CENTERVILLE – Move over, Dr. Seuss. Like the Whos of the classic Christmas story, the Thompsons on Shootflying Hill Road have been Grinched.

For the past eight years the friendly family has erected an elaborate holiday display on its front lawn, wowing neighbors with inflatable characters, a Christmas train and a light show synced to music.

When Richard Thompson flipped the switch to power up the extravaganza Sunday morning, however, nothing happened.

Somebody had slashed the blow-up Santa, reindeer and sock monkey as well as three blow-up dogs representing the family’s three yellow Labrador retrievers. The wires connecting the lights were cut and the display effectively destroyed.

Absolutely gruesome scene in Centerville. What kind of filthy animals are even capable of such heinous crimes? This is a call to arms Centervillagers! Light the torches, grab the pitchforks and release the hounds! It’s time to rally around the Thompsons and bring these savages to justice.

What’s that? The Thompson’s immediately gave up and declared victory for the Santa murderers? Oh ok, well I guess that’s that then. Way to show some resilience Thompson’s. Nothing says Christmas spirit more than giving up the millisecond there is any slight setback in your plan. Way to represent American ideals by running as fast as you can the other direction from the first sign of a fight.

The part of the story I don’t like is that the Thompson’s gave up looking for Santa’s killers immediately. They didn’t put posters up or anything, they just sat on the porch like a goons and made a sign. Those guy’s gotta think ‘You got a Santa. You got a responsibility.’ If your Santa gets killed you don’t make a sign then call it quits. You get your ass out there and you find that fucking Santa killer.

The Cape Cod Times has a widget on their website that allows you to look up the violent and property crime rates and rankings of Cape Cod towns from 2000 up until last year. We took a screenshot of last years list complete with rankings by town and the results were a bit surprising:

Provincetown coming in hot! I have to say I did not see that coming. The high crime rates for the bigger Cape Towns like Barnstable, Falmouth and Yarmouth seem fairly obvious, but what is going down in P-Town with the double 1st place rankings? Who would have thought that you’d have a higher probability of being the victim of a crime in the fist than you do in the armpit?

So much for the quaint little artist village huh? I’m no criminal justice expert but maybe they should start by no longer allowing homeless people to drink booze on the steps of Town Hall. Or it could just be that they have stricter laws out there and that jacks up the numbers. Maybe the P-Town jail is full of people who wore white shoes after labor day?

Whatever it is, be careful out there Provincetown people, one minute you might be minding your own business helping a friend move and the next thing you know a couple of street toughs are stealing your armoire.

BARNSTABLE – A longtime baby sitter for a Yarmouth family was arraigned Monday on an allegation she bit one of the children in her care…

The couple was working together at a restaurant that night. After the child’s father went home to relieve Bologna for the night, the baby sitter told him she “began ‘wrestling’ with (the boy), and he bit her in an attempt to get away. When he did, Bologna became upset and bit him back on the right bicep,” records state.

The woman provided text messages to police between her and Bologna in which the baby sitter apologized for the incident.

Bologna had been baby-sitting for the family for about a year and a half before the alleged incident, usually two to three days per week. The child’s parents had never had problems with her before, court records say.

Not knowing the details of this I have to say my initial reaction is to side with the babysitter here. Who among us hasn’t dealt with a 4 year old kid that is acting like a massive asshole? The little fuckers just won’t listen to reason and sometimes the only way to get them to smarten up is with a taste of their own medicine.

For instance whenever I’m hanging out with a niece or nephew and they start having a meltdown? I just start yelling and crying louder than them. They have no idea what to do, they just clam right up and look at you with a confused and dejected look on their face. That face where they know they’ve been beat, it’s a combination of sadness and anger. Sometimes the only way to out wit a 4 year old is to act like a 2 year old. Even 4 year olds HATE 2 year olds.

P.S. If you are about to email me because you are against adults biting children please refer to this post.

Mass Live – Now, a state panel commissioned in 2009 to mull public-private traffic initiatives is considering whether a new toll bridge might further reduce traffic backups that have persisted even after completion of the much ballyhooed flyover.

The Cape Cod Times reports that the plan, which comes with a preliminary price tag of $320 million, calls for building a new bridge next to the Sagamore Bridge.

“The new bridge would be built along a parallel alignment to the Sagamore Bridge,” Massachusetts Department of Transportation spokesman Michael Verseckes told the Times on Friday. “Both bridges would carry one direction of travel – either on-Cape or off-Cape traffic,” he added.

Obviously this is a big story around here. We have an article about this issue in the works but we want to make sure to take our time with it. Those of you who have been reading The Real Cape for a while know that we don’t just throw opinions out there, we always try to stay understated and avoid sensationalism.

In the meantime we thought a poll was in order. Do you think another bridge running parallel to the Sagamore Bridge is a good idea?

Folks I don’t know what is going on between Martha’s Vineyard’s PBS station and Skip Finley of The Vineyard Gazette but I think we have a good old fashioned Twitter fight brewing here. I’ll be sure to watch this one like a hawk and report on any developments. This one could go down in history as the biggest media fight since Howard Stern took on Don Imus.

Not the greatest quality, but the content is Real Cape for sure. Once again our readers are doing the work for us with a great caption as well. On another note, this has to be this guy right? What’s the deal with Town Hall being the drinking spot of choice for vagrants? The homeless are basically spitting right in P-Town’s eye with this, they need a selectman to come out of his office, go vigilante and clean that shit up.

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