More Cannon Mountain Ski weather

It warmed up and rained.  It's raining now.  It got so warm that the snowmaking crew knocked off early last night. 

Cannon Mountain weather

We got an inch of snow last night, but it is warming up.  It was 26 early this morning and now it has warmed up to 34, too warm to make snow.  The weather forecasts are flaky, using words like warm and rain. 

Protons to the rescue

Something new in the never ending struggle to raise medical costs.   Someone decided that using a beam of high speed protons instead of  Xrays would improve radiation therapy.  They sold this idea around.  Trouble is, the machine to make the proton beam costs better than $100 million and is big enough to fill a gymnasium.  Whereas you can get all the Xrays  you want from a glass tube about the size of a cantaloupe.  Needless to say proton beam therapy  cost  $50,000 as opposed to half that for conventional radiation therapy.
   Now comes a study indicating that the results of the pricey proton beam therapy are no different from conventional therapy.  I could have told them that.   Radiation therapy works by using a beam of radiation to kill cancer cells.  It doesn't really matter if the cell dies from being hit with a proton or being hit with an Xray, dead is dead. 
   Perhaps we can  save some money and not put in any more proton machines. 

Blood Dancing for Gun Control

That's what David Gregory did for an hour on "Meet the Press" this morning.  He had Diane Feinstein, senator from CA promising to ban "assault weapons".   Lotta welfare for lawyers there since there is no objective difference between a deer rifle and an assault rifle.  He had  Michael Blomberg, NYC mayor, pushing Obama for "more leadership on gun control".  Blomberg didn't actually come out and say just what he wanted to outlaw, which makes me think he fears the political damage he might incur if he made a substantive proposal.  Blomberg spent a lot of words trashing the NRA.  He doesn't seem to understand that the NRA is a democratic organization of gun owners who merely want to prevent people like Blomberg from confiscating their guns.  They have a large membership, which gives them power at the voting booth.  

Ultimate Tearjerker, worse than Love Story

What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams, 1998.  I netflixed it by mistake.  The movie opens with a romantic meeting between Robin Williams and a beautiful loving young woman.  They court, they marry and things go well for years.  Then bad things happen, their two adorable teen age children die in a car crash.  Robin Williams is killed in traffic attempting to rescue a victim trapped in a wrecked car.
  The movie is a total downer from then on in.  It so depressing I turned it off before the end.   At least in Love Story they had good times together before Ali McGraw dies of cancer in the last reel.

The word you want is "horrible"

Bret Bauer said "Amazing" in conclusion of some of the Sandy Hook school massacre coverage this evening.  No Bret, it's not amazing, it's horrible.
   My sincerest sympathies go out the the parents and families of the slain.  It's totally inadequate, but it's the best I can do.  
   If the homicidal maniac who committed this atrocious crime had been under restraint in an insane asylum it would not have happened.

Porkulus funding to bug transit buses.

According to this, CONCORD NH, is spending $1.2 million of "stimulus funds" to place eavesdropping microphones on transit buses.  To fritter good money away on hi tech gadgetry is bad enough.  To violate privacy is even worse.  Apparently the system is accessible from the public internet, like a web cam.
   Un mentioned in this article is how the system separates voice conversations from the roar of the engine, but presumably an extension of the "hands-free car kit" technology can do it.