On the Eastern Shore, Gov. Robert Ehrlich picked the right river for his Bay clean-up road show last week. A day after the governor, EPA head Stephen Johnson and others declared restoration plans on the banks of the Corsica River, some 30,000 fish floated belly-up, apparently starved to death for oxygen. The Corsica flows through farmland into Queen Anne’s County on its way to the Chester River and on into the Bay …

In Annapolis, the Court of Appeals announced over the weekend that lawyers displaced by Hurricane Katrina can temporarily practice law in Maryland without benefit of passing the state bar. If you uttered a phrase that began with the words Just what we need, you’re probably not alone …

In Crisfield, a septic hauler didn’t get the message the first time he landed in the pokey for dumping the contents of his truck into a ditch. So after Paul Adkins was convicted a second time for pumping out his truck in another ditch, a judge added six months to his yearlong sentence — cut short after his first conviction, the Daily Times reports …

In Congress, Sen. Barbara Mikulski wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate gasoline price-gouging in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Her prod takes the form of an amendment to a spending bill.

Meanwhile, to help keep gas flowing in Maryland. Gov. Robert Ehrlich got permission from the EPA to switch earlier than usual to winter gas. Summer gas must be reformulated to cut emissions …

Our Creature Feature comes from the Falkland Islands, where somebody is quite happy about 25,000 land mines that remain from 1982 when Britain and Argentina went to war. Reuters reports that thousands of penguins, too light to detonate the mines, are carrying out their mating rituals unbothered by heavy-footed humans or anyone else — except birds.

Conservationists say they wouldn’t go so far as to recommend land mines to save the environment, but that penguins and just about everything else in the animal and plant world flourish with laws that keep humans away. In two decades, only one mine has exploded, costing a police officer his foot.