I'm emerging from the blogcave up in the mountain fastnesses next Wednesday, to participate in a panel discussion at the Vilna Shul: Are Blogs and Twitter Improving the Dissemination of Information and News?

Dan Kennedy moderates the discussion with Globe innovation columnist Scott Kirsner, Mass. High Tech Editor Doug Banks, HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah, and, well, me. Click the link for more details and to register.

Kennedyseat.com spins an interesting answer to the question of why a guy who hasn't lived here in 25 years and who is best known as consigliere to one of the most unpopular presidents in the state would want to run for U.S. Senate: It's not really about Massachusetts. Card would run in an election with national attention (and with local coverage that reaches into New Hampshire) to let the Republicans test various themes and messages for the 2010 fall elections.

Dan Kennedy has a theory, too - that Card is really just using the Senate race to gain visibility for a run at the governor's seat.

George Aaron Cuddy tweets he's on the dead outbound train, just before Brookline Village.

In a victory for local liquor wholesalers, the Masschusetts Appeals Court ruled today the state can bar an Anheuser-Busch subsidiary from branching into hard liquor sales in Massachusetts.

In a ruling that hinged on the meaning of the word "such" in a state liquor law, the court upheld a 2007 decision by the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission to revoke a permit that had let August A. Busch & Company of Massachusetts, Inc. wholesale non-yellow beverages in the state after more than 60 years as simply a beer distributor. The company rapidly took business away from local companies, which filed a complaint with the commission, and the commission revoked the company's right to sell other forms of alcohol.

The ruling parses out what the legislature meant in 1971 when it passed legislation defining who could sell what sort of booze in the Bay State. That law basically grandfathered in companies that already had permission to sell more than just beer:

The 1971 Legislature was presumably aware of the two distinctive wholesaler licenses and could have used the alternative wording if it had intended it. More telling, though, is the Legislature's expression that an out-of-State manufacturer or supplier not be forbidden "from continuing to hold a [wholesaler] license ..., provided that such license" was issued before January 1, 1966, and that the licensee had paid the required prior excise taxes. The words "continuing" and "such" necessarily refer to a specific antecedent. The only antecedent fitting that requirement is the pre-existing beer and wine license. As the Commission points out, the demonstrative adjective "such" is a limiting, not an enlarging, modifier.

Complete ruling.