Sunny, clear, and warm today in the Mad River Valley - close to sixty degrees.

And Maul Man is pleased.

Despite Michael "Waterboarding is probably OK with me" Mukasey's inevitable confirmation as the Empire's new Attorney General, oil trading at over $90 a barrel, gold at a 28 year high of close to $800 an ounce, the U.S. Empire on the verge of another major war in greater Persia, and the petro-dollar busting at a three-decades-low when valued against major currencies (Jeezum! The loonie is on par with the Washington!)...

Maul Man is pleased.

Why, you ask?

The firewood is all split and stacked, as of this afternoon - ready to burn for warmth and light this winter.

Maul Man spent the week-end splitting and stacking winter wood for the Jotul stoves, putting the vegetable gardens to bed, spreading chicken manure, and tending to late season apple pressing.

Whilst working, he reflected on the recent secession convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Middlebury Institute and the Second Vermont Republic's emerging alliance with thirty other secession groups from around North America.

Maul Man is not a deep thinker, but he does read press releases and other organic bits of PR material when he has time.

And it may be that SVR is on to something in focusing on this "Empire" business.

Maul Man is up early this morning, after grilling some grass-fed cow for dinner and chasing down a good night's sleep.

Between chores - chickens, wood splitting, garden shut down - Maul Man just discovered this new blog site - they're using the F word again.

Maul Man looks forward to a quiet week-end in Mad River, full of the gentle sounds of tourists clicking the shutters on their digital cameras, peeping at the fall leaves, and spending their hard-earned money on good local food and fare around the Valley.

Here's that article about the U.S. as a Fascist nation.

Maul Man woke up early this morning.

36 degrees here in the Mad River Valley, clear skies, new moon, stars on fire, and a "soft" frost on the ground. The forest is breathing heavy this morning.

Walking through the mist, Maul Man discovered a harder frost down in the Valley - ice on the shredded corn stalks and pasturage - along the Mad River.

Bad news: the Red Sox choked again last night. Maul Man knows he should be sad about this, because so many of his neighbors will be.

Maul Man is more disgruntled, though, to learn that another high school in Vermont is succumbing to the new demands of the "surveillance society" - installing eight new video cameras to monitor student activities.

As a loyal and patriotic Vermonter, it is always good to hear from one of my sitting Senators working for IOTA (Imperial Oil Tanker America).

Just checking e-mail yesterday in between work and chores, and this letter from Mr. Leahy popped up.

So yes, let's "level with the American people."

Maul Man is not a deep thinker.

But if he were, he might suggest that the war in Iraq has been a bipartisan effort to engage in a global sequential war to control 60% of the world's remaining recoverable fossil fuel energy reserves, as well as to generate stupendous wealth for the MI(2)ME (That'd be Military/Industrial/Intelligence Media/Energy) Complex.

So - invest in Vermont's future, neighbors. Time to bring in the wood, and start tightening up for winter.

Welcome to the working week.

Top 10 Reasons Investing is Like Sex

10) Some like it long, some like it short.

9) You can study the market as much as you like, but it all comes down to luck.

8) Those who talk about it the most, have the least experience.

7) One simple mistake could lead to 18 unprofitable years.

6) Some prefer to sit back and watch it grow.

5) Terms include swing trading, asset turnover, naked call, after hours, insider trading, silent partner, blind entries, 30-day wash rule, straddle, triangles, descending tops, ascending bottoms, pump and dump, partial surrender, stop order, position limit, voluntary liquidation, and explicit interest.

You can't get there from here.

With an imperial mainstream media culture as debased as ours, it is hard to know what's going on.

Here are the top-10 most underreported or ignored stories of the past year, according to Sonoma State University based Project Censored.

Visit Project Censored for the complete list of 25.

Much to chew on here over the week-end - and beyond.

1. Good-bye, habeas corpus
The Military Commissions Act, passed in September 2006 as a last gasp of the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Bush that Oct. 17, made significant changes to the nation's judicial system.

Great news on the front page of the BFP today.

Check it out - I rewrote the headline: Vermont Thrashes the Big Auto Lobby AND Captive Federal Regulators in a Court of Law.

Who says our little state can't nudge the world in the right direction?

Our homestead's chickens - as air-breathing and sentient beings - are ecstatic. As am I.

The bigger issue is - imagine if Vermont were it's own republic, we wouldn't have to jump through federal legal and regulatory hoops. We could decide, as the citizens of our sovereign republic, to debate questions of climate change, air quality, and transportation on their own merits.

Jeezum Crow, neighbors - how cool is Naomi Klein?

When she was in her mid-twenties, she wrote the definitive book on corporate marketing strategies and the new global economy. The book was called NO LOGO, and with its witty reporting, humorous and provocative writing style, and touch of snark, became a hit among us maul-like media heads.

Now the Canadian journalist and author is back with a brand-new book called "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

In between the chores, I've managed to read all four excerpts online - the book itself will no doubt pack a tremendous wallop - seeking to expose the new post-9/11 "military/industrial/terror" complex that is re-making corporate globalization using radical free market "shock doctrine" techniques.

Or: Jeezum Crow, how do we know what we know?

At the risk of opening up a box of Pandoras:

Today is, of course, the 6th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Big Media has been strangely quiet on this front. The past few years have been devoted to constant re-hashing of the events of six years ago. Shock, awe, the intensely visual moments - planes colliding, smoke spewing, buildings collapsing...

We remember all those who lost their lives on that day, and all those who stepped up and sacrificed their time, life energy, and hard-earned wealth to assist the citizens of New York and Washington, DC in their time of need.