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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.

Well, the Spenders in Gilford may still lust after “free” taxpayer money – but Troy, Michigan has figured it out!

Free money from the Feds, from the State, from the County…..Free!  Free!  Free!  Hey, grab it, because that money is FREE to our taxpayers – it doesn’t cost US a thing!  But those that wish to spend it, that lust after it, they hate it when the obvious truth comes out – er, it’s not free.  The money that they are so eager to lay their hands on has to come from somewhere – and the only answer is “from other taxpayers”.  As the money comes in, with such soothing dulcet tones “think of all of the things you can give to your constituents, your taxpayers – your voters” as they wave the wads like a hypnotic pendant: spend me, spend me – and make yourselves look like heroes.

Yeah, heroes – as the Feds pile up a $15 Trillion debt by which our present “leaders” are indenturing our great grand-kids.  Heroes, indeed – just call them the “elected gimme group” (as opposed to regular special interest gimme crowd).

Yet, there may be hope – that I am not alone!  In fact, there is one town whose Leaders are being true leaders and not participating in the bankrupting of America.  Even as all those around them castigate them for not taking the money, they show their wisdom by seeing the big picture that others refuse to see (or do not dare to see because of a lack of courage).  The folks in Troy, Michigan have had the courage to do just that.

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Humor – Make sure you know who you are firing….

Arcelor-Mittal Steel Company, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired a new CEO. The new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers. On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning against a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that … Read more

Facebook Doodlings – Why is it the job of the Feds to rehab 35,000 schools?

Yet another instance of spending time writing somewhere else instead of writing here, so, am double purposing yet again.  This thread from FB was from Sept (yeah, catching up as always) when Obama wanted to spend $25 Billion (more of what we don’t have) to rehab up to 35,000.  Once again the question must be asked (yes, edited to be more bloggish):

Why is it the Federal Govt’s job to “rehab 35,000 schools”?

If the local communities have so bungled their OWN infrastructure so badly, why is it that the rest of us have responsibility to fund it just because Obama says so? Where’s the accountability in that?

And the last part of that is couched in those terms because education has generally been a local activity and not a federal one.  Here in NH, it IS local – every year for the last six years, I have reviewed my town’s school budget as part of my hamlet’s Budget Committee (which actually prepares the budgets that all of the town’s voters vote up or down).  As part of doing that, I have learned the hardware that tax monies get sucked out of the local scene, filter through the DC bureaucracy, get strings attached, and then a relatively small percentage comes back to the folks that forked it out in the first place.   You can be sure that this “free money” as everyone else is kowtowing to get (under the rubric of blatant greed of “if we don’t take it, someone else will” – just like kindergarteners who are afraid they won’t get their Twinkie snack).

Well, it seemed to one commenter that the right answer was “Sure!”;  after all “because nobody else wants to do it”?  In other words, if the locals decide to do nothing, then his implicit answer is the Feds must do it by default.  My retort was:

You think the Feds should because the locals won’t? Shouldn’t the Feds be smart enough not to fall for that Tom Sawyer fence whitewash trick?

Yes, I started to get a bit hot under the collar as I have with others – it seems with folks like the commenter, their expectation is that the Feds are supposed to right all ills – when the locals are judged to have not done the job, it has to be made right by spending other folks money.  Wrong answer, as it penalizes those communities that ARE doing the right things.

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Email Doodlings – The wars may be ending, but will this wrong headed perception?

Obama has unilaterally ended the Iraq war (hmmm, didn’t he rail against that “Cowboy Unilateralist” Bush for making decisions on his own?) and is on his way in doing the same in Afghanistan.  And while I had some words about it here, this is not the thrust of this post.  Instead, it is this:

Neo-cons have no problem sacrificing their own children to the war machine. That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth

It brought back a memory of something very similar – it ignited my ire by effective saying the same thing:

Finally, if you believe in this mission, whatever it really is, are you willing to die or send your children to die for it?

This time, it started off with a discussion back aways about Sarah Palin getting into the Primary race but quickly morphed from that to this and I never expected to hear that from a non-Liberal friend.  In essence, the far Left and the far Right / Libertarian movement have met and in a very ugly fashion in accusing parents of willingly sending their kids to die for an ideology.  This is wrong at several different levels and to be clear, made my blood pressure rise – so I started to answer:

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Unto us, a Child is born

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  – Isaiah 9:6 And I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither … Read more

A Very Merry TSA Christmas!

I am certainly glad that I do not have to travel on biz anymore (I’ve done my 500,000 miles in the air)….nor have to travel for the holidays.  And here’s a reason why: (H/T: Reason TV via Instapundit)

Well, when private enterprises build their business plan around Obama bailouts, the end is almost certain.

Well, there were a few posts that I had started and didn’t finish before ‘Grok 1.0 gave up the ghost (or, if really old, just plain forgot about them)….this is one.

I  had really thought that the Aptera was a pretty cool looking car (yes, the Eldest, the Youngest, and TMEW DO put up with me) – the idea that it was an EV or a high mileage vehicle was pretty much secondary (interesting, but secondary).  Safety rated, nice looking, and geeky – yes, I would have tried to buy one.  But, am not going to ever have the chance – the money ran out:

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WMUR’s Closeup – Maggie Hassan on 10/30 edition

Yet another post that kinda got away from me – I forgot about it (D’oh!) and with everyone writing at full steam, the posts (like emails in my Inbox) keep moving further and further down the list.  Face it, if an email goes three or four “page downs”, it pretty much is gone from sight and gone from memory (even as I say “Skip, DON’T forget this one!”).  Anyways, these are the notes I took as Maggie Hassan talked with Closeup host, Josh McElven, about a number of topics:

  • Voter ID is a very extreme bill and harm the citizens of NH

Extreme? Very Extreme?   I keep hearing that from the Democrats and about the only thing I can think of that is “extreme” is that Democrats think it an extreme idea that Republicans don’t like the idea that Democrats keep getting votes that really should never have been cast by people who should not have been voting at that polling place.  Perhaps, the real extreme idea is that  the Democrats just don’t think enough of Citizenship and don’t think that ensuring that the validity and integrity of a Citizen’s vote is worth protecting.  We seem to be in a time when the value of Citizenship is deliberately being diminished (e.g., the mayor that wants to let people votethat should not be in the country).  This is not about “discrimination” – this is to hold a fundamental right and responsibility of citizenship high and to maintain its integrity.

  • The State Budget that cut the cigarette tax also cut the University and the College budget significantly.  That says to the young people in this state, smoke more and go to college less….and to employers, don’t bother to come because we aren’t going to have an educated workforce.

Ah yes, just like Alan Greyson’s “Republicans just want you to die quickly” when it comes to healthcare. Is this the best that a future Governor (Lord, forgive me!) can say about the opposition?

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2011 ending? It HAS to be Jib-Jab time!

Once again, we have the privilege to watch the zany take on the stories of 2011 – in 2 minutes! (H/T: ” target=”_blank”>Big Journalism)  

Guest Post: an email to NH GOP Chair MacDonald

Chairman MacDonald, Until the day arrives that the NH Republican Party disallows non-republicans to vote in our primaries, I shall contribute nothing to the party.  You really want me to help our party enable non republicans to vote in our primaries?  No money from me. Also, your support of RINOs throughout our once-proud State has … Read more

Line of the Day – a little financial portfolio talk

”This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds”

– William Bernstein, investment manager

And that portfolio makeup?

  • 21% – real estate
  • 14% – cash.
  • 0% – bonds / bond funds
  • 0.1% – stock funds (all “short,” or make bets against, U.S. stocks)
  • 64% – gold and silver mining stocks

Whose?

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Geek Stuff – watching light move 1 mm at a time!

At 1 trillion frames per second, this camera CAN make light go in slow motion.  Remember, light travels (in a vacuum) at 186,000 miles per second (doing the math is 700 million miles / hour), so the word “fast” doesn’t do justice to this new system from the boffins of MIT.  The clip is showing … Read more

John Hawkins at RightWingNews nails THE problem of the United States today

That would include the Political Class as well.  Anyone that says “You owe me simply because I exist” should immediately be cut off.  Mean?  Which is meaner: demanding that someone take care of them (as most that do the demanding could provide for themselves, at least in part), or demanding that someone take care of … Read more

See! Even Syrians prefer Bush over Obama!

Especially when a decision for Freedom has to be made: Update thoughts: He voted “present” when it came to Iran and blew the chance to speak well of that nascent freedom movement.  Instead of just giving speeches favoring Freedom over the mullahs, he remained silent – so much for the Obama / Samantha Powers doctrine … Read more

Yet another example of politicians ignoring THEIR responsibility to lecture us on ours

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”
– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

Too bad, he didn’t have “and treat our citizens like adults.  California – the land of sun, fun, and more stupid politicians that can’t balance their budgets or restrain the public unions, but boy, they can nitpick their voters for not doing the right thing, eh?  This time, it is all about harranging drivers that change their oil too often.  Yeah, the State is now concerning itself, due to the self-importance of the enviro-wackos, and telling its drivers “Yo, slow down on your car chugging the oil – break that habit, dude!”

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Obama owns it, now. Will he break it, later?

From Iraq (NY Times):

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq threatened on Wednesday to abandon an American-backed power-sharing government created a year ago, throwing the country’s fragile democracy into further turmoil just days after the departure of American troops and potentially tarnishing what has been cast as a major foreign policy achievement for President Obama.

In a nearly 90-minute news conference broadcast on tape-delay, Mr. Maliki defied his rivals and pushed back on all fronts in Iraq’s deepening political crisis, threatening to release investigatory files that he claimed implicated his opponents in terrorism.

He also threatened the Kurds, a valuable ally with close ties to the Americans, warning that there would be “problems” if they protected Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who fled to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in recent days to escape an arrest warrant on charges that he ran a death squad responsible for assassinations and bombings.

Why should Maliki continue with the “American-backed power-sharing government”?  Effectively, Obama has taken the troops out ahead of time and are now leaving the Iraqi field wide open for other-than-American influence – read that as Iran.  Obama can now be said to have created a political vacuum in the region (or to be kind, a partial at the least; you and I would not last long breathing it).  Sure, with 16,000 personnel stationed at our embassy there we’ll have a presence there but a civilian in a region that loves the strong horse and derides the weak one.  Obama has shut the door on the American influence by signaling weakness in an area that will exploit such a sign.

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