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I got my drivers license back in 1973 – in fact, in October.  The exact same month that OPEC declared its oil embargo against the US.  One day, gas was 25 cents / gallon.  Then it climbed to 55 cents – hard to take as a high schooler working 10 hours / week part time at $2/hour as a stock boy.  And my first car, a white 1965 Rambler Ambassador (replica to the left) was not exactly a gas miser.

Well, a few decades later and the product of American ingenuity called fracking has turned the tables on OPEC:

OPEC Complains That United States Is Pumping Too Much Oil

Heh!  This from that OPEC was just pure self-seeking (emphasis mine):

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Our first Progressive President, Woodrow Wilson, hated the Founding Fathers – and their documents expressing their Liberty and limited government philosophy:

Hence Wilson argued that the old “Newtonian” vision – fixed rules enshrined in the Constitution and laws – had to give way to the “Darwinian” view of “living constitutions” and the like.

“Government,” Wilson wrote approvingly in his magnum opus, “The State,” “does now whatever experience permits or the times demand.” “No doubt,” he wrote elsewhere, taking dead aim at the Declaration of Independence, “a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle.”

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This past Saturday (I gotta get the videos done – Thank GOD that Steve got the audio done!) we had Jody Underwood, Chair of the Croydon School Board, on to talk about the fight that NH State Education Commissioner Virginia Barry (Ph.D., dontcha know) concerning Cryodon and SAU #43’s use of “school choice” to send its children to the best school for that child – even if it is not a public school.  Well, that action has seemingly unsettled Her Highness of Ed to absolutely no end – how DARE Croydon actually take advantage of the actual words in NH’s state statutes (RSA’s)!

Former NH Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas went and (ahem!) took Virginia Barry to school on the law (full Letter after the jump):

Dear Commissioner Barry:

This is in response to your concerns regarding Croydon and SAU #43’s practice of sending pupils to private schools on a limited basis. It is our position that each assignment to a private school has been lawful. Each of your concerns is addressed below.

You cite RSA 193:1 and purport that it says that districts may only assign students to public schools. This is inaccurate. RSA 193:1 defines the duties of parents to ensure school attendance and neither describes the duties districts have nor restricts the assignment ability of districts. In addition to your inaccurate interpretation, you cite to the portion of that statute that states: “A parent of any child at least 6 years of age….shall cause such a child to attend the public school to which the child is assigned.” You fail to cite section (a) of the statute which clearly states that private school attendance is an exception to attending public school.

RSA 193:1:

“Such child shall attend full time when such school is in session unless:

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Howie Carr, a much beloved radio talk show host here in New England, also writes for the Boston Herald and when I read his column “welcoming” Hillary to the Big Show, I just couldn’t stop laughing.  His pen is like a stiletto – it slices, it dices…and it can crush as well.  A few of his questions that journalists ought to be asking Hillary on her van tour of Iowa (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Rand Paul had a good suggestion for the press last week: Why don’t you hacks start asking Democrats the same kind of loaded, gotcha, when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife questions that you always throw at Republicans?  Will never happen, of course — too many invitations to too many Beautiful People cocktail parties are at stake. But suppose the press were equal opportunity bashers? For example, what if Hillary Clinton had to answer some real questions today when she officially begins her campaign for president, er, queen? It’s easy to slant any question, even if it’s totally legit. For instance, Hillary was against gay marriage less than two years ago. So blogger Jon Gabriel suggested this question for her:

He’s right; many of us on the Right welcome the hard questions – but wish that it wasn’t just the Republican that got them.  It certainly is a reason why the GOP is now picking the moderators for the debates.  So, all Howie is doing is channeling George Stephanopoulas and his contraception question that was the opening salvo of the Democrat meme #WarOnWomen – from Clinton Wonder Kid to ABC’s Good Morning America (which means he’s never had to stop being a Democrat Hack). But on to the questions

“What finally made you agree with Dick Cheney that gay marriage should be legalized?”

And then Howie Carr followed it up with his own:

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Really, it’s about the taxes.  Federal taxes – I finished doing mine last night.  Since I haven’t posted since last Thursday, I let my fellow Groksters know I’m back in action:

From: “skipdcm” <Skip@GraniteGrok.com
To: Groksters
Sent: 4/13/2015 1:09:57 PM
Subject: Re: [GrokCrew] Fwd: Weirs 27

Sure!  Will start posting again tonite.

I failed in my Fed taxes – sniff – I am owed a coupla hundred bucks.  I measure success in me having to send THEM $50-$100; no interest free loans from me was my goal.  #FAIL.

And that’s really how we all should look at how OUR money, our personal and individually earned dollars, should be looked at – OUR money and not the Government.  Yet, if you are current on some of the comments here at the ‘Grok, it is clear that the Left believes otherwise.  After all, Bruce Currie (frequent commenter here at the ‘Grok) believes that Government should have first dibs on what you earn and on your wealth (apparently, he’s much in favor of the confiscatory Death Tax known as the Estate Tax).

One of the other Groksters said:

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Or stick with another term as the LBGTQRSTUVXYZ (yeah, a “parody” for you of the permanently offended crew that gets all bent out of shape and upset with we who have much more important and better things to do than to keep up with the ever changing Politically Correct Alphabet Soup of Special Interests because that’s what happens with relativism morality – not built on solid rock) crew keeps calling Christian “bigots” and “homophobes” for simply disagreeing politically with them over and over again, after some point, can we say that they suffer from Theophobia – irrational fear of God (as opposed to the usual “fear of God” meant as an admonition)?

But is it a case of Selma envy (just as ageing hippies keep trying to recreate their glory days)?

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Strongly bound communities, fulfilling complex public functions, are not the creation of the state.  They form because they must.  Human beings have needs as individuals (never mind the “moral sense” or lack of it) that cannot be met except by cooperation with other human beings.  To this degree, the often-lamented conflict between “individualism” and “community” is misleading.

– Charles Murray,  In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government:

Coming from Don Boudreaux’s Café Hayek, the Professor adds: 

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I think we’ve all seen this bumper sticker that spells out “Coexist” using the symbols of the world’s major religions, right (although I do like this Conservative one as well)?  And the Left is always telling us that we must do the same with its Social Justice Warrior (SJW) agenda – that we must accept they’re pushing.

Shot (Star Parker):

The truth is that the objective of the homosexual campaign is not about American freedom. The objective is the delegitimization and annihilation of Christianity in America.

Chaser (and proof) Frank Bruni (NYT columnist and gay activist) :

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“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

Ayup, our Gubbmint at work.  You know, with this “not working”, one has to wonder if the Post Office is just leaving the starting line in a competition with the Secret Service (and we all know how THAT US Federal department has been doing lately).  Take the phrase on the new P.O. stamp – sounds like Angelou, sounds like her book…

…but no, it isn’t- LA Times:

But the Washington Post reported yesterday that the quotation can also be found in “A Cup of Sun,” a 1967 poetry collection by children’s author Joan Walsh Anglund. A Postal Service spokesman told the newspaper that the line, which has been widely attributed to Angelou by people including President Obama, was approved for use on the stamp by Angelou’s family.

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David French at The Corner:

Last week, Hans Fiene – writing in the Federalist–coined the term “Selma envy” to describe the fervor of gay-marriage supporters. In their search for the heroic narrative, Fiene’s generation has appropriated the courage of the Civil Rights movement. In two stinging paragraphs, he illustrates the absurdity:

Likewise, we will continue linking the civil-rights movement with the push for gay acceptance without pausing for a second to consider the comparison. We will continue diminishing the bravery of Rosa Parks by claiming a seat beside her as our reward for the one time we boycotted Chick-Fil-A for a month. We will trivialize the death of Medgar Evers by praising his blood for freeing gay couples to financially ruin a florist who hurt their feelings instead of walking one more block to find another purveyor of petunias who was happy to take their money.

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An observation from Steven Hayward on RFRA, Indiana, Memories Pizza, the tipping point of the absorption of the private sector by Government – and the unmasking of the Left for who they really are (emphasis mine):

The “end of liberalism” can be taken to have two meanings, reflecting the ambiguity of both “end” and “liberalism.” “End” can mean the final or logical destination of an idea—the goal, if not its perfection (think telos); or it can mean that something is finished, over and done with, gone forever. And “liberalism” is a confused term in modern times. It originally stood for individual liberty, and was the cornerstone of limited government that respected not just individual rights, but the basic distinction of the public from the private. But today’s liberalism has become wholly authoritarian, though it is obviously ill-liberal in the extreme. Perhaps the increasingly overt authoritarianism of American liberalism was its telos all along? (Pat Moynihan thought so as early as the 1960s; he remarked to Nixon in 1970, “I know there is an authoritarian Left in this country, and I fear it.” What would he think now?)

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