The Economist discovers a new Greenhouse Gas

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has been the greenie's favorite greenhouse gas.  Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are blamed for global warming.  These are gases that are transparent to visible light and near visible light (short infrared and some ultraviolet) and opaque to long wave infrared.  Solar heat comes to the earth and warms it as visible light.  The warmed earthly objects, rocks, soil, vegetation, everything, throws off heat by radiating long wave infrared.  On the night side of earth, the long wave infrared goes up into space carrying heat with it.  Overall earthly temperature is believed to be the result of a balance between incoming Solar heat on the day side, and outgoing infrared radiation on the night side.  Increased levels of greenhouse gas block the long wave infrared and are believed to increase the average temperature of the earth. 
   Now the Economist has a long piece about the evils of methane in the atmosphere.  It's dreadful.  Methane is the bulk of natural gas, and flatulence.  It comes from leaks in natural gas pipelines and gas wells, as well as flatulence among cows, of which there are lot on the earth.
  Only one little problem with the methane scare story.  The Economist shows a graph starting in 1984 and going to 2018.  Methane in the atmosphere has increased from 1650 parts per BILLION, to 1850 parts per BILLION. 
Rescale from parts per billion to the more widely used parts per million, and the methane levels become 1.65 PPM and 1.85 PPM. 
   We have good laboratory data going back about 100 years on carbon dioxide levels.  They used to be 350 some PPM, and now are getting close to 400 PPM. 
  Somehow I don't think less than 2 PPM of methane will ever make much difference against 400 PPM of carbon dioxide.
   And for that matter, plain old water vapor is as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide or methane, and the atmosphere contains about 10000 PPM of water vapor.  It varies from time to time, the weathermen call it humidity and report it on the nightly news.  As I write this, it's raining outside, which means 100% relative humidity.   Since there is about 25 times more water vapor in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, I don't worry much about carbon dioxide.  Compared to the water vapor, there just isn't enough carbon dioxide to worry about.  And the water vapor is better than 1000 times more plentiful than methane. 
   On a planet that is three quarters ocean, nothing is going to reduce the water vapor content of the atmosphere.  Plus the water vapor comes down as rain, which most places need more of. 

Too bad about Bill Cosby

I remember Bill Cosby in "I Spy" on Philadelphia TV in the 1950's.  I once owned the "200 Miles an Hour" LP record.  "Mother Jugs and Speed" was hilarious.  "Fat Albert" livened up Saturday morning cartoon time. He did the Doc Huxtable gig well.  I never met the guy, all I know him by is his entertainments, which were entertaining.
  I am sorry to hear that he has been convicted of sexual some-thing-other committed 14 years ago.  We used to call it rape, but apparently simple four letter words are too much for lawyers and the political correct now a days.
   Too bad such an good comedian turned out to be a rapist.  
   
  

New Hampshire must be doing something right

Thursday's Wall St Journal had a bar chart, showing growth of personal income in all the New England states.  New Hampshire is best in show, with 3.5 % income growth for last year, 2017.  Better than Massachusetts (3.3%) , better than the US average (3.1%).  Way better than Connecticut which only managed 1.5%.    The purpose of the editorial was to trash Connecticut's performance and blame it on state government's tax hikes, deficit spending and driving GE to move to Massachusetts.  It didn't say anything about what pushed New Hampshire to the top, but Governor Sununu ought to use this chart in his next campaign for governor.  

Farewell to Heat and Eats

They aren't the greatest, they aren't the worst, and they do heat up and serve just one, which is nice for us who live alone.  But now, it looks like heat and eats are off my menu.
  Reason?  More and more heat and eats now say "Microwave only" and "Do not heat in conventional oven or toaster oven".  I don't have a microwave, my kitchen is very small and I just don't have any counter space to put a microwave.   And I don't plan on remodeling my kitchen just so I can microwave heat and eats.
   I wonder why the heat and eat makers only want us to microwave their product?

How Hollywood can improve its product

Let's start with the actors.  Actors must speak up.  Mumbling, or whispering means we the audience don't hear your lines. Do enough of that and we loose interest in the movie.  And in the same vein, sound men need to take especial care to place the microphones in just the right places.  And when editing the sound track, mixing in the score and the sound effects, don't obscure the dialogue.  Mute both score and sound effects when the actors are speaking. 
   First rule for camera men.  Put the camera on a tripod and leave it there.  Those arty shake the camera shots which were are the rage a few years ago are just plain annoying to us in the audience.  And turn the lights on set ON, before starting to film.  Don't do those black on black shots, with all the lights out.  Game of Thrones, season 6 is a prominent offender in this respect. 
   Directors need to help us in the audience by putting different costumes on the various actors to help us tell one from another.  Don't have everyone wear the same costume, or even worse, same uniform.  They used to have the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats.  That was a good idea, and should be kept up. 
   A movie needs a protagonist ($2 word meaning hero or heroine) with whom we can identify, and like.  Don't show us scumbag protagonists, we won't like them, or the movie.  Female protagonists are fine,  Katniss Everdeen and Rey did just fine.  Protagonist needs a challenge to overcome.  And we in the audience need to know what that challenge is, early on, it helps us understand what is going on.  Tolkien handled this in the second chapter of Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf tells Frodo about the ring and what has to be done with it.  For the rest of the trilogy, it was clear to us readers what was going on.  Build the movie to a climax, where the protagonist faces his/her challenge and either defeats it or suffers defeat him/herself.  We like movies where the good guy[s] win, but we will put up with a tragedy if it's well done.
  And we have enough comic book movies.  If you lack the originality to do your own story, there are plenty of good books that have not yet been used as the basis for movies. 

How did those refugees get on the train roofs??

TV has been talking up a caravan of central American refugees, traveling up thru Mexico, riding on the roofs of boxcars, heading for the US border.  Hoping to be granted refugee status in America.
Question.  How did all those people get up on the roofs of the boxcars?  In America, the Federal Railway Administration decided that allowing railroad workers on top of cars was just too dangerous.  They ordered the roofwalks and the ladders removed.  Back in the dawn of time, before the invention of the Westinghouse air brake, railroad brake men used to run along the tops of the cars, tightening up the handbrake wheels when the engineer whistled for brakes on.  This hasn't been necessary for the last hundred and something years, the engineer now pulls a brake lever in the engine cab, and compressed air puts the brakes on, thruout the length of the train.
    Anyhow, about 1970, on American railroads, new cars were purchased without roofwalks or ladders giving access to the roof.  By now, no freight cars in the US have easy access to the roof.  I assume the Mexican railroads follow US practices since they interchange cars with US roads, and vice versa.
   I assume that an athletic 20 something can climb up on top of a boxcar without ladders.  But what about women and children?  Surely not all of those refugees are athletic 20 somethings? 

Is there a difference between Democrats and Republicans?

It's hard to tell by listening to the politicians.  They mostly bland down their words until they really don't mean anything.  They have learned that speaking out on one side of any substantive issue just looses them votes.  The voters that don't like what they hear will remember and make a point to vote against them, where as the voters that like what they hear don't care enough to get to the polls on election day.  So the professional politicians practice saying as little as possible while sounding good.  Hence all the happy talk about motherhood and apple pie.  Donald Trump is an exception to this rule and it hasn't killed him, yet.
  But there are real differences between the parties.  Consider the matter of helping the poor.  Republicans believe the real solution to poverty is plenty of decent jobs. Which means they favor things that help business because business creates those decent jobs. Democrats believe the real solution to poverty is government handouts, welfare, food stamps, single payer health care and such.  Paid for by confiscating (taxing) wealth from the wealthy and giving it to the poor.  With some nice fat skimming off  the top for deserving friends of the party.
   Modern Republicans believe that America, as the largest and strongest country in the world, needs to take action to oppose foreign tyranny, obnoxious ideologies, nuclear proliferation, and out right banditry.  Modern Democrats are isolationists and peaceniks.  They don't believe that anything outside our borders deserves our attention.  This is a reversal of the party positions from the early years of the 20th century. 
   Republicans are respectful of Christianity and organized religion.  Democrats favor removing religious symbols (creches) from just about everywhere, and punishing anyone who offers prayer in public.