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

Quote for today… “Don’t shop. Keep your default.”” – Columbia resident, Charles Eaves, in this Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era article about shopping around for electricity providers.

• “What recourse do residents of a struggling school district have when year after year the district fails to meet state educational benchmarks, teeters on financial ruin and drags property values down?” Find another way! – Harrisburg Patriot-News
  

• Trusted employees: another chapter. This time it’s a cop. – WGAL-TV8

• “SWAT” Sunday: “Click here and watch the unbelievable 16 second video from the ‘Only in Lancaster – PA’ Facebook page of the Easter ‘standoff’ on Mulberry Street.  I linked to it in the comments this morning, but this is so shocking and unbelievable it needs to be front and center and viewed by everyone.  This is a small army of men armed to the hilt for one, unarmed man.  This is beyond outrageous.” – LIPNews

• Lung cancer patients report feeling smoker stigma – Futurity.org

• Big business buys off another government agency, and it’s going to cost you as “net neutrality” dims. Internet speeds will be faster if you have big bucks – slower for everyone else. – The New York Times

• “Creating a two-speed Internet” – The New York Times editorial

• The FCC is now moving to end net neutrality. Tell the FCC chairman you will not stand for this.

• “To become a U.S. Citizen applicants have to answer 10 questions from a pool of 100. They must answer at least 6 of the 10 correctly to pass.  How do you think Americans born in the country would do with the same test?” Watch the video here at FOX43-TV

Where’s the job growth? ” The number of businesses without paid employees in the U.S. reached 22.7 million in 2012, up 1.1 percent from 2011, according to statistics released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau.”

• “Despite how much we hear about “family values,” ours is one of just four countries in the world — the entire world — that do not mandate some amount of paid maternity leave for their citizens. (The other three countries, by the way, are Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.)” Click here to support the creation of the “Family And Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act).” – USAction.org

• “State government tax revenue increased by 6.1 percent from fiscal year 2012 to a record $846.2 billion in 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported (earlier this month). The increase shows an upward trend in state government tax revenue for the third year in a row. From fiscal year 2010 to 2011, state government tax revenue increased by 7.3 percent; from fiscal year 2011 to 2012, the increase was 4.7 percent.”