A long way south of us, a big hurricane is getting ready to ravage the Texas coast. Ike is heading for landfall very late tonight or early tomorrow morning. The forecast, though, says that even though right now Ike is heading west, it probably will swing around and head northeast, straight into Maine. Of course it won’t be a hurricane, probably not even a tropical storm, when it gets here sometime between late Sunday and Tuesday. But we could get some rain out of it.
Meanwhile today, the clouds have already begun to gather over my little spot south of Route 1. The weather people say that northern Maine and the mountains could begin seeing showers this afternoon but here in southern Maine the showers should hold off until later this evening.
Gator Wife has gone to her part time job this morning. She and I spent a goodly portion of yesterday late morning into mid afternoon on outside activities. Among them, I mowed most of the lawn using the tractor with the bagger attached while she used her walk-behind mower to take care of a couple hills we have on the property. With a lawn tractor I had before this green and yellow one, I mowed the hills. That machine felt extremely secure as long as I followed good safety rules about riding up and down and not along the side of a hill. I have a hard time feeling secure with the current one on even ground. And I won’t even go near a hill.
On now to political comments we go, but they’re very mild today. The Republicans sure did open up a huge can of worms when they nominated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Vice President’s seat. The Democrats have unleashed a fury of negative comments about the lady. Those comments certainly do have an impact for the first few hours, but then various news outlets, including some that are Democrat sympathizers, soon debunk the stories. That doesn’t stop the Dems, though, as before the debunking is complete, they’re out with another one. Such wonderful people in that Democrat hierarchy!
I’m not going to reiterate all the stories here nor am I going to refute any of them. But there was one that I almost chuckled at. A professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School wrote that Palin’s greatest hypocrisy is her pretense that she is a woman. But that’s just one of hundreds of claims, mostly false, that have been promoted against the Alaska governor.
We said a few days ago that this would be a dirty race. I thank both parties for keeping me an honest man.
Did you see on the news the number of Maine children receiving their immunization shots through MaineCare, the state’s welfare health plan? I don’t remember the number right now, but it was in the thousands. When one looks at number of Mainers receiving welfare benefits in health care, housing, food, everyday living, and other benefits, one can only shake a head thinking that no wonder we’re in such a dire financial strait in this state. We have no jobs, say the welfare organizers and recipients. I say look at the want ads. There are jobs for just about anyone who wants to work. But why work when one can get more money and benefits for doing nothing?
I don’t put any faith at all into political polls. Or any kind of poll, for that matter. They can be skewed to reach the results the pollster wants. But when the supporters of a particular party and candidate release a poll that shows their own person is trailing, I find it interesting. The Daily Koz conducted a poll in Maine that showed that incumbent Sen. Susan Collins has a rather large lead (57-38) over her opponent, Cong. Tom Allen.
The weekend is ahead of us. I guess some of it could be wet, but that should stop too many of us from having a nice one. At least I won’t have to mow my lawn.
GiM
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