And another thing …

The Legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee engaged in a heated debate last week on a bill to prohibit commercial game ranches — fenced enclosures in which hunters, for fees up to $2,000, sit in tree stands and bag corraled deer, moose and such non-native species as bison, elk and boar. Eventually, the committee tabled the proposed legislation, unable to sort out the conflict between private enterprise and the “fair chase” ethic of Maine’s outdoor tradition. Perhaps this issue would move along if the bill were transferred from the committee concerned with hunting to the committee that regulates grocery shopping.

With an additional $6.3 million in federal low-income heating assistance coming in, Maine officials have expanded the guidelines to make families at up to 170 percent of the poverty level eligible. Families wonder if that 170 percent is figured before or after the last time they had their tanks filled.

Last summer, Timothy Boomer was fined $75 and sentenced to four days community service for violating Michigan’s 102-year-old anti-swearing law after he fell out of a canoe and let loose with a three-minute-long blue streak within earshot of a mother and her two young children. He appealed the conviction, claiming it violated his First Amendment rights. Last week, in dismissing the appeal, Judge Ronald Bergeron said “Every noise or utterance does not constitute free speech.” To which Mr. Boomer replied…

Someone else who might want to keep it zipped for a while would be Kentucky State Sen. Albert Robinson, who urged passage of a resolution to exclude mention of non-Christian religions in American history lessons with this assertion: “When the boat came to these shores, it did not have an atheist, a Buddist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew. Ninety-eight-plus percent of these people were Christians.” Sen. Robinson did not say whether his statistical analysis on colonial demographics included the shoreside greeting party.

A new U.S. Department of Labor study finds that Maine, while doing well in job creation, continues to fall behind New England and the nation in wages. A University of Southern Maine economist says it’s because “We’re losing the typically high-paying jobs and gaining typically low-wage jobs.” A spokesman for the governor says it’s because “well-paying manufacturing jobs are drying up with no comparable replacements.” The head of a leading public-policy think tank says it’s because the Maine economy “is in the hardest part of the transition, before better paying jobs start showing up.” And you thought it was just because jobs don’t pay as much as they used to.