A Spec of Common Sense in McAllen Texas

McAllen Texas- City shelves the plastic bag banMcAllen Texas rests in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, right along the border with Mexico.  And for now, at least, McAllen is not hopping on the plastic bag ban train to nowhere.

If you have not been following my recent (bizarre and persistent) interest in this annoy environmental stupidity, towns and cities all over the US are banning what are called “single use” plastic grocery bags (which my family re-uses for all kinds of things so single use is misleading).    The Los Angels California bag ban was what caught my attention–and Lord knows if those moon-bats are on board with it something must be wrong; and there was, or actually is something very wrong.   See “What could go wrong?“, ‘Reusable bags spread norovirus’,  and “Reusable bags may be worse for the Environment.”

Unfortunately,  most of the discussion about bag bans is one-sided.  Or should I say left-sided.

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Idiots And Cowards Who Complain About Gun Ranges

“Once you’re able to look like an idiot and be OK with it, it opens up your potential.” —Nicole Sullivan

Irascible Cowards are idiots willing to  spew their opinion as if it means something, is always a great source of amusement to me. And sometimes they do so anonymously. Such is the case with this Silly_E-mail I received this morning.

Such e-mails are instructive in helping the reader observe the depths of ignorance to which some have succumbed, in spite of  any tone, word usage or voice which might suggest otherwise.

The e-mail received is errant on two levels: factually and conceptually.  An argument could be made this particular entry is a waste of time…a, “suffering of fools,” if you will. I do think its necessary because tom-foolery like this is reaching epidemic proportions.  And if conversations with idiots are the order, then we need to present at least one intelligent side.

The mystery e-mailer refers to my previous entry, Anatomy Of Gun Range Neighbors, and she states,

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Some Cool “Ice-T” on A Hot Summer Day

Rapper Ice-T is standing up for the second amendment. “The right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police.” No government can complete it’s path to tyranny, soft, smiley-faced, or hard boiled, while the public remains lawfully armed.  The right … Read more

Update – Ray Burton (NH Exec. Councilor, District 1, Grafton County Comm.) is pulling a Governor Peterson in endorsing….a Democrat??

An update to the post where little birdies told me that Ray Burton, long time district 1 Exec. Councilor had decided to endorse a Democrat over a Republican (and NH GOP Chair Wayne MacDonald publicly took a walk on it) – someone finally sent me a copy of the news item: (“And Burton, a North Country force, made clear that he would back Cryans over Sharp, despite the party labels.“).

And look – Ray Burton is approving of the fact that the guy he’s endorsing voted his own non-profit monies from the county budget?

I think that is cronyism at best and a complete conflict of interest for both Cryans AND Burton.  And Burton wonders why Jerry Thibodeau is starting to get noticed in his attempt to unseat him?  Is this a case where it is just time for Burton to be retired for the sake of better government?

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Internet Doodlings – GUESS WHAT! There’s a Timothy Horrigan that lives over at TreeHugger.

You know, I am glad that Timothy Horrigan does come over and read here at the ‘Grok – and comments as well.  He’s one of the few “Liberals” that does so, so I’ll give him kudos for trying hard.  I just wish that his comments were a bit more on topic and not just deflections that might be technically correct but not really making a point that is “tracking” the discussion.  However, it seems that “Luke” is a simulacrum over at my favorite haunt where Watermelon Environmentalists meet True Believer Environmentalists and fairly nary a Freedom that can’t be dismissed lives.

ClimateGate, where hackers obtained (stole?) hundreds of megabytes of emails, code and data – often showing that the code was GIGO, the data so mauled over for “homogenization” that it was all but worthless, and the main characters in promulgating Global Warming (now climate change, following the lead of Progressives / Liberals / Progressives / Pragmatists that learn they the make toxic every word they try to abscond from common parlance) participating in avoiding all kinds of FOIA and RTK demands.  It basically was the beginning of the end to the facade of GW / CC, regardless of the 50, 000 UN / NGO / VIP / Pandering Politicians junket goers that traipse around the Globe pontificating grand designs and documents (while really just enjoying the 5 Star hotels and incredible edibles and SWAG bags).

So, Brian Merchant wrote a post that ClimateGate was a “hack that was a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack”  whose point was not that it was an inside job as has been commonly thought but done by outsiders.  Fair enough – and he elicited comments from the readers: who?

Well, ‘Grok commenter C.Dog e.dog took up the challenge with a whack of “Do you know who I am in the Ivory Tower-ism” with the usual snark and hyperbole:

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Mark Fernald Needs New Material for His Income Tax Arguments

Mark Fernald Wants an Income taxMark Fernald wants New Hampshire to have an income tax before he dies.  It appears to be one of his deepest desires.  So desperate is this need that he is willing to reuse debunked rhetoric to ensure he is not prohibited from having the chance to get one.

Yesterday, over at Windham Patch, Fernald had the income tax equivalent of a recurring rash as “Fair Share class warfare” sores rose up from the page in his opposition to CACR 13.  CACR 13 is a Sttate constitutional amendment that would ban New Hampshire from taxing personal income.  But such a prohibition for Mr. Fernald would be akin to the death of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia to Dead Heads.  “Well now what do we do with all our free time.”  So Mr. Fernald has gone on the offensive (as in, to offend).

We have a tax system that is made by and for the top 1 percent. The households in New Hampshire with the highest incomes – the 1 percent with incomes $480,000 and up – on average pay just over 2 percent of their incomes in state and local tax. The folks in the middle, on average, pay about 6 percent. The lowest income people have the highest tax burden. They pay, on average, over 8 percent of their income in state and local tax.

I’ve been over this deception more than once, but I am more than happy to revisit it every time Mark wants to bring it up–which will be often between now and Noveber.

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Batman, culture, guns….freedom vs safety / security…..Second Amendment vs “Responsible” – Part 3: “You don’t need that” Doodling

Every Sunday I watch pretty much the all the talking heads / pundits Sunday morning shows (isn’t DVR a wonderful thing?) and easily the topic of the day was the horrific shooting in Aurora, Colorado at that midnight showing of the latest Batman movies (Part 1 on my thoughts, specifically on  irresponsibility of ABC here, Part 2 on my thoughts on responsible concealed carry here).  It was rather predictable in content and in slant – I knew that just about all of the Liberals would kvetch about getting more gun control into our laws.  Unfortunately, I was not disappointed as my low expectations were met.  In almost all cases, the concern (and rightly so) was about safety and security.  The problem for me (and I figure that some commenters are ready to pull the trigger on this) is they have placed safety and security above all else but refuse to acknowledge how much government would have to do in order to actually achieve it.

The line of thought, however, was especially clear on ABC’s This Week, hosted by one half of that dubious TEA Party smearer duo and Democrat rumpswab, George Stephanopolous (and I kept waiting to see if the apology would be offered again but to no avail).  It can be summed up by: “You don’t need that“.

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EMail Doodlings – Presidential warning still relevant

On one of the email lists I’m on, there was a discussion concerning the candidates just before the NH First In The Nation Primary – the typical thing of folks boasting of their candidates and who was better than the other guys.  I took a different tack in trying to point out what the end goal should back then in early January, but the warning is still relevant for those scared for our country:

Your daily dose of knuckle rapping and snark deliberately delivered by the dufus….

….AND, once again, we are back to the  conundrum of “there is NO single candidate without flaws”….yes, NO one.  Not a single one in the lot.  Even the guy I was backing, Herman, had flaws.  Even Ron Paul has flaws – maybe not to his supporters, but to the rest of us (and just as big as those pointed out earlier).

Remember one thing – OUR GOAL IS TO BEAT OBAMA.  Period.

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You have to build something else First…

How about those roads and bridges?  How did we get those? Tax dollars. Well where’d those tax dollars come from? Taxpayers Where’d the taxpayers get the money for the government to tax in the first place? Jobs and commerce Where’d those jobs and commerce come from? Someone started a business, exchanged their product or service … Read more

GrokTV Event-Rumney home event for Ovide Lamontagne (Candidate, NH Gov.) – Question 9: Position on FRM being re-opened

Complete switch in topic – The FRM financial scandel that took a lot of people in NH to the cleaners.  We hear so much that Government has to regulate more and more and more; what seems to have happened is that the state failed to do anything in the way of regulation at all.   But should it be re-investigated with a bigger flashlight?

Question 9:

The FRM financial scandel – lots of people lost their life savings.  And it seems to me most of this stuff got swept under the carpet.  What would your postition be on this?  Would you reopen that or is it a sleeping dog?

Previous:

  • Ovide’s talk
  • Question 1:  The Speaker has announced that he wants to cut an additional 2% out of the budget. what are your feelings on that?
  • Question 2:  Last year, the health insurance at the bank increased by 7%.  We just got new numbers for this year:14%. You know, last time we talked you wanted to join the fight against Obamacare and now the Supreme Court has come out with their ruling. What can you do for the State of NH against Obamacare at this point?
  • Question 3:  Do any tort reform in the State in order to help us?
  • Question 4: Competition in the medical industry.  I want to have a test done and I have to pay for it myself.  I start to call around and I find the best place for me to have it done is Concord Hospital. But in order to go to Concord Hospital, I have to hire a physician at Concord Hospital because my physician cannot send me to Concord Hospital. There’s a problem with that system!

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GrokTV Special Interview – Rick Parent (Candidate, Congress (NHCD-1) – Question 8 – How fix Social Security / Medicare entitlements due to demographics?

The biggest expenses in the Federal budget that are driving the national debt (and will continue as the “rabbit in the snake” of Baby Boomers retire) are Social Security and Medicare.  With crashing demographics and the money “alternatively used” by Federal Agencies, how would you fix this problem that could bankrupt the nation?  Question 8: … Read more

“SEUS VIGARISTAS!”

Godfrey Bloom, member of the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP) and MEP (Member of the European Parliament), lays out a few simple truths at a recent MEP meeting discussing the European debt crisis. He is sooo right when he proclaims at the every end of the videos, “Seus vigaristas!” We need Mr. Bloom to come … Read more

EMail Doodlings – how about a definition for “Free Market”?

Free MarketsI think that both Steve’s and Mike’s posts on the ills of Socialism at spot on and as a counter point to what some feel are the overriding positives of Socialism, one of the email lists I’m on, a request came in to define “Free Market”:

I’m trying to write a short description of why the free market is good, why we should encourage it.
My problem is that I don’t have the skills of Friedman, Hayek, Rothbard, Hazlitt, Bastiat, Smith, etc. to be able to convincingly describe its virtues. What I hope is that through crowdsourcing, we can come up with a good description.

So please, everybody, give me a sentence or a paragraph explaining why a free market is a good thing that we should “cherish”.

To get things started I will start with a paraphrase of Milton Friedman [Nobel Prize winner]:

“The record of history is crystal-clear. The free market is the best way so far discovered of improving the lot of ordinary people.”

Now, it could be said that what Mitterand did (and rejected, as well as China, and the Soviet Union, and the rest of the Iron Curtain countries, plus Viet Nam and what even Sweden is moving away from and….well, you get the idea), and what Hollande is about to do,  just do the opposite.  So, a number of folks responded including moi:

 The Definition:

The free market (the TRUE free market) is the simplest of systems: you have something I would like to have, and visa versa.  For this transaction to happen, I am estimating the value of what I have versus the value *I* place on what you have to transact.  I will make the trade if it is in my self-interest and my perception is that I will become “richer” in value by giving you what I have, and you give me what I would like of yours.  This is a win-win situation as the other person is ALSO making the same calculation.  My self-interest is satisfied – and the other person’s is as well.  I want your dozen ears of corn more than the $3.00 in my pocket; you would rather have my $3.00 and we agree to swap.  That is the essence of free market capitalism – a price point is reached where the transaction happens, or not.  That price signal says my want is sufficient to pay the price that affords you to cover your costs, and a bit of extra (profit) to start your process all over again and is credited as possible “wealth to you”.

Note this – one ONLY succeeds when you offer something of value to ME.  It means that your good or service PLEASES me sufficiently to give you something for it.  You win ONLY by pleasing and serving others.  Yes, it is in your self-interest to serve others for when you do so, and do it well, you will “profit” by having more transactions come your way.

The Freedom:

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GrokTV Special Interview: Susan Olsen,NH House Candidate (Merrimack-7) – Question 11 – Live Free or Die – too harsh? Do we follow it? Are some trying to get rid of it?

This was our final question for Susan and once again, we thank her for taking valuable time in talking with GraniteGrok!  Progressives want us to pay for what they Government to do for (or to) us.  How does that square with our legacy of individualism and the idea that we have a government and not … Read more

Anatomy Of Gun Range Neighbors

“Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.”  —Mason Cooley

Here we go again. Same old story. Same old lame complaints. The Monadnock Rod and Gun Club was established in 1947. This 65-year old club continues to do what it always has done: Operate shooting ranges. And, like any other Sporting Club, the amount and continuity of the sound of the shooting ambience, varies with time of season and number of events hosted at the club.In short, neighboring residents can reasonably expect to hear gunfire more during certain times of the year than other times of the year. And if they cannot live with that, then why on earth purchase a home in proximity to a shooting range?

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GrokTV Special Interview: Bob Burns (Candidate for NH Exec. Council Dist. 4) – Question 8: Coming up to a primary – why “me” versus those I am running against?

And this is the final question we had for Bob Burns – the final pitch to those that could vote for him for NH Executive Council in District 4. Question 8: Coming up to a primary – why “me” versus those I am running against? Previous: Question 1: Why are you running? Question 2: You … Read more

GrokTV Event-Rumney home event for Ovide Lamontagne (Candidate, NH Gov.) – Question 8: Citizens dealing with State Agencies?

Speaking of Commissioners and department heads, how about the agencies themselves?  Given our foray into Right To Know Requests to the NH Depart. of IT and Depart. of Environmental Services, I figured that I would venture a question / comment for a response:

Question 8:

GraniteGrok issued RTK requests against DES and DoIT for taxpayer paid network data – and were refused. What is your methodology to make sure that not only is the Law of RTK followed but the Spirit obeyed as well?  Dealing with the head legal person at DES was like running into a stonewall.

Previous:

  • Ovide’s talk
  • Question 1:  The Speaker has announced that he wants to cut an additional 2% out of the budget. what are your feelings on that?
  • Question 2:  Last year, the health insurance at the bank increased by 7%.  We just got new numbers for this year:14%. You know, last time we talked you wanted to join the fight against Obamacare and now the Supreme Court has come out with their ruling. What can you do for the State of NH against Obamacare at this point?
  • Question 3:  Do any tort reform in the State in order to help us?
  • Question 4: Competition in the medical industry.  I want to have a test done and I have to pay for it myself.  I start to call around and I find the best place for me to have it done is Concord Hospital. But in order to go to Concord Hospital, I have to hire a physician at Concord Hospital because my physician cannot send me to Concord Hospital. There’s a problem with that system!

    Read more

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