by Ian | Apr 22, 2018 |
Thirsty Owl is the home for Keene’s 3rd CVM.
I’m excited to announce that Thirsty Owl, directly across Winchester St from Keene State College, immediately stepped up to take the Lamassu. Thirsty Owl, (formerly known as D’s Cafe) offers beer, wine, and liquor along with excellent and affordable food like sandwiches, tacos, burgers, and even breakfast all day. Owner Darren Humphrey began accepting cryptocurrency at the register in 2017, including Bitcoin Core (BTC) and DASH and was excited to host the area’s third public CVM.
Now, two of the area’s three CVM’s are open seven days a week in downtown Keene, with Thirsty Owl extending cryptocurrency availability into the late night in Keene, as it closes at 2am Thursday through Saturday and 11pm Sunday through Wednesday. You can see full location detail, machine info, and hours on the Thirsty Owl’s new Coin Radar entry here.
The cryptocurrency-accepting bar in Keene, Thirsty Owl, now features a CVM!
This also means Keene continues to be the dominant cryptocurrency hotspot in the Northeast United States and one of the top on the planet. Not only do we have a high amount of cryptocurrency-accepting businesses per-capita (more than major cities worldwide), Keene also trounces bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Manchester on CVMs per-capita!
If you’re into cryptocurrency and you aren’t living in New Hampshire, especially the hotspots of Portsmouth and Keene, you’re missing out.
by Ian | Apr 18, 2018 |
Keene’s Original Cryptocurrency Vending Machine Gets Major Upgrade
Now we’re proud to announce another major upgrade. As of today, Route 101 Local Goods will now be home to a top-of-the-line General Bytes brand Cryptocurrency Vending Machine selling both BTC and DASH. (You can check it out on the CoinATMRadar site here.) The new CVM is massive and attractive, with a huge touch screen interface and beautiful color-cycling LED lighting. General Bytes is the top CVM manufacturer in the world today and they’ve really earned that distinction.
Keene has also earned its distinction as a cryptocurrency hotspot, having the longest-operating CVM in the Northeast United States and one of the highest concentrations of cryptocurrency-accepting-businesses-per-capita in the world! For a while, our CVM was the only one northeast of New York City, until the Shire Free Church launched our machine in Manchester in 2016.
Route 101 Local Goods sells cool NH-made products and accepts crypto!
In late 2017, we added DASH (aka “Digital Cash”) to the machine, making it the region’s first Cryptocurrency Vending Machine! In fact, both DASH and BTC are accepted by multiple businesses in the Keene area. More announcements about that will be coming soon, so stay tuned here to the Free Keene blog for the latest on the cryptocurrency evolution happening here in New Hampshire.
By the way, you haven’t seen the last of the Lamassu. It’s still an excellent unit and in great shape after serving customers day-after-day. It’s staying in Keene, but I can’t announce the new location yet. Soon!
by Ian | Dec 19, 2017 |
Ron Paul Signs the Shire Society Declaration
Since the original two hemp paper Declarations quickly filled up with signatures, the artist who did the calligraphy, the Muslim Agorist aka Davi Barker created a bunch of smaller hemp paper replicas. Former Keene activist El Stone brought one of them to the Nexus conference in Colorado in late September 2017, where libertarian presidential candidate and all-around-hero to liberty Ron Paul was slated to speak.
Derrick Slopey and Ron Paul at the Nexus Conference
The copy of the Declaration was the same Declaration that others at the conference had been signing, including Roger Ver aka “Bitcoin Jesus”. However, you can’t see any other signatures in the photos below besides Ron Paul’s as Stone is super-protective of the privacy of the signers on his declaration.
Kudos to Ron Paul for the amazing endorsement! Also thanks to Stone for being the one to ask him and Derrick for the photos. When we created it, I don’t think anyone imagined Ron Paul would join the Shire Society. What an awesome surprise and amazing validation for the Shire Society Declaration!
Many Shire Society members are moving to New Hampshire to concentrate libertarian action in one spot. You can connect with others already here and those planning to move on the Shire Forum.
Here are pics of Ron’s signature on the document: (more…)
by Ian | Dec 17, 2017 |
More than a dozen attended the initial Prayer of Jummah
Masha’Allah! It’s been months in the making and there have been some interesting bumps in the road, but the initial renovations are complete and New Hampshire’s first full-time mosque is now open!
The doors were finally opened at 659 Marlboro Rd in Keene to the Masjid al Latiff and Interfaith Community Center (MALIC Center) this Friday afternoon for Prayer of Jummah, Islam’s congregational Friday prayer. As the first full-time Masjid in NH, the MALIC Center is open for all five prayers per day including Fajr (dawn), Zuhr (midday), Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (sunset), and Isha (night).
For those unfamiliar with the Quran, in one memorable part Muhammad successfully negotiated with God, at Moses’ insistence, the number of daily prayers from fifty down to five.
Should they wish to pray at the Keene Masjid, Muslims of all denominations are welcome, so long as they remain at peace towards the others. In addition, non-Muslims are welcome to attend. All attendees will be required to remove their shoes before entering the Masjid. Prayer times adjust based on the sun throughout the year and will be updated on the Masjid’s facebook page and also on a poster on-site.
Dr. Ahmad Alabaddi delivers the inaugural khutbah (sermon) at the MALIC Center.
At Friday’s Jummah, the khutbah (sermon) was given by Dr.
Ahmad Alabaddi, a local dentist. Dr. Alabaddi expressed much gratitude for the new location and opportunity:
“I can’t explain how much happiness, in my heart, and for our community. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala (The most glorified, the most high.) sent us brother Will and the people who gave us this very generous gift… This is all qadar. It’s fate from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this facility. I will mention something that might make some of you mad, but I have to say it… Most of the donation for this facility came from a non-Muslim. We respect that. We thank them very much and we will extend our hands, our hearts, our arms out for them if they need any help. And this is what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala and Islam told us and indicated to us what to do. I mean, we have to treat everyone in a nice way, Muslims and non-Muslims. (Muhammad) is a big example of that. He never mistreated anyone regardless of his religion, beliefs, color, race, or whatsoever. And this is what Islam is about.”
You can see the full sermon in this cell phone video of the Jummah posted to the MALIC Center facebook page. (more…)
by Ian | Nov 27, 2017 |
Civil Disobedience Thanksgiving at the Un-permitted MALIC Center in Keene, NH
Apparently undeterred by their recent, unsurprising loss at the NH Supreme Court for their attempt to crush the free speech rights of the Robin Hooders for feeding expired parking meters, the City of Keene gang is now trying to crush the right to religion and free assembly.
Will originally made the mistake of trying to ask the city gang’s blessing to install a sign. He should have known that asking for permission to exercise a right never ends well. The answer is almost always no, and fees and hoops galore are demanded by the bureaucrats. Unfortunately, despite telling the city gang that the sign was going up, after consulting with the local Muslims he is serving, they asked him to try to go through the city’s demands for the sign permission slip. So, the sign is not up.
MALIC Center Imam Will Coley Speaks to City Committee About Immigration
Will has told me that the local Muslim community may be willing to bend on the sign issue, but not on the right of assembly. No one should ever have to ask permission to exercise their right. A mosque or church is created because we say so, not by asking some officious bureaucrat’s permission. The right to property and to seek happiness is a fundamental right ostensibly protected by the New Hampshire constitution – the very same document the people calling themselves “the City of Keene” supposedly operate underneath. Here’s its Article 2 regarding property: (more…)
by Ian | Oct 25, 2017 |
Cop Block Badge and Outreach Flier
This post was originally made on CopBlock.org. I’m posting it here as well, as who knows what’s going to happen with that site:
Hi, I’m Ian Freeman. I’m one of the original Cop Blockers, which is why I possess badge number five. I’ve been a longtime Cop Blocker, financial supporter and occasional blogger here. Both of Cop Block’s founders, Pete Eyre and Ademo Freeman have lived with me in my home and they are great friends with whom I’ve had some amazing times.
I was alarmed this Summer when Ademo announced that he was putting CopBlock.org up for sale. I wasn’t surprised that he wanted out. Ademo has seen his share of burnout and has suffered greatly in his quest to hold police accountable. Ademo was a trailblazer in police accountability activism and deserves as much of a break as he wants. He’s currently describing himself as a “happily retired activist” and he should be. Our world is better off because Cop Block is in it.
What surprised me about his request to sell the site was the fact that Ademo felt he had to resort to a sale at all. Where were all the Cop Blockers who should have stepped up to take the reins? Ademo had asked the primary contributors to the site about taking over lead roles. Apparently no one stepped up, so Ademo decided to auction the site. When I found this out, I asked around and sure enough, while some people were willing to help, no one wanted to lead. (more…)
