July 23, 2020 Night

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Good evening! Partly clear and 70 degrees in Speculator, NY. 🌃 There is a north breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 61 degrees.

I had some tuna salad for dinner 🍲 then I had a small fire and laid back in the hammock. 🔥 A very starry night. ✨ Reading 📖 that old Kerner Commission report is fascinating. I wonder if I can get a paper copy at the library to read more carefully. Well illustrated with photos and graphics too.

Stayed in camp ⛺ and worked from here. Not much rain, just a few showers. I took everything down planning to head into town and because I didn’t want my gear to get wet but they turned out to be a non issue. No bugs so that was nice. Exploring Old NY 8B on foot was interesting, had to have been quite the road back in the day. Austin Falls was pretty first time I’ve been there. 📷 Uploading pictures tomorrow. That campsite at Robb Creek Mill ruins looks really pretty but I didn’t get a good look as somebody had their camping gear set up but wasn’t there. I think that’s the site where Robert Garrow murdered those campers. 🍀 I’m just hoping I didn’t brush any poison ivy along the river, it’s thick along Old Route 8B.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 5am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 58 degrees at 5am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around August 27th. Maximum dew point of 61 at 10pm. North wind around 6 mph. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 63 degrees. The record low of 45 occurred back in 1985.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon with 13% illuminated. At 10 PM, the moon was in the west (278°) at an altitude of 7° from the horizon, some 228,308 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. 🚀 At the state speed limit of 55 mph, you’ll make it there by January 12th. Buckle up for safety! 💺 The moon will set in the west-northwest (285°) at 10:41 pm. The Strugeon 🐡 Moon is on Monday, August 3. The darkest hour is at 1:04 am, followed by dawn at 5:05 am, and sun starting to rise at 5:39 am in the east-northeast (61°) and last for 3 minutes and 21 seconds. Sunrise is 59 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 6:20 am with sun in the east-northeast (68°). Tonight will have 9 hours and 9 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 56 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have patchy fog before 8am. Otherwise, mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 82 degrees at 3pm. One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around July 27th. Maximum dew point of 60 at 8am. Light and variable wind. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1941.

As I got a big project in for tomorrow I’ll be working all day in Speculator probably at the park in the morning by Lake Pleasant for number 🔢 crunching then down to the library for internet research in the afternoon. 📶 Then I think I’m going to go to Piseco-Powley Road Friday and Saturday nights and spend most of Saturday at the Potholers. Then come home on Sunday. 🏡 Going to continue to be extremely hot next week but I feel like I should work from home at least every other week to save expenses of travel. ⛽ Gas is cheap but I’m still doing a lot of miles overall and ice and food adds up when you are buying it for camping.

In four weeks on August 20 the sun will be setting in the west-northwest (288°) at 7:52 pm,🌄 which is 36 minutes and 54 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had a hot late summer day that was very sunny with temperatures between 87 and 63 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 80 and 60 degrees. The record high of 97 degrees was set back in 1937.

Looking ahead, I’m going to sleep. 🛌 Good night.

Swamp at Wakely Mountain

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS | The Eisenhower Foundation – Restoring America’s Promise at Home and Abroad

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REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS | The Eisenhower Foundation – Restoring America’s Promise at Home and Abroad

The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was on the best seller list in 1968, it's content captivating news headlines and providing countless hours of commentary and analysis over the past 50 years. You can read all 426 pages of the report online.

From the summary of the Kerner Commission report…

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From the summary of the Kerner Commission report…

Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.

This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. Our principal task is to define that choice and to press for a national resolution.

To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American
community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values.

The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society.

This alternative will require a commitment to national action–compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will.

This is going to be the messiest presidential election of our lifetimes. ☑

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This is going to be the messiest presidential election of our lifetimes due to the coronavirus pandemic. ☑

  • Virtually no state is prepared for the flood of absentee voter applications that are going to be coming in or the flood going out
  • Many people who request ballots will end up not getting them due to lost mail or overwhelmed boards of election
  • There is going to be too many absentee ballots out to have any serious idea about who has won the majority of votes in on election night
  • Most states don’t count or even start verifying the outside of absentee ballots envelopes until days or even a week or more after Election Day
  • People expect the president to be determined by the end of election night but we aren’t likely to know final results until around Thanksgiving or possibly even early December
  • Expect a lot of absentee ballots to be tossed out on technicalities – some more valid than others – depends on the state
  • Absentee ballots have numerous chances for mistakes and ballots being laid aside and state election law is very complicated
  • Activists on both sides of the aisle will argue election laws are unjust or court rulings are unfair of things don’t go their way
  • Polling data may not be accurate with so many people voting by absentee so don’t be surprised if election results vary from the polls
  • The final results will be messy and maybe not what you hoped for.
  • But elections are ultimately just temporary, new elections are only two to four years away.

May the Best Firebomb Win

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May the Best Firebomb Win

7/16/2020 by Pushkin Industries

Web player: https://podplayer.net/?id=109770566
Episode: https://pdst.fm/e/chtbl.com/track/39E17/traffic.megaphone.fm/CAD3463123798.mp3

Basement laboratories. Mad scientists. Sticky gels, and a bake-off in the desert. The strange story behind Curtis LeMay’s weapon of choice. Part two.

The nutty and horrific story of how nepalm came to be. Unthinkable now but came out of a horrific war.

So after work today, I hiked all of Old Route 8B trying to trace all the locations in the old news reports about serial killer Robert Garrow

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So after work today, I hiked all of Old Route 8B trying to trace all the locations in the old news reports about serial killer Robert Garrow. 

Kind of a neat old road, originally a concrete road with well banked curves. Had to be a blast back in the day to drive – it’s curvey but the banked curves meant back when it wasn’t deteriorated you could fly down the road.

Austin Falls is also quite pretty as are some of the views along the Sacandaga River. Saw some tom turkeys along the way.