And another thing …

The Cat, the Bar Harbor-to-Yarmouth high-speed ferry, had a somewhat checkered inaugural season last summer — three citations for wake violations that tossed smaller boats and a foggy collision that killed a Nova Scotia fisherman. This year, the owners pledge an emphasis on safety with a plan that includes increasing the speed by 5 miles per hour. That way, other boaters will never know what hit them.

After years of doing battle with SERF, opponents of the Hampden landfill have prepared a bill of reparations, a price tag on such things as loss of scenery, loss of recreation opportunity, loss of town staff time — and loss of sleep. Included in the $20-million tab is $238,200 for emotional distress, based upon calculating that the 1,588 people who fought and voted against SERF’s expansion last year worried about it an average of one hour per month for five months at a value of $30 per hour. Call it Post-Traumatic Trash Syndrome.

The Scottish scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep back in 1996 had some disturbing news this week: because they used cells from a 6-year-old animal, Dolly now has a chronological age of 3 and a biological age of 9; she combines the inexperience of adolescence with the decrepitude of old age. Let’s hope these scientists make amends by allowing Dolly to spend what little time she has left in the most pleasant way possible. After all, ewe can’t take it with ewe.

Maine prides itself on being a home-rule state, a place where the best and wisest decisions are made at the town hall. This tradition serves lawmakers well in dumping state responsibilities onto the towns, but they take a different view when it comes to school funding or, as in the ban on municipal lawsuits against gun manufacturers, access to the courts. When it really counts, the “local” in local control apparently refers to a certain domed locality in Augusta.