Skip

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.

BE BREITBART: DoIT/ DES Right To Know Request : A conversation with DES Commissioner Tom Burack

Well, DES Commissioner Tom Burack called in at noon this past Tuesday to have a conversation with a couple of we Groksters (Susan and me) concerning our Right To Know Requests that we have submitted to both his department and that of the Department of Information Technology.

Sidebar: we received the response to our Second RTK yesterday.  I have not had the chance to review it but will be posting it up later.  At first glance, however, it seems like they have decided that government records, if they exist, are for their eyes only.  If it seems that this first glance is true, we will be taking this up a level.

 Now, that call is not of the greatest audio quality; it seems I have a problem from phone line 1 into the soundboard that introduced a bunch of background noise.  Also, Commissioner Burack was on a speakerphone with one of his assistants which made him sound a bit distant.  I am going to post this audio up now, warts and all, but will continue to try to boost his end of the conversation and reduce the noise.  You can download the MP3 here (30 minutes, 30K) or listen to the conversation (about 30 minutes) using the online player:

Also, I have no intention of doing a complete transcription, but I will be grabbing a few highlights and will post them here:

(0:26) Skip: In accordance with New Hampshire state law, I do need to inform you that this conversation is going to be recorded
(1:10) Commissioner Burack: wishes to know where we live in NH
(1:34) Commissioner Burack: Thanked us for bringing Richard de Seve, his employee, to his attention
(2:29) Skip brings up oversight of government by the citizenry
(2:51) Purpose was not to talk about the RTKs directly, as the second two RTKs are addressed to DoIT and not DES
(3:11) Skip points out, however, that it is DES’s Gretchen Hamel (Administrator!) that is still handling the communications.
(4:15) Skip brings up an additional Letter to DoIT
(4:42) Skip asks: what is so hard about obtaining these Government records
(5:10) Skip informs Commissioner Burack about the new RTK – filtering requests
(6:06) Skip corrects Commissioner Burack on this new RTK – DES does have a part in it.

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GrokTV Event: Live blogging at the Rye Republican Town Committee

There’s GOT to be a conservative TEA Party leaning person showing up for RRTC (Diane Bitter, Chair (and new NH GOP Assistant Secretary) at this event, so GraniteGrok is here.  We were asked if we could provide live stream and record the event by ‘Grok friend Diane, so we are attempting to oblige.  Unfortunately, the … Read more

Data Point – Because “Obama isn’t working”, lots of Americans are not

(H/T: Business Insider) (H/T: CNN) NOTE: the economy has to grow by 250,000 to 300,00 jobs / month  just to stay even with population growth. “Obama – isn’t working” means Obama’s Administration has not put the right policies for the economy to achieve that – nor does it seem interested in doing that either. Unemployment … Read more

Notable Quote – Bob Dole

 The high office of the presidency requires not a continuous four-year campaign for re-election, but, rather, broad oversight and attention to three essential areas – the material, the moral, and the nation’s survival, in that ascending order of importance. And in the last presidential election, you, the people, were gravely insulted. You were told that … Read more

Question with respect to the proposed state constitution educational amendment

Damn. There is one hell of a row going on at the excellent RLCNH email discussion list over the proposed state constitutional amendment regarding education—CACR12—which, one way or another, will put the responsibility

It's about educating the next generation, not expanding government....

for implementing and funding a “state system” of education in the hands of the state legislature, not the towns (where it has traditionally and historically resided).

More importantly, the battle is heating up amongst the best, smartest, and most activist political players in the state, i.e. the movement conservatives, the libertarians, the Tea Partiers, the Constitutionalists, the libertarian-conservatives, and others.

Some are….

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GrokTV Special Interview: Rep. John Hikel for NH Senate – Question 1 – Has it been everything you thought in the House? glad you put the time in? Best part of being a Rep.?

GraniteGrok has known NH State Rep John Hikel for a couple of years now an have interviewed him on a number of occasions.  This time, it is a little bit different as he has decided to “up the ante” – last night at St. Anselm’s Institute of Politics, we had the chance to interview NH … Read more

Poor Occupiers – can’t you reach out and help them?

Yesterday was May 1 – otherwise known as one of the most wonderful political days of the year (if you are a Socialist or Communist).  It was also supposed to be the same for the OWSers – Occupy Wall Street movement participants as yesterday was supposed to be the Spring of the 99%, the day that the US was supposed to be in the throes of a General Strike when NO one was to work, shop, learn, or play.  Just demonstrate for the “rights” of the 99% against the evil 1%.

Didn’t work out quite that way:

Can you have some compassion for these confused ones?

THESE on the other hand:

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Ah – the power of the Conservative New Media – turning their own tools against them.

Last night, I put this post up concerning the Occupiers bust of a May Day “general strike”; where there were a number of reports of violence (given their tacit acceptance among them of the “perpetually angry Anarchist” mobsters who respect, well, not many.  In that post was this tubba of a ‘tude with a snare drum who thought it would be absolutely dandy to use a small female cop’s head as a drumstick:

Like many, this OWSer is a coward – running away.  Problem for him is that his face was prominently displayed at the beginning of the clip.  Nice to see that with the extra “push” of kindred and like minded sites like the ‘Grok, the misogynist was caught (yeah, remember, these Occupiers are all about creating / mandating such a wonderful new world they had to have a special “rape free” tent down at Zuccotti Park in NYC).  From Hot Air comes the news that Dim-witted Drummer Dude is going to have a special Date:

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President Obama – a Bin Laden lesson: real heros don’t like the limelight

Real heros don’t like to be called “hero”.  They look at what they’ve done with the attitude of “just doing my job” and sometimes have a hard time even accepting thanks for their actions for which many of us are thankful.  After all, they reason, we signed up to do what we do – we simply do what we said we’d do. Even still, I will often thank a veteran for their service (or a family member who has (or had) someone in our Armed Forces as well) – it is deserved.  Yet, when people thank me for the service of the Eldest and the Youngest, I feel embarrassed to a degree in that I have done nothing – they are the ones that risked themselves for us all.

President Obama, that is a lesson you have not yet learned – to put away the “I” and “Me” and “My” words:

Instead, you should have been overusing the words “those heros” or “our heros” and give credit where credit was REALLY due – but you didn’t.  You have taken credit, major credit, for making the decision and for the success of the raid that ended up with OBL dead.  Well, thanks for saying “Go” – but that should have been viewed as just part of your job, too.  You risked nothing, except a political standing.  The SEALS and the air crews – they risked it all for their nation and for meting out justice to one who justice was delayed for far too long.

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Sometimes, the Left’s “stretching” of words just snaps…

Instapundit: He’s a “white Hispanic” – never heard of it before Zimmerman either.  But she – how DARE we white dudes disagree with a womyn American Indian minority.  Only the Left will bend the meaning of Political Correctness in amazing ways so as to save a “favored” identity group (not so ignore the attempted cloaking … Read more

BE BREITBART: DoIT Right To Know Request : Outbound Internet traffic summarizations – Update 2

Well, I would say that the response we had when Ms. Gretchen Hamel (Administrator!) emailed Letter arrived could be described amongst us “Techi Groksters” was a “really, you expect us to believe that this is difficult?”.  After all, amongst us, we have a handful of degrees and upwards of 75 years of technical experience and several of us are the corporate experts in our areas for our respective companies. So, we’re asking the main technical guy of the State of NH – is this really that difficult?

Good evening, Commissioner,

Upon reading the rather sparse Letter from Ms. Hamel (April 27) concerning our Right To Know request concerning the website traffic Summarizations, we became technically puzzled.  It is our hope that you would be able to address our concern and lack of understanding of the difficulty implied by Ms. Hamel’s Letter.

Our response to that is below, as well attached to this Letter in both WORD and OpenOffice formats.

Regard

– Skip

Skip Murphy for Steve Mac Donald and Ed Naile.

*****

April 30, 2012

To:

Stanley “Bill” Rogers, Commissioner, Department of Information Technology / CIO, State of New Hampshire

Re: April 30, 2012 Request for Records Pursuant to RSA 91-A – delay of response.

Dear Commissioner Rogers,

We are in receipt of the letter by Ms. Gretchen Hamel, Administrator of April 27, informing us that it was impossible to transfer the Internet URL Summarization records that we, as citizens of the State of New Hampshire, believe that we should have access to, especially under the aegis of RSA 91-A (the State’s Right To Know (“RTK”) law). From a technical standpoint, we are extremely puzzled over two issues:

  • First, we included DES Commissioner Burack as a courtesy on this RTK simply as our first RTK dealt specifically with one of his employees abusing the Internet access afforded by your network and we requested those Summarization records specifically in that case. We accept the fact that in a case pertaining a single employee, we understand that these could be labeled as “responsive but exempt”.
  • Secondly, our latest RTK concerned these Summarization records are in toto, thus not tied to any given employee or subgroup of employees and therefore, would fall into that category of “responsive but non-exempt”.

But more to point of fact, we are puzzled as to the “additional time is needed” in delivering records that taxpayer monies have already paid for and whose existence has already been confirmed by the State.. As a technical person (although we do recognize that you are, by dint of your title, a Political Appointee, and thus mired in politics which most engineers tolerate but abhor), you must realize that we understand how such records are obtainable in short order.

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Humor: Compare and Contrast – cats vs dogs

I just need a laugh – this worked:

“Why some single women prefer cats to a boyfriend!”

#1.  Cats don’t leaver the toilet seat up.
#2.  Cats don’t leave whiskers in the sink.
#3.  Cats don’t need to shave in order to look good laying about.
#4.  Cats provide soothing moral support without needing to offer advice.
#5.  Cats never neglect their grooming, nor comment on yours.
#6.  Cats never hog the covers or snore.
#7.  Cats never borrow your pantyhose to go snowmobiling.

On the other hand:

“Why Some Men Have a Dog And No Wife”

1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.
2. Dogs don’t notice if you call them by another dog’s’ name.
3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor, especially food.
4. A dog’s parents never visit.
5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.
6. Dogs find you amusing when you’re drunk.
7. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
8. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, “If I died, would you get another dog?”
9. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.
10. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.
11. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don’t get mad, they just think it’s interesting.
12. A dog never asks you an impossible question, such as: “Does this flea collar make me look fat?
13. Dogs love it when you drive with their window open.
14. Dogs think it’s perfectly normal to check out the butts of passing females on the street.

And last but not least:

15. If a dog leaves, it won’t take half of your stuff.

To test this theory: ?Lock your wife and your dog in the garage for an hour.

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GrokTV Special Event – Howie Carr at the Nashua Republican “Growing the Grassroots” Dinner – The Videos Part 1

Woke up early this morning, so the easy decision was to toddle downstairs and start processing the video from last night’s Nashua Republican City Committee event labeled “Growing the Grassroots”.  Intro ceremonies here and after the jump are the videos of the reading of US Senator Kelly Ayotte’s letter to the NRCC, Congressman Charlie Bass‘s address to the crowd, Charlie’s opponent in the primary Dennis Lamare implored the crowd to vote for him, and Kevin Smith made his pitch to be the next NH GOP nominee for NH Governor (note: NH State Senator Bob Luther was a surrogate for Ovide Lamontagne, but the it seems that my original button press to restart the recording did not really “press” – apologies.  It can be seen in the replay of the live stream (to be posted later).

The video of the Keynote Speaker for the evening, WRKO talk host and Boston Globe Columnist Howie Carr, will be posted later on today.

Intro Ceremonies:

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GrokTV Special Event – Howie Carr at the Nashua Republican “Growing the Grassroots” Dinner – The Videos Part 2

The Keynote Speaker of last night’s event was WRKO talk show host and Boston Herald syndicated columnist, Howie Carr!

The live stream recordings of the interview before the start of the event are after the jump with interviews with RNC Committeewoman Phyllis Woods, fellow Grokster Mike, NH House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker, and an abbreviated (as the event formally started) interview with Kevin Smith who is running to be the NH GOP nominee for NH Governor.  Also fellow blogger and talk show host at WCRN (50,000 watts!) Pete Ingemi (“DaTechGuy”) joins us at our micro “bloggers row” – we will be joining him in studio in a couple of weeks to discuss our ongoing Right To Know requests concerning the Internet escapades at the State of NH

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GrokTV Special Interview – Howie Carr at the Nashua Republican “Growing the Grassroots” Dinner

After the NRCC event finished last night, I had the opportunity to have a quick interview with Howie Carr on tips on holding government accountable for its actions:

Also had the chance to talk with Jack Kimball and what is now up for the Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC, and a bonus “after event” interview from the DaTechGuy as he talks with NH Rep. Timothy Twombley.

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