Cannon Mountain ski weather.

WE got another sprinkle of snow last night.  Not much, less than an inch, but enough for the town plow to rumble by my place at 7 AM this morning.  Every little bit helps.

NPR. Doing Bill Cosby no favors

So I'm driving down to Rochester NH with the car radio on.  Early morning.  NPR playing as usual.  All of a sudden they start doing a piece on Bill Cosby, he and his wife had donated some artwork to the Smithsonian and the interview with Cosby was ostensibly about this fine charitable contribution.  So, next question NPR lays on Cosby is about some allegations of sexual assault.  Cosby says nothing.  Wow.  First I ever heard of this story.  The NPR newsie says "I'm a news man. I have to ask this question."  The hell you say. 
   I'm thinking, if you are a real newsie, then you ought to do a story on this, based on some real sources, like sources with names.  Just popping a "have you stopped beating your wife" question on Bill Cosby, on the air, isn't journalism. it's a vendetta. 
  I know nothing of the facts of the case.  All I know is I have been watching Bill Cosby on TV since he was doing "I Spy" back in the 1950's.  He has done a lot of good stuff since.  200 Miles an Hour, Mother Jugs and Speed, the Huxtable/ Cosby show.  I always thought Bill was a helova nice guy. Much nicer than any TV newsie.
   Dunno why NPR is out to smear Bill Cosby.  Unless they just want to destroy any black guy who says some conservative things now and then.  Note to NPR, if you have any real evidence, produce it, otherwise keep it zipped.
  

Day of Ill Omen.

Musta got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  I find the front door had blown open during the night allowing a hurricane of wintery air to blow thru the house.  My mantle clock, a 100 year old windup Tiffany inherited from my grandmother had stopped.  The cable was out, no TV, no broadband.  And it was starting to snow. 
   All was not lost, I closed the door, the furnace brought the house up to living temperature.  I wound the clock and set it and it's still running.  The cable came back to life.  It's still snowing. 

Allow sale of US oil world wide.

Back in the fuel crisis of the 1970's, and with the opening up of the Alaska North Slope oil fields, Congress passed a law forbidding the export of US oil.  What with everyone sitting in lines at the gas station just to fill the family car, it seemed like a quick short cut to making more oil and gasoline available to US consumers.
  Now, 40 years later, the industry has managed to radically increase domestic oil production.  They want to sell some this new oil production abroad. 
  Let 'em.  The oil companies are far better equipped to figure out the best way of turning oil into cash than any set of  inside the beltway bureaucrats. 
   The price of oil is set by international markets, the domestic price will be the same whether we sell abroad or not.  If anything, American oil sales will depress the international price of oil.  Which will reduce the domestic price, since the domestic price is the international price.  

Fast Track Authority for OBAMA?

They are talking about it.  Fast Track authority means the administration can negotiate a trade deal, or any other sort of deal, with foreign countries, and submit the treaty to the Senate for an up or down vote, no amendments. 
  If you think about it, fast track is the only way to get anything done.  What foreign country, after negotiating some favorable clauses into the treaty wants to see all their hard won concessions go away when the US Congress rewrites the deal before ratifying it?  Hence fast track.  But fast track is not a constitutional power of the president, Congress has to vote it in, for a limited time.  Right now, Barack Obama doesn't have it.
   Basically, I believe in free, or at least freer trade, it reduces prices for us poor consumers, and it increases exports, which provides more US jobs. 
   But, you gotta look at Barack Obama's negotiating skills.  He just negotiated an energy deal with the Chinese.  We cut our CO2 emissions by 27% starting now, they let their CO2 emissions grow with out limit until the year 2030.  That kinda deal we don't need.
   Far as I can see, Obama is such an incompetent negotiator, that giving him fast track authority is like giving matches to a two year old.  It's a bad idea. 

Gruber calls American voters stupid

I don't think so.  Gruber and the democrats concealed the contents of the Obamacare bill.  Even so, the voters in deep blue Massachusetts sent Republican Scott Brown to the senate to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, and that denied the Democrats enough Senate votes to ram thru new versions of the law.  And, the voters remembered who stuck them with Obamacare, and have voted truckloads of them out of office.  Somehow Jean Shaheen survived, but we got a lot of the rest of 'em. 
  The fault did not lie with the voters.  It lies with the administration, who lied repeatedly, with Congresspeople who deceived their constituants and voted against their interests, and with the newsies who slanted their stories in favor of Obamacare. 
   American democracy is based upon the idea that office holders are honest, that newspapers tell the truth, and that Congressmen vote their districts.  In the Obamacare disaster we had a president who said "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.  We had a Speaker of the House who said "You have to pass it to see what's in it."  We had a national press that pumped out nothing but favorable stories about Obamacare. In short, the executive lied, the newspapers lied, and Congress did not vote their district. 

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

It snowed last night.  We got 2.5 inches.  It stuck and covered the grass and lawns.  It's melting off the roads 'cause the ground still is not frozen.  It's not enough to open Cannon, but it puts the snowmakers 2.5 inches ahead. 
  For those who care, my deck, where I measure snowfall, is within easy walking distance of the Peabody slopes bunny lift.  What I get is pretty much what Peabody slopes gets.  Figure the top of Cannon gets a bit more snow than the bottom.