0 ) Silence
1 ) Brief polite greeting
2 ) “What are you reading?”
3 ) “Is it any good?”
4 ) “What’s it about?”
5 ) “That doesn’t sound very good.”
6 ) “You know what you should read instead?” (Lengthy description of radically different book follows)

And finally, after the reader asks to be left in peace so he can carry on with his reading:

7 ) (Indignantly) “I was just trying to make conversation! There’s no need to be rude!”

General rule of thumb, folks: if someone is reading, chances are they want to read and not engage in conversation.

That and our ability to wear yoga pants with SASSY written across the butt in rhinestones. I’m not saying that makes us better than animals…

Anyway, before long I had a couple of responses, some from friends, and some from an individual I’ve come to know well, after a fashion.

This fellow has commented on my blog several times, e-mailed me, forwarded news stories to me — and almost never under his real name. He likes to make up e-mail addresses (or, when he’s feeling lazy, sends me stuff as “noname@noname.com”) that cleverly disguise his identity…at least until I check his IP address and see that they’re all coming from the same place. It helps to know a lot of tech nerds who can teach me some very useful tricks.

I know who he is, and he knows I know, but that doesn’t stop him. He is what is known in Internet parlance as a “troll,” an individual who posts spiteful, childish, confrontational things simply to provoke a reaction. Sometimes this is simply a highly opinionated person who thinks the best way to communicate his thought is by expressing them in the most belligerent, insulting, patronizing way possible (the “Limbaugh”). Sometimes a troll is someone trying to convince everyone he’s the smartest person in the room, which he accomplishes by trying to make everyone else feel rock-stupid. Sometimes it’s just a straight-up bully.

My not-so-mysterious serial commenter falls within the latter category, although he sucks at it. His comments often involve calling me bald, which is about as effective as calling me a nearsighted white guy who rarely shaves. Yeah, sick burn there, dude, let me go ice my wounded ego.

Here’s the thing: I know that I will every so often post something that provokes a response. Great, that’s kind of the point of this blog  — and if you’ll recall the epic post from a few years back that garnered more than 50 responses from pro-gun nutters (who differ from gun enthusiasts because gun enthusiasts are reasonable people with whom you can have an adult discussion), you’ll know I can take the heat.

And I love it when people try to engage in an honest debate, a sincere exchange of ideas and viewpoints. Sometimes you learn something. Maybe that something is “Oh my god this person is BUGNUTS CRAZY!!!” but hey, learnin’ is learnin’.

But when people just poke at me with a virtual stick? Yeah, not going to happen.

Blocking this individual is easy enough, but I’m going to take another approach. Whenever he posts one of his dry bon mots, I’m going to change it to words of praise. You’ll know these creatively amended posts by the asterisk I will add to the poster’s pseudonym du jour. Go ahead and look around at some stuff that’s been posted this week, you’ll see them.

That’s the big perk of running your own playground: you get to set the rules, and my rule number one is “no trolls allowed.”

9 ) Pope Benedict has left the building…and gone to another building nearby, which, oddly, is also a church.

8 ) Law & Order: SVU ends a story inspired by Rihanna and Chris Brown’s reunion with the Rihanna proxy killing the Chris Brown proxy. Too bad art doesn’t always imitate life.

7 ) Seth MacFarlane gets mixed reviews for his occasionally ribald Oscar hosting stint, declares he won’t host again. Dude, that decision was made long before you made it.

6 ) The Barnstable County Commissioners and the Assembly of Delegates get into another pissing contest, this time over the lack of a PowerPoint budget presentation to accompany the phone book-sized budget document. Sorry, I didn’t realize that the Assembly couldn’t read something unless it had pictures.

5 ) Ben Affleck’s Argo wins Best Picture, ensuring that no late-night talk show host will ever tell another Gigli joke again.

4 ) Scott Weiland is booted from Stone Temple Pilots again. Fans react: “STP was back together again?”

3 ) The Onion catches hell for a vulgar tweet about nine-year-old actress Quvenzhane Wallis. Congratulations, Onion: people have whined about a joke you told. You are now officially mainstream.

2 ) Critics call nine-year-old rapper Lil Poopy’s saucy videos inappropriate for his age. Yes, because objectifying women is only appropriate for adult men.

1 ) Budweiser is accused of watering down its beer. Like anyone can tell.

And so, here are a bunch of quickie lists that should kill a few minutes, some serious, some less so.

BEST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR

1 ) The Avengers

2 ) Skyfall

3 ) Cabin in the Woods

4 ) The Dark Knight Rises

5 ) The Avengers (I saw it five times in the theaters, it deserves two slots!)

FIVE INTERNET MEMES THAT NEED TO DIE

1 ) Anything that begins with “Keep Calm and…”

2 ) Ehrmergehrd.

3 ) Call Me Maybe derivatives.

4 ) The Ryan Gosling “Hey, girl” thing.

5 ) Gangnam Style parodies.

FIVE BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2012

1 ) Mockingjay (Book 3 in the Hunger Games trilogy) – Suzanne Collins

2 ) True Grit – Charles Portis

3 ) Fool – Christopher Moore

4 ) The Naming of the Beasts (Book 5 in the Felix Castor series) – Mike Carey

5 ) Summer Knight (Book 4 in the Dresden Files series) – Jim Butcher

FIVE THINGS OUT TO DESTROY CAPE COD

1 ) Sharks

2 ) Wind turbines

3 ) Wild turkeys (also know as land sharks)

4 ) Wastewater authorities

5 ) …and the people who (allegedly) love them

FIVE EXCELLENT TV SHOWS I WATCHED THIS YEAR

1 ) Doctor Who

2 ) Sherlock (the BBC version, not the Americanized Elementary)

3 ) Supernatural (thank you Netflix for throwing the entire series up on streaming video!)

4 ) The Big Bang Theory

5 ) The Walking Dead (season three, you have so far redeemed season two)

FIVE PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO LOCK INTO A ROOM TO ARGUE TO THE DEATH (or to the pain…I’m not sadistic)

1 ) Sherlock Holmes (the BBC version, as portrayed be Benedict Cumberbatch

2 ) Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie)

3 ) Dr. Sheldon Cooper (of The Big Bang Theory, as played by Jim Parsons)

4 ) Mr. Spock (original Leonard Nimoy version or new Zachary Quinto version, I’m not picky)

5 ) Richard Latimer

FIVE MOVIES I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE IN 2013

1 ) Iron Man 3

2 ) Thor – The Dark World

3 ) Star Trek Into Darkness

4 ) Pacific Rim

5 ) The Evil Dead remake (even though I expect it to pale in comparison to the original)

FIVE AS-YET UNTAPPED ALTERNATE IDENTITIES FOR THE GUY WHO PRETENDED TO BE “VOICES ON WASTEWATER”

1 ) Barnstable County Strike Force Delta-X Mark 2.5 (sounds impressive, doesn’t it?)

2 ) Every Single Taxpaying Voter On Cape Cod and You Can’t Prove Otherwise, Nyah!

3 ) The Cape Cod Coalition for Awesome Alliterative Acronyms

4 ) Enron (hey, they’re not using the name anymore)

5 ) Mike Bailey, reporter for the Falmouth Enterprise

A number of initiatives begun during Sheila R. Lyons’ first term on the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners are coming to fruition, and Ms. Lyons is looking for a second term so she can see them through to conclusion.

“We’ve been doing some great things, and we’re in the process of some of these initiatives being realized,” she said. “We’ve put wheels into motion and I would like to see these initiatives through. I do think that there is still a lot to be done.”

Ms. Lyons said that over the past four years, the commissioners have improved transparency by streaming their meetings online and creating a video archive of their meetings; have improved coordination between the Barnstable County Human Services Department, county officials, and individual human service providers across the region; and established the Regional Umbrella Services System (RUSS), which will explore regional applications for the OpenCape broadband network, which is scheduled to be fully active in January.

She added that the county has taken positive steps toward addressing what is shaping up to be the biggest issue in the coming decade: wastewater management.

“We’ve wasted 15 years just kicking this around,” she said, and the threat of a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Buzzards Bay Coalition is emphasizing the county’s need to have a comprehensive wastewater management plan. “Wastewater is indeed the biggest economic and environmental issue on the Cape, and if we don’t deal with it, we’re going to use everything.”

In February, the commissioners charged Andrew Gottlieb and Paul J. Niedzwiecki, respectively the executive directors of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative and the Cape Cod Commission, with exploring a regional management plan, which is scheduled to be submitted by the end of the year.

She said she hopes to see a plan that “doesn’t penalize anyone who has done the work” at the local level and proposes solutions entailing “the least amount of infrastructure, with a savings to the taxpayer.”

Ms. Lyons stated that, despite claims from critics and one of her opponents, Eric R. Steinhilber, she was not in favor of a “wastewater authority” with taxation powers — one of the changes recommended earlier this year by the Special Commission on County Governance.

“Nobody has ever voted for it or called for a wastewater authority,” among the county commissioners or the assembly, she said, and the report itself called for the creation of a regional “wastewater district” and “fair, broad-based funding mechanisms” to support that entity.

Commission co-chairman Robert A. O’Leary suggested taxation on property owners as a way to generate revenue for the district, and Ms. Lyons interpreted that as his effort to “emphasize the seriousness of this” and a challenge to county officials to “have the political courage” to pursue the option if they determined it was necessary.

However, Ms. Lyons said the commissioners have heard significant opposition to a tax-funded regional authority from town officials across the Cape, and she considers the proposal dead.

If funding is necessary to support whatever approach the county adopts, that is all the more reason for the county to develop a comprehensive plan. She pointed to the OpenCape project as an example of how a strong plan can leverage federal funding, noting that the plan was unveiled in 2006, and between 2008 and 2010 received a total of $37 million in state and federal funding to make it a reality.

“That’s what you get when you have a plan,” she said. “That’s why you plan.”

New County Structure

“We need to have some structural changes within the county,” she said, and one of the changes she wants to pursue is “a strong administrator” with executive powers, another recommendation by the Special Commission on County Governance.

By creating a “county executive” position, Ms. Lyons said Cape Cod would gain someone who could truly champion county government and its mission to provide economic, efficient services to all 15 towns.

Creating such a post would require shifting certain executive powers from the county commissioners to the county executive, she said, and separating out peripheral duties currently handled by the county administrator and assistant administrator. The administrator also acts as the county’s finance director, and the assistant administrator serves as administrator for the Cape Light Compact.

“These are too many jobs for too few people,” she said, “and for anything to get done well, you need someone that’s much more pro-active in interacting with departments, out there looking for those grant opportunities.”

Ms. Lyons was also supportive of a new proposal from the assembly to create a county finance director who would be solely responsible for monitoring the county’s revenue and expenditures, and she proposed forming a joint county commissioners/assembly subcommittee to explore the idea.

Once the county executive issue is addressed, the commissioners could then better determine whether it was necessary to act on another of the special commission’s suggestions: combining the county commissioners and the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates.

Under the special commission’s plan, the three-member board of county commissioners would be expanded to seven members, five of whom would represent specific districts, two of whom would be at-large members representing the entire region.

While open to the idea, Ms. Lyons said there are “constitutional questions” whether representation by geography rather than population is allowable, referring to criticism from the smaller Lower Cape towns that they do not have a strong voice in county government.

When the assembly was created in 1998, constitutional “one man, one vote” requirements led to the assembly’s weighted vote system, which gives larger towns such as Barnstable and Falmouth more influence on votes that the Lower Cape towns, some of which have less than two percent of the total vote.

She added she understood the concept of having county commissioners represent specific districts, but said that in running a county-wide campaign, “as difficult as it is, I had a much better understanding of Cape Cod because I ran a 15-town campaign. I spent time getting to know not only the elected officials in those towns but the individual voter, and I could start to see where each town has similarities and differences culturally, politically, philosophically.”

“If you’re going to govern over the entire land, you need to know the land you’re governing,” Ms. Lyons said.

New County Services?

Ms. Lyons identified two other brewing major projects for the county, the first of which is the proposed purchase of the Dennis-based Aquacultural Research Corporation (ARC), which has been pitched by its current owners as a possible county service.

The candidate said she first became aware of ARC’s interest in becoming a county service six years ago, while Ms. Lyons was still on the assembly, through local shellfisherman who were concerned at the prospect of losing the state’s only commercial shellfish hatchery, which provide the Cape’s 235 shellfish farms with 90 percent of their seed.

The commissioners have held two executive session meetings to discuss the $4 million proposed purchase so Ms. Lyons could not comment in-depth on the matter, but said the county “would be negligent if we did not look at it.”

However, she added that she would not support the idea if the commissioners’ research suggests the business would be “a money pit…I would like for it to be able to pay for itself.”

“We have to have the right plan, the right business plan,” she said. “It’s not like we’re going to be negligent about it just to go forward.”

Ms. Lyons said she planned to exercise similar caution when exploring the concept of establishing a regional emergency dispatch center. The Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee’s 911 Dispatch Study Steering Committee is currently working on that proposal, and one option on the table is utilizing existing infrastructure and personnel at the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department’s regional dispatch center.

While she was open to that possibility, Ms. Lyons said she was hesitant to endorse that model due to past issues with the sheriff’s department and its administration of the region’s Centralized Emergency Medical Dispatch (CMED) system.

The Cape and Islands CMED system coordinates communications between four area hospitals and ambulances operating on the Cape and surrounding communities. It also coordinates MedFlight helicopter landings for the Cape.

Ms. Lyons noted that James M. Cummings, county sheriff, has in the past warned of a possible CMED shutdown if he could not obtain funding to support its $450,000 annual operating costs, and she worried that a similar lack of a funding mechanism for a full-fledged county dispatch service could lead to problems down the road.

Ms. Lyons’ official campaign website is www.sheilalyonscapecod.com.

This week Sen. Wolf issued a second endorsement for Mary L. (Pat) Flynn of Falmouth, who, like Ms. Lyons, is running for re-election to the county board.

“Commissioner Flynn has a distinguished record and she has been a driving force in moving the County forward on a number of key issues.” Sen. Wolf said in a press release.  “Mary Pat is not afraid to take on difficult issues and bring people together to solve challenges…Mary Pat has served us well.”

Kind words, but really, it’s not surprising that Sen. Wolf would support two fellow Democrats.

***

The proposed debate between Falmouth’s Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates candidates Julia C. Taylor and Andrew V. Putnam is officially on.

The two candidates will participate in a debate that will be taped at the FCTV studio, with questions provided by yours truly. Jay Zavala, president of the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce, will moderate.

I mention this is part in the hope that it inspires other assembly candidates to follow suit. Delegates often bemoan the assembly’s lack of visibility, and events like these would be a nice step toward fixing that long-standing problem.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

9 ) Mitt Romney displays his knack for government efficiency by pissing on nearly half of all voters, characterizing them as professional victims who live on entitlement programs, in a single speech. But don’t get too angry, 47 percent of America! Give him a few more days and he’ll be trashing the other 53 percent.

8 ) Fundamentalist Christians freak out over a fourth century papyrus that refers to Jesus having a wife. Well, she might as well have not existed considering how much time he spent with those twelve slacker buddies of his…

7 ) Paris Hilton is recorded trashing homosexuals as “disgusting” and “likely to die of AIDS.” Funny, I think homosexuals said the same thing after Paris after her sex tape was leaked.

6 ) The new trailer for The Hobbit drops. Was I complaining about this being split into three movies? I take it back.

5 ) The debate grows over whether taxpayers should foot the bill for a sex-change operation for convicted killer Michelle (Robert) Kosilek. Doesn’t something as ridiculous as that amount to cruel and unusual punishment for taxpayers?

4 ) The 2012 – 2013 NHL season looks to be a bust following a player lock-out. If people actually cared about professional hockey, this might be an issue.

3 ) Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have reportedly reconciled and gotten back together. Oh thank god, in plenty of time for them to go out and promote the last Twilight movie together!

2 ) Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes get into an online spitting contest over which one of them is more of an out-of-control trainwreck. Girls! Girls! You’re BOTH tragic wastes of talent!

1 ) GANGNAM STYLE!

Incumbent Charles O. Cipollini, Oliver’s brother, has yet to announce whether he will actually run again or, as hinted in recent interviews, step aside to let Oliver win.

***

Sheila R. Lyons of Wellfleet, candidate for re-election to the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners, has finally launched her new campaign website, and that’s at www.sheilalyonscapecod.com.

***

Finally, from the “Good Intentions Gone Hysterically Awry” file: a group that opposes ballot question three, which asks voters to legalize marijuana for medical use in Massachusetts, submitted to the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office the website URL http://votenoonquestion3.org for inclusion in the voter’s guide that was recently mailed out.

It turns out that this group, at the time it submitted the URL, had not actually acquired the domain name, which was scooped up by someone who launched a hilarious spoof site that boasts such “news articles” with riotous headlines like “Medical Marijuana is the Gateway Drug to Twinkie Addiction” and “A Healthy Body is the Devil’s Playground.”

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

9 ) Someone tied to hacktivist group Anonymous takes down web hosting site GoDaddy, along with millions of websites that use the service. under the pretense of testing the service’s security. I think a  well-written e-mail would have worked as well, and cheesed off far fewer small businesses in the process.

8 ) A New York pizza shop owner bear-hugs Barack Obama during a campaign stop, then catches hell from the right via Yelp as people who never visited his shop post negative reviews. But really, the Republicans support small businesses.

7 ) NBC chooses to skip coverage of the 9/11 moment of silence to interview Kris Jenner. Sure, their priorities are juuuuuust fine.

6 ) Christopher Sheldon pulls off a last-minute surprise victory over Adam Chaprales. C’mon, last-minute surprise victory for anyone other than Oliver Cipollini…

5 ) An anti-medical marijuana/Question Three group has its pending domain name hijacked. Go to http://votenoonquestion3.org/ and see the hilarious results.

4 ) Topless photos of Kate Middleton surface. London is outraged and citizens take the streets to chant “Well, I never!” at a reasonable volume for the time of day.

3 ) American Idol Jr. — I mean, The X-Factor debuts with new judges Britney “I went crazy but I’m better now” Spears and Demi “in rehab before 21″ Lovato as judges. Apparently, living cautionary tales are part of the show now.

2 ) Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively marry, perhaps only to prove that SOMETHING good came out of Green Lantern.

1 ) Actress Amanda Bynes pulls a Lohan and gets busted for smoking pot while driving. Do you think she supports Question Three?

First and foremost, folks, remember that the primary election this year is two weeks earlier than normal and on a Thursday — September 6, to be precise. Get out and vote! Voting gets things done; whining on news website comments sections about how bad the country is does not.

The primary ballot is not terribly busy but there are a few key races to consider, starting with two contests for the Ninth Congressional District. On the GOP side we have Christopher Sheldon of Plymouth and Adam G. Chaprales of Sandwich vying for the party nomination.

In terms of positions on the major issues, these men are largely interchangeable and their respective experiences in public service I would call comparable, so this might be a very close race.

On the Democratic side, I am not anticipating good news for C. Samuel Sutter, the Bristol County DA challenging Congressman William R. Keating (D). Mr. Sutter’s campaign strategy has been to aggressively criticize Rep. Keating rather than sell his own qualities, which is never a good sign.

Add to that the fact Mr. Sutter has issues he wants to address, but in most cases no game plans for doing so — and has made addressing traffic at the bridges one of his three big issues. Having been stuck at the bridges myself on many an occasion I appreciate the sentiment, but really: bigger fish to fry.

More locally we have a primary contest for State Representative of the Second Barnstable District between incumbent Demetrius J. Atsalis (D – Barnstable) and Brian R. Mannal, or as I’m calling it, The Race of Lost Opportunity.

See, Rep. Atsalis I consider one of the more vulnerable incumbents in the region. I think a very solid challenger could defeat him, but no such challenger has come along in several years and Mr. Mannal, in my opinion, has failed to buck the trend.

As a fellow Democrat, Mr. Mannal needed to decisively illustrate where Rep. Atsalis has failed as a legislator on critical issues and show voters how he would be markedly different. On his campaign website, Mr. Mannal compares and contrasts himself with the incumbent on three issues of significance: the increase in the sales tax, an expedited approval process for wind turbines, and whether to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

The other three topics he mentions are rather trivial: proposals on a term length increase, posting roll call votes on the state website, and a campaign spending disclosure measure…not the kind of issues voters are all that concerned with nowadays. His positions on other priority issues are unsurprising and fail to educate voters how he’d be a change from the status quo.

Mr. Mannal’s most aggressive push against Rep. Atsalis has also been on relative non-issues: Marie Parente’s endorsement of the incumbent and Rep. Atsalis’s attendance record. I’ve written about both previously and won’t rehash them now, I’ll simply say Mr. Mannal could have (and I dare say should have) put his time and effort toward something more substantial.

Still, Mr. Mannal has put significantly more effort into his campaign than Stephen M. Palmer, the Plymouth man challenging Senate President Therese M. Murray (D – Plymouth) — and by “challenging” I mean “His name is on the ballot but he has a snowball’s chance of actually winning.”

I recently listened to WATD’s online candidate forum hosting Sen. Murray and Mr. Palmer and…uh, yeah. Wow. Mr. Palmer was semi-coherent, confused, angry, occasionally condescending — in other words, he sounded like yet another person running for office not to serve the public but to have a large stage upon which to grind his anti-government axe.

Finally we have the three Democrats running for governor’s council of the first district: Nicholas D. Bernier, Oliver P. Cipollini, and Walter D. Moniz. This is another toss-up because the candidates’ positions are virtually identical: more public outreach, more diligence in appointing judges, no rubber-stamping whatever comes to them.

One thing voters should be aware of is the potential for another non-contest should Mr. Cipollini win. The Republican incumbent, Mr. Cipollini’s brother Charles, won the 2010 race against Oliver despite his continued insistence that he didn’t even want to win. He actively encouraged people not to vote for him. Voters deserve better than that.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.