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Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

GrokTV Special Interview: Josh Youssef for NH State Senate. Question 9: Proper Role of Government – Too big, just right, or too small?

Of course, my favorite question has to be wedged in somewhere during an interview, and with Josh Youssef, it was (and is) the last question of the series.  One of the most telling differences between Statists / Big Government folks and Conservatives / Liberty and Freedom folks is what their idea of what Government is … Read more

GrokTV Event: Part 4 – Jack Kimball and Carson Springer on Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future Plan

Last Wednesday, Diane Bitter (Chair, Rye Republicans) decided to hold a meeting on the “Sustainable Communities Initiative” here in NH.  Sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, Fed. Department of Transportation, and the Fed. Department of Housing and Urban Development, it seemingly is becoming a way to Federalize our local communities by first entering with “free … Read more

2012 NH Elections – random thoughts on NH Senate District 4

OK, this is going to end up being a VERY busy summer season doing and talking politics here in NH.  Some of the events will be full blown posts, and some will just be a couple of thoughts.   NH Senate District 4 is open – no incumbents.  Republican Phyllis Woods (former NH State Rep and RNC Committeewoman)  and Democrat David Watters (UNH Professor and NH State Rep).  So, what’s going on?  Well, Ray Buckley is burning off his fingertips on Twitter – showing his real personality.

  • Right out of the box, Ray “Hitler should have bombed them” Buckley, NHDP Chair, immediately started in with the ad hominen attacks (I keep looking – there has GOT to be some sub-sub clause in there that causes the Dems to immediately have to resort to such – no other ideas or clues as to what to do, I guess); on Twitter:

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Internet Doodlings – Of COURSE, the environmentalists over at TreeHugger have only one answer – more spending?

Like I said here:   I guess that’s why the words Democrat and Consistency should never be used in the same sentence (unless one is a stand-up comic) OK, I’ll conserve some words – just swap out Democrat with environmentalist.  A two-fer!  Real conservatism and recyling!  The UN’s RIO+20 conference is going on in Rio all … Read more

Father’s Day – random thoughts

I generally don’t like these “Hallmark Holidays” type “special days” and really don’t care if anyone remembers it – but I do remember to remember that Mothers Day is important.

I didn’t grow up with a Dad – he passed away from complications from surgery after a car accident when I was 11.  Before that, he and my Mom had separated and for years, I only saw him on weekends.  I am thankful, though, for all of the men who donated their time in various youth activities (e.g., Cub Scout, Boy Scouts, Medical Explorer Scouts, Christian Service Brigade, various youth ministries at the church I grew up in).  No, I’ll never know what it would have been to have a full time – all the time Dad, but these men did fill a gap that was there that I, at the time, did not know existed.

I wonder, too, if some of the mistake I made with the Youngest and the Oldest were because of the lack of example that I had growing up.  But I look at some of the medical problems that they had growing up and I know that anything that I might have missed by not having a Dad would not have made a difference in dealing with those problems.  At the time, I thought to myself “This is impossible – I don’t even know if they’ll even make it to high school graduation because of their behaviors”.  All things considered, I guess I didn’t too such a bad job.  Why?  I’m now starting to hear them say that the reason why they are doing some of they are is because of the example I set.  I thought they were totally ignoring me growing up.    Yet, I see what they are trying to do today, they way they are trying to make important decisions in their lives:  “But Dad, that’s not how you would handled it – you did such and such back when: I WATCHED YOU and I listened to you”.

Talk about being held accountable!  That beats yet-another-Fathers-Day tie any time…

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NASA’s James Hansen – one of the grandfathers of Global Warming – was flat out wrong by 150%

I remember the first Earth Day and I think that that the environmental problems we had in the US at that time did have to be addressed.  Rivers were polluted, we couldn’t see very far in our large cities and in industrial areas, and yes, the air was toxic.  And a LOT of that has been cleaned up – and from a Conservative standpoint, that was a common good that Government played the right role.

There’s also a problem with the environmental problems we have today; they are still man-caused but of a far different nature.  Instead of actually dealing with severe and and actual environmental problems, they are now from a political and ideological standpoints.  When science ignore the science, that’s a problem that spans past the scientific realm and when it spills into the political realm (and where it rooted and grown like Jack’s infamous Beanstalk) it REALLY has acquired a financial component.

But in going forward, potentially spending Trillions a year to spread the wealth mitigate less than one or two degrees of warming, it might be useful to look to the past to see where we’re going in the future.  As with NASA’s James Hansen’s predictions back in 1988 as to how things would look into the future.

As Watts Up With That? points out, the models that much of our current enviro-frenzy is built upon, that James Hansen pushed and pushed and pushed, have turned out to be flat wrong:

One of the most important publications on the “dangerous anthropogenic climate change” is that of James Hansen and colleagues from the year 1988, in the Journal of Geophysical Research published. The title of the work is (in German translation) “Global climate change, according to the prediction of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”

In this publication, Hansen and colleagues present the GISS Model II, with which they simulate climate change as a result of concentration changes of atmospheric trace gases and particulate matter (aerosols). The scientists here are three scenarios:

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GrokTV Special Interview: Josh Youssef for NH State Senate. Question 6: How / can will you manage without the Republican supermajorities, or if they become a minority?

It is easier to govern when your Party is in power and hold the majority and even easier still when that hold on power is a supermajority (factional Party problems aside).  We saw that in 2006 and 2008 with the Democrat Party and in 2010 it flipped to the Rs.  Where Josh had some ideas … Read more

GrokTV Event: Part 2 – Eileen Mashimo on “Sustainable Communities Initiative” that will Federalize local communities

After Ken Eyring presented the overall situation (the joint program of “Sustainable Communities Initiative” by the EPA, the Federal Dept. of Transportation, and by Housing and Urban Development), Eileen Mashimo stood up.  She is a researcher and she was the one that started to follow and trackdown all the known details – and the further … Read more

First it didn’t work, then it did, then it didn’t….reliable?

Last weekend, I did a couple of forays from the Marriott Downtown where our event was being held over to the RI Convention Center where the NetRoots Nation event was being held.  Well, in registering, I got a “SWAG bag” – a canvas tote that was chock-a-block with Progressive “stuff”.  Well, earlier today, I desperately needed a pen to take a couple of notes with and I remembered that the bag had just the thing I needed.

Problem was, it acted like the title – and the folks that “supplied” it (heh!)!

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GrokTV Event: Part 3 – Mary and Rick Hebbard on “Scenic Corridor (a subset of the Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future Plan) Impact on Dover, NH”

At the same meeting that Ken Eyering and Eileen Mashimo spoke about the loss of local control that happens when NH local town fathers sign onto the Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future Plan being pushed by the Federal entities of the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development), Mary and Rick Hebbard spoke about a subset of the “Feds helping locally” with a small part of this Federalizing local town with a program called Scenic Corridor.

Whew – a long sentence, but this is not a small topic either.  Mary and Rick outlined that while the Feds “innocently” present the program as “help, along with money”, the parts that aren’t publicly talked about lock local communities into organizing and running their town, by hijacking zoning restrictions and loss of the control of private property owners over their property if they are ruled “non-compliant”:

Again, listen to the things that they bring up that AREN’T immediately discussed by the point folks and that ONLY become known when concerned and curious citizens start to dig into what the “fine details” are.

Ask yourself – if programs like this are just so darn wicked good, why isn’t the ENTIRE story and long term ramifications being brought to the fore right from the “get-go”?  Why is it that these Federalies have had to hire a PR firm to “persuade” the local (and they would add “yokels”) that this is such a good deal?

That should alert any NH citizens that some bamboozling might be going on here – for if things were straight forward, open, and transparent, WHY the need for a PR firm?

Rick adds his comments after the jump:

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Son of Greece?

I guess that would make Illinois a close kissing cousin? (H/T: NetRightDaily)

EMail Doodlings – “You all owe me”

There are a few people with whom I converse with a lot – some agree with me all of the time, and some agree with me most (but not all) of the time.  This is from a gentleman that used to agree with me hardly at all (in the beginning) but now keeps seeing the actions rather than just passively listening to the words.    He complains (rightfully!) (emphasis mine):

Skip – twice in the last week I’ve heard comments about Social Security that made me realize how far apart our perceptions are.

The first was from an 82 yr old nurse, who bemoaned the fact she wasn’t part of a union and didn’t have a pension, and she was living off of SS and it just wasn’t enough.
Now I realize nurses aren’t treated the best, but I don’t understand why she feels we owe her a pension.  Yeah, she’s a democrat.

The 2nd is from a pastor who wants to convert the amt a congregation pays into his synod mandated pension, into cash so he can pay down his student loans.
Sounds reasonable, except when he was asked about cleaning out his pension and the penalties incurred, he was ambivalent and said not to worry – SS would be there for him.  And he didn’t want it counted as income – he just wanted the congregation to pay down  his loan directly (tax avoidance).  Ambivalent I understand – it wasn’t his money in the pension plan, and he wasn’t going without to plan for his retirement.  Typical pastoral attitude – he expects to be taken care of.  But just how smart is someone with a master’s degree and over $100K in loans, taking a career that pays $1K/wk?  His wife also has a master’s with over $100K in loans, and stays home with a newborn.Yeah, he’s a democrat.

I am under the (misguided?) impression that SS is there to keep old folks out of the food pantry lines, and volunteering at the food pantry instead, for as long as possible.
Never did I suspect it was intended as a retirement or pension plan.  My parents had a different take on money – 10% went to the church, 10% went to their parents, 10% went to savings, and the rest is what they lived off of.  And my parents weren’t Rockerfellers – my dad never made more than the “average” annual income. And yet my parents sent 4 kids to college.  hmmm

thx for letting me vent.

A socialist society is a selfish society – and as Government does more and more (notice that I did not say Society!), people expect and then demand more and more.  And in the Pastor example above, the worth of other peoples’ money and contributions become meaningless and of little worth because, well, it is EXPECTED.  Think of it this way – which is more appreciated?  Something that you know should be part of life, that has become “the norm”?  Or something that someone gives you out of the blue for little reason at all (and for the trifecta – something that you have actually had to go out and earn)?  My response:

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