"Governor Janet Mills announced that Maine has, two years ahead of time, surpassed its goal of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025, a milestone that represents significant progress in reducing Maine’s reliance on heating oil, lowering heating costs, and curbing harmful carbon emissions.

To continue Maine’s momentum, Governor Mills also unveiled a new target: installing another 175,000 additional heat pumps in Maine by 2027, thereby bringing the number of heat pumps installed in Maine homes, businesses, and public buildings during her time in office to 275,000.

If this target is achieved, Maine would have more than 320,000 heat pumps in total installed across the state.

Heat pumps can be thought of as temperature recycling machines. They are filled with refrigerant fluid and contain a compressor, and they work by extracting excess heat and moving it around, either in or out of a house depending on whether it’s hot or cold.

It’s believed they work best in hot weather, but in February, Maine’s temperatures in some places plummeted during a cold snap to -60°F. Efficiency Maine, which aided in the state’s adoption of heat pumps by organizing rebates for customers under the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, did a survey of owners they had helped the previous year.

Many of [the heat pump owners] reported they were comfortable and warm, and offered to bring up the fact that by February they had already saved hundreds of dollars on home heating systems, over boilers, gas furnaces, and heating oil.

“We are setting an example for the nation,” said Mills at the announcement event. ​“Our transition to heat pumps is… curbing our reliance on fossil fuels, and cutting costs for Maine families, all while making them more comfortable in their homes—a hat trick for our state.”

The transition began in 2019 with bipartisan support of the Legislature, when Governor Mills enacted laws setting ambitious targets for transitioning to renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

-via Good News Network, July 31, 2023

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine signed LD 227, a sanctuary bill that protects transgender and abortion providers and patients from out-of-state prosecution, into law. With this action, Maine becomes the 16th state to explicitly protect transgender and abortion care in state law from prosecution. This follows several bomb threats targeting state legislators after social media attacks from far-right anti-trans influencers such as Riley Gaines and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. An earlier version of the bill failed in committee after similar attacks in January. Undeterred, Democrats reconvened and added additional protections to the bill before it was passed into law.

The law is extensive. It asserts that gender-affirming care and reproductive health care are "legal rights" in Maine. It states that criminal and civil actions against providers and patients are not enforceable if the provision or access to that care occurred within Maine’s borders, asserting jurisdiction over those matters. It bars cooperation with out-of-state subpoenas and arrest warrants for gender-affirming care and abortion that happen within the state. It even protects doctors who provide gender-affirming care and abortion from certain adverse actions by medical boards, malpractice insurance, and other regulating entities, shielding those providers from attempts to economically harm them through out-of-state legislation designed to dissuade them from providing care.

The bill also explicitly enshrines the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s Standards of Care, which have been the target of right-wing disinformation campaigns, into state law for the coverage of transgender healthcare.

The bill is said to be necessary due to attempts to prosecute doctors and seek information from patients across state lines. In recent months, attorneys general in other states have attempted to obtain health care data on transgender patients who traveled to obtain care. According to the United States Senate Finance Committee, attorneys general in Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas attempted to obtain detailed medical records "to terrorize transgender teens in their states… opening the door to criminalizing women’s private reproductive health care choices." The most blatant of these attempts was from the Attorney General of Texas, who, according to the Senate Finance Committee, "sent demands to at least two non-Texas entities." 

[...] Despite these threats, legislators strengthened both the abortion and gender-affirming care provisions and pressed forward, passing the bill into law. Provisions found in the new bill include protecting people who "aid and assist" gender-affirming care and abortion, protections against court orders from other states for care obtained in Maine, and even protections against adverse actions by health insurance and malpractice insurance providers, which have been recent targets of out-of-state legislation aimed at financially discouraging doctors from providing gender-affirming care and abortion care even in states where it is legal.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signs gender-affirming care and abortion sanctuary state bill LD227 into law despite the best efforts of right-wing anti-trans extremists such as Riley Gaines, Courage Is A Habit, and Libs of TikTok who sought to thwart its passage and signature into law.

Realizing that I voted back-to-back for women who would go and win their gubernatorial re-elections and that’s pretty cool 🥰

Your Daily Dose of Snarklets

Your Daily Dose of Snarklets

I decided that these mini-snippets of snark should be called ‘snarklets’, and today I have limited time, but a number of these little snarklets bouncing about in my head. A nice little vacation? Well, as you all know, Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned under duress yesterday morning after taking only 45 days to practically destroy the economy of the UK.  So now comes the big question:  who will…

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So spouse and I are sitting on the couch while the kids are napping. I’m reading FanFiction and he’s playing a video games (because we’re nerds). All of a sudden I hear “hello?” Coming from our back door. It’s a nice day so we had the back door open and just the screen door shut.

Who on earth could be at the back door? Luckily I had on real clothes and a bra because I get to the door and it’s the goddamn governor. Like the literal governor of my entire state was standing on my back steps. I get that it is a campaign year but I 100% was not expecting that.

Has Trumpism Run Out of Steam?

Has Trumpism Run Out of Steam?

JAY, Maine—Services at the New Life Baptist Church had just wrapped up, and in the parking lot outside its tiny chapel, Paul LePage was standing behind me with his arm wrapped around my head. He held a cellphone inches from my face, as if he were filming an extreme close-up. The former and perhaps future governor of Maine had insisted on reenacting an incident that had occurred a few weeks…

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Maine Gov. Thought Trump Was Having 'Nervous Breakdown' During Call: Book - Business Insider

Maine Gov. Thought Trump Was Having ‘Nervous Breakdown’ During Call: Book – Business Insider

Trump was not keen on the protests surrounding Floyd’s death, and in a phone call with governors stressed that they needed to display a show of force against the activism that was increasingly becoming a part of the national conversation, according to a forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. In the book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle…

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She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother.

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock (1960)

Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock

January 5th 2023

I know the fandom thinks this, but I actively disagree and hate that. If I had to narrow it down to one reason why it is because I have strong feelings about Maine. If I had to narrow it down to two reasons why it is because I have reading comprehension. If I had to narrow it down to three reasons why it is because I instead believe something much sillier. Except it isn’t silly and I would be happy to explain to you why.

This one made me laugh so that's a success. Only note is I'm not sure what tone you're going for here but I wouldn't be like "this is much sillier except it's not silly" without sarcasm! If I say I think something is silly I mean it! I do contradict myself though lol it's a stylistic choice that amuses me and you nailed it.

ohmy god wait. governors are real people who you can talk to

The Girl Guides Talking Stick Returns to Lanark County --Janet I. Ritchie Scott series

Heather Legge and Janet I. Ritchie Scott on Saturday May 27th 2023 I directed Waupoos Girl Guide Camp (Girl Guides ‘heartbroken’ as Ontario camps to be sold by 2020) for three summers 2005 and the Almonte Leaders volunteered to staff the Nature Camp. They left with me a Talking Stick in my care as they intended to come back the following year. This Talking Stick, belonging to the Girl Guides has…

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THE DEMOCRAT WON THE DEMOCRAT WON THE GOVERNOR OF MY STATE ISN’T FUCKING PAUL LEPAGE AGAIN THANK FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-