Are those high utility bills brought to you by governor Ehrlich and friends?

E-mails Show Industry Ties, an article in Today's Post, talks about the changes at the Public Service Commission, which sets utility rates in Maryland. Once again, Republicans show that pro-business always trumps free market (and pro-consumer is something they never cared about). Why did Maryland elect a Republican governor?

Second thoughts about big brother west.

"Google copies your hard drive." Electronic Frontier Foundation, Feb. 9, 2006
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/
"big brother east" is NSA.
"big brother west" is Google.
Privacy in cyberspace at privacyrights.org is useful.

blossoms

The Bradford pears are out in University Park. They are beautiful, and the weather is predicted to be just the right temperature to keep them from wilting too soon (without freezing), but I do wonder if the famous cherry blossoms downtown might not peak a bit sooner than ideal for the festival.

Labov and The Atlas of North American English

Nice piece in the times today about linguistic (phonetic) tourism.
"It's Not the Sights, It's the Sounds" by Tim Sultan (yes, in the Travel section).
He discusses Labov and The Atlas of North American English and gives lots of fun examples of regional speech.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/travel/escapes/17accent.htm

Quick notes

This blog will be used for quick comments unencumbered (as they say on Car Talk) by the thought process. I was inspired by Mark Gerstein's textstream.