Cooking blogger Kumama has just started her new blog Kumama's Kitchen. Kumama advises that her name comes from her grandson.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Kumama, and if you are indeed a Maryland blogger, I hope that you will consider joining the Maryland Bloggers Alliance. Alliance members, please drop by to give Kumama some good will and encouragement.

HAT TIP to Oliver Willis for this nature video, below the fold....

I am putting these two YouTubes up simply because I find them funny. They are not new.

The first - safe for work - is "I Am Canadian," a Molson commercial from a couple of years back.

The second - NOT safe for work with some R-rated indecent and suggestive imagery - is "I Am Not Canadian," a radio station's rude satire of the famous Molson ad from, well, the perspective of a different identity. Some of the cracks may be too Canada/Quebec specific to translate easily.

Project 222 is a small charitable idea that I am promoting to any interested bloggers.

The idea is pretty simple. Bloggers interested in Project 222 would volunteer the following per year:

1. a post once a month on the 2nd of the month (or as close as possible if the 2nd does not work for e.g. religious holiday, etc.) on a topic related to a non-profit, charitable, educational, humanitarian or other related organization;

2. two days of volunteering per year, ideally turned into blog posts with pictures if appropriate; and

3. a pledge of 2 percent of blog-derived gross revenue (ad revenue, royalties from syndicators or others, subscriptions, CafePress royalties, gross sales of misc. items, etc.) to any such organization.

The idea is not to promote the idea of any given political or social "bent" to charities but to promote the activities of all. This is not a "liberal" idea but a civic one: I think it would be great if conservative bloggers picked charities that reflected their values and gave them public support. Some might donate to a national charity while others could go to one in their ZIP Code. The volunteering could be to help out with a fundraising event or other such project; there are a lot of opportunities to volunteer for just a day.

Baltimore Sun, January 26, 2008:

Sports apparel maker Under Armour Inc., which expects to outgrow its headquarters in Baltimore's Tide Point in about five years, is eyeing West Covington, an industrial swath of Middle Branch shoreline that city officials want to transform into an extensive mixed-use development.

Officials at Baltimore Development Corp. have talked with Under Armour executives about West Covington and several other city sites as a possible home for a future corporate headquarters in an effort to help the company grow, said M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the BDC.

New post test.