Humor (??) National Guard copter parks on street – gets ticket

Helicopter Parking TicketYes, that is right – landing on a street in Boulder, CO., this National Guard Blackhawk had to land on the street.  And the pic is starting to go around the ‘Net (I spotted the story at BlackFive).

Now, Boulder is where all the rain fell (multiple inches on a number of days) and the damage is immense and people have perished and are missing.  Guard copters have been flying supplies and people around – but like in times like this, they must land in populated areas.  Depending on the local vegetation / trees, landing in a street (wide, of course) makes sense to transfer people and that material.

Now, I have not yet found out if it is a a joke or for real, so I’m not sure what to think so I’ll just repeat what BlackFive had:

So ridiculous it’s funny…and sadly idiotic.

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GrokTALK! Guest Segment – NH House Rep Jane Cormier

New Hampshire House Rep Jane Cormier joins us in the final half-hour to discuss how the New Hampshire left treated the death of Republican Robert Kingsbury, David Huot, the Belknap county Jail, uncivil county commissioners, exposing the Delphi technique, and how to mess with the pre-determined outcomes at your next NH Listens “listeing” session. (With … Read more

Data Point – Sustainable?

101,493,000 people in the United States got health-insurance coverage through government-run programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, military-related health-care programs, the Indian Health Service, and state-government-run health plans.  97,180,000 people who worked full-time in the private sector And with Obamacare, the first number will skyrocket.  That second number is decreasing – and … Read more

No, the responsibility is all Jennifer Horn’s…

WMURI’ve been meaning to get back to this for a while; from WMUR’s Political Standing from 9/6/2013:

Kelly Ayotte: She takes the down arrow on behalf of all New Hampshire Republicans. All these problems are now her problem. They are too big, even for NHGOP Chair Jennifer Horn.

Now there’s a declaration that is about as wrong as it gets.  The MAIN job of the NH GOP is to get candidates to run.  Period.  That’s it, seemingly (er, I can think of a lot of things, and if you’ve been reading the ‘Grok for any period of time, I’m guessing you know what some of those are).  And there is ONLY one person responsible for this, and that is the NH GOP Chair, Jennifer Horn.  While some might see Kelly Ayotte, being the highest elected Republican official in NH, as being the “titular head”, getting people to run is NOT her responsibility.  And Pindell is dead wrong in trying to lay this on Ayotte.  When you are the Chief, the buck stops with you (regardless of what President Blameless says).

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MD Gov. Martin O’Malley Will Speak to NH Democrats…On How to Suck Like Maryland?

Is it hypocritical for Democrats to invite governors from states shaped like a gun?
Is it hypocritical for NH Democrats to invite governors from states shaped like a gun?

The professional left in New Hampshire are all abuzz about the upcoming visit of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.  They invited him to speak to the collective at the NHDP’s annual BORG clam bake–the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.  He is an interesting choice.

First off, Maryland is shaped like a gun.  That should speak for itself.

And while Maryland managed to pull it together fiscally this year, their budgets are typically a disaster, riddled with debt spending and deficits.  The state is consistently ranked as one of the least free places to live in the US, with personal freedom ranking 49th (50 being the worst) on a regular basis.  Maryland is also in the top 20 for highest overall tax burden and has 3 times as many welfare recipients as the Granite State.

/whisper “And their state flower is the Black-Eyed Susan. (raaaacccciiiiiisssssts)”

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GrokTV: Cornerstone Common Core Forum – Williamson M. Evers

The final speaker for the evening was Williamson M. Evers of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University where he specialized in research on education policy especially as it pertains to curriculum, teaching, testing, accountability, and school finance from kindergarten through high school.  Evers was the US assistant secretary of education for policy from 2007 to 2009.  he was a senior advisor to US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings during 2007.  From July to December 2003, Evers served in Iraq as a senior advisor for education to Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority.  In 1996 Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Evers to the earlier CA State Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards.  he is the only individual to have served on both standards commissions, both of which proposed the subject matter that students should learn in each grade.

Evers was elected in November 2004 to the Santa Clara County Board of Education, on which he served until February 2007.  He is the immediate past president of the board of directors of the East Palo Alto Charter School on which he served from 1997 to 2004.

Part 1:

Part 2 and previous videos after the jump

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Obamacare goes LIVE in 1.5 weeks. How’s that gonna work for us?

Through serendipity I’ve ended up working in HIT (health information technology). I take 50 calls a day with independent insurance agents/brokers to navigate the hoops to qualify to sell on the FFM (Federal Facilitated Marketplaces). The Government websites they need to access to register are riddled with random error messages, and simply attempting to log in to complete this process routinely fails. The agents/brokers are, to a person, terrified. If they cannot complete this process by October 1st (the deadline) they are hosed. Nobody knows what to do, and this will only get worse when millions of consumers join the fray of the marketplace. It appears nobody scaled the back end to accommodate this exponential growth. And now?, It’s too late. It’s like the owner of the White Star line getting a telegram about the Titanic sinking and saying “We need to order more lifeboats.” And these are the smartest guys in the room? #soscrewed. For obvious reasons, don’t use my name please…

(H/T: Instapundit) I work for an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software company: we do manufacturing soup to nuts.  From the receiving dock to inspection to inventory to shop floor to QA to picking and packing to shipping, we do it.  We handle the engineering bits, the work enters, the scheduling, purchasing, and financials (and a whole bunch more around and in between).  We do small companies, divisions, and entire corporations ($5 mil to billions in revenue).  And one thing that we (and all other ERP companies) know, is test, test, test,test, test…and more test.  Single function test, departmental test, cycle tests, flow tests – to complete simulation tests with rigorous results checking.  Months and months spent before throwing that GO LIVE switch.

Oh, and did I forget something?  Oh yeah – load tests.  Do you have enough hardware to support X number of users doing N number of “stuff”?  Can your network support the traffic?  What happens when you go from 1 location to 3?  3 to 10?  Country wide (we’ll leave international aside for purposes of Obamacare)?

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Party Über Alles: Dems Flee Benghazi Hearings To Avoid Testimony From Families of Victims

What else would you expect from the “compassionate” party?  You know the one, the Democrat party.  Filled with all of those deplorable, execrable, cretins who are only “compassionate” when it serves their higher interest: Democrat power.  The latest exhibit of their wretched impulse was on display today during the House Oversight and Government Reform hearing … Read more

IRS Political Targeting Scandal Still Alive…

This isn’t going away…Tea party

Internal Revenue Service employees were instructed to flag political groups seeking tax-exempt status if they touted literature containing “anti-Obama rhetoric” and “emotional” statements, according to recently uncovered agency documents obtained by USA Today.

…

“As prominent politicians publicly urged the IRS to take action on tax-exempt groups engaged in legal campaign intervention activities, the IRS treated tea party applications differently,” the report states. “Applications filed by tea party groups were identified and grouped due to media attention surrounding the existence of the Tea Party in general.”

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What Anti-Self Defense Democrats Want For Your Town

Chicago has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the nation because they can pass whatever laws they please with little or no opposition from anyone with even a lick of common sense.  It is a laboratory for their anti-gun policies.  And it is a ‘labratory’ with the the highest murder rate in the nation.

FBI: Chicago passes New York as murder capital of U.S.

The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012, surpassing even New York — despite the fact that the Second City has only one third as many residents as the Big Apple.

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Navy Yard Shooter Aaron Alexis – Prius Driving Liberal Who didn’t like Bush and Supported Obama.

Ruh-roh.  Aaron Alexis was not you typical Tea Party Radical.   In fact, he probably didn’t like the Tea Party at all.

“Aaron wasn’t conservative like I am. He was more of a liberal type; he wasn’t happy with the former administration. He was more happy with this administration — as far as presidential administrations,…”

Here’s the headline you will not see…
“Collectivist Liberal Succumbs to Progressive Party Rage; Should Democrats be Allowed To Buy Guns?”

It is common knowledge among anyone outside the blue bubble that Democrats are the unhinged, mentally ill party,  They live in liberal bubbles and congregate in liberal intellectual ghettos, where they wring their hands and dance widdershins around what they view as the burning problems of the day;  problems that are limited to the tunnel vision of their tribal nature and the narrow scope of their own experience.  Troubles that they are themselves incapable of “fixing” without a host government, infected with a massive bureaucracy, feeding off the fruits of other people’s labors.

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If We Had Ammunition, We Could’ve Cleared that Building…

I keep looking for something else to write about, but life keeps giving me the Navy Yard Shooting.  Tactical team minutes away told to stand down.   Alexis’ a liberal Obama supporter, and now this…  (Note: prior to the quote below they were discussing the Texas Bell Tower shooter.)

‘If We Had the Ammunition, We Could’ve Cleared that Building,’ Son at Navy Yard Told Dad.“My son was at Marine Barracks — at the Navy Yard yesterday – and they had weapons with them, but they didn’t have ammunition. And they said, ‘We were trained, and if we had the ammunition, we could’ve cleared that building.’ Only three people had been shot at that time, and they could’ve stopped the rest of it.” So, basically, the civilians of Austin, Texas in 1966 were better prepared to respond to a shooter than the Marines of 2013.

Ironically, if Media Matters’ David Brock had been there, his illegal-Glock-toting bodyguard might have been of use. But probably not . . . .

So why didn’t they have ammunition?

Wait- We have a disgraced recalled State Senator to help us… (video on the jump)

https://twitter.com/MikeS_OJW/statuses/380183042888716291

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I Didn’t Know San Diego Mayor Bob Filner Was in Hanover New Hampshire?

From Doubleyouemyouare

In a letter to parents, Hanover High School officials said (High School Football) team members met at a player’s house on Aug. 24 after practice. Freshman players were asked to perform skits meant to roast senior players.

The Valley News reports the school said the themes were of a sexual nature that objectified women.

And they made the team forfeit the Home Coming game.

Question: Did San Diego Mayor Bob Filner direct the skits?  Did Anthony Wiener tweet pictures?

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GrokTV: Cornerstone Common Core Forum – Intros

This past Tuesday, the ‘Grok was invited to cover Conerstone Policy Research’s Common Core Forum.  Four nationally known educators and education consultants gathered to speak to an overflow crowd at St. Anselm College’s Institute of Politics.  Topics ranged from standards to privacy to its purpose (er, not what you think it is) and data mining – all part of the Federalization of what used to be local control education process and curriculum.

While I am going to go back and review each speaker’s video again to pull out the high points, here are some points that I did write down while manning three cameras:

#1 – Race to the Top – Federal Secretary Arne Duncan’s scheme to have states to compete adopt federal protocols by “coercive Federalism” by offering grant money.  Translated by the speaker: ..“they all had to compete to get their money back“.  A subdued laughter from the crowd ensued at the visualization but realizing that it turns State and local elected and appointed officials into beggars.  So much for the real sense of Federalism.

Introductory Remarks by Ashley Pratte (Exec. Dir) and Ann Marie Banfield (Educational Liason)

#2 – Contrary to what is being said,

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