March 11, 2017 – Snowfall Predictions
“It never snows in Albany but when it does, it really snows.”
12.6 inches of snow expected between Tuesday 1:00 AM and Wednesday 6:00 AM. The morning commute on Tuesday will be sloppy but it’s the evening that is expected to be really bad. Wednesday morning won’t be as bad because the crews will already have the worse removed. Here is how I estimate it will pile up from this storm:
- 1 inch – Tuesday 4 AM
- 2 inches – 7 AM
- 3 inches – 8 AM
- 4 inches – 9 AM
- 5 inches – 10 AM
- 6 inches – 12 PM
- 7 inches – 1 PM
- 8 inches – 4 PM
- 9 inches – 6 PM
- 10 inches – 8 PM
- 11 inches – 11 PM
- 12 inches – Wednesday 3 AM
For Some Arab Americans, Checking A Census Box Is Complicated
Between 1880 and 1930, Congress and statisticians tried to create standards to mandate that census information couldn't be used for "taxation, regulation or investigation" or to "harm" a people or organizations, as explained by Margo Anderson, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, in a related paper.
Circumventing those standards, the U.S. government used census data to locate and deliver more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to incarceration camps. This happened, Anderson pointed out, before the United States was an "equal opportunity, affirmative action, civil rights society" and when Japanese immigrants were considered "aliens ineligible for citizenship." She pointed out in a conversation with NPR that at the time, "nobody disputed the legal foundation for incarcerating" the so-called aliens.
In the case of Japanese Americans, the question was not "who was Japanese, but where did Japanese mainly live," said Kenneth Prewitt, a former director of the U.S. Census Bureau who is now a professor at Columbia University. "Yes, census data can be inappropriately used to target for attention particular neighborhoods where persons of MENA ancestry are concentrated," Prewitt said. But, he said, doing so would not be any more illegal than targeting "places where elderly people live, to know where to send rescue vehicles in case of flooding or power outings or where veterans live in order to place VA hospitals nearby. So the issue is not who clusters where but for what purposes is that information used."
Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit new high
"They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now." ~ President Donald Trump
March 11, 2017 Morning
Good morning! Happy Saturday. Three weeks to April Fools Day. Mostly sunny and 8 degrees in Delmar. There is a northwest breeze at 15 mph. The current wind chill is -9. We got a fresh inch of snow last night here dusting of snow last night here in Delmar, Tuesday into Wednesday we are expecting more than a foot of the cold white stuff to fall.
Today will have isolated snow showers between 1pm and 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high of 20 degrees at 2pm. 22 degrees below normal. Going to be a rather cold day. Maximum wind chill around -8 at 9am; Blustery, with a northwest wind 15 to 24 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had rain and a high of 55 degrees. The record high of 70 was set in 1977. 4.1 inches of snow fell back in 1941.
No real plans today, except some reading and cleaning. It’s unfortunate that this March weekend is so cold but hopefully we will have some nice fresh snow come next week. Got up early in preparation for the start of Daylight Savings Time tomorrow. It might be cold and snowy but at least we will have more sun come next week.
The sun will set at 5:57 pm with dusk around 6:25 pm, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. Today will have 11 hours and 45 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 8 degrees at 5am. 16 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -2 at 1am; Northwest wind 9 to 16 mph. In 2016, it got down to 25 degrees under partly cloudy skies. The record low of -12 occurred back in 1948.
Today in 1993, Janet Reno is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States. She was such an incompetent jerk but that’s to be expected from the president who couldn’t keep his pants buckled.
As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until April Fools Day when the sun will be setting at 7:21 pm with dusk at 7:50 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2016, we had rain and temperatures between 70 and 42 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 52 degrees. We hit a record high of 77 back in 1986.
John N. Mitchell
"Mitchell devised a type of revenue bond called a "moral obligation bond" while serving as bond counsel to New York’s governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s. In an effort to get around the voter approval process for increasing state and municipal borrower limits, Mitchell attached language to the offerings that was able to communicate the state's intent to meet the bond payments while not placing it under a legal obligation to do so. Mitchell did not dispute when asked in an interview if the intent of such language was to create a "form of political elitism that bypasses the voter's right to a referendum or an initiative."