New group formed to oppose sales tax hike

February 2, 2015
Taxes

A new group has formed to oppose the sales tax and road funding proposal on the May 5 ballot.

The Coalition Against Higher Taxes and Special Interest Deals registered with the Michigan Secretary of State on Thursday, state records show.

The group’s treasurer, Paul Mitchell of Saginaw County, said in a news release today the complex proposal is “a hodgepodge of bad ideas,” and “our voters deserve better than this.”

The proposal, which would increase the state sales tax to 7% from 6% and remove the sales tax from fuel sales, would raise $1.2 billion a year for road and bridge repairs, $300 million for K-12 schools, $100 million for transit, and about $95 million for local governments.

Read the rest at the Lansing State Journal and also see ProtectMiTaxpayers.com for another group opposing this huge tax increase.

This is water

January 21, 2015
Education

This is water – David Foster Wallace’s classic 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. Update: Sorry this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by the David Foster Wallace Literary Trust, which is unfortunate because every graduate from any institution of learning should hear it.

River County Resilience Circle

November 4, 2014
Uncategorized
Resiliance Circle Meeting

Photo via the Sturgis Journal.

We believe resilience is something everyone should strive for, so we began the River Country Resilience Circle in 2013. The idea came from the River Country Journal, a publication that was created by the late Bruce Snook. Using the information he provided, we acquired a free facilitator’s guide from the Resilience Circle Network and began holding meetings.

I was just made aware of this group and am now in the process of learning more about them and what they do. The Sturgis Journal did a story on them on Aug 25th, which can be found here. And you can read more about them at their website. If you are a member please feel free to post a comment to this thread or on the forum (which I think has a registration that is working again).

Concealed Carry Class in Three Rivers May 31st

May 2, 2014
Amendment 2 Concealed Carry

There is going to be a Concealed Carry Class in the Three Rivers Area on May 31st 2014. The class is for qualified citizens 21 and older. It will start at 7 a.m. and will continue until finished. Classes are between 8 and 10 hours long (5 hrs. class time and 3-5 hrs. of range time). There is a $25 non-refundable registration fee and $100 for the day. Firearms are available to rent for $20 (You will need at least 110 rounds of ammunition).

For more information or to register call 278-1235 ext. 208. Or stop into the Three Rivers Police department. You can also download the registration form here.

Taurus 357 Magnum

Taurus 357 Magnum

Liberty1st Forum is back up!

May 2, 2014
Liberty1st Forum

Liberty1st Forum Pic

Ok after what turned out to be almost a full month I have finally restored the Liberty1st forum’s database. And for those unaware I have been having some issues with the hosting server where Liberty1st.org resides used to reside. It started a couple of months ago and originally it was just a slow down in page loads but progressed to timeouts in a very short time. After spending a couple of weeks getting no help from the host at that time I decided to find a new host before the end of a new billing cycle.

Once I found a new host I starting migrating the site but again since I couldn’t get any help/support from the old host so I couldn’t get a backup of the forum’s database. And since I did not want to start the forum over from scratch I decided that my only option was to script all the tables, views and stored procedures to a text file and then reinstall them one by one on the new server, which I did.

I was able to import everything from the old database to the new one but once done I found that there were some problems with permissions, keys and data constraints. Anyway a couple of nights ago I was finally (I think) able to get everything back in its correct place.

So right now everything seems to be working again. I will restore the links to the forum from this front page in the next day or two but for now you can get to it via this link

Please let me know through a comment to this post or directly on the forum if you find something that doesn’t work right or run into any problem at all.

 

 

Hello world!

April 10, 2014
Uncategorized

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

I am making a transition from one host to another so things may look (and be) out of place for a couple of days. I hope to have everything back in place by the end of the weekend.

Vote Spotter

February 25, 2014
Legislation Social Media
Vote Spotter

It’s like finding a needle in a haystack

Michigan legislators vote on hundreds of bills every year. Spotting the most important votes could feel like a full-time job.

 

Vote Spotter is an app developed by the Mackinac Center of Public Policy for the iPhone (and soon Android) that enables you to track the legislation that your local legislators are voting on and how they vote. The bills are written in plain English and you can select the type of legislation you are interested in provide feedback. I was a little disappointed that “firearms” was not one of the preset categories but I guess that doesn’t really fit the kind of content that the Mackinac Center for Public Policy focuses on so it makes some sense (I guess), Also this does feel a little like a version 1 app so maybe this is something that will be added in a later update. There is are some “social” elements included that may help people get the word out on particular legislation as the community around this app grows. I am excited to see what future updates bring.

For more information about this app see the Vote Spotter website here.