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(Photo of the "waves" is here)
        I’d been eagerly looking forward to this event since I first heard about it—Illinois was going to see its second total solar eclipse in its history as a state, and no one alive had ever seen an Illinois total eclipse. It happened in 1869 and totality passed right through Springfield, the state’s capital. Then, as now, people were very excited.
        I heard more and more about it, like totality was passing through Carbondale. Carbondale is about a hundred miles from St. Louis, which is about a hundred miles from Springfield. Ozzy Osbourne was slated to hold a concert in a tiny town thirty miles from Carbondale, and play Bark at the Moon during totality.
        I was stoked; it was reported that the stars come out during totality and there are other strange things, like wavy lines on the ground that scientists couldn’t explain.
        At first I was planning to meet my daughter Patty, who lives in Cincinnati, in Carbondale, but Carbondale was where everyone was talking about. It was going to be a madhouse, I was sure, and decided to visit my mom in Bellville the day before, a Sunday, then go to my friend Mike’s in Columbia to cook pork on his Weber and drink beer. I planned on crashing on his couch and heading south early the next morning.
        Then I found NASA’s interactive eclipse map. Mom and Mike were right on the edge of totality, and the center of totality passed right through Prairie du Rocher, about thirty miles or so south of Mike’s house. Patty watched from the Shawnee National Forest, camping there the night before.
        I set out south Sunday morning, and traffic was thick. However, it always is on the weekends, which is why I usually visit during the week. As is my usual habit I set the cruise control to five miles under the limit to make for a stressless drive. But I knew traffic was going to be worse the next day.
        I visited my mom in Bellville, then headed to Mike’s, where we grilled pork steaks (well, he did) and we drank beer and bullshitted. I crashed on his couch, as planned.
        Patty texted me, excited that they had found eclipse glasses for ten bucks apiece. She was thrilled. I thought she had been ripped off, as Mike’s wife had five pairs she had picked up at the library for free. I just heard today when I picked up tacos at George Rank’s that they were selling them on the internet for $150!
        I’d planned on not using the glasses, not trusting them; there are some really evil people in the world who don’t mind blinding people for money, or even killing them. I wound up looking through them once or twice, anyway.
        Monday morning we got up and drank coffee, and headed south on Bluff Road for the middle of the umbra, the part of the shadow that is in totality.
        Bluff road is a little-used two lane highway that you can often travel without seeing another vehicle. We turned on to Bluff Road, and joined a parade of cars and truck headed for the best view. Traffic moved briskly, at the various speed limits on the way. It took about forty five minutes.
        On the way we saw a roadside stand selling eclipse glasses for twenty bucks apiece. Mike cursed the ripping off they were doing; they’d gotten theirs for free from the public library, donated by a veteran’s club. It was indeed a ripoff, because it would have probably cost less than a penny apiece to make them. But better than a hundred and fifty, at least.
        I wished Mike had driven rather than me, because there was some enchanting scenery on the way, as well as an eagle’s nest. The magic was beginning hours before the sun and moon met.
        Mike has a grandson who lives there, and we had a hard time finding the address of the house in the tiny town. His wife had told him that if he asked google for the address on Bluff Road it would lead to the wrong house, as his address was Bluff Street.
        Stupid Google kept giving directions to the address on Bluff Road, and it was even more maddening because we were surrounded by bluffs and the cell signals were nonexistent to very weak. We’d brought no refreshments, so stopped at a restaurant for soft drinks and directions to bluff street.
        When we got out of the car, the very humid heat was oppressive. The place was packed, inside and out. We had a hard time finding a parking spot. We were informed that the streets were the same; Bluff Road became Bluff Street for a while.
        His grandson lived in a house trailer right up against the bluff. We got out and it was even hotter and more humid. We went in, and it was perhaps five or ten degrees less hot than outside; the trailer had only a single one-room air conditioner. Every time I went outside, the heat started getting to me. My hands shook and I could barely walk; I was starting to suffer from heat exhaustion. Mike and his very young great granddaughter went up the hill exploring.
        “There’s a cave up here!” Mike yelled down to me, so I staggered up the hill. There was a cool breeze coming out of the cave.
        It wasn’t cool enough, so I got in the car and started it and blasted the air conditioning. It really helped, and I was in the car several times before the eclipse started.
        I saw something I’d not seen since I was a kid—a toad. Then another one. This hellishly hot day was really cool!
        Finally, some time between twelve thirty and one it started. I finally looked through the glasses once, and afterward made a pinhole viewer out of my fist. When the sun was a crescent, I saw the “wavy lines” science couldn’t explain and I had no trouble at all explaining them. It was the multiple crescents moving around the gravel. The tree was causing multiple pinhole viewers. The way the breeze moved the leaves did look like wavy lines on the ground as the crescents moved around the gravel.
        There were clouds which sometimes covered the sun, and I feared the clouds would cover it during totality, but they didn’t. I hear clouds occluded the totality in Carbondale. I hope they didn’t cover the sun in the forest where Patty was.
        I’d brought my big tablet, thinking I could use its front-facing camera to watch the eclipse on it and maybe make movies, but I feared the glare on the screen might harm my eyes, so that was out. I tried to take a photo with my phone, and I got a picture, but it didn’t show the sun as a crescent. The only halfway decent photo was the tree shadows when it was still partial.
        Then the sky gradually changed colors for about ten minutes, after which it took seconds for it to become dark and for all the streetlights to come on, and the screams and cheers and applause of the thousands of people in town for the sight were very loud, from half a mile away. Mike kept saying “Wow! Man, that’s the neatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” Nobody could help but agree.
        It did get very dark, about like under a full moon. But I saw no stars, although a friend who was in a different spot in totality told me he saw two or three stars right by the corona, which I only glanced at. Around the corona it was indeed pitch black. but the horizons were like dusk. Obviously light was being reflected from places that weren’t in totality. It’s hard to explain what it looked like.
        Darkness lasted maybe two minutes, give or take a few seconds. I was way too busy taking it in for photos, and it was too dark for my phone’s camera to work without a flash, anyway. I should have bought film and brought my Canon 35mm SLR I’d bought half a century ago. Yes, film is coming back. They now sell and develop it again at Walgreen’s.
        When it was over I was again in distress from the heat, then we headed back to his house. Mike, who knew where we were going and I didn’t, was too busy watching the scenery to see a turn we needed to take. We got all the way to Red Bud before realizing our mistake, and highway three was in gridlock. We didn’t want to go that way, anyway, and turned back around.
        The little-used Bluff road was full, but traffic was moving at a reasonable pace. I’d planned on crossing the river for cheaper gasoline, but was still heat-distressed and decided not to. We went to his house, where I drank a copious amount of water, and we ate leftover pork steaks, but eating was making me hot. They say “starve a fever, feed a chill” and the reason is that eating will warm you up, unless it’s ice cream.
        I left Mike’s about two, planning to stop by Mom’s house on the way home, and changed my mind as soon as I got on I-255. Traffic was at a crawl. The normally ten or fifteen minute trip to Bellville took nearly an hour. I drove right past her exit, because I could see this was going to be a long drive and I didn’t want to get home after dark.
        Not once did the speedometer measure over 30 mph on 255. Getting off 255 to I-55 is a nightmare in normal traffic because of the idiotic interchange design, so I decided to bypass it and take Collinsville Road to I-55. Traffic was heavy, but moving briskly, far faster than the interstate. I stopped for gas and a soda and got on I-55. I was really glad I’d bypassed a bit, probably saved myself half an hour or even more.
        I’ve never seen traffic that heavy outside Chicago in my life, and never saw traffic that heavy that stretched that far. My phone rang three times before I reached a rest stop, just past the I-70 interchange. I had to pee, I had to get my tortuously aching back out of that car, and I wanted to see who was trying to call. I figured it was my mom, who I’d told I’d probably visit again on my way home.
        Two of the calls were from her, worried about me, and I ignored the other one, because I don’t answer calls without attached names. If you’re not a spammer, scammer, or pollster you can leave a message and I’ll call you back and add your number to my address book.
        I’ve never seen an interstate rest area so crowded. Cars parked where they didn’t normally, and so did I. This wasn’t a normal day. I reassured Mom, walked quite a long way to the rest room, and walked back and resumed the arduous journey.
        Four and a half hours after leaving Mike’s I’d traveled fifty miles. Past Staunton I had it up to 55mph for a short time, and hit sixty past Mount Olive. Five miles from Litchfield, traffic was stopped again.
        Past Litchfield traffic thinned somewhat, and you could usually do forty, but it was almost in Springfield before anyone could do the speed limit. There was simply far, far more traffic than that highway was designed to handle.
        Which makes me wonder how bad it will be if a nuclear missile is headed to a major city whose occupants have only half an hour to escape.
        The trip was finally over about eight, just as it was getting dark. It had been a seven hour journey with an average speed of 14.3 mph. But it was well worth it! I’m really looking forward to the one in 2024.

Redefining 'Drug Bust': German Police Seize 5,000 Pills In Shape Of Trump's Head

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Molly!

Interesting fact that nobody bothers to mention about solar eclipses. It feels about twenty degrees cooler during totality than it does half an hour before or after. This is a good thing during a Tennessee summer.

Joss Whedon fan site shuts down after ex-wife's critical essay

Joss Whedon's Ex-Wife Warns He's A Hypocrite 'Preaching Feminist Ideals'

Joss Whedon Is a 'Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,' Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says (Guest Blog)

Five times Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed 'woke bae', blew his feminist credentials

So farewell then.

Race Bias #1 - "Blissful Ignorance"

I began the "Race Bias" series in 1995 in response to a post on the alt.politics.nationalism.white newsgroup to the effect that there was no discrimination in employment, university admissions, or otherwise, against European-Americans.

I was stunned that the regular posters to the group had no instant supply of material to post in reply.

Most regular posters and "lurkers" on the newsgroup, have some first-hand experience with anti-White race preferences. But very few of them are aware of just how pervasive these anti-White preferences have become. Unfortunately, the primary weakness of our defensive political movement is that a commanding plurality of _Whites_ are utterly unaware of it. They have no clue that the nice sounding phrase "Affirmative Action" means the systematic disfavor of Whites and race based preferences for non- whites.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a White can grow up in this society and not be aware of the legal and social impediments imposed on him, but a recent survey from the Washington Post found that 41% of Whites think "affirmative action" included benefits for white men. (Affirmative Action for White Guys? Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1995, p. C5.)

A Harte-Hanks Texas Poll conducted for media outlets by UT's Office of Survey Research and reported in the June 29, 1996 Austin American-Statesman (p A1) is consistent with the Washington Post results:

"A vastly lopsided percentage of Texans, eight of 10, oppose giving any consideration to race when admitting students to college. But when asked about affirmative action in general, respondents were more positive than not."

However, when asked "whether affirmative action for minorities and women "has had a positive effect on Texas," the response indicated that most had no clue what the words "affirmative action" really mean:

"Forty-seven percent of the 1,000 respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that affirmative action for minorities has had a positive effect, while 33 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed."

"When asked about affirmative action for women, 59 percent agreed it has had a positive effect on Texas and 23 percent disagreed. The higher percentage favoring affirmative action for women is not surprising, experts said, because women make up half of the population."

Of course, the issue is not whether "affirmative action has had a positive effect on _Texas_" - a proposition that asks the interviewees to speculate on the impact of race preferences on an inanimate parcel of real estate, but whether affirmative action hurts or harms the interviewee.

But the survey itself highlights one of the means by which large institutions hide the truth from Whites. By selecting the term "affirmative action," conjuring images of a little extra recruiting effort to overcome any "information deficit" that non- whites might have in the marketplace, most Whites are kept in the dark.

Only the minority of Whites who read newspapers will know the truth. Those who get their information from TV will be blissfully ignorant.

The problem is that nearly half of this nation's Whites lack the basic vocabulary and the rudimentary facts needed to defend themselves in the political process.

With this in mind, I produced the "Race Bias" series.

I am a firm believer that the people of the Euro-American nation need facts more than they need ideologies. With that in mind, the series has been reorganized and lengthened from the original 30 to a revised 42 posts.

Copy them and circulate them to others!

Yggdrasil-

(As a P.S., I am indebted to "American Renaissance" magazine for reporting the Washington Post survey [Volume 7, Number 4, April, 1996] Subscriptions to American Renaissance are $20.00 per year. Make checks payable to: American Renaissance, P. O. Box 1674 Louisville, KY 40201.)

http://www.whitenationalism.com/rb/rb-01.htm

So, I know you all have read the moderator guidelines and remember the very important "Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting." bit, yes? Well, I went looking for who the worst offenders were against that out of curiousity. I'm not sure it's really proper to shame them here though. You lot can leave your opinions on that here and us staff types will discuss it later.

What I absolutely can and will post are the badasses who have most excellent ratios of upmods to downmods. Without further ado, here's everyone with over a thousand upmods to their credit and a downmod percentage of less than 10%.

+--------------+-----------------+
| percent_down | nickname        |
+--------------+-----------------+
|       0.0865 | VLM             |
|       0.1188 | anubi           |
|       0.1209 | AnonTechie      |
|       0.2067 | tonyPick        |
|       0.4737 | redneckmother   |
|       0.5438 | Reziac          |
|       0.6222 | CoolHand        |
|       0.6494 | Bobs            |
|       0.7171 | WillAdams       |
|       0.8937 | McGruber        |
|       1.1099 | GlennC          |
|       1.1341 | fritsd          |
|       1.2910 | maxwell demon   |
|       1.3060 | pinchy          |
|       1.3723 | HiThere         |
|       1.4609 | monster         |
|       1.8067 | DannyB          |
|       1.8447 | J053            |
|       1.8601 | quacking duck   |
|       2.2772 | deimtee         |
|       2.4750 | mhajicek        |
|       2.5053 | Unixnut         |
|       2.6012 | dak664          |
|       2.6693 | zocalo          |
|       2.8353 | Yog-Yogguth     |
|       2.8932 | rts008          |
|       3.1125 | khchung         |
|       3.2325 | The Archon V2.0 |
|       3.5069 | GungnirSniper   |
|       3.5307 | canopic jug     |
|       3.7419 | Freeman         |
|       3.7582 | jelizondo       |
|       4.3070 | turgid          |
|       4.3096 | hubie           |
|       4.5095 | bradley13       |
|       4.8469 | Scruffy Beard 2 |
|       4.9924 | Nerdfest        |
|       5.1967 | Kymation        |
|       6.1929 | Bloopie         |
|       6.2708 | linkdude64      |
|       7.2055 | SpockLogic      |
|       7.2575 | acid andy       |
|       7.3139 | NotSanguine     |
|       7.4517 | Ethanol-fueled  |
|       8.5932 | KiloByte        |
|       9.5238 | Hawkwind        |
|       9.6141 | bart9h          |
+--------------+-----------------+

Congrats to VLM. He is currently Da Man.

So, yesterday I moved my car into The Roomie's parking space, moved my boat out of the yard and into mine, and mowed the yard. All was good and celebratory beer was drank.

Enter today. I go outside for a smoke and while enjoying it I think to myself, "Self, TR's going to be back from his customer service road trip today. You should jockey things back around before he gets home." This sounded like a fine and courteous idea, so I got up and proceeded towards said goal.

Unfortunately when I went to lift up the tongue of my boat trailer (Well balanced. Boat and trailer together weigh maybe 500lbs. Load on my arms maybe 50lbs.) that I'd moved easily the day before and wag it back over into the grass beside TR's boat. For some unknown reason, my back takes that specific moment to remind me that I started having birthdays beyond my 40th within the past few years; or, to put it more succinctly, it just shit right out on me.

Damned traitorous body parts. If it weren't for all the skills and wisdom you tend to pick up along the way, I'd say getting older sucked.

This has put me entirely not in the mood to bandy words with my peers and adversaries. My apologies to those who will likely never know how utterly wrong some comment of theirs is. To those in need of mocking, leave a note here and I'll get to you as soon as the pain's lessened enough to think through. See you lot in a week or so, I expect.

An external SSD has become Samsung's first drive to hit the market with 64-layer V-NAND. It includes a 10 Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C connection and capacities ranging from 250GB to 2TB:

Moving on to the pricing aspect, it must be remembered that the Portable SSD T5 is a pilot vehicle for Samsung's 64-layer V-NAND as its production ramps up. Samsung naturally expects this to be a low-volume, high-margin part. Therefore, despite the higher density, consumers should not expect much difference in the cost per GB compared to other external SSDs in the market. The 2TB variant will have a MSRP of $800 and the 500GB will retail at $200. At 40 cents/GB, it is priced close to other such products currently in the market.

Also at Samsung, PCWorld, The Verge, PCMag, and YouTube.

Not a submission because: Intel First to Market With 64-Layer 3D NAND SSDs

You’ll Never Be as Radical as This 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf

Last of Secret JFK Files Slated for Release This Fall

Fresh Air interview with Philip Shenon, author of A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination, airing now. Will edit link in later.