You may have seen Lance Tapley's story in this week's Portland Phoenix - with four ideas on how Maine can fix its economic problems by increasing government spending - and by funding those increases with tax policies that will make Maine a fairer place to live, work, and do business.

And while he cites nationally renowned and award-winning economists (some of whom are also referred to in this story with a similar bent, published by the Seattle Weekly), the idea that any federal stimulus package could be hamstrung (at least in part) by state budget-slashing is gaining momentum.

Back in February, I wrote about all sorts of ways humans adjust our clocks to more closely match the natural world. Here's an example of how bad we are at doing this stuff. Back then - ten months ago - scientists whose job it is to do this stuff were predicting that the next "leap second" would be added at the end of 2009.

WRONG! It's tonight

The purgatory stay of the Portland Press Herald has been extended until "early next year," mainly because the financing hasn't come together yet for the purchasers, according to an article in today's Press Herald. The Blethens may be upset, because they had hoped to use the capital losses on the PPH sale to offset gains on real-estate sales.

Don Christen, a marijuana activist and Maine resident (whose Hempstock festivities I wrote about in August) was acquitted last week on charges of illegally cultivating and furnishing marijuana. The jury decided that Christen, who is also the founder of the marijuana-legalization activist group Maine Vocals, had the proper documentation to show that he was growing the cannibis for not only for medical purposes but for one specific pot-prescribed patient, Carroll Cummings.

The news of the release of the bulk of Clifford Still's work to a museum in Denver dedicated to his work reminds me of the hype machine of another wildly overrated painter, Andrew Wyeth a number of years ago.

With MASSIVE hat-tips to Consumerist and the Spike Feresten Show, I'll offer you these tidbits about Digital Television.

First, since most non-old-people fit in (at least) one of four categories (to be enumerated in a moment), there is an extremely good chance you don't need to do anything at all to account for the DTV "transition."

For a while, the Press Herald has been saying that a sale needs to close before the end of the year to work for the Blethens. Part of this is related to the fact that the Blethens will take a capital loss on the deal, and the loss can be used to offset some of the Blethens' tax obligations from their capital gains on the sale of some property in Seattle earlier this year.

A little gimmicky, but still, creative -- freshman state senator Justin Alfond (D-Portland) is asking his constituents to submit their ideas of good legislation. He'll pick one (or more?) winning ideas; the winners will have the honor of having their bills submitted to the legislature during the 2009 session, plus they'll get to have lunch with Alfond in Augusta.

Joe's New York Pizza opened a couple weeks ago where Granny's Burritos used to be (420 Fore St). I stopped in this afternoon to try their slices; which cost $3.25 and up. The cheese slice was fine. Thin crust, a bit greasy, and light on the sauce. Not undercooked or doughy, like some gross pizza can be. The BBQ chicken slice was heavy on the (probably not homemade) BBQ sauce, and loaded with chicken.

A Kittery native, Dennis Blair, is likely to be tapped as the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, according to the New York Times and ABC News. Blair, a retired four-star Navy admiral, is a former commander of all US Navy forces in Asia and the Pacific. Sadly, according to the Nation, he made the US (more) complicit in the 1999 violence in Timor

Many of the comments about Take Back Barack so far have been from conservatives shouting with glee, calling Obama a "snake-oil salesman" and a "con man," and apparently suggesting I'm a sucker for believing his promises. But it appears the progressive community might be paying some attention. Early tomorrow morning (East Coast time) - so early it's late at night Pacific time - I'll be on the Phil Hendrie Show talking about the Take Back Barack effort.

Self-described "crap speller" David Wolman sets out in a literary-historical-travelogue across the English-speaking world to discover who, exactly, made the rules that have tormented him since primary school, and why.

The Kennebunks Peace Department -- the same group responsible for organizing multiple protests outside the Bush compound in Kennebunk -- is collecting shoes to throw at the White House on January 19th as a "parting tribute" to President Bush. Bush was the target of a shoe lobbed by an Iraqi journalist over the weekend.

Maybe this is why Portland is such a safe town: our police officers are comfortable tapping into their creative side. On Wednesday, the Portland Police Department will release its 2009 calendar filled with "poetry and photography...produced by police officers, detectives, local poets and photographers and tells the story of life and work within the Portland Police Department.