Monday • December 4 • 2023
Vol.XV • No.XLIX
Manchester, N.H.
They know no boundaries or limitations on what they believe they can do to our young ones. We’ve taught our kids to respect, sometimes revere, their teachers – and these sexual militants know it and are taking advantage of it. Once caught, they don’t take the blame for what they’ve done, they explode with anger and fury that WE say “no more”. It’s what I’ve been saying (heck, LOTS of Parents have been) – as always, reformatted and emphasis mine:
IT’S NOT YOUR JOB TO TEACH SEXUALITY IN SCHOOL. STOP IT!!
But they won’t – School Boards are providing them cover (unless they get caught and, sometimes, not even then). They know they spend more time with our kids than we do and they know exactly what they are doing and how to do it:
‘We don’t say a penis belongs to a man’: Kindergarten teacher reportedly says he exposes kids to the terms transgender and gender-queer
The Washington Post reported that a kindergarten teacher in Massachusetts said that he exposes children to the terms transgender and gender-queer, though he does not provide complete definitions since that would be too much for kids in kindergarten. The outlet reported that the educator wished to remain anonymous since his district had not cleared him to talk publicly.
Too much, he says? Sorry, ANY discussion of this at the kindergarten level is WAY too much. How DARE you decide, on your own, to violate the innocence of our children. It’s clear that you don’t care and believe anything is game, but it’s still not your role – that’s OURS. And when we Parents hear about this, you wonder why we are so riled up?
This is OUR domain – not yours. And you wonder why Parents are, more and more, turning to homeschooling and charter schools in which we have more say and control over what they are exposed to because WE know better than YOU??
The teacher discusses anatomy but does not categorize parts as being specifically male or female, according to the Post. “We don’t say a penis belongs to a man,” the teacher remarked — it goes with a human, he noted. The kindergarten educator teaches that if a physician declares a baby to be a boy when he is born, that child is not necessarily a boy. “Someone who was born a boy may not feel they are a boy.”
And that is sexuality evangelizing. Should a Normal teacher be talking about such things in K-3? Certainly not! Heck, I don’t want them doing such detailed anatomy at that level either. Sure – I remember back in 6th grade when all the boys were sent out to play kickball and all the girls were kept inside for….something. But that was for straight biology – not how to use those lady bits.
The Post also reported that biology teacher Sam Long of Denver South High School, who is transgender, said that “LGBTQ identities are a naturally occurring facet of human variation, and that is why we need to learn about them in the context of biology and human anatomy.”
And we wonder why the incidence of the younger generation is turning trans or gay?
Like too many other things, schools have strayed from their lanes that we remember (some of us remembering from a longer distance than others). Being part of that latter group, I’ve now been yanked hard back into the current reality with the Grandson.
Times and change and I’m not liking it at all. These kids will be fully set to play doctor and nurse with any moral boundaries knocked down by these kinds of teachers but they can’t read, do math, or handle a debate logically.
(H/T: The Blaze)
The post Yes, They (Transgender Militants/Evangelists) Are Grooming Our Kids in Kindergarten appeared first on Granite Grok.
Yes, I’m going backwards – that’s what happens, as I’m finding out, that when you record a number of stream-of-consciousness thoughts because you had WAY too much time in the car, sometimes current events overrun your planning. Like it did with the Baby Formula – which is now back in the news as the FDA, under heavy criticism with the real story coming out that THEY are the bad guys in shutting down Abbott’s single factory that makes 48% of all baby formula in the US – and then effectively walking away. Abbott also makes most of the specialty baby formulas for those infants with special needs. So my thoughts (and again, recorded a couple weeks ago)…
…And I get to throw in a post-WWII Berlin Air Lift reference, too! Not even Biden is going to blame the babies, is he? Supply Chain issues? Parents “selfishly” putting their babies ahead of others (er, no)? How about Government – at many levels? Could it actually be?
We found that out when we brought the Grandson home from the hospital. Premie (3 lbs, 15 oz), he’d only take a few milliliters at a time and it was quite a long time before he got to “normal baby” amounts (which normal babies had already started in on solid foods). I still have the charts we kept as the docs / support people didn’t believe us at first. So I know what it’s like, to a degree, for all those parents rushing around trying to find what their loved one needs.
And for all its stupidity and trouble in creating yet ANOTHER Crisis (as Rahm Emmanual cooked up) not to waste, the FDA is now being investigated. Great! Except, however, why did it take this long? From The Blaze:
An Inspector General is going to investigate the Biden administration’s response to the baby formula shortage
An Inspector General from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will investigate the Biden administration’s response to the nationwide shortage of baby formula.
The ongoing formula shortage finds its roots in an Abbott Nutrition facility in Sturgis, Michigan. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration zeroed in on the Michigan Abbott facility while tracking several bacterial infections in infants who had consumed formula manufactured by the company. The four cases being tracked by the FDA occurred between September 2021 and January 2022. Two of the infants being tracked died, and the others were hospitalized.
The FDA was scheduled to begin a series of inspections of the Sturgis-based facility, but according to Abbott, the investigation was postponed due to an outbreak of COVID-19 among the company’s employees.
…In response to the Biden administration’s delayed reaction to the crisis, having not responded to the shortage until several months after it first became aware of it, HHS is going to investigate whether the FDA appropriately handled a baby formula recall from Abbott that has left shelves empty….
Yeah, it took a couple of months but something like this you can’t hide for long – not when it comes to babies.
Yeah, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you” – fine words for those starving babies, eh? And as it turns out, even as they drop anvils on the private sector when things happen, as they did to Abbott EVEN THOUGH they know that the bacterial strains that killed those two babies were NOT found at the factory so there’s no traceability back to Abbott, they seemingly didn’t care that they didn’t even follow their own Rulebook for their own actions:
Axios reported that in a prepared statement the HHS’s Office of the Inspector General said, “We will determine whether the FDA followed the inspections and recall process for infant formula in accordance with Federal requirements.”
…Reportedly, the investigation will specifically look at whether the FDA’s actions preceding the February recall of potentially tainted formula from the Abbott facility in Michigan followed the correct policies and procedures when conducting inspections at the manufacturing facility in question.
And for all their bluster of “restoring America in the world”, now we look like a Third World country having to import, not only oil again, but food. Basic staples. What’s worse is that the Biden Administration is doing it all intentionally (although I’m not discounting simple stupidity wedged in there as well).
So, a Government induced Crisis. There seems to be WAY too many of these in the last few months that have been perpetrated on the American public. Well, mid-term elections are coming up and I have only two things to say:
The post Skip’s Sauntering Snippet #9-Whose Fault Is the Great Baby Formula Shortage (Hint: It Ain’t Putin)? Plus, FDA to Be Investigated! appeared first on Granite Grok.
This idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while, and then I read Skip’s post about Sarah Gibson and NHPR. In it, Skip notes that the “journalist” tried to contact people named in the story but not Skip.
He also notes that Sarah (or her editor) could not bring themself to name the blog site she references when describing who he is. That’s common.
From time to time, the media is forced to notice us, but only as some deformed red-headed step-child who escaped the basement prison and popped up unexpectedly at the “party.”
Oh, my, it’s Ruprecht, the Monkey boy!
This institutional discrimination amongst “journalists,” paid scribes, reporters even, is a source of endless amusement. It’s the “we don’t want to name them because it might give them some credibility” schtick, or it might drive traffic to their website.
I can see why they wouldn’t want to do the latter. We consistently get more online traffic than they do—all of them. Every print media site pretending to do journalism in NH gets less online traffic than GraniteGrok.com.
In other words, as far as Google, Moz, or Alexa are concerned, linking to us gives them credibility, but they can’t bring themselves to do it. We are the website that shall not be named.
As I said, I’m amused.
And it’s been mulling about in my brain matter for a while.
How have we managed, with no payroll, to be of more value, to more people, than these franchises of million-dollar media companies?
Credibility, indeed.
The post You Don’t Want to Give Who, Credibility? appeared first on Granite Grok.
First, remember I am merely an “enlightened amateur” as far as anything survival goes. Please vet & check on your own. Consider these to be priming the pump for your own investigations.
Second, the hour is late and I fear bad times are imminent, but even a month of food, water, etc., puts you well ahead of most of the sheeple. IMHO, set your minimum sights on a three-month period.
Third, two things will be critical for having the best chance of making it through:
Fourth, as you read here, note that I present an aggregation of articles that I think are interesting, but I do not have time to vet them. Caveat emptor.
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“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
– Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
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Prepper Site URLS:
Most have daily articles. Please recommend others in the comments.
Ask a Prepper, how to prepare, survive and thrive, latest news
Mother Earth News
The Organic Prepper Home – The Organic Prepper
SurvivalBlog.com – The Daily Web Log for Prepared Individuals Living in Uncertain Times.
SHTF Blog – Modern Survival
And two aggregate sites listing their top favorite sites:
TOP 50 SURVIVAL & PREPPER BLOGS
The 50 Best Survival Blogs
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Short of years of preparation and untold wealth, you cannot possibly be fully prepared for everything. But even some preparations, ideally at least 90 days of food, water / water purification, etc., puts you head and shoulders in front of the vast majority of the sheeple who will be in jaw-gaping astonishment when the SHTF. The only relevant questions are:
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As I keep saying over and over, the scary thing for me is not that they’re pushing this. Tyrants will tyrant. The scary thing for me is how many sheeple will eat this up wholesale as a good and necessary thing.
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Top of the fold:
Insanity: California State Senate Passes Bill that Ends Mandatory Reporting of Threats Made by Students (thegatewaypundit.com)
So, basically, they’re letting mentally unstable students slide, and then using the crisis of the school shootings they didn’t prevent to justify more gun control. That’s the only way this makes sense. And it’s becoming a pattern: “Subject was known to the police / FBI”. Just look at the Florida shooting – the FBI was called, and did nothing.
Remember, to a Socialist, individuals don’t matter in the service of advancing The State.
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9 Scary FEMA Camp Facts You Must Know – Ask a Prepper
There’s a whole lot more than that; but those are some with the most far-reaching potential effect in a time of crisis.
Related:
America, Meet Your New Dictator-In-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
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Dem lawmaker explodes when faced with push back on gun control: ‘Spare me the bulls*** about constitutional rights’ – TheBlaze
What Democrats actually think about the Constitution.
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If China doesn’t make their move now/soon, I’d be surprised.
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Presented, quick hit style, are some links to specific-topic prepper articles I think are particularly noteworthy. Print them out and start a binder – if the SHTF badly enough you won’t be able to retrieve these off the net or, possibly, even off your computer (I remember one Y2K event I went to – someone was selling survival info on CDs… yeah, useful when the power’s out!):
The Government Plans to Survive the Apocalypse…Without Us – (theorganicprepper.com)
Yes, they do. Never mind Covid / the Jabs / lockdowns, etc., as Surak observes, they really do want you dead. Only in that context does this possibly make sense:
Overdoses Up 700% After Oregon Decriminalizes Hard Street Drugs. Officials Mystified.
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Long-Lasting Great Depression Casserole – Ask a Prepper
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12 Potentially Life-Threatening Errors You’re Making in Food Preparedness and Survival Strategies – Ask a Prepper
Some of these are easy things; some of these are very hard to fix unless you have a LOT of time and a LOT of money.
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Deep State / Coming Tyranny / WEF / Globalists (broad):
A Global ESG System Is Almost Here. We Should Be Worried – Watts Up With That?
Although specifically about masks and Jabs, the implication is broader:
Video: Fauci Openly Admits Biden Mask Mandate Is About Preserving “Authority” – Summit News
COVID Restrictions Are Coming Back – Summit News
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BREAKING, The FBI Maintains a Workspace, Including Computer Portal, Inside the Law Firm of Perkins Coie – The Ramifications are Significant – The Last Refuge (theconservativetreehouse.com)
A partisan law firm with an FBI office integrated in? RTWT. More on this:
If this isn’t a living definition of political corruption and malfeasance, it’ll do until a better one comes along
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TOO FAR: Norway wants to track citizens food purchases (substack.com)
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Shortages (broadly):
Our Economic Misery Isn’t an Accident, It’s the Plan | FrontpageMag
Brings to mind this:
(Link to AZQUOTES per their policy.)
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Related:
The impending fall f*ckening
In the United States of America, we will experience a food crisis that was purposeful created by our government.
That is utterly Soviet in nature and it happened here to support green energy initiatives.
It’s going to get bad.
Related:
ENGINEERED FAMINE: California diverting water flows into the ocean, depriving rice farmers of necessary irrigation to grow food – DC Clothesline
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Minnesota fire at commercial egg farm likely leaves thousands of chickens dead | Fox News
How… convenient, especially after how many millions of chickens have been killed because of “bird flu”?
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Fuel Rationing May be Coming to Europe
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Hormel CEO Warns “Large Supply Gaps” For Jennie-O Turkey Brand
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Inflation (broadly):
Expect Energy Bills To Reach More New Records, Crippling Highs This Summer
Biden Confirms High Gas Prices Are Part of Plan
Everything happening has been planned.
Stagflation Fears Rising, With 77% of Investors Forecasting Economic Storm
And yet, all I hear on the financial shows is to “wait it out” and so on.
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Hundreds of UK Grocery Items More Than 20% Pricier Over Last Two Years: Study
Not surprised.
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When Did Venezuelans Realize They Were Facing Hyperinflation? (theorganicprepper.com)
For far too many, only when it was upon them:
When I told other people what I thought was coming, and why they should prep, the mockery made me quickly avoid the subject, even if someone else brought it up within conversation.
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Midwest Farmers Squeezed by Soaring Fertilizer Prices – Average Farmer Sees Fertilizer Bill Up $175,000 Over Last Year
Cue higher prices and shortages. More:
As if we needed more reminders . . .
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Germany Inflation Rate Jumps to 7.9% in May
I have a 50 million DM from the Weimar era framed. A Zimbabwe note too. And a few other hyperinflationary bills awaiting the disposable income to frame them as well. Assuming I live through it I expect to add a US dollar to the collection. Related:
Poland: Inflation Breaks Records After Soaring to 13.9%, Economists Warn of Further Increases
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(HT DailyTimeWaster)
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High Gas Prices are Caused by Governments, Not Companies – Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish articles
“Incredible Transition” Update: Gas Prices Hit New Record; Analysts Wonder When We Break $5 a Gallon
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The Grid & Energy In General:
Power the Future
Useful map there too. From what I hear, here and there, this will not just be a US problem.
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US Social Stability (broad catch-all):
US Parents Travel to Tijuana to Purchase Baby Formula as Biden Baby Formula Crisis Worsens – Out-of-Stock Rate Hits 70% (VIDEO)
Wait until kids actually die because of this shortage. More:
How Biden Is Directly Responsible For Baby Formula Shortages (thefederalist.com)
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School Librarian Promotes Prostitution to 11-Year-Olds
I can just see high school career day! Which is why we need:
A Parent’s Bill of Rights – What Every Parent is Entitled To | Forloveofgodandcountry’s Blog
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Poll: Majority of Democrats ‘Strengthened Their Convictions Of Widespread Fraud’ In 2020 Election After Watching 2000 Mules (thegatewaypundit.com)
“HERE WE GO AGAIN!” MI Resident Receives FOUR Unsolicited Voter ID Cards In Mail…One For Voter Who’s Been Dead For 15 Yrs…Another For Man Who NEVER Lived At Address!
Hand Count Of Votes Reveals Machines Were Off By Thousands And Gave Race To A Democrat..
2020 was off the scale stolen. If, in 2022, it’s not an utter route – and who the living F are these 30-something percent people who approve of President Potato – then we know we’re at the final box.
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Where are all the men? – American Thinker
Society is declining when men no longer protect the weak. And more broadly:
Dystopian Viral Videos Stream Out of Decaying New York City – PJ Media
I’ve seen videos of literal swarms of rats in city parks in Paris. The wheels are slowly fading, and the civilizational campfire is going out.
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The inevitable result of “Defund The Police” – coming soon to a city near you?
Remember, they WANT chaos and panic and starvation and uncertainty. Related:
Fred Reed calls it
I’ve spoken often enough about the need to prepare for what’s coming. If you haven’t done so yet, you’d better crack the whip, because you don’t have much time left, and the supply chain crunch may mean you’ll find it difficult to acquire all you need in the short term. I won’t be surprised if the meltdown commences before the end of this year.
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World Stability (broad catch-all):
Pay Attention | NC Renegades
What do I keep saying? Every country taking what seems to be the “next perfectly logical step”… until the whole thing lights off. Related:
Related:
Why does Biden keep on poking the Russian bear?
NATO’s Mission Imperative: Break Russia Even If Millions Worldwide Perish | ZeroHedge
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Cyber agency: Voting software vulnerable in some states | AP News
Say it ain’t so!
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Gardening, animals, etc.:
Sour Crop in Chickens: What is it And How to Treat it (thehappychickencoop.com)
Chickens ain’t easy from what I read.
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Before You Plant Sunchokes, You Need to Read This Post (commonsensehome.com)
The advantage to sunchokes is that not many will recognize them. Planted in a garden as “floral decoration” you have a food supply without a huge fear they’ll be recognized. As the article (and others) point out, though, it self-propagates, which can be good and useful unless it becomes an invasive nuisance.
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https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/gardening.mp4
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Comment: I save my eggshells and when I get a full bag in the freezer, carefully boil them after smashing them up (warning: they can stick and burn on the bottom), then drying them and into a zip bag they go. When I mix dirt for planting I mix in some of the crushed egg shells. Also, particularly for potatoes, which I’ve hit on in the last couple of posts, I have started saving the potassium rich banana peels to blend into the soil as well (note that this could attract pests so I’m only doing it for buckets the pests can’t get to).
Speaking of potatoes, I’ve planted two 5 gallon buckets and will do two more this weekend. A little later than I wanted, but… we do what we can. If it works and, Hashem willing, we’re still here next year I plant to do more buckets than the ones I have.
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Tech security:
‘Privacy’ Search Engine DuckDuckGo Smoked Over Hidden Tracking Agreement With Microsoft
There’s a LOT of money in data. Related:
Online privacy generally isn’t
OK, I’ll look at Brave. I know Surak uses it.
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Tim Hortons app tracked movement in violation privacy laws -Canadian regulator | Reuters
If it weren’t for maps (only then do I turn location on; imperfect, I know), the wife who insists it be an ankle monitor, Duolingo (over 850 day streak!), and a couple of communications apps, I’d go back to a dumb phone. And the occasional on-the-road 911 call.
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Watch what you feel: China now using “emotion recognition” technology to arrest people – DC Clothesline
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Self-defense:
Why do you need to carry with spare magazines and lots of ammo in them.
Because predators attack in packs.
Related:
Why “no compromise” on guns isn’t a bad thing – Bearing Arms
Rights aren’t decided by polls – Bearing Arms
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West Virginia: Legally-Armed Woman Saves Lives By Shooting Would-be Mass Shooter
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Chinese KNIFE CONTROL – and the Left in America Joneses at the idea. Note that I have a video that, for some reason, is not uploading and displaying correctly. But per this video, there’s knife control too.
Related:
WATCH: Justin Trudeau As He Announces Canada’s Proposed Legislation to Ban Handguns
So You Want To Repeal The Second Amendment | The Zelman Partisans
Not sure if the video will load… so here’s the link, and a pull quote:
Biden just spoke about the need to disarm the population
Tucker: What are we looking at here? Well, today a guy on Twitter called Spike Cohen summed it up pretty nicely. Here’s what he wrote, “The U.S. government has been arming Ukraine because their allies. The U.S. government has been seeking to disarm Russia because they’re opponents. In totally unrelated news, the U.S. government seeks to disarm you.”
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There’s No Bipartisan Gun ‘Deal’ In The Works, Just GOP Capitulation (thefederalist.com)
More interested in their paychecks and their invites to the “beautiful people” cocktail parties than upholding their oaths to protect the Constitution.
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Uvalde — the new face of policing – American Thinker
How… HOW… does a police officer not rush in to protect kids? I’d dive in front of a flamethrower if it meant protecting my kids. (The other day my youngest was at a neighbor’s house on a cross-street, as was our immediate-neighbor’s youngest. I walked them both home at dusk – dinner time! And made sure their kid was acknowledged as being home by a parent before I went into mine. More effort for me? Yes. Worth it? Yes.)
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Catch-all miscellaneous:
Online Edible Plants – Soil Improvers (greenharvest.com.au)
OZ, but still useful to peruse. What’s the best part about planting edibles that most people don’t recognize? That they won’t recognize them.
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Co-op becomes first UK retailer to reject gene-edited food – FarmingUK News
It will eat the Frankenfood and will take the Jab regularly. It will give up consumerism and prosperity. It and its children will eat bugs. And it will be happy.
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Moonbat Wants to Marry Toy Airplane
On the plus side, hopefully, that’s the end to their genetic line that permits this level of stupidity.
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BBC censored alleged rape victim’s testimony to avoid “misgendering” the perpetrator (reclaimthenet.org)
Control the information flow, control what people believe.
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Wrap-up commentary if I am moved to do so:
Had a conversation over Memorial Day with a parent just hap-hap-happy and eager to Jab their kid once they turn five. Mentioned quite a number of statistics, casually. No curiosity. Not. One. Shred. Recall my essay A Curious Incuriosity.
Triage people at this point. Yes, some might wake up, but most will die happy in their ignorance.
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For fun:
Leave out the lobster, IMHO, maybe even pull the shrimp in favor of more clams and mussels, but MAN there are times I regret trying to keep kosher:
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LET’S GO BRANDON!
The post Survival Sunday appeared first on Granite Grok.
Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) took to the House floor this week and delivered one of the most powerful rebukes Americans have heard when it comes to the illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral efforts on the part of Democrats to remove individuals’ ability to defend themselves.
The speech, perhaps her best ever, raises every critical hypocrisy about this fake effort to keep America safe. In reality, the gun grab is just a totalitarian ploy to make sure the population is docile and defenseless.
Watch as Boebert perfectly captures the words, tone, mood, and energy in these critical times:
Holy Sh*t pic.twitter.com/4T6KMVkGlH
— AG (@Yolo304741) June 2, 2022
“I want to begin this evening by thanking my Democrat colleagues for their outstanding work in encouraging millions of Americans to celebrate their second-amendment rights by purchasing their first, second, or even one-hundredth firearm.
When the left’s riots in cities across America to Biden’s threat to strip away our basic constitutional rights. Democrats are single handedly responsible for the sale of tens of millions of firearms. Bravo. Well done.
And, I hear that the interest has begun to peak when it comes to the sale of [AR-15s]. Now, I have some questions for these freedom haters. When are you going to call on the Chief Executive, the basement dweller, to hold his own son accountable for his gun crimes?
Hunter Biden lied on a federal firearms application, which is punishable by up to ten years and a $250,000 fine, of which ten percent will not be going to the Big Guy.
Rules for thee, but not for my crackhead, parmesan- smoking, gun criminal son.
What about the disposal of Hunter Biden’s gun in a back alley dumpster and why was the secret service involved in locating this firearm?
Can you just imagine for half a second if Donald Trump, Jr. was involved in firearms crimes and his dad ordered the secret service to cover it up? That’s just the start of the hyporisy.
Biden will call widely-purchased firearms weapons of war, but then he’ll tell you you need an F15 or nuke to keep the federal government in check.
He will target so-called merchants of death, but celebrate the 600 abotion clinics across America.
This regime will encourage riots, defund the police, and try to take away Americans’ right to self-defense.”
It’s jaw-dropping stuff. In the span of two minutes, Boebert was able to capture what tens of millions of Americans think and feel right now. We hear Democrats push for limitless abortion and then pretend to care that kids were gunned down? Each is a tragedy, but the scales are not even comparable; nineteen kids to 60 million?
And we’re supposed to take them seriously?
Then of course there is the Hunter Biden angle, which is so obviously corrupt that it cements the idea we live in a two-tiered society. There are the self-styled elites and the rest of us. Nothing better points this out than the comparison to Donald Trump, Jr. They entirely lied about Russian collusion for four years and look how big of a story THAT was. It is safe to say the same scenario, applied to Trump rather than Biden, would result in utter insanity.
The New York Post notes that Boebert has a long history of advocating for gun rights and calling out the political hacks who argue against it.
“Boebert has made a name for herself as a proponent of gun rights.
The congresswoman…called Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke a “jerk” for interrupting a press conference by Gov. Greg Abbott and other officials Wednesday to demand action on gun control.
“Beto acted like a total jerk and tried to use the deaths of these children as a prop to advance his political candidacy,” she said.
The Republican — who before wining her office founded a firearm-themed restaurant in Rifle, Colorado — has vowed to show up to work armed and tussled with Capitol Police early last year after setting off a metal detector set up in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.”
Haley Sanibel Write at The Blue State Conservative
The post Lauren Boebert TORCHES Dems Over Gun Control, Delivers Best Speech Of Entire Career appeared first on Granite Grok.
After Parkland, New Hampshire created a School Safety Taskforce. Its job was to meet, discuss, and make recommendations on improving safety or reducing the chance of an active shooter event. They came up with 59 suggestions but left out the one they needed.
The problem informs the solution. You can’t account for every nutjob. No matter how many programs the “government” or community funds or creates, you will miss something. Parkland – the inspiration for this task force – was a perfect example. That shooter was on the radar for years. Almost everyone who needed to know about the risk knew his name, talked to him, and he still managed to get firearms and shoot up the school because of the government.
In the aftermath, the Parkland Commission came up with many ideas, but one of them was to arm teachers and staff.
Not in New Hampshire.To be fair, some of the suggestions from the NH task force are reasonable, but many of them are left-wing Edu-industrial-complex crap. And even more of them are budget-busting excess. All of which brings me to the solution informed by the problem.
The problem is that schools are soft-targets and everyone, including the so-called mental-health problem child, knows it. Schools with locked doors you can only open from inside or with a key or ID are also not without flaws, and Uvalde is proof of that. So, the solution is to make them hard targets.
Nowhere among the fifty-nine recommendations could I find the words arm and train staff.
Add or increase armed security and then tell everyone about it.
Everyone.
You don’t need armies of counselors or social-emotional learning. Yes, you need emergency response plans with contingencies for different sorts of emergencies. That makes sense, especially in today’s climate with institutions like public schools brain-raping grade-schoolers with their political and gender BS.
The progressive culture has destroyed families, pilloried fathers, and left kids in listless and unstable situations at home.
And little if anything about modern public education seems to help kids find a focus in academics. Some direction.
Girls used to be able to find an outlet in sports (thanks to Title IX) but now boys can be girls leaving biological girls in an increasingly awkward and perilously uncomfortable situation from which there is no escape.
Boys’ sports are equally upturned as heterosexuals are expected to feel comfortable in a shower with guys who are gay. It’s not bigoted for that to feel strange any more than it would be for the vaginas to be concerned about the penis in the girl’s shower or vice versa. Human nature is not a sin, while refusing to admit it exists might be.
So, we’ve got schools’ wrecking kids’ heads, creating a monster from whom they will then protect us with a list of things, none of which includes making the school the worst possible place to be an active shooter.
One recommendation did suggest having local police on-site more often. There to do paperwork and chat with kids at lunch. And that’s not a bad idea, but wouldn’t it be better if they checked in with whoever was in charge of ongoing training and development of armed concealed-carry staff? Make sure the paperwork is up to date. Range practice days and safety and proficiency courses completed.
Most cops would benefit from that themselves, so maybe you also get officers who are better prepared as well. You know, the sort that charges toward the sound of gunfire, intent on ending the incident as quickly as possible. The opposite of that happened at Parkland and Uvalde.
And who among us thinks that an unarmed teacher who would put their body between a shooter and students is a better deterrent than one that is armed and trained to dispatch the threat before they even get near her students. You’d have to be an idiot to think that the former is better than the latter.
So, no lessons learned and fifty-nine recommendations that, with few exceptions, look a lot like what continues to fail.
Thanks for nothing. Sorry, that is not true. These suggestions will cost taxpayers a lot for next to nothing, so that’s something.
One final note: The task force claims that with only 90-days to come up with recommendations, several (like arming staff?) were determined to be too contentious due to differences in opinion among those chosen to craft the suggestions. Not enough time to debate them, or maybe no point? Governor Sununu created this committee. It seems to me that would then be his fault, given that he’s supposed to be a pro-gun governor.
The post NH’s School Safety Task Force Came Up With 59 Recommendations Just Not the One That Works appeared first on Granite Grok.
Each Sunday, I take a step away from daily politics and focus on someone who has done extraordinary things or who we may need to know a little better. This week’s focus is on Queen Elizabeth.
I need to take a moment to be transparent. I have not been a fan of the royalty arrangement. I think the royal family is the most significant welfare situation in England. They are compensated dearly, for life, with no actual power or authority in the governmental doings of the state. But, the more I have read and seen about the Queen, the more I am enamored with who and what she is. The Queen has changed my mind.
The Queen is celebrating her Platinum Jubilee this week. England shows this woman how much she has meant to the Empire for the last 70 years. They are doing it with the pomp and circumstance we expect from London and England. Elizabeth has been on the throne since 1952. Dwight Eisenhower was elected to his first term that same year. She has reigned through twelve United States Presidencies. She has been a constant through seven decades of change. That quality is her value to her country. That is why she puts God and her country ahead of her family. The Queen has been the rock that her people can look to regardless of the situation and know that there is the other side of the matter. That puts infinite value on her and her station.
A specific timeframe and global event may have defined Queen Elizabeth value to the world. In the eighties, Ronald Reagan was facing down the Evil Empire, Russia. A group of powerful leaders brought down the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall without firing a shot. It was a perfect alignment of the stars that Reagan had Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, Pope John Paul II, and the Queen in his corner.
The last few years have not been good for Her Majesty. She lost her husband, and Harry and Andrew have done their best to tarnish the family. She has quietly managed the defiant members of her family and mourned her loss with the visible strength that she is known. The reality of her fragility and mortality is her inability to participate in the Jubilee celebration. Her people and the world know that she would be present if her body would allow it. It has not.
Unfortunately, I believe that Elizabeth is more important to the world than the concept of the Royal Family. The heir to the throne, Charles has assumed some of the roles previously held by his mother, The Queen. It is a pragmatic sign of the transition that the world wishes would not arrive. At 94, the Queen certainly has more yesterdays than tomorrows, and she should be celebrated while she is with us.
Charles will not hold the same place in his people’s heart. The two most popular people in England are Dianna and the Queen. Though England may accept Camilla, she is not Dianna and will always be in her shadow. There are difficult times ahead for the Empire as Scotland and Ireland are hinting at claiming their independence. These will not be comfortable negotiations for a newly crowned King. Charles will have a significant hill to climb to create his image as he follows an icon of the last seventy-plus years.
That hill is symbolic of the bar set by this woman who has been England for her entire life. Her family lives a good life because of the Royal label, but the Queen has given her life for that label. That is something there is not enough gratitude for but certainly is deserving of our respect and admiration.
Ray Writes for GraniteGrok.com and the Liberty Loft
The post Sunday Spotlight: God Save the Queen appeared first on Granite Grok.
Remarks on Ronald Coase (The Problem of Social Cost) application (emphasis mine):
The missed step that caused what I believe to be a calamitous misstep was identified more than 60 years ago by an economist who was, in 1991, awarded a Nobel Prize largely for his pioneering analysis of externalities: the late Ronald Coase. Coase was no obscure scholar, and his most famous paper on this topic is no obscure publication: “The Problem of Social Cost,” first published in 1960 in the Journal of Law & Economics, is one of the most cited economics papers ever published.
And yet in the hysteria over COVID, Coase was ignored.
What did Coase say that’s so important yet that was missed? To put Coase in popular parlance, what most policymakers, pundits, and economists missed is the fact that it takes two to tango; that is, it takes two, or at least two, to externality. More dryly, all externalities are “bilateral.”
As in the folks over at TreeHugger who keep saying that my CO2 emissions, an “externality”, harms them because it adds to “global warming / climate chaos” or something. Yet, when I have confronted them to specifically enumerate and assign a $$ value to MY created emission and not just some aggregated average by some study, the go silent (or deflect). They CAN’T provide how much “harm” I have caused them, especially those living in other places in my State, or they live in other States, or even other Countries.
I guess I had internalized Coarse’s thoughts without knowing them:
Smith cannot harm Jones unless Jones is in a position to be harmed by Smith. The neighborhood residents who are harmed by soot emitted from a nearby factory smokestack would not be so harmed if they lived further away. People who live near an airport would not suffer the disturbance of airplane noise if they lived elsewhere….
-Prof Don Boudreaux (Remarks delivered at the AIER COVID Policy Conference)
I recently found this out when my lawsuit against the Gilford School Board was dismissed for lack of standing; at the time of the suit, the judge decided that neither I nor the Grandson had been harmed YET by the GSB’s Policy JBAB that chill our Free Speech nor had I caught the Gilford School District at that point lying to me about the transgender status of my legal son (the Grandson).
Boudreaux expands on this (again, emphasis mine):
As stated, this reality sounds trivial. And indeed it is trivial. Yet it’s a reality with three key implications that are frequently overlooked in discussions of externalities.
The first key implication is that, because the harm wouldn’t occur if one or the other of the parties had chosen at some point to act differently, each of the two parties to the harm can be said, in a purely physical sense, to “cause” the harm, which implies that neither of the parties alone “causes” the harm.
Second, it follows that the harm can be reduced or eliminated by actions taken by one or the other (or by both) of the parties. Just because the factory’s smokestack emits soot that falls on nearby homes doesn’t necessarily mean that responsibility for mitigating the harm should fall on the factory owner. Maybe it should, but maybe it shouldn’t. The conclusion that the factory should be held responsible doesn’t follow as a matter of logic from the situation. An alternative means of avoiding the harm is for the residents to take steps to protect themselves from the factory’s soot, which brings us to the third implication:
Whether and the extent to which one or both of the parties to the externality should be responsible for reducing the harm depends upon the relative costs of doing so. In Coasean language, legal liability, and, I submit, also ethical responsibility for reducing the harm of any externality should be on the parties who can mitigate the harm at lowest cost
The reason the example of a factory’s emitting soot onto nearby households seems so easy is that our instincts scream, probably correctly, that the lowest-cost avoider of this harm is the factory. From the limited details of this hypothetical, it’s almost certainly the case that putting a scrubber on the smokestack, or switching to a cleaner source of power, is less costly than having each of the homeowners suffer the soot or attempt individually in their own ways to protect themselves from the soot.
But suppose the factory had been in its current location for decades, surrounded by no one for miles, with its soot falling harmlessly to the ground, affecting no third party. Now along comes Jones who wants to build a home on land close to the factory.
You overhear Jones’s wife point out the existence of the factory and its soot emissions, and then ask her husband, “Why not build our new home just a few miles away, in a location nearly as convenient as this one, but that is clear of the soot? Choosing that other location is easy and will cost us no additional funds.”
Then Jones responds: “Nah. We’re going to build here and then sue to have the factory stop emitting soot.”
The assessment of the case is now not so simple. It’s now at least plausible to identify as the party who legally causes the harm, not the factory owner, but the homeowner, Jones. If Jones can build a home just as nice and in a location nearly as lovely and as convenient as is the location near the factory, isn’t it at least plausible that the low-cost avoider of this harm are the Joneses? And would it then be economically or ethically appropriate to compel the factory to eliminate the externality at a cost higher than Jones would have incurred by building in a different location?
I think not.
Examples such as this one reveal that our moral sense of who “causes” an externality depends on our economic sense of which of the two parties to an externality is the lower-cost avoider. And so the lowest-cost avoider of a dangerous respiratory virus is not necessarily each of us as breathing human beings going about ordinary affairs of life.
Perhaps, instead, the lowest-cost avoiders are the vulnerable.
In fact, I think that there’s no “perhaps” about it. Because COVID overwhelmingly reserves its dangers for the very old and the seriously ill, it’s relatively easy to identify the vulnerable and to focus protection on them, while letting the rest of humanity go about life unmolested.
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
The post Notable Quote – when is “harm” not “harming”? appeared first on Granite Grok.
In some states, you still have to wait several days to pick up a firearm after you’ve bought it from a dealer. The idea is that you might need a ‘cooling-off period’, if you were considering using the firearm in some illegal way — to commit a robbery, to confront an ex-spouse, and so on.
Basically, if you were thinking about doing something stupid, you get a little time to reconsider. Ten days, say. Time to let reason catch up with emotion.
These waiting periods are pretty pointless when buying guns. Most people who buy a gun already have at least one. And according to ATF, the average purchase-to-crime interval is around nine years.
The waiting periods are also dangerous to people who need the guns immediately for self-defense — to protect themselves from stalkers or domestic abusers, for example.
But waiting periods would be appropriate when considering new laws or regulations.
That is, whenever some legislature is thinking of enacting some legislation (or some regulatory agency is thinking of issuing some regulation) in response to that we have to do something feeling that so often follows a tragic event, it should have to go through a cooling-off period first.
Basically, if it’s thinking about doing something stupid — whether unconstitutional, or unlikely to have the intended effect, or untethered from reality — it should get a little time to reconsider. Six months, say. (Or until after the next election.) Time to let reason catch up with emotion.
For example, New York is about to enact a law increasing, from 18 to 21, the age at which someone can buy an AR-15 rifle. But just a couple of weeks ago, the same kind of law in California was ruled unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
By the time New York’s law is also declared unconstitutional, in addition to whatever lives it’s ruined, it will end up having wasted a lot of time and energy that could have been spent looking at what might be done to identify and help protect us from dangerous people, instead of obsessing over scary guns. That is, the state is taking what could be an opportunity, and replacing it with an opportunity cost.
Short-circuiting the rush to just do something is one of the main reasons to have a constitution — to take certain kinds of ‘solutions’ off the table before they can even be considered. In that sense, a constitution embodies the ultimate cooling-off period.
That is, if you’d like to infringe the right to keep and bear arms, or abridge freedom of speech, or further encroach on the right to refuse searches, you first need to get 2/3 of both houses of Congress, and 3/4 of the state legislatures on board with a constitutional amendment to let you do that. That takes time — the kind of time that serious measures deserve, but do not get, when politicians and bureaucrats leap before they look.
You know how when feel yourself getting angry, you can tell yourself to count to ten before saying or doing anything? This is sort of like that. But first, you count to 290 (representatives), then you count to 67 (senators), and then you count to 38 (states). And then, if you still want to pass that law, or issue that regulation, you can.
The post A Cooling-Off Period for Laws appeared first on Granite Grok.
Nearly every government eventually becomes greedy and seeks to steal more from its people than it could via simple taxation. Tyrants in the federal government always wanted to control the money that the people used. Alexander Hamilton wanted the President to rule over the Americans for life with massive powers, and he wanted the central government to be quite authoritarian.
The post How DC Politicians Destroyed Our Money appeared first on The Liberty Block.
Rising gas prices are good, as is low weekly job creation. The President thinks that both indicators are favorable signs that his economic policies are working to recover the economy. He is either delirious, ignorant of Economics 101, or was a classmate of AOC. By his sinking approval numbers, not many are buying what Biden is dishing out. The only state in the country where Biden is above water is Hawaii. Not even California, New York, or his home state of Delaware are in his corner.
The President still claims that he is a unifier while at the same time calling Republicans unconscionably or the MAGA Crowd. Those are not terms of endearment or labels that will draw us together. Joe Biden is making Donald Trump look like a rank amateur at dividing this country. If you dig deeper into his approval numbers, with 75% of Americans thinking the country is headed in the wrong direction, maybe he is unifying us against him.
Biden claims that he is doing all he can to bring relief to American families every day. He does this as we wake daily to a new record high gas prices, historic inflation numbers, and empty shelves that used to store infant formula. He has put a massive dent in our fossil fuel industry but will go to the Middle East next week to beg the Saudis to increase their drilling and production and is also talking to Venezuela to do the same. We were exporting oil and gas just fifteen months ago, and now we are begging adversaries to sell their oil to us. Nobody believes his message because they do believe the checking accounts and 401K.
Biden’s focus this week has been gun control and how he can ban “assault” weapons, though he cannot define them. He also seems to be going after anything with a magazine. Biden wants to tear apart the Second Amendment, and his minions like Rep Jones (D-NY) are seizing on the opportunity. In one sentence, he declared that the Filibuster is fair game and packing the court is an option. This tirade by Democrats is not about gun reform but about using a horrific incident as a reason to transform America. Biden is cheering them on.
With three out of four Americans saying they are not pleased with the country’s direction and Biden is at the wheel. So if he claims to be the President of all Americans, when will he correct course. The Biden message and Presidency are failing so badly that even the mainstream media can no longer carry his baggage. They have to preserve what little credibility they have by telling the truth. This spells even a more dire situation for Democrats in November.
So is it bad messaging, policies, and facts inconsistent between the President and his clean-up staff, or is it his new Press Secretary who reads every answer and has the nervous Kamala giggle? It is a train wreck, so the President left for Delaware today for a long weekend. That is one thing that Biden is doing better than any of his predecessors. He is number one in projected days off. Maybe that is the best place for him as people like Mayor Pete and Kamala Harris are MIA. Joe says people are urging him to do something. He has no clue what to do.
Ray Writes for GraniteGrok.com and the Liberty Loft
The post The Mixed Signals Are Getting More Twisted appeared first on Granite Grok.
You may recall that the reason given by Sun-King Sununu (a/k/a Governor Groomer) for his veto of a bill prohibiting school mask-mandates was “local control”:
In vetoing House Bill 1131, Sununu cited respect for local control.
“Just because we may not like a local decision, does not mean we should remove their authority,” he wrote in his veto message. “One of the state’s foremost responsibilities is to know the limits of its power.” He continued: “Big government is never the solution, and neither is a one-size-fits-all approach. The state must remain steadfast in protecting local control as decisions like this are best left to authorities closest to parents and families, where they can work with their neighbors to decide what is right for their children.”
Yet when it comes to so-called “workforce housing” (a lovely euphemism for apartment projects), a “local decision” that “we may not like” is not “local control” it is “local overregulation”:
To be fair and to be clear, the JB Center opposed local governmental mask-mandates (albeit … because the JB Center supports corporatism, not the free market … also opposing any governmental prohibition of business imposing masking and/or vaccine-mandates on their employees and customers). That is, it is Sun-King Sununu who is being the hypocrite.
More specifically, when it comes to whether to don a mask … which is a quintessentially personal decision … the Sun-King treats “local control” as sacrosanct. But when it comes to whether some slum-lord developer can destroy the character of a neighborhood by building scores of seedy apartment buildings … which affects the entire community, not just one individual … then we don’t hear a peep from the Sun-King about local control.
The post “Local Control” vs. “Local Overregulation” appeared first on Granite Grok.
Both Representative Chris Pappas (NH Congressional District 01) and Representative Annie Kuster (NH Congressional District 02) are up for re-election this year. Both have also signed onto similar gun ban legislation as Senator Maggie Hassan, that bans common semi-automatic rifles, pistols, shotguns AND limits the number of rounds you can have in a magazine to ten.
Their legislation also creates the new term ‘semiautomatic assault weapon.’ Of course, there is no such thing, but that doesn’t stop gun controllers from making things up to convince dumbed- down Americans that common semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns are ‘scary.’
Also, their ban only applies to common proletariats like you, it doesn’t apply to anyone in law enforcement or who is retired from law enforcement, including law enforcement on college campuses. Those people can still protect THEIR families how they see fit.
And of course, the government can still own and purchase all of the firearms Pappas and Kuster seek to ban from their constituents.
Both Pappas and Kuster are also for Red Flag Laws that allow governments to confiscate firearms without due process. Red Flag laws allow people to make accusations against an individual (without the individual knowing) that claim the individual might commit a crime in the future. They are the ‘Thought Police’ laws of Minority Report come to life.
Neither Pappas nor Kuster ever ran on banning firearms in their previous elections. They haven’t talked much about it now, but Granite Staters deserve to know the truth.
New Hampshire is consistently one of the safest states in the country, with a very large 2nd Amendment Community. Neither Pappas nor Kuster represent their districts.
The post Pappas and Kuster Want to BAN Common Semi-Automatic Rifles, Pistols, and LIMIT Rounds in Magazines appeared first on Granite Grok.
I just can’t get it out of my head, the sound of President* Biden saying
A 22 caliber bullet will lodge in a lung, and we can probably get it out, may be able to get it, and save a life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.
And the reason I can’t get it out of my head is that this guy is the Commander in Chief of the United States Military.
Think about that for a moment. Our military forces are under the control of a guy who thinks that a ‘high caliber’ 9mm bullet fired from a handgun can ‘blow the lung out of the body’.
Seriously? It’s like having the Amish in charge of the DMV.
Anyway, it made me wonder: What percentage of major gun control legislation has been signed into law by presidents who never served in the military, who probably knew less than nothing¹ about weapons in general, and firearms in particular, and who were therefore particularly susceptible to the kind of dreamy misinformation that is routinely spouted during policy debates involving guns?
It turns out that the answer is 100 percent: The National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 were signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt; the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 were signed into law by Richard Nixon; the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 were signed into law by Bill Clinton.
It would be interesting to do a similar analysis on what percentage of military operations have been launched by presidents who never served in the military.
While I’ve long understand the importance of having a civilian in charge of the military, I’m only now starting to appreciate the value of that civilian having some kind of military experience. Even if we can’t require it, perhaps we should start demanding it.
Along the same lines, we should probably stop asking political candidates to debate each other, which just encourages them to propose ‘solutions’ that they don’t understand, to ‘problems’ that may not even be problems.
We would do better, I think, to ask them basic questions like: How does a semi-automatic firearm work? What causes inflation? How can you tell if a scientific study is valid? What is the difference between a man and a woman? Of the enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which authorizes the creation of Social Security? And so on.
As they say, ignorance is bliss. But it’s a terrible basis for formulating public policy.
¹ As Mark Twain said: ‘What gets us into trouble isn’t what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.’
The post Putting the Amish in Charge of the DMV appeared first on Granite Grok.
Yep, after what seems to be a “forever hiatus”, Jan Schmidt is back. However, it’s only one role as she lost her race to continue being a Nashua Alderman. However, she continues to say inane stuff that keeps attracting attention. At an NH Journal post that announced that NH State Rep (and “Progressive Leader”) Manny Espitia was not going to seek re-election, the entire “the Left eats the Left because of skin color/ethnicity” shows up – and rightfully so. If the Democrats want to “live” by the Democrat Identity Group Politics Totem Pole, you get to die with it as well.
I have to admit, I snickered more than a few times. It is what the Collective does as it can only think in terms of groups instead of what we on the Right see – Individuals. We look at what they say, what they believe, and what they do. NOT what group they belong to and if they match up to their “Group’s” Narrative. It’s great fun as they throw shade at each other that normally they throw at Conservatives like me. Hahahahahaha!
But back to Jan Schmidt (emphasis mine):
State Rep. Jan Schmidt (D-Nashua) blamed the $100 a year salary paid to New Hampshire lawmakers.
“If we could actually pay legislators a decent wage we could keep amazing people like you, Manny,” Schmidt wrote on Facebook.
Now, this has NOTHING about the Democrat Totem Pole. However, it highlights the difference between Conservatives and Progressives on this matter.
We love the idea of the Citizen-Legislator, the Citizen-Politician. Volunteering is a public good that we cherish – and they do not. I’ve blogged about this issue before in one of my Tales from the BudComm series when the Supervisor the Checklist, a volunteer position, came to the BudComm demanding that she and her crew get paid for their time spent serving the Town. And all of us spent WAY more time than they did for free. She got hammered by us all.
People who run for election at the NH House know it well – it’s $100/yr + per diem/mileage. You KNOW that going in – and you have to either have to:
The idea of a professional politician was anathema to our Founding Fathers. The idea was that the typical citizen (a farmer) would be elected, go to the Legislature, serves his time, and then goes back to the fields, pick up his tools, and continues on. I look around at other States and see a lot of these folks mooching off the taxpayers yet putting in laws that go counter to a lot of their constituents. Yes, I know – popular vote and all, but I look at how hyper-partisan so many States have become such that they become effectively One Party Rule. See California, for example.
Being a volunteer ensures, that for the most part, there is turnover among those that serve. Fresh faces and hopefully fresh ideas should be valued as long as they further roll back the idea that Government should be in charge and that they are there to protect our liberties.
With that said, I’m glad that Legislators-dependent-on-Government-largesse isn’t a “thing” here in NH. Once it does, however, it becomes yet another nail in the ethos of “Live Free or Die” due to complacency.
No, Jan, you SHOULDN’T be allowed a Legislator paycheck > $100/year. EVAH!
The post NH State Rep Jan Schmidt Continues the Progressive Mantra That Govt Should Always Be Paid Positions appeared first on Granite Grok.
The thinking goes like this. If we feed kids bugs, then maybe they will convince their parents to eat bugs too. As a parent, I’d like to respond to that. Go away and take your bugs with you.
But we eat bug parts all the time, they say. I bet we do, but that’s not the same as biting into a spoon full of mealworms or stabbing your fork into some crunchy grasshoppers. Are they edible? If you say so. And several schools in the UK are about to test this idea out on children.
Pupils at four primary schools in Wales will be fed “alternative proteins” such as crickets, grasshoppers, silkworms, grasshoppers and mealworms. The project to change people’s diets starts this week.
The researchers hope their findings will provide information on how to make British children – and by extension, their parents – believe in the environmental and nutritional benefits of edible insects.
I have several issues, not the least of which is my narrow-minded paradigms about “dinner.”
The Changing climate is natural, obviously, but the global warming cult (rebranded as climate change) is a fraud-based political program. This is no different. They say, “Insects are supposed to be nutritious and have a lower carbon footprint than regular meat.”
But the carbon footprint mythology has no legs upon which to stand, insect or otherwise. None of the climate models has come close to guessing anything correctly. Global CO2 continues to rise without any correlated effect to anything the Climate Cult has predicted.
Your energy solutions are more carbon-intensive than fossil fuels. Your shopping bag solution was more carbon-intensive than thin-film bags. Your motor fuel alternatives are more carbon-intensive than gasoline. Even your meat replacement strategy (fake meat made from plants) has a larger carbon footprint and does more damage to the environment than actual meat.
And let’s be honest. Making the government bigger is not good for anyone, including the planet, nor could a government of any size do anything but make matters worse on multiple fronts, including “climate.”
So, eat Bugs? Not unless its last name is Bunny, and you serve it with mashed potato and green beans. If that’s not is good enough, then I want to see Gore, Gates, Zuckerberg, Soros, Klaus Schwab, the Bidens, and all the usual inside the beltway DC suspects and their NGO and lobbyist funded bankrollers dining on insects daily for at least a year before they try that crap around here.
Watching Nancy Pelosi load a spoon full of some of the finest mealworms from one of her twin 15,000.00 dollar fridges: priceless
How about all the pro-abortion women and the LGBTQ folks. Insect meals for everyone, every day, in every way.
New Hampshire has a handful of left-winger groups scaremongering the environment. Where’s your bowl of bugs…yummy!
And none of that fake – I got vaccinated photo-op BS. Eat bugs on live TV, often. Do that for a year, and I still won’t eat your damn bugs because you’re already making a difference, and that’s more than enough for me. Your reduced consumption will also bring meat prices down, so thank you.
The post Four UK Schools to Begin Serving Insects (Alternative Proteins) to Kids ‘cuz The Environment! appeared first on Granite Grok.
“Tell the world, Johnny, tell them that I, Johnny Depp, a man, I too am a victim of domestic violence. And see how many people side with you.” How many women have had men say that to them?
Not only when it comes to domestic violence, but sexual assault and the rarely discussed sexual coercion. “Go ahead tell them—they will never believe you.”
At the onset of the Me Too movement, we watched as women united. They were standing up and fighting back against sexual assault and sexual coercion. You know, the “if you do this sexual favor for me I can help you get places—if not I will make sure you never work again” kind of coercion.
Light was finally being shed on the casting couch, be it in the movie industry or in your local business office. Women were sharing the stories that they had held onto and were afraid to share. Prior to this moment in time if a woman dared to bring up their domestic abuse, sexual assault, or coercion they were vilified.
They were told that they must have done something to bring it on themselves. They were all temptresses in a world of easily tempted men. Or so we were told.
It was healing and empowering for so many women to share their stories, to finally put that burden, and the shame that accompanied, it down and realize that it wasn’t us—it was them. Generations of guilt were released and we stood at the ready on a mission to support other women that came forward. Then it happened. Hollywood, which started the revolution took it to the very edge and pushed it off the cliff with their chants of “Believe All Women!”
They turned a moment of freedom into an opportunity to shackle all men, proclaim men the oppressors, and stick it to their perceived enemy—the Patriarchy. Once again Hollywood used women to further their cause and we were too naive to see it coming. Unfortunately, Amber Heard, her lies, her team, the Sun, the Post, and all of her co-conspirators reversed any progress and once again made it harder for real victims to be believed.
Amber Heard saw an opportunity to grab ahold of this untamed beast throw a bridle on it and drag Johnny Depp’s bound body behind it. These same elites jumped on the ride with her. Without any proof of wrongdoing on Depp’s part, the ACLU crowned Heard the Ambassador of Womankind or something equally as revolting.
In doing so they have shown the world what so many already knew—the ACLU is not about civil rights or liberty—it is about punishing political adversaries and furthering its hand-picked causes. All of the usual suspects spread the “news” far and wide. In a nanosecond–Depp was done.
Many have speculated as to the popularity of the Depp/Heard trial. I won’t attempt to speak for everyone as I am sure that the fact that he is a star played a role as did simple morbid curiosity. But for me, it was about watching the truth being revealed one witness and one audio recording at a time.
It was as if all the people who had their legitimate “me too” stories hijacked by those looking to gain celebrity and power from their pain finally got some of their power back. It was also a moment of triumph for the many men that have been falsely accused out of some twisted act of revenge for unrequited love or infidelity.
Millions of people sat ringside and cheered as they watched someone with the courage and the means to fight back against the cancel culture and the full power and weight of Hollywood and the ACLU. Maybe some of us saw a little bit of ourselves in Johnny Depp just as we have, from time to time, connected with the vulnerability of some of his most relatable characters. When Johnny won, we won.
It is my hope that the scales of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual coercion are finally balanced. It is also my hope that society can now understand that there are also male victims who often suffer in silence or are rarely believed.
So yes, “Tell the world, Johnny, tell them that I, Johnny Depp, a man, I too am a victim of domestic violence…And see how many people believe or side with you.” Ironically it was Amber’s own words that made the case for Mr. Depp and, hopefully, undid much of the damage she has done to re-victimize so many survivors.
The post Have the Scales of “Domestic” Violence Finally Been Balanced? appeared first on Granite Grok.
On May 12th, the NH House and Senate concurred on the final language in HB1178. An Act “prohibiting the state from enforcing any federal statute, regulation, or Presidential Executive Order that restricts or regulates the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
“This bill prohibits the state of New Hampshire, a political subdivision of this state, or any person acting under the color of state, county, or municipal law from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer, or cooperate with any law, act, rule, order, or regulation of the United States Government or Executive Order of the President of the United States that is inconsistent with any law of this state regarding the regulation of firearms, ammunition, magazines or the ammunition feeding devices, firearm components, firearms supplies, or knives.”
You are prohibited from enforcing it if it is not in New Hampshire statute.
The Bill passed three weeks ago and has 9presumably) not been delivered to the governor. If it had, it would have become law without his signature (I believe it is) five days later. That has not happened. Where, for the love of my Natural right to self-defense, is HB1178?
The Bill effectively nullifies federal overreach without preventing cooperation on interstate gun crimes. Signing it would make all the noise from the caterwauling gun-grabbing progressive loons irrelevant.
Sound and fury signify nothing.
Governor Groomer did say (this week) that after the Texas shooting, New Hampshire had no intention of tightening up existing laws on firearms. THat’s something. But where is HB1178, and when can we expect him to sign it?
Is he afraid to, given the recent rash of shootings? Or is he waiting for Biden or Democrats to say or do something material that would give it more weight?
His base is unhappy with his performance of late, and a bit of showmanship standing up for GraniteStater’s natural right to keep and bear arms might give him a lift.
A bill that won’t help us where changes in Federal background checks are concerned. But it will prevent the Feds from being able to enforce new unconstitutional laws or to take away firearms already in the hands of law-abiding citizens for as long as we can keep a Republican majority in the Legislature.
Local Dems will flay those protections on day one if they ever get the majority again, so vigilance at the ballot box continues to be the order of the day, especially if Sununu vetoes this Bill.
I’ve stood firm on the notion he would not veto it – that he would sign it or allow it to become law, but it’s been three weeks. Where in the Granite State is HB1178?
The post With The Feds Promising to Disarm Us, This Would Be a Great Time for Sununu to Sign HB1178 Into Law appeared first on Granite Grok.
Sarah Gibson from NHPR didn’t do her homework so at 2:15 pm today. She put out “misinformation” (you know, that AWFUL thing that the Left hates when it claims we on the Right have said what Free Speech allows people to do).
Ordinarily, I would have emailed her but her “home page” at NHPR has no email listed for her (nor a direct phone number). The only way to have left a message was via the NHPR Office Phone, (603) 228-8910.
Her post was “Policies for transgender students under scrutiny in N.H. schools and courts.” In it, she starts with the anecdote of the Somersworth School District (SAU56) that was seeing a large number of kids changing their gender identity in the school database and the response, the CORRECT response, by Superintendent Lori Lane (as always, some reformatting and emphasis mine):
Earlier this year, some transgender and gender non-conforming students in Somersworth began changing their name and pronouns in the school district database. The district has a policy for these students, aimed at protecting their privacy and preventing discrimination. But Somersworth Superintendent Lori Lane wasn’t sure if the school should loop parents in.
“We ask for parents’ permission for kids to do everything from going on a field trip to playing sports to so many things,” she said. “Why would we think that it would be okay to not have this kind of conversation with families?”
Unlike my Superintendent, Kirk Beitler, immediate past School Board Chair Gretchen Gandini, and present Chair Jeanine Onos, she put the right people first – the Parents. She recognized, correctly, that the kids are Parents’ responsibility FIRST and that the ethos of the school was that they are “in loco parentis” temporarily. They are granted permission to care, in a limited fashion – not total control as the Gilford, Manchester, and Exeter School Districts seem to assume.
And the Board made the proper decision:
Following several months of internal discussions, the Somersworth school board issued an update in May to its policy for transgender and gender non-conforming students. It now requires schools to seek permission from both the student and parent or guardian to make a change in a student’s pronoun or name in the official school database.
It also reads: “The school district shall take care to not initiate or otherwise independently encourage the start of a process of social transition for any students but shall follow supportive procedures as discussed in the policy after such transition has been approved by both the student and the parent(s) or legal guardian(s).”
…You hear this rhetoric: ’The school is hiding something from parents.’ And we don’t want to be known as that,” she said
They chose not to break their trust with their Parents. They decided to NOT create an atmosphere of distrust in which Parents would never have to worry “Is my child’s teacher, guidance counselor, Assistant Principal, Principal, or School Board LYING to me?” I am in that position now – I did as Chair Onos directed us all to do: “for any concerns, problems, or issues, ask your Administrators.”
As you all know, I did – during the School Board Meeting during the first Public Comment Session; I asked the Elementary School Principal Danielle Bolduc “what is the transgender status of my legal son?”. She refused to tell me.
Thus, she lied, by omission and refusal to answer the question, in front of me, the parents and students in the audience behind me, and the School Board in front of me. I then reamed the School Board for having put her into that awful position. I was later confronted by the High School Principal, Anthoy Sperazzo, saying that I had made her a political pawn.
There’s another school board meeting coming up very soon.
Anyways, Somerworth has a Policy JBAB but it differs from the one that was issued by the NH School Board Association starting in 2015 and recently pulled (at least Gibson got that right). It reads, for the specific issues that are being litigated in other Districts:
Information about a student’s transgender status, legal name, or biological sex listed on a person’s birth certificate also may constitute confidential information. School personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others without authorization from the student and parent(s) or legal guardian(s).
…Should the situation arise where the student would like their name and gender identity to change from what is on their official school record, the school will need the permission of both the student and the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) to make a change in the school district’s student information system, other files or other electronic data bases where the student’s legal name and biological sex listed on a person’s birth certificate is the only information identified.
And the Locker Room issue:
Decisions regarding consistent facility use shall be granted with both student and parent permission.
I also note that “preferred pronouns” are NOT part of Somersworth’s JBAB. However, it does have this which could be used by LGBT militants against the Free Speech of students, Staff, or other people who happen to be on school grounds:
Complaints alleging discrimination or harassment based on a person’s actual or perceived transgender status or gender nonconformity are to be handled in the same manner as other discrimination or harassment complaints.
Is NOT using demanded pronouns going to be considered discrimination or harassment? In some Districts, I would not be surprised. However, back to Gibson’s piece where she shows her ideological outlook with the use of the vaunted “scare quotes”:
The allegation that New Hampshire schools are keeping secrets from parents was one of the primary drivers for a so-called “parental rights” bill that died in the State House last week. Seriously “so-called”, Sarah? What is so scary about codifying what Parental Rights are, especially with what is going on both here in NH and nationally where Districts have turned against Parents? Your progressivism showed its nose from the inside of the tent with that. And you did what all Progressives did – take the side of “schools and kids over Parents” by concentrating on the “outing” of some students and not how the Districts are treating Parents.
So, she hates Parents as well? I’ll leave that hanging…
About not doing her homework:
…Lehmann has recently brought lawsuits against the Manchester, Exeter, and Gilford school districts. The lawsuits allege that schools’ transgender policies infringe on parents’ and students’ freedom of speech and religion, and on parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their child. Lehmann declined several requests to be interviewed for this story.
Wrong. While he IS the litigator for the Parents in Manchester and Gilford (the latter being my suit), he’s not involved directly in Exeter. While he purportedly may be giving advice, the lead chair for the Parents against SAU16/Exeter is Ian Huyett of Cornerstone because the freshman there is being discriminated against by the District because of his Catholic faith (which holds that God only created two genders: male and female). And she got this next part wrong, too:
A judge dismissed the Gilford lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of conservative blogger and activist David “Skip” Murphy. The other two are still moving through the courts.
She didn’t state why it was dismissed, did she? I’ll be blunt – the second judge, brought in at the last minute, dismissed it for lack of standing. Doing the complete story, I guess, was beyond her ken. I dryly note that she reported, “Lehmann declined several requests to be interviewed for this story.”
Well, she didn’t bother to try to contact me even though she admits that she knows who I am, and what I do, and couldn’t bring herself to write “GraniteGrok.com.” I guess that writing “conservative” must have been a hard slog (heh!).
And the last part includes Chris Erchull about whom I have already blogged:
Chris Erchull, a staff attorney at the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said that New Hampshire appears to be a “hotspot for litigation,” as activists and lawmakers seek to roll back legal protections for LGBTQ students.
“It’s going to be really important to convince people and convince courts that affirming and respecting transgender and gender non-conforming students in school is the bare minimum required by law,” he said. “Putting schools in the position of reporting back to parents the gender or sexual identity of their children is not the proper role of school personnel.”
So I can only surmise that the flip side of his outlook is that School Districts SHOULD lie to Parents simply because of his sexual ideological bent?
He hates Parents, too, is the only conclusion I can arrive at when there are minor children involved. After all, he has made them HIS concern – and he’s not, unlike the Somersworth School District, willing to think that perhaps the Parents are the ones in charge.
The post So, Sarah Gibson of NHPR, Are You Going to Return My Call over Your “Misinformation” in Your Post That Included Me? appeared first on Granite Grok.
You’ve heard the phrase, maybe even used it. It is ubiquitous, an idiom. “[It] came out of nowhere.” But everything comes from somewhere. The deer from the woods. The rock from a hillside or the hand that threw it. So does life. It comes from someplace, and it has a beginning. Life doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It begins, like all things, from an identifiable point of origin.
Every argument, theory, reason, excuse, or end-around to blur that is politics or, more specifically, a lie we tell ourselves in the service of selfishness or evil.
And I wasn’t always pro-life because the culture made it easy not to be that. It was framed in terms that anyone could ape. You could say, you know what, I don’t know when life begins. Maybe borrow a line from Obama decades before he said it. It’s above my pay grade. Or, you wouldn’t want to be punished with a baby – more likely.
We are not encouraged to take responsibility for the benefits of pleasure. Sexual gratification, beginning in the 60s, became the opiate of the American masses. Free love. The pill. Then abortion on demand.
A culture advertised as empowering women that favor men who would not object at all to more sex with more women. Do it and walk away. Sex without responsibility. Sex without love, compassion, or intimacy. Without marriage.
Related: Fertilization Is the Leading Biological View on When a Human’s Life Begins
It is a desire as old as human life on earth. Most cultures that succeeded (at least for a while) were built upon the premise that if men did not take responsibility for the byproduct of intercourse (children), they might spend (eternity) in some equivalent of hell.
And death is not above your paygrade.
Everyone will witness it and experience it – mostly around them before being taken from the world. But always alone. Your death is yours, even if it happens in the company of others. Surrounded by friends and family, strangers, or if you use it to take others with you. Death is a shared reality but a singular event from the perspective of he who dies. We all know it’s coming, and it happens to each of us individually, and it helps to have loved ones nearby, but in the end, it can be no one else’s but your own.
Life, on the other hand, you cannot create by yourself. You need help. It takes two to tango (speaking of idioms), and there’s no other way to make human life. Ask a biologist, and they will explain it to you.
Fertilization is where life begins. Sperm from a “father” and an egg from a “mother” combine, and in short order, an entirely new being with its own identifiable DNA is created. With DNA so unique, we can use it to identify criminals who could be incarcerated for the remainder of their unique natural lives. An individual that will live until the process of growth (physical, mental, social, cultural) is interrupted.
There is no point before fertilization that we can call the beginning of life and only death is the end.
Pretending that this is not the human life cycle is a lie in the service of lesser gods and lower purpose. And abortion interrupts the life cycle. It interferes with the natural development of a human being whose existence begins at fertilization.
Abortion is not about health or care.
I used to be pro-choice a long time ago now, and I’ve come to understand the truth. Abortion has ended millions of lives in the name of pleasure without consequence. A price many women pay by themselves after being convinced by men, family members, friends, politicians, or the culture, to end that life.
It is something only they can experience. A bumper sticker slogan played out as public policy that then discards these women with as much ease as it does the life she carried inside her. And these harms have gone on long enough.
The post Everything Comes from Somewhere appeared first on Granite Grok.