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

Quote for today … “We have known for years about the perils of developing land without intelligent planning. We’ve known that growth turns into dreaded sprawl when municipalities make it hard for developers to build anything but subdivisions of $300,000 and $400,000 homes.” – from an LNP – Always Lancaster editorial.

• It happens on Friday | The Extraordinary Give

• Nice to see the Fivepointville Ambulance Service and Susquehanna Gateway Heritage Area on the list of Extraordinary Give organizations. Wonder why any non-profit would not see the expansive nature of the matching funds the Extraordinary Give? The rules are fairly upfront and transparent: “All organizations participating in the Extraordinary Give serve residents of Lancaster County, are registered as 501(c)(3) with the Bureau of Charitable Organizations and have a current audit or independent financial review.” 

• This will not be a popular read. The entire world is horrified by the carnage of Friday night’s cowardly attack that’s resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries. Why, then, are people not equally shocked, stunned, angered and outraged as these kinds of attacks happen almost weekly in other places? For instance, 26 killed and 62 wounded in Baghdad? Or 147 killed in explosion at university in Kenya? Or the wave of killings in Israel in November? Or just the day before the Paris attacks, when attacks in Beirut resulted in the “killing 43 people and wounding 239.”

• And the anonymous broadbrush “wholesale condemnation” of people who decide to rent continues.
• Kudos to Columbia Police Department’s facebook page: local arrests.

• Lancaster County restaurant inspections – LancasterOnline

• York County restaurant inspections – u-m-m-m, yum: “several mouse-like droppings observed around walls of dry storage area” – York Dispatch

Photo source: foodinsight.org

• A complete listing of all inspections at food serving facilities in Lancaster, York counties and the entire state, except those in Columbia – Columbia persists in having its own inspection system with its own forms and inspection items – rather than the one used statewide, is available at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Website. Why?