Early Thursday Summary

Gov. Mike Huckabee says the state surplus likely will be between $800 million and $900 million next June 30 – much more than previously thought.

The number of Arkansas jobs companies have agreed to create under tax incentive deals made this year with the state Department of Economic Development is expected to be the most since 2001, the department’s director told lawmakers Wednesday.

The safety director at Aluminum Alloy, an aluminum-recycling plant where two employees died Tuesday in an explosion, says inexperience wasn’t a factor in their deaths.

About 72 percent of Arkansas’ 2006 cotton crop had been harvested as of Sunday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. Arkansas is on track to produce an 18.1 percent increase over 2005’s state record of 2.2 million bales. For the second consecutive year, Arkansas would rank No. 2 in cotton production – second only to Texas – among the 17 cotton-producing states.

The U.S. rice industry is still developing a response to the discovery earlier this year of trace amounts of an unapproved, genetically engineered rice in U.S. long-grain rice exports, Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Richard Bell told members of the state’s agriculture board Wednesday.

Lawmakers on Wednesday endorsed the Arkansas Racing Commission’s budget request for 11 additional full-time employees to handle additional work related to regulating new gaming machines at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs and Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis.

The Saline County prosecutor told the county’s three circuit judges in a written report Wednesday that he had discovered an illegal bank account set up by Sheriff Phil Mask to circumvent county and state control of sheriff’s office spending. Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld also said the sheriff had broken state laws by allowing his office to sell contraband firearms to an individual.

Saline County Sheriff Phil Mask has vowed to do everything he could to have prosecutor Robert Herzfeld investigated. The sheriff noted that Judy Pridgen, whom Mask, a Republican, unseated as sheriff in the 1998 election, served as the prosecutor’s lead investigator in the gun-sales inquiry. Pridgen is Democratic challenger Don Birdsong’s campaign manager.

The Saline County Quorum Court accepts the verdict of a federal court jury granting $600,000 in overtime pay with lawyer fees, and the supplemental findings of the presiding federal jurist, and directed County Judge Lanny Fite to find the cash to close out the 39-month-old case initiated by 37 current and former sheriff’s office employees, most of them deputies. The justices of the peace voted 10-0 to approve a settlement.

Gary Nicholson of Newport, charged with two counts of manslaughter in the deaths of two diners after he crashed his truck into a local fast-food restaurant Sept. 5 was sentenced to five years in state prison this week for violating probation arising from a separate crime, authorities said.

A police chase that ended in the death of a Searcy man began when a city police officer tried to stop the man after clocking the pickup he was driving at 64 mph in a 35-mph zone, a spokesman for the Searcy Police Department said Wednesday.

Adan Leadford, A 19-year-old Michigan prison escapee who pepper sprayed an officer and led police on a high-speed chase in March, reluctantly pleaded guilty in Washington County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to six years. Earlier in the day before Leadford was shot and arrested, Larry Norman, an Arkansas State Police trooper, fatally shot Joseph Erin Hamley of Springdale, who he believed to be Leadford.

Student enrollment in the Little Rock School District has reached 26,691, an all-time high for the state’s largest district, surpassing the previous record set in October 1987.

Lands’ End has selected Ariel Smith of Jonesboro as an honorable mention winner for its Holiday Art Contest. Twelve-year-old Smith’s drawing of a Christmas tree beside a fireplace will be featured in the Kids Holiday Lands’ End catalog and posted on landsend.com.

Arkansas Southern Baptists passed resolutions on gambling, drinking and child welfare Wednesday at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention annual meeting at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is studying a chickenpox outbreak in Ashley County to understand how often people get the itchy, uncomfortable disease despite having had a double dose of vaccine.

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The laughing game

Although some of the political commercials are rather dark and sinister, I think we need to keep a sense of humor. That is why I have given my public nod to the commercial with the kids. If is humorous and raises a legitimate question. I also congratulate Bill Halter for his use of humor.

One of the biggest thigh slappers is Mike Huckabee bragging about how he pulled the plug on the corrupt political machine in state government. I guess that was before he started flying around in an airplane provided by the Lord’s Ranch, an outfit which gets millions in state contracts every year. When he is not in that plane, the state police provide the necessary air transportation.

Let’s see. Maybe he pulled the plug after he formed Action America, a legal entity to allow him to raise large sums of money for himself. To his credit, the governor has seemingly moderated his tendency to accept large personal gifts.

Mike Huckabee seems to have a genuine pastor’s heart for ordinary people and that is a fine quality. He’s lost a hundred pounds and is on the cover of America’s foremost runners magazine this month, so he is living by a higher moral standard. Mr. Governor, I would cool it before somebody notices that house you are living in is made of glass.

(Broadcast Nov. 1, 2006)

UPDATE: Thanks to Melroy on Matilda’s Rants and Advice for the kind words. You might also want to listen to my commentary on Huck’s reported tantrum about Wayne Dumond. Get over to lyncho.com and scroll down to “LYNCHED!” in the Audio Highlights section.

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