School districts from LA to NY are complaining and now a few of them are taking matters into their own hands.

“We’re eating more junk food, now, than last year”, a student from the Los Angeles Unified School District explained in December of 2011.

We’re talking about Michelle Obama’s Healthy Kids Hungry act, passed by lame-duck Democrats in the waning days after the Democrats got mauled in the 2010 elections.  It sucked then.  It sucks now.

The Government limits the choices by force of law but human nature (and natures laws) trump man made laws every time so the kids end up skipping the Michelle-O in favor of quick alternatives.   So the law effectively creates more harm because it presumes to know the minds, tastes, and needs of everyone everywhere, as viewed from the backs of nutrition unicorns prancing around inside the blue bubbles that pass for “the way the whole world thinks according to progressive busy-bodies.”

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Doubleyouemyouare News Nine in NH is reporting an incident in which a 48 year old Tilton, NH man had to be hospitalized after (unintentionally?) stopping a firework with his face.  While details are sketchy–was he sober, did he lose his balance, was he pushed, did a YouTube video make him place his face over the tube when it discharged–his physical injuries were not life threatening.

We here at GraniteGrok hope for his quick and complete recovery.  It probably hurt like hell, and may have resulted in permanent eye injury (we hope not), and there is very likely been or will be someone in his life telling him they told him so…for the rest of his life, maybe…because the experience of being the victim or the observer, had to be frightening, and that doesn’t just go away.  You have to let it out somehow. But you have know when you owned it.

The only thing more frightening would be having to again suffer through the nearly perennial effort (by those just looking for any excuse) to introduce more state regulations and oversight of the entire populace because of one (or even just a few) fireworks accidents that were the result of less than stellar behaviors on the part of the victim or those nearby.

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“May I suggest a good book today – and a GREAT Obamacare healthcare insurance plan??”

Well having seen that the ALA had pledged local libraries to be in the Obamacare “sign up here” corps (like other “community organizers” like the discredited ACORN organization (where Obama was an instructor in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals), unions, and other left leaning organizations whom, if I were a betting man, would have Voter Registration materials with the policies whispering “and remember which Party is giving you this free healthcare!” – yes, I am that cynical), I asked and received answers from two of my three Town Selectmen (Oh Gus?  Still waiting).  The only thing of note is that while ACORN (or its reconstituted and renamed chapters) will be getting paid for its solicitation of soon-to-be-healthcare-wards-of-the-State (and remember – Obamacare is getting School systems to recruit “the children” to badger their Parents to sign up), those 17,000 public libraries will be doing it for free on the local taxpayer property tax dime.

In responding, they said no from their standpoint but the final decision would rest with the town’s Library Trustees.  So, I asked them, too!  Do you think I’ve received an answer yet (emailed on 6/30)?

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After doing GrokTALK! podcast in Concord this morning, I headed north on Route 93 in heading back to the Lakes Region.  Heavy traffic: lots of out of state plates and a bunch of boats and camping trailers being towed.  That said, the overall speed was quite high and then I remembered that the speed limit had just been raised from 65 to 70 MPH from Concord northward pretty much up to the border (excluding the Notch).  I would have to say that most folks were in the 70 to 75 mph range.

Then I also remembered what I had read in the Nashua Telegraph as first the Senate approved the higher limit and then again when Gov. Maggie Hassan signed the bill.  Concern for more accidents, more deaths?  Nope, what caught my eye was a crie du coeur from those whose Enviro mindset is that we peons driving at all is “a sin against GAIA” – we should NEVER be allowed to ‘create more pollution’ under any condition:

“…goal should be to increase fuel mileage and reduce unnecessary travel.”

The message?

• How DARE you even think you should be able go faster! 

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“May I suggest a good book today – and a GREAT Obamacare healthcare insurance plan??”

When I heard of the news that the American Library Association had pledged to support Obamacare registration efforts in public libraries, it occurred to me that this trade group, in collusion with the Obama Administration, had unilaterally decided to dragoon local government employees into a politicized Federal Government (and without paying for such time and effort, too).  A tad incensed that my local library was going to expend time and efforts (and therefore, MONEY)  into something no one had approved of during the Budget Season in my wee hamlet, I asked my three Town Selectmen (who run the town – there is no mayor.  They would be City Councilors if in larger cities):

…I am rather skeptical that the Town of Gilford has allocated any funds for a line item such as “Librarian Obamacare Outreach” or I’m not thinking that any funds alloted for professional development would cover training in the 2,700 pages of the Obamacare bill nor the 20,000 pages (+) of resulting regulations in order to be such a resource to the general public:

…Libraries equipped with public computers and Internet access already serve as a bridge across the digital divide, so it made sense to get them involved, said Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Is it the case that Gilford Library staff will have their time taken up with this activity?

And of the three, I did get responses:

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Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego John Forbes Kerry?

Secretary Kerry wasn't on his yacht. (He was on his wife's yacht.) #SeeThisIsHowYouDoItJenPsaki

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 5, 2013

Actually this tweet is even better…

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