September 14, 2020 Night

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Good evening! Clear and 52 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a north-northwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 41 degrees. Pleasant evening, maybe a bit cool.

I went out for my evening walk 🚶🏻 a bit early and then sat out back for a while. Starting to get a bit chilly out but will be a nice night for sleeping 😴 although by morning I will be buried under the covers. ⚰ I am glad I turned the hot water heater back on – I think you get a lot cleaner with a hot shower 🚿.

Busy day but I got to the store 🏬 and then to the laundromat 👚 so now I have lots of choices for clean shirts to wear for the rest of the week. I really don’t have as much wash as I wear the same jeans 👖 and often clothes multiple days remote working 💻 as you don’t have to be that clean and nobody cares if you smell sweaty or dirty with remote work.

Tonight will be clear 🌃, with a low of 42 degrees at 4am. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 8th. Northwest wind 5 to 7 mph. Clear skies are allowing a big drop in the mercury. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 54 degrees. The record low of 33 occurred back in 1975.

Tonight will have a Waining Crescent 🌘 Moon with 7% illuminated. The darkest hour is at 12:52 am, followed by dawn at 6:07 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:35 am in the east (85°) and last for 2 minutes and 54 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:13 am with sun in the east (91°). Tonight will have 11 hours and 29 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 51 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 67 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 28th. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. Definitely won’t mind working outside tomorrow. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 78 degrees. The record high of 92 was set in 1915.

In four weeks on October 12 the sun will be setting in the west (260°) at 6:17 pm,🌄 which is 48 minutes and 55 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 66 and 44 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 61 and 41 degrees. The record high of 85 degrees was set back in 1954.

Looking ahead, Columbus Day ⛵ 🍂 is in 4 weeks, Cyber Monday 🛍️ and Beaver Moon 🌕 11 weeks, First Day of Winter ☃️ is in 14 weeks, 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 15 weeks, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 4 months, Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 is in 18 weeks, Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 18 weeks, 5 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 19 weeks, February 🌧 is in 20 weeks and Valentines Day ❤️ is in 5 months.

Wakely Mountain

Back in NYS

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When your along the Taconic Crest Trail in New York State, it's usually marked with Blue NYSDEC markers. When you cross into Massachusetts, it's usually the white diamond markers. Same trail, different jurisdictions.

Taken on Saturday September 5, 2009 at Taconic Crest Trail.

Castle and Corn

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A McManison surrounded by corn fields. I wonder how that wealthy-folk things about living next to those fields when they apply manure to them?

Taken on Sunday September 20, 2009 at John Boyd Thacher State Park.

Buy out government workers, don’t bailout local governments 💰

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Buy out government workers, don’t bailout local governments 💰

There is a lot of talk about bailing out state and local government. Instead of government bailouts, I think a better idea would be the federal government to offer buy outs to state and local government workers.

The federal government could offer a generous one time payment of $250,000 to any government worker who voluntarily leave public service for five years. To take this funding, the locality or state would be mandated not to fill the position for five years or risk eligiblity for other federal grants. The worker could find a job in the private sector, retire or live frugally for a few years just on the cash payment alone.

The idea would be to encourage states and localities to permanently shrink their payrolls while protecting and holding harmless government workers in their transition to the private sector. Workers shouldn’t suffer when government needs to downsize. For too long states and local officials haven’t made the hard decision to downsize government – but quarter million dollars a worker by the federal government could be a big incentive.

Trump Narrows The Gap With Latino Voters

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Trump Narrows The Gap With Latino Voters

9/14/20 by FiveThirtyEight, 538, ABC News, Nate Silver

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/112467138
Episode: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/ESP7598398515.mp3

The crew talks to pollster Carlos Odio about political trends amongst Latino voters. They also ask whether polls in the Midwest have corrected their biases and if scandals still matter.

A podcast that has been endorsed by Donald Trump.

Nuclear reactors make climate change worse | Beyond Nuclear International

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Nuclear reactors make climate change worse | Beyond Nuclear International

If the nuclear one-tenth of global electricity generation displaced an average mix of fossil-fueled generation and nothing else, it would offset 4% of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions. So in an era of urgent climate concern, should nuclear power continue, shrink, or expand?

In May 2020, a report by the International Energy Agency claimed that not sustaining and even expanding nuclear power would make climate solutions “drastically harder and more costly.” 

To check that claim, we must compare nuclear power with other potential climate solutions. Here I’ll use only two criteria—cost and speed—because if nuclear power has no business case or takes too long, we need not address its other merits or drawbacks.