GrokTALK! – Podcast page for 03/05/11

Podcast – week of 02/26/11 GrokTALK! Streaming Live! from GraniteGrok To play (or "stream") a clip now, just click on it.  To download it to your PC, right click on it and tell the process where to save the file for you. (Click here for the promo page) Hour 1      Hour 2 Kirk … Read more

Not until this happens, it seems…

CNSNews: When asked if it was necessary to seal the southwest border to combat transnational drug gangs, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton did not directly answer but said the border is more secure now than in the last 20 years and that crime is part of life in the United States. Uh, … Read more

Data Point – what happens gun ownership goes down in Massachuesetts?

From Truth About Guns: “But I don’t want to go on that commission. . . It’s just another example of how wrong Massachusetts has it when it comes to gun laws. Twelve years ago we had 1.5 million guns owners. Today that’s down to about 230 thousand. Gun crime has risen 200 percent. What else … Read more

Data Point – Dying in War if you are in the US Military

• War of Independence: 2 percent (1 in 50) • War of 1812: 0.8 percent (1 in 127) • Indian Wars: 0.9 percent (1 in 106) • Mexican War: 2.2 percent (1 in 45) • Civil War: 6.7 percent (1 in 15) • Spanish-American War: 0.1 percent (1 in 798) • World War I: 1.1 … Read more

Sometimes to make it work, you have to shut things down…

I’m a software guy, and like any other coder out there, there are times you look at what you’ve written and go "hey, let me just add this one thing more" – and a while later, you say "time to test".  And THEN that famous phrase kicks in: "Aw, crap".

Not only has the new "feature" turned into a bug, but it has taken other parts of the system with it.  Even after commenting out all that new / modified code, the bug is still there.  Examples of this conundrum have been seen here on the ‘Grok – add a new post and all of a sudden, the front page look wacky;

  • all older posts have the same nutty formatting
  • picture look crazy
  • videos won’t vid
  • and the sidebars take a vacation.

OK, the normal thing is to remove the offending post.  Ooops – that "one more thing" wasn’t enough to put things right.  More posts have to be taken out to get back to a stable system before adding stuff back in to "progress forward".  Perhaps tickling a few other areas of code too, in many cases.

Because when a software app is broke, adding more stuff to it ain’t gonna make it right, not going to make work, and you aren’t going to move forward.  You’re only going to make a bigger, more tangled spaghetti code mess.  And as you add new features to a system, especially those that were not originally "designed in", things get more and more tangled.  It finally crushes itself under it’s own weight.  Sure, you may get that new feature, but the overall system ends up harder to maintain (costing more to keep running), works slower (forcing users to use "faster" computers), and takes up more space (bigger disks).  That’s why most engineers always call the smallest possible solution that does the job is called "elegant"; those that construct such packages are hailed as superstars by their peers.

A great proxy (or metaphor) for our government?

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FRANKLY SPEAKING By Congressman Frank Guinta: Taking stock of my first two months in Washington

Taking stock of my first two months in Washington

Sometimes, when you’re moving fast, it’s a good idea to take a moment and look back at all the ground you’ve covered.  March 5th marks two months since the new Congress convened.  I want to tell you about the many things I’ve been doing these past eight weeks.

I’m proud to follow-through on my pledge to be a Congressman who is actively in touch with folks here in New Hampshire.  My guiding rule is simple: I will be in Washington whenever there is a debate or vote on the House floor, and for committee hearings and meetings.  Otherwise, I will be here in the district so I can stay in touch with people.  This is the best way I can effectively represent you on Capitol Hill.

I held my first town hall meeting in Laconia in early February. We had to delay it for 24 hours because of one of the many snowstorms that have pounded us all winter, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the 100+ folks who showed up on a frigid Thursday night.  The crowd was so large, we had to move it to a bigger facility next door in order to seat everyone.  As this column was going to press, I was scheduled to hold my first tele-town hall on March 1st.  Look for more of both types of meetings in the near future.

My staff has held open office hours in Jackson and Conway, with more scheduled in different towns soon.

I’m also traveling across the district, talking about issues that matter to Granite Staters and listening to their concerns.  I’ve met with the Great Bay Water Community Coalition in Dover, toured the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, visited the GE Aviation Plant in Hooksett and talked with fishermen at the Yankee Fishermen’s Coop in Seabrook.  I’ve visited Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, Lake Regional General Hospital in Laconia and Exeter Hospital to discuss healthcare concerns, and Bakersville School in Manchester and Spaulding High School in Rochester to learn more about education needs.  

The pace has been just as fast in Congress.  In one of our first acts during the new session, I had the honor of reading the Second Amendment during the first time the U.S. Constitution was ever read aloud on the House floor.  One of our very first votes was to cut Congressional staff spending by 5%.  It is only right that the very first spending reduction came in our own budgets; the House must lead the way by example as we ask all Americans to get by with less federal funding.

Of course, the first major piece of legislation we passed was the long-sought repeal of last year’s healthcare reform law.  I was proud to vote with the majority in passing it.  The existing law fails to deliver the very thing Americans want: affordable, quality healthcare coverage.  It is so badly flawed, it would be better to scrap it and start over from scratch to give people the true reform they want.

I voted for…

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Data Point – Selling those electric cars

As I pointed out here, President Obama has decided that: With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. That’s 4 years for now.  Thinking that’s about a quarter million cars / year, that … Read more

Moultonborough, NH edition: Scary leanings of Teachers

As I pointed out here, there seems to be a side of teachers to believe that they are of more importance to a child’s well being and success than their parents.  Yes, I know about how some parents are doing the best they could (according to teachers) to help their kids through school and the like; I get that.  Having run a daycare center, I saw it first hand and gently shook my head at some parents.  But that was a minority, a real small minority of parents.

Sidenote: Sometimes, parents give up trying to help.  I’ll admit – I’m not a math major as I only got through multi-variate calculus and I do computers instead of my major, biology (where I concentrated on energy transfers within sub-cellular mechanisms).  I figured that SURE, I can help my kids with their math and science homework.  But I’ll tell you, all I ever got was “THAT’s not how my teacher teaches me!”.  And when I finally figured out the cockamamie way it was being done, I finally learned why Johnnie and Janie can’t read and make change in the 7-11; I admit, I stopped trying to “help” my kids – it caused more problems than it solved.  It brought back memories of trying to teach a Education student what Y=MX+b was.

But I would never, not even in my wildest dreams of megalomania or delusions of being “Emperor for the World for a Week”, would presuppose to believe that I was better for their kids than they were – my staff were paid to watch over and teach age appropriate lessons.  Never did I think that we were that important to believe that we should or could supplant parents.

Unfortunately, like the teachers in that post, there are others that need to relearn that lesson – like these words uttered by teachers in Moultonborough, NH back in October, whose words were similar to that of the WI teachers:

…students are WAY ahead of the times, way ahead of parents on multiple issues especially when it comes to openness and sexuality…I disagree with having parent being allowed in.  I think that students are willing to talk about this because they have different views than their parents…a huge disservice to the community and the school.

And I wonder why they have different views…as another teacher admitted (also speaking against letting parents into that workshop:

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WI Protesters: Scary leanings of Teachers

You know, this is a continued theme I hear from teachers – parents are secondary to kids success.  It is we, the teachers, that knows what is best for your kids.  Think I’m kidding?

Scary in that it seems to be a trend that is emerging from teacher that have taken Hillary’s triteness ("It takes a village…") all too much to heart – WE are the village and we count more than parents do.  And the Teachers Union seems to be fine with as we saw it from the Wisconsin union takeover of the State Capital for two weeks (at which point, the fleebagger Dem Senators finally returned with their tails between their legs, lost the vote, and continued home, still with their tails between their legs – except the tails got clipped by the Republicans; but I digress).

Once again, the Left has no problem in making it "all about the children" – especially when they are in control of that child.  And one of the biggest components of the Left was represented there was the Teachers Union.   and this attitude that teachers know better than parents was this:

On the curb, teacher Leah Gustafson held a sign saying, "Scott, your son is in my class. I teach him, I protect him, I inspire him."

When I read this, I nearly wretched as her words sunk in:

  • I know where your son is….he’s mine.
  • *I* protect him (with the subliminal message, perhaps, of "and better than you do")
  • *I* inspire him (he looks to me first)

This is a teacher that, in my estimation, is willing to use a child as a political pawn and has no problem at all in doing it.  In fact, it it worse – she is using her political opponent’s (WI Gov. Scott Walker) son directly as that pawn. Instead of the message of "we teach everyone, including your’s", it came across as "I have what is your’s". I often have local parents refuse to get involved in local school funding issues, or to bring up certain situations to a more public light, for fear of retribution by the teachers.  Oh, to be sure, some may well be flagrantly done, but many would be much more subtle.  However, WHO in their right mind wants to put their kids at risk – especially in schools. Imagine the Gov. reaction to that?

What hit more was the possessiveness shown and the yin/yang logic:  I protect him (and you don’t). She even goes further with the inspire comment.  Now, to be fair, many of us have been inspired by teachers we have had in the past.  But in this context, she is pushing aside the primary responsibility of parents in a political grab; she has taken the mantle of deciding that she does do all these thing – and how dare you mess with my compensation for doing so!  Further was this that I read at the tail end of the show on Saturday:

Is this fair to the kids?

Yes.  This is about the kids.  if we don’t have good pay, the kid are never going to benefit in the long run.

Go back. Read that slowly.  Look at the linkage that is being made: unless you taxpayers give us more of your money, kiss your kid’s future goodbye.  Think I’m kidding?  Here’s the clip:

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MicroInterview: author Dr. Tom E. Woods

Dr. Tom Woods is the author of 11 books, holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a Masters of Philosophy and Ph.D from Columbia University.  A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, ("…the world center of the Austrian School of economic [free markets] and libertarian political and social theory…". He is … Read more

Press Release: Congress Frank Guinta on the Continuing Resolution

For Immediate ReleaseContact:  J. Mark Powell(202) 226-8530 GUINTA STATEMENT ON A SHORT-TERM CONTINUING RESOLUTION “I won’t vote for a stopgap spending bill that doesn’t contain meaningful cuts in federal spending.” (Washington – February 28, 2011)    Rep. Frank Guinta (NH-01) released the following statement on a short-term Continuing Resolution. Background:    On February 19th, the House passed … Read more

TEA Party influence? Certainly!

Seated is Bill O’Brien – Speaker of the NH House – signing the first bill of this session (and the first bill as Speaker).  Mazel Tov!

But what was more interesting was the picture Gadsden Flag (the adopted icon of the TEA Party movement) behind him.  According to Seth Cohn, the signatures are of those new folks from the Liberty & Freedom wing of the Republican Party (among others) that helped to vote him into the Speakership.

I’ve listened to the jounalist based pundits here in NH that stated that most people here in NH voted for anyone with an R after their name (as opposed to D in 2006 & 2008), yet, they admit that these "less conservative voters" certainly did vote for candidates that espoused much more conservative (and in many cases, much more libertarian) than themselves.  I wondered about that statement – was it true?  Or whether this was part of the TEA Party movement ramifications that has, in part, caught up the general public?

No, not in the overall fervor and sturm und drang, but more in the question of "where is this country and state headed?".  Is this our heritage – what ARE our founding principles?

And a backlash NOT just against Democrats, but the overall sliding of the Dems to the Left (aka, Progressive socialism) even as many Republicans didn’t move to the Right but burrowed down to bedrock fundamentals like archeologists seeking buried truths (or miners, seeking that shiny gold and sparkling diamonds of limited govt, individual freedom, and self-reliance)?

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GrokTALK! – after thoughts…

During yesterday’s GrokTALK! show, we discussed the Right To Work bill  (HB 474) making its way through the NH Legislature.  After the show, I received this from GrokTALK! listener, Barbara: "…why does the public sector think they deserve a pension when pensions have largely been eliminated for the private sector?" Here were my 10 quick … Read more

GrokTALK! – left over links

When we talked with NH Rep. Andrew Manuse yesterday, he talked that a number of the public union employees are unhappy with him for his Right To Work stances – you can read that here.  Certainly, the unions are trying to redefine the meme – against unions?  Their claim? "You are against Rights, you are against the Middle Class, and you are against America!".
 
Nonsense.  But, coming from the second most militant public sector union (after the Teachers), why am I not surprised?
 
I also read the following from my friend Warner Todd Huson:
Proving that there seems to have been a good reason that in many eras of American history the “Irish Need Not Apply,” a bunch of drunken morons calling themselves the Dropkick Murphys have added their off key voices to American union thuggery by writing a protest song that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has glommed onto.
Link is here at Publius’ Forum.  SEIU, the most socialist of the unions, has taken DropKick Murphys’ song as an unofficial theme song, it seems.  Lyrics?
 
    When the boss comes calling he’ll put us down
    When the boss comes calling you gotta stand your ground
    When the boss comes calling, don’t believe their lies

    When the boss comes calling he’ll take his toll
    When the boss comes calling will ya sell you soul
    When the boss comes calling we gotta organize

    Let them know
    We gotta take the bastards down
    Let them know
    We gotta smash ‘em to the ground
    Let them know
    We gotta take the bastards down
   

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GrokTALK! – a thank you

From Ed Naile, staunch Democrat and Chair of CNHT, a thank you of sorts from having him on the show yesterday over at NH Insider: Nailestradamus: Quatrain # 2010 And the son of Madis known as Walker Unleashed the thugs of girth and waist And they shouted and made great noise As benefits once bargained were … Read more

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