The weather makes it difficult to think of January

After a rather cold-for-this-time-of-year couple of days it would appear that the weekend will once again return to above normal temperatures.  Still no snow in the forecast, except there's always the chance of a flurry or two.  Knock on the top of my head, I still haven't gotten any flu symptons yet this season, but this is the kind of weather pattern that just invites illness.

I see in the news I may have been right.  A couple of Republicans have come out and flatly said they would oppose at least part of Gov. LePage's plan to fix the shortfall in the DHHS budget.  As usual with folk critical of things, they didn't offer a solution to the lack of 122 million bucks.  I guess their own electable future is the main concern.  I wonder what they'll do when the state simply runs out of money, perhaps as early as this year.

Did you read about the legislators of both parties who have taken advantage of a well written loophole in state law that allows them to get millions of dollars in state money without having to declare a conflict of interest?  If you haven't, it makes for interesting reading but I'm not sure if any of the sites I've read still have the story.  You may have to Google it to find something current.

Edited at 7:25 AM:  I'm retracting the above paragraph (not just eliminating it because that would be unfair editing).  I just heard Joe Bruno, one of those charged with unfairly taking state money give a full explanation.  He never did take the money except a couple organizations he is involved with, including a pharmacy he owns, were mentioned in the story.  Speaking on the Ray Richardson Show on WLOB radio, Bruno explained that the money his pharmacy received was all payments for prescriptions authorized through the MaineCare program of the DHHS.  He gave a thorough explanation of the whole accusation and proved just how the original news media stories were simply fabrications of the truth.  I hadn't mentioned Mr. Bruno in my original paragraph, but his name was prominent if you found the stories.  I'm sorry I brought this forth here.

Hmmm.  I wonder if there's any connection between those last two items.  Hmmmm.  Naw!!!!  Just Replublicans who are clueless why the majority of voters in this state returned them to leadership roles.  Obviously the first sentence here also becomes a hoax.

Wow!  Have you seen the price of gas lately?  Last Tuesday when I went to my senior fitness session, the gas on Western Avenue in South Portland was $3.229.  Two days later on Thursday, it was $3.369 per gallon.  In two days!  I've read that it's going up another 30 to 60 cents in the next couple of weeks.  Why?  I can think of a couple of reasons.  Iran is making threats about closing the Straits of Hormuz to cut off an oil supply route.  The U.S. does not rely on oil through those straits.  The U.S. hasn't permitted a pipeline to be built from Canada which would give us cheaper oil.  And Congress has allowed a subsidy for its required ethanol in gasoline to expire.  Did you read that the United States' #1 export is gas?  Perhaps we should keep more of it here.

It would be far better if Congress would simply eliminate the ethanol requirement and that just might lead to a lowering of food prices along with lower gas prices.  And my lawn mower might run better, too, along with a return to the former gas mileage in my car.

Did I also hear on the radio that gas prices could reach $4.50 by this summer?

In the TV advertising department:  The entire ad industry must be salivating over the new Jenny Craig commercial.  You know, the one that has the big scantily dressed girl gyrating and making a funny noise.  The ad agencies would have to go a long way to create a worse commercial. 

I could stand to lose a few pounds, but the latest Jenny spot sure turns me off.  There's nothing about it that would want me to buy the comany's diet food.  Maybe it's just the "before" ad and they're planning a "30 pound loss" one later.  "But, Gator, if it doesn't affect you, why say anything here?"  Simple.  When it comes on, and it appears to be in a 'flood the market' cycle, both Gator Wife and I cringe and say almost simultaneously that it is by far the worst commercial we've seen in many years.  Jenny, it's time to bring back Valerie.

The Gator family here will have another easy weekend.  Seems strange in January to have such fine weather and we've got nothing planned.  At least I'm not concerned with lawn mowing every week.

I hope your weekend is just a super one.

Gator