Paul Valar, old man of the mountains, put to rest today

Paul Valar, the grand old man of New Hampshire skiing, was put to rest today. Paul was a ski racer, who married another ski racer in the 1940's. Since then Paul and Paula ran the Cannon Mt and Mittersill ski schools, run a ski shop, bought and operated a Vermont dairy farm, authored the American Ski Technique book, started the Professional Ski Instructors Association, and raised four daughters.
Services were at the White Mountain School, at which he and Paula had taught. The crowd was huge. All the Franconia skiers showed up, the school grounds were parked up solid. Weather was perfect, good eulogies from the four daughters and some old friends.
Paul was a serious builder of the New Hampshire ski scene, a decent gentleman, and a fine teller of stories. We won't see anyone like him for a long time.

Bethlehem dump feud

Another twist in the long standing Bethlehem dump feud. By a one vote margin (3 to 2) the Bethlehem selectmen voted to support passage of House Bill 1429. On the surface this is an anti dump state law that would require host community agreements between private landfills and towns, and more permits for landfill expansion. There are only two private landfills in the state, one of them being the Casella operation in Bethlehem. HB 1429 is sponsored by State Rep Martha McCleod, in response to widespread citizen desire to close the landfill. Looks like the pro dump faction in Bethlehem still has some life in it.

One had giveth, the other hand taketh

The Littleton Opera House is a glorious Victorian wood building, standing upon a commanding site, in the middle of town, over looking the river. It used to house the Littleton police dept, the town museum, and some town offices. Back in 2005 some humorless structural engineer declared the entire building unsafe and in danger of falling into the river. The town moved the police dept out, closed the museum and the Opera House has been standing empty for the last three years.
It will take a million or more dollars, which Littleton doesn't have, to fix the building up to modern standards. US Senator Judd Greg did whatever senators do, and a sizable Federal grant come thru to fix up the Opera House. Plans were drawn, a contractor selected and work was about to start.
Then disaster struck, by email. "The funding may be in jeopardy if the town doesn't comply with any and all requirements. " Starting with a review by the NH State Preservation Officer because the Opera House is a historic structure. Zap, project on hold till the paper work gets done. "any and all requirements" means a never ending load of paperwork. By the time the first load is accomplished, some bureaucrat will invent more paperwork.
Clearly the Opera House project has acquired some enemies from somewhere. This is surprising, 'cause I thought everyone in Littleton was in favor doing the project. Maybe someone wants the Opera House gone, so they can buy the land to erect something tasteful like a fast food place?

CIA follies, Part 2

I forgot to mention the CIA's destruction of any chance of diplomatic or economic pressure against Iran's nuclear program. When CIA said the Iranian's aren't building nukes early this year, the efforts to talk the Iranians out of a nuclear weapons program collapsed, probably for good. CIA bureaucrats managed to torpedo American diplomatic efforts.
I also forgot to mention the CIA's ever so helpful efforts to give credibility to Osama bin Laden's propaganda. Every time bin Laden releases a tape to the media, CIA jumps right out in front and validates the tape as genuine. Instead of allowing the natural doubts about bin Laden's very existance in this world to grow, they tell the world that good old bin Laden must be alive and well. Our enemies, hearing this, think "Well, if the Americans say the tape is genuine, it must be, because the Americans have every reason to declare it fake".

The tax man cometh, via internet

Our Congress critters are planning to tax sales over the Internet. CNET has the story here. I'm against it for two reasons. 1. I don't want to give yet more of my fixed retirement income to the government. 2. The complexities of doing state sales tax are so bad that only the biggies like Amazon will be able to do it. The small sellers, the Ebay sellers, like me, will be driven off the net.

Welcoming the Pope

Watched the Pope arrive at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday. Clearly we Americans are going all out to make the Pope feel welcome. Red carpet, on a roll, with uniformed Air Force men rolling it out. An honor guard, looking sharp despite motley uniforms (inter service rivalry never ends), and well worn M14 rifles. The M14 is nearly as ceremonia a weapon as the halbards the Swiss guard carries. President of the US, plus wife and children meet the Pope at the airport. Small but friendly and enthusiastic crowds. It doesn't get much better than this.
I think it's fitting to honor the Pope, he is a lot more holy than I will ever be.

Defending the CIA by Paul Pillar

Paul Pillar, ex CIA agent and wannabe pundit reviews three books about the CIA in the March issure of Foriegn Affairs. "Legacy of Ashes" by Tim Weiner and "Spying Blind" by Amy Zegart, both critical of CIA are condemned. "Enemies of Intelligence" by Richard Betts is supportive of CIA and Paul has good words for it. Pillar explains that intelligence is a tough business and you can't expect to always get it right, and successes remain secret but failures are broadcast. He criticizes the author's sources, claiming they are too old or take too much from the 9/11 commission report or Pillar considers them biased. I haven't read any of the books mentioned so I cannot really argue about them, but I don't trust Pillar much.
In actual fact, CIA has been a disaster in recent years. They leaked the Glomar Explorer salvage of a Russian submarine to Seymour Hersch at the New York Times. CIA completely failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. CIA failed to warn of 9/11. CIA furnished the evidence that Colin Powell took to the United Nations justifying invasion of Iraq. CIA failed to have a single agent on the ground inside Iraq. CIA said Saddam's nuclear weapons were " A slamdunk". CIA has spent the last eight years attempting to destabilize the Bush Administration by press leaks. CIA set up the damaging Valerie Plame affair. CIA revealed the extent of NSA wiretapping against Al Quada, revealed that NSA was reading Bin Laden's satellite phone, and revealed that the US Treasury department was using the international banking system to track Al Quada money transfers. CIA continues to operate out of US embassies abroad, making their agents easy to trace.
We ought to shut CIA down and save money. All our intelligence comes from NSA intercepts and recon satellites. CIA furnishes little intelligence, much of it is wrong, and nobody really believes anything coming out of CIA any more, be it right or wrong. After so many wrong calls, who in their right mind would trust CIA intelligence?