox

• Yesterday / Today: No games — season over
• Next: Offseason
• Final standings: 87-75 · 3rd in AL East · Eliminated in the AL Wild Card round

Hot stove season. We'll keep an eye on the winter moves.

Boston Celtics

• Yesterday: No game
• Today (preseason): Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — @ Cleveland Cavaliers
• Next (preseason): Sat, Oct. 10 — 8:00 PM ET — vs Philadelphia 76ers (home, NBA TV)
• Regular-season opener: Tue, Oct. 20 — 3:00 PM ET — @ Detroit Pistons (NBC, as listed by ESPN)
• Status: Preseason · 2026-27 season not started

The green is back on the floor tonight. It's only preseason, but it beats staring at an empty schedule.

Boston Bruins

• Yesterday: No game (last out: L 1–4 vs Ottawa Senators, Mon. Oct. 5)
• Today: Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — vs Utah Mammoth (home, NESN)
• Next: Sat, Oct. 10 — 1:00 PM ET — vs Philadelphia Flyers (home, NESN)
• Standings: 2-2-0 · 4 points · tied for 4th in the Atlantic with Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Detroit (Florida 8, Buffalo 6, Toronto 6; no Atlantic teams played Wednesday)

Time to wash that Ottawa game out of the system. Two at home before the long West Coast trip.

That's the Thursday board. Pick a channel at 7, or flip back and forth like the rest of us.

MOAM Out.

New England This Morning — October 8, 2026

Not for nuthin'…. But….. Thursday came in with a little bit of everything. Marblehead Harbor woke up to a pink-and-gold sunrise, Mount Washington is completely socked in, and the Mad River Valley is glowing with fall color under a moody sky.

Marblehead Harbor (BYC Oceanfront) — The sun is just up on the left side of the frame, lighting a sky full of scattered pink and gold clouds over patches of blue. The water has a gentle ripple, the moorings are still well populated, and the dinghies are tucked in along the Boston Yacht Club float.

Mount Washington North View — Nothing but white. The summit is in the clouds this morning, and the camera can't see past the fog. The Rockpile is living up to its reputation today, with west winds of 25 to 45 mph and gusts to 60, a high near 37, and rain showers likely. Snow showers are in the forecast for Friday, with about an inch possible up top.

Great Eddy Covered Bridge, Waitsfield — Heavy grey clouds with a soft pink glow breaking through over the hills. The Mad River is calm enough to mirror the bridge and the trees, and the foliage is a mix of orange, red and gold, with some of the trees along the bank already thinning out.

Back on the coast there's a chance of a passing shower this morning, then mostly sunny and breezy with a high near 69. The Mad River Valley could see a few showers or a thunderstorm this afternoon, with a high near 65.

Webcam views courtesy of the Boston Yacht Club, the Mount Washington Observatory, and Mad River Valley Television.

MOAM Out.

TDS Watch: Jack White spots a “Fuhrer” and smells a “false flag”

This is catching the MOAM's attention today….. Jack White, the White Stripes guy, the fella behind the “Seven Nation Army” riff that stadium crowds chant along to, went on Instagram Tuesday and diagnosed the President of the United States. Spoiler: it's Hitler. With a side of conspiracy theory.

What was said

On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, White posted this on his Instagram account, reacting to the President's Monday night rally line about Iran and Los Angeles and San Diego. Here's the post, word for word:

“Hey republicans and conservatives that live in L.A. and San Diego; how do you feel about your Fuhrer recommending that the cities you live in get attacked? Click the video I reposted and watch for yourself. Listen to the cult members CLAPPING and cheering for this. Let me take a wild guess: it was a joke, owning the libs, insert cult rhetoric here, etc. The allegiance these people have to this corrupt felon is so laughable and ignorant. That's right, a U.S. "President" that recommended that two major cities in our country be bombed because they don't give total allegiance to his ego. Imagine any other President or elected official in history saying this. False flag incoming anyone? Just wait till next month when he begins enacting illegal measures to not allow democracy at the polls to prevail when the right lose badly in the mid term elections. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Worst American of All Time. #TWAAT”

Coverage: Variety, “Jack White Slams Trump as ‘Worst American of All Time’…” (Oct 6, 2026), Rolling Stone (Oct 6, 2026) and Billboard (Oct 6, 2026).

Context (not spin)

First, the rally line. On Monday night in Grand Island, Nebraska, defending higher prices from the Iran war, Mr. Trump said: “It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's gonna be over with very soon” (Mediaite). The MOAM covered it last night and said it then: that one landed badly, and some Republicans said so too, including San Diego congressional candidate Jim Desmond (NBC San Diego). The White House's Steven Cheung said the President “was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped” (NBC San Diego), and the White House rapid-response account said he “was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon” (Rolling Stone). Criticizing the line is fair game. Tonight's post is about what Jack White piled on top of it.

Second, the motive. White says the President wants the cities bombed “because they don't give total allegiance to his ego.” Read the rally passage quoted above again. There's nothing in it about loyalty, allegiance or anybody's ego. White supplied that part himself.

Third, “False flag incoming anyone?” In plain English, a false flag is an attack staged by one side and blamed on another. White doesn't say who he thinks would stage what. He just tosses it out there with a question mark and moves on to predicting “illegal measures” at the polls “next month.” The midterms are November 3. No evidence for either claim is offered in the post.

Fourth, the man's been here before. Back in August 2025 he called Mr. Trump a danger “not just to America but the entire world and that's not an exaggeration,” Variety reported. So this isn't a one-time outburst. It's a pattern.

MOAM's diagnosis

Severity: TERMINAL.

This is commentary, so here's the MOAM's opinion. Jack White wanted to reach Republicans and conservatives in Southern California. So he opened with “your Fuhrer,” called them “cult members,” and told them their loyalty is “laughable and ignorant.” That's a wicked strange way to win friends. It's like a Yankees fan trying to recruit at the Cask 'n Flagon by calling everybody inside a bunch of bums.

Then there's “False flag incoming anyone?” We're forever being told that tossing around “false flag” talk is tinfoil-hat territory. Now a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer does it in front of some 25,000 likes, and it gets written up as Jack White “slamming” Trump. In the MOAM's opinion, if a country singer had posted that about a Democratic president, it would be headlined as a dangerous conspiracy theory.

And “The Worst American of All Time”? Up here in New England we have a candidate for that title already. His name was Benedict Arnold. He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, and in 1780 he tried to hand West Point to the British. Whatever you think of a clumsy line at a Nebraska rally, it isn't that. Ask anybody from Norwich.

Terminal, because this one has all three symptoms in one post: the Hitler comparison, a made-up motive, and a conspiracy theory with a question mark on the end so nobody can pin him down. A seven nation army couldn't hold this fella back. The MOAM won't try. He'll just keep the receipts.

MOAM Out.

Woodworking Tip of the Day: Circular Saw Edge Guide

Not for nuthin'…. But….. you don't need a panel saw or a track saw to break a sheet of plywood down dead straight. You need a strip of hardboard, a strip of plywood with a factory edge, some glue, and about twenty minutes. Build it once for your saw and it puts the cut right on your pencil line, with a zero-clearance edge that keeps the face veneer from splintering out.

Why it matters: My shop's small, and the table saw is no place to wrestle a full 4×8 sheet of marine ply by yourself. The bulkheads and panels for the Chamberlain gunning dory all start as full sheets, and they have to come down to rough size without chewing up the face veneer you just paid good money for. Freehand, a circular saw wanders. A clamped straightedge works, but then you're measuring the shoe-to-blade offset on every setup and doing arithmetic on the sheet, and sooner or later you add it when you should have subtracted. The shop-made guide fixes both problems. The first cut you make with it trims the base to your blade, so the edge of the guide is the cut line. Lay it on the line, clamp it, cut. Fine Woodworking reader Gary May summed it up back in 1997: you'll know exactly where the saw will cut, and splintering is eliminated under the guide. Family Handyman, This Old House and Popular Woodworking all publish the same basic build. And because the base sits tight to the blade, it backs up the top fibers on the side you're keeping. Same guide does cabinet parts and subfloor patches on the GC side.

Materials

• Base: ¼″ tempered hardboard (the Family Handyman and WoodWorkers Guild of America versions) or ¼″ to ½″ plywood (This Old House uses ¼″, Norm Abram uses ½″ scrap). About 12″ wide, which is what This Old House and Gary May's Fine Woodworking version use. One 4×8 sheet of hardboard rips into four 12″ × 96″ strips: a long guide, a short guide, and spares. WOOD Magazine's plan gets a 4′ and an 8′ guide out of a single sheet of ½″ plywood.
• Fence: a strip of ¾″ plywood about 3″ wide with a factory edge. Popular Woodworking's guide rips a 3″ strip off a sheet of ½″ or ¾″ cabinet-grade plywood and lets the saw ride the factory edge. This Old House uses 3″ too. Norm's is 2″. The factory edge is the edge the saw rides, so don't trim it.
• Wood glue, plus short fasteners to hold the fence while it cures. Norm glues and screws, Family Handyman glues and nails, and This Old House tacks it with hot glue. I use #6 × ¾″ flathead screws driven up through the base into the fence, countersunk flush.
• A sheet of rigid foam insulation, 1″ (Family Handyman) or 2″ (Popular Woodworking), or a few straight 2×4s
• A good blade. For veneered plywood, WoodWorkers Guild of America recommends 50 to 60 teeth, thin kerf, carbide tipped. The framing blade that came with the saw is for 2× stock.
• A marker for labeling the guide

Tools

• The circular saw you'll use with the guide. Only that one.
• A square you trust, for checking the blade against the shoe
• Tape measure, pencil, and a string line or a known straightedge
• Drill/driver with a countersink
• Two clamps long enough to reach around the sheet edge
• A pair of sawhorses
• Safety glasses and hearing protection

Steps

1. Check the saw, then measure the offset. Unplug it or pull the battery. Check that the blade is square to the shoe. Family Handyman says to use a machinist's square and adjust the setscrew under the shoe if it's off, and the guide will copy whatever angle the blade is set to. Then measure from the edge of the shoe that'll ride the fence to the nearest tooth (the tooth, not the plate). On a blade-right sidewinder you'll usually run the wide, motor side of the shoe against the fence, so the whole saw sits on the guide. On a left-blade or worm-drive saw, mirror it. The number varies from saw to saw. That's the whole point. My plan uses 4″ as an example only. For a sense of scale, the published builds leave 4″ (WWGOA: 9″ base, 5″ fence), 5½″ (Popular Woodworking: 8½″ base, 3″ fence) and about 5¼″ a side (Gary May: a 1×2 centered on 12″) for the saw to trim, and every one is built around its maker's own saw. On a 12″ base you won't run out of room.
2. Lay out the base. Mark a line along the base your offset plus ½″ in from the saw-side edge. That's This Old House's number. The fence's factory edge goes on that line, and the extra ½″ is what your saw will trim off. With a 4″ offset, the line is at 4½″. Whatever's left behind the fence (about 4½″ on a 12″ base) is your clamp ledge.
3. Glue and fasten the fence. Factory edge on the line, facing the saw side. Popular Woodworking warns that a 3″ strip is narrow enough to bend, so sight down the edge or stretch a string along it while you fasten. Drive the screws up through the base into the fence about every foot, countersunk, and only where the fence sits so nothing ends up in the trim line or scratches your work. Lay it on a flat surface with some weight on it while the glue cures, like WWGOA does.
4. Make the trim cut. Set the guide on foam or scrap with the saw-side edge supported, so the blade has somewhere to go besides your bench. Set the blade just deep enough to cut through the base. Shoe flat on the base and tight to the fence, saw up to speed, then one steady pass. The sliver that drops off is the last measuring you'll ever do with this guide. The new edge is exactly where your blade cuts, with zero clearance.
5. Label it. Write on the guide which saw and which blade trimmed it, and "90° only." This Old House and WWGOA both build theirs to fit one specific saw. Pick up a different saw and the offset changes, so it'll cut somewhere else entirely. Swap blades and the cut can move a hair. Tilt the saw for a bevel and the blade won't land on the edge anymore. If you want a bevel guide, build a second one. Gary May suggests ripping one edge of his at 45°, since it can come in handy.
6. Support the sheet. Popular Woodworking's trick is a full sheet of 2″ rigid foam across two horses with the plywood on top. Set the blade to go about ⅛″ into the foam, and every piece stays supported to the end of the cut. Family Handyman does the same on 1″ foam. No foam? Lay 2×4s across the horses and set them to support both sides of the cut, the way This Old House does it. DeWalt's manual puts it plainly: supports go under the panel on both sides, near the line of cut and near the edge of the panel. What you never do is hold a sheet up at its far ends only. It sags in the middle, the kerf closes on the blade, and that's how you get kickback. Good face down, per the saw manual, since the blade cuts upward and any splintering ends up on the top face. The guide takes care of that top face on the side you keep. If the veneer is touchy, score the line with a knife first (Norm's trick).
7. Mark both ends and X the waste. Measure off a factory edge at both ends of the cut and tick it. Then put a big X on the waste side. The guide goes on the keep side and the kerf goes in the waste. Get that backwards and your part comes out a kerf short. On a bulkhead blank, that's the start of a long afternoon.
8. Set the guide and clamp both ends. Base edge right on the ticks at both ends. Clamp both ends on the ledge behind the fence, where the saw's motor won't hit them. WWGOA makes the same point. On foam, Popular Woodworking's David Peterson pulls the jaw off a bar clamp, pokes the bar through the foam and puts the jaw back, so he can clamp anywhere. After clamping, check both ends again. Clamps like to nudge things.
9. Set the depth. The saw rides on the base now, so the depth has to cover the base, the stock, and a little more. This Old House says ⅛″ to ¼″ below the work. DeWalt's manuals say less than one full tooth showing below, and about half a tooth for the most efficient cut. With ¼″ hardboard and ½″ ply, that's about 1″ from the shoe to the tooth tips, max.
10. Cut. Get the shoe flat on the base and tight to the fence before the teeth touch wood. Let the saw come up to full speed, then push steadily in one continuous pass. An 8′ guide on a full 96″ rip means the shoe starts and finishes partly off the ends, so get it registered before the blade enters and keep pressure against the fence on the way out. If you've got longer stock, make the rip guide about a shoe-length longer than the cut. Stand off to the side of the blade, not behind it, and keep the cord clear by walking alongside. If the blade binds, let go of the trigger and hold the saw still until it stops. Never back a spinning saw out of the cut.

MOAM's shop note: The most common mistake I see is putting the guide on the wrong side of the line. The guide covers your keeper, and the X is where the saw goes. The second is grabbing a different saw "just for this one cut." The guide only knows the saw that trimmed it. Pro trick: build a short one for crosscuts too. Family Handyman makes a long one for rips and a short one for crosscuts, and about 52″ handles a 48″ crosscut. Store them flat, or drill a hole and hang them on the wall the way WWGOA does. Lean a hardboard guide in the corner of a damp Marblehead shop all winter and by spring it's a banana. And if the saw starts burning or wandering along the fence, check that the shoe edge is still parallel to the blade. Family Handyman points out that a dropped saw can bend the shoe.

Sources: Gary May, "Cutting Sheet Goods With a Circular Saw" (Fine Woodworking #126); "Making a Circular Saw Guide" (Popular Woodworking, April 2001); David Peterson, "Safer Sheet-goods Sawing" (Popular Woodworking); Mike Berner, "How to Use a Circular Saw: A Complete Guide" (Family Handyman); Kevin O'Connor, "How To Make a Circular Saw Guide" (This Old House); Clayton DeKorne, "Choosing and Using a Circular Saw" (This Old House); Paul Mayer, "Shop-Made Circular Saw Guide" (WoodWorkers Guild of America); Bruce Hamilton, "Plywood Cut Support" (Fine Homebuilding #319); WOOD Magazine, "Zero-Clearance Cutoff Guide" plan; DeWalt DWE575 and DCS573 circular saw instruction manuals.

MOAM Out.

New Real Estate Listings on the North Shore Today – Wednesday, October 7

New Listings Today – North Shore 29 Towns

Not for nuthin'…. But….. 50 new listings hit John's 29 North Shore towns in the last 24 hours. That's a busy Wednesday.

Top towns: Lynn leads with 10, Salem adds 7, and Beverly, Peabody and Saugus each brought 4. Marblehead and Swampscott added 3 apiece, with Amesbury, Boxford, Danvers, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Salisbury at 2 each and Gloucester, Newburyport, Rockport, Rowley and Topsfield at 1. That's 17 of the 29 towns with something new.

By property type: Residential 30 · Residential Lease (rentals) 14 · Residential Income 2 · Commercial Sale 1 · Commercial Lease 1 · Business Opportunity 1 · Land 1.

The MOAM's take: Lynn is back on top of the list, and with 30 of the 50 being homes for sale, the fall market is still moving.

Contact Nanepashemet to view these.
Nanepashemet Real Estate Services
Call or text 781-727-6516
jnestor@nanepashemet.com

MOAM Out.

Listing data courtesy of MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN); listings shown are held by various brokerages. Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, MA Broker Lic. 136995-RE-B.

Opt In or Ship It North? The $1,700 School-Choice Credit Sits on Healey's Desk

Not for nuthin'…. But….. starting January 1, a Marblehead taxpayer can give up to $1,700 to a kids' scholarship fund and knock the same amount off the federal tax bill. That's real. What's still up in the air is whether that money gets to help a kid in Lynn or Salem, or ends up helping a kid in Nashua. That part is up to the Governor, and she hasn't decided.

What's on the table

Trump's 2025 tax law created a new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (officially the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit). Starting January 1, 2027, you can give cash to a certified Scholarship Granting Organization and take a federal credit of up to $1,700, or up to $3,400 for a married couple filing jointly (IRS). It's a credit, not a deduction. The law sets the credit equal to what you gave, up to the cap (Federal Register).

The scholarships can pay for private-school tuition. They can also pay for tutoring, special-needs services, books, supplies and computers (IRS). That's why the Globe's headline this morning says public school families could tap the money too. Supporters point to things like extended-day program fees, tutoring and extra special education services.

The catch is that a state has to opt in, and the deadline to opt in for 2027 is January 1 (Globe). The IRS's official list shows 30 states in so far, and New Hampshire is one of them (IRS). The Globe, citing Ballotpedia, puts the count at more than 30. Of the six New England states, New Hampshire is the only one on the IRS list.

Where Beacon Hill stands

Governor Healey hasn't decided. Asked about it last Thursday, she said, "we need to make sure that nothing harms public education," and added, "We'll have to see what these regulations say, and also to get more clarity about what they mean by temporary" (State House News Service via Worcester Business Journal). Treasury put out its proposed rules last week, and she says she still needs more clarity (State House News Service). Her education office says it's reviewing them (Globe).

Mike Minogue has decided. The Republican nominee says flat out he'd opt in: "If I become governor, I'm going to opt into the federal scholarship tax credit. It will transform education and it's one of the number one reasons I'm running" (SHNS via WBJ). In fairness, he's not a neutral party. He has said he and his wife helped develop the federal policy (SHNS via WBJ).

The unions want a hard no. On Monday, teachers unions, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center and others launched a Protect Our Public Schools coalition at the State House, urging the Governor to stay out (Globe; SHNS). "This is just another voucher scheme," said Jessica Tang of AFT Massachusetts (Globe).

But plenty of nonprofits want in. The Massachusetts Council of Nonprofits is calling for "strong support." Its director, Jim Klocke, says public school kids are the vast majority of students in the state, so most of the benefit would end up going to them (SHNS). The groups backing it include the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts, Latinos for Education, Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Catholic Schools Foundation (Globe). "To call it a voucher program is misleading," said Andrea Silbert of the Eos Foundation (Globe). Their coalition figures that if 15% of Massachusetts taxpayers gave, it would come to more than $333 million a year in scholarships, and more than $667 million at 30% (Globe). Those are advocates' projections, not guarantees.

The part nobody's shouting about

Here's what made the MOAM put his coffee down. Saying no doesn't keep the money out of the program. It just keeps the scholarships out of Massachusetts. The IRS says taxpayers can give to an eligible scholarship group "regardless of their state of residence" (IRS). The groups backing the credit make the same point. If Massachusetts passes, people here can still donate to programs in states that opted in and still take the credit (Globe). "It would be really sad if people instead sent their dollars to New Hampshire, New York, or Colorado," said Ariella Hellman of the Agudah of New England. "We want to keep those dollars here" (Globe).

So Massachusetts taxpayers can claim the federal credit either way. What the Governor actually decides is whether those scholarships can help kids in Lynn, Salem and Peabody, or only kids in Nashua, Seabrook and points beyond. Telling Massachusetts donors to send it north isn't protecting public schools. It's just passing up the money.

To be fair to the other side

The critics aren't making it all up, and the MOAM's not going to pretend they are.

• The rules favor the scholarship groups, not the state. Under Treasury's proposed rules, a state that opts in can't add requirements stricter than the federal law. That includes limits on the type of school a scholarship can be used for or the kinds of expenses it can pay (IRS). So Massachusetts can't opt in and make it "public school extras only." Tang warns that big multi-state scholarship groups from red states "are going to swarm into Massachusetts" (SHNS).
• Income limits are generous. Families earning up to three times the area median income can qualify. The Globe says that means households over $300,000 in Middlesex and Norfolk counties (Globe). Treasury estimates about 96% of kids in participating states would be eligible (IRS).
• Well-off kids may get more of it. An Associated Press analysis found that in Florida and Arizona, most students using school choice scholarships were already in private or home schools or lived in affluent neighborhoods (Globe). The school superintendents' association warns that "affluent school districts will undoubtedly receive a far greater influx of private donations than poorer districts" (Globe).
• It's not free. Every dollar of credit is a dollar the federal Treasury doesn't collect (Globe).

All fair points. But every one of them is an argument about how the program is built. None of them changes the fact that it's coming on January 1, with or without us. Fewer than 10% of the state's 936,803 K-12 students went to private school last year (Globe). That leaves a lot of public school kids and a lot of Boys and Girls Clubs, tutoring outfits and special-ed programs ready to go after this money, if they're allowed to.

MOAM's take

The MOAM isn't asking anybody to love Trump or school vouchers. It's simpler than that. Massachusetts taxpayers can use this credit no matter what Beacon Hill does, so let the kids here get a crack at the scholarships. Opt in, then get the Boys and Girls Clubs and tutoring programs signed up on day one so the private schools aren't the only ones at the table.

And whichever way she goes, the Governor should say so before November 3, not after. Election Day is less than four weeks out. Sitting on it until the votes are counted isn't caution. It's the calendar talking. Voters deserve an answer from both candidates on the ballot, and right now only one of them has given one.

MOAM's checklist

1. Don't write the check yet. The credit starts with gifts made on or after January 1, 2027 (IRS). If somebody's asking for an "Education Freedom" donation in 2026, it won't get you the credit.
2. Know what kind of credit it is. It's nonrefundable, so it only helps if you owe federal income tax. The proposed rules let you carry unused credit forward up to five years (IRS). You can't also write off the same gift as a charitable deduction (Federal Register). Run it past your tax preparer.
3. Give only to a group on the IRS list. The scholarship group has to be listed by a participating state (IRS). The rules are still proposed, not final, so check before you give.
4. Parents, ask around. Ask your kid's school, the local Boys and Girls Club or your tutoring program whether they plan to take part if Massachusetts opts in.
5. Tell the Governor what you think, either way. Her constituent services office is at (617) 725-4005, or toll-free in Massachusetts at (888) 870-7770, weekdays 9 to 5 (Mass.gov). Be polite and brief. The staff answering the phone didn't write the rules.

Look, folks. This one's simple once you strip the yelling off it. The money's coming either way. The only question is whether it helps kids in Massachusetts or kids somewhere else. The MOAM would rather it went to a kid in Lynn than a kid in Nashua. Nothing against Nashua.

MOAM Out.

---

Sources: Boston Globe, Oct. 7, 2026 · State House News Service, Oct. 6, 2026 · State House News Service via Worcester Business Journal, Oct. 2, 2026 · IRS news release IR-2026-117, Oct. 1, 2026 · IRS: Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, participating states (as of Sept. 14, 2026) · Federal Register: Federal Scholarship Tax Credit proposed regulations, Oct. 2, 2026 · Mass.gov: Governor's Office of Constituent Services

Boston Sports Morning Report — Wednesday, Oct. 7

Not for nuthin'…. But….. it's a hump-day breather on the Boston board. Nobody played last night, so grab the coffee and let's get set for a busy Thursday.

Short version: Bruins and Celtics both go Thursday night at 7. Pats get the Raiders at Foxborough Sunday at 1. Red Sox season is done.

New England Patriots

• Yesterday: No game (last out: W 29–26 @ Buffalo Bills, Sun. Oct. 4)
• Today: No game
• Next: Sun, Oct. 11 — 1:00 PM ET — vs Las Vegas Raiders (home, CBS)
• Standings: 2-2 · 2nd in AFC East · Buffalo 3-1 leads · Jets 1-3 · Dolphins 0-4 · No. 7 seed in the AFC right now per ESPN

The Raiders come in 3-1, so this one's a real test. Win it at home and we're over .500 with the Jets up next.

Boston Red Sox

• Yesterday / Today: No games — season over
• Next: Offseason
• Final standings: 87-75 · 3rd in AL East · Eliminated in the AL Wild Card round

Hot stove season. We'll keep an eye on the winter moves.

Boston Celtics

• Yesterday / Today: No games
• Next (preseason): Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — @ Cleveland Cavaliers
• Then (preseason): Sat, Oct. 10 — 8:00 PM ET — vs Philadelphia 76ers (home, NBA TV)
• Regular-season opener: Tue, Oct. 20 — 3:00 PM ET — @ Detroit Pistons (as listed by ESPN)
• Status: Preseason · 2026-27 season not started

One more sleep until the green is back on the floor.

Boston Bruins

• Yesterday: No game (last out: L 1–4 vs Ottawa Senators, Mon. Oct. 5)
• Today: No game
• Next: Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — vs Utah Mammoth (home, NESN)
• Then: Sat, Oct. 10 — 1:00 PM ET — vs Philadelphia Flyers (home, NESN)
• Standings: 2-2-0 · 4 points · tied for 4th in the Atlantic with Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Detroit after Tuesday's games (Florida 8, Buffalo 6, Toronto 6)

Two home games to shake off that Ottawa stinker before the B's head out on the long West Coast swing.

That's the Wednesday board, folks. Enjoy the quiet night, and Thursday it's Bruins and Celtics at 7.

MOAM Out.

New England This Morning — October 7, 2026

Not for nuthin'…. But….. Wednesday is off to a beauty of a start. Marblehead Harbor is glassy under a clear sky, the Mount Washington camera finally has a view again (with a fresh coat of frost up top), and the Mad River Valley is tucked under soft grey clouds with plenty of color left.

Marblehead Harbor (BYC Oceanfront) — Not a cloud in the sky, and the low morning sun is flaring in from the left side of the frame. The harbor is flat as a millpond, mirroring the moored sailboats and the houses along the far shore, with the dinghies lined up along the Boston Yacht Club float.

Mount Washington North View — What a difference a day makes. Yesterday's lens was iced over solid; this morning it's a clear look out over the northern peaks, with the summit rocks and the upper ridges dusted white with frost and rime, rust-brown valleys below, and a band of haze along the horizon. The summit forecast is partly sunny with a high near 40 and southwest winds of 15 to 25 mph, a gentle day by Rockpile standards, though gusts are forecast to reach 85 mph by Friday.

Great Eddy Covered Bridge, Waitsfield — Grey, moody clouds overhead with a little brightness low on the horizon. The Mad River is calm enough to reflect the bridge and the trees, a few fallen leaves are floating on the water, and the foliage is still showing orange, gold and red, with some trees starting to thin.

Back on the coast it's sunny with a high near 62 and a light south breeze. The Mad River Valley is looking at partly sunny skies near 64, with a chance of showers late tonight.

Webcam views courtesy of the Boston Yacht Club, the Mount Washington Observatory, and Mad River Valley Television.

MOAM Out.

TDS Watch: Joe Scarborough discovers the media is biased… for Trump

Not for nuthin'…. But….. Joe Scarborough went on national television Tuesday morning and told America the news media is biased. In favor of Donald Trump. The MOAM nearly spilled his Dunkin' on the dog.

What was said

On Tuesday morning, October 6, 2026, on MS NOW's Morning Joe, Scarborough was talking about the President's Monday night rally in Grand Island, Nebraska. There, defending higher gas prices from the Iran war as “a small price to pay,” Mr. Trump said, “They could take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego,” as Mediaite and KTLA reported.

Then Joe turned his guns on the press. Here he is in the MS NOW clip posted by Mediaite:

“But he's graded on such a curve that the bias actually breaks the other way. He gets away with things that no other president would ever get away with because people in the media are so numbed by it all by now. So media bias, yeah. Media bias in a way that breaks his direction.”

Right before that, he took care of the folks at home:

“If any president in American history had called for the obliteration of two American cities, even in what his deranged supporters would say is a joke, deranged because if you think it's funny to joke about 10 million Americans being killed by Iran, that's a serious problem.”

And right after it, he said you could make a supercut of Trump's clips and raise “the same questions about his mental acuity” that were raised about Joe Biden's, “but that's not happening and that won't happen.” Then he looked ahead:

“Maybe afterwards people say, oh, I knew about this all along and I'm going to write a book about it. Where was the media?”

He also said people “from Fox News” complaining about anti-Trump bias is something he thinks is “cute.” Coverage: Mediaite, “Joe Scarborough Fumes That the Media Has a Pro-Trump ‘Bias’ Because Reporters are ‘Numbed To It All’” (Oct 6, 2026) and TheWrap (Oct 6, 2026). MS NOW's own clip from the same morning is here.

Context (not spin)

First, the rally line. The MOAM isn't here to defend every ad-lib a politician makes at a podium. That one landed badly, and some Republicans said so, including San Diego congressional candidate Jim Desmond, a Navy veteran (NBC San Diego). The White House's Steven Cheung said the President “was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped.” Fair people can argue about it. Tonight's post is about what Joe did with it.

Second, the “nobody covered it” complaint. Joe said he checked the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Financial Times websites that morning, and only the Times had it. Maybe so at that hour. But KTLA had the story up Monday night, and by Tuesday it had been written up by The Guardian, The Hill, USA Today, NBC San Diego, TheWrap and Mediaite, with video from the BBC and ABC News. Oh, and it was on Morning Joe. That's a funny kind of blackout.

Third, the “pro-Trump media.” On the same Tuesday morning, the President was on Truth Social at 9:50 AM complaining that Fox News is “promoting the Dumocrats” and has “totally lost their way!” And his White House tried to ban CNN, Politico and Joe's own network, MS NOW, from covering it (The Hill, Oct 6, 2026). If that's the press playing favorites, nobody told the favorite.

Fourth, the mental acuity bit. That one's a doozy coming from Joe. On March 6, 2024, on his own show, he said of President Biden: “This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second.” He also said, “Start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth” (video). In May 2025, when Jake Tapper came on Morning Joe to plug Original Sin, the book he and Alex Thompson wrote about Biden's decline, Joe told him, “I was obviously wrong” (Mediaite). Credit to him for owning it. But “I'm going to write a book about it. Where was the media?” Joe, the book got written. You were the media.

MOAM's diagnosis

Severity: MILD.

This is commentary, so here's the MOAM's opinion. After ten years of wall-to-wall Trump coverage, the fella with a three-hour weekday show that's mostly about Donald Trump has figured out that the press goes easy on Donald Trump. That's like a Yankees fan sitting in the bleachers at Fenway, complaining the place is rigged for the Red Sox because the Monster's in left field.

And he called the folks who'd shrug the line off as a joke “deranged,” in a segment about media bias. The MOAM has a name for that condition. It's on the banner up top.

Mild, because Joe didn't trot out Hitler, didn't swear, and did once admit he got Biden wrong. But it's a chronic case with a documented relapse history, and the patient told us to roll tape. We did, Joe. It's still rolling.

MOAM Out.

Woodworking Tip of the Day: Crosscut Sled Setup

Every crooked drawer front starts with a fence that was "close enough"….. and on a crosscut sled, close enough gets copied into every part you cut, all day long. Most sleds get squared once with a framing square, screwed down, and trusted forever. Here's how to square one properly with the five-cut method, so you square it once and quit checking every cut.

Why it matters: A sled carries the work past the blade on two runners, so the cut can only be as square as the fence and only as true as the runners are tight. Lon Schleining put it plainly in Fine Woodworking: if the sled's fence isn't 90° to the blade, every cut will be inaccurate. The trouble is that a square can only read the error over the length of its own blade, and a good sled's error is smaller than you can see that way. The five-cut method runs one board around the blade four times, so the error stacks up four times over and shows up in a strip you can measure with calipers. In William Ng's own example the fence was out .0135″ across a 24″ cut. That's about three hundredths of a degree, and no square in my shop would show it. In the boat shop this is the jig I cut cleats, frame stock and thwart blanks to length on for the dory, and on the GC side it's cabinet parts and trim. Square ends on parts mean glue lines that close and frames that stand plumb.

Materials

• A flat base. Bob Van Dyke (Fine Woodworking) builds his everyday sled on ½″ or ⅜″ Baltic birch, about 30″ wide by 18″ deep. Jonathan Katz-Moses uses ¾″ plywood sized to his saw top. Flat matters more than thick.
• Front fence stock, straight and stable. Van Dyke laminates flatsawn mahogany strips into a riftsawn fence 1⅛″ thick by 5⅛″ tall by 29¾″ long. Katz-Moses glues up three layers of plywood.
• Back fence stock. Van Dyke uses 6/4 or 8/4 poplar, 24″ long. It doesn't need to span the whole base.
• Runner stock: hardwood (Katz-Moses likes maple), Baltic birch plywood ripped and planed on edge (Van Dyke: ⅜″ × ¾″ × 18¼″), or UHMW plastic strip (the Popular Woodworking sled).
• #8 washer-head screws for the pivot and adjust screws, flathead screws for the permanent fence screws, and round-head screws for the runners. Van Dyke warns that a flathead's tapered head can spread a runner as it's tightened.
• A test board: the biggest flat plywood or MDF panel the sled will take, with clean, smooth edges
• Scrap for a safety (exit) block and a stop block
• Paste wax or paraffin

Tools

• Digital calipers. You'll read to the thousandth.
• Feeler gauges, or strips of paper stacked up and measured with the calipers (the Katz-Moses fallback)
• Two or three clamps
• A square or drafting triangle you've checked, for the first rough setting
• Drill, Forstner bit and countersink
• A planer or hand plane to size the runners, plus a shoulder plane or a 120-grit sanding stick for tight spots
• A soft pencil for finding those tight spots

Steps

1. Measure the miter slots. Calipers, both ends of each slot. Most full-size saws run about ¾″ wide by ⅜″ deep, but measure your own. William Ng's read .752″, a hair over ¾″.
2. Fit the runners with no slop. Van Dyke planes his runners on edge until they fit the slot with absolutely no slop and are just loose enough to slide freely. Keep them a little shy of the slot depth so they never ride on the bottom. Ng cuts his 5/16″ thick for a 3/8″-deep slot so sawdust down there can't lift the sled. With UHMW, the Popular Woodworking sled drills the screw holes a bit oversize (9/64″ for No. 6 screws), because otherwise the plastic bulges around the screw and binds. Van Dyke lays ⅛″ plywood strips in the slots under the runners so they sit slightly proud while the glue sets under the base. If the sled is tight, rub pencil graphite on the slot walls, slide the sled, and skim the shiny spots with a shoulder plane or the sanding stick. Then wax it. Slop in the runners is the one thing no formula can fix.
3. Know which fence does the work. The front fence, the one closest to you, is the reference. You push the work against it, so it's the one you square. The back fence just holds the two halves of the base together once the kerf is cut, so it doesn't need to be square to anything. Screw the back fence down. Attach the front fence with only two screws for now: a pivot screw near one end (Van Dyke goes about 1″ in) and an adjust screw in a slot ¼″ to ⅜″ long at the other end. Keep the permanent screw holes at least 1″ either side of the blade line. While the base is easy to get at, measure from the pivot screw to the far end of the fence and write it down. That's D.
4. Cut the kerf and rough it in. Raise the blade and cut through the base and the back fence, stopping before the blade reaches the front fence. Wedge a snug spacer in the kerf and set the fence square to it with a square you trust. Clamp it and tighten the adjust screw. That's your starting point, not your finish.
5. Make the five cuts. Number the test board's edges 1 through 4. Start on the longest edge. With edge 4 on the fence, trim edge 1, and cut the full length of the edge every time. Give the board a quarter-turn so the fresh edge rides the fence, and trim edge 2. Same direction every turn: edge 3, then edge 4. Now edge 4 is back on the fence. For cut five, take a strip about ½″ to 1″ wide off edge 1 again. Save that strip. Mark its far end (away from you) A and its near end B.
6. Measure and do the math. Read the strip's width at A and at B with the calipers, the same distance in from each end. Measure the strip's length, L. Then:
   Move = (A − B) ÷ 4 ÷ L × D
   Why divide by 4? Each of the first four cuts carries the same small fence error. By the time edge 1 comes back around to be cut again, it holds that error four times over. The fifth cut only slices it off where your calipers can find it. Ng's worked example: A = .896″, B = .842″, L = 24″, D = 28.5″. The difference is .054″. Divide by 4 and you get .0135″, the real error over 24″. Divide by 24 for .00056″ per inch, and multiply by 28.5 for a .016″ move at the adjust end of the fence.
7. Move the fence with a feeler gauge and a block. Here's the pivot-screw-and-clamp trick, the way Katz-Moses lays it out. Leave the pivot screw alone and work at the far end. To swing the fence away from you, hold the feeler gauge (set to your move) against the end of the fence, clamp a scrap block tight to the gauge, pull the gauge, back out the adjust screw, and swing the fence out to the block. To swing it toward you, clamp the block right against the fence, back out the screw, slip the gauge between them and push the fence back against it. Either way, clamp the fence and drive the screw into a new hole. An old hole will pull the fence right back where it was. Which way? If the strip is wider at the far end, the fence end on the work side of the blade is sitting too far forward, so swing it back toward you. Wider at the near end, swing it the other way. Calculators online word the direction differently depending on which side the pivot is on, so trust the second test, not the arrow.
8. Repeat, then screw it off. Run five more cuts to check. If the taper grew, you went the wrong way. Katz-Moses figures two or three rounds does it, and says once the calculated move is down to a few thousandths of an inch, take it and run. When you're there, clamp the fence and drive the permanent screws.
9. Add the safety block and a stop. The blade comes right through the front fence when you push the sled, so attach a wooden block to the fence's front face, right where the blade exits. Van Dyke calls it a simple safety device you shouldn't skip. Fine Woodworking reader Chris Durkee points out that the main danger with a sled is your hands in the way of that exit point, and he adds a travel stop so the sled can't be pushed far enough for the blade to come out the front of the block. Then add a stop block for repeat lengths. A square scrap and a clamp works, and a T-track stop is quicker.
10. Use it like you mean to keep your fingers. Fine Woodworking's table saw safety list says to set the blade with the teeth no more than ⅜″ above the work, to never put your hands or fingers in the path of the blade, and to stand out of the path of the blade and the workpiece. On a sled that means keeping your hands on the fence well off to the side of the kerf line, both in front of the fence and behind it, and never standing square behind the blade where an offcut can come back at you. Push through until the blade is buried in the safety block, switch off, and let the blade stop before you clear offcuts or reach past the fence.

MOAM's shop note: The most common mistake I see is fussing over the math and ignoring the runners. If the sled wiggles in the slots, every set of readings comes out different and you'll chase your tail all afternoon. Get the runners snug first. The second mistake is touching the pivot screw. It never moves. Pro trick from Van Dyke: drill a hanger hole and hang the sled on the wall instead of leaning it against the saw or the floor. He says a sled cared for that way will last decades and stay square. In a damp Marblehead boat shop in January, that's not optional.

Sources: Bob Van Dyke, "Simple Crosscut Sled" (Fine Woodworking #308); Lon Schleining, "Squaring a Crosscut Table Saw Sled" (Fine Woodworking); Chris Durkee, "Small stick stops crosscut sled in safe position" (Fine Woodworking #314); Fine Woodworking, "Safety Manual: Table Saw"; Travis Larson, "The Ultimate Shop-Built Crosscut Sled" (Popular Woodworking / American Woodworker); William Ng, "5 Cuts to a 'Perfect' Cross-Cut Sled" (William Ng Woodworking School, YouTube); Jonathan Katz-Moses, "Make an Ultra-Square Crosscut Sled" (Katz-Moses Tools); Kevin's Workbench, "Table Saw Cross-Cut Sled Setup"; Wind Ridge Wood Crafts five-cut calculator.

MOAM Out.

The Wing

Boston Sports Morning Report — Tuesday, Oct. 6

Not for nuthin'…. But….. the Bruins came out flat at the Garden last night, and Ottawa made 'em pay. Grab the coffee, it's a quiet Tuesday on the board.

Short version: B's fell to the Senators 4–1 and drop to 2-2-0. Pats are off until the Raiders come to Foxborough Sunday. Celtics open preseason Thursday in Cleveland. Red Sox season is done.

New England Patriots

• Yesterday: No game (last out: W 29–26 @ Buffalo Bills, Sun. Oct. 4)
• Today: No game
• Next: Sun, Oct. 11 — 1:00 PM ET — vs Las Vegas Raiders (home, CBS)
• Standings: 2-2 · 2nd in AFC East · Buffalo 3-1 leads · Jets 1-3 · Dolphins 0-4 · No. 7 seed in the AFC right now per ESPN

Still riding the high from Orchard Park. Take care of business at home against Vegas and we're over .500.

Boston Red Sox

• Yesterday / Today: No games — season over
• Next: Offseason
• Final standings: 87-75 · 3rd in AL East · Eliminated in AL Wild Card by the Yankees

Hot stove season. We'll keep an eye on the winter moves.

Boston Celtics

• Yesterday / Today: No games
• Next (preseason): Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — @ Cleveland Cavaliers
• Then (preseason): Sat, Oct. 10 — 8:00 PM ET — vs Philadelphia 76ers (home, NBA TV)
• Regular-season opener: Tue, Oct. 20 — 3:00 PM ET — @ Detroit Pistons (as listed by ESPN)
• Status: Preseason · 2026-27 season not started

Two more sleeps until the green is back on the floor.

Boston Bruins

• Yesterday: L 1–4 vs Ottawa Senators (home)
• Today: No game
• Next: Thu, Oct. 8 — 7:00 PM ET — vs Utah Mammoth (home, NESN)
• Standings: 2-2-0 · 4 points · 4th in Atlantic (Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Florida also at 4)

Tim Stützle had two goals and an assist, and Ottawa jumped out 4–0 before rookie James Hagens got the B's on the board in the third. Boston went 0-for-4 on the power play and Swayman made 20 saves. Two days to clean it up before Utah comes to town.

That's the Tuesday board, folks. Shake off the B's loss, enjoy a quiet night, and we'll go again tomorrow.

MOAM Out.