Jennifer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_dog_mauling

As you can see by the link, there was YET ANOTHER story today about someone killed as a result of a pit bull/rottweiller attack. In Britain, these animals are banned, and destroyed when discovered. I'm increasingly convinced that it's a policy that the U.S. should at least take a look at.

I've heard people repeatedly argue that pit bulls "just get a bad rap" or that "it's the owners fault," but the thing is, when was the last time you heard about a border collie mauling someone to death? I mean, border collies have become pretty friggin' popular in the past couple of decades -- I am sure that, sadly, more than a few live in neglected or abusive conditions. But you don't hear about them breaking out and wandering the streets in packs, murdering innocents.

I have also heard pit bulls compared to firearms, in the style of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" -- as if pit bulls are not naturally dangerous, they're just dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. But the thing is, guns don't break out of their safes, crawl under the back fence and then start shooting random people in the street. A gun actually has to be wielded as a weapon to hurt someone. Pit bulls and rottweilers seem to do a pretty good job being downright deadly without any direct human facilitation.

I guess I'm just wondering: when are people going to come to their senses? These animals are dangerous... and they aren't just dangerous in bad homes or poor conditions. You can easily find specific stories of 'good, calm' pit bulls and rottweilers who suddenly and abruptly turned on their owners, let alone strangers. Guns don't just up and attack people. These dogs, it seems, do.

It is a scene from New Hope with Chewie, Leia, Luke and Han all shooting and standing in front of a backwards Millenium Falcon. I know the poster is now being reprinted, but I was wondering if the thing I have is worth anything.

It’s LePage for me, but let me elaborate a little.

Maine is a dump.

It's nice to look at, but it has a rotting infrastructure, no jobs, and a malicious, brutal bureaucracy that most Mainers claim to hate, but secret relish. Young people are fleeing vacationland in unprecedented numbers because all these factors combine to make it one of the most hopeless places in the United States.

Take me and my wife, for instance – she's a teacher with a Texas teaching certificate, I have a masters. We're both under 30. After 6 months of looking, the best position I've found is part time, and pays $11 an hour. She can't even get a Maine teaching certificate without returning to college FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. Massachusetts? Rhode Island? They'll just GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE. It's 100% reciprocity.

So while this is a single individual’s take, it also raises the obvious question: who the hell does Maine think it is? Do you really think your standards are better than Texas? To bring it closer to home, do you really believe you're better than Rhode Island? Or Massachusetts? If you do, you're living in a fantasy land.

This place sucks. We're leaving as soon as one of us can find a position elsewhere that doesn't pay peanuts. In the meantime, I'm voting for LePage, if only because he seems to be the only person east of New Hampshire who will cut you liberal-loving, welfare-pushing dimwits down at the knees. I don't like him personally, and I don't care about the job he did or did not do in Waterville – it simply does not matter to me.

Even if he turns out to be the worst governor in U.S. history, you deserve him Maine.