Water, water everywhere, but get ready for odd, even watering bans. Yes, spring has sprung like a stripper from a giant cake as the whores in government line up to spring regulatory speed bumps at our summertime fun. Will water bans be part of it? Is the Pope a Marxist?

Damn straight (that’s so bigoted!), there will be bans. We’ve had odd, even watering in my town for so long that I can’t remember when we didn’t.  Last year, amidst near-record precipitation, the signs were still up, and I think I know why. For the previous decade that we’d had them, it was wetter than usual but not wet enough (is it ever?). Since then, we’ve added thousands of additional “apartments,” each with faucets and toilets and showers used by people who are paying too much for rent because they can’t afford to pay too much for one of those racist single-family homes.

That’s a developer scam. The sums they get for rent are not far from what you might pay for a mortgage. Rent at $2700 a month is more than you’d need for a 30-year mortgage at 5% with 10K down over 30 years. But I digress.

I can’t speak for everyone, but New Hampshire has been in a decades-long wet period that you can clearly identify by the years of corporate media drought reporting. How much more? The 100-year mean from 1901 to 1999 is 43.44 inches annually. The mean for the past 50 years (1973-2023) is 47.35 inches annually. Since 2000, the annual mean is 48.97 inches.

Something up, if you take my meaning.

Post-Ice Age warming has resulted in a generous increase in available water for Granite Staters, at least on the averages, but the reporting is a bit less measured. We’re either drowning or droughting because clicks are more important than facts. And given the facts, as present by NOAA of all places, issues with water management seem more likely the culprit than the absence or presence of rainfall in any given month.

There is enough for mosquitoes to breed but no outside watering for you on odd or even numbered days, depending on the numerals in your street address.

To be fair, I can’t recall anyone enforcing the ban even as you drive by homes in the morning, irrigation systems watering luscious green lawns on the wrong days of the week. I’ve not taken a survey, but it seems more like an affectation. Virtue signaling. Look, we put up signs that say odd-even watering in effect, but it really means, isn’t it odd how evenly watered some of these lawns are?

That does not mean they would not choose to make an example of someone in the same way the FBI engages in entrapment as policy. No crimes to investigate? Why don’t we encourage someone to commit one and then brag about how we caught them?

If the fines go to the water district, that’s exactly what this looks like, but until then, we live with clown-car edicts about the lack of water despite years of record rainfall. 2023 saw 56.19 inches, which is a lot but not a record. 1954 was wetter, as were 1996, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2010. We’ve had above-average years 17 of the past twenty, and 2024 has begun looking to keep the trend.

February was way below average, coming in at 0.73 inches against a mean of 2.91, but January saw 5.46″ (mean at 3.24), while March dumped four inches above the norm of 7.58″ compared to 3.52.

 

April typically sees 3.64 inches but has been at or above average for seven consecutive years, following five years with below-average totals. May 2023 was just above average, followed by a very wet June and July. In other words, there’s no way to know. The Farmers Almanac says a sultry and soggy New England this year, while NOAA – not much better of a predictor, says above average temps and precipitation across most of New England (they agree this year!).

If you like to bet the NOAA line on hurricane predictions, an easy way to lose money, they’ve got another best guess for 2024: 23 storms, 11 of which will become hurricanes and five of which will reach Category 3 status or stronger. Stories of a warm Atlantic suggest this could be closer than in recent years, in which NOAA has blown the call by a wide margin in one form or another. Two years ago, not even close. Last year, total storms were good, but few made landfall, and NOAA had guessed there’d be more.

The reality is they have no clue what the weather is going to be like in a few days, so months, years, or decades are, at best, guesses – a well poisoned by politics and climate cult narratives. It’s not so much science and faith, but there are resources out there that stick to the data and trends based on past years. Weatherbell analytics, for example – and they say we’re kind of screwed on Hurricanes this year.

Basin Forecast

Names Storms 25-30
Hurricanes 14-16
Major Hurricanes 6-8

 

Impact Forecast

Named storm Impacts 10-14
Hurricane Impacts 5-8
Major Hurricane Impacts 3-5

 

And hurricanes that come close or make landfall mean more rain up the Atlantic coast.

All we can do now is wait.

 

The post Is It Drought Season Yet? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The 2024 Property Tax Revolt continues, with two more budgets going down to defeat last week.  As reported in VDC, 30 school districts rejected budgets March 5. Since then, five of six revotes (known to VDC) failed.

Add two more to the No list. Voters in the Essex Junction-Westford school district and the Rivendell Interstate School District (Orford NH, and the Orange County towns of Vershire, West Fairlee, and Fairlee, Saturday morning) both rejected their 2024 school budgets last week.

It was the first 2024-25 school budget vote for both districts. In the aftermath, as elsewhere, their school boards must prepare tighter budgets in the face of voter unrest, if not outright rebellion, against the proposed 20% statewide property tax increase.

Both votes were resounding Nos.

Saturday night, RISD voters in Orford, NH and the Orange County towns of Vershire, Fairlee and West Fairlee voted 240 no, 143 yes on the proposed school budget.

In the Essex-Westford vote Tuesday April 9, the vote was 2,353 (yes) – 3,340 (no). A ‘yes’ in Essex/Westford would have increased spending by 7.7% and property taxes by about 23%.

School board chair Bob Carpenter said April 10, “as an elected board, we respect the will of our community in choosing not to uphold the initial EWSD budget brought forth. Now, our board is focused on bringing a revised budget forward over the next few weeks.” Voters did approve the tech center budget.

More school budget votes are scheduled for this week.

Hartford (White River Junction) will vote tomorrow, April 15, for the first time. The budget would increase taxes by an estimated 18.5%.

“If this budget does not pass, we will try to produce a budget that will pass. We will need to keep putting out budgets until we pass one, or we run out of time before the new fiscal year, which begins July 1,” a Hartford board statement said.

Schools may borrow up to 87% of the current budget necessary to operate schools. Taxpayers would be on the hook for all interest we incurred on the funds borrowed.

April 16 will be a Super Tuesday of sorts for budget revotes.

Milton, Champlain Valley Union SD, and Springfield,  Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School, and Northfield schools, and the Elmore-Morristown school district will have their revote on April 16.

Georgia, South Burlington, St. Johnsbury, the Slate Valley Unified School District, and the Kingdom East School District all have voted no a second time to reduced school budgets. Alburgh is the only school district (known to VDC) to approve a revoted school budget. VDC readers, including school officials, are invited to report their school budget vote news to news@vermontdailychronicle.com.

Meanwhile, legislators are developing a bill that would fund a ‘foundation’ level for schools statewide with taxes other than the homestead property tax, leaving it as a local option to fund education above and beyond the ‘foundation’ level.

 

We want to thank The Vermont Daily Chronicle for being a partner and supporter of  Independent Media. You can support us here, or if you prefer to donate by check, email steve@granitegrok com for details.

The post Vermont Tax Revolt Continues … appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of the golden rules of dealing with proglodytes is that if it’s something you need or enjoy, they try to make it more expensive so you’ll have or use less of it. This manifests as sin taxes or, in the case of things like water or energy, they use fear as a policy to drive up costs, forcing you to use less.

In most cases, the “science” behind the fear is suspicious, with supporting literature paid for by those looking to advance the policies that make the thing more expensive and less accessible. Oil and gas are not made from dinosaurs, nor are these natural earth minerals bad for the environment – but controlling them means controlling behavior, people, and economies, which is the end game.

The recent psychosis over PFAS and PFOA has driven up the cost of that otherwise human right known as water. Early research, almost impossible to find these days, suggested that it was naturally occurring and in everyone (in some quantity) but that there was no substantial evidence of a specific link to cancer. People who handled the stuff and had significantly more exposure had no higher incidents of ill effects than those exposed to much smaller amounts out in the world or the wild. That has been replaced by scaremongering and the term forever chemicals. No one knows that for a fact, but it gets the job done if fear is the job and has become part of the collective consciousness.

If you are not certain about any of that, remember, these are the same people still lying about COVID and its cure.

Water

My water bill went from $30.00 a quarter to close to $40.00 a month—a 300% increase to address the mandated public water filtration following a PFOA/PFAS scare in one part of town. I still have doubts about the problem, the risk, and the solution, but votes were cast, money was spent, and legislation was enacted. Here we are—another liberal wet dream accomplished on unsettled science concretized by fear. People are forced to use less because of price, and another resource (money) gets redirected from more productive purposes in perpetuity. It is forced conservation for lower and middle-class families, summerlong odd-even watering bans, and a contradictory increase in local development that adds thousands of water customers tapping into this endangered resource. The government is stupid, in part because people it has made stupid let it happen.

A fine example of this comes from California. Although it’s mostly desert, people built huge, sprawling cities and massive irrigated plantations. When there’s not enough water, they label it man-caused drought, so water conservation is ubiquitous. It appears the messaging has been too successful. The regional water district isn’t making enough money on the water it sells and has announced a rate hike to make up the difference.

You did what we asked, and now it’s going to cost you … again!

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water for 19 million Americans, is raising its rates 8.5% in 2025 and another 8.5% over baseline levels in 2026. The district’s projections include raising rates an additional 11.5% in 2027 and another 11.5% in 2028 to finance an $8.2 billion water recycling plant that could provide enough annual water for 1.5 million people.

“The difficult reality is, our costs have risen while revenues have dropped, so we need to take the fiscally responsible step of adjusting our rates,” said MWD General Manager Adel Hagekhalil in a statement.

Their jobs are more valuable than your lifestyle, so millions are diverted from more productive purposes in perpetuity to keep the lights on at the local water district.

But couldn’t you have just asked people to use more water? No. Resource scarcity allows the ruling class to control behavior, people, and economies, which is the end game.

Accepting and understanding this and then backtracking their rhetoric to reality is as easy as turning on the faucet. Or turning it off.

The post Resource Conservation … Leads to Price Hikes appeared first on Granite Grok.

As promised in Monday Memes, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over.  And yes there will be a Friday edition too.

Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

What madness drives parents to do this to their kids?  The only thing I can think of is the attention the parents get…

 

 

 

Nope.  Just like most people are, increasingly, finding they don’t OWN things in all domains.  (Remember the meme, a post or so ago, of the HP printer that turned off, and finally they learned HP had turned it off because the debit card was declined?  I buy something, I expect it to be MINE.)

 

 

 

Do recall that while drugs may still be MADE in America, increasingly their precursors come from overseas.  Antibiotics in particular, from China.  A lot of vitamin feedstocks too.

China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine

 

 

 

I resemble that remark.

 

 

How about… NO.  Not trusting you, ever again.

 

 

 

 

I’m sure she had family, so I’m sorry for them.  But I’d call this EVOLUTION IN ACTION.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But… but… but that’s not possible, all the blue-check verified good Socialists reply.  Our Marxist college professors assured us we’re building paradise on earth!

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly right.  If it’s not happening, why object to making it illegal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been in situations where I’m CC and the people around me are just oh-so-liberal about how icky guns are, and how violent and dangerous all gun owners are, and I can’t help but think that if I – having a gun on me – were a fraction as dangerous as they claim, they’d all be dead by now.

 

 

“The Truth points to itself.” 

— Vorlon proverb

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

Experts Warn U.S. Government Planning To Freeze ALL American Bank Withdrawals – The People’s Voice (thepeoplesvoice.tv)

So here’s the question.  Either or, I think.

EITHER… this is a crack in the matrix that lets us see their plans, accidentally, giving us a Providence-driven chance to act before the gates slam shut (see Australia going cashless more and more… a contact in Israel says the same push is happening there… and when we were visiting my wife’s family last summer, a heck of a lot of places just didn’t take cash at all – so either their domestic payment card, or my America-based card.  Even at the markets for food, etc., while they accepted cash it definitely seemed to be an oddity.).

OR… this is a set-up, attempting to trigger a bank run that then “justifies” their desired crack down.

Is there a third possibility that I’m missing?

Regardless, MHO is that a crackdown on cash, and all assets, is coming – and sooner than you think.  Related:

Is the Biden Administration Trying To Destroy the Dollar? | The Heritage Foundation

Short answer?  Yes.

Cloward Piven.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Links (some from me, some from my Jarhead friend):

 

Biden Plans Radical Expansion Of Two National Monuments (thefederalist.com)

The 1906 law (link included):

The 1906 law, however, requires that the area preserved must be “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

—

More young people choosing permanent sterilization after abortion restrictions, new research shows (yahoo.com)

OMG.  Rutting is more important than anything else.  As Mark Steyn said, the future belongs to those who show up.  And reproduce.  This does not appear to be westerners.

—

canceled doctor Big Pharma so spicy so juicy can’t miss it | Blaze Media (theblaze.com)

Evidence-based.

—

They want to kill you – Here’s how they’ll do it – The Expose (expose-news.com)

Kind of long, mostly about euthanasia.  And as it talked about the expense of care, particularly for the elderly, this came to mind – applies to both the old and quite young.

Is this idea about the origin of the Wuhan virus too off the wall? – Bookworm Room

Remember, in socialist societies, an individual’s worth is measured, not by being a unique person made in the image of God, but by that person’s utility to the state. If you’re no longer useful and, worse, if are an economic drain on society, you’ve got to go.

—

The Disappearing Male | Marc De Guerre (rumble.com)

Chemicals, chemicals, chemicals.  In our foods, in our water, in our soaps and other things.

—

Donaldos Magnus Trumpos, Trump, aka ’45’, is the ONLY hope now, LAST only hope for us, for America, for the world, for the west! Western civilization NEEDS him, America FALLS if he DOES NOT win! The (substack.com)

I am not a starry-eyed Trump boy.  Increasingly, while I do admire his results overall, I see him as the least-worst option.  But certainly, MHO is that if he can get in, we have a chance.  If he’s stopped, America and the West are truly done.

—

Shared post – Trantifa member gets no prison time over Ohio pregnancy center attack (locals.com)

And this is how people lose faith in the system.  This is intentional.  Remember the goal: chaos, uncertainty, lack of faith in the system… and then, when things get bad enough, they can swoop in and offer the “benevolent hand” of One World Socialism as the cure.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

If Hashem doesn’t flame the world soon, then He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

 

 

Is it possible this is actually a real sign?  Seriously???

 

 

 

 

 

All fuel, not just gasoline.  And that will affect everything else too – because all goods require fuel to be delivered.  It’s a multiplier effect.

 

 

You think they’ll really stop with Israel???  DEATH TO AMERICA in Dearborn sound familiar?

 

 

 

That’s actually a damned good question.  Symbols and in-your-face victim mocking?  That does seem to be a pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

Christian population growth under Israel, and shrinkage under the Arabs.

 

 

 

 

What’s that quote, to the effect that if election day was a week after tax day, elections would be very different?

 

 

 

 

 

Can we hide housing illegals in Dem pols’ homes too?  “Surprise, pro-migrant idiot, here are your illegals for you to house and feed”!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not saying that it’s impossible to become a multi-millionaire legitimately these days, but I’m increasingly believing that anyone who does nowadays is doing so by less than savory means.

 

 

 

The threat of team relocation is what does it.

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

Every time I think it’s impossible for them to go lower, they haul out a jackhammer and proceed to dig.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate cleansers:

 

 

It’s always something.  Every time I think I’m finally stable and set, we get hit with something.

—

 

As someone who started programming in BASIC+, I can relate.

—

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Come back on Friday for more memes.  Same meme time.  Same meme channel.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

A recent study of Burmese pythons concludes that snake meat is more efficient to produce than traditional livestock, making it a viable protein alternative to cows or pigs. Given the primeval human aversion to snakes, this menu item may be a harder sell even than crickets or faux-meat nuggets. However, the omissions and biases inherent in the study’s conclusions reveal much larger impediments to snake burgers than diner aversion.

Snake Bait and Switch

The study of Thai and Vietnamese farms offers some interesting data about reptilian biology, and certainly, snake as a specialty meat product is a perfectly sensible menu item – as is alligator, turtle, or eel. However, the suggestion that humanity should convert from tens of thousands of years of symbiotic animal husbandry to an ophidian diet is a fantastical and unworkable “replacement theory.”

The plug for snake meat smacks of snake oil. A hint is offered in the deceptive statement by proponent Daniel Natusch from consulting firm EPIC Biodiversity, who proclaims that “no other livestock species studied to date possesses the same credentials or rates of production as pythons.”

Natusch, whose academic expertise is in reptile biology, does not conceal his ideological bias, revealed in articles such as “The fatal flaws of compassionate conservatism” and his founding and leadership of the Australian charity People for Wildlife. Dr. Natusch premises his claim that snakes are superior to other farm animals on the study’s measurement of the conversion of energy into meat by the Burmese Python:

“According to the study, the dry mass of the food the pythons were fed was 1.2 times that of the dressed carcass, compared with 1.5 for salmon, 2.1 for crickets, 2.8 for poultry, 6 for pigs and 10 for beef.

“The dry mass of the protein fed to the snakes was 2.4 times that in a snake carcass, compared with 3 for salmon, 10 for crickets, 21 for poultry, 38 for pigs and 83 for beef.”

Neither a climate scientist nor a biologist is required to readily perceive a mismatch here: Snakes are carnivores that eat a high-protein diet of other animals that consume yet other animals and plants, whereas traditional “livestock” are mostly herbivores – mammalian ruminants who dine solely on protein-weak grasses and other plant forage.

What a Waste (of Breath)

When pressed about this “apples and oranges” analytical perversion, Dr. Natusch offered an equally specious excuse: It isn’t the efficiency of food conversion that makes snake meat sustainable, but the fact that snakes are fed on waste meat like trapped rodents and stillborn pigs. “Livestock fed on plant protein sourced from a crop monoculture where a natural habitat once stood … is far less sustainable than capturing rodent pests or using waste protein to feed pythons,” he said.

Dismissing his own study’s argument that snakes are grand for their food conversion, the snake doctor here pivots to a bold claim that trapped rodents and stillborn pigs can somehow compete with grass at scale and a strawman conclusion about livestock that ignores rotational grazing that nurtures the natural landscape. He also bypassed the fact that cows are fed agricultural waste products on a massive scale that would not be palatable to his pet pythons: fruit peels and pulp, corn refuse left over from the ethanol industry, spent brewery grains, almond hulls, etc. These are removed from a landfill destiny, where they prevent gaseous emissions from rot, reducing the output of crop waste by an estimated 60%, according to Gizmodo. Perhaps he will propose shipping this to Vietnam to feed wild rats?

Cows require 83 times the dry mass of protein because they extract it from plant matter, with very low concentrations of protein relative to rat or piglet sausages. Globally, humanity allegedly consumes about 350 million tons of meat annually. That is not just a lot of Burmese Pythons – by Natusch’s calculations, that equates to 840 million tons of dead rats and piggies – plus whatever they ate. (Someone, please send him a calculator!)

Rotational grazing is obviously far more sustainable, and it eliminates the chemical-dependent grain crops that destroy soils and pollute groundwater not just in monocultures for livestock feed but in plant-based diets (including synthetic meats) made from unsustainable (vegan) grain crops. Rats don’t eat grass – they eat grains. What will they be “sustainably” fed? We are not told by the snake charmers.

A Moral Argument?

Natusch dangles yet another savory tidbit of balderdash: the moral “case” for munching snake flesh in lieu of fried chicken or yummy bacon. Dr. Natusch again resorts to serpentine reasoning when plugging pythons over bovines: “For the vegans out there, in my experience, there would likely be more animals suffering from sowing crops into the soil each year than are killed to feed a python.”

He also argues that farming snakes is more ethical than farming birds or mammals since serpents lack the cognitive capacity of the other two and are more likely to remain inactive in small, confined spaces when they don’t need food. Both of these assertions fall to the ground on inspection. Whatever he means by “animals suffering from sowing crops” (the trope that farm animals lead unhappy lives, which is just not true of grass-fed cows and free-range chickens), it is hard to imagine that more cows and pigs are slain each year than the billions of rats his snakes need for sausages. Certainly there aren’t enough piglets, despite California’s Proposition 12, which ensures more piglets will die every day.

As to the moral argument, it seems there has been another twist in logic – Natusch admitted snakes aren’t really that efficient, switched to “they eat waste meat” (an impossibility at scale), and now turns to a moral persuasion that is divorced completely from the sustainability premise upon which the study was based. Far-left field is where all the climate shenanigans end up hitting their nutty balls.

Serpentine Food Security?

Perhaps most fantastical yet, Natusch finishes this tasty smorgasbord of weak assertions with the biggest Pinocchio of all: that snakes will increase food security because “most of the snakes chose to go for periods of up to 127 days without eating, yet lost just a few percentage points of body mass at most,” which “means that farmers can stop feeding them for weeks or months if there are global shocks that interrupt supply chains.”

Cows on grass are immune from such threats. Perhaps when global supply chains from Thailand and Vietnam (where shrimp farming is decimating the ecosystem) are disrupted, Americans won’t be able to import snake fare. Snakes may be content without food, but humans don’t do so well on 127-day fasts. Cows are kept locally, often on pastures unsuitable for growing plant crops. Rotationally grazed cows sequester more carbon than they emit, feed depleted soils with manure, and convert grasses to protein without the intervention of disease-carrying rodents. That is the current food security Natusch advises humanity to abandon in the name of snake food insecurity.

Or was it efficiency? Or sustainability? Or morality? Or preventing global warming? Or recycling waste?

Sensible minds prefer reliable, grass-fed, locally sourced beef and lamb. For those who buy into the reptilian argument that cows hurt the planet, perhaps we should just “Let them eat snake!”

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Climate Farming Dreams are a Nightmare for Diners appeared first on Granite Grok.

State Governments top heavy with progressive thinkers have been looking for excuses to pass laws banning “militias.” Vermont, to my geographic and ideological left, used a gun range with a few unpermitted buildings to ban Militias statewide, and Vermont only exists because of a militia. Maine just followed suit.

Vacationland legislators used the rumor that a prominent neo-Nazi and white supremacist, Christopher Pohlhaus, was looking to open a training center as an excuse for the new law. I don’t know who Pohlhaus is or what he believes, but the government thought enough of whatever picture they’d painted of him to ban “paramilitary” “training” statewide. I’ve not read the bill, so I’m not going to pretend to know what they mean by that. Still, according to this reporting, “Without the new law, [Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey] said, he had no way to bring a criminal case against someone using military training to create civil disorder, as authorities say Pohlhaus sought to do.”

Did you catch that?

Polhaus may or may not be a despicable racist, but he has yet to use military training to do anything, let alone create civil disorder. All we have is the presumption that this is his or anyone else’s intention, which is all that is needed to bring a criminal case. If you and some friends like to go to the range to practice gun safety together, the State’s assumption about your intentions might be enough to get you and the range brought up on charges.

Again, I’ve not seen the bill, but it sounds like any gathering of lawfully armed individuals for any purpose has become a breeding ground for anti-second Amendment enforcement. And how does that work? The State gets a tip. They follow up. One of the attendees is discovered to have shared something on social media that the government thinks it can use along with this new law to shut down otherwise law-abiding behavior.

Maybe a few of them show up in the same tee shirts. Is that a uniform? Are they a militia? It doesn’t take much to make law-abiding citizens look like criminals.

You can pretend it won’t happen, but New Hampshire is about as friendly to rights and liberty as you can get in the Northeast. The AG of our Live Free or Die Republican governor has tried to use State and Federal Civil Rights laws to silence free speech because they don’t like the speech. The case, much like with Maine’s new anti-militia law, started with a local white supremacy group which, had the AG succeeded, would have put a chilling hand on all free speech and likely cost millions as lawsuits wound their way to the US Supreme Court where the State would have lost. This fishing expedition was dismissed, but the AG is back from another angle. His office has filed another suit, this time pretending Hate Speech is not protected – they are still fishing, and we’d be right to wonder why. Shouldn’t the AG be protecting speech?

Maine’s new mission is not much different in my head than that, except that its legislature passed a law someone will have to be charged with violating before it can be challenged on the anvil of the constitution by another branch of the government with a spotty record of reading the constitution in ways unpopular with people looking to infringe on rights.

I’m not advocating for military training whose specific purpose is to disrupt public peace, but crafting legislation that allows the police state to decide the intentions of others absent any crime for prosecution, while not new, is fascist and authoritarian.

Mainers deserve better than that.

The post Maine Follows Vermont Down Another Disarmament Rabbit Hole appeared first on Granite Grok.

The votes are tallied, and the readers who voted have crowned our latest comment of the week winner. Congratulations to Publius!

Publius, if you are so inclined, please reach out to me, steve@granitegrok.com, so that I can get a shipping address.

Here is the post, commenter, and winning comment as voted by you!

The Post:  G.E.T. R.E.A.L! – E: Education Reform
The Commenter: Publius

The schools aren’t perfect and share a portion of blame for sure, spending all their spare money on additional useless admin that don’t discipline, don’t give classroom support, don’t do their job of iep compliance, just sit there and try and enforce DEI and useless PD rather than trying to attract the best and brightest teachers with attractive salaries.

But we can’t forget to blame what we know to be the largest driver of student success.

Parents

Parents aren’t reading to their kids anymore, they aren’t fostering a love of learning, a sense of discipline, and a sense of respect

The parents plop their kids down in front of a screen for hours at a time, the almighty tablet has become their one stop shop for entertainment on demand. They then get a smart phone with all the quick-dopamine hits that give them easy highs and terrible lows when comparing themselves to everyone else. This constant connection to everything enables round the clock bullying too, and not to mention how that affects their attention span in the classroom, where they are truly addicted to the screen.

It’s an old comic at this point demonstrating the generational gap where a kid gets bad grades and the older generation asks the child what they did wrong, where the modern generation asks the teacher what they did wrong.

The covid years showed us how many parents don’t even care about the school teaching their kids anything but so many just care about it being free daycare.

As a society we once greatly valued education, but that has slowly been chipped away to ensure a generation of obedient, mindless slaves.

The post Comment of the Week Winner: Publius appeared first on Granite Grok.

(white) goldstandard-04-18-24-S.pdf
(gold) goldstandard-04-18-24-S-y.pdf

The post Senate Gold Standard – April 18, 2024 appeared first on NH Liberty Alliance.

In a previous article, I noted that I thought Attorney Celia Leonard was being coached by Attorney Bolton and his hired legal Dream Team on Wednesday, 4/10.  The next day, I looked for a camera in Courtroom 3, as Mr Buckmire, the head of security advised me to mention in my request for footage.

I just called the number given to me, (855) 212-1234, and wound up frustrated. It was the same variety of frustration I experienced when Attorney Lehmann said that emails to and from individual members of the legislature are NOT subject to 91A, Gmail, or NH dot gov addresses alike.

Frustration has many varieties, though not necessarily 57 of them. One of them is being told to pound sand by the stewards of information being sought.  I also mentioned how the police academy’s 10/13/21 raw video footage’s availability to the defense counsel was delayed for almost 20 months, even though Attorney Gens requested it.

My frustration was similar in that I was essentially denied also, but such frustration was compounded with my follow up questions being thwarted with repeated interruptions by the person on the other end of the phone. I will explain.

My call was answered by Pat, who introduced herself by name only.  It was one of those countless cases, public and private, where the caller tells the long, detailed story to the call answerer only to be “cold transferred” to a coworker chosen by the answerer as the one most fit to field the request.

I did not have Laurie Ortolano’s PARTICULAR case number handy, my bad, but I offered the dates and other information Pat might find helpful, considering Laurie has/had multiple cases.  I even said I would like to write the case number down so I could reference it in the future when asked.  Unfortunately, I was unable to get that information despite repeated attempts to get it from both Pat and the person Pat cold transferred my call to. Neither of them was interested in what customer service experts call “identification and acknowledgment of the customer’s request.”

A whole separate article could be written on how such expert consultants would advise the CSR to let the customer finish explaining the reason for the call/visit.  Then the CSR reiterates back to the customer what the problem or request is, thus establishing an understanding of the customer’s objective in the encounter.  I’m aware that we’re all human beings who often do things less than perfectly, but such training would benefit both the public and the people employed to handle calls made to (855) 212-1234.

My ex-BF, an electrical engineer, would always say that the more moving parts there are to something, the more opportunity there is for malfunctions. While I hate to point out that a man was right, especially him, he was indeed right, no matter how many trees were falling in the forest at the time.

There were too many moving parts to my unproductive phone call to discuss and still keep this article short, so I will only focus on a few. One of them was the second person I spoke to relentlessly interrupting me. A few times, I had to resort to interrupting her back with a “pardon, I would like to finish, please” to answer her question, steer her back to the nature of why I called, or properly clarify my follow-up question(s).

The second person thought I WAS Laurie Ortolano. That mistake was on one or both of them, not me, and I politely pointed out that I was not.  She also thought I was talking about another case with Laurie as the plaintiff.  When she mentioned the Supreme Court, her error was obvious.  She told me several times that there were several cases involving Laurie, but she obviously wasn’t listening when it was my turn to talk because I acknowledged several times that I was aware of there being multiple cases.

As noted earlier, I expressed interest in the one that was in court last Wednesday and would like to write down its case number.  Deaf ears were definitely on full display throughout the call, so I ultimately took the high road and ended the call with a “no sense in barking up the wrong tree, but thanks for the information you gave me and have a good day” instead of complaining about her attention being a real “moving target” during my line of questioning.  I will confess that I did throw in an “I think I’m done here” with my parting comment, but I stand by it. Let’s get to the takeaway item I learned.

I was told that they don’t just give out camera footage to anyone requesting it, media or otherwise. The request has to be filed as a motion by one of the parties involved in the case, and Judge Temple has to approve it. Laurie has another case on Thursday, 4/18, which is about the City’s misuse of New Market Tax Credits, so I’m not going to bog her down with my suggestion to motion Judge Temple while she’s preparing for it.

A reader might ask why I wrote this, and I have a few thoughts. One of them is that I have a greater appreciation for Frank Staples insisting on doing all his own courtroom recording. Another is that I’m glad to have heard during the robo greeting that my call was being recorded (presumably and hopefully for training purposes) when I called (855) 212-1234.  And lastly, it’s another example of the RTK frustrations our government creates all by design. Consider this another reminder to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that HB 1002 is a bad bill and needs to be killed.

The post Celia Isn’t the Only One Breaking My Heart appeared first on Granite Grok.

Maksym Krippa is a renowned figure in the Ukrainian business landscape. AMCU approved the acquisition of the Parus business center through Ola Fine LLC, a company under the umbrella of ARS Capital. This development, endorsed by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, not only marks a significant milestone in Maksym Krippa’s investment journey but also reflects broader trends in Ukraine’s business ecosystem, potentially influencing foreign investors’ perceptions of the country’s investment climate.

This is known from information published on the 7day website.

The agreement brokered between Parus Holding’s principal stakeholders, Vadym Stolar, and his ex-wife, Inna Maistruk, signifies a pivotal shift in ownership dynamics. With Stolar’s ownership of 80% of shares through the Genesis fund and Maistruk’s 20% ownership via the Stream Investment fund, the transition of control to Krippa heralds a new chapter for the Parus business center.

Situated in the heart of Kyiv, the Parus skyscraper stands as a beacon of modernity and sophistication, boasting impressive architectural features and amenities tailored to meet the needs of corporate tenants. Its status as one of Ukraine’s tallest buildings between 2005 and 2008 underscores its significance within the urban landscape, retaining its allure and appeal to discerning occupants.

More about the skyscraper

Key features of the Parus business center include its towering height of 133.1 meters, augmented to 149.5 meters with the antenna, spanning across 33 floors of premium office space. Noteworthy attributes such as floors capable of withstanding loads of up to 250 kg/m² and two conference halls accommodating 40 and 100 delegates, respectively, highlight the center’s commitment to functionality and versatility.

Moreover, the presence of dining facilities on various floors, including restaurants on the fourth and thirty-first floors, adds to the convenience and allure of the Parus business center. Its strategic location, mere minutes away from the Klovska metro station and the Palace of Sports, further enhances accessibility and connectivity for tenants and visitors alike.

What is known about the new owner of this skyscraper?

Maxim Krippa entrepreneurial prowess extends beyond the realm of real estate, with notable investments in diverse sectors including IT, esports, and software development. His ownership of NAVI esports team and GSC Game World exemplifies his strategic vision and commitment to driving innovation across multiple industries, cementing his status as a prominent investor and business leader in Ukraine and beyond.

The post NAVI Investor Maksym Krippa Buys BC Parus appeared first on Granite Grok.

Whereas the practice of slavery enslaves the body, the dogma of apostasy ensnares the mind. Whereas slavery is a shameful practice of the past, some shameless religionists still use the doctrine of apostasy to intimidate and severely punish people who elect to choose their own beliefs.

Islam is extremely possessive of its subjects. It is a religion that admits anyone into its fold by the person simply uttering a one-sentence statement of faith, shahada: I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s messenger. By so saying, one becomes Muslim for life and surrenders the right of ever leaving it. Anyone who leaves the Islamic fold is murtad (revert), apostate.

The notion of apostasy is best understood within the overall Islamic dogma. Islam forms a binding covenant with the believer. Once a person is Muslim, he and his issues are considered Muslim forever. In this covenant, Islam promises to bestow its beneficence on the faithful conditional on the person’s total and unquestioned surrender to it in all matters. Some of the rewards offered by Islam to the truly obedient believer, particularly the privileged males, are of this world as well as a great deal more promised to him in the next. If a Muslim faithful does not reap the rewards of his devotion in this world, Islam assures him of his inestimably cherished and limitless compounded rewards in the next world.

Islam demands the subjugation of the individual’s will to that of Allah and permeates the thinking, actions, and speech of Muslims by prefacing commitments they make contingent on the will of God (inshallah)

This total surrender and submission to Allah’s will and decree also absolve the individual from taking full responsibility for his conduct or honoring any commitments he may make, for Allah has the unquestioned authority to consummate or contravene any action or promise made by a faithful.

Within this overall framework of complete acceptance of Islam as the perfect living charter for the believer, the rules pertaining to apostasy can be better understood. Islam considers an apostate as a person who unilaterally breaks the covenant he has made with the faith. An apostate is condemned as guilty of turning his back on Allah’s immutable, eternal religion. Anyone who is born to Muslim parents and leaves Islam is stigmatized as murtad fitri (natural apostate) in the sense that he was born genetically Muslim and had rejected his gift of birth. Anyone who converts to Islam and later leaves it is condemned as murtad milli (a person who has turned his back to the Ummah)

The severe stricture against leaving Islam is consistent with other main principle beliefs of the religion. Islam is a faith of surrender and not that of free will. A Muslim is to surrender his freedom of thoughts and actions to the will and dictates of Allah. The very principle of freedom is alien to the Islamic belief system.

With regard to apostasy, the two main branches of Islam, the Sunni and the Shiite, are in considerable agreement. The great majority of Muslim scholars of both major camps agree that the Quran stipulates death for the apostate.

Islam, by its very nature, is an all-encompassing belief system that prescribes every detail of a person’s and society’s conduct. Sharia law, a comprehensive code of Islamic jurisprudence, purportedly is based on the Quran and the Hadith (the reported enunciation of Muhammad and his conduct).

Furthermore, Islamic societies rule by the Islamic laws of Sharia. Any new societal legislation must be harmonious with those of the Sharia, which are conclusively anti-democratic. Sharia law is in explicit contradiction and violation of the foundation of democracy. Sharia law places the dictates and rules of Allah over the sovereignty of the people. It discriminates against non-Muslims to the extreme of disenfranchising them from their rights of citizenship of Baha’is, barring them from jobs, higher education, worship, etc., not only in Iran but also in Saudi Arabia and even Egypt. It is blatantly discriminatory against women, Muslim or not. Men have a greater claim to inheritance, their testimony in the court of law is worth twice that of women, and they may marry multiple women at the same time. It stipulates even different rules and privileges governing free Muslim men as opposed to slave Muslims, implicitly condoning slavery. Saudi Arabia, the flagship of Islam, was finally forced by the free world to abandon slavery, I believe, only in the late 1960s, but it has been reported that it has not been completely abandoned.

Apostasy is defined both in the Quran as well as the Sharia and its punishment is clearly stipulated.

“Those who blasphemed and back away from the ways of Allah and die as blasphemers, Allah shall not forgive them.” [Qur’an 4:48]

Islamic law does not allow the freedom to choose one’s religion.

“Let there be no compulsion in the religion: Clearly the Right Path (i.e., Islam) is distinct from the crooked path.” [Qur’an 2:256]

The Quran also specifically addresses the issue of murtad milli:

“But those who reject faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of faith, never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray.” [Qur’an 3:90]

The Hadith further restates the Quran’s provision regarding the apostate’s punishment.

The Sharia law stipulates that any Muslim who turns his back to Islam should be given a chance to revert to the religion. For an un-repenting male apostate, death is the punishment and life imprisonment for a female apostate.

“Kill whoever changes his religion.” __Sahih al-Bukhari 9:84:57

“The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims.”__ Sahih al-Bukhari 9:83:17

At present, apostasy is illegal in most Islamic countries. Although execution of the apostate is not common, it takes place occasionally by frequently buttressing the “crime” with additional charges. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, often adds the charge of mohareb (one who wars with God) to legitimize its execution of apostates further. A case in point pertains to the treatment of the religious minority Baha’is by the Islamic Republic. A number of Baha’is have been charged as apostates and mohareb, executed, and some secretly buried in unmarked graves.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini in his Tahrir al-Wassilah adjudicates how a person’s apostasy is established: “Apostasy is proven in two ways: First, the person himself confesses to his apostasy twice. Second, two and truthful men bear witness to the person’s apostasy. But women’s testimonies do not prove apostasy in any case; either they bear witness individually, in a group, or beside a man.”

The misogynistic nature of Islam is once again evident in Ayatollah Khomeini’s blanket disqualification of women’s testimony solely on the basis of gender.

“Apostasy — or the formal renunciation of religion — is already punishable in Iran with death. But now, Iran wants to make the death penalty for apostasy part of the penal code. The European Union is concerned and has asked Iran to reconsider.” Who is an apostate according to the legislation? Anyone in the world, not just Iranians, born to a Muslim parent; also, any convert to Islam who leaves it. Only one parent needs to be a Muslim at the time of conception for Islam to own that child for life. Islam is Ummahist. Islam doesn’t recognize nationalities and national boundaries. And these Islamist zealots are very serious and have no sense of humor. Some say they have no sense at all, and they may be right. What they certainly have is a thirst for blood, particularly for the blood of infidels and apostates.

It is noteworthy that Islam considers the world as its Ummah and overarches national boundaries. Hence, Islamic clerics feel free to issue fatwa and other adjudications regarding any person, group, or nation anywhere in the world. A celebrated case of this practice was the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini against the British author Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses. Hence, individual Muslims anywhere in the world take it upon themselves to carry out fatwa issued by Islamic high divines. In another high-profile case, the killing of Theo van Gough, a Dutch film director, and the recent attack on the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard clearly demonstrates this primitive practice that runs counter to the civilized world’s due process and has a seriously intimidating impact on the freedom of expression.

Free people and nations should not sacrifice their God-given liberty to please the Islamists by muzzling dissenters and even endangering their safety and their lives.

The concept and practice of apostasy is a shameful stain on the conscience of humanity. It is despicable for any belief system to stubbornly cling to the dehumanizing anachronism of apostasy while its counterpart, slavery, is already buried in mankind’s graveyard of past infamy.

The post Night Cap: Islam is a Faith of Surrender and Not That of Free Will appeared first on Granite Grok.

The announcement of a “model” international building code might understandably elicit yawns. However, the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) is cause for Americans to bolt upright and pay close attention. The vain imaginings of corporate and NGO “stakeholders” who propose to completely dominate American housing construction in the name of saving the planet promise to drive up housing costs and mandate dangerous grid dependency that erases longstanding constitutional liberties.

The 2024 plan would dramatically expand regulations for both residential and commercial construction, possibly including both new and existing homes.

Building Codes That Demolish Liberties

According to the code’s executive summary, “concern is growing around the world about the impacts of climate change” and “consumers are seeking more energy efficient and sustainable homes.” This assertion excludes those who have concerns about overblown climate fearmongering and consumers accustomed to free market choices in an already overpriced housing market. Behind this shallow justification are special interest groups who feign to speak for all consumers, whose liberties are extinguished in favor of a compelled code rather than rules freely chosen by We the People.

The executive summary lists the expanded plans of control:

“The [2024] IECC will continue to be updated on a three-year cycle and each edition will increase efficiency over the prior edition; The code will include pathways leading to the achievement of zero energy buildings presently and by 2030; The code may include non-mandatory appendices incorporating energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction resources including for electric vehicle charging, electrification and embodied carbon; The code’s minimum efficiency requirements will be strengthened each edition based on a balancing test supported by energy efficiency advocates and the building industry and passed by both the U.S. House and Senate; The development committees will be informed by insight from a newly established Energy and Carbon Advisory Council made up of public and private sector leaders. Governments continue to have the ultimate say on whether to adopt or amend model codes.”

This outsourcing of vitally important regulatory authority is unusual, diminishes the role of voter “stakeholders,” appears to promulgate policies that enrich corporate interests and advance pseudo-scientific climate alarmism. The usual invocations of protections for “marginalized communities” are absent here, and these plans will escalate housing costs dramatically. Like Biden’s EPA noose-tightening of vehicle emissions standards, compulsory appliance manufacturing standards, and “wartime powers” to subsidize heat pumps, the IECC’s “three-year cycle” will doubtless transition “non-mandatory” provisions to the “shall” column.

Disenfranchised Homeowners

According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the 2024 rule-making process has shifted:

“In years past, the energy code was developed through a process in which the final decisions were determined by the votes of government officials.

“Beginning with the development of the 2024 IECC, the ICC board of directors changed the procedure so it now follows a standards development process where final decisions rest with consensus committee members who represent a wide range of stakeholders.”

The NAHB has a stakeholder seat at the policy table; the consumers who foot the bill are out in the proverbial cold, though they can post comments. The glowing “testimonials” of other profit-making or politically biased stakeholders sitting at this elitist table display an ideological smorgasbord of piranha-like feasting and even fishier propaganda. The American Society of Interior Designers (most all of whose products and services pollute more than they save) gushes that it “has complete confidence in the ICC consensus-based standards development process as a well-grounded framework that connects open and inclusive stakeholder participation.” The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) boasts “a long history of constructive collaboration to promote decarbonization … and efficiency of buildings … many of which are required or permitted in the family of I-codes, … [and] will continue to be unwavering advocates for adoption and enforcement in every state and jurisdiction in the nation.”

BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) International has a special seat. RESNET (Residential Energy Services Network), whose website proclaims it is “Leading the Path to Net Zero Energy Homes,” has a seat at the table, from which it dictates that it will “ensure future editions of the IECC are developed using a consensus-based process that is fair, open, transparent, and based upon science.”

Forced Homelessness?

But where are the citizens who will be controlled in this “fair, open, transparent” cabal of profitmaking? The Solar Energy Industries Association chirps in neo-Marxist unison about “this new process to move new buildings toward zero net energy and zero net carbon with the full suite of options, including solar.” Any conflict of interest here? Another plug is from Nu-Wool Co., Inc., which “manufactures environmentally friendly cellulose insulation materials,” fattened, no doubt, by its virtue-profiteering.

But what of real wool? Actual sheep’s wool, long used to insulate homes, is presumably not permitted under this globalist building code. What of straw-bale homes? These are extremely efficient, can last for hundreds of years, and do not require chemicals and manufacturing facilities. What of existing construction, remote homesteads, or rusting 1960s trailers in which millions of Americans are forced to live because of skyrocketing food, vehicle, and energy prices? It appears that they are excluded from the table, the wool wrapped tightly around their eyes and handcuffing their basic rights.

Per the NAHB, the 2024 IECC is considering (and the following measures are quoted directly):

• Requiring on-site solar panels

• Requiring electric vehicle charging capability or readiness

• Increasing the stringency of insulation, windows, and building and duct tightness

• Requiring energy-recovery ventilators (ERVs)

• Imposing a penalty on houses larger than 5,000 square feet

The NAHB approvingly stated: “[T]he final decisions rest with consensus committees, not governmental voting members.” But the alleged consensus is of one ideological ilk. Jennifer Amann, a senior fellow at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, told Fox News Digital:

“The model building energy code before the International Code Council represents a consensus agreement among builders, building code officials, and energy efficiency advocates, It will cut energy waste in new homes, lower utility bills for homeowners, and reduce pollution.

“The International Code Council’s board should approve this commonsense proposal and not bend to special interests representing polluting industries.”

Are straw bales and sheep’s wool “polluting industries”? What of people who want to reside in an off-grid cabin and burn wood? Is the affordability, feasibility, or forced grid dependency of these provisions to be excluded from consideration in this “commonsense” totalitarianism? Perhaps Amann would similarly usurp Americans’ “special interests” to pursue homeownership as part of their “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” The IECC appears to be run by unelected profiteers, demolishing the American Dream in the name of building.

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post New ‘Green’ Building Code to Dominate Housing Construction appeared first on Granite Grok.

One thing that did not get defunded after the George Floyd/BLM Summer of Love was cop shows. There is no shortage of police or detective dramas extolling the intellectual agility of some quirky investigator with a physical or social disability. Or a team of racially and sexually diverse members who adroitly unravel complex conspiracies ripe with misdirection.

Liberal scriptwriters, story-boarders, actors, directors, and producers make an above-average living telling positive tales of good versus evil in a workplace that is supposed to be systemically racist, and, in its own way, it is.

Recurring themes involving people of faith, militias, sovereign citizens, and even Republican politicians portray them as backward, boorish, mean, criminal, or just uncivilized. Corporate titans are evil abusers of a system they bribe to serve them even though (in the real world) many of them donate to BLM, have gender and diversity officers, and give almost exclusively to Liberal candidates and causes.

And maybe they watch cop shows where “The Department” could do a lot more for the community if not for flint-fingered cheapskates and budget cuts – without ever admitting the systemically racist city they pretend to represent has been run by Democrats since before Kennedy was assassinated.

We are talking about television fiction, which fits hand in glove with the fictitious end game of their political agenda. That one party, unhindered by natural rights or the constitution, can, in time, create a society more wealthy and free than any before seen on earth. The fact that no one who has tried has ever accomplished it is no reason to stop trying (or so they say). Nor are the results of those efforts a reflection of future efforts.

Crime, poverty, chaos, and despotism are necessary ends if the people can endure enough of them while their leaders—who live in luxury, free from having to think about how they’ll get through the day—work diligently to get them to the other side.

We do not know if there is another side, but we do know you’ll need at least 100 years to get there. 100 years of the police state treating everyone the way George Floyd is portrayed as having been treated. George was the product of decades of Democrat rule. He took up crime as a way to get by and drugs as a way to get along with that. It killed him, drugs killed him, and the Left blamed it on cops they don’t really hate.

You can’t get from here to utopia without a police state, and everyone paying attention knows it.

 

 

The post 100 Years of Being Treated Like George Floyd, For What? appeared first on Granite Grok.

There are a handful of systemic barriers to maintaining a healthy weight, but most involve cramming more food into your face than your system can handle. From to much food to food that’s bad for you, less of that is not a bad idea no matter what you weigh, but some public health experts are pushing in the other direction.

It is old-fashioned to think of weight as something to be managed with diet and exercise. What if it wasn’t? I worked with a cardiac nurse who says she eats more and weighs less after meeting with someone who is an expert on food and human health. Your primary care physician is probably not that expert, and they are not permitted to ask you about your weight,  at least not until you have a serious health complication caused by that weight.

Instead of connecting people to people who can help them with their diet, the next best step is drugs and surgery.

My diet was never great, but my work always included a level of activity that allowed me to eat nearly anything.  I burned it off so quickly that weight gain was never an issue. At some point, after both my job and I became less vigorous, I discovered that unknown to me, one of my hobbies was collecting plaque in my arteries. After an ambulance ride and two stents later, my diet got a lot better. I lost some extra pounds I didn’t need (though I was never even technically overweight), and at the age of sixty, I’m in a place I’d likely never have been had my body not shouted at me about it.

Staying in that place demands my attention, so the idea of everyone’s doctors being instructed to bail on the more traditional exercise, less food, and better food schemes for weight loss is disturbing. While cardiac issues might not be a foregone conclusion for the overweight and obese (unless they got jabbed twice or more), a host of other issues (around 200 of them) are more popular than ever. Type 2 diabetes is all the rage. If you have diabetes, you are at increased risk for heart disease, so that’s one way to get there from here. Is it too much to expect your patients to find the discipline to eat less or eat better and move more?

What are the odds they’ll be any more mindful of the need to take the medications you prescribe them, or are you even allowed to care?

Have you ever tried to take medication or injections regularly for the rest of your life? It’s not as easy as it sounds; it is also a lot more expensive, but that’s the new formula for weight loss success. Instead of adopting better habits, you need to remember to take the pills they prescribed you.

People in developed countries will no longer have severe or complex obesity in the future because of medical advances – but telling people to eat less and move more is not a treatment, a leading expert said yesterday.

Professor Donal O’Shea told doctors they must change their messaging to obese patients

Professor Donal O’Shea told doctors they must change their messaging to obese patients. “Eat less, move more is not the treatment of obesity – get over it,” he said. “Prevention is different from treatment.”

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), Prof O’Shea said there are 198 determinants of obesity and they fall in to seven groups – five of which are outside people’s control. …

The only line patients feel is acceptable from doctors is: “Is it OK to discuss your weight today?” said Prof O’Shea, who runs the obesity service in Loughlinstown Hospital, Dublin, and is the HSE lead on obesity.

Doctors could say: “Where are you on your weight journey?”

And no, he’s not thinking about Ozempic. He is looking past that to bigger and better chemical treatments for the chronically overweight. These are choices that will likely be incredibly expensive – at least initially – with some unwanted side effects. Much like it is with many meds, the argument will be that the good outweighs the bad. Maybe don’t use the word outweighs. It’s insensitive. Whatever the words you use, one of the known side effects is enriching big pharma. The mRNA platform taught us that. Medically unnecessary complications are necessary to ensure compliance and profits.

Kickbacks don’t kick themselves back, right Tony Fauci?

Alternatively, we could point ourselves back toward a culture that values hard work, exercise, and a bit of dietary discipline over a quick fix that lets you keep eating pizza on the couch. If things go sideways, it’s a short trip from where we are back to those values. Learn to farm and fight or die—size matters, not.

And no, I’m not averse to solutions to obesity for people who have a rare genetic disposition or even ‘addicts’ who need some short-term help. Still, the majority of overweight folks are victims of bad advice from food experts in the government and regulations that make it cheaper to mlousy bad food than good, alongside a culture that lionizes excess at the expense of everything else. I like couches and pizza, but had I known I was an artery plaque hobbyist; I’d have made changes before my heart tried to kill me and saved myself a lot of money and bother on maintenance medication.

Deciding that obesity is a disease and not just a bad habit and that drugs and surgery are the better solution to this burgeoning health crisis smells more like marketing than medicine. Although to be fair, there is a reasonable argument that this is also true of how they treat heart disease.

 

The post Obesity: Eating Less is Out – Drugs and Surgery Are In appeared first on Granite Grok.

A thread (eleven in all) from Marco Rubio on X well worth reading. In my words, not his … we are a country, not an economy. This is heresy to free-market ideologues like the Koch-bots, who believe that the “free market” is the end, NOT the means to an end … that end being a stronger, more prosperous country for ALL Americans, not just for Wall Street and Big Tech and the corporatist/globalist class.

It seems my recent articles on industrial policy in @PostOpinions and @NationalAffairs have ruffled some feathers. @JonahDispatch @veroderugy @ericboehm87 @cpgrabow

A short on how free-market fundamentalists go off the rails. 1/11

— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) April 12, 2024

Unrolled Thread

It seems my recent articles on industrial policy in @PostOpinions and @NationalAffairs have ruffled some feathers. @JonahDispatch @veroderugy @ericboehm87 @cpgrabow

A short on how free-market fundamentalists go off the rails. 1/11 

First, as a re-cap, my argument is that markets are efficient, but don’t always work in the best interests of our country – especially when adversaries like China skew global markets in their favor with theft and subsidies. That’s not good for America. 2/11  None of the critics offer a solution to this. They seem not to be bothered by America’s dependence on Communist China for everything from our medicines to the electronics we use in our missiles. They also seem to think America’s industrial base, and our workers, are basically fine. 3/11  No, really. As one of my critics put it, the “supposed” decline of American industry “is an imagined problem.” Tell that to the millions of American workers who lost their jobs after free traders let China into the WTO. 4/11  But let’s address the criticisms. How is our industrial base really doing? Output has stagnated the past decade and a half. Productivity has declined. Employment has plummeted. And America’s share of the world market for key goods, from cars to steel, has cratered. If that’s health, I’d hate to see sickness. 5/11  The critics claim industrial policy can never work. One says “if anything can go wrong, it probably will.” If that were really the case, then Neil Armstrong never would have walked on the Moon. But industrial policy worked then, just as it has in many other cases the critics refuse to acknowledge. 6/11  Can industrial policy go wrong? Of course. But doing nothing means letting nationless corporations and foreign adversaries dictate the terms of our economy. Only the federal government has the ability – and duty – to check those forces. 7/11  All the Founders understood this. The first bill they passed was a tariff. Ronald Reagan understood it, too. He hiked tariffs to stop Japan from destroying the American auto industry via subsidized export dumping. 8/11  In the end, free-market fundamentalists are a lot like progressives, because they are more subservient to ideologies (free-trade ideology on the one hand, climate-change and DEI ideology on the other) than they are to the national interest. 9/11  Deindustrialization has wreaked havoc on the working class, made us less resilient, and corrupted our culture. I welcome debate on how best to strengthen our national security and economy. 10/11 

The post Marco Making The Fwee-Marketeers Big Mad appeared first on Granite Grok.

Last week, the Dover City Council did its part to support world Peace. I’m sorry. What I meant to say is that it posed and postured in a meaningless dance with no relevance to the business of the people of that city. Wait.

Sorry again.

Many in Dover are just as woke as those they elect, so there was meaning. Liberals in government voted to make sure liberals outside the government know they opposed whatever the hell is happening in Gaza as if that had meaning.

It was a bifurcated City Council meeting this week, part debate, part regular meeting. More than half of it was taken up by the contentious Gaza ceasefire resolution. The rest was advancing routine, non-controversial city business.

CEASEFIRE: Councilors April Richer and Robbie Warach sponsored the resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. I moved to remove the ceasefire resolution from the agenda as not germane to city business, but that attempt failed for lack of a second. During public forum, eight people spoke in support of the resolution and five spoke against. Comments were civil. Council discussion of the resolution took 27 minutes. Every councilor addressed the issue. The vote to pass the resolution was 7-1 by a show of hands – not a recorded roll-call vote as is customary (see picture above). I was the only councilor to vote no. (One councilor was absent.) Dover is now an outlier on this. The only other NH city that adopted a similar resolution was Lebanon, where three of seven members abstained. Manchester voted 14-1 against taking it up. Portsmouth voted 7-2 against considering it. All other cities have refused to put it on the agenda, including Nashua, Concord, and Rochester.

I didn’t look, but I expect that Dover stands with Ukraine, supported BLM, and the seasoned criminal who overdosed on Fentanyl, Saint George Floyd. Dover knows it isn’t easy on taxpayers, being green (and doesn’t care about the cost), and in their schools and public libraries, they defend allowing kids to have access to pornography.

I’m sure they think elections aren’t rigged except when Democrats insist or that J6 was actually an insurrection despite the lack of organized military leadership and the absence of any weapons.

Dover likes pride flags more than the American flag, has a growing distrust of free speech, loves mask mandates and lockdowns, and thinks everyone should get vaccinated (and maybe still does).

And they support a ceasefire in Gaza.

It is the first time I can recall them ever resolving that Hamas should stop launching rockets into southern Israel, even though that’s not what they mean. I’m also wondering if they will resolve that the United States should stop funding wars in the Middle East. Dover-Like Liberals were very much against that sort of thing when Republicans ran the government. Perhaps they could resolve that one way to ensure a cease-fire is for American Taxpayers not to have to pay for the ordinance necessary not to cease firing.

Or not. This is Dover.

The post Dover, New Hampshire Calls for Cease Fire in Gaza appeared first on Granite Grok.

There is no sound evidence that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones improve mental health. “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

This is one of the conclusions of The Cass Review, conducted by National Health Services England (NHSE) under the direction of Dr. Hillary Cass in the wake of concerns about the sudden increase in referrals to gender services, especially among females with autism, mental health issues, and trauma.

The Cass Review was commissioned to make recommendations on how to improve NHSE gender identity services and ensure that children and youth receive high-quality care. The Review’s conclusions flatly contradict Dartmouth Health’s written testimony, which asserts that “all gender-affirming care is safe, age-appropriate, medically necessary, and well-researched.”

Related: Dartmouth Health Ignores the Evidence

“The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health,” the Review states. “The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown.” Puberty blockers aren’t a “temporary pause” to give children and parents time to think, as Dartmouth Health claims. On the contrary, the “vast majority of young people started on puberty blockers proceed from puberty blockers to masculinising/feminising hormones.”

As a result, the NHSE is banning puberty blockers as a treatment for gender dysphoria for new patients, until and unless a safe research protocol is established. “The option to provide masculinising/feminising hormones from age 16 is available” the Review notes.  But it recommends extreme caution. “There should be a clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18.” Dr. Lim-Liberty dismissed the watch-and-wait approach as “outdated and harmful, denying resources needed to explore gender identity.”

Other highlights of the report:

Gender affirmation, including hormonal interventions, doesn’t prevent it. “Suicide risk appears to be comparable to other young people with a similar range of mental health and psychosocial challenges. Some clinicians feel under pressure to support a medical pathway based on widespread reporting that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk. The above systematic review did not support this conclusion.” This conclusion directly contradicts Dartmouth Health’s claims that “rates of suicide are as high as 40% in transgender youth,” and that “banning surgical care to care is harmful and, according to the data, is life-threatening.

Although the report doesn’t use the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), it recognizes social media and peer pressure as contributing to the recent spike in teens identifying as transgender, especially among teen girls after puberty. In a recent op-ed, Dr. Francis Lim-Liberty, head of Dartmouth Health’s pediatric transgender program, dismissed concerns about ROGD as “politicized misinformation” used on social media to “discredit the decisions and life experiences of trans people.”

The Cass Review warns against socially transitioning children at schools with new pronouns, names, and clothes because of the “clear risk of creating persistence of an identity that would in all likelihood have resolved by itself. We hope the government will use this information to end the practice of social transition in schools by untrained adults. The impact on other children of adults pretending a child has changed their sex is outside the terms of reference for this report, but it is something the government must address.” This is in sharp contrast with New Hampshire public schools’ practice of socially transitioning children in secret.

"Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones have zero mental health benefits." Last night I asked the Nashua Board of Aldermen to stop promoting gender ideology in light of the Cass Review. https://t.co/88tAbA2fwL #NHPolitics pic.twitter.com/oiIvqTSa6H

— Sidewalk Steve (@Sidewalk_Steve) April 10, 2024

The post England Finds No Evidence for Transing Kids. Will Dartmouth Health Listen? appeared first on Granite Grok.

One of the most prescient, intelligent, passionate voices defending rural lands and rural agriculture has been lifelong Democrat Wendell Berry (though Wendell will tell you that he has no allegiance to any one party). The current Democratic Party appears to have no use for the considered wisdom of this Kentucky farmer, just as it has abandoned Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, and the Kennedy legacy.

(It appears that the Biden Administration wishes Robert F. Kennedy dead rather than permit him breathing room in public discussions: Biden refuses to provide him with Secret Service protections.)

It is ironic that conservatives are now dismissed as racists for invoking King, vaccine deniers for heeding Kennedy’s cautions against Big Pharma, and as a threat to democracy for standing on the (liberal) Supreme Court precedents about race, free speech, equal protection, and other long-standing fundamental liberties. In this “what was good is now evil, and what was evil is now good” atmosphere, the conservationist voice of farmer Berry has been neglected in favor of fear, increased government domination, and subsidizing corporations to “save” humanity.

This, too, was forecast by the iconic Berry, who warned that totalitarian industrialism would devour an uninformed, complacent population that abandoned local culture and agrarian distributism in favor of zoo-like “consumerism” and techno-dependency. Wendell particularly cautioned against trusting Big Ag and processed foods with our health and food security. One need not be a farmer to see that Americans are addicted to cheap, sickening, highly-processed “foods” from which rodents walk away after a quick sniff of disdain.

The Left has not heeded the herald Berry; he has essentially been canceled in a bizarre ideological scourge of national self-contempt. But his words stand ever more strongly every day the nation moves toward that complete dependency on grid, government, and goons against which he raised a strident-if-ignored alarum. Consider Wendell’s wisdom, in contrast to the so-called “progressive” rescue of the nation through environmental histrionics and Draconian Green New )Marxist) Deal strangulation.

On Rewilding

Mr. Berry criticizes the “moral assumptions of the culture of exploitation,” noting in his essay The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity, that “The most persistent and dangerous of these is the assumption that some parts of the world can be preserved while others are abused or destroyed.”

Vermont in 2023 enacted legislation that embraces this exact folly. The “Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act” sets a goal to ‘conserve’ 30% of all land in the Green Mountain State by 2030, and 50% by 2050. Small wonder land prices have nearly doubled, increasing homelessness and dashing the dreams of the young – from which Vermont progressives will ‘rescue’ them by taxing property and income to construct ‘affordable’ housing that costs taxpayers a fortune.

Vermont is merely aping President Biden’s “30 by 30” Executive Order, which “put[] the climate crisis at the center of United States foreign policy and national security.” The Order urgently expands industrial manufacturing of (polluting) renewable energy gadgetry, while “empowering workers by advancing conservation, agriculture, and reforestation.”

Neither workers nor agriculture are empowered when land is withdrawn from agrarian stewardship for so-called ‘conservation and reforestation.’ The President’s plan calls to set aside 30% of the country’s land by 2030. He claims this is “acting on science,” but Wendell Berry offers a more rural-informed perspective:

“If in order to protect our forest land we designate it a commons or commonwealth separate from private ownership, then who will care for it? The absentee timber companies who see no reason to care about local consequences? The same government agents and agencies who are failing at present to take good care of our public forests? Is it credible that people inadequately skilled and inadequately motivated to care well for the land can be made to care well for it by public insistence that they do so?

“The answer is obvious: you cannot get good care in the use of land by demanding it from public officials…. The idea that a displaced people might take appropriate care of places is merely absurd. ….If we want the land to be cared for, then we must have people living on and from the land who are able and willing to care for it….” (“Private Property and the Common Wealth,” delivered as a speech at a conference on “The Forest Commons” on March 31, 1995.”

The soil science is clear: well-managed, rotationally-grazed cows nurture the soil microbiome, prevent erosion, retain precious water, and sequester far more carbon dioxide than forests – permanently, and without peddling ‘carbon credit’ pollution indulgences to corporations. The argument for rewilding is “merely absurd.”

On “Renewable” Energy Technology

A persistent admonition in Wendell’s writing is to measure the ‘externalized costs’ of consumption, yet that is exactly what has been avoided like the bubonic plague by climate ‘science’ advocates. All things measured in carbon dioxide (“net-zero”) ignores water and soil pollution in mining operations for rare earth materials (lithium), the coal plants constructed in China to create solar panels and EVs, or the disposal costs of all these taxpayer-subsidized boondoggles. Ignored also by elitist academics is the steadily growing dependency for heat, travel, and electricity that these carbon-centric plans entail.

Berry’s jeremiads caution always against trusting the very same technologies that have erased small farms from the landscape and enslaved Americans – to poisoned food, pharmaceuticals (to counter the illnesses caused by toxic foods and packaging), drug addiction, urban squalor, suburban alienation from the land, etc. – to deliver them from this predicament by way of yet more polluting technologies. GMOs toxify and kill soils, and increase erosion and water loss, but the climate cult’s horns are instead aimed at cows and other livestock that can feed us without the intercession of Bill Gates, John Kerry, or Klaus Schwab.

Foreshadowing massive government outlays for EVs, solar panels, and heat pumps, Wendell observed thirty years ago:

“We can safely predict that for a long time there are going to be people in places of power who will want to solve our local problems by inviting in some great multinational corporation. They will want to put millions of dollars of public money into an “incentive package” to make it worthwhile for the corporation to pay low wages for our labor and to pay low prices for, say, our timber. It is well understood that nothing excites the glands of a free-market capitalist as the offer of a government subsidy.

“But before we agree again to so radical a measure, producing maximum profits to people who live elsewhere and minimal, expensive benefits to ourselves and our neighbors, we ought to ask if we cannot contrive local solutions for our local problems, and if the local solutions might not be the best ones.” (From Conserving Forest Communities, delivered as a speech at the Kentucky Forest Summit, 9/29/1994

Rural Americans will be impoverished by renewable energy as energy costs rise and their traditional self-reliance is dismantled. They are being impoverished now: EVs and solar panels are regressively financed on the backs of low- and middle-income taxpayers, justified by claims that these innovations will “help the poor.” The serpent is in the Garden: that rural Kentucky farmer warned us to close our ears.

Climate Alarmism

Wendell Berry does not believe that grand government plans will ever do more than create grander government-seeded calamities. An outspoken critic of the Green New Deal, his words in The Art of Loading Brush (2019) caution humanity against precisely the climate fear-mongering that is paralyzing critical thought today:

“A multitude of people, including scientists and other experts, have devoted themselves exclusively to the threat of climate change. It is a great “movement.” I am not a climate change denier…. But I certainly am a critic of the climate change movement, and for what I consider good reasons.

“My foremost reason is that when so many people are devoted so exclusively to a single fear, the movement ceases to have the quality of prudence or provision, and takes on the character of a fad. ….The great question now needing to be asked is how to move from protest, fear, anger, or guilt to the actual accomplishment of good work.

“The problem with prediction, no matter how scientifically respectable it might be, is its power to bring on first a fear and then a movement that can be popularized into a fad. But of all the bad motives none may be worse or more hopeless than fear. Nobody, I think, has ever done good work because of fear. Good work is done by knowing how and by love. Love requires faith, courage, patience, and steadiness, none of which can come from fear. Also it appears to be impossible to sustain for very long even the most reasonable fear of a future catastrophe.

“….I believe we have got to understand how the great, one-cause, fear-motivated climate change movement, for example, can become a major distraction, not only from better ways of problem solving and better ways of working and thinking, but also from the local causes of climate change—which has, after all, only local causes.” (pp. 70-72)

Voices of reason are too often eclipsed by voices of doom. Al Gore was, and remains, precisely the headless-chicken alarmist to scold Americans into slow death and quick enslavement. The supply of food, like the causes of pollution, has always been best grounded in local, widely distributed plots under intergenerational stewardship and individual responsibility. Neither “local” problem will be cured by despotic rule.

A global famine will soon displace climate change as the “one-cause, fear-motivated” distraction to corral yet more of humanity into total industrial captivity. If only Wendell Berry’s words were heeded, humanity might have averted the unfolding terrors of which he was a preeminent harbinger.

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Climate Fear, Rewilding, the Green New Deal, and Other Absurdities appeared first on Granite Grok.

It is almost as if there are two Speaker Mike Johnsons. The Speaker Mike Johnson on X who calls out and criticizes the Biden-Regime … and the other Speaker Johnson, THE ONE THAT MATTERS, who passes and fully funds the Biden-Regime’s noxious, anti-American agenda, the very agenda that he claims to oppose.

But the GOP is playing a game of pretend and expects its voters to pretend that Speaker Johnson is “doing his best,” “doing what he can with the slimmest of majorities,” blah, blah, blah. Well … not all of them. A handful of GOP Senators are showing some courage and refusing to go along with the GOP’s tired all-talk-never-any-action act, refusing to pretend that Speaker Johnson is opposing and not enabling the Regime. One of these is Rand Paul:

.@SpeakerJohnson was incredibly wrong to vote w/ Dems against the 4th amend. when he killed the FISA warrant requirement and wrong to give in to the Dems spending demands. As I see it now, I'm not so sure there's a difference between him being in charge and Dems being in charge. pic.twitter.com/NoyRhUrvRM

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 14, 2024

The post Rand Paul Has The Courage To State The Obvious … No Difference Between Speaker Johnson And The Democrats appeared first on Granite Grok.

I am taking a break from politics today to reminisce about something we may not think about much until they are silent. I am talking about the voices that narrated some of the great moments of sports that gave us incredible memories throughout our lives.

I can still remember vividly some of the moments I shared with my Dad, which revolved around sports and music. My Dad was a Jazz fan, primarily the Big Bands. I remember the Boston Globe and Newport Jazz Festivals and listening to Duke Ellington at Cranes Castle in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I remember my first Patriots game when they played at Fenway Park, and going onto the field to stand in front of the Green Monster after the game because that is where his hero, Ted Williams, played for so many years. And there was the night we listened to Jose Feliciano’s Light My Fire at Harvard Stadium. We didn’t have much growing up, but damn, we have great memories. We lived better than the wealthy.

Growing up in New England, we were spoiled with some of the greatest voices of radio and TV, who brought our sports heroes into our living room or bedroom, and I went to sleep with their voices in my head. There were so many of the early pioneers of play-by-play. Curt Gowdy was the voice of the Boston Red Sox and the early years of the AFL. Many a fall Sunday, I spent with Gowdy and Pat Summerall, hoping for a Patriot win. There was Johnny Most of the Celtics and Fred Cusick of the Bruins. They were familiar voices that were part of our sports journey. These were the early days when the game was the story and the “voice” was the supporting cast, unlike today when it is often reversed. I wrote a couple of years ago about the man I thought had the best job in the world, Jim Nance. I am listening to him call the final holes of The Masters as I write this article. My opinion of Nance has not changed. His voice is like the violin to an orchestra. He is integral to the event.

Two legends said goodbye today as they signed off on their last broadcasts. Mike Gorman, who has been the TV voice of the Celtics since the Larry Bird era, and Verne Lundquist, who has been calling the 16th at Augusta since before Tiger Woods picked up a club, signed off today for the last time.

We celebrate these men for the careers they have enjoyed and the joy and memories they have given us. They are the voices you hear, and you are transported back to a moment in time and a memory that brings a smile to your face or a tear to your eye. Sports do not have the importance in life it did when we were younger, but I am thankful for so many memories. The voices that brought us those moments, whether early on via radio or on TV, are as memorable as a Carlton Fisk home run in the twelfth inning in ’75 or a Billy Rohr near no-hitter in 1967. To Curt, Ned, Johnny, Gil, Fred, and Jim Nance, thanks for the incredible memories I will cherish until my final breath.

The post The Soundtracks Of Our Lives appeared first on Granite Grok.