And hear our most excellent home-grown, all-Vermont Funk band, Electric Sorcery !! Playing 2:00 PM at the historic Gathering Inn, Hancock, Vermont !

The doors of sound have been ripped off the hinges by Electric Sorcery who routinely electrify Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Towns are regularly woken out of their slumber by the by the wicked sound of this power trio.

Electric Sorcery takes psychedelic music firmly rooted in the 70s and adds their own special twist. Funky rhythms and psychedelic guitar riffs come together to create an intriguing sound that is sometimes very heavy.... This is a fun listen and anyone who gravitates towards the psychedelic sounds of the 70s needs to hear this… - SeaOfTranquility.org 

Meet & Eat    Greet & Drink

Saturday, September 25, from 2 – 4 PM  

1295 Route 100

Diagonally opposite the Hancock Hotel

Please bring your concerns, your hard questions, and your ideas.  The Independent vision for Vermont is all about you, your families and communities !

If Vermont were to secede from the United States of Empire and become an independent nation-state, how could it possibly survive as a separate republic? How would it function? Are there any examples of smaller, sustainable nation-states which might serve as a role model for a state like Vermont, should it decide to leave the Union?

I suppose my favorite moment in the oil-spewing fracas that’s dominated our nation’s all-too-readily dominated attention over the past months was the moment I first heard that BP might attempt to stanch the flow with a slurry of shredded tires and discarded golf balls. The so-called “junk shot.”

“We are guinea pigs in a massive, uncontrolled, chemical experiment, the disastrous outcome of which is measured in disease and death."
-- Dr. Rick Smith, Canada

This past March, I went on a culinary tour of Tuscany that was led by Doug Mack and Linda Harmon of The Inn at Baldwin Creek.  With the fabulous connections that Doug and Linda have in that region, the tour was off the beaten path and brought us in contact with land stewards, wine producers, farmers, and slow-food leaders.  We ate amazing food, but it was the stories that came with each meal that left a lasting impression on me.  

Everyone envisioning a clean-energy future in the U.S. or Vermont should know that the best policy to create real cost-effective and fast deployment of renewable energy is what is known as a feed-in-tariff, or FIT. A FIT is the only policy that removes the monopolistic corporate controls over the utility grid and allows anyone to effectively become a power company with cost-effective renewable energy.  

Thatcher Moats wrote in today's Times Argus that the Montpelier City Council released a ruling on Friday that Vermont Compost's operations pose no "public health hazard or risk."

At the time, I could see no reason for holding the hearing. Moats quotes Mayor Mayor Hooper on her thoughts as to why the hearing took place:

Mayor Mary Hooper, who signed the six-page decision, said the duration of the conflict and unanswered questions surrounding it warranted a hearing to try to put the long-running dispute to rest.

"That in my mind … was sufficient to want to say, 'OK. Let's make an affirmative decision one way or another about what's going on, so we're not speculating,'" Hooper said.

Some other excerpts from the article:

The city's latest ruling is not surprising; nobody at the hearing presented evidence that food waste was creating a health risk...

[Vermont Compost owner Karl] Hammer said on Saturday that he was pleased with the ruling.

"It's a judicious and sensible point of view," he said.

It's also predictable, he added.

"It's what I expected they would do: determine there's no health threat because nobody was really saying there is one," he said.

Hooper said she hopes the issue is resolved for the sake of Vermont Compost and the LaRosas.

"It's a very important business in our community and I'm happy neighborhood concerns have been dealt with," he said.

The LaRosas could not be reached for comment Saturday.

State action on nominally unrelated issues may still threaten Vermont Compost's operations. Karl Hammer has expressed concerns that authority granted by the legislature this session to Act 250 officials may result in his farm being declared not a farm. 

Vermont Compost is the site for the June 22 quarterly meeting and midsummer celebration of the Central Vermont Food Systems Council; come on by starting at 5 pm.

Update: CollapseNet is Live ! 

http://collapsenet.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1042...

We are not ineffective, we are not few in number. You are not alone. 

TWEET: #CollapseNet #Vermont #VTGov #Montp #TransitionTown  

Folks,

This will be a way for individuals, families and communities who are building lifeboats in Vermont, to connect, share information and expertise, teach, learn and reskill.

Please pass this on. If you are on Twitter, please tweet the ablve links with the hashtag #CollapseNet.

Here’s the press release:

• http://www.collapsenet.com
• http://www.collapsenetwork.com
• http://www.collapsenet.net

May 21, 2010 – CollapseNet ™, a long-anticipated new effort from internationally-recognized author, lecturer and activist Michael C. Ruppert, will officially launch on Tuesday June 8, 2010. The site will be a first-of-its-kind effort to promote the rapid and focused sharing of information between millions around the world who are preparing for the collapse of human industrial civilization – The Lifeboat Movement.

CORRECTED BELOW

Montpelier City Council members met last night in a confusing and confused hearing about Vermont Compost. That the hearing was held at all showed how difficult local authorities can make life for farm businesses working to relocalize our food production.

The hearing was called to investigate whether there was evidence of threats to public health stemming from the feeding of food residuals to chickens at the Montpelier farm since February. In February, Vermont Compost changed its feeding methods, so the chickens now receive food in an enclosure that wild birds like crows don't have access to. Before that, the chickens were fed outside, and neighbors on one side complained that crows were transporting recognizable food residuals and dropping it on their property.

It's confusing that City Council members were convening at all. According to Mayor Mary Hooper and Health Officer Gesualdo Schneider, the hearing was called to respond to an appeal by neighbors Steven and Barbara LaRosa* of a voluntary agreement between Vermont Compost and the health officer. Yet the City Council had no statutory basis for hearing an appeal, according to Steve Stitzel, the attorney advising the Council. So without evidence of any problem, and without a basis to hear an appeal, why go through the cost and effort of a hearing?

(Afterwards, Stitzel called the process a "quasi-appeal" when asked for the basis for excluding the public and the press from the deliberative phase of the meeting. When pressed, he discarded that term and referred to a different statute.)

There was even confusion about what public body was meeting last night.

This is a blow to Vermont liberals, lefties and democrats who have buried their heads in the sand to keep pretending that their Obama walks on water, folks who have buried any and all opposition to the ongoing wars, torture and domestic loss of liberties in exchange for a smile and a promise of 'change'. The Left can't ignore the only recently announced White House approval for a controversial expansion of offshore oil exploration. And now, in an ecological catastrophe of global proportions, the feds are even slower to respond, than the Bush Administration responded to Katrina. The Black Swan was popularised by Nassim Taleb in his recent book by that name. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as 'black swans'—undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of Black Swan events.The Black Swan has its origins in a centuries-old scientific assumption that ‘All swans are white'. Just because nobody but Australian aborigines saw them until recently.To me, the Black Swan Event is a catastrophe that causes a chain reaction, in a world of global energy and food dependencies. It relieves the tension of that which is ready and waiting to happen, but hasn't happened. Academic snobs don't see it, but are experts at covering their tracks, afterward. Party politicians can't see it and even if they could, it's not within their daily protocol of memorised answers to pre-arranged questions by the mainstream media.The 'tension' is Peak Oil, if you haven't heard of it here's what it's about. Once that tension is released, centrally planned economies such as the fiat currency and debt-based US Empire simply break down. The centralised nanny-state with drones checking for protesters productive workers born in Mexico & pot plants (as despair, domestic violence & rape multiplies) simply doesn't work. The USSR disintegrated overnight. All empires go... once whatever dependency it was that fuelled its overstretch... goes. The tension... releases.What remains are localised economies based on minimal energy usage, the way the human race lived for most of its existence. Vermont is one hopeful example of a small, governable entity. Vermont was a independent republic until 1791. We can be free again! Imagine Free Vermont, and vote for Dennis Steele for Governor. Engage in, and promote, local food production.So what's the Black Swan? It's all over the newspapers, predictable in hindsight, but strikes to the heart of the Empires energy plans. The bastards will have to invade Venezuela now (at the very least, maybe Bolivia for good measure), just to continue fuelling the military overstretch, hundreds of bases worldwide, and the never-ending wars. All of which consume approximately half the oil said to be consumed by the US. Think of it, half the oil! This is the Empire's next move: US builds up its bases in oil-rich South AmericaFrom the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for 'full-spectrum operations' is escalating rapidlyThe rest of this post I dedicate to Michael Ruppert, whom I just interviewed for Montpelier's local paper, The Bridge. Ruppert will be touring Vermont in May, screening his film Collapse and dealing with questions and concerns from audiences. This tour is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing, the Vermont Independent Candidates, Radio Free Vermont, Vermont Transition Towns, and others:

• May 13 – Burlington Contois Auditorium, City Hall 7:30 p.m.
• May 14 – Montpelier Unitarian Church, 7:30 p.m.
• May 15 – Brattleboro Brattleboro Union High School, 7:30 p.m.
• May 16 – Woodstock Woodstock Town Hall Theater, 7:00 p.m. Features screening of film and Q&A with Michael Ruppert afterward

Click here for more information on the tour!'The oil slick is now the size of Delaware. It will be Ohio-sized within days. Florida has declared a state of emergency. All commercial fishing in the Gulf is threatened. All widlife is threatened. And when and if the slick gets to NOLA it will have a disatarous impact on energy production and the brave, battered, courageous people who live there. Coastal refineries may have to close... What might happen if the oil ignited? Oil should be at $100 before the end of next week. I suspect between $150 and $200 (maybe higher) this summer.'Worse: Napolitano and Salazar are already talking about huge claim funds. Massive class-actions against BP are starting. Insurance claims may well dwarf Katrina. The economy of the entire Gulf Coast is in jeopardy. From what I heard there is no real plan to stop the leak and no estimation as to when that will happen. (I might have missed that.) What happens when the slick hits Cuba? The rest of the Caribbean?'The current fradulent Wall Street bubble will pop in shorter order than anticipated.'Within about a week, man's greed and reach for energy have found natural and unyielding limits. Two coal mine disasters and an oil slick that will cause as yet unknown catastrophic damage, loss of life and property. And yet there are still those in this movement who think we need to argue with people who believe there's plenty of easy oil about anything.'It would be so poetic if history recorded that this was the event that marked the cliff edge of human industrial civilization. Maybe then someone will get the point. Maybe then we will find our hundredth monkey... And maybe Mother Earth will have poisoned us with the substance we have so greedily raped her -- and killed each other -- for... You want oil?... I'll give you oil.'