Skip, Author at Granite Grok

GrokTV Special Interview: Pam Tucker-RNC Committeewoman Candidate. Question 7 – As RNC Committeewoman, how can you sharpen the diferences between Republican and Democrat positions?

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

Continuing on the same theme as our sixth question (“How verbose will you be in defending Republican ideals as Committeewoman during the election season?”)to Pam Tucker as she is striving to be the next RNC Committeewoman from NH is still oriented to the upcoming election season as we know that the Democrats are now cranking … Read more

BE BREITBART: Update 7: Right To Know Request – IT/HR – Lunches, breaks aggregation and NH official policy

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

The last post concerning our Right To Know request of the NH Department of Environmental Services (primarily) and Department of IT (secondarily) covered the NH policy on lunch and rest breaks:

DES’s standard workday is 8:00 am through 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday. This reflects a 7.5 hour/day, 37 .5 hour/week basic workweek which, consistent with NH Admin. Rule Per 1201.03, accounts for a half hour lunch period that is not considered work time. Also, pursuant to Per 1201.03, the workday includes a 15 minute rest period every 4 hours. Lunch and rest periods do not have to be taken at specific times during the workday. Mr. de Seve is assigned to a 37 .5 hour per week schedule that coincides with DES’ standard workday/workweek. As to the DOIT “Computer Use document” referenced in this request, please refer to the Response to Request 3, above.

Well, one of the Groksters read that and had a question (again, with an eye to the quantity of blogging that Mr. Richard de Seve did as he was allegedly working:

Are employees allowed, with their lunch break and rest breaks, to “stitch them” together and form one large break? If that is true, are they allowed to take them earlier or later than the normal lunch times (i.e., use them at the beginning of the day to come in later or delay them until the end of the day and leave early for the day)?

The DES RTK Dude wrote back this afternoon with his answer:

BE BREITBART: Update 8: DES Right To Know Update : IT data requests and response – network traffic (#FAIL)

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

All of the posts in our DES Right To Know request concerning Mr. Richard de Seve massive blogging activities during work hours as he was allegedly working (while on the taxpayer dime) prior to this have been “preliminary”. We set the table, ordered from the menu, and enjoyed the appetizers. Now, it is time for the main courses -the IT (Information Technology) network data and what actions should have been triggered.

With our tech background, we wanted to be able to establish linkages and definitely prove:

Nullify Now! – Philadelphia The ‘Grok is there!

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

Updated and Bumped: Mike just called in and he will be on, live, with Mark and Joshua starting at 12:05 am EDT. Update II – if you were waiting to listen to Mike, well, live radio happens: he’ll be on after 1pm =================================== Grokster Mike is in the City of Brotherly Love for the next … Read more

I am such a sucker for these feel good videos….A soldier and his dog

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

I like cats – used to own a couple (Rhysling and Tiona) but deep down, I’m a dog guy. Playful, lovable furballs – and dedicated and loyal as well. Sure, there are times when I think that they have trained ME – their behaviors generally elicit a reaction from me that compels me to do … Read more

GrokTV Special Interview: Pam Tucker-RNC Committeewoman Candidate. Question 8 – Republicans have said that they have eliminated regulations; got that list?

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

In addition to seeking to be the next RNC Committeewoman, Pam Tucker has something that her opponent cannot claim to have: experience as the current Deputy Speaker of the NH House where she has been intimately involved with policy and the legislation. One of the claims this session is that the Republicans have been concentrating on fiscal matters and making NH more biz friendly even as the media is hyping the social issues (to which my retort is “there is ALWAYS a fiscal cost to every social issue!”). So, I challenged Pam: “show me the list!”

A couple days later, she sent the list – take a look after the jump!

Previous questions:

Q1 – Why are you running?
Q2 – Why should the ordinary Republican care who their RNC Committeewoman is?
Q3 – Is defending the NH GOP platform part of the role of the Committeewoman’s role?
Q4 – Why vote for you over your opponent?
Q5 – What part of the NH GOP Platform is in danger and why should people rally around it?
Q6 – How verbose will you be in defending Republican ideals as Committeewoman during the election season?
Q7 – As RNC Committeewoman, how can you sharpen the diferences between Republican and Democrat positions?

Human Achievement Hour – 2012

September 26, 2018March 31, 2012 Skip

OK, it’s that time of year again: Earth Hour is upon us where tonite between the hours of 8:30 and 9:30, we are all supposed to act like we are back in the Stone Age and just sit in the dark (ok, maybe a candle might be OK, but remember : IT’S CREATING MORE CO2!!!!!!). But remember, it’s intentions that could (as with all things Liberal, the Environmental movement has morphed into after first being responsible) rather than actually, you know, accomplishing something concrete.

But SKIP!, you don’t think that turning off all the lights for exactly ONE hour is actually a responsible act?

So, how do some “Ecologists” see the human race?

September 26, 2018March 30, 2012 Skip

I have several different sets of “bookmarks” in my FireFox setup – one has some environmental sites that I go to. Yes folks, there are conservative leaning (what I would consider, given that I hold two scientific degrees, “leaning on science” sites). Others? I would have to say that one of them is more of the “true believe” (what I would consider, given that I hold two scientific degrees, “leaning on faith” sites): TreeHugger (ya think!). It can be VERY instructive at times – the post:

Experts Warn Urban Expansion Puts Humanity at Risk

With 7 billion people on the planet, things have already begun to feel a bit hot and crowded, particularly in swelling urban centers — but researchers warn that we’ve ain’t seen nothing yet. Over the next 38 years, Earth’s population is predicted to balloon to 9 billion, with most of those new additions taking up residence in our increasingly crowded cities. But not only does such an outlook of expanding sprawl spell trouble in terms of city planning, say experts, its environmental toll could put humanity itself at risk.

Ah yes, people after Paul Erlich’s own heart (not to mention John Holdren – the science advisor to President Obama): Malthusians (e.g., we denizens of earth have been overcrowding the Earth for hundreds of years now. Now, it isn’t that these folks are just for having the right number of folks living on earth, some of them want NO folks living on earth – look at this comment that one of them left for us all:

Data Point – NH the least religious state in the Union

September 26, 2018March 30, 2012 Skip

According to Gallup, individuals who indicated that religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week were classified as “very religious” by Gallup officials. That definition would mean 40 percent of Americans nationwide are very religious, the survey found. Another 32 percent of … Read more

Data Point – Highest corporate tax rate in the world is the US

September 26, 2018March 30, 2012 Skip

A #1 honor that is does not bode well: On Sunday, the United States gets a distinction no nation wants — the world’s highest corporate tax rate. Japan, which currently has the highest rate in the world — a 39.8% rate on business income between national and local taxes — cuts its rate to 36.8% … Read more

Internet Doodlings – Greenies want more, don’t like I’m pointing out we’re broke

September 26, 2018March 30, 2012 Skip

Congress, Please Don’t Cut Funding for Bike and Pedestrian Programs

In the U.S., cities and states provide most of the funds for bike and pedestrians developments, but the federal government also provides essential funds without which many very important projects wouldn’t have been possible. The previous transportation bill, which was signed into law in 2005 by a Republican Congress and Republican president, supported that vital infrastructure funding. But the current federal government isn’t so keen on creating alternatives to cars: “The Senate has passed a bill that by and large preserves the status quo, but the House of Representatives has tried to eliminate bike and pedestrian programs.”

OK, back to TreeHugger for another go (no, I don’t make a general habit of commenting there but after a while, I get tired of seeing the “gimme hands” always out as if the Federal Government is just another name for Santa Claus or view it as a bottomless money pit simply ready for the bucket to go down and when it comes up, their pet project is funded. Realization of the nations current fiscal status – pretty much either nil or determined obliviousness.

So, seeing yet another iteration of “get that free money for MY important project” gimme mentality, I could not help myself:

We’re $16 Trillion in the hole here, folks – when does the spending stop? In reading this site, I keep seeing pleas to do with less – how about with less Federal spending. If something is THAT important, why not persuade your local level of government to spring for these kinds of projects – after all, it benefits the local community.

And if they won’t, doesn’t that send a message?

Really, if something is that important to a local community, shouldn’t they be self-responsible for paying for their own needs (or wants)? I have never understood the outlook of “hey, we want something – but let’s get somebody else to pay for it”. Silly me; as I was growing up from childhood to adulthood, that had a name: selfishness. But, this is today and that, seeming, was a more mature time.

Well, that was not well received by the Greenie Keynesians – after all, they can’t go green on their own dime, can they?

BE BREITBART: Update 5: Right To Know Request – IT and HR records for NH DES employee, Richard de Seve – RTK responses from the State of NH DES.

September 26, 2018March 29, 2012 Skip

Well, Monday the “RTK Dude” from the State of NH Department of Environmental Services (“DES”) gave me a call to let me know that we had “incoming” from to our Right To Know Request concerning Mr. Richard de Seve (apparently, we have helped his Google ranking – or our’s concerning him) activities and the State’s data concerning this. To be sure, it is an interim response – we asked for a lot and some of it still has to be researched and provided.

That said, this interim release has some very important news from our view point, and confirmed that there is trouble. To be sure, Mr. de Seve has already acknowledged his guilt for inappropriate use of State computer resources over a long amount of time to push his political agenda on sites outside of the State’s network. However, as we started to look into his activities, we quickly thought of more questions. Specifically, the State has written its Rule book – is the State actually living up to it in all aspects in regards to both the Letter of “the Law” as well as the Spirit of “the Law”? And are they doing the right things in the right areas to even have a shot of doing this?

BE BREITBART: Update 6: Right To Know Request – IT/HR – Responses from the State of NH DES.

September 26, 2018March 29, 2012 Skip

In our last post, we started to go over the first official response from NH’s Department of Environmental Services concerning the political blogging of Richard de Seve while on the taxpayer dime – a LOT of Lefty blogging from this staunch Democrat (sufficient enough to be a Delegate for Dennis Kucinich during his run in 2008 for President). In our Right To Know we had several specific items to which DES had to respond, one way or another, and each was addressed (one way or another).

One way or another? Well, if you remember, I singled out that word “responsive” in that last post; that will be discussed. Not to stretch this out, but essentially, here are the possible outcomes:

The data just does not exist – either it was not captured, plain got lost, or deleted / trashed (based on time criteria) – “No data for you!” (to paraphrase the Seinfeld Soup Nazi)
The data exists, but pertains to personnel matters, and thus are exempt from RSA 91-A requests – again, “No data for you!” (to paraphrase the Seinfeld Soup Nazi)
Data exists, but is beyond the scope of our request (i.e., we will not see all of Mr. de Seve’s emails; sure, we asked for emails, but worded such that we were interested only in those outbound of the State’s domain – and not DES work related) – “meh, so what; no biggie – we’re just not that much into you”
Data exists, it meets our time criteria (1/1/2005 to 3/12/2012) and fits our request – Ahhhhhh – responsive!

Well, NH has a law for the First-In-The-Nation Primary so why SHOULDN’T South Carolina make it law for the First-In-The-South-Primary?

September 26, 2018March 28, 2012 Skip

And the jumping escapades just got a tad more pro-active. Everyone knows (even if they won’t admit it) that NH Republicans have no choice as to when the NH Primary is held – by LAW, it must be the first in the nation. Methinks that South Carolinians have done this just to slam down the gauntlet to those usurpers from Florida; from

The Office of the Speaker
SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2012
Contact: Greg Foster
(803) 734-3125
gregfoster@schouse.gov

Ensuring SC’s First-in-the-South Presidential Primary
House Bill will preserve Palmetto State’s national influence

(Columbia, SC) – Today, the S.C. House of Representatives introduced a measure (H. 5081) aimed at securing our state’s First-in-the-South Presidential Primary. A majorly influential position for both political parties, this early primary brings more than just status recognition – it translates into high-profile national exposure and millions of dollars in economic impact.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell said:

EPA decides to be both Legislative and Executive Branch – outlaws coal generated electricity

September 26, 2018March 28, 2012 Skip

So, where is all that electricity going to come for Obama’s million electric cars?

The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

Legislation? What the heck does our Monarch Obama wants to do with that?

NH GOP Annual Meeting – By Law amendments

September 26, 2018March 28, 2012 Skip

As a member of the NH GOP Committee, I get to vote for this inside baseball Republican style stuff. Two folks have put forward amendments: Sylvia Smith and Diane Bitter. Both are about the same subject matter – how a sitting NH GOP Chair can be removed from their position. Right now, it is … Read more

BE BREITBART: Update 3: Right To Know Request – IT and HR records for NH DES employee, Richard de Seve – signed policy copy

September 26, 2018March 28, 2012 Skip

I had more back and forth with the “RTK dude” yesterday. I will have to say, it is FAR easier in dealing with him than my local School Board when it comes to Right To Know requests! When we first filed our Right To Know concerning the political blogging at the Concord Monitor, we first thought that Richard de Seve (DES employee, chapter VP for SEIU, and former Delegate for Dennis Kucinich for President back in 2008, and Conservation Committee member in Gilmanton) had to follow the Dept of IT Computer Usage Policy. So, we asked for it:

Copies of the Mr. de Seve’s signed copies of the IT Department’s Computer Use policy that he signs at his annual review, showing that he has read, understands, and agrees to abide by

Well, the DES RTK Dude set us straight by gently informing us that DES had its own policy (posted here). Even though Mr. de Seve has already admitted his guilt in stealing time from NH taxpayers and citizens for his own political purposes, the DES RTK Dude, to satisfy the intent of part of the RTK, sent us a copy of Mr. de Seve’s signed copy of the DES Computer Policy Agreement (shortened for space by me, larger size after the jump):

So we have two facts in evidence:

This former lawyer willingly signed his acknowledgement that he had read and understood the DES policy on computer use.
Like I said above, he outright admitted to violating the policy in his email to Steve.

And no, we have not asked what the ramifications of this are – yet. That is not part of our Right To Know.

We also received some other answers to our Right To Know items – we’ll be posting them up later!

Guest post by Peter Bearse, Ph.d: “On Gay Marriage”

September 26, 2018March 28, 2012 Skip

“ON GAY “MARRIAGE”

The issue of gay marriage is not a civil rights issue. The civil rights movement arose because of racial discrimination that blatantly foreclosed or limited black opportunities to obtain the basics of human sustenance, including education, housing, financing, employment, and fair pay for equal work. There is no comparison between the gay minority and the black minority communities in these and other aspects of “civil rights.” As the work of Richard Florida on the “creative economy” has made clear, the gay community is advantaged, not disadvantaged. That is one reason why gays are seen as an asset to cities. They help, for example, to gentrify black and other lower income neighborhoods. They typically have higher incomes and greater wealth than most Americans.

So, if gay marriage is not a “civil rights” issue, what sort of issue is it? It is a matter of public vs. private. The gay marriage movement is a noisy minority insisting that public law should assign public value to private behavior. Unlike the (at first) “noisy minority” pressing for civil rights, it is not a movement to change public law to honor our most cherished public values, constitutional or otherwise. Gay sex has nothing to do with the public purposes of either sex or marriage. Heterosexual sex is the greatest gift of evolution. It arose over millennia for a fundamental reason: so that species could survive and further evolve through the generation of difference and variety. So, gay marriage is contrary to evolution and the progress of human life. The issue is just that fundamental.

So, fellow citizens who are homosexual: We recognize your right to live your private lives in ways that you choose. Most of us don’t give a damn about what you do in your bedrooms. We support your efforts to remove any vestiges of sexual discrimination in employment, insurance, contracts and other aspects of civil law. BUT we will not agree to relabel the public institution of marriage to suit your private preferences – that gay marriage be recognized as having public value equivalent to that of heterosexual marriage. At issue, fundamentally, is the nature of the human family – how children are procreated and raised to be fully human – of how the human species advances in a world of differences. Homosexual couples cannot conceive a child. It takes a man and a woman to make a baby and, even more important, to properly raise a child to assume a fully mature role in human society. Values inconsistent with the creation, maintenance and advance of human life are not maintainable as public values.

GrokTV Special Interview: Pam Tucker-Candidate RNC Committeewoman Candidate. Q6:How verbose will you be in defending Republican ideals as Committeewoman during the election season?

September 26, 2018March 27, 2012 Skip

Given that my opinion is that the current NH GOP Chair is not being all that vocal concerning Republican ideals and stances into the public square, this was a natural question for me to ask – heck, all Republicans ought to be asking their NH GOP organizational “higher ups” (like Chairs, Secretaries, Treasurers, and the … Read more

Rebuttal to Alison Therriault – No, there is no extreme jeopardy to women’s right to control their lives in NH

September 26, 2018March 26, 2012 Skip

I submitted this in rebuttal to a Letter to the Editor in the Laconia Daily Sun (P. 7, March 23, 2012) (slightly expanded here):

It used to be that becoming an adult meant becoming independent and being self-responsible for their own well-being. Economic dependency on family was left behind along with the toys of childhood. It meant sober realization that what one wants, one earns. “Deserves” becomes relegated to childhood status;”earned”, its mature replacement.

Ms. Therriault shows her wish for maturity in stating “I control my body”. True enough; that’s what adults do – exhibit self-control. You have the ability to decide, within the statistical limits of reliable birth control and human discipline, how many children to have, when to have them, and when to start that family (it seems, too, that marriage is becoming more and more optional in today’s society. No wonder single moms are becoming the biggest proponents of “Government that gives you more with other peoples’ money” but that is grist for another letter).