Live (Probably) From the HCRC Flag Day Picnic [Updated]

[Update 2] Still…nothing works, well–my laptop works. But we’ve got video. [Update] Nothing works…but I’m still trying to make it happen. Well….This is something of an experiment.   Let’s call it GrokTalk channel 2.  And if it works we’ll be Starting at 11:45 (ish). We will attempt to broadcast audio only today from the Hillsborough County … Read more

Internet Doodlings – Another taste of Enviros using “We know what is best for you” to mask totalitarianism

Heh!  But again, not so heh!  We laugh, but they mean it.  Over at TreeHugger (they have become such a source of sport!), they were discussing the righteousness of NYC-Nanny-Chieftain Mayor Bloomberg’s (whose own dietary predilections do not match his public policy for the rest of his “citizens”) declaration that he would solve the obesity problem of his haunts be making certain sizes of soda sold by NYC establishments off limits.  In a post entitled “More than Reasonable:

Last week, New York City showed the nation once again what it means to be on the cutting edge of public health policy. The city announced a bold plan to limit the size of sugary beverages sold at restaurants and other food establishments. Predictably, much of the media went crazy, and numerous outlets have already proclaimed that this time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just gone too far. Banning trans fats was fine, but don’t take away my right to guzzle a gallon of Coke is the lazy reaction of some pundits.

But let’s take a more rational look at what New York is proposing. From both a policy-making and political strategy standpoint, it makes perfect sense. No one is banning anything or restricting anyone’s freedoms. The city is simply placing a reasonable limit on how much soda (or other sugary beverage) can be served in a single container.

Cutting edge?  Bloomberg already went after salt (which he himself uses with wild abandon in a “fine for me but not for thee fashion”). Now, there is a study out that says cutting salt intake to such a level promulgated by the Feds could actually be dangerous.  There also is no definitive study on soda usage either.

The post also tried to slyly slip in what Goverment is doing is just what private business has done with serving sizes in the past (thus, trying to rationalize Bloomy’s actions):

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BE BREITBART – Heritage, Franklin to host Breitbart Awards

Politico (reformatted here, emphasis mine): The Heritage Foundation and Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity will host an awards dinner this Friday in honor of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who passed away earlier this year.  The first annual Breibart Awards dinner, which will take place in Providence, R.I., is part of the two … Read more

“Act of Valor” – Real heroes.

I am not a movie person – TMEW is, but not me.  But given what I read about Act of Valor, I was convinced that I wanted to see it.  Having missed it in the local theaters, I bought it.  Watching it right now.  It shows that the folks in the action scenes are real … Read more

A Letter of Thanks from A Wisconsin Taxpayer

Scraped from a Milwaukee AM station blog; it is a letter of thanks from a Wisconsin Taxpayer

To all leftists, occupiers, union thugs and malcontents,

Thank you! What an election! We couldn’t have done it without you. Without your tantrums, outbursts and boorish behavior we might have stayed home for this election. Without your filthy, pot smoking hemp -headed minions occupying, dirtying and damaging our Capitol we might have been complacent. Without your obnoxious protests, boycotts and other actions from your union playbook, we might have sat this one out.

But you couldn’t hold back. You couldn’t restrain yourselves and behave like adults. You couldn’t accept the 2010 election results. We sat and watched as you erupted in a juvenile hissy fit that embarrassed Wisconsin. The spectacle you created is what motivated us. And thanks to your pathetic behavior, we won. We turned out. Big time! And now we are organized and energized. Committed. “All in”. And we aren’t going away. We now have our own organizations (no dues required), an army of volunteers and the means to communicate. And countless new sources of funding, including a donor base from all 50 states. And we have “iverifythe recall” to ferret out your infiltrators in our future local elections.

So thank you little boy Tate, Graeme Zielinski, Fred “Loonie” Levenhagen, Ismael Ozanne, Maryanne Sumi, Noble Ray, Charles Tubbs, Joanne Kloppenberg, Segway Boy, John Chisolm, public employee union members, UW TA’s, WEAC, SEIU, MTI, AFSCME Council 24 in Union Grove and WI prison guards,. Thanks for the death threats, the intimidation, the bullying, belligerence, thuggery and goonish behavior. The lack of ethics and the failure to enforce rules and laws. Thank you for putting your selfish, greedy motives on display for all taxpayers to see.

Your antics might have made you feel good but they didn’t make you look good. They sickened the rest of us.

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Dispatch from Future of Journalism Summit – NetRoots Nation foray – Brietbart’s Dana Loesch “WI: How are the grassroots going to cope now?”

Am at the Future of Journalism Summit in Providence, RI that is being sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Franklin Center (full disclosure – they are picking up my hotel charges).  Since I arrived early, I had the chance to invite myself to a group of Conservative bloggers that were head over to the Providence Conference Center to visit the NetRoots Nation gathering to do a bit of video reporting.  Actually, all I did was tail them with a camera in case something “happened” (er, nothing much – no confrontations).

This video is from a NetRoots Nation panel and Breitbart.com’s Dana Loesch had the chance to ask a question at the end of the panel’s talks:

“With rapidly decreasing Public Employee Union membership & 36% of union households voting to retain Scott Walker as WI Governor, what is the Union Leadership & grassroots response and how will they cope going forward?”

I lent my FlipCam to another Conservative blogger and she took another video of Dana’s question (after the jump, slightly better audio):

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Dispatch from Future of Journalism Summit – NetRoots Nation foray – GatewayPundit Jim Hoft “How will the dropping enthusiasm from WI affect the Nov. election?”

At the same time that Dana Loesch was asking her question, Samsphere blogger buddy Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit)  also got in line “within the belly of the beast” to ask his question.  Abbreviated, I’m sure, as the panel’s time slot was already overlong.  His question: “The high enthusiasm level at the start of the recall … Read more

Occuppy Wall Street – if you’ve lost Harvard….

Frankly, Occupy Wall Street has pretty much left Occupy Wall Street (with, perhaps, the lone exceptions being San Francisco and Oakland as the only sites still making national news once in a while).  This did catch my eye – as there was an abortive attempt at Hahvahd University to have an Occupy outpost there as … Read more

Do Seat Belt Laws Make A Difference?

Do Seat Belt Laws make a difference?Not much appeals to me this morning so I took thirty minutes to do an unscientific survey of NHTSA state motor vehicle fatality data for the northeast.  (Wow, Steve–that sounds exciting.)  I wanted to see if Seat Belt Laws had any measured affect on deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT).

First off, I wear a seat belt, and would not drive without it, but I have never advocated for any state law mandating it nor would I.  And after sifting through the data for ten Northeastern (ish) states I doubt I ever will.

For purposes of the review I looked at Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.  I wanted ten regional states with a mix of rural urban conditions and similar weather–ie, some snow, and that had seat belt laws.  (All but New Hampshire if I am not mistaken.)  I then looked at the last five years for which we have data (2006-2010) and averaged total fatalities per million VMT.  The results?  Seat belt laws don’t matter all that much.  People will use restraints or not regardless of laws–New Hampshire, for example, has no law but still manages a decent voluntary participation rate.

So what about the numbers?

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As a Public Service We Present…The Republican Repair Kit

In New Hampshire it is time to announce your plans to run for public office this November.  We’d like to encourage every good Conservative and Libertarian with the time and inclination to consider running for the New Hampshire House, Senate, or any elected office.

Now you may say to yourself, you know what, we’ll probably have a bunch of Republicans running, and there are plenty running for re-election…I’m not sure there’s room for me?  Well the Grok is here to help you work that out.  We want you to look at who is running for election, and re-election, and ask yourself if they could use a Republican Repair kit (available on the jump).

If the answer is yes, you should run for office.  And then you should contact us so we can interview you and post it here.  Don’t wait too long to decide.  Your state needs you.  We still have a lot of work left to do.

Note: They wont all need the Repair kit….but a few of them probably do…and we all know who they are.

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When it comes to Green Jobs, Obama Administration: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”

From Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

Well, I could easily say that the Obama Administration has been nonsensical in how it uses words (been listening to Jay Carney, his Press Secretary lately?), and in a lot of cases, be at least half right.  However, to be truthful, spin is non-partisan knowing no bounds on either side of the aisle.  But this is just pure political gold in nonsense in a vain attempt to pervert common sense by an Administration straining to live up to a promise simply by redefining redefinition of a classification of who does what.  Obama made a promise to create 5 million new Green Jobs – at times, with almost gay abandon (betcha THAT will rouse the Political Correctness Police – but isn’t it LGBT Month at the Obama Department of State this month?).  Looks like he’s hard up to fulfill that promise, eh?

Like: someone who pumps gas into a school bus is counted as a Green Job?  Is that really what the Obama Admin wants a “green job” to mean?  Sheesh, and I thought that fossil fuels were THE ENEMY?  Something to be hated and done away with?  So, someone who actually SELLS oil / gas – that’s now a Green Job?  Does that mean that soon, the Gulf will be soon getting Obama’s blessing, and the oil and gas industry will flourish again (after all, that Green Job pumping gas into the school bus can’t do his job without theirs’)?

(H/T: Hot Air (and lots of other places)) – longer version can be watched here.

I think I have to go Google this – am betting that the Sierra Club has something to say about this!

What is amusing is to watch a grown man, who in other setting might be seen as a ‘serious fellow’, squirming knowing that there is absolutely no come back for Congressman Issa’s questions.  A process by which should have you, loyal reader, thinking – what other stupidity is in there that bureaucracy thinks is “highbrow” and “an ultimate thought”?

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“Oh Crap” Sayeth the NH Left, Tobacco Revenue Over Projection….Again.

Do we look too young to be...smoking? NH Tobacco revenu up againNothing makes me smile like watching another left wing New Hampshire Democrat  narrative go up in smoke.  Which narrative, you ask, there are so many to choose from?   Why, the one about how irresponsible it was to cut the tobacco tax and how it would never stimulate enough other forms of cross border commerce to make up the difference.  A notion that is not just backwards, it runs counter to the entire concept of the New Hampshire advantage.

So right out of the gate, the Democrats had no where to run on this issue–not that they didn’t try–and now things are looking bad for their tobacco tax narrative.

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Racists you say? Who’s the racist??

  Again, Liberals / Progressives / Pragmatists have one huge, obvious failure: consistency across issues.  This shows it quite easily.   Oh yes,  note that new word – Pragmatist.  They wore out Progressive last century,  switched to Liberal (but keeping the same policies and stances) and are NOW trying to switch to another word to … Read more

The Left: if you do not agree with us, WE WILL BEAT YOU UP!

Gee, how often has this been happening in Wisconsin lately?  I caught wind of this from The Blaze: “Man Allegedly Beaten After Removing Democrat Political Signs Placed in His Yard Without Permission”  but my Samsphere blogger friend Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit (who The Blaze referenced), has a MUCH better description for the malfeasance:

Democrat Judicial candidate Ernestina CruzSupport Democrat Ernestina Cruz

Or get a concussion.

Your choice.

The story from Taos, NM:

 

Summary (Jim’s accounting after the jump):

  • Democrat supporters put their signs in a yard without asking permission from the homeowner
  • Homeowner comes home, removes signs from yard, tries to return them
  • Democrat supporters beat him up in front of wife and son for “removing THEIR signs”
  • Candidate Ernestina Cruz says it was ““unfortunate” that Cunnyngham removed signs that “did not belong to him.”

So, Private Property Rights ONLY accrue to the Democrats’ signs?  What about the yard?  Sure, the guy wasn’t home when they decided to “stick it to him” the first time – didn’t the thought of “maybe we ought not to do this?” go through their heads?  Sounds like, at the least, poor event planning – which these supporters decided to double down and just use this guy’s property to support their gal.

And even worse, when he politely tries to return the signs, beat him to a pulp?  Double down redux.

The worst part of this, however, is that this is someone running to BE A JUDGE and she zeros on “HOW DARE HE MOVE MY SIGNS”?  As US Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayer may have put it – another “wise Latina”.  Equity?  Equality?  Blind Justice?  No – selfishness and entitlement (as in “I get to use / take your stuff as long as I know I have a better use for it”).

In other words, if I have better use for your property, I’ll fight you for it without an apology.

A typical Democrat.

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Walker Wins – Unions Lose

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out that…

The unions spent millions of dollars and over a year’s worth of effort to get a temporary one-seat majority in a chamber that will never meet in session.   And that’s assuming that their lone win from last night holds up in a recount. Congratulations, Big Labor!

With Walker and Kleefisch crushing the opposition in Wisconsin, and redistricting likely to guarantee them, at minimum, two Republican seats and a return to a GOP majority in the State Senate come November, the Union/Democrat electoral ‘stimulus’ plan for Wisconsin appears to have had as much long term benefit as Obama’s Stimulus.  Spend a lot of money, make a lot of noise, and get nothing useful in return.  It’s the same failed policy everywhere you turn.

So congratulations, but before I finish, I’d like to  add a message for New Hampshire legislators as well, particularity in the NH State Senate.  There is a lesson here you had best learn.

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