Gilboa, New York

Gilboa is a town in Schoharie County, New York, United States. The population was 1,215 at the 2000 census. The Town of Gilboa is in the south part of the county and is southwest of Albany.

ccording to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 59.3 square miles (154 km2), of which, 57.8 square miles (150 km2) of it is land and 1.6 square miles (4.1 km2) of it (2.63%) is water.

The south town line forms a border with Delaware County and Greene County. The Schoharie Creek flows northward through the town. New York State Route 30 is a north-south highway in Gilboa. New York State Route 23 cuts through the southwest corner of the town. New York State Route 990V is a highway running eastward from NY-30 in the southeast part of Gilboa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilboa,_New_York

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Trash species are wildlife habitat too… 🐰

Much like how junk food like hot pockets and candy bars are food and provide some substance, habitats with invasive species still offer a home to wildlife and are part of a healthy ecosystem. While invasive degrade an ecosystem they don’t destroy it like asphalt and buildings do.

Downsize Government

I was reading the other day about Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s cuts to various agencies, outside of defense and policing. While I agree with Donald Trump and Elon Musk that we need to cut government spending, civilian agencies are not where the pork is. It’s in law enforcement and the sheer number of laws that need enforcing. If we had fewer laws, we could have fewer cops, fewer jails, fewer government officials. We need to transition law enforcement workers from public sector jobs to the private sector, where they can serve as an engine of economic growth rather than a tax on working folk. We need to repeal laws not create new ones. 

Our government has gotten too big and complicated. The fear of the evil doer in combination with the corporate war profiteers have swollen our defense department. Even though the threat of terrorism is insignificant we spend trillions going after a phantom enemy. It all needs to be shrunk. While I’m sure many men and women in uniform work hard, they should be re-trained for private sector jobs. They don’t all need to be eating out of the public trough. Government is too big and burdensome. 

While there is much that government does that is important, the over-regulation of private lives and the centralization of power is a threat to all Americans. Our leaders should work tirelessly to downsize government, not take from the neediest but from the fattest of fat cats that have made their billions profiting off of the fear of average Americans. Government should be in the business of repealing programs, especially unnecessarily punitive and expensive programs. Re-train government workers, and help them be the next generation of private sector professionals.

One way to shrink government is to end the war on drugs. It’s stupid to tell private citizens what they can or cannot do in their own private homes.Β I think all recreational drugs should be legalized. This would save billions in taxpayer dollars. If people want to use heroin and opioids recreationaly then that’s their choice to poison their bodies. People don’t die from overdoses, they die from consuming unsafe, unregulated illegal drugs. Government should stand back and only regulate these recreational substances to ensure their purity and safety, and to tax them to provide essential revenue including treatment programs from those who are addicted. Prohibition has always failed and its making our country broke with all the money we spend on corrections producing even more broken people.

Downside government. It’s the way we can move our country forward. 

Please be safe πŸ™

Somebody said that to me the other day as they frequently see me riding back and forth to work on Erie Boulevard.

I don’t think Erie Boulevard is that dangerous to ride compared to other city streets like Madison Avenue but I understand people’s concern, especially as the news media always makes a big deal about fatal bicycle crashes but rarely automobile crashes.

I would argue the health benefits to riding to work far exceed any risk of getting hit, especially if the crash is fatal. Feeling good and being healthy now is more important than the risk of death. Diseases that kill you slowly like obesity and diabetes are far more harmful to a life than a fatal crash which is likely to be immediate.

I’ve been bicycle commuting long enough to know all the danger points in my commute and I either try to avoid them or use extra caution by looking twice, reducing speed, and making sure I have good sight lines and visibility on my bike.

Moving power between grids

A lot of people don’t understand that the Eastern, Western and Texas grids all operate at slightly different frequencies, they are non synchronized.

This is the same reason you can’t plug a gasoline generator into your wall outlet and not blow a fuse when you are connected to the power grid. The phases will conflict.

Residential solar connected to the grid uses a specialized grid – tie inverter which ensures that the output of panel matches the sine wave exactly.

So it’s impossible to move alternating current between the different grids. So it’s not like they can just build ordinary power lines to connect the seperate grids. They do move some power between the grids using converted high voltage direct current but that’s expensive and complicated to do, so it’s only done occasionally.

Motherland

And now some lyrics that Natalie Merchant and later Joan Baez made famous…
Where in hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete
That keeps crawling its way
About 1,000 miles a day?

Take one last look behind
Commit this to memory and mind
Don’t miss this wasteland, this terrible place
When you leave
Keep your heart off your sleeve

Rip Van Winkle Quote

“Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains; and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.”

– Irwin Washington, Rip Van Winkle