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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.

Father’s Day – random thoughts

I generally don’t like these “Hallmark Holidays” type “special days” and really don’t care if anyone remembers it – but I do remember to remember that Mothers Day is important.

I didn’t grow up with a Dad – he passed away from complications from surgery after a car accident when I was 11.  Before that, he and my Mom had separated and for years, I only saw him on weekends.  I am thankful, though, for all of the men who donated their time in various youth activities (e.g., Cub Scout, Boy Scouts, Medical Explorer Scouts, Christian Service Brigade, various youth ministries at the church I grew up in).  No, I’ll never know what it would have been to have a full time – all the time Dad, but these men did fill a gap that was there that I, at the time, did not know existed.

I wonder, too, if some of the mistake I made with the Youngest and the Oldest were because of the lack of example that I had growing up.  But I look at some of the medical problems that they had growing up and I know that anything that I might have missed by not having a Dad would not have made a difference in dealing with those problems.  At the time, I thought to myself “This is impossible – I don’t even know if they’ll even make it to high school graduation because of their behaviors”.  All things considered, I guess I didn’t too such a bad job.  Why?  I’m now starting to hear them say that the reason why they are doing some of they are is because of the example I set.  I thought they were totally ignoring me growing up.    Yet, I see what they are trying to do today, they way they are trying to make important decisions in their lives:  “But Dad, that’s not how you would handled it – you did such and such back when: I WATCHED YOU and I listened to you”.

Talk about being held accountable!  That beats yet-another-Fathers-Day tie any time…

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NASA’s James Hansen – one of the grandfathers of Global Warming – was flat out wrong by 150%

I remember the first Earth Day and I think that that the environmental problems we had in the US at that time did have to be addressed.  Rivers were polluted, we couldn’t see very far in our large cities and in industrial areas, and yes, the air was toxic.  And a LOT of that has been cleaned up – and from a Conservative standpoint, that was a common good that Government played the right role.

There’s also a problem with the environmental problems we have today; they are still man-caused but of a far different nature.  Instead of actually dealing with severe and and actual environmental problems, they are now from a political and ideological standpoints.  When science ignore the science, that’s a problem that spans past the scientific realm and when it spills into the political realm (and where it rooted and grown like Jack’s infamous Beanstalk) it REALLY has acquired a financial component.

But in going forward, potentially spending Trillions a year to spread the wealth mitigate less than one or two degrees of warming, it might be useful to look to the past to see where we’re going in the future.  As with NASA’s James Hansen’s predictions back in 1988 as to how things would look into the future.

As Watts Up With That? points out, the models that much of our current enviro-frenzy is built upon, that James Hansen pushed and pushed and pushed, have turned out to be flat wrong:

One of the most important publications on the “dangerous anthropogenic climate change” is that of James Hansen and colleagues from the year 1988, in the Journal of Geophysical Research published. The title of the work is (in German translation) “Global climate change, according to the prediction of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”

In this publication, Hansen and colleagues present the GISS Model II, with which they simulate climate change as a result of concentration changes of atmospheric trace gases and particulate matter (aerosols). The scientists here are three scenarios:

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Son of Greece?

I guess that would make Illinois a close kissing cousin? (H/T: NetRightDaily)

GrokTV Special Interview: Josh Youssef for NH State Senate. Question 6: How / can will you manage without the Republican supermajorities, or if they become a minority?

It is easier to govern when your Party is in power and hold the majority and even easier still when that hold on power is a supermajority (factional Party problems aside).  We saw that in 2006 and 2008 with the Democrat Party and in 2010 it flipped to the Rs.  Where Josh had some ideas … Read more

GrokTV Event: Part 2 – Eileen Mashimo on “Sustainable Communities Initiative” that will Federalize local communities

After Ken Eyring presented the overall situation (the joint program of “Sustainable Communities Initiative” by the EPA, the Federal Dept. of Transportation, and by Housing and Urban Development), Eileen Mashimo stood up.  She is a researcher and she was the one that started to follow and trackdown all the known details – and the further … Read more

First it didn’t work, then it did, then it didn’t….reliable?

Last weekend, I did a couple of forays from the Marriott Downtown where our event was being held over to the RI Convention Center where the NetRoots Nation event was being held.  Well, in registering, I got a “SWAG bag” – a canvas tote that was chock-a-block with Progressive “stuff”.  Well, earlier today, I desperately needed a pen to take a couple of notes with and I remembered that the bag had just the thing I needed.

Problem was, it acted like the title – and the folks that “supplied” it (heh!)!

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GrokTV Event: Part 3 – Mary and Rick Hebbard on “Scenic Corridor (a subset of the Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future Plan) Impact on Dover, NH”

At the same meeting that Ken Eyering and Eileen Mashimo spoke about the loss of local control that happens when NH local town fathers sign onto the Sustainable Communities Initiative / Granite State Future Plan being pushed by the Federal entities of the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development), Mary and Rick Hebbard spoke about a subset of the “Feds helping locally” with a small part of this Federalizing local town with a program called Scenic Corridor.

Whew – a long sentence, but this is not a small topic either.  Mary and Rick outlined that while the Feds “innocently” present the program as “help, along with money”, the parts that aren’t publicly talked about lock local communities into organizing and running their town, by hijacking zoning restrictions and loss of the control of private property owners over their property if they are ruled “non-compliant”:

Again, listen to the things that they bring up that AREN’T immediately discussed by the point folks and that ONLY become known when concerned and curious citizens start to dig into what the “fine details” are.

Ask yourself – if programs like this are just so darn wicked good, why isn’t the ENTIRE story and long term ramifications being brought to the fore right from the “get-go”?  Why is it that these Federalies have had to hire a PR firm to “persuade” the local (and they would add “yokels”) that this is such a good deal?

That should alert any NH citizens that some bamboozling might be going on here – for if things were straight forward, open, and transparent, WHY the need for a PR firm?

Rick adds his comments after the jump:

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GrokTV Special Interview: Josh Youssef for NH State Senate. Question 5:If the State is determining Educational curriculum, how is that local control? Or should it be “suggest” vs “determine”?

It’s been a bit since I posted the last interview question I posed to Josh Youseff – but never fear, we have more to put up!  Here, Josh talks about the role of the State in eduction here in NH (especially with the failure of CACR 12).  The question is, where is the line between … Read more

GrokWatch: Are the Moultonborough Library Trustees shafting the Lakes Region TEA Party?

Incoming and developing: the Moultonboro Library trustees decide they can’t stand the heat – but are throwing out the kitchen instead of themselves?  From Moultonboro Speaks: Moultonboro Public Library Trustees to continue ban on political campaigning in library. At today’s Moultonboro Library Board of Trustees meeting, and without a vote or any discussion among the … Read more

GrokTV Event: Is the EPA / DoT / HUD “Sustainable Communities Initiative” a stealth way to Federalize local communities?

After all, that single piece of “non-binding” paper of extremely nice sounding verbiage is that quintessential “something for nothing” from a Government that is “here to help you”.

Problem is, after now being a political blogger and a (former) Budget Committee member, I have a very jaded eye when ANY level of Government says “we can help!”  as the unstated words are always “but with strings attached”.  Or with this “Sustainable Communities Initiative” that is being pushed onto local NH communities (and nationwide as well), those behind this Progressive Enviro’s wet dream, they are actually denying the depth of the “strings attached” (heh – more like string strung together like a net).

Now, after reading that above paragraph, some of you might be thinking “Yo, Skip, that tinfoil hat is reflecting too much sun into your eyes”.  In this case, however, I wish I was going off a bit half-cocked; I’ve heard of Agenda 21 and other similar stuff, but when Ken Eyring and Eileen of the Southern NH 912 Project were done with their presentation at the Rye Republican meeting, visions of snippets of stuff I’ve been reading for years all started to settle into place.  No longer random stuff – this is an attempt to start transforming how Americans live and work.  We all know the transformations of our energy industry that the EPA is now doing (regulating coal out of existence, demanding more of other sources), Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood has made no secret that his Federal Department programs are meant to decrease our use of mobility and instead, create “walkable” communities.   Sounds nice, but make no mistake – this is not to just make nice neighborhoods  – it is policy to get us out of and get rid of cars.  Remember: while Freedom can be measured by the choices we can make, they are all about the choices they will allow us.  And one they wish to deny us is mobility – “walkable” and public transportation will be the choices (I have another post from last weekend’s foray at  NetRoots Nation coming  soon exactly on this point).

But – I am getting ahead of myself.  Here is Ken and his presentation on this initiative known as the Granite State Future Plan – Part 1 of 3:

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Google Bombing Brett Kimberlin, aka “Velvet Revolution”

Mike has been doing yeoman’s work on keeping up on the Brett Kimberlin story (the “Speedway Bomber” that has been using his non-profits and Internet henchmen / minions to slag and harrass Conservative bloggers (like ‘Grok friend Stacy McCain and RedState’s Erik Erickson) to the point of driving them out of their houses, causing them … Read more

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