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GraniteGrok

NOV 2018 Granite Grok Top Ten

The Grok Top Ten Readers Choice Awards for November 2018

November 2018 is history so it is time to jump in the Grok not-so-way-back machine to see what our readers rewarded with the most views. I will admit that looking back a mere 30-days can seem like a very long time. Having written over 100 posts in November content from a few weeks ago seems like a … Read more

Oct 2018 top ten

It’s Our First Top-Ten (October, 2018) on the New Website

In the early part of October, we stopped sticking our toe in the ‘New Website’ water and jumped. Pushed might be a better word. The old site lacked updated security features and we were suspicious of another potential breach so in we went. Splash! Complete with a slowly rotating top-5, at the top of the home … Read more

Chris Pappas – Spoken like a true Collectivist! He’s not grooving to “Live Free or Die”

UPDATED and BUMPED (from 10/16/2012): Chris Pappas, now running for Congress instead of NH Exec. Council back then, hates our “Live Free or Die” motto – said so himself. He’s all about putting the “Common Good” above your Freedom. You need to send him a message of “no, it isn’t”:

“…it is clear that the idea of Freedom necessarily is subservient to what he believes to be the constant Progressive Ideal: “the Common Good”.

(H/T: Tom for reminding me I wrote this back then)

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Got a tip from a loyal reader of an article that appeared on FaceBook – one that shows that one Democrat Progressive Chris Pappas would be self-righteously fine with New Hampshire getting rid of our State Motto, “Live Free or Die”.  He said so himself in a Hippo Press article back in Dec 15, 2005.  True, a long time ago both in real time and political epochs. But when you read what he wrote, you may take the attitude of “Humpf, this is an ‘tude not easy to ditch or change” (at least what my takeaway is).  That article is after the jump.

Now, at some sundry times, do make a wee joke about that New Hampshire’s beloved icon [The Old Man In The Mountain] lays in rubble at the bottom, but the motto is not just a phrase or a marketing blurb.  It is not just a motto – it is a philosophical statement.  Sure, it was a toast uttered by General John Stark, but it is one of the most succinct and pithy summaries of what Freedom is all about.  It is a truism from one that was willing to lay down his life for Freedom – the complete and all encompassing meaning of the word “Live Free or die – death is not the worst of all evils”.  Would you be willing to compromise your life, nay, lay it down, for a faux version of it?

Apparently, Chris Pappas would.  Read that article – it is clear that his idea of Freedom necessarily is subservient to what he believes to be the constant Progressive Ideal: “the Common Good”.  The article was written around the time that smoking was banned in many public spaces here in NH – especially restaurants.

He confuses what he perceives to be the tyranny of a few taking away a Right of the many (a few smokers, a lot of people “forced” to endure their “freedom”.  He, and the others that passed the law, truly believe that their “seeing the future benefit for all” was sufficient to take away just one more Liberty from those that do something with which they disagree and take away just one more aspect of owning, well, what used to be Private Property (you know, the ability of restaurant owners to actually set their own policies.  He also believes that the well-to-do should have to give up more of their Private Property (er, their money, which when you get to the blunt point, time from their lives) simply because they are “privileged” (and he has better ways to spend it than they do).

What concerns me the most, being a candidate for the NH Executive Council, is that he will continue this errant philosophy – that the Common Good always should trump Individual Freedoms, and that Private Property, when needed by the Common Good, is subject to the will of the Common Good.

Which doesn’t make it all that Free, nor all that Private, does it?

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September

What was “Hot on the ‘Grok” for September?

Did you know that September is “better breakfast” month? What if you don’t eat breakfast? It is the month of 10 different observances or awareness campaigns and 11 foods. They are Bourbon, wine, chicken, honey, mushrooms – which together sound like an appetizer at any number of restaurants trying to up their foodie cred. September is … Read more

[Update 2] Welcome to Grok 3.0 (Still under construction…)

[Update 2] Disqus is now operational. The mobile version still needs formatting. The Hot on the Grok section needs work. We have a few other tweaks and some bigger backend tricks to work out but it’s all coming together. [Update] Disqus Comment system did not come along with the rest of the site so it’s not connected yet. … Read more

Attention New Hampshire State Reps: Your Voting Record Matters

by James Kofalt

Too many State Reps get away with positioning themselves one way and then voting an entirely different way. On the “R” side of the fence, we always seem to have a handful of Republicans who vote with the Democrat platform more often than they vote with the GOP. CarolynGargasz (R, Hollis) has straddled that line over the years, occasionally falling below a 50% rating from the House Republican Alliance (HRA), and sometimes venturing as high as the mid-fifties.

Judging from yesterday’s results, Hollis GOP voters have finally had enough. After 18 years as State Rep, Gargasz placed a distant fourth in a four-way primary.

This didn’t happen by accident, and it didn’t happen without some effort.

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September 11 – We still remember (bumped)

9/11 Falling man

Updated (again) and bumped from 9/11/12: I just reread this – angrily.  For you see, our President, whose main responsibility is to the Constitution, the nation, and its people – to keep them safe.  Yet, this President, whose main policy is Determined Weakness, has no problem in using the might of the United States to protect, and worse, to ally this country with those whose hatred of this country cause the Falling Man to your left.  The MSM won’t show this picture, and no, they won’t make the explicit connection between Muslim Jihadis and the death of thousands.  For many of our fellow countrymen, death came quickly.  Twelve years later, I cannot fathom the fear, the emptiness, the futility, and worse, the aloneness of those that chose that last 30 seconds of their lives in jumping.  They stared at the Death that was coming from above, below and from behind – and cheat it but only in that they chose a different Death.

Never forget – and never forgive.  No, Mr. President Obama, too many Americans have died too soon  to have us aid those that caused Death to visit our shores simply because our Founders believed in the exceptional (and radical) idea that we can be self-governing in all things and to live our lives in ways we individually believe best.  But it seems, Mr. President, that you reject this idea (as do all Progressives) for your actions in Benghazi, in Libya, in Egypt, and desiring to do so again in Syria, you have thrown in with those that believe otherwise.  Jihadis, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood; at each and every turn you have shown your preference for them over those that love our Constitution and its ideals.

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We’re Creeping Up on the Conway Daily Sun…

Alexa RankingWith August showing so much improvement in traffic it seemed like a good time to update our Alexa rankings and announce some changes. I’ve been including WMUR since the start but it occurs to me that a Television Channel website is not exactly a goal of ours. I’m not saying we couldn’t ever compete just that we can’t even try right now unless we start doing school closings or weather. That’s not happening so I’ve plucked them off our site list.

Who can we add that does compete? No one yet but I’m looking and perhaps you can help.

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The Grok Top Ten for August: Woodburns and Sullivans and Whiteness, Oh My!

August was a great month for our readers as a number of interesting Democrat scandals provided gist for the blogging mill. We also had heavy traffic on stories linked to both New Hampshire Republican primaries in CD-1 and CD-2. Then there’s the fledgling “New Hampshire is too white” commission which drove so much traffic that a post from July made the top ten in August.

Here we go.

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Uh-oh! Did somebody forget to pay their domain registration bill?

BUMPED from 6/6/2012.  Moron. Better stuff coming back in a while – VOTE Bill Kuch!

Somebody wasn’t paying attention to details, were they?  It does happen – and it more often than some folks will admit to.  However, this is not what I expected to see when I went over to David Boutin’s NH Senate campaign site:

And yes, there are some things that were promised and the stark truth of votes taken.  Right, Left, or somewhere in Squishland, all politicians have a record and it isn’t just other politicians that look at those records.

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GrokEndorsement Executive Council, District 4. This is Very Impressive!

Grok Endorsement EC4To date, we have only issued one endorsement: Steve Negron running to represent New Hampshire from NH’s Second Congressional District (“CD-2”).  Today, we add another.

While all writers have the freedom to endorse anyone they want as individuals, official GraniteGrok endorsements require a majority of all of the writers voting (not everyone votes).  While we may all “read” the same on the issues, we do vary on candidates and sometimes “enthusiastically” (behind closed email/Slack doors). Most of our endorsements are contested – some of them highly so. As the title of this post implies, the result is impressive as all of the following writers at GraniteGrok.com have cast their ballot for one person (alphabetical order):

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Ranking Numbers Improve But Position Remains the Same

If I may take a moment of your time for a quick update. In the past month, GraniteGrok’s Alexa numbers have improved. Our National numbers are better, and our global numbers took a healthy leap in the right direction. But we did not advance in our list of statewide internet media portals.

Of the fourteen sites we are tracking only one moved, and it was in backward.

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Data Point – Retail sales indicating a much more robust economy?

Retail sales—a measure of spending at U.S. stores, websites and restaurants—rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in July from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That was well ahead of economists’ forecasts for a 0.1% increase. Compared with a year earlier, they grew 6.4% in July. That’s more than double the pace of inflation, which increased 2.9% in the year to July, as measured by the Labor Department’s consumer-price index.

Robust hiring and low unemployment mean more households have income to spend.

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“Creative Destruction” – the end of my beginning. The beginning of my middle.

Creative Destruction:

Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) first coined creative destruction in his work, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.  It refers to the process in which technology and innovation create new ways of doing things and, in the process, leave the old ways behind. Technological innovation might destroy entire businesses, industries, or streams of employment while allowing new enterprises to grow in their wake. Schumpeter believed the process of creative destruction, “which essentially revolutionizes the economic structure from within” was the hallmark of capitalism. Marx originally hinted at this idea in Das Capital when he stated that, “the violent destruction of capital was not by relations external to it, but rather as a condition of self preservation.” In a nutshell, Marx believed that the “destruction of capital” was necessary for a blossoming capitalist system.

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Email Doodlings – Conservatives should do Press Interviews – but watch the “how”

Kiddie TricycleBUMPED/UPDATED based on my attendance at a training session where I was helping a couple of nights ago: from 1/5/13: “Kiddie tricycle riding journalist met up against a tank with a laughing blogger at the wheel”.  Read the bottom of this post – it’s my description of Steve being interviewed by a cub reporter that thought she was hot stuff. Given that it is campaign season and a lot of NH folks may be running for the very first time, my “How To” words still hold true and they work.  It comes down to this – if a “journalist” want to interview, ALWAYS record it.  Always, always always.

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A good Conservative friend on an email list, well known in NH, refuses to do press interviews.  He’s had nothing but gotcha quotes / twisted quotes as a result, so he now leaves them twisting in the wind as they desperately try to get him to speak.  There are some that do try for the ensnaring quote simply because of their ideological outlook – after all, what Glen Reynolds of Instapundit says of them is often true:

Democrat operatives with bylines

Sidenote: Example?

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Question: GraniteGrok Meetups

BUMPED from July 14th: Reminder, the poll closes on Saturday!

GrokSignal

As we try to ramp GraniteGrok to the next level, one of the things being contemplated is doing Meetups – instead of you coming here, we Groksters would come out and meet with you folks.  Purpose?  Just to yak, talk, converse – you know, share a bit of fellowship.  So, I’d like to find out IF our loyal readers think this might be a good idea, and if it might be, where should they be held and how often?  Completely ad hoc or with a bit of an agenda?  Just yak, or as Steve said, perhaps have a “GrokThink!” component (yes, I will keep you in suspense).  As always, I read all the comments.  But I do want to do a couple of polls after the jump (if I can figure this thingy out as I’ve never used the plugin that Steve has been using lately) so each poll might get adjusted as I correct mistakes.

OK, first question: how often?

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CNHT Taxpayer Family Reunion Picnic – “Send us your stuff!”

CNHTNo, I wasn’t on the roster of speakers but I decided to try anyways – and Keith Hanson of WNTK, the MC for the CNHT Annual Taxpayer Picnic, allowed me a few moments.  As I pointed out here, I’ve been making this offer for a while:

So, knowing the reach of GraniteGrok, why not use it?  So, if you didn’t catch my message here – listen again!  So far, only Becky Bailey for NH House Grafton 15 (as far as candidates are concerned) and Constitution Camp (as far as non-profits are concerned) have taken me up on my offer.  Still there, still exists, but start sending them in!

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Today: Grok at the CNHT Taxpayer Family Reunion Picnic

Snoopy Sopwith Camel, crash and burn
Is the new equipment ready to ‘fly’ or will it crash and burn?

With almost no time to prepare we will be taking a test flight of some new equipment at this years CNHT Annual Taxpayer Family Reunion Picnic in Hillsborough. If you are there, and you should be, we’ll be (most likely) set up in the far left corner from the main entrance (by the emergency exit).

Come watch Skip wrinkle his brow as he looks over the top of his glasses and fusses with all the new stuff.

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GraniteGrok’s Top-10 Heavy Hitter’s for June 2018

Grok Heavy Hitters - June 2018You had over 250 new posts to choose from for “June 2018” our first full month back to reporting on reader favorites after a brief respite at the hands of hackers in faraway lands. And yes, there are a few that just went up in late June that could “make the cut,” in July. So. I’ve decided to roll into the last week of every previous month looking for contenders to make sure they get a fair shake.

This June, eight of the top ten have New Hampshire specific references in the title. One of those remaining two relates to deliberate political action in New Hampshire. And the single outlier catalogs liberal hypocrisy on the separating minors narrative that dominated half the month’s news cycle.

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