In Annapolis, our own Gov. Robert Ehrlich is the nation’s most prolific governor in Christmas-card sending. He mailed 40,000 holiday greetings, 12,500 more than second-place Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Stateline.org reported this week. And in a year when the Christian right is hammering officials “for taking Christ out of Christmas,” Ehrlich is one of just 10 governors mentioning Christmas in his greeting…

Gov. E also continues his practices nominating corporate insiders to regulate industries they once worked for. Frederick G. Davis, his choice to become director of the Maryland Energy Administration, worked for two decades at Edison EIectric Institute, the association of utilities and their industry allies, as director of government affairs. The governor says that his nominee “shares my commitment to implementing sound energy-efficient policies that improve the quality of life for the citizens of Maryland.”…

Maryland Department of Natural Resources has extended until April the report of a committee studying whether to introduce Asian oysters into the Bay in an effort restore bivalves to the Chesapeake. The announcement last week marked the third deadline extension. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended five years of study because of the risks of introducing a foreign species…

In Calvert County, the commissioners who run things don’t seem to mind losing a Maryland corporation as Baltimore-based Constellation Energy is swallowed up by the Florida-based giant FLP Group Inc. Constellation, which controls Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, has been the county’s biggest taxpayer, paying $15.3 million this year. “The merger … is likely to bring additional investment and jobs for our citizens,” said Commissioner President David Hale…

In London, authorities say that a rash of mistletoe rustling threatens Christmas kissing. The Wildlife Trusts, an advocacy group, says that mistletoe thieves are yanking whole plants away from old apple trees, meaning that it won’t grow there again. The parasitic plant has for centuries been associated with fertility, a belief that evolved into the holiday party tradition of kissing beneath sprigs of the green plant…

Our Creature Feature comes from Pennsylvania where a mean and ugly fish has been discovered. If you guessed snakehead, you’re right, and if you’re feeling surrounded given the invasion of the Potomac, you may have reason to worry.

State fisheries officials confirmed this week that an angler had reeled in one of the ruthless Chinese predators while fishing in the Delaware River this fall. Translation: “It’s likely we have a small population of snakeheads in the tidal Delaware and tidal Schuykill rivers, and it’s likely that that population will expand,” a biologist with the Fish and Boat Commission told the Philadelphia Inquirer.