Trust us. We don’t like writing, or thinking, about the state of Maine’s budget any more than the average person. (Especially during the early days of tax season.) But we’re expected to ask the tough questions, so here’s one:Is having the state fund 55 percent of education still a good idea?It’s a query based on […]

Maine may adopt a law prohibiting smoking in cars containing children, based on a year-old city ordinance in Bangor that’s never been enforced.That’s right. Not once.“My sense is that we’re getting a lot of voluntary compliance,” said Bangor Police Chief Peter Arno, in a Jan. 19 article in the Bangor Daily News. Arno also noted […]

Finding a resolution to the state budget woes is about as easy as predicting a presidential caucus.Here’s how we think a budget caucus would go:“Who supports raising taxes to cover the $95 million shortfall, say by adding one penny to Maine’s sales tax? OK, all tax-and-spend liberals, stand in that corner.Who supports cutting state spending, […]

“If,” said Rudyard Kipling,” you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same… If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…”If you can do all of these things, and a few others, “You’ll be […]

David Hughes may be innocent of any malfeasance, despite his inability to account for his Clean Elections funding, but this determination is not for the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices to make.This should fall under the purview of the attorney general, the exact same route the ethics panel dispatched the prior Lewiston […]

“Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself? Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew […]

August’s fatal crash on Long Lake revealed three truths about the state of Maine boating:1. For most Maine’s lakes and rivers, there is no limit on size or horsepower of motor vessels;2. The warden service is too understaffed to enforce speed limits upon these same lakes and rivers;3. Boaters can be of any age and […]

For Maine’s riverside towns, ice-jams are lethal. Canton knows this well – it flooded in 1936, 1978, 1987, 1996 and, most recently, December 2003, when almost one-fifth of residents were evacuated from rising waters.Six homes were destroyed. More than 90 others couldn’t be reached, and many accessible homes were unable to be occupied, because floodwaters […]

Pack a room with journalists and, odds are, you’ll find more fights than friendships. We have camaraderie, but also competitiveness.Where we all agree, however, is that it’s essential to our integrity to defend our sources, especially if the source went in harm’s way to do so.Journalists now have vigorous protection under the First Amendment to […]

Sen. Olympia Snowe’s new press officers, John Gentzel and Kurt Bardella, came for a visit, after digging out from Monday’s storm. It was the first taste of Maine winter for Gentzel, from Pennsylvania, and Bardella, from California. And despite lodging issues – a heater blowing cold – and a rental car wholly unequipped for winter […]