Yesterday was Chick-Fil-a day! And a hateful CFO is getting canned?

Update:  Yes, for the hate filled rant below, Adam Smith is no longer the CFO at Vante.  Thanks to the commentors for confirming it! “Always tastes better when it is full of hate!” All the way down to DC, I kept hearing how Conservative folks have been flocking (pun intended) to Chick-Fil-A outlets to support … Read more

Water Sustainability Commission (a subset of the Granite State Future Plan, aka Sustainable Communities Initiative) – their own words. First Rep. Spang in her own words

UPDATE before publishing:  Apparently, Judith has responded to Ken and invoking both International Law and the World Court?  That’s only by email, but THIS I have to see!

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Our mission here at the ‘Grok is to promote and to protect Individual Freedom, Liberty, and Rights.  Period.  Sure, we do other things as well, but that is our main focus and raison d’etre.  I’ve been focusing on that my last few posts as the Federal mandate of the Sustainable Communities Initiative by the Federal Government (HUD / EPA / DOT) has, all of a sudden, climbed its way up the ladder from the muck in which it was derived.  And muck it is, and it has spread.

As Ken Eyring has pointed out, the Granite State Future Plan is being spearheaded by the NH Legislature spawned 10 Regional Planning Commissions with the intent, now funded with Obama money, to override local control here in NH by pushing for new zoning laws (back up with threats of lawsuits).  These are a fourth level of Government, creatures totally created by legislative statute that have no connection to the NH Constitution.  It is staffed by locally appointed members (for instance, my DPW department head is my town’s representative on the Lakes Region Planning Commission) with some paid staff.  They get State funding and also go around grubbing for town taxpayer monies by “billing” on population (e.g., “you have X number of people on town; based on $XX.XX / person, you should give us a total of….”).  Starting off as simply a way to “coordinate” transportation usage, they now do all kinds of things (when did road management make them experts in broadband deployment?) that stray far from their original mission (like all good bureaucracies do!).

One of the things the zoning changes are going to do is push for higher density “center of town” living; whether or not it makes sense, these Federal clowns want “livable centers” where you can walk from your home above places of business, walk to work, and walk to work.  Need to go somewhere else?  IF you take the time, you will find out that you will be “nudged” to use public transportation.  Mass transit isn’t even ‘sustainable’ in cities already – how would that work out here in rural NH – Oh yeah, they have a solution for that, too, but that’s for another post.

And it will be done, bit by bit.  In a later post, I go through and use some of what the Water Sustainability Commission and others have said, in their own words, to “shape the battlefield“.  In the mean time, let’s start with what has already been posted.  Even Judith Spang, in her response to Ken, starts with the individual but then immediately goes to the Town level, as if the individual Right never existed:

1. Groundwater Law in NH is based on Common Law, not statutory law. The common law (dating back to English Common Law) says unequivically that a riparian landowner has the right to “reasonable use” of water flowing under or abutting his land.  “Reasonable use” is a limitation: you cannot take so much water that you are depriving someone else who has riparian rights to the same groundwater or surface water.  Neither you nor a foreign water bottling company who may own the land next to you has the right to take so much water out of your (or their) well that it dries up abuttors’ wells.

2. When the Commission talks about the need for a water policy that respects the inter-municipal nature of water supplies, it is based upon the above legal principle.

And then explicitly denies the Individual their property Rights:

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GrokTV: NH State Senator Andy Sanborn (District 9) – Question 7

Question #7:  Adversarial relationship between State agencies vs ordinary folks?

To fix a perceived problem (which Questions 5 & 6 brought up), you have to know all about the problem – or at least the biggest and most influential parts of the problem.  In discussing State Agencies, we wanted to know if there was a sense of “us vs them”, if State Agencies had drifted into a condition of reversing the proper role of government serving the people and morphing into one of “we will ensure that YOU follow OUR rules”.

Question 7:

Adversarial relationship between State agencies vs ordinary folks?

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GrokTV: Jane Cormier, Candidate for NH House – Questions 5 & 6

# 5: Where on the Political Spectrum are you? #6: Proper Role of Government – Your outlook?

Labels, while not always completely describing who what is in politics, can generally give others a good idea of where one stands on the issues.  For instance, Democrats generally spend more and are more liberal than Republicans, who trend to greater fiscal frugality and more conservative social issues.  However, there are exceptions to the rules (like Zell Miller, who was a Blue Dog Democrat for years, being more fiscally tighter than most of his Democrat contemporaries)

On the other side of the aisle, there are also Progressive / Big Government Republicans that vote more in line with Democrat philosophies and, in the case of some, use the “R” next to their name as a cover.  A GREAT example of this is current NH State Rep Peter Bolster who calls himself a Republican but his voting record screams “I AM REALLY A DEMOCRAT!!”  and has admitted to such to some.  (think I’m wrong?  Do a search just on GraniteGrok and review the times he shown up voting AGAINST the Republican Platform!)

Fortunately, Jane Cormier is running against this “RINO to the max” in the primary in Belknap District 8 (Alton, Barnstead, Gilmanton).

  • Question 5: Where are you on the Political Spectrum (from Jim DeMint on the Right and Carol Shea-Porter on the extreme Left)?
  • Question 6: Should politicians be held accountable to their Platform?

  

Political Spectrum?       Adherence to Party Philosophy / Platform?

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Well, while Judith Spang wants Government to take your water rights right from underneath you (literally), she sold her share to the Govt for $500K

Subtitle:      Once again, Progressive hypocrisy…..Do I say and not what I do, and never mind that other hand….

OR:                    Ya gotta love it – siphoning off taxpayer money for private interest groups for their hobby.

OK, just one more (I promise):   FOLLOW THE MONEY!

And in this case, LOTS of money followed Judith Spang, (NH State Representative from Durhan, Democrat). While Ken Eyring of the Southern NH 9-12 group is defending our property rights against Durham Democrat Judith Spang, I got a tip in from a loyal reader concerning NH Rep. Spang:

The US Agriculture office 2 Madbury Road, Durham, NH paid Judith over $500,000 for a wetlands easement on her land in Merrimack County so if we all own some of the water draining from her land do we get paid also?

Really – half a million water-bucks? She gets to “sell” her private property for sake of keeping water clean!  So, I googled her (all emphasis mine) and found a pattern:

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Notable Quotes: Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat, Frederic Bastiat[There] “is this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state.  And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator.

-Frédéric Bastiat

For Barack ‘You Didn’t Build That’ Obama and Elizabeth Warren – and just about every Democrat…

“Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

more…?

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Notable Quote – Milton Friedman (on the occasion of the birth of this Nobel Prize winning economist)

What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which government need participate directly in the game.  The characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to require or enforce substantial conformity.  The great advantage … Read more

Grok Special Interview: Jane Cormier,Candidate for NH House – Questions 3 & 4: Too many uninvolved people? What are your values?

Having gone over the preliminaries questions of “have you done this before” and ‘why are you running” with Jane Cormier (running for the NH House in Belknap 8 – Alton, Barnstead, and Gilmanton), from her answers came the next two questions (heh!  It is ALWAYS better to ask questions from what people themselves have already … Read more

Irony – do you see it?

Aw, cry me a river of tears!  I got this from a friend (wink, wink) from the National Director for Socialist Youths division of the Democrat Socialists of America.  Does anyone else see the irony in the plea ( reformatted, emphasis mine) Invest Your Socialist Cash in the Future: Youth Scholarship Fund Running Low If … Read more

More on Obama’s ” If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” – Progessive collective need

I’ve been wanting to put this post up, but it just keeps being one of those that just slips away each evening.  Certainly it is clear that there is a divide, nay, a chasm between those of the Left and those on the Right.  That chasm is for the future direction of the United States.

  • Liberal / Statists / Progressives / Socialists want the country to move forward – to a utopia that holds the Collective as the highest ideal
  • They also want self annointed experts to make the major decisions for everyone else.
  • Conservatives / Constitutionalists / Libertarians wish to move the country forward – but know that to do so, we must first go back to Constitutional values as elucidated by the Founders.
  • We want you to be able to make your own decisions.

Obama famously said that “we are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States”.  His vision is clear:  unlike all of US History, he wishes to completely subsume all of Society under the thumb of Government.  Why is this a fundamental transformation?  Remember your history – the Declaration and the Constitution were all about protecting Individual Rights against an encroaching Government.  Society was to have a Government that served it and not the other way  around.

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GrokTV Special Interview-NH State Senator Andy Sanborn (District 9) – Question 4: Administrative based taxes: have all taxes, fees, and fines set by the Legislature?

Increasingly, we see NH State Agencies setting their own level of taxation (fees, fines, et al) outside of authorization of the Legislature.  It is the Executive Branch to self-fund and making itself independent of the taxation authority of the Legislature.  And of course, it goes without saying that while Legislators are accountable to the voters, … Read more

Grok Special Interview: Jane Cormier,Candidate for NH House-Question 1 – Why are you running? 2-Why is “where’re we going” dangerous?

A little while ago, we were directed to a video that was taken when the “Values Bus” rolled into NH (sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council).  While I recognized Karen Testerman and Phyllis Woods in the video, the person that was behind the podium at the time was someone that I had never seen before.  As I listened to her, I realized a couple of things:

  • This person speaks well
  • This person knows her mind and what she believes
  • She’s a first time candidate – this could be a good thing!
  • My gosh – she’s a female version of Jack Kimball!

Why that comparison? Forceful, a take no prisoner style of speaking, and you’d be hard pressed to not understand what she is for.  So, we got in contact with her and did an interview with her.

  • Question 1: From the Values Bus talk, you seemed well at ease behind the podium and in front of the camera; where does that come from and how will that translate in answering the question of “Why are you running”?
  • Question 2: “A Change of Course”: Where did we start from and where are we heading to, and why is where we are going, dangerous?

  

Why Running?                                 Why is “where we are heading” dangerous?

Jane’s campaign website is here: Jane4NewHampshire.com

The “Value Bus” video is after the jump:

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Death Penalty and the cult of Fame and Celebrityhood – and James Holmes

James Holmes in CourtMake no mistake – our pop culture is wrapped up in the thrall and cult of celebrityhood.  The quote “”In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” by Andy Warhol can be very true for little or no reason at all for the person who has been thrust into the limelight by circumstances beyond their control.

However, with the advent of media outlets like US and  People magazines, the normal assortment of tabloids newspapers, and TV shows of dribble like Entertainment Tonite and the Insider, people like the Kardashians can be famous for, well, being famous.  Sex tape-tress Paris Hilton has made her moment in the sun last way longer than the tape that first made her infamous; being an heiress to the Hilton fortune did not hinder but she has made some accurate business decision that have given her a standalone career.

However, there are those that will be “stupid”and do much to gain and retain that spotlight – even if it means being remembered for acute evilness:  think Charlie Manson.  All these years after the Tate Murders and he still is famous.  No, he’s still in jail and having been denied parole so often, he will most likely die in prison.  But he will draw his dying breath knowing that he is (about to be “was”) famous and that his name and actions were famous during his lifetime.  Sometimes, that is all that is needed for a loser.

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