Question #2 this year would replace the criminal penalties for possession of one ounce or less of marijuana with a new system of civil penalties.

I understand and appreciate the arguments in favor of it, but I think the arguments against it are more compelling. An ounce of marijuana is actually a good amount (56 individual sales according to the District Attorneys Association), first-time offenders get probation and don’t get a publicly-available criminal record, and it’s just not a good public image for the government to say that “minor” drug use is “okay”, and we’ll just charge you a $100 tax when you get caught. I don’t believe that it will save $30 million in police costs, and I think that it’s a good use of police time to try to get drugs off the streets, and get the drug users into the probation and rehabilitation programs.

I think I’ll do a blog series on my thoughts on the five ballot questions that I’ll be voting on this coming Tuesday. (If you want to see if your town has added questions to the three statewide ones, plug your address into the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Election Division Voting Info site.)

Question #1 is about repealing the state income tax. I’m wholeheartedly for voting for this question. I think the main goal of getting it to pass is to force the Legislature to take a hard look at its programs, and cut those that it really doesn’t need. I think that the 40% reduction in their budget is possible, but I’m expecting that they won’t actually reduce things that much. I mean, there was a ballot initiative that passed in 2000 to lower the income tax from 5.85% to 5.0%, and the Legislature basically ignored it, although they did eventually slowly lower it to the current 5.3%. (Although, you can still voluntarily pay 5.85% if you want. I always get a chuckle out of that check box on the state tax form.) So, it seems unlikely that they’ll actually just keep all other taxes the same and cut the 40% of the budget. But I bet they’ll cut some things, overall taxes will be somewhat lower than they are now, and it at least sends a message that we’re tired of paying for expensive government programs that don’t work. I hope that this will increase transparency of our state government, as they publicly demonstrate what is and isn’t important to them.

As far as I can tell, Charlton doesn’t have an organized Town Republican Committee.

However, Southbridge now has two.

(Today’s T&G, Today’s Southbridge Evening News (PDF))

So, it sounds like it’d be easy to organize a Charlton Committee if people were interested in it. However, it’s probably too late for it to do any good for this year’s elections.

Since we found a cat on Monday and let him out to see if he’d go home, he’s basically stayed on our porch and tried to come in at every opportunity. So, last night we let him in again, and are keeping him in our basement. Charlton Animal Control is coordinating the effort to find his owner.

• Last Saturday’s PTQ was busy and a long day, with 154 players. But, it was fun and a good event.
• Yesterday evening, Jessi found a black longhair cat by our house that seemed hungry and cold, but obviously belongs to somebody due to his collar and friendliness. Jessi let him inside and fed him. Animal Control gave us a collar with a message attached (presumably to call them if found) and told us to put him back out to see if he would go home. He was still on our porch this morning, though.

My Touchstream LP broke almost two years ago, and I’ve been quite unhappy with needing to type and mouse the traditional way that whole time. However, someone at work had one that had been broken for a while, but only needed to replace the ribbon cable between the halves. I bought the cable, it arrived this morning, and we managed to eventually install it. It’s shorter than the one that come with it, so it’s barely making contact and the halves are too close together. But, the keyboard works great. I’m suspecting I can make arrangements to buy the keyboard.

It’s handy to be able to check your credit report to ensure that the information companies are reporting about you is accurate. It’s especially important to check before you plan on applying for credit, but errors can sometimes take a while to resolve, so it’s a good plan to check regularly anyway. There are 3 credit reporting bureaus in the U.S.

Federal law (FCRA) allows you to get one report from each bureau for free every 12 months.
Massachusetts law (M.G.L. c.93, § 59(d)) allows you to get one report from each bureau for free within each calendar year. (Some other states have similar laws.)

• I’ll be head judging a PTQ this Saturday at TJ Collectibles.
• There’s a group of people trying to stop the Access Road from Rte. 169 to the Southbridge Industrial Park, in the hopes of having the road go from Rte. 20 in Charlton (and through my land) instead. It seems that perhaps the effort to change the route is a bit late, since they’re trying to stop the Conservation Commission’s approval of the route, and they really should have tried to change the proposed route many years ago. So, I place the odds of the road eventually going through my land as rather slim, but there’s still hope.
• Yesterday Hannah turned 5 months old. She’s still doing wonderful. She’s very much more seeing and interacting with people and objects, which is really nifty to see.

Charlton Conservation Commission
Public Hearing Notice

In accordance with General Law, Chapter
131, Section 40 of the Wetland Protection
Act, a public hearing will be held in regards to
work proposed by Andrew Pearsall, Verizon
Wireless.

Address where work will take place: 190
Berry Corner Road, Charlton, MA.

Proposed work: Notice of Intent for proposed
construction of a telecommunications facility
within the 200 riverfront area. Total disturbed
area approximately 3160 s.f.

My $2500 in coins arrived yesterday, and today I deposited all but a $25 roll into my high-interest checking account. The deposit went without any trouble, although I think they were rather confused, and they did ask me for ID. I think it’s the first time I’ve heard of needing ID in order to deposit money in an account.