Skip

Some Smart Person had this to say about 2015 (emphasis mine, reformatted):

The United States may be totally independent of Arab oil by the year 2015.  Unfortunately, so will everyone else because statistically that will be the year the last barrel of oil is pumped from the last well on earth. Of course, there will be no “last barrel” as such in 2015 because the world’s oil fields cannot continue to produce at current levels much longer.

The 1975 International Petroleum Encyclopedia, updated and published annually by the Petroleum Publishing Co., sets proven world reserves — the oil known for a fact to be present and recoverable by current technology — at about 103 billion metric tons. The current world annual consumption rate is approximately 2.8 billion.

Read more

Dave Matthews would be happy with being called a socialist and would be most happy if Bernie Sanders was elected President and folks like him would be forced to pay more in taxes.

“Someone could call me a liberal, and I’d say, ‘Thank you.’ Someone could call me a socialist, and I’d say, “I wish I was a socialist.” I should get a shirt that says, “Tax me! Tax the **** out of me!” At least we’re hearing more of a voice from him by having him out there and speaking in complete sentences rather than a bunch of slogans that don’t mean anything. So I feel like there’s hope as long as some people are speaking to the real problem in this country.”

I wonder if he’ be happy with Bernie taking a page out of French socialist President Hollande and his imposition of a 75% top tax rate?  Imagine that, Mr. Matthews – use your time and talent to make $100,000 / gig and see $750K taken right away from you.  Over and over and over again.

Read more

‘I can’t be responsible for every under-capitalized small business in America’!” — Tony Snow reporting on Hillary’s health care plan.

We expect to meet our candidates multiple times, not just to hear them but to vet them.  We expect them to be here in good weather and bad, in the bigger NH cities and the little hamlets.  Sooner or later, under the watchful eyes of individual citizens that really do care about “getting it right”, the real person that is the candidate comes out whether by gaffe or a momentary slip of the PR mask.  But I bow to the superior knowledge of those that knew them “on” camera / “in the public eye” and when not:

“F*** OFF,” HILLARY REPLIED:

‘?Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton.

“F*** off,” she replied.

Read more

How things have not changed!  We’ve written about Cecil the Lion and the Big Game hunter (and dentist) and how the Left vented its outrage that a wild animal was harvested (here, here, here, and here).  And this noted the complete lack of outrage over the Left’s favorite killing machine – Planned Parenthhood (here: “…Liberals are more upset over the death of a freaking lion than Planned Parenthood running a baby chop shop…”).

Just to cement this relationship (love animals, hate babies) comes this message from Bob Fertik from Democrats.com:

Dear Activist,The Obama administration just released its draft regulations to ban ivory sales in the US, and we need to drum up a stampede of support during the public comment period to make sure this ban stays intact.

The reason is simple – shutting down markets for ivory in the US will save elephants’ lives.

Wildlife Conservation Society is submitting 96,000 letters of support between now and the September deadline! #BeHerd today by submitting your letter here.

Thanks for all you do!

Read more

When the Department of Education unveiled its new College Scorecard earlier this month, a number of schools were missing from the list — not low-ranked or misrepresented, just missing. Many are conservative schools, well-known for their independence from the federal government.

Hillsdale College, a small Michigan liberal arts school which receives high marks in national rankings – U.S. News & World Report ranked it the 67th best liberal arts college in the nation and #1 for veterans — was notably absent from the Obama administration’s list of colleges. So were Grove City College and Christendom College. All three of these schools do not accept federal funding in order to maintain independence from government control.

Were the conservative schools left off the scorecard because they reject federal funding or because they oppose government control of higher education?

We hear all the time from Obama that we are a nation of racists, a history of racism pervades our society even after the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act.  Time and time again, we hear from his AG, Eric Holder, that we were a nation of cowards for not speaking about race.

Read more

This kinda puts all those on the Left complaining about the (non-existent) rape culture that supposedly wracking college campuses.  It was Obama’s Department of Education that issued that “Dear Colleague” letter that turned normal jurisprudence into a multitude of Kampus Kangaroo Kourts where there is no “innocence before guilty”, no due process, and Rights only applied to the aggrieved and those hoisting mantle of victimhood as a flag (Mattress Girl anyone)?

So read this (emphasis mine, reformatted) coming out of the Muslim invasion of Europe and ask yourself…

THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS IS JUST A NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? Rape and child abuse ‘are rife in German refugee camps’: Unsegregated conditions blamed as women are ‘seen as fair game’ in overcrowded migrant centres.

A culture of rape and sexual abuse is being allowed to take hold in asylum centres across Germany as Europe struggles to cope with the migrant crisis, it has been alleged. Women’s rights groups and politicians have highlighted assaults against women and children in at least one camp. And they suggest such incidents may be widespread, with many going unreported to the police.

Campaigners also claimed some men saw unaccompanied women as ‘fair game’, and also blamed conditions in which occupants were unsegregated by gender or nationality.

Read more

…when said politician wanted my opinion on some legislation, thinking that Democrats (and their Republican enablers, especially in the NH Senate) were on a path to make something much worse…

The Republican Party’s conservative wing, pumped up by House Speaker John Boehner’s stepping down, is warning the 2016 presidential candidates that defying its wishes will come at their peril.  Religious activists forcefully conveyed this message Saturday: embrace our stances against abortion rights and gay marriage, among other priorities, even if doing so risks a federal government shutdown.

Read more

You are who you surround yourself with – and it has been clear that Obama by choosing his staff, he has made his ideology clear.  Both Dunn and Jones made it quite clear where they stood politically – example when Anita Dunn praised Mao Zedong as her idol.  So now we go to Obama’s UN Ambassador (she of the “soft power” of diplomacy heals all situations):

On Thursday night, the eve of the U.N. Summit, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Powers (pictured above), gave a speech in support of the new U.N. Sustainable Development goals where she quoted Communist influenced economist, Amartya Sen:

“I want to open my remarks with a quote from the master,

Read more

That should blow a few Liberal and Socialist mindsets – serving others.  Indeed, it is ONLY when entrepreneurs, business people (and yes, even billionaires) serve others in such a way that consumers see great value added in the products and services offered that people get rich.  And they only stay if they continue to serve others with stuff that consumers voluntarily want.

This from Prof. Don Boudreau says it well:

First, in free markets, owners of capital remain owners of capital only if they use their capital to serve others.  And the greater the number of others they serve, the greater the amount of capital they own [or earn  -Skip].  The Walton family’s enormous capital was created – and its value maintained – only by that family’s continuing success at serving hundreds of millions of consumers.  Consumers’ voluntary spending choices play at least as large a role in determining “where money goes” as do the investment and managerial decisions of capitalists.  (Were the Waltons to put all of their money into factories that manufacture caramel-covered anchovies, they would quickly lose all of their capital.)

Anchovies?  Yuck – that would not have me

Read more

I get all kinds of emails from all kinds of political groups.  I guess I should be used to it, given GraniteGrok and that I don’t hide my email but is sometimes curious who ends up emailing me, given my stances on a lot of issues.  Like the Freedom of Speech; one would think that NH Rebellion, the misguided group that wishes to delete and restrain peoples’ political utterances because of “big money”.  Money is not the issue – speech is.  Always, always, always ask – who benefits?  And ask yourself – the people promoting this – where do they stand on the political spectrum and HOW DOES IT STAND ON simple, Constitutional words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

And secondarily, who benefits?  How does restricting someone else’s speech hurt you?  Unless, of course, you are the “you” that has been targeted. So, I got the following from NH Rebellion – in return, I presented two facts back to them for comment:

Read more

That would be  NH State Rep Ivy Vann (D-Peterborough) – whose heart seemingly aches for the times of city or town life that many left many decades ago – but has no problem in using Government to impose her notion of “town Utopia”.  No kidding – she tells us this in a self-contradictory “puff piece” in Pravda by the Merrimack (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Planning event eyes ways to make towns easier to walk, live and shop in

In many small towns, a new business development often means yet another strip mall or a chain store set along an unwalkable highway, said Ivy Vann, a state representative and member of Peterborough’s planning board. What’s worse, she said, is when those new developments come despite empty storefronts downtown. And antiquated zoning regulations that create arbitrarily and detrimentally large minimum lot sizes add to the push away from town centers.

Right – because she doesn’t like the idea that ordinary folks try to put businesses where, you know, people would like to GO and shop, let’s FORCE people back to the areas they’ve already abandoned – and use zoning laws to make them obey!

Read more

Ah yes, another email example.  Just like with my reply to the NH Rebellion email missive (here), I got one (actually, I’ve gotten a whole SLEW of them) from a group that wishes to keep the Export-Import alive (or in reality, back from the dead as its authorization has already passed) has not been returned.  The email is after the jump but for some reason, I guess they didn’t like this sent back to them:

Without Ex-Im, Boeing Still Managed to Sell 300 Planes to China.

Read more

Hey, can you share that with BOTH Bernie and Hillary?  Because after all,

Read more