If you read today’s story about the White Marlin Open in Ocean City (the largest billfish tournament in the world) and have decided taking photos of a bunch of men standing next to their catch of the day isn’t your thing, don’t worry — the resort town’s got you covered.

The following week is the 16th Annual Capt. Steve Harman’s Poor Girls Open, a women-only tournament that raises money for breast cancer research. Harman started the tournament as a way for local waitresses and bartenders to have an affordable competition while raising money for an important cause (don’t worry, plenty of women compete in the WMO too). A silent auction and other fundraisers also mark the weekend.

“Our goal is to have an affordable, fun competition promoting sportsmanship, angling skills and most of all, friendship,” the tourney literature says.

The Poor Girls Open costs $450 per boat to enter and ladies choose one out of the three available days (Aug. 13-15) to fish. The tournament, based out of Bahia Marina, has grown from eight boats the first year with about 100 boats entering last year and has raised more than $100,000 for charity during the past three years, according to the tournament’s Web site.

The Open is a release-only tournament for billfish, meaning participants accumulate points for each white marlin, blue marlin, sailfish or swordfish they catch and release. Participants can also compete to catch the heaviest tuna or heaviest dolphin fish. To read the rest of the rules, click here.

Despite the significantly lower cost to enter this tournament, the cost of fishing for a day will run in the thousands. Last summer — marked by $5-a-gallon diesel fuel — 91 boats participated in the tournament. While that’s up from 74 in 2007, which featured rough seas and kept anglers away, it’s still a miss from 2006′s 117 boats.

I wonder if this year we’ll see another decline? Or will weather — not price — be the determining factor?

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When 105.7-FM made the switch to full-time sports talk radio last November, some were skeptical that Baltimore could support five sports talk radio stations.

And us sports radio listeners are set in our ways — people-talking belongs on the AM dial; if I want music I switch over to FM.

But after the latest quarterly ratings, the folks at CBS Radio’s 105.7 couldn’t be happier. I imagine they’re resisting shouting “I told you so!” from the rooftops.

The station is now in 3rd place overall among its “bread and butter” demographic, men aged 25-54, going from a 3.9 to a 6.1 share since the winter. It has also placed 1st in that same demo in afternoons and 2nd with the 35-54 demographic with the Scott Garceau and Anita Marks show and 4th with the 25-54 demo in mornings with Ed Norris.

“We’re thrilled to say the least that it’s doing this well,” said Dave Labrozzi, the station’s vice president of programming. “For us to be where we are and as quickly as we are is amazing. All along we thought there was a big hole for this kind of opportunity.”

Labrozzi noted the switch to FM, as station execs had hoped back in November, exposed more listeners in their target demographic to the station.

“A lot of people who are younger, their habits never included AM so they [are now] exposed to something I think they had forgotten about,” he said.

Labrozzi was mum on whether there would be any station announcements/adjustments in the future. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But you can always replicate it — CBS last week launched an FM sports talker in Washington through its affiliate WJFK. The station is now also branded 106.7 The Fan. If the D.C. station does well, how long before the others (Fox Sports Radio, Sporting News Radio, etc.) jump on the FM bandwagon?

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When it comes to climate change and energy issues, some senators are better than others at making their positions on the subjects clear.

Grist.org, a Web site devoted to reporting environmental news that runs the gamut from silly to informative, took a look the Web sites of U.S. Senators (aside from Al Franken, who did not have a site at the time of the review), and graded each on how well they explained their positions on climate change and energy policy.

The group of 99 did not fare well, with 53 senators receiving a grade of “C” or worse. Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski landed in the average pile with a “C,” but Ben Cardin earned a better grade with a “B.” Here’s how Grist judged each senator:

Our grading system gave senators points for stating whether or not he or she agrees with the scientific consensus on climate change, whether a site lists the criteria for how the lawmaker will evaluate a climate bill, and whether it describes a senator’s positions on a variety of energy policies—including renewable research incentives, “clean coal” research, expanded use of nuclear energy, increased offshore and domestic oil and gas drilling, and incentives for biofuel production. Again, the focus was on transparency; senators who oppose climate legislation or doubt the science of global warming were not penalized for their views, only if they failed to make those views clear and accessible on their sites.

It looks like Grist stood by that policy of grading each senator on transparency, rather than views. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), got an “A” despite what the site called his “wacked-out view that climate change is a ‘hoax.’”

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Tourist morale must have been at an all-time high yesterday. Two students from Purdue University–better known as the “Compliment Guys”–visited Baltimore as a part of their 10-city Brightside Tour, sponsored by Kodak. If you haven’t heard of these guys before, here’s their shtick…

Last year, Cameron Brown and Brett Westcott started a weekly ritual of standing outside the Purdue University chemistry building with a “Free Compliments” sign. They would dish out compliments to professors and students who walked by, and their popularity soon spread.

I wanted to see the two work their magic first-hand, so I spent some time with Cameron and Brett yesterday as they complimented almost every person who walked by outside of The Gallery.

I asked the two of them what kind of boost this could provide for Baltimore City. Their videographer Jesse Selwyn joked, “$10-12 million.”

To give you a better idea of what these guys are all about, check out the video I shot from the Inner Harbor.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

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Last time we checked in with a round-up, we were waiting to hear who would be the next two-floor tenant at 100 Light Street. That deal, we are told, has since fallen through, and we still don’t know who the prospective tenant was to be.

Since then, things have been chugging along at a relatively slow pace, but it only seems that way if you’re mentally comparing 2009 to the boom years. In fact, Maryland’s building industry is seeing a few green shoots of its own, with investors taking chances and projects nearing completion. Read on, dear reader.

* Folks are getting riled up again about Baltimore’s high property tax rate, and Clerk of the Court Frank Conaway held a meeting to (sort of) discuss a plan to encourage investment in the city by slashing the tax 25 percent. Some other developers are a bit worried about the costs associated with a new green building law that insert LEED requirements into the building code. The green building law, according to my buddy Rich Lord over at the Post-Gazette, inspired one that was proposed last week in Pittsburgh.

* M on Madison, a proposed luxury condo project on downtown Baltimore’s West Side, is no longer going to be so luxury. More like work force housing.

* The Corporate Office Properties Trust started building a BRAC-related office property that they hope gets filled by intelligence-security businesses. This is the first speculative groundbreaking round these parts for some time.

* Foreclosures are going down in cities, but up in the country.

* The BBJ gets Baltimore Development Corp. head Jay Brodie to spill the beans about how the $300 million, city-funded Hilton convention center hotel won’t be profitable in 2009.

* There’s going to be some tasty soup and rosy perfumes in the air at Annapolis’s Market House. 

* Federal stimulus money is going to be used to run more water taxis across the harbor, including one from Locust Point to Canton, presumably for those so overcome by nostalgia at the Baltimore Museum of Industry that they need not just a brewski, but an entire O’Donnell Square pub crawl.  Oh, and speaking of brews, here’s a website that doesn’t think the math on the this plan really bears it out as a good idea.

* The real estate bust is killing the city’s bottom line. Building a mansion on city-owned land is killing this guy‘s bottom line.

* This project, which we covered way back in the design stage, is almost ready to start.

* Embattled Baltimore development Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse has been sued (again) by one of its creditors, this time on the $1.5 billion Southwest Waterfront project in Washington.

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Remember back in April, when we told you about Alan Klatsky, the Owings Mills homebuilder whose company, Prestige Development, was offering free Jeeps if you bought one of his houses before June?

It doesn’t look like anyone bit on that one, because now he’s raffling the only home he’s built on the site, known as Brighton View and located in Phoenix, Maryland, on Sept. 1. Here’s the web site for the raffle, which is known as the Great American Dream Home Raffle. It’s a 5-BR, 5.5-bath, $1.6 million estate home surrounded by undeveloped lots, but according to an old description, has “breathtaking views of the countryside.” The Baltimore County countryside, that is.

The raffle will benefit the Universal Peacemakers Foundation, a faith-based conflict resolution group, but the site doesn’t say how much of the proceeds will go to the Maryland-based charity.

Klatsky’s own broker page has no listing for the house, and calls to Klatsky, his company and his brokerage were not returned.

On the site it says that “only 35,000″ tickets will be sold, at $100 apiece (which, in case you forgot a pencil, would be equivalent to a $3.5 million sale price on the home), and the terms of the raffle, also from the site, stipulate that its organizers reserve the right to extend the raffle until all the tickets are sold. So, until one-in-20 of all the people who live in Baltimore County buy one of these tickets, it could be the Great American Never-Ending Raffle, folks.

I guess it’s true what people are saying — this is one crazy housing market.

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Well, they did offer free pastries…until 10:30 a.m. Got your attention?

Today was free pastry day at Starbucks–and the coffee giant knew how to get the word out. A colleague directed me this morning to Starbucks’ Facebook page, which had the free pastry event listed with 587,988 “confirmed” attendees.

Here’s how the promotion worked: Customers had to print out a coupon from the internet or bring a cell phone with the receipt visible on the screen. Then, with the purchase of any drink (yes, kid-sized hot chocolates counted), you got a complimentary pastry.

I decided to investigate. The first two Starbucks’ in the business district I went to were out of business, but I was successful on my third attempt — at One North Eutaw, near the University of Maryland School of Law.

The place was packed and almost every person in line had a printed coupon in-hand. One woman said she had found out about the promotion from Twitter, while her friend who worked at University of Maryland Medical Center said she was one of the 3.6 million devoted fans of Starbucks on Facebook.

I asked one of the cashiers if anybody had gone paperless, opting to use a smart phone. The cashier said nobody had tried.

According to Mashable, Starbucks is the top topic on Twitter today and “Starbucks nutrition” has cracked Google’s top 100 search trend this morning. Oh, the power of social media…

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$23.7 trillion is a lot of money.

But before you get all upset about the potential price TARP cop Neil Barofsky said it could cost the federal government to bailout the financial system, you’ve got to see the conditions it would take to reach that sky-high cost.

Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program known as TARP, wrote in prepared testimony for a Tuesday appearance before a House committee that support costs could reach $23.7 trillion, but his accompanying report noted that the estimate was pretty overstated.

According to analysis from The New York Times, here’s a list of some of the more outlandish things included in that number:

• maximum cost of programs that have been canceled or never got off the ground
• every home mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac does into default
• all homes are worthless
• every bank in America fails with assets worth nothing
• Treasury would default on securities purchased by the Federal Reserve system

To get his $23.7 trillion figure, Barofsky added all the Federal Reserve programs at $6.8 trillion and determined the TARP program could end up costing $3 trillion.

Barofsky then added $4.4 trillion in other possible Treasury programs, $2.3 trillion in F.D.I.C. guarantees of deposits and $7.2 trillion from various mortgage-related programs

Even if the estimate was correct, the report acknowledges that double counting could come into play where more than one federal agency has provided guarantees for the same companies.

Treasury Department spokesman Andrew Williams called the figures “distorted.”

“These estimates of potential exposures do not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs,” Williams told Bloomberg News. “This estimate includes programs at their hypothetical maximum size, and it was never likely that the programs would be maxed out at the same time.”

Williams said the government has spent $2 trillion so far, which kind of sounds puny when you think about Barofsky’s potential $23.7 trillion.

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Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano has a nice promotion out this summer that’s refreshing for its straightforwardness: $39 for three courses from the Little Italy restaurant’s “Summer Stimulus” menu all summer long. And that’s every day — including Saturdays.

At normal prices, the three courses would total $50 or more per person, according to Aldo’s.

The deal runs through the end of August and the only time it’s not available is during Restaurant Week, when three course dinners for $30.09 will be offered. Can’t complain about that price change either.

Two things:

1. I thought that wave of naming every new promotion after this spring’s federal stimulus package was over. Apparently I was wrong.

2. While this is a pretty steep discount for Aldo’s, it comes during a time that is typically the slowest of the year for the restaurant industry. So they’re trying to keep an already slow time from being even slower.

As Klaus Fritsch, co-founder of Morton’s The Steakhouse, put it to me last week: “We’re still hitting our peaks. It’s just the valleys go a little deeper now.”

What’s interesting is that Aldo’s is choosing to extend its promotion to Saturdays, a night when established restaurants typically don’t have to work very hard to draw customers. However, being a pricier place, the move is a sign that every customer must be fought for this summer. And, if that’s the case, I’d start looking for other white-table restaurants to start doing the same.

Advantage: consumer.

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Chrysler is not taking criticism lightly as Congress debates a bill that could require the automaker to resume ties with dealerships that it got court approval to cut last month. Though the dealership agreements have already been yanked, Congress is looking to see if they can’t be restored.

Bethesda’s Jack Fitzgerald has been one of the more visible advocates for the legislation.  He lost his five Chrysler Dealership agreements, and is slated to lose two General Motors shingles as well.

“The people who are making these decisions are the same ones who ran them into bankruptcy,” he told me in June.

But those people have arguments of their own. Addressing criticism of the closure process on a blog that for some reason is only accessible to recognized members of the media (don’t worry, I’ve got you covered), Peter Grady, a Chrysler VP, said the decisions were well-thought-out and fair.

He says the numbers make the case:

- The 789 rejected dealers achieved on average only 73 percent of their contractual minimum sales responsibility. This resulted in 55,000 missed vehicle sales and $1.5 billion in lost revenue to Chrysler. This represents lost economic value to the local communities and states, as well.

- It represents $33 million in annual costs to the company to maintain the 789 discontinued dealers for everything from personnel to support ordering, auditing, processing of payments, and other myriad of administrative services.

- It costs the company $150 million annually for marketing and advertising for the 789 dealers—that’s above and beyond dealer contributions.

- It would cost $1.4 billion over four years to develop and engineer overlapping “sister” vehicles, if a significant minority or a majority of our dealer network did not sell all three brands under one roof. 

On the other side, dealers have argued that they don’t cost the company nearly that much, and that companies are cutting their dealer bases to be more like leaner, Japanese automakers.

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