Skip, Author at Granite Grok

Notable Quote – Neal Stephenson

September 26, 2018August 4, 2011 Skip

“But more importantly, it comes out of the fact that, during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the … Read more

Is there a double standard here?

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

From Pindell’s site (emphasis mine): Newmarket Republican Chair Joe Barton will not resign from his position as state Republican Chair Jack Kimball requested following Barton’s Facebook post over the weekend that he would pay $1,500 to anyone willing to primary State Sen. Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry). Barton made the comment on the New Hampshire Republican Party’s … Read more

If we’re not supposed to attack other Republicans, can we praise them as Democrats?

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

Certainly, this spawned this post. Yes, another case where. I. Just. Could. Not. Help. Myself. From. Asking. on Facebook: Heh!

Decency?

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

it’s all about the mean. I listened to the Ray Stevens video that Tim posted, and near the end of the video, this line caught my ear: "Once you renounce any sense of decency, it gets easier and easier!" Which, given the topic and butt of the video and adding in Rick’s post, translates as … Read more

Civility – Fine for thee but only just so long for me

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

(H/T: Gallup via JammieWearingFool)

A plurality of Americans identify as Conservatives, 2 -1 over Liberals. In listening to the political discourse lately, you have to wonder why the Liberal / Progressive Democrats (and Democrat Socialists) have violated their own Code of Civility that they imposed right after the Tuscon Massacre where Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot. At that time, the Left was ALL about being polite and accused the Right (mainly, but certainly not exclusive to, Sarah Palin for her use of a bullseye two years after the DSSC had done the same). How memories grow short quickly!

Everywhere you look in the left-center blogosphere, among the Obama bootlicking mainstream press, and the Democrat Socialists harbored in Congress, the TEA Party has become the scapegoat for their own bungling of their reporting and public policy. Think I kid? Here’s some of what now passes for Leftist civility:

Extremist, racist, suicide bombers, hostage takers, baby killers, America destroyers, Wahabists, delusional addicts, waging Jihad on the American people, blowing up the country, kidnappers, guns to heads, inflicting pain on the country, insane, totalitarian, Hezbullah faction of the GOP, traitors, put aside their suicide vests, domestic extremists, villains of American history, inflict massive harm on innocent victims, Taliban, Nazis, Fascists, …

I thought this was just absolutely hilarious from CNN’s LZ Granderson in telling the GOP what to do with the TEA Party:

Kick those freeloading tea partiers out.

Umm, dude, it was the "refinance my house to pay for goodie under the sun" freeloaders that wanted Obama to pay their mortgages that helped start the TEA Party movement in the first place – a reaction against the real freeloaders. He rails about "theocratic intentions". Of course he would – he has nothing better to say.

You name it, we’ve been called it. All aimed at people whose only stated belief / goal is to stop the out of control spending as it will put our kids and grandkids into financial jail for the rest of their lives – HOW will they ever pay back the current $14.5 Trillion, not to speak of the Trillions more that will be racked up because politicians cannot stand up, grow a pair, and say "NO! The Treasury is empty!". For most of the time since WW II, Fed spending has soared without slowing, buying votes and pandering to special interests and increasing crony capitalism.

All the while, the Taliban and AQ folks at Gitmo, the REAL terrorists, get free legal help from Leftist lawyers.

Why?

Notable Quote – Matt Ridley

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialization and exchange…. Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency – subsistence – is poverty. – Matt Ridley

We’re supposed to be overjoyed over this debt agreement…..because?

September 26, 2018August 3, 2011 Skip

Let me see if I have this straight:

Congress just voted to add $3 trillion to the debt within a year so that Congress and Obama can spend even more money we don’t have later, and we’re supposed to be happy over that the pandering politicians (who are backslapping each other in having shown great courage to enable themselves to spend even more) can just keep doing what they’ve been doing for decades?

That is, they spend other peoples money, often resulting in much duplication, waste, and fraud, and then they campaign that they will stop the duplication, waste, and fraud? All the while knowing what their real purpose is to merely get re-elected to do it all over again?

It’s like they’ve locked themselves into a party bus, blackened all the windows (including the front windshield), and in their self-assured incompetence, continue hurtling to the precipice, and still want us to love them as it is our kids and grandkids that are strapped to the roof that will have to pay for it all?

And trust me, they will pay, in one fashion or another.

And I am supposed to be overjoyed that:

Once again, these charlatans have voted to not carry out the job we have elected them to do – which was READ THE FREAKING BILL!

Once again, we are hearing echoes "We have to pass the bill to see what’s in it" – and thanks to the slovenly way that they refused to take the time to do it right (was stalling the process until it was way too late a feature, a bug, or a deliberate act of public stupidity)? They must be freaking great magicians or the living embodiment of The Midas Touch (you know, everything they touch turns into a rusty muffler?) because what seems to be there at the end of the vote is transmogrified into something different. That’s because they refused to do the public hearings, the markups, the debates, the re-writes to get it right. Instead, we get slap-dash and NOW, like Obamacare, like Dodd-Frank, and these other thousand page bills, the really terrifying and liberty destroying parts come out into public. Unlike Barnabas Collins, they just keep going seeking more and more victims.

And we’re supposed to turn a blind eye that:

Notable Quote – P.J. O’Rourke

June 8, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

Cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our … Read more

Gee, Obama KEEPS saying this…but

September 26, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

ABC News Headline: With Debt Crises Averted, Obama Looks To Jobs Hmmm, for what – the next 5 minutes? How many time have we either heard this from Obama himself, his accolytes? Or the lickspittle MSM that refuses to turn their microscopes on him and his Progressive sojourners but have no problem in doing so … Read more

A note for US Senator Kelly Ayotte (R – NH)

September 26, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

UPDATE: Jeff sent along a thank you note, and pointed me to Kelly’s floor speech on this – posted up after the jump

==========================================

A note sent to a staff member for Senator Kelly Ayotte:

Re: Your boss…

…did good today.

One of the TEA Party principles is to stop the wanton spending and to get the fiscal house in order. That requires stalwart folks with titanium spines to stand up and say "NO!"

Kelly Ayotte was characterized during the election cycle as the Establishment candidate.
Charlie Bass was the candidate that conservatives held their noses and voted for, knowing full well what was to come.
Frank Guinta was the TEA Party candidate.

Gee, guess who had the stones to stand up and say "NO!" to further indebting our children and grandchildren due to Congress’s overspending?

Not the self-described Progressive Republican.
And not the TEA Party candidate.
But the Establishment candidate did.

She continues to exceed my expectations and most of TEA Party folks I talk to agree with that sentiment. Please extend our thanks to Kelly.

-Skip

Lest I forget – Of COURSE, liberal Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen voted to allow Government to spend more.

“Next time you wanna tap dance and test our liberties”

September 26, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

Rick went after the Portsmouth Herald for its anti-gun editorial, and rightfully so. The article that sparked that editorial can be found at the SeacoastOnline here (registration needed – and normally I don’t register for such, as I agree with Steve, but I did just for that one article).

The first commenter, Ryan Hitchings, started off with a snarky "how dare you exercise your Rights!" and accused Mr. Irish of "abusing" his Rights (posted after the jump) with a "I’m better than you are" attitude. Here is my response to Mr. Hitchings (emphasis mine):

At no time, according to the story, did Mr. Irish "abuse" anything – yet Ryan, that’s the impression you wish to give. And enough of the Wild, Wild West analogy; our streets are not running red because of the actions of people who legally own and carry firearms.

Perhaps you can fight your way out of a bad situation, but I am of an age where I can no longer put my right foot into either of your ears standing 6" away; a firearm is the great equalizer for the old, the infirm, and the less strong. And like Seriously, I’m always looking to how to "pull the ripcord" and get out of Dodge so I don’t have to think about using my index finger. "Seriously" is also right – NH is a SHALL issue CCW state: you would be very surprised how many people do believe that it is not just their Right but their Responsibility to defend themselves and do carry concealed.

And as far as your "tap dancing and test our liberties" snarkiness? It is NOT testing our liberties – it is exercising our liberties. For it would be people like you who, under the guise of "knowing better", would attempt to remove those liberties.

Your judgement is misplaced – instead of railing against someone who calmly and reasonably exercised their Right but also respected the private property Right of another, you should concentrate on why you are so against people exercising their Constitutional (both NH and US) Rights?

Or, do those Rights bother you?

Guest Post by Mike Johnson: Carol Shea-Porter and Maggie

September 26, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

Kensington is a bucolic town, horse country, affluent, comfortable, a pretty place for an afternoon’s drive, but with the occasional discordant note.

This is a photograph of a small barn on a large horse farm located on Drinkwater Road near the intersection of North Road. It was taken on 24 July 2011, some 262 days after the last election, or maybe more apropos, 469 days before the next election. I drive by the barn twice a day and get emotional every time.

It’s always a pleasure to drive by the barn and it is also highly satisfying that these two women are no longer representing us in the halls of power. It’s sad that my neighbor is so ideologically obsessed that he needs to maintain this monument to his fallen candidates. But more than sadness, my fanatical neighbor evokes anger by insisting on subjecting me and mine to this display of ungraciousness in defeat.

Get over it and get used to it!

The placards are for two Democratic women politicians. Carol Shea Porter had been the New Hampshire First District’s representative in Washington. She was routed by Frank Guinta in November. Margaret (Maggie) Wood Hassan had been the state senator in Concord for the 23rd district that includes Kensington. This past election Maggie was decisively defeated by Russell Prescott.

Carol Shea Porter, or CSP, as she is affectionately known on right wing, is not a nice person. She is as strident as…

Data Points – The market

September 26, 2018August 2, 2011 Skip

Sure, Congress averted a default – but for all the drama and hoopla, the market is looking what really counts in fulfilling the phrase "the business of America is business". Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has other ideas so the biz world is telling ObamaWorld that it’s policies suck. In essence, the Obama laser’s for his … Read more