today’s news and information gleanings from here and there! 

• Today’s Weather! 
• Today in History!
• Traffic Cam Rts. 30 & 441
• The Official Time! – Population Clock (U.S. and World)

Quote for today… “Sell crazy someplace, we’re all stocked up here.” – Jack Nicholson’s character in the 1997 movie, “As Good As It Gets.” From Philadelphia Daily News political columnist, John Baer’s, column entitled “Watching Pa. politics is Capitol punishment.” [NOTE: Particularly applicable, locally.]

• “Gasoline for $5 a gallon? The possibility is hardly far-fetched.” – The New York Times

• “Suspected bank robber captured a police storm barn near Columbia. Authorities said Palmisano held up Union Community Bank, 10 S. 18th St., around 2:15 p.m. and then fled on foot into a wooded area behind the Columbia Shopping Center along Route 462.” – Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era

• “Smokers may soon have fewer places to light up in Columbia. Borough council voted five-to-two Tuesday in favor of drafting legislation that will ban all tobacco use on all municipal-owned property. The legislation, if passed, would prohibit smoking at borough-owned or borough-leased parks, buildings and bus stops, but would not include streets.” – MyColumbiaNews

• “Young Lungs at Play” Honor Roll of Pennsylvania Tobacco Free Park Communities – Penn State Extension

From left, Taylor Conroy as the Wicked Witch of the West, confronts Tyler Garrison as the Tin Man, Gabby Kashner as Dorothy, Alex Dewalt as the Cowardly Lion, Larissa Melbert as the Scarecrow and Nicole Bowman as the Good Witch Glinda in a scene from Columbia High School’s spring musical. “The Wizard of Oz,” which will run March 8 to 10 at the high school. (Photo by Bill Clark – MyColumbiaNews)

• When the bailouts are gone, the big banks will try to extract more from Customers – “Bank of America considers a revamp that would affect millions of Customers” – The Wall Street Journal

• Lady Gaga is a positive spokesperson against bullying: “When she was in high school, Lady Gaga says, she was thrown into a trash can. The culprits were boys down the block, she told me in an interview on Wednesday in which she spoke — a bit reluctantly — about the repeated cruelty of peers during her teenage years.” – Nicholas D. Kristof column, The New York Times [Click here to go to the Born This Way Foundation established by Lady Gaga.]

• Tom Murse’s column in today’s Intelligencer Journal/New Era is exceptional reading: “Time to put candidates on the record.”

• Harrisburg begins to unload former mayor’s folly (but at least the citizens will get something for that “public servant’s” indescretion with taxpayer money! – York Daily Record

• “… after you watch the video below, be sure to add your name to those demanding the breakup of Bank of America — a massive, complex and unstable financial institution that has received more than $1 trillion in federal assistance in order to say afloat.” Click here. – Public Citizen