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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.

OK, back to school – Vocab test!

OK, something a bit lighter for the morning.  Do you know what these words mean?

  • Glabella (ever look in a mirror?)
  • Vagitus (no, get your minds out of the gutter)
  • Chanking (sorry, no teaser could I come up with)
  • Zarf (Z! not a B!)
  • Niggly Wiggly (no, not the convenience store)
  • Darkle (my favorite new word)
  • Souffle Cup (no, it is not what you think it is!)
  • Snollygoster (yes, it has something to do with a lack of principles)
  • Natiform (a warning not to get too behind)
  • Tintinnabulation (ding dongs)
  • Columella nasi (got what I’m smelling?

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Notable Quote – Adam Smith

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what … Read more

“Want fries with that?” is not in the working vocab for these graduates.

From Business Insider (via BroBible) comes this list of what some college BA / BS grads can expect:


 Median
Position Starting Salary Mid-career Salary
Statistics $49,300 $99,500
Computer Science $58,400 $100,000
Applied Mathematics $50,800 $102,000
Computer Engineering $62,700 $100,500
Electrical Engineering $63,400 $106,000
Nuclear Engineering $66,800 $107,000
Chemical Engineering $67,500 $111,000
3. Actuarial Mathematics $56,100 $112,000
2. Aerospace Engineering $62,500 $118,000
1. Petroleum Engineering $98,000 $163,000

All depend on mathematics and engineering skills (STEM) – arcane “studies” grads are not going to get these types of compensatory rewards.  Unless you are a genius, you will work hard, often very hard, to get that degree.  But you will have a marketable skill. On the other hand…

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Really?

Breitbart has this riff on Paul Krugman commenting on a TEA Party sign, who believes that his Nobel Prize in economics means that the rest of us should believe that his expertise transfers to politics; As it happens, I’ve recently had fairly extensive dealings with both our health care system and with the New Jersey … Read more

One reason why investors are sitting on their money…

From Hot Air, this absolutely lovely piece of datum.  Amidst this current talk of raising taxes on Obama’s scapegoats (the rich) and the fiscal cliff, here is the Left hook: The Obama administration proposed at least 80 new regulations the day after Thanksgiving (go ahead and give ‘em a scroll-through for some good times), adding … Read more

Blogline of the Day – from Gold Rush

Mother of Parker Schnabel (18 year old gold mine operator) upon being asked if she was happy with the condition of his room at her home: You know, I’ve said to Roger, you know, c’mon, we can’t get our child to clean his room!  Like what have we done wrong? What do we do, take … Read more

Blaming the need for Generators on tax cuts? Income Inequality??

“It’s manifestly silly (and highly polluting) for every fine home to have a generator. It would make more sense to invest those resources in the electrical grid so that it wouldn’t fail in the first place….So time and again, we see the decline of public services accompanied by the rise of private workarounds for the wealthy.”

I read this column by “vaunted” NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff and stared at amazement at the words that stuttered across my eyeballs.  What was I missing?  How come I could not divine the missing links to how the heck he starts off with one observation and lays blame on something that seems to be totally unconnected?  Look, he’s a high priced NY professional journalist and I’m just a ordinary schlub in central New Hampsha – is that it? Or is it because he’s a prominent member of the circle of stratospheric Lefties and I’m just a grassroots Rightist?  A “thinker” vs “knuckledragger” (as some on the Left tolerantly call folks like me)?  Are we on the Conservative side of the aisle, TEA Party philosophy, just incapable of understanding such lofty sentiments about how the need for generators is totally because some people have too much and the Government won’t take it away from them (reformatted and emphasis mine):

In upper-middle-class suburbs on the East Coast, the newest must-have isn’t a $7,500 Sub-Zero refrigerator. It’s a standby generator that automatically flips on backup power to an entire house when the electrical grid goes out. In part, that’s a legacy of Hurricane Sandy. Such a system can cost well over $10,000, but many families are fed up with losing power again and again.  (A month ago, I would have written more snarkily about residential generators. But then we lost power for 12 days after Sandy — and that was our third extended power outage in four years. Now I’m feeling less snarky than jealous!)

 More broadly, the lust for generators is a reflection of our antiquated electrical grid and failure to address climate change. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our grid, prone to bottlenecks and blackouts, a grade of D+ in 2009.   So Generac, a Wisconsin company that dominates the generator market, says it is running three shifts to meet surging demand. About 3 percent of stand-alone homes worth more than $100,000 in the country now have standby generators installed…

 Every time I see “our”, I just shake my head.  So, Conflation #1 – We all own that grid according to St. Nich.  Hmmm, last time I knew, the majority of that grid is owned by large publicly owned companies (or, like here in NH, a co-op).  Sure, there are some electrical systems that are metropolitan in nature – the city owns it.  That means, in THAT case, that “we” own it – but only if you are a resident of that town, yes?

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Thanksgiving Day message from our Government: ah yes,THIS is what we pay good money for…

Yes, where would we all be without them – so lost in so mismanaging our lives?  Once again, the taxpayer funded US Govt (aka, our supremely concerned Nanny State) believes that we taxpayers need reminders to watch out for ourselves as we celebrate time with family and friends in thanking God for the bounty He has given us.

Sidenote: except for perhaps Obama who, once again, decided that giving thanks to God is semi-redundant for His Obamaworshipness:

“…We’re also grateful that this country has always been home to Americans who see these blessings not simply as gifts to enjoy, but as opportunities to give back. Americans who believe we have a responsibility to look out for those less fortunate – to pull each other up and move forward together…”

Yes, we have ourselves to thank – all together now as yer movin’ FORWARD! together to that cliff/tipping point with us, like it or not! Can’t he leave the political stuff alone for just ONE speech?

Yes, these same folks who are otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of us except that we pay the taxes that form their pay checks.  Anyways, here are the pithy pronouncements for we plebes for this Thanksgiving Day; from CNSNews is this post:

Gov’t Tells Americans What to Discuss at Holiday Dinner; Declares Thanksgiving ‘Family Health History Day’

(CNSNews.com) – The Thanksgiving holiday comes with a series of advisories and admonitions from your favorite Uncle Sam:

Boiling down, do you really think that Govt would send a message that actually meshes with the real reason for today?

  • Transportation Department – “buckle up and slow down,”
  • FDA – watch those meds carefully when travelling to keep them away from the kiddos (gee, did they want us to buckle them in too?)

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Notable Quote – Jerry Bowyer

As my friend Reuven Brenner has taught me, history is a series of experiments: The Human Gamble. Some gambles work and are adopted by history and some do not and should be abandoned by it. The problem is that the human gamble only works if there is a record of experimental outcomes and if decision … Read more

It’s NEVAH too early to start the next Prez campaign, eh?

From a story in Politico, some names of the Republican “front runners?” (geeze, did I really just type that?) for the 2016 campaign.  OK, amuse me – pick your favs and vote once per day!

Your choice for “front runner” for the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee?
  
pollcode.com free polls 

I also noted this from the “Establishment” from the Politico’s story:

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Thanksgiving – a re-acquainting and a reality check

Yes, as those in the mental health field say, I am still processing Mom’s passing – it may take a while and I’m sure that there will be some rough edges that will catch me when I’m least likely to think so – it will continue to hurt until it subsides into a low-level throb.  But I can still be thankful that she was MY mom and for all the times this former teenager and full-of-himself early-twenties something said and did things, I realized that in the end, she knew “he’ll come to his senses (mostly)” (yeah, she still had doubts – but what parent doesn’t that truly wants their offspring to be the best they can be and wants to correct what they see wrong?).

But while I say goodbye on one hand, I am still having the opportunity of my life in becoming re-acquainted with the Youngest.  My time with him as a “full-of-himself” teenager and early-twenties was no fun at all and there were a lot of times I wondered what the heck I was raising.  These last two weeks, however, have revealed a more laid-back son, more willing to smile and showing the signs of our relationship moving from Dad-the-Father to Dad-the-Advisor.  Now out of the Army, he has a bewildering number of options as he deals with some after effects of his hitch and service.  Before it used to be “leave me alone – *I* can figure it out!”; now it is more often than not ‘Hey Dad, what do you think about…”.  It was also fun as he kept TMEW and I in stitches with some stories from his service during our Thanksgiving dinner.  Dunno why they came out today, but mirthful doesn’t even come close.

It’s unreal how smart I got in 4 years.  It’s also humbling that some things that I wanted to pass on (“You will always be a parent.”) actually seem to have taken root.  For that,  I am thankful to God for giving me the patience in dealing with is “idiosyncrasies”.  The reality check, The reality check, for those that still have young or middling kids at home…

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A good-bye and a reality check

“Doris  Johnson, daughter of David and Elizabeth Abrahamson and formerly of Brockton and Gilford, NH, passed away at the age of 90 on October 31, 2012. She was born to Swedish immigrants in New Sweden, ME and moved with her family to the Campello (“Little Sweden”) section of Brockton, MA. A long time member of the Swedish Baptist Church (now, Trinity Baptist), she attended business school in Boston and worked in the shoe industry there. She met and married Richard Murphy of Boston with whom she bore three sons (the eldest passing shortly after birth) and assisted with his small businesses over the next two decades. Upon Richard’s untimely death, she continued to live in Brockton working as a single mom providing for her children. A few years later, she married Eldon Johnson, also of Brockton and a long time supervisor at Polaroid Corporation. Upon his retirement, they moved to Gilford, NH to be closer to her son Skip Murphy, his wife Debbie and their two sons Dan and Ian. During the last few years of her life after Eldon’s passing, she lived in Oklahoma City to be near her youngest son, Rick Murphy, his wife Susie and their son Preston; she was well cared for and loved during that time.

A private family burial service is planned for the family plot in Coweeset Cemetary in Brockton, MA. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund ( a 4 star Charity Navigator rating).”

A friend emailed me upon hearing of the news – I thanked him for reaching out and offered this in return:

Thanks – much appreciated.  She lived a long life – 90 years old so she had seen a lot of changes during her life.  Along that path, she taught me a few simple life lessons that have never failed me when I have listened to her voice in my head and  applied them correctly:

  • Always show up
  • Persistence pays off.  Perhaps not in the way you originally wanted, but there will be a reward nonetheless.
  • Stand up for yourself – I will for you, but there will come a time when you won’t want me to and then a time when I will be unable to.  So, learn to be self-responsible.
  • You will always be a parent.

 I am sure that as memories bubble up, there will be others, but these were the biggies.

The reality check was not one I really expected – and I lay it out here as I was taken by surprise by the Newspaper industry during this whole process:

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I believe this can describe the Feds a lot: Ineptocracy

Bumped and updated: In the same vein of Jim Bender’s lovely phrase of “self-assured incompetency“;  I saw this over at Boortz’s and I thought I had remembered putting it up.  Given the SNAFU that FEMA has created (yet again) in the aftermath of hurricane / superstorm Sandy, it is appropriate that we bring it up … Read more

A disheartened question from a reader – why?

Skip – why is it union members can go on strike, and then collect unemployment, medicaid, etc. Not only did the union members loose, but so did all their non-union co-workers. I might be tempted to pay a few union leaders a visit – for dinner of course.  Whatever happened to – you work, you … Read more

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