And another thing …

Coming just a week after the depressing news that Maine, in 1998 anyway, had the nation’s highest tax burden, the news of its top 10 scores on eighth- and fourth-grade mathematics national exams was something to cheer. It shows that sometimes all that government investment pays off in ways that really add up.

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Speaking of education, the Senate Republican Policy Committee crowed not long ago that during the time Republicans controlled Congress, federal spending on education increased in real terms more than 50 percent, beginning in 1995. To which the libertarian thinkers at the Cato Institute reply, “Wasn’t that the year the GOP pledged to abolish the Department of Education?”

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Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe this week launched “No Buts,” a plan to help retailers raise even higher their excellent 92 percent compliance rate for denying teens access to cigarettes. The plan will educate store salespeople about how to spot an underage customer and describe the adverse health effects of smoking. It also includes a reprieve for retailers caught selling to minors: With a track record of three clean inspections, errant retailers can have their records cleared by passing the next three, as well. That makes it the “One But” program.

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Former President Bill Clinton is back in the news – where else would he be? – with his $10-million-plus book deal, a record-breaking advance that exceeds even those given to the pope and his wife (Clinton’s wife, not the pope’s). Mr. Clinton’s publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., says it will get a good return on investment, promising a “very thorough and candid telling of his life.”

Most retirees take up fishing or golf; this

one decides to give candor a try.

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Maine has experienced 15 unhealthy air days so far this summer and experts predict a record number of smog and ozone alerts before it’s over. In the past, this phenomenon was credited to our position as the “nation’s tailpipe” – prevailing winds carried industrial emissions here from states to the south and west. Now, with Maine roads increasingly clogged by guzzling and spewing RVs, SUVs and every other kind of outsized V, it seems upwind folks aren’t content with just sending their bad air here; they insist on bringing it with them.