Daylight Saving Time (DST) or Summer Time around the world in 2009
Countries which do not observe DST at all 130
Countries where at least one location observe DST 74
–Countries where all locations observe DST some part of the year 63
–Countries where many, but not all locations observe DST 11
http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst2009.html
Daylight Saving Time in the United States begins March 8--Standard or Normal Time or Winter Time begins November 1.

FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile
"The Quarterly Banking Profile (QPB) is a quarterly publication that provides the earliest comprehensive summary of financial results for all FDIC-insured institutions."
Report Date: December 31, 2008, released February 26, 2009
Complete QBP: "Expenses associated with rising loan losses and declining asset values overwhelmed revenues in the fourth quarter of 2008, producing a net loss of $26.2 billion at insured commercial banks and savings institutions. This is the first time since the fourth quarter of 1990 that the industry has posted an aggregate net loss for a quarter."
All FDIC-Insured Institutions Section
Deposit Insurance Fund Trends
Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program Section
Commercial Bank Section
Savings Institution Section

A recent pet project has been taken up by the Nutmeg State Independent: PACER. That's the Public Access to Court Electronic Records, a federal judiciary-run Web site through which you can purchase federal court filings. Click here for the story, from the National Law Journal. In a letter sent last week, Senator Joe Lieberman asked why--when as of the end of 2006, the federal judiciary had a $150 million surplus in its technology fund--the judiciary continues to charge the public for documents. When last checked, it was 8 cents per page for most documents, a fee that can create quite a tally by the end of the month for journalists, lawyers and those twisted souls who read court filings in their spare time. “While charging for access was initially required, Section 205(e) of the E-Government Act changed a provision of the Judicial Appropriation Act of 2002 (28 U.S.C. 1913) so that courts 'may, to the extent necessary' instead of 'shall' charge fees 'for access to information available through automatic data processing equipment,” Lieberman wrote. WSJ Law Blog March 3, 2009

Temperatures for the contiguous United States in January were slightly above the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The average January temperature of 31.2 degrees F was 0.4 degree above the 20th century average. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090209_januarystats.html

Square Root Day was suggested by high school teacher Ron Gordon in 1981—it happens when the month and the day are the square root of the last two digits of the year. It happens nine times in a century, one being March 3, 2009 and the next being April 4, 2016. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23231
Square Root Day occurs on the following dates each century:
1/1/01
2/2/04
3/3/09
4/4/16
5/5/25
6/6/36
7/7/49
8/8/64
9/9/81
The number of years between consecutive Square Root Days in a century are consecutive odd numbers: 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_root_day

Ron Gordon declared 01/03/05 as the first Odd Day—a date he noticed when giving his students the due date for an assignment. http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?type=lnews&id=71759&eddate=03/06/2007

See the NYT's obit on Alan Landers, the so-called Winston Man. Landers was the model for Winston cigarettes. Initially, Landers practiced what he preached. Later, however, Landers contracted lung cancer and became a highly visible anti-smoking crusader. According to the Times, he visited schools, made appearances for the World Health Organization and testified before Congress. Landers's death happened just before a lawsuit he filed in 1995 against R.J.R. Reynolds was set to begin. His suit alleges the company had exposed him to health risks without warning him, and the trial is set to begin on April 13. His lawyer, Norwood S. Wilner, said Mr. Landers's family was deciding how to proceed.
In one of the more widely watched cases of the term, the Supreme Court has announced it has upheld a $6.7 million jury award to a musician who lost her arm because of a botched injection of an anti-nausea medication. The court brushed away a plea that it limit lawsuits against drug makers. Click here for the early AP story; here for the opinion. WSJ Law Blog March 4, 2009

Bath's springs were dedicated to the Celtic goddess Sulis, identified by the Romans with their own goddess, Minerva. Her Greek counterpart was Athene, symbol of Athens, where philosophy was born. She was the goddess of wisdom, patron of arts and crafts, and in her more militant role was a goddess of war and defender of the state. She was often depicted with an owl, symbol of wisdom. See image of “Minerva’s Owl” on ancient Athenian coin at http://www.buildinghistory.org/bath/minerva.htm

March 5 is the birthday of Gerardus Mercator, born in Rupelmonde, Flanders (now Belgium) in 1512. He developed the world mapping technique that we still use today and call the "Mercator projection." He developed a method to accurately project the globe onto a flat surface so that longitude and latitude lines would always be at right angles to each other. When he first published his world map in 1569, it revolutionized navigation. For the first time, sailors could plot a route between any two destinations in the world using a straight line, and then follow that route without having to adjust their compasses.
To project the globe onto a flat surface, Mercator straightened the vertical lines of longitude into parallel lines, and he added space between the horizontal lines of latitude. This distorted the distance at the North and South poles, which is why Greenland and Antarctica appear so large on flat world maps. The Mercator projection soon became the authoritative world map. Mercator was also the first person to use the word "atlas" to refer to a book of maps. The Writer’s Almanac