Tidbits catch-up time: Light blogging this week. Still suffering from a nasty cold and other depressing events that make the mornings sluggish. ... Believe it or not, I still haven’t given up on the Sox. You never know. But without Schilling in Game 5 and probably for the rest of the season, I’m not holding by breath for miracles. Maybe Lowe can pick up the slack. Maybe. ... Not to play pessimistic I-told-you-so (see pre-series post directly below), but I still can’t get over how some people thought this would be a walkover. As I wrote Reader No. 1 earlier this week: A.) The Yanks won the division. B.) The Yanks held off the Sox in a crucial pair of late-season series (‘not impressed’) C.) The Yanks dispatched a Minnesota team that many local fan rightly didn’t want to face in the first round. So why the supreme confidence? ...

... Don’t look now: Despite yesterday’s Green Zone attacks, there are bright spots in Iraq. I didn’t know Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged Shiites to register to vote. Big news. Very encouraging. And Prime Minister Iyad Allawi seems to have a deft feel for wielding the carrots and sticks, now applying the same pressure to Fallujah as he did Samarra. ... Ten, nine, eight, seven ... Waiting for pro-war conservatives to start thumping their chests over the morsels of good news out of Iraq, after their embarrassing silence on recent undeniable setbacks over, yes, a botched occupation. But pre-election Iraq still isn’t nearly as stable as pre-election Afghanistan, where elections are winning high praise. One of the reasons for Iraq’s early-occupation woes: “Americans kept trying to jury-rig things, to make sure their guys got in.” The local Allawi has a much better feel for what needs to be done or not done on the ground. ...

... Gotta love those choo-choos. The MBTA seems to be grasping that rail is its long-term future, not an expensive short-term drag that forces it to sometimes contemplate cutting hacks from its payrolls. Its debt problems are a big concern. If the T were to implement reforms and commit to long-term rail projects, I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who would support a small gas tax hike to reduce its debt and embark on an even more ambitious expansion strategy. The people would get the services they want. The MBTA expands. Everyone wins. But: No reforms, no new taxes. ...

... ‘New leader, same old politics.’ Couldn’t have said it better. ... Homicides are up in Boston, the NYT has discovered. The emphasis on the surge in the youth population disturbs. Of course that’s part of the problem. But it’s such a ‘80s/’90s cultural-wars type of way to look at things. The reduction of crime in the ‘90s was due to a number of factors: population trends, booming economy, impressive new police tactics, community involvement, tough sentencing laws. The city’s homicide rate is going up, but it’s not near its bleakest levels in the early ‘90s. ...

Now back to the Cold-eeze and a shot of non-drowsy DayQuil.  ¶ 6:52 AM