March 29, 2017 Evening

|

Good evening! Partly cloudy and 39 degrees in Delmar. There is a north-northwest breeze at 14 mph. Nice pretty sliver moon to the west.

Each night as we climb closer to April 1st I seem to be taking a later bus home. At least I made it home by eight. Had a bite more to eat and go for my evening walk. Pretty evening for the walk with the noon, not too cold. Haven’t done it for a while because it’s been cold and icy and I’ve been trying to get to get to bed earlier. Now I’m might watch the PBS Newshour for a while. I’ll shut my television off by 10.

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 29 degrees at 6am. Two degrees below normal. Northwest wind 5 to 14 mph. In 2016, it got down to 27 degrees under partly clear skies. The record low of 7 occurred back in 1970.

Waxing Crescent Moon tonight with 16% illuminated. The moon will set around 10:41 pm. The First Quarter Moon is on Monday night with chance of rain expected. The Full “Pink” Moon is on Tuesday, April 11th. The sun will rise at 6:40 am with the first light at 6:12 am, which is one minute and 45 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 11 hours and 20 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny, with a high of 51 degrees at 3pm. Typical for Tomorrow. North wind 6 to 8 mph. A year ago, we had partly sunny skies and a high of 60 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1986. 4 inches of snow fell back in 1911.

Spent some time reviewing my finances and the markets have been pretty good lately. I keep putting away whatever I can towards my future and retirement. I’m sure I’ll lose some value with the next recession but it will come back as time goes by.

Been studying small off grid cabins and all their systems on YouTube. It would be nice to eventually buy land with cash then get one of those prefab cabin shells then wire it with low voltage wiring and keep it as simple and rustic as possible. I really enjoy low voltage wiring and I’d rather chop and split my own wood and avoid complicated equipment in modern households that are expensive to repair and maintain. I don’t want a 30 year mortgage either. I don’t believe in borrowing money, it seems like a scam.  But that’s a long way off, maybe not until retirement. I’d rather not own land in New York with all the regulations and absurd amounts of property tax. In the meantime, I got to hook up the wiring in my truck for the cap.

Looks like we may get some snow on Friday and even more on in the Adirondacks. It seems like it may last for a while, so who knows about camping up there on Easter Weekend. If it doesn’t happen then, there is still a lot summer left. Still 12 weeks until summer.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. Saturday, rain, snow, and sleet before 11am, then a chance of rain. High near 41. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 46. Cold for the first weekend of April. Typical average high for the weekend is 52 degrees.

In four weeks on April 26 the sun will be setting at 7:50 pm, which is 31 minutes and 56 seconds later then today. In 2016 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 47 and 38 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 63 and 41 degrees. The record high of 90 degrees was set back in 1990. Hopefully things will warm up by then.

Looking ahead, Average High is 60 is in 3 weeks, Pack Rat Day is in 7 weeks, Memorial Day is in 2 months, Flag Day is in 11 weeks, Summer is in 12 weeks and Inaugeration Day 2021 is in 199 weeks.

DEC Region 7 North

|

Interactive Google Map consisting of federal, state, local, and non-governmental public lands and parks within the following counties in DEC Region 7 North: Cayuga, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties. Up to 6 additional counties (for a total of ten) can be added to the map. Data can be downloaded as KML and GPX Tracks and Waypoints for use in Google Earth or handheld GPS units.

Updated on March 27, 2017. New in this update is a handful of new campsites at Charles Baker State Forest, along with trail data for Clark Reservation and Green Lakes State Park.

It’s Surprising How Few Countries Have National, Single Payer, Health Care Systems

|

It’s Surprising How Few Countries Have National, Single Payer, Health Care Systems

"The details of last week's fiasco about American health care are for my colleagues over on that desk to deal with. My purpose here is just to point out that the economic structure of health care in other places just isn't what all too many people think it is. There's a large part of the American political class insisting that this is just obvious. We should have a national, single payer, health care financing system. And the amazing thing about this is that so few countries actually do that. And most of those countries who are thought to have better health care systems than the US don't do that either.

There are indeed national health care systems out there--but they tend not to be single payer. And there are single payer systems out there, or close enough at least--but they tend not to be national. Which is something that we really ought to be thinking about, no?

Take it as read that the US system isn't as good as it could be. And also that we might want to propose something to make it better. So, we're agreeing that something must be done. My point here is just that the economics of what we should do might well not be the same as the economics of that national single payer system we're urged to implement."