The 46th edition has just been published at Nishita’s Rants and Raves. Nishita lives somewhere in India. I just read her post about visiting Coorg, a place I had never heard of before. It has some beautiful photos. Go and visit the carnival but don’t neglect the rest of Nishita’s blog.

The Book Review Blog Carnival is always looking for new contributors. If you write book reviews on your blog, join us by submitting a review on this form at Blogcarnival.com. You could even host and edition. Email me at the address in the sidebar of this blog if you would like to host.

Friends & Family,
I am writing from Pensacola FL where I’ve been on business since last Sunday night.
On Monday we seatrialed a sailboat in Pensacola’s huge Bay adjacent the Gulf, where… first the sheen…then farther out…the infamous red blobs were in abundance. With no tv set between my eyes and the oil the impact on me was far greater than when viewed on the evening news.
Some scientists are saying that the Deepwater Horizon well casing is so damaged that BP (and the rest of us) are helpless to staunch the leak. Some even say that the relief wells on which we now pin our hopes will not significantly relieve the pressure and that the well will have to merely “play out” which could take years.
We’re all sick to see the Gulf Coast wetlands being slimed. We cringe at the likely possibility that storm surges (from what NOAA predicts 2010 will be a year with more named storms than usual) will drive the slime further inland. This would kill the marshes that have been described as “nature’s speed-bumps to hurricanes” and enable storms to do more damage further inland.
Add to that, the following which just occurred to me: Tropical storms collect their moisture both by evaporation and by vortex as they cross Gulf (Gulf Stream!) waters. So they’ll pick up immense quantities of oil from the surface and carry it FAR inland where it will fall as oily rain. Already drivers in Texas are reporting unusual oily films on their windshields from the odd thunder storm that is modeling this process in a small way.
I’m not saying the sky is falling…though oil well might.
I fear that Tony Hayward isn’t big enough to wipe up the slime: though (as some have suggested) he’d look best stuffed head-first into a certain 21″ pipe.
I didn’t mean to bum y’all out…just wanted to keep the thinking going.
Hugs,
Henny Penny

This is the problem with Democratic Party voters. They only come out during Presidential election years and don’t care otherwise. I predict big losses for the Dems in the house and Senate this year.

Welcome to the newly revived Carnival of Maryland, a compilation of blog posts by Marylanders and/or about Maryland. Between February of 2007 and April of 2009 the Carnival appeared 56 times on various blogs, all having to do with the state of Maryland. This is the 57th edition. If you would like to participate in future editions, you may submit tour Maryland related posts through our submission page at .  If you would like to host an edition, please email me at the address in this blog’s sidebar.

Maryland Social and Entertainment Scene:
There are lots of things to see and do in Maryland and Maryland bloggers want you to know about them.

Clark’s Picks shows a video of a performance of the Santa Cruz River Band at Rock Hall’s The Mainstay.

Angie likes to go to a bar in Baltimore called Howl at the Moon where people drink too much, out of buckets and using straws, and tip the piano players too much to play requests.

Summer is Icumin In:
Some of those good things only happen in the summer.

Lynn Brtlet’s Ocean City Maryland Blog has a calender of Ocean City events for SUMMER!.

Inside Charm City announces Soft Shell Crab Week!

Breaking News: according to Oriole Post, the Orioles aren’t doing so well.

Politics:
What good would blogging be without politics to argue about?

Joyce Dowling of Creating a Jubilee County: Prince George’s Co., MD, took some notes on an immigration question at candidate forum in Prince George’s on same day as Obama visited Silver Spring.

Pus Polling in Montgomery County is the subject at Maryland Politics Watch.

Maryland Conservatarian is not impressed that E.J. Dionne is impressed with Elena Kagan.

The Natural Capital Wanats to know what you hope will come out of President Obama’s Great Outdoors Initiative.

Raynard Jackson, or P. Kenneth Burns or somebody on Maryland Politics Today is against amnesty for illegal aliens, but isn’t nasty.

Leviathan Montgomery doubts that the benefits of Real ID will outweigh the costs.

The Greenbelt defends Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick’
s right to call Republican opposition to Obama administration policies almost seditious.

Oil In The News:
Did you ever wake up with oil spills on your mind?

Monoblogue wants everyone to know that the oil industry isn’t particularly happy with President Obama’s moritorium on offshore oil drilling.

Kevin Dayhoff – Soundtrack quotes a breaking story on the Washington Post, that Topkill has failed.

Blogging for Bloggers:
Sometimes you gotta blog about blogging.

C. Dowd Art, Illustratiion & Design encourages artists to use Facebook or it’s equivalent , despite what Dowd calls Facebook’s privacy “cluster”.

This concludes the 57th Carnival of Maryland. Te next edition will appear at I’ll Never Forget The Day I Read A Book! on June 13th. See you there.

Syttende mai is a celebration very similar to Cinquo de Mayo. Both days are celebrations of the independence of the respective countries following the Napoleonic Wars. On May 17th 1814 Norway’s constitution was signed and Norway was declared to be an independent state. For centuries Norway had shared a king and a government with Demnark. When Denmark chose the losing side in the Napolionic Wars, Norway was stripped from them and given to Sweden, at the treaty if Kiel in January of that same year. The last war, to date, that Sweden ever fought took place that year as Norweay fought to throw off the yoke of Swedish oppression. Well OK that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we still resent the Swedes. In August the king of Sweden and the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) signed the Convention of Moss, which ended the war, allowing Norway self rule under it’s constitution but keeping Sweden’s nominally in office as King of Norway. This “personal union” between Norway and Sweden remained in force until 1905 when it was declared dissolved by the Storting. They then elected Prince Carl of Denmark to be the King of Norway. Somebody has to be available to give away the Nobel Peace Prize, you know.

Children in a Sytte mai parade

Syttende Mai is celebrated in Norway with children’s parades. In the U.S. it is often celebrated, by Norwegian Americans, with dinner parties where lutefisk is often in evidence. I’d rather go to a parade, myself. There are parades in the upper Midwest, particularly in Stoughton Wisconsin. Nobody seems to complain about all the Norwegian flags on display.

I have never heard anyone object to the flying of a Norwegian flag in this country. I’ve been asked what it was, though.

The first edition of the newly revived Carnival of Maryland will be posted on this blog on May 30, 2010. Anyone may participate, however I will need to be convinced that your post is about Maryland in some way. Please submit you Maryland related posts at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1134.html right away!

Posts in the Carnival of Maryland must be on a subject relating to Maryland in some way. Stay tuned and polish up your best Maryland related blog posts for inclusion in the carnival.

Bust to be erected at the Southeast Anchor Library

The Baltimore Sun reports that the bust of Frank Zappa given to the city of Baltimore by the Zappa by a Zappa fan club in Vilnius Lithuania will be placed at the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown.  This is the new branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library opened this year. Frank Zappa,  a Baltimore native, was a controversial musician  and composer. Comments on the Sun website show that the controversy is not over yet. Zappa was a social libertarian, whose defense of the first amendment was a defense against the conservative nanny state, which wants to order the lives of individuals according to it’s own restrictive set of rules.