Last weekend, he struck again. This time against a peaceful homeless-awareness chalking event on Central Square. Members of the Unitarian Universalist church had come out and traced outlines of their bodies to bring awareness to the 42 deaths of homeless people in New Hampshire in 2014. According to a report by the Keene Sentinel’s Martha Shanahan and Alyssa Dandrea, shortly after the event an unidentified man came out of a local business and attacked the chalkings with a brush and water. Despite being confronted by witnesses who asked him to stop, he continued his destruction.
Homeless Awareness Chalking: Pre-Attack Photo by Susan MacNeil
I reached out to witnesses in the case and showed them a picture and video of local chalk hater Matthew Schmidt in action and they confirmed that yes, it was him. I wasn’t surprised, of course, but I wanted to wait until I’d confirmed it with the witnesses rather than post an article speculating it was him. So, consider it confirmed.
Does Schmidt hate homeless people? Does he hate artwork? Does he hate children? He sure seems to have plenty of hate, for whatever reason. I hope someday he finds peace.
I recently found out that the Berlin Police Department has submitted a grant application for a Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck (BEARCAT). You may recall the Keene Police requested and received a similar armored vehicle after citing Pumpkin Fest and the Clarence Del Mar marathon as reasons for the needing a vehicle to be used to fight terrorism. And more recently, the Concord PD claiming “Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges,” in addition to organized groups, it cited “several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.” When asked to provide documentation of the “daily challenges” presented, the Concord City Clerk responded that there were no such documents.
In North Country, the Berlin PD’s application, which is full of spelling errors, cites 1) proximity to Canada; 2) terrorists coming in from Canada; 3) Carl Drega; and 4) Nathaniel Kibby as reasons for needing the vehicle. (more…)
How are activists helping the community and how can you get involved? Watch the first-ever Keenevention Charity Panel and find out. Presented by the foundress of Shire Sharing, Amanda Bouldin, panelists included Theresa Eudaimonia of Occupy NH, Stephanie Murphy of Fr33 Aid, and Dale Everett of Flaming Freedom. Here’s the full video:
Its a Festivus miracle! We have finally released our episode with Brett Veinotte and Ali Havens. Long story short, slactivism and audio issues came into play with the recording of this episode. The episode was originally recorded on November 19th, 2014. Topics discussed on the show include Rob’s, Shire Dude’s, and Ali’s appearances in 101 Reasons Liberty Lives in New Hampshire, why both Rob and Shire Dude moved to Manchester, dating with in the community, Ali shares her first instance of meeting a “celebratarian”, can you live off donations? Brett plans to create an imitation ice cream called Primalscream and Nutscream, Bret’s new show is a health show? you will stop consuming liberty media once you move to the Shire, the pros and cons of the cult leader himself Stefan Molyneux, we all share drunk stories, and the Satoshi Saloon needs to return to Porcfest.
Check out Brett’s show at schoolsucksproject.com and someday you may find Ali at alihavens.com
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A few weeks ago, while on tour for the upcoming documentary, The BIT Movie crew stopped by 101 Deals Thrift Store to see how easy it is for small businesses to accept bitcoins as an option for payment and checked out the Bitcoin vending machine where folks can buy bitcoins locally. I also made the case why 101 Deals Thrift Store accepts bitcoins as payment and why other businesses should as well.
First and foremost, accepting bitcoins as a form of payment is an improvement over merchant card services. Bitcoin is an instant cost savings to the business’s bottom line. Currently, 101 Deals Thrift Store accepts credit/debit cards through a merchant card service. The fee to accept the cards in person is 2.75% and over the phone is 3.5% plus 15¢ per transaction. This means that if a sale at the store is made for $10, only $9.73 is deposited to the business’s account. There are a few options to accept bitcoins for merchants, but one that is tailored to business and easy is Coinbase.com. When using Coinbase, there is no transaction fee for the merchant and the first $1,000,000 (!) of converting bitcoins to US dollars (IE “cashing out” is free).
Consider a small business that processes $100,000 in credit/debit card sales a year. If 10% of the sales were instead in bitcoin ($10,000), the savings would be $270. Even if the business reached the $1 mil threshold and incurred the 1% fee, the savings is still $170 a year on every $10,000 of sales. If the business accepts cards over the phone instead, the savings are even more dramatic, $350 on $10,000, (not accounting for the 15¢ per transaction cost).
