by Ian | Aug 26, 2015 |
What is the dumbest statute in NH?
Liberty-friendly state representatives have come up with an interesting idea for a contest for children in NH. Instead of encouraging them to think up new laws, they’re asking kids to find NH’s dumbest laws. The contest is already making headlines.
Max Abramson, a liberty-oriented state rep from Seabrook told the Seacoast Online, “All New Hampshire students have until Sept. 15 to post a law they’d like to see repealed on the event’s Facebook page called New Hampshire’s Dumbest Law. Sept. 15 is three days before the deadline for lawmakers to file legislation.”
In an interview with Free Keene, Abramson added, “The class that comes up with the silliest or most ridiculous law gets to have a bill sponsored to repeal it.”
by Ian | Aug 23, 2015 |
Free the Nipple 2015, Hampton Beach, NH
After making international headlines and despite a major facebook mistake and bad weather, approximately two-dozen ladies persevered and came out to Hampton Beach today to stand against the social stigma associated with women being topless in public.
Free State Project early mover Jessica Wardell traveled all the way from Henniker to join the topless ladies and their male supporters today and had this to say about the event, “It was lots of fun, there were about 20-30 girls participating, and I didn’t receive any negative criticism. Mostly people were curious about what was going on, and everyone that I talked to seemed to support the idea- especially when I brought up breast feeding.”
The event has already received coverage from the Daily Mail, which focused on the dozens of topless equality events taking place internationally, Reuters, Boston.com, NECN, as well as in Manchester’s Union Leader. Seacoast newspaper “Fosters” was dismissive of the event in their article, calling it “a bust” (yuk, yuk) and claiming only a dozen women came out. How many actually attended? Wardell claims 20-30 ladies in her estimate, with 40-50 additional supporters, including topless males. While more than 1,300 had claimed they were attending on the facebook event, facebook event attendance estimates are almost never close to the actual turnout. Many will indicate they are attending on facebook simply to show support for the event.
What day at the beach would be complete without sand boobies?
The ladies who set up the Hampton event, Kia Sinclair and Heidi Lilley, deserve a lot of credit for doing a great job promoting it and fielding media interviews in advance. Sadly, a major mistake was made early this morning when someone canceled the facebook event! The night prior, one of the admins posted a warning that they were going to cancel the facebook event this morning, but told people that did not mean the event was actually canceled. (Apparently, the FB event was canceled due to heavy trolling of the comments, however this could have been solved by only allowing admins to post.) Of course, only a fraction of the event attendees saw that post, so when the event was cancelled, EVERYONE on the event received a notice this morning from facebook saying the event was canceled with no explanation. This, in addition to the cold, rainy weather was likely a major contributing factor to the turnout. Two dozen topless ladies in bad weather actually seems really good, all things considered!
Organizer Kia Sinclair agreed, saying in a Free Keene-exclusive interview, “I am really happy about the turnout despite the weather. There were actually quite a few topless women around the beach at different times throughout the day. Because of the rain, a lot of women took shelter at the seashell stage. I will say that it was slightly intimidating being stared at and photographed by so many people. Its actually silly that just us being topless made so many people want to take pictures. If the weather was better I don’t think it would have been quite like that. But either way there were a lot of supporters despite the rain.”
Free State Project Early Mover Jessica Wardell, Graham Colson, and FSP Early Mover Matt Genack
Of course, all the mainstream media articles have been showing censored photos, or the ladies shot from behind, because the media are part of the problem. The social stigma against showing women topless runs deep, and mainstream media certainly won’t cross that taboo. Free Keene is not beholden to those rules. Share this article on social media at your own risk – you may get reported and banned for doing so. UPDATE: Facebook has targeted this article for censorship, so if you want to share it there, goto this link and hit “share” on it. That will share a version with a censored pic that uses Graham’s breasts to cover Jessica’s.
Congratulations and thank you to the ladies who went out today despite the weather. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest on topless equality. You can also join the “Free the Nipple” group for NH on facebook here.
Expected next is an as-yet-unscheduled civil disobedience event in Laconia where the city has illegally outlawed female toplessness.
Photo credits in order of appearance: Ashley Stoddard, Miranda Stoddard, Andrew Wardell
by Ian | Aug 11, 2015 |
No Longer Illegal in NH
In a 42-page decision, the US District Court for New Hampshire has ruled in favor of protestors including Free State Project early mover and attorney Brandon Ross who violated the state’s “ballot selfie” prohibition and were investigated and threatened by the Attorney General’s office. In 2014, Ross had taken a picture of his ballot and posted it to his facebook accompanied by the words “come at me bro”. They did, and now Ross and his co-plaintiffs state representative Leon Rideout, and Andrew Langlois are victorious in their case thanks to the NH ACLU, as the law has been overturned as unconstitutional!
The defendant in the case, representing the state, was secretary of state Bill Gardener who argued that free speech (photos of ballots) should be curtailed because voters will be either induced to sell their votes or subjected to coercion if they are permitted to disclose images of their ballots to others. Judge Paul Barbadoro denied there was any evidence those speculative objections would be the case, and even if there were evidence, that’s not reason enough to restrict free speech.
State Rep Tim Horrigan, Snitch
The case reveals on page 18, that it was Timothy Horrigan, an anti-freedom state rep (rated as a “Constitutional Threat” in 2015 by the NH Liberty Alliance) that both introduced the bill banning ballot selfies AND snitched to the Attorney General’s office about Ross’ facebook post. Ross, in an exclusive interview for Free Keene said Horrigan’s behavior, “shows that lawmakers will absolutely use their laws they’ve just made to try to censor people”.
Ross also said he was surprised the state actually moved against him, saying, “I gave them too much credit, thinking they would never try to enforce that clearly unconstitutional law. Joke’s on me. But, a little healthy defiance can be a good thing now and again too.”
by Ian | Aug 6, 2015 |
Bitcoin Booth 2015 Team
Fair attendees had plenty of good questions and our professional staff of bitcoin-enthusiasts had answers, including Derrick J Freeman and Chris Cantwell. Thanks to all the folks who helped with the booth and everyone who stopped by. If you want to meet with other area bitcoiners, drop into the Keene Bitcoin Network group on Facebook.
by Ian | Jul 22, 2015 |
More major mainstream media coverage of the Free State Project just rolled in from Maxim magazine. Thanks to Livia Gershon for her feature article on the Porcupine Freedom Festival 2015, aka Porcfest!
In the article, she covers a newbie gun shoot she attended, the interesting vendors, Free Grafton, Cop Block, Muslims 4 Liberty, and Buzz’s Big Gay Dance Party.
It’s not Livia’s first foray into the New Hampshire liberty community. She also reported in 2014 from the Liberty Forum for Aeon magazine.
by Ian | Jul 16, 2015 |
We finally got an official app for Keene-based Free Talk Live and LRN.FM! We need your help – the developer of the new LRN.FM & FTL listening app tells us that the first 30 days are the most important timeframe to get downloads from the Apple and Android stores. If there’s a good initial download amount, the stores are more likely to feature the app!
Even if you already use another app to listen to FTL or LRN.FM, please take a moment to install this app via the links below and give it a try. It’s free! There are still a few tweaks that need to be made to the features, but it sounds great and allows you to listen to both the FTL 24/7 streams and the LRN.FM streams in the same app.
Please download and then rate five stars, and then share the link on your social media. Thank you!
