The plan is to expand the program to an additional 70,000 Mainers. The current number of people on the program as of October 2011 was 361,315

We currently spend 21% of ALL state funding on Medicare and Medicaid. The expansion will be paid for at the 100% level until 2020.

My friends want to grab at that like free beer and pizza, but here is the reason I’m cautious. On January 1, 2011, for every dollar Maine spent, the funding match from the Federal Government was $2.58

Eighteen months later, on October 1st of 2012, that dropped to $1.67

Hey, we had budgets to cut, and all those circumstances were unforeseen. Just suck it up and pay a bigger chunk of your own bills was the response from DC

That’s why I’m cautious about the expansion. That could happen again. Until the Federal Match is set in stone, there shouldn’t be a deal. If we expand the program, only to see the match cut in 2016 (election year) or 2018 (mid-term elections,) We as a state are well and truly screwed.

Since everyone seems to be smug with themselves today, I figured a quick summation of the lessons taught to the tune of a hickory stick was in order, just so we all know and fully realize that we”re on the same page.

You want a media that tells it like it is, yet when you find one that attempts this, you complain. When little Johnny Ne’reDoWell down the street gets arrested for his bonehead shenanigans it should be front page news. When he’s your nephew, we’re supposed to lay off.

When a pig-faced plutocrat shows up for a major policy shift announcement, we’re supposed to goggle with slack jawed awe at the pretty powerpoint presentation, lulled into a spell of head-nodding wonder at the beautiful graphic image…and never question if the numbers are actually accurate.

If the largest local employer is dumping crap in the rivers or a backyard pit, you don’t want actual reporting done about it, complete with inventories showing the amount of raw toxic crap they produced and records that show a failure of disposal.

You want a reporter and photographer to come and breathlessly cover a minor protest (on two hours notice) that you couldn’t manage to get twenty of your own supporters to show up to during the weekend.

You want unique stories, views, and information you can’t get elsewhere, and when it’s presented you ignore it to watch American Idol and Honey Boo-Boo.

You want information, and when somebody asks for it you listen to the blathering of talk by people who confuse an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act–FEDERAL) with a FOAA (Freedom of Access Act–STATE) thinking they are the same thing.

You want a media that tells you what it is told, never questions it, never follows up with new information, prints what you tell it to…in short, you want a media that is an illegal alien servant.

You want the National Enquirer, but with local kid box scores.

You want a first amendment weakened to the point of irrelevancy if it wants actual raw facts about the second amendment, forgetting all the while that they are partners, designed to back each other up, each using its strengths to defend the other.

You want to be manipulated by people who want to decide what information you can and can’t have…that simultaneously chuckle to themselves and complain that you are “Low Information Voters.”

Be careful what you’ve taught here, taking heed to the long term effect. You want a media that acts like a polite seven year old.

I prefer one that acts as a rebellious teenager, who’s scorn and derision at EVERYTHING icily drips from a facial expression that says “Bite Me.”

I want political officials who, on seeing their smartphone tell them a reporter is calling quickly wonder what they did wrong, reach for the  antacid tablets and answer the phone because they are afraid NOT to.

Yes, your whipping taught a lesson…one that indeed has hurt the teacher more than the pupil…in time.

If you are a single guy, or a married guy, or a dating guy, or a just messing around kind of guy, this is a quick reminder…the wretched day is almost here.

In all seriousness, if the Discovery Channel Network ever did a documentary about the next few weeks, they would have to call it “ATTACK OF THE COUGAR.”

With a knowing nod to many of my single friends out there, You really have to learn to step lively the next couple of weeks. If you drop your guard for a single instant, you may find yourself cornered by the ferocious cougars of Southern and Central Maine.

It works like this. Old acquaintances suddenly start paying more attention, you wander out for the evening to find ladies that wouldn’t whack you with a shovel the rest of the year suddenly hanging on your every word. Suddenly, you start getting nudges that you and old friends should “do something together.”

RUN. Do NOT walk…RUN. You’ve almost been caught.

I look at this matter simply. There are those that pine away, waiting for the perfect mate. There are the damaged souls that found one and have found that it wasn’t quite what they imagined, and are looking for the next victim. Either way, the prides of cougars hunt singly, picking off the youngest and freshest members of the group of wild beasts called men first. It’s long after all those are gone they turn their attention to the gnarled up, crusty fat ones like myself.

Usually, I remind them of their ex, and they sort of wander off. It’s a good trick, if you can manage it.

Live in Portland and have not made Valentines Night dinner reservations yet? Better book some time on the Hubble Space Telescope to see just exactly how far passed screwed you really are.

Don’t have an action plan yet for the significant other? Better make one quick, or plan on dropping to your knees to pray. Otherwise, you may find your life resembling the wrong side of 50 Shades of Gray.

Misery might love company, but failure to deliver the goods on VD may make you IN miserable company.

Take my friend “S” for example… not too recently divorced, out on the prowl and looking. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed the throaty growl grow lower and more menacing in tone. She wants someone new in her life, and as the calendar clicks forward closer and closer to February 14th, she’s becoming more and more likely to settle not for Mr. Right, but for Mr. RightDownTheStreetAndHandy.

Yikes. Back away slowly, not exposing the flanks. Don’t make eye contact. Act like you’re hungover and don’t quite understand what she’s talking about. Pretend on vague spotty random deafness.

Yes, the cougars are out there, growing hungrily impatient with each approaching day. They all eye the flying cherubic arrow-slinging baby with sighs and wistful looks. I view him as a malevolent demon sent from Old Scratch himself.

Waterboarding is too good for him, get out the tar and feathers.

Of course, everyone started to pick apart the data, cite the methodology as flawed, whatever. I did notice a few notable absences in those polling results, though.

Cynthia Dill isn’t mentioned anywhere, not even obliquely. I’m guessing that is because no machinery has been invented yet that could possibly rescue her from the lawn-dart like plunge to Earth she took in the Maine Senate Race, coming in at 13.5% in a three way race.

Eliot Cutler is mentioned prominently, but the talkback and pings from the progressive wing of Maine’s Democratic Party are pretty clear. Sure, tell EC to run again, right after he’s been boiled in oil, tarred and feathered, injected with the ebola virus and dropped off behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.

Two years out is WAY too soon to be testing the waters. At this point in the year, the amount of burst pipes equals the amount of burst dreams.

The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat. At least they wished to find some way of knowing when she was coming, so they might have time to run away. Indeed, something had to be done, for they lived in such constant fear of her claws that they hardly dared stir from their dens by night or day. Many plans were discussed, but none of them was thought good enough. At last a very young Mouse got up and said:”I have a plan that seems very simple, but I know it will be successful. All we have to do is to hang a bell about the Cat’s neck. When we hear the bell ringing we will know immediately that our enemy is coming.” All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before. But in the midst of the rejoicing over their good fortune, an old Mouse arose and said:

“I will say that the plan of the young Mouse is very good. But let me ask one question: Who will bell the Cat?” It is one thing to say that something should be done, but quite a different matter to do it.  –Aesop

Updating that old fable to the early part of the 21st Century:

And old journalist mouse sat in the back of the local mouse tavern, searching for the answer he knew was at the bottom of that glass. His editor-mouse wandered up to him. “What happened today?” squeaked out editor-mouse.

“Our Mouse-President held a press conference today, detailing his latest set of measures involving belling the cat. For 800 years, the learned councils of mice have met to find the answer to the problem of who will bell the cat. Though it sounds like a good idea, nobody has been willing to step forward and deal with the cat on a personal level, much less the cat lobby.”

“So what is the proposed solution this time?” squeaked editor mouse.

“It involves keeping a registry of cats, and preventing them from being around mice if they’ve ever had a thought about hurting one” said journalist-mouse. “They have to submit to all sorts of things, like background checks. A cat could simply be ACCUSED of having bad thoughts about mice, and would be prohibited from being around them.”

Around this time, yonder cat wandered into the mouse bar. “You can’t be in here, Cat!” squeaked both mice. “Don’t you know that king mouse has prohibited cats from being in direct contact with mice, unless they can prove they’ve never ever hurt a mouse?”

“But… I am a cat,” exclaimed Cat. “I am a free cat, with teeth AND fangs, and sharp claws. I need those things to defend myself from mice who vote to make themselves my master. I am my own master, aside from the fat man who opens the cans of food at my command.”

Editor-mouse would not hear of this outrage. “You just sit right there, Mr. Cat, and I’ll go and get our TOP-Mouse. He’ll come right by here and tell you just what’s what!!”

A few minutes later, editor mouse returned. “Where is journalist-mouse? He has to write down what Top-Mouse says”

Burping, Cat explained that journalist mouse failed to see how an argument to ban cats from being around mice might have an effect in the future if Top-Mouse decided journalist-mouse was writing something Top-Mouse didn’t like.

“I ate him,” burped Cat.

I’m triple-dipping here tonight, as a writer for the Portland Daily Sun, a Blogger here at the BDN, and  white bag stuffed with the red bathrobe of the “Church of Lebowski,” in case anyone needs officiating, but lacks the funds to do so.

A “boil water” order went into effect at 9:30 AM Wednesday, which has since been lifted.

On Thursday morning, folks began arriving for work. There was no coffee. Many local purveyors of the ground bean use direct hookup water systems to their coffee machines, making boiling water prior to making coffee virtually impossible.

Never in my life have I seen so many grumpy pedestrians. For those of us hooked on the bean juice, it meant an unacceptable delay before choking down the first cup.

A Johns Hopkins University study on caffeine addiction states that those that consume more than one cup of coffee per day  “would trigger withdrawal symptoms that include headaches, muscle pain and stiffness, lethargy, nausea, vomiting, depressed mood, and marked irritability.”

So, the Mayans were off by at least a day.

I have to say this slowly, in stages.

Nosh is a restaurant in Portland, the beloved home of my bacon-dusted french fries.

Last night, they introduced the next stage. Bacon Dusted French Fry Ice Cream Push-up Pops.

A sample of the smoky treat. (Michael Leonard Courtesy Photo)

Clearly, this is a development that will make the American College of Cardiologists fume with rage, possibly even to the point of putting out a hit team on Jason Loring, proprietor of Nosh. I’m sure the healthy eating folks are not fans, but Thursday afternoon I had a chance to try out the tasty treat that isn’t even on the menu yet. Smoky, bacony flavor, with more than a hint of potato, in sweet ice cream.

In a nation whose timing managed to see the legalization of marijuana in two states at the same time as the demise of the twinkie, this latest concoction could be the game changer. If this post manages to make it that far, I’m thinking UPS might be flying a few crates of the things out to the left coast soon.

Loring was trying something new. “We got together with Andrew Warren at Catbird Creamery in Westbrook. We wanted to do something that was uniquely ours. There were other bacon flavored ice creams out there, but the potato flavor was what we wanted.”

Michael Leonard, sitting at the bar, describes his part in the product development as that of being a “high end lab rat.” They made three batches before getting the flavor mixture just right.

At a cost of $7.00, the pops are a novelty that Nosh is trying out, possibly for inclusion in the annual “Food Coma Dinner” put on by local food blogger Joe Riccio.

As a tourist based city, this could change everything.

Mark Curdo receives the Key to the city from Mayor Michael Brennan

The continuing fundraiser for Maine’s Center for Grieving Children at WCYY hit another peak today when Portland Mayor Michael Brennan stopped by the studio to award Mark Curdo the “key to the city.” This year, the fundraiser has garnished over $18,000 for the center.

Earlier in the week, Governor LePage declared Monday “Mark Curdo Day” in recognition of his efforts over the previous four years 5 day telethon, raising over $100,000.00 for Maine Children.