Between Editions

I couldn’t help but chuckle at this story from Australia, courtesy of the BBC.

A woman in the land down under is being held captive in her home by a gigantic pig.

According to the BBC, Caroline Hayes, 63, said that the pig is as big as “a Shetland pony” and that she cannot get out of her house because of its aggressive behavior.

“It started knocking on my door at 4 am, head-butting the door, [after] some food,” she told ABC television.

When she opened the door, she said, the pig pushed her back inside the house. The offending animal, whom neighbors have named Bruce, also pulled a king-sized mattress out of her garage and ripped it up.

Click here for more, including an audio account from Hayes. You must listen to the audio. It is quite funny.

In case you want to know how your El Dorado Forward dollars are being spent, here are all of the DCI marketing reports for the year — those that are available, anyway.

An interesting note, the company says that “positive media coverage” about the El Dorado Promise and Forward programs includes items placed in Life Style Extra in the United Kingdom and some type of placement in Hemscott, UK.

In case you’ve been under a rock, DCI is the company hired to market El Dorado to the world.

Janurary

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

The colors are brilliant — dark browns, golds, vibrant yellows and deep, smooth reds.

Fall brings an abundance of painted leaves to the Natural State, especially toward the River Valley region and into the Ozarks.

I’ve always wanted to take a fall tour of Arkansas to see the trees change, and this just might be the year. What better way to experience autumn than a walk in the woods on a cool afternoon?

If you aren’t quite sure where to go to get the best view, click here. It’s the state’s annual fall foliage report.

By the way, we’re expected to see our peak leaf change by early-to-mid November.

Area residents are being asked to participate in a short survey to help determine the new themeline for El Dorado as part of efforts to market the city. Those interested in participating are asked to click here and register their opinion.

Participants may choose between a theme centered on the El Dorado Promise, a $50 million scholarship program to pay for college tuitions for graduates of El Dorado High School, or the current theme “Arkansas’ Original Boomtown.” The deadline to participate is Monday.

Hurricane Ike swept all the houses in Warren and Pam Adams’ Gilchrist, Texas, neighborhood away. But not theirs.

Click here for more.

From the New York Times:

“In a span of about 12 hours, the government took several moves to help restore stability in the markets. The actions began Thursday with discussions between the Treasury, Federal Reserve and Congressional leaders on what could become the biggest bailout in United States history, a plan likely to authorize the government to buy distressed mortgages at deep discounts from banks and other institutions.”

Click here for more.

I still say it’s a mistake. Why should you and I have to pay for failed mortgages given out to people who should have never received the loans in the first place? No one is bailing me out of my credit card bills and my car note.

I realize that the government plans to bail out the banks, who own the failed mortgages, and not the homeowners. Still, it just doesn’t seem right.

It’s been a decade since the hanging chad incident in Florida, yet we’re still having voting problems in the U.S.?

We can spend billions on a war but we can’t buy voting machines that actually work?

I have preached this for years: The fundamentals of our democracy depend on the voting process. Without that, we are nothing. How can our government not provide a voting method — and voting equipment — that works?

From today’s Washington Post: “Faced with a surge in voter registrations leading up to Nov. 4, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines, equipment failures and confusion over polling procedures that could cost thousands the chance to cast a ballot.”

I’m outraged by this. How can we not be prepared for the most important event in our democracy?

How can the government continue to fail the people of the United States by denying them a chance to vote in a setting that will ensure that their vote is counted.

There should be mass uprising because of this, folks.

Mass. Uprising.

Click here for the rest of the Post story.

EAST CAMDEN, Ark. (AP) — One worker was killed after a rocket motor at the Aerojet plant in south Arkansas exploded and caught fire, Calhoun County Sheriff Bob Dunn said.

The employee apparently was working on the motor in a bay area when the explosion occurred about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, the sheriff said. He did not release the employee’s name.

The fire was contained by the evening and the site secured, although emergency workers had not recovered the body and planned to resume their search Thursday morning, Dunn said.

The sheriff said it was too dangerous to search the site in the dark with spotty fires still burning.

Company spokesman Glenn Mahone told The Associated Press earlier in the day that workers were involved in “the routine manufacturing process” at the 1,200-acre company compound when an “unplanned ignition of a rocket motor” occurred. Mahone said the company was investigating, but did not know what caused the explosion.

Aerojet, which contracts with the defense department, employs 500 people in the manufacture of weapons at Highland Industrial park. About 450 people would have been working when the explosion occurred.

The park was evacuated and firefighters and emergency workers began working the fire, said Renee Preslar, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. She said no other injuries were reported.

Aerojet is based in Sacramento, Calif. The company makes guided missiles and space propulsion systems.

How do you feel about this one? More than $80 billion of our money — taxpayers — is going to help bail out insurance giant AIG.

If you or I were in financial trouble, think the government would give a hoot?

The claim: AIG is so large that a complete shutdown or bankruptcy of the firm would be catastrophic to the global economy. I find that a bit out of skew, personally.

Click here for the latest.

Also, the Arkansas Insurance Commissioner discusses AIG’s bailout with the Talk Business Blog in Little Rock. Click here.

**UPDATE** Meanwhile, the market continues to tank. Click here for more.

We survived rumors last week that gas prices would rise to $5 or $6 a gallon. They didn’t. We saw increases, but nothing that should have warranted a mad panic like the one seen just before Hurricane Ike made landfall.

Gas prices rose to gouge levels because of the panic. It fed station owners’ pockets. It didn’t help a single person who idled for 30 minutes then pulled up to the pump to top off their tank.

I found a great analysis of what I like to call The Great Panic of 2008 on, of all places, CNN. Click here for access.

By the way, if anything like this ever happens again, please forward this story, along with the one on the jump, to everyone you know. Perhaps we can avoid another panic.

Below are charts of gas prices around the state today, courtesy of Arkansasgasprices.com.

This column by Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert has been making the rounds lately. He presents some interesting points regarding Sarah Palin. Click here for more.

Meanwhile, 22 people on a freighter ship in the Gulf of Mexico will have to ride out the storm. The Coast Guard says they can’t help them. Click here for more.

Please, I have been urging this since yesterday, do not believe rumors and speculation that gas is $5 or $6 at a station in Camden or a station in Little Rock or a station in El Dorado. It is not true.

It IS true that gas futures are up to $5 per gallon. There is no way to tell yet whether or not our gas prices will reach $5 a gallon at the pumps.

It is pure speculation at this point.

I spent 35 minutes this morning trying to get my regular work gas in Camden — pumps are sold out, people are lined up at stations that do have gas, and panic is ensuing.

There is no need for it.

There are too many stories to link to on this subject, but I will send you to Google news, where you can type in “gas prices” and read the latest. Click here for access.

Gas prices are not going up to $5 per gallon, as many around town would have you believe. One of our reporters just got back from patrolling and found that lines are long at many stations around town.

“I heard that prices are going up to $6.”

That seems to be the common phrase. “I heard… .”

Let’s use a little common sense, folks. By the way, oil traders, at least today, were not phased by Ike’s Texas approach. Oil closed at below $100 a barrel today. Click here for more.

An El Dorado man is in the Union County Jail today after allegedly trying to knife someone in the face early Sunday morning in downtown El Dorado.

Brandon Scott McGaugh, 23, of El Dorado, was arrested for aggravated assault after he allegedly tried to cut another man with a small pocket knife during an altercation, according to an El Dorado Police report.

Police say the incident occurred at approximately 1 a.m. in front of the Corner Cafe on Main Street.

The man avoided the knife and decked McGaugh, who was knocked unconscious. McGaugh was taken to the Medical Center of South Arkansas with a broken jaw.

Witnesses at the scene say that McGaugh had been attempting to fight the man all night, but there’s no mention of why the two were arguing. According to police, a large crowd had gathered in front of the cafe to watch the incident.