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BELTON State Rep. Hugh Shine visited the Central Texas Tea Party Monday night to talk property taxes and the impending special session of the state Legislature.

The monthly meeting of the Central Texas Tea Party was held at the Harris Community Center in Belton, and much of the meeting involved passionate discussion about property tax reform.

Shine outlined his proposal for a new property tax notice that property owners would receive. His proposal is to create a spreadsheet that outlines how each taxing entity effects the taxes paid by an individual.

This is the first process of reform, Shine said. This would be a required statement across the State of Texas so that people can look at this and make an informed decision about where there was rates could be.

Shine also discussed his proposal for additional training and scrutiny of appraisal review boards.

We were going to require training and require a local administrative judge to appoint the appraisal board chairman. We had about seven different items to address that, Shine said.

One member of the audience said he believes the focus should be on the actual appraisers, not the review board.

The appraisal districts are out of control, he said. The problem isnt the review board, its the appraisers. Those guys can do whatever they want. Theres no control over them with these huge increases.

Landowners in Bell County have seen increases in their property tax valuations this year. Residents in Harker Heights recently protested increases they said were substantial and excessive.

Shine said he proposed a 10 percent cap on increases for residences, which wasnt well received.

I got no support. I heard from the Realtors immediately when I proposed it, Shine said. They believed if there was a cap, property values wouldnt raise much and it would prevent them from selling homes.

One resident voiced his displeasure with the amount of inactivity that happened during the legislative session. Shine responded by saying the process of getting a bill passed involves a lot of moving parts.

Youve got 183 people in the process. How many of you agree on everything with your spouse? Trying to get 183 people to agree is really a challenge, he said. There are people who dont like certain legislation and they will find ways to kill it.

Shine said property tax legislation will be revisited during the upcoming special session that starts next month. Shine said his first priority is to protect the interests of his constituents.

Im going to support Bell County and the folks that live here. Im going to vote the best I can always to support the people in Bell County and our economy, Shine said. Im just like you. I pay property taxes. I want to see something happen with this so that when people get their tax statements, they understand them and they know who to go talk to to find out why their tax rate didnt change if their appraisals went up.

Tea Party member Judy Brady said asked Shine to reach out to the Republican Party to help spread the word about property taxes and similar issues.

When you get into a situation where you need us to take this door to door, let us know, Brady said. Were not here to oppose you on everything. Were here to support you as well.

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Shine discusses property taxes at Tea Party meeting - Temple Daily Telegram

We never originally intended to be an instrumental band; when we started, we auditioned a load of singers and some of them were f**king awful!We wrotesomedemos in order to entice a vocalist into the band and stuck them up on the Internetandgot offered a support with ...And so I Watch you from Afar and Adebisi Shank on the strength of some instrumental demos that were never actually intended to be instrumental. When we got slots like that, we figured there might be something in this and its spiralled out of control into the fiery ball of hell that it is now!

Founding member and guitarist of Alpha Male Tea Party Tom Peters there on how his band, one of the most beloved and respected to come out of the instrumental just-dont-call-us-post-rock wave that has been fiercely bubbling away in the underground in the past decade. The band have firmly established themselves as one of the countrys premier instrumental math rock acts in a nascent yet hysterically dedicated scene. Their third album Health is due to be releasedvia Big Scary Monsters on Friday 23rd June, but you can stream the record in full 3 days beforehand,exclusively with The Independent.

Alpha Male Tea Party originally began as an escape from the drudgery of full-time employment for Tom. He started putting demos of s**tty songs together on Logic and posted a Gumtree advert to find like-mined individuals to help produce seismic tectonic-plate-shifting math rock riffs. The band took a short while to cement its line-up but solidified with drummer Greg Chapman and bassist Ben Griffiths, a person Peters asked to join the band despite never seeing him play bass on the strength that he was "a funny man".

Humour has been an essential thread through Alpha Male Tea Partys career to date; whether it be the outrageous Devo-inspired outfits or their acerbic on-stage wit. Its tended to be a characteristic that has marked them out from a scene that produces a lot of great bands with little to distinguish between them but its also been used as a noose for clueless critics to hang the band from.

I guess Health is a bit more lofty in theme than where we've been before says Tom. For all our jocular silliness and stupid humour, I think the core of what we're doing is a lot more serious than people think it is. I know we always have stupid song titles and we have a silly band name, but when it actually boils down to what we do creatively and artistically, we take it incredibly seriously. Theres a bit of a misconception about the humorous aspect of Alpha Male Tea Party; it isn't merely a pointless element. It's a very important and intrinsic part of who the three of us are as individuals and if that doesn't come across in what we do artistically, then we are f**king lying. I'm the sort of person who'll be cracking jokes in any situation; I was cracking jokes at my Grandad's funeral because that's how I cope with stuff, I have to do it like that. I'm not an insensitive person and I care very deeply about people and the world, but there comes a point where you actually have to find a way to reconcile yourself with the many s**tty things that happen and humour, for me, is pretty much the only way I can do that. If there's ever any level of criticism about us, it's always relating to the humour, as if there were a pre-scribed idea that humour and music should never cross paths.

But all music is a product of the circumstances in which it was created and Alpha Male Tea Partys third album is no different. The jubilant, major-key melodies are still scattered all over the record with abundance, and the band still show a fondness for naming some of their songs with absurd track titles, such as "Carpet Diem", "Dont You Know Who I Think I Am?" and"Nobody Had the Heart To Tell Him He Was on Fire". But the badinage is soaked in an altogether more sombre tone than what weve come to expect from the three-piece.

If we did have an agenda going into this album it was we wanted to do something a little bit darker says Tom. I think that was just a natural reaction to the personal circumstances that we were all going through. I was struggling to come up with up-beat major sounding riffs and it wasnt feeling natural either. I don't want to churn out 10 songs of buoyant, cheery riffs because that's what people think we do. As f**king pompous as this sounds, music to me is all about capturing how you are actually relating to the world individually as a person. For me, I need to be able to take those emotional things and translate them into something on my instrument; if I can't do that then nothing happens. It took us a while to get going with this album; we've had a pretty tough couple of years individually in between Droids and Healthso getting creative juices flowing when you're dealing with complicated personal issues can be pretty difficult. But as we got towards the end of the writing process, I feel like we probably could have written s**t-loads more; we were feeling really good about it.

As the album began to emerge, the band started to notice themes converging and forming a cohesive through line that came from their personal stresses and enriched the material they were working on. I think when we actually decided to call it Health, that was when the bigger, deeper definitions started to pop into our heads says Tom It was definitely harder to write this album than DroidsGreg picks up on that thread, When we did Droids there was a theme about the monotony of life which was illustrated on the cover and through the song titles. We wanted this album to be thematic as well as opposed to merely a collection of songs. There was a multitude of things that happened along the way that gave us false starts, people who we love have been ill during this process, and it wasnt until we got the name actually on to the record that it all started to make some kind of thematic sense.

Whilst Health might contain darker themes than previous records, the jollity and effervescence that usually greets ones ears when theyre wrapped around a phat Alpha Male Tea Party riff still coils its way around your pleasure centres; that tension between technicality and melody that has served the band so well is still very much present and correct. It's a very important part of what we do says Tom I think we wouldn't ever sacrifice melody across a song for the sake of being technical. We like to have moments where it's sounds f**king horrible, but then it will break into something that's quite beautiful. We always try and do it sonically and with a bit of individual character.

The litmus test tends to be 'can we sing back?' says Ben. There'll be bits that are stuck in our heads for days and it sounds clich but thats when we know weve got it right. But we never try to incorporate a particular mode or scale or time signature or anything like that. We might try and make things more interesting if something sounds a little bit too meat and potatoes, says Greg but we're not really massively uber technical players. There are a lot of math bands out there that are 100% chops but with no tunes or melody and it bores the crap out of us!

Despite this, since they formed in September 2009, Alpha Male Tea Party have very much crashed the math-rock party and are proceeding to drink everyone elses booze. Initially christened Safe in a Shell, the band changed their nom de plume to their equally ludicrous current moniker, a name that would still cause trouble with misguided dimwits who completely misunderstood the appellation is tongue-in-cheek. When the band started, Tom admits he was naive to the size of the scene they infiltrated.I didn't really even know math rock was a thing until I formed this band he admits. I'd never come across Don Caballero or American Football or any of those bigger math-y bands at that point. I've always had this leaning towards writing these sort of like proggy sounding things but I always kept them as a bit of a dirty secret.

Toms dirty little secrets soon became 10 fully-flourished songs on the bands debut release AMTP released in 2012. Though he was initially unfamiliar with the instrumental math scene, it became apparent pretty quickly to him that there was little in the way of personality injected into some of the most established and well-loved bands of the movement. He intended not to fall into the same pit-trap himself. We're quite aware of our sound and how we want to portray ourselves musically he says. There are a lot of bands in this scene that are doing cool things but theyve been covered fairly substantially already and we've always been very conscious of that. So we're really keen to always maintain an obvious sense of personal identity in our music.

I realised when I was putting Alpha Male Tea Party together, the only thing that was actually really important was if it had a sense of self to it. If you can convey who you are through the music you make, then you're doing something right. That was a real penny drop moment for me; there are things that I look back on in the early days of the band and I shudder a little bit; some of the things I posted on the internet, some of the things that we used to wear on stage. But in my defence, I was 21 years old, I was still trying to work out who I was as a human being. It's mad to think this band's 8 years old now and it has been an unbelievable personal journey for all of us. Weve had moments where weve considered getting other people involved, like a manager or something to make use seem a more professional band, but what this band really boils down is who we are in a creative and emotional, personal sense. If we try to dilute that or feel we need to change that, then why would we be doing it?

Health, the third album be Alpha Male Tea Party, is released through Big Scary Monsters on Friday 23rd June.

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Alpha Male Tea Party Health: Exclusive Album Stream - The Independent

I respond to the Saturday letter Republicans started rise in partisanship from Jacquelyn Thompson.

There was never any terror or harassment by the tea party. Most of the violence was performed by the leftist Occupy Wall Street group. The only gun spotted at a tea party rally was found by one photographer who published a close up picture of a mans hip sporting a holstered revolver. He neglected to show that the man was a uniformed guard hired for protection.

Poor Gabby Gifford was shot by a mentally deranged individual with a perceived grudge against a congressional representative. However, Sarah Palin (way up in Alaska) was blamed by the media. I would agree, that neither Giffords shooter nor the deranged Bernie Sanders supporter who recently attempted to massacre Republican ball players in Washington, D.C., should have had access to guns.

Norma Dorfner

Columbus

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Letter: Tea party doesn't deserve blame - The Columbus Dispatch

Alternative Title: Ukrayina

Ukraine

National anthem of Ukraine

Ukraine, country located in eastern Europe, the second largest on the continent after Russia. The capital is Kiev (Kyiv), located on the Dnieper River in north-central Ukraine.

A fully independent Ukraine emerged only late in the 20th century, after long periods of successive domination by Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Ukraine had experienced a brief period of independence in 191820, but portions of western Ukraine were ruled by Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia in the period between the two World Wars, and Ukraine thereafter became part of the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (S.S.R.). When the Soviet Union began to unravel in 199091, the legislature of the Ukrainian S.S.R. declared sovereignty (July 16, 1990) and then outright independence (August 24, 1991), a move that was confirmed by popular approval in a plebiscite (December 1, 1991). With the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in December 1991, Ukraine gained full independence. The country changed its official name to Ukraine, and it helped to found the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an association of countries that were formerly republics of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine is bordered by Belarus to the north, Russia to the east, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea to the south, Moldova and Romania to the southwest, and Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland to the west. In the far southeast, Ukraine is separated from Russia by the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.

Ukraine occupies the southwestern portion of the Russian Plain (East European Plain). The country consists almost entirely of level plains at an average elevation of 574 feet (175 metres) above sea level. Mountainous areas such as the Ukrainian Carpathians and Crimean Mountains occur only on the countrys borders and account for barely 5 percent of its area. The Ukrainian landscape nevertheless has some diversity: its plains are broken by highlandsrunning in a continuous belt from northwest to southeastas well as by lowlands.

The rolling plain of the Dnieper Upland, which lies between the middle reaches of the Dnieper (Dnipro) and Southern Buh (Pivdennyy Buh, or the Boh) rivers in west-central Ukraine, is the largest highland area; it is dissected by many river valleys, ravines, and gorges, some more than 1,000 feet (300 metres) deep. On the west the Dnieper Upland is abutted by the rugged Volyn-Podilsk Upland, which rises to 1,545 feet (471 metres) at its highest point, Mount Kamula. West of the Volyn-Podilsk Upland, in extreme western Ukraine, the parallel ranges of the Carpathian Mountainsone of the most picturesque areas in the countryextend for more than 150 miles (240 km). The mountains range in height from about 2,000 feet (600 metres) to about 6,500 feet (2,000 metres), rising to 6,762 feet (2,061 metres) at Mount Hoverla, the highest point in the country. The northeastern and southeastern portions of Ukraine are occupied by low uplands rarely reaching an elevation of 1,000 feet (300 metres).

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Among the countrys lowlands are the Pripet Marshes (Polissya), which lie in the northern part of Ukraine and are crossed by numerous river valleys. In east-central Ukraine is the Dnieper Lowland, which is flat in the west and gently rolling in the east. To the south, another lowland extends along the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; its level surface, broken only by low rises and shallow depressions, slopes gradually toward the Black Sea. The shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are characterized by narrow, sandy spits of land that jut out into the water; one of these, the Arabat Spit, is about 70 miles (113 km) long but averages less than 5 miles (8 km) in width.

The southern lowland continues in the Crimean Peninsula as the North Crimean Lowland. The peninsulaa large protrusion into the Black Seais connected to the mainland by the Perekop Isthmus. The Crimean Mountains form the southern coast of the peninsula. Mount Roman-Kosh, at 5,069 feet (1,545 metres), is the mountains highest point.

Almost all the major rivers in Ukraine flow northwest to southeast through the plains to empty into the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Dnieper River, with its hydroelectric dams, huge reservoirs, and many tributaries, dominates the entire central part of Ukraine. Of the total course of the Dnieper, 609 miles (980 km) are in Ukraine, making it by far the longest river in the country, of which it drains more than half. Like the Dnieper, the Southern Buh, with its major tributary, the Inhul, flows into the Black Sea. To the west and southwest, partly draining Ukrainian territory, the Dniester (Dnistro) also flows into the Black Sea; among its numerous tributaries, the largest in Ukraine are the Stryy and the Zbruch. The middle course of the Donets River, a tributary of the Don, flows through southeastern Ukraine and is an important source of water for the Donets Basin (Donbas). The Danube River flows along the southwestern frontier of Ukraine. Marshland, covering almost 3 percent of Ukraine, is found primarily in the northern river valleys and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Danube, and other rivers.

The rivers are most important as a water supply, and for this purpose a series of canals has been built, such as the DonetsDonets Basin, the DnieperKryvyy Rih, and the North Crimea. Several of the larger rivers are navigable, including the Dnieper, Danube, Dniester, Pripet (Prypyat), Donets, and Southern Buh (in its lower course). Dams and hydroelectric plants are situated on all the larger rivers.

Ukraine has a few natural lakes, all of them small and most of them scattered over the river floodplains. One of the largest is Lake Svityaz, 11 square miles (28 square km) in area, in the northwest. Small saltwater lakes occur in the Black Sea Lowland and in Crimea. Larger saline lakes occur along the coast. Known as limans, these bodies of water form at the mouths of rivers or ephemeral streams and are blocked off by sandbars from the sea. Some artificial lakes have been formed, the largest of which are reservoirs at hydroelectric damse.g., the reservoir on the Dnieper upstream from Kremenchuk. The Kakhovka, Dnieper, Dniprodzerzhynsk, Kaniv, and Kiev reservoirs make up the rest of the Dnieper cascade. Smaller reservoirs are located on the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers and on tributaries of the Donets River. Small reservoirs for water supply also are found near Kryvyy Rih, Kharkiv, and other industrial cities. Three large artesian basinsthe Volyn-Podilsk, the Dnieper, and the Black Seaare exceptionally important for municipal needs and agriculture as well.

From northwest to southeast the soils of Ukraine may be divided into three major aggregations: a zone of sandy podzolized soils; a central belt consisting of the black, extremely fertile Ukrainian chernozems; and a zone of chestnut and salinized soils.

The podzolized soils occupy about one-fifth of the countrys area, mostly in the north and northwest. These soils were formed by the extension of postglacial forests into regions of grassy steppe; most such soils may be farmed, although they require the addition of nutrients to obtain good harvests.

The chernozems of central Ukraine, among the most fertile soils in the world, occupy about two-thirds of the countrys area. These soils may be divided into three broad groups: in the north a belt of the so-called deep chernozems, about 5 feet (1.5 metres) thick and rich in humus; south and east of the former, a zone of prairie, or ordinary, chernozems, which are equally rich in humus but only about 3 feet (1 metre) thick; and the southernmost belt, which is even thinner and has still less humus. Interspersed in various uplands and along the northern and western perimeters of the deep chernozems are mixtures of gray forest soils and podzolized black-earth soils, which together occupy much of Ukraines remaining area. All these soils are very fertile when sufficient water is available. However, their intensive cultivation, especially on steep slopes, has led to widespread soil erosion and gullying.

The smallest proportion of the soil cover consists of the chestnut soils of the southern and eastern regions. They become increasingly salinized to the south as they approach the Black Sea.

Ukraine lies in a temperate climatic zone influenced by moderately warm, humid air from the Atlantic Ocean. Winters in the west are considerably milder than those in the east. In summer, on the other hand, the east often experiences higher temperatures than the west. Average annual temperatures range from about 4245 F (5.57 C) in the north to about 5255 F (1113 C) in the south. The average temperature in January, the coldest month, is about 26 F (3 C) in the southwest and about 18 F (8 C) in the northeast. The average in July, the hottest month, is about 73 F (23 C) in the southeast and about 64 F (18 C) in the northwest.

Precipitation is uneven, with two to three times as much falling in the warmer seasons as in the cold. Maximum precipitation generally occurs in June and July, while the minimum falls in February. Snow falls mainly in late November and early December; accumulation varies in depth from a few inches in the steppe region (in the south) to several feet in the Carpathians. Western Ukraine, notably the Carpathian Mountains area, receives the highest annual precipitationmore than 47 inches (1,200 mm). The lowlands along the Black Sea and in Crimea, by contrast, receive less than 16 inches (400 mm) annually. The remaining areas of Ukraine receive 16 to 24 inches (400 to 600 mm) of precipitation.

In contrast to the rest of Ukraine, the southern shore of Crimea has a warm, gentle, Mediterranean-type climate. Winters are mild and rainy, with little snow, and the average January temperature is 39 F (4 C). Summers are dry and hot, with an average July temperature of 75 F (24 C).

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Ukraine | History, Geography, People, & Language ...

President Trump met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on June 20 at the White House. (The Washington Post)

As President Trump greeted his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, on Tuesday at the White House, he made an unfortunate slip. It's a great honor to be with President Poroshenko of the Ukraine, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, a place that we've all been very much involved in.

Trump was right: TheUnited States has indeed long been involved with Ukraine butunfortunately it's been adding a the to Ukraine's name for quite some time too. Whileit'san understandable mistake, it's alsoone that may leave many Ukrainians annoyed because of its awkward geopolitical implications.

Some countriesincludethe definitive article in their name. This typically occurs when the name refers to a geographic entity or a political organization for example, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, thePhilippines thoughit is often not considered anofficial part of the name.According to the CIA World Fact Book, only The Bahamas and The Gambia officially includethe in their names.

Ukraine is not referred to as the Ukraine in its own constitution or other official documents. In fact, there is no definite article in the Ukrainian or Russian languages used in the country. Ukraine is both the conventional short and long name of the country, a representative of the Ukrainian Embassy in London told the BBC in 2012. This name is stated in the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Yet use of the Ukraine in English language references to the country have beencommon for decades (you can see the relative rates of popularity through this chart via Google Books). It was commonenough that after Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union,it had to make clear that there was no the in itsname, and most news publications complied.

Exactly why thedeclarative article came to be attached to Ukraine in the first place is hard to know, but the reasoning may lie in the country's history.Between 1919 and 1991, Ukraine was officially known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the English language;it may have been this Soviet period that resulted in the the being added. A more likely alternative may lie in the etymology of the word Ukraine, which is believed by many (but not all) scholars to come from the Old Slavic word Ukraina, thought to have meantsomething like the borderland.

Thisexplains why the Ukraine annoys many Ukrainians. The mistake seems to implythat Ukraine can only be defined by its relation to its larger neighbor, Russia, and the years of domination it suffered underMoscow during the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire before that. Calling Ukraine the Ukraine would seem to question its sovereignty: A fraught thing after Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in east Ukraine.

For Trump, whose benign view of Moscow has become notorious, it's especially awkward. Poroshenko was not visibly upset by Trump's choice of words on Tuesday, but on Twitter many pointed out the slip, with former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul indicating that Trump's choice of words suggested he hadn't been adequately briefed.

But as others pointed out, plenty of other U.S. leaders have made the same mistake includingMcFaul's former boss, Barack Obama, in 2014.

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Trump calls Ukraine the thing Ukrainians hate the most - Washington Post