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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.

Guest Post: an email to NH GOP Chair MacDonald

Chairman MacDonald, Until the day arrives that the NH Republican Party disallows non-republicans to vote in our primaries, I shall contribute nothing to the party.  You really want me to help our party enable non republicans to vote in our primaries?  No money from me. Also, your support of RINOs throughout our once-proud State has … Read more

Well, when private enterprises build their business plan around Obama bailouts, the end is almost certain.

Well, there were a few posts that I had started and didn’t finish before ‘Grok 1.0 gave up the ghost (or, if really old, just plain forgot about them)….this is one.

I  had really thought that the Aptera was a pretty cool looking car (yes, the Eldest, the Youngest, and TMEW DO put up with me) – the idea that it was an EV or a high mileage vehicle was pretty much secondary (interesting, but secondary).  Safety rated, nice looking, and geeky – yes, I would have tried to buy one.  But, am not going to ever have the chance – the money ran out:

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WMUR’s Closeup – Maggie Hassan on 10/30 edition

Yet another post that kinda got away from me – I forgot about it (D’oh!) and with everyone writing at full steam, the posts (like emails in my Inbox) keep moving further and further down the list.  Face it, if an email goes three or four “page downs”, it pretty much is gone from sight and gone from memory (even as I say “Skip, DON’T forget this one!”).  Anyways, these are the notes I took as Maggie Hassan talked with Closeup host, Josh McElven, about a number of topics:

  • Voter ID is a very extreme bill and harm the citizens of NH

Extreme? Very Extreme?   I keep hearing that from the Democrats and about the only thing I can think of that is “extreme” is that Democrats think it an extreme idea that Republicans don’t like the idea that Democrats keep getting votes that really should never have been cast by people who should not have been voting at that polling place.  Perhaps, the real extreme idea is that  the Democrats just don’t think enough of Citizenship and don’t think that ensuring that the validity and integrity of a Citizen’s vote is worth protecting.  We seem to be in a time when the value of Citizenship is deliberately being diminished (e.g., the mayor that wants to let people votethat should not be in the country).  This is not about “discrimination” – this is to hold a fundamental right and responsibility of citizenship high and to maintain its integrity.

  • The State Budget that cut the cigarette tax also cut the University and the College budget significantly.  That says to the young people in this state, smoke more and go to college less….and to employers, don’t bother to come because we aren’t going to have an educated workforce.

Ah yes, just like Alan Greyson’s “Republicans just want you to die quickly” when it comes to healthcare. Is this the best that a future Governor (Lord, forgive me!) can say about the opposition?

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2011 ending? It HAS to be Jib-Jab time!

Once again, we have the privilege to watch the zany take on the stories of 2011 – in 2 minutes! (H/T: ” target=”_blank”>Big Journalism)  

Line of the Day – a little financial portfolio talk

”This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds”

– William Bernstein, investment manager

And that portfolio makeup?

  • 21% – real estate
  • 14% – cash.
  • 0% – bonds / bond funds
  • 0.1% – stock funds (all “short,” or make bets against, U.S. stocks)
  • 64% – gold and silver mining stocks

Whose?

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Geek Stuff – watching light move 1 mm at a time!

At 1 trillion frames per second, this camera CAN make light go in slow motion.  Remember, light travels (in a vacuum) at 186,000 miles per second (doing the math is 700 million miles / hour), so the word “fast” doesn’t do justice to this new system from the boffins of MIT.  The clip is showing … Read more

John Hawkins at RightWingNews nails THE problem of the United States today

That would include the Political Class as well.  Anyone that says “You owe me simply because I exist” should immediately be cut off.  Mean?  Which is meaner: demanding that someone take care of them (as most that do the demanding could provide for themselves, at least in part), or demanding that someone take care of … Read more

See! Even Syrians prefer Bush over Obama!

Especially when a decision for Freedom has to be made: Update thoughts: He voted “present” when it came to Iran and blew the chance to speak well of that nascent freedom movement.  Instead of just giving speeches favoring Freedom over the mullahs, he remained silent – so much for the Obama / Samantha Powers doctrine … Read more

Yet another example of politicians ignoring THEIR responsibility to lecture us on ours

“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

Too bad, he didn’t have “and treat our citizens like adults.  California – the land of sun, fun, and more stupid politicians that can’t balance their budgets or restrain the public unions, but boy, they can nitpick their voters for not doing the right thing, eh?  This time, it is all about harranging drivers that change their oil too often.  Yeah, the State is now concerning itself, due to the self-importance of the enviro-wackos, and telling its drivers “Yo, slow down on your car chugging the oil – break that habit, dude!”

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Obama owns it, now. Will he break it, later?

From Iraq (NY Times):

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq threatened on Wednesday to abandon an American-backed power-sharing government created a year ago, throwing the country’s fragile democracy into further turmoil just days after the departure of American troops and potentially tarnishing what has been cast as a major foreign policy achievement for President Obama.

In a nearly 90-minute news conference broadcast on tape-delay, Mr. Maliki defied his rivals and pushed back on all fronts in Iraq’s deepening political crisis, threatening to release investigatory files that he claimed implicated his opponents in terrorism.

He also threatened the Kurds, a valuable ally with close ties to the Americans, warning that there would be “problems” if they protected Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who fled to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in recent days to escape an arrest warrant on charges that he ran a death squad responsible for assassinations and bombings.

Why should Maliki continue with the “American-backed power-sharing government”?  Effectively, Obama has taken the troops out ahead of time and are now leaving the Iraqi field wide open for other-than-American influence – read that as Iran.  Obama can now be said to have created a political vacuum in the region (or to be kind, a partial at the least; you and I would not last long breathing it).  Sure, with 16,000 personnel stationed at our embassy there we’ll have a presence there but a civilian in a region that loves the strong horse and derides the weak one.  Obama has shut the door on the American influence by signaling weakness in an area that will exploit such a sign.

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Email Doodlings – Really? We HAVE to support Ron Paul because if we don’t, he’ll run as a 3rd Party and Obama will win

Essentially, this is the political equivalent of “don’t make me mad or I’ll kill myself!”.  Another way of putting it is “I’m Sampson (in my own mind, anyways) – if you make fun of me, I’ll bring down your house!”.  Here’s the assertion:

Here is my claim: Republicans have no choice whom they support. They must support Paul. Here is the reason: Paul can defeat Obama. If Paul runs 3rd, the Republican loses. Therefore, Paul is the best choice. What do you disagree with? You can rail on about how you don’t like these realities, but they seem like realities to me. Show me where I am mistaken.

Let me restate it (again):

  1. Paul can beat Obama
  2. If you do not vote to have him be the nominee, Paul will run for President via a 3rd Party.
  3. Whoever you vote for then, will lose to Obama
  4. Therefore, you HAVE to vote for Paul NOW.

My response was this:

I will vote for him if he is the nominee – that is clear and cast in concrete.  But I reject the premise that only Ron Paul can defeat Obama.

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2012 Presidential Primary – next up, Rick Santorum?

Everyone, seemingly, has had the Primary Pop except for one: Rick Santorum.  Of all of the candidates in the race now, I would have to say that he has put the most time and work into his candidacy.  Not just since Primary “began” in earnest, but for much longer than anyone else in the face … Read more

No Mitt, you are not part of TEA Party (even if you spoke at a TEA Party event)

Michelle had this little beauty (emphasis mine):

Mitt Romney said today he’s “the ideal candidate” for the Tea Party movement because his stance on issues lines up “pretty darn well” with the movement he says will soon realize that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich isn’t their best option for president.

“I recognize that the speaker has a big lead here,” Romney said of Gingrich in a press conference in South Carolina. “But I think as people take a closer and closer look, they’ll recognize that I reflect more effectively the positions which they hold on key issues.

Um, okay. Everybody has a different definition of “ideal,” I suppose.

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Difference between free market vs command-and-control economy could not be starker; why do environmentalists wish to turn us into the latter?

The big international news of the day is the death of North Korea’s despot, Kim Jong Ill (yes, the obligatory “no longer ill,  just dead”).  The Communist regime that has controlled the country since the ’40s with its Stalinist command and control can easily be seen from space at night as the image to the … Read more

Yay for Gridlock! The word “compromise” is not bad, but “compromising principles” is a bad phrase. Throw in “social contract” and there’s a big problem.

Social Contract:

an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an organized society or between a community and its ruler that defines and limits the rights and duties of each

I have been noodling on the phrase “social contract” for quite some time ever since Elizabeth Warren had her misbegotten rant denigrating capitalism and entrepreneurship and defending taxation as “part of the social contract”.  The problem is, who really knows what the “social contract” really is?  Let’s narrow it down further – what is it now, what did it use to be, and what should it be in the future?

And who put this contract up for debate, and how come I’m held to it even as others change the rules?  What – no choice for an opt out?  And why do the Libs

Sort of rhetorical questions, but Warren’s assertion is that “the social contract” allows and demands for all she believes is right, but also holds what the entrepreneur believes is wrong.  Thus, it seems,  it is a one way agreement: a liberal can claim that it provides for all kinds of social programs (and in effect, pushing that government programs are now necessary for it to be complete, and the wealth extraction from one set of citizens that is necessary to accomplish it).  Yet, when a Conservative begins to talk about “the social contract”, they are hooted from the room and there is no discussion that, like Government, the reach of “the social contract” is ever being extended (or over extended)?  I used to think that it included (in no particular order) following the laws, paying your taxes,  being nice to your neighbors, pay your taxes, be helpful to your community if led to be so (or, at least cause no harm), and that government would excel in what it should do and be frugal (e.g., don’t waste my money).  Oh yeah, and leave me alone to make my own decisions instead of telling me what to do all the time (after all, I’m an adult).  But remember, to a Liberal, it IS a one way agreement.

Problem is, my sense is now, the social contract is now quantity over quality, the American propensity to throw money at any problem has gone on steroids, and that any attempt to hold those programs accountable for results actually results in jeers thrown to the like of “what, you hate the poor, blacks, gays, browns, Latinos, or <name your least favorite Democrat identity group here>?  Shame on you, you cold hearted, uncaring Neanderthal!  YOU are stopping us from Progressing forward!”.  In essence, they are using the social contract not as an agreement but as a club – with a nail in it that sticks out.  And Lord help a Conservative involved in the Legislative process trying to hold to what we thought was the social contract when trying to keep Govt small enough to fulfill our version of “the social contract” – after all, we believe that people can fulfill such a “contract” and does not require an activist, intrusive Govt.

Oh, that compromise word? That brings me to the next point – when a Republican gives the Dems a loophole – and NH GOP Treasurer Robert Scott seemingly has done just that.  From the UL’s State House Dome:

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