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

Quote for today… “The majority of board members should resign to restore the integrity of the board.”- State Representative, Patty Kim, in this article about the messed up leadership in Steelton’s water situation. – Harrisburg Patriot-News

• Columbia Police Department – NEWS RELEASE 15 Apr 2014

• Here’s hoping: There was a lot of conversation about Columbia’s posture in the site selection for the announced DPW call center Solicitation for Proposal (SFP); an array of municipal and developer site competition exists for the project that “promises” 300 jobs. You can read more about the SFP here, and you can read the entire 96-page document with the specification by clicking on the download link at the site.

• “IRS’s Little Secret: Tax Day Not Much Of A Deadline, Unless You Owe Money” – FOX News Latino

• Penn State’s recruiting class “No. 1 in the country” – Harrisburg Patriot-News

• “Police: Singing Boys founder had two suitcases with 1,101 child porn images inside” – The Morning Call

• “a prototype charger that fully charges a Samsung Galaxy 4 battery in around 30 seconds.” – The Conversation

• Public Citizen e-mail:

“Wall Street banks are playing with fire.

“Not only do Wall Street’s schemes to hoard basic commodities and control essential infrastructure hit Main Street at the grocery store and gas pump — they threaten our economy, which is still recovering from the last time the Big Banks almost destroyed it.

“The Federal Reserve, which has a duty to keep the Big Banks stable and solvent, is considering kicking Wall Street out of the commodities business.

“The Fed wants to hear from the public — that’s you! — about whether it should step in and fix this growing problem.

Tell the Fed to stop Wall Street’s commodity speculation.

“The Federal Reserve’s deadline for public comments is April 16. Please send your comment TODAY.

“Among the risky ‘investments’ that Wall Street has waded into: Oil pipelines, tankers, oil rigs and coal mines.

“Such investments expose banks to ludicrous amounts of risk that, in worst-case scenarios, could have a catastrophic effect not just on the banks that choose to gamble in this way, but also on our entire financial system.

“Imagine if a bank had owned the oil rig at the center of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Investors would likely flee from a bank held liable for $42 billion (the too-low liability price BP is responsible for paying.) The likely result: The bank collapses and taxpayers ultimately foot the bill to clean up both the environmental and economic mess.

“So saying Wall Street is playing with fire does not come near the level of risk — it’s more like playing with fire in a house made of matches that sits on the shore of a flammable pond.

“You can tell the Federal Reserve to end such reckless speculation.“