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

Quote for today… “the coaches do not deserve a bowl…the team does for putting up with the coaches. have a total blast kids!” – Comment from this Harrisburg Patriot-News article, “Penn State bowl predictions: Pundits not moving the Lions much after performance at Illinois.”

Raise your hands if you’re sick of snow! … Thought so.

• What’s a “pundit” anyway? In addition to being media headline tripe, WikiPedia says, “A pundit (sometimes also called a talking head) is a person who offers to mass media their opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences, technology or sport) on which they are knowledgeable (or can at least appear to be knowledgeable), or considered a scholar in said area. The term has been increasingly applied to popular media personalities. In certain cases, it may be used in a derogatory manner as well, as the political equivalent of ideologue.”

• Lebanon’s taxes to go up 28% in 2015 budget year: “The spending plan raises real estate taxes by 1 mill — from 3.581 to 4.581 mills — a 28 percent increase.” – The Lebanon Daily News
  

• What are the odds? According to the grand jury selection process in Missouri, “The board of jury commissioners shall compile and maintain a list of potential jurors and their addresses, and shall update such list periodically in a manner to be determined by the board. The master jury list shall be comprised of not less than five percent of the total population of the county or city not within a county as determined from the last decennial census. The master jury list shall be the result of random selection of names from a minimum of two government records including, but not limited to, personal property tax list, voter’s registration list, and driver’s license records. The information furnished by the department of revenue shall not be disclosed except as allowed pursuant to federal law. and “All persons qualified for grand or petit jury service shall be citizens of the state and shall be selected at random from a fair cross section of the citizens of the county.  A citizen of the county or of a city not within a county for which the jury may be impaneled shall not be excluded from selection for possible grand or petit jury service because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or economic status.“

• Ferguson’s white population is under 30% – the grand jury was 75% white.

• York County withholds fire department funds until ” until discrepancies identified during a recent audit of the department’s relief fund are resolved.” – PennLive.com

• Another example of a police department that likes the citizens it serves: County police department uses facebook to capture guy doing bad things. – WGAL-TV8

• “When in outdoor public spaces where you are legally present, you have the right to capture any image that is in plain view (You have the right to videotape and audiotape police officers performing official duties in public. It is not a violation of the Pennsylvania Wiretap Law to do so. That means you can record an officer during a traffic stop, during an interrogation, or while he or she is making an arrest.).” – American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania

• Know any state workers? Want to see that person’s salary? [NOTE: This report provides information on the annual salaries or hourly/daily wages earned by employees.  Salary and wage amounts do not include other forms of compensation, such as overtime. Or health insurance benefits, we’d guess, too.]