Every year the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has among its attendees a hodgepodge of conservative leaders and supporters.  This year the crowd will be even more varied …but some members of the GOP aren’t happy about it.

The participation of GOProud, a group whose mission includes “represent(ing) gay conservatives and their allies,” has caused a number of top Republicans and organizations to boycott this year’s conference.

Over the weekend, Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC), who appears on the CPAC’s homepage, became the latest elected official to join in the rebellion.

Now, we know the GOP has not exactly been welcoming towards gays and lesbians but this seems to have taken the matter to new heights (or new lows).

Some see this as another sign of the drift to the right of the Party.

The North American electric power system has been called the world’s largest interconnected machine and is a key part of our national infrastructure. The power grid is evolving to better exploit modern information technology and become more integrated with our cyber infrastructure. This presents unprecedented opportunities for enhanced management and efficiency but also introduces vulnerabilities for intrusions, cascading disruptions, malicious attacks, inappropriate manipulations and other threats. Similar issues are foreseen for other cyber-physical infrastructure systems including industrial control systems, transportation, water, natural gas and waste disposal.

A one-day Smart Grid Cyber Security Conference will be held at UMBC on February 15, hosted by the UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department and Maryland Clean Energy Technology Incubator. The conference will be a comprehensive presentation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology regarding an Inter-agency Report 7628 (NISTIR 7628) named Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security which is a critically important document for guiding government, regulatory organizations, industry and academia on Smart Grid cybersecurity. This regional outreach conference is valuable to any organization that is planning, integrating, executing or developing cyber technology for the Smart Grid.

The conference is free, but participants are asked to register in advance to help us organize for the correct number of participants.

A full copy of the 600 page report is available here.

UMBC's trial access to Oxford Bibliographies Online has been renewed. The trial runs through February 21, 2011.

Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is a library of disciplined-based subject modules. In each subject module, leading scholars have produced a literary guide to the most important and significant sources in an area of study they know best. The guides feature a selective list of bibliographic citations supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult. Each topic has a unique editorial commentary to show how the cited sources are interrelated. The citations promote discoverability as they link out to the sources via your library collection or through Google books and more.

For off-campus access, please login via VPN first (http://vpn.umbc.edu). Then follow the link under "News & Events" on the library homepage. For more info on remote access, see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/services/remoteaccess.php

Please let us know what you think. Leave a comment or send your comments to Drew Alfgren at alfgren@umbc.edu.