by Skeptikos | Nov 14, 2011 |
I’ve just heard from college activist friends that Ron Paul will be speaking at Keene State College next Monday evening (the 21st), at 4:30 in the Lantern Room Mabel Brown Room of the LP Young Student Center.
I hope local liberty activists will be out in force, making lots of friends.
This is also the perfect opportunity for Manchesterites to visit Keene to negotiate the terms of their surrender. (Government officials involved in the war on drugs are likewise invited to surrender.)
Plus, LGBT activist Charlene Strong will be speaking at Keene’s United Church of Christ Keene State College this Friday at 6pm.
by Highline | Nov 11, 2011 |
Really. No, wait, not really. 
It has been several months since I contributed to the Free Keene blog regarding my transition to liberty or my opinions about stuff that is happening in the government world. In fact, my second to last post here was about how I, for the first time in 30 years crawling this planet, got arrested. I was arrested at the US/Mexico border in Nogales, AZ by United States Customs and Border Protection for exercising the 5th Amendment.
My blog was titled “I Sat in a Cage to Defend the 5th Amendment.”
Well, I finally got my “arrest report” from the feds (after 4-5 months of notarizing forms, mailing things back and forth, and begging) and it sure looks like they let me off easy for the pure evil I unleashed at the border station. It looks like I misled you in my July blog in that that I failed to mention that I, according to the federal officer who arrested me, murdered one of their co-workers.
Among the two things I “could have been arrested” for were 18 USC 111 and 18 USC 1114. That would be forcibly impeding and murdering a federal officer. Now verbal warnings are given out every day for things like speeding and rolling through a stop sign… but I never imagined I’d get a verbal warning for violating a law that I could get the federal death penalty for. I went straight from never having been arrested or convicted of anything to the lethal injection.
Here’s the report. It is so ridiculous, I believe it deserved its own meme.
Now, having written a police report or two myself, I’ll point some things out that are happening in CBP Officer Aldrich’s weak attempt of a report he came up with.
(more…)
by Ian | Nov 10, 2011 |
From superactivist Keith and Stuff at Free State Blogs:
Overall, the Keene general election results were promising. Keene is one of the more statists cities in New Hampshire. Around half of the cities in NH have spending caps. Though, there isn’t even a movement to try to get a spending cap in Keene.
The least bad candidate for mayor won. Kendall Lane, a Republican, promised to cut costs and reform government. He got almost all of the votes. Of course, the Democrats didn’t run anyone against him and I highly doubt he will even try very hard to keep taxes level. Lane said, “We’re looking at doing business a little bit differently than it’s been done in the past.” “We’re looking for more efficient, financially effective ways to do that; to be able to provide city services at a cost the city can afford.” (more…)
by Skeptikos | Nov 8, 2011 |
The Sentinel has posted the voting totals:
Philip Dale Pregent, who did not run for re-election as mayor, was the top vote-getter with 1,522 votes; he was followed by incumbent Kris E. Roberts (1,256), incumbent Ruth R. Venezia (1,045); Carl B. Jacobs (925) and David Meader (721).
They bested Joseph W. Bendzinski (668), Robert B. Sutherland Jr. (645), Steven W. Lindsey (594), Dorrie Faulkner O’Meara (429) and Heika Courser (208).
I am surprised by some of these results. I was using the results of the primary to predict the results of the general election, expecting that the vote totals would be roughly proportional in both cases. This was largely true, with two glaring exceptions.
Steve Lindsey (endorsed by me) did worse than predicted. Bob Sutherland (endorsed by Ian) did better than predicted.
Lindsey has suggested that the order of names on the ballet would depress his vote total. (The order of the names is decided by performance in the primary, with highest vote-getters at the top. Since Lindsey tied for fifth in the primary with David Meader, the order of the two was decided randomly. Meader got the fifth spot, and Lindsey the sixth.) If ballot ordering was the cause, then that hit him particularly hard, costing him over one hundred votes.
At the moment, I have no theory to explain Sutherland’s strong performance.
I want to know what’s driving these two exceptions. It would be helpful to have a more accurate model for future elections.
by Skeptikos | Nov 8, 2011 |
Ward 2 incumbent Pam Slack, who has had a contentious relationship with liberty activists over the years, lost the election tonight to Bettina Chadbourne.
You can see Bettina’s candidate profiles at the City of Keene’s website and the Sentinel.
Congratulations, Bettina!
by Ian | Nov 7, 2011 |
Tomorrow you can vote for five at-large city councilors. Will’s last blog post (which also has voting instructions and details) suggested Steve Lindsey, which I think is a good choice. Also, I reached out to as many candidates as I could in a short time, as I have been loaded with stuff to do since getting out of jail. I had a series of questions that I invited them to answer, which will appear below.
In addition to Steve Lindsey, I’d recommend voting for Robert Sutherland (scored a 90/90 on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz), Heika Courser (also scored Libertarian), Joe Bendzinski, and Dorrie O’Meara. These candidates are mostly new faces for the city council (Bendzinski is a former councilor who made a name for himself by voting no on things.) and friendly to the liberty community.
Candidate Survey Responses
I’ve just heard from college activist friends that Ron Paul will be speaking at Keene State College next Monday evening (the 21st), at 4:30 in the 
