Quote:MICHAEL: Once again Blade Runner is a good example: There was no clear break between the old and new. There were still rotten, worn down buildings from our time mixed with futuristic architecture.

SYD MEAD: The example we used was Cuba and the Philippines. Their society essentially stopped in the 60s and they therefor have a culture of old cars. They have to work for a long time and are repaired over and over again. The same principle I applied to the cars in the film. I took a very clean design and undesigned it – industrial design in reverse. It was fascinating making something that was very well proportioned and sleek and turning that into a left-over of itself.

MICHAEL: Now in the 50s and 60s future visions were very positively charged. Whereas in the late 70s Star Wars introduced the used look to SciFi and in the 80s BR portrayed a dirty, worn-down future. Can you explain where this change came from?

SYD MEAD: Well, this is a well known social phenomenon. There’s an old saying in journalism: Bad news travels much faster than good news. It is always more entertaining to hear bad things and not be a part of them. Eventually each form of storytelling includes this mechanism in order to enhance the drama of the futuristic visions.

Syd Mead

Quote:"Their submarines just aren't going to be able to be as survivable as their land-based forces," said Vann Van Diepen, a former U.S. government weapons expert who works with 38 North. "And they'll have a hard time deploying enough missiles at sea to make a big difference."

New Submarines and Nuclear Drones: Why Is North Korea Developing Its Navy?

Quote:The Yoda lookalike appears in a French manuscript known as the "Smithfield Decretals," The Telegraph reported. It's one of several images highlighted in Kempf's new book, Medieval Monsters, which includes a collection of creatures found in documents from the Middle Ages.

"I'd love to say that it really was Yoda, or was drawn by a medieval time traveler," Julian Harrison, a British Library curator who featured the drawing on the library's blog, told NPR. "It's actually an illustration to the biblical story of Samson -- the artist clearly had a vivid imagination!"

Jedi Master's Lookalike Spotted In Medieval Manuscript

Quote:The visual cues that inspired the starfighter’s demise came from a panning shot taken by a nervy U.S. Navy cameraman in the midst of a harrowing kamikaze attack in the Pacific more than 30 years earlier. The sailor captured the final moments of a Japanese Zero as it burnt up over the deck of an American aircraft carrier. As VFX artist Paul Huston described the shot in the book Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy, “[An artist] would show me a shot of a Japanese Zero flying left to right in front of a conning tower of an aircraft carrier and say, ‘The aircraft carrier is the Death Star, the Zero is an X-wing. Do a board like that.’ ” The art became storyboard 168, shot 245, which was entitled, “PORKINS’ X WING COMES APART IN FLAMING PIECES.”

The Real Aerial Battles That Inspired Star Wars

Quote:Intro 475 was defeated for a fourth time in committee on December 19, 1973. It was reintroduced in the Council as Intro 2 in January 1974. On April 18, the General Welfare Committee finally passed it, allowing the bill to go to the full Council. GAA took several actions in support of Intro 2, including a large demonstration at Christopher Park on May 4, and a Gay Rights “Freedom Bus” tour of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens on May 11-12. The full Council killed the bill on May 23.

It was reintroduced in the Council as Intro 554 in June 1974. GAA held another rally at City Hall in support of the bill on May 5, 1975. What later became known as the “gay rights bill” was introduced in the City Council every subsequent year, but was not passed until March 20, 1986.

The Gay Activists Alliance held a number of zaps and other actions in City Hall Park from 1970 to 1975

Quote:But what most of us don’t realize is that the day following the Kent State killings, May 5th – was indeed one of the most explosive days in American history as literally hundreds of university, college and high school campuses blew up in response – and for that day at least, the American educational system broke down.

Angry, tearful young people across the nation reacted with an intensity and in numbers not witnessed before or since.

May 5, 1970 was a Tuesday, and from coast to coast, from sea to sea, will be forever remembered by those who acted. The following is a sampling, just a sampling of what happened on American campuses that day, including from just about every state.

This is real history – our history, and we should know it.

Roundup of protests across the country

Quote:Singapore Carries Out the Caning of a U.S. Teen-Ager

A punishment of four lashes on the bare buttocks with a rattan cane was carried out today on an 18-year-old American who had pleaded guilty to vandalism but now insists he is innocent.

Hours before the flogging, Mr. Fay was visited in prison by his lawyers, who said afterward that he had accepted his fate.

"He is nervous and scared but is prepared to take it," said one lawyer, Dominic Nagulendran. "He will grit his teeth when he is caned."

(05-08-2024, 04:46 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote:
Ship is named for the pioneering computer scientist Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. Hopper is only the second US Navy warship to be named for a woman from the Navy's own ranks.

Smoothest transition ever from Trident Tuesday to Warthog Wednesday...


Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, USS Nebraska (SSBN 739) transiting the Strait of San Juan de Fuca off the coast of Washington State being escorted by U.S. Air Force A-10s - May 6, 2024.

Quote:On May 9, 1961, my father, Newton Minow, delivered a speech that continues to inspire the conversation about media. He was President Kennedy’s new Chairman of the FCC, just 35 years old, and in his first major address he told the National Association of Broadcasters that while there was much to admire on television, too much of it was a “vast wasteland.” Last Friday, our family had the privilege of watching him receive the Chicago Television Academy’s Silver Emmy Award for his contributions to broadcasting, including the launching of the first telecommunications satellite, the creation of PBS, and helping to start the Presidential debates. He continues to serve as Vice Chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which he helped to form.

He told the audience about the day before the speech, when President Kennedy brought Commander Alan Shepherd, who had just become the first American in space, and his wife, to the National Association of Broadcasters event Dad would be speaking to the following day. President Kennedy invited Dad to come upstairs while he changed his shirt, to give him some ideas about what to tell the broadcasters. Dad suggested that he talk about the difference between the way Americans and the Soviet Union conducted their space program. In the US, we had all the television cameras there to show the American people, good or bad, what was happening. The authors of the forthcoming book and documentary Chasing the Moon tweeted about it today:


[https://twitter.com/ChasingMoonBk/status/1126106896845484033]

At the time Dad called on the broadcasters to do better, there were just three national television networks. There was no PBS, just a National Educational Television which was not even available in most of the country, including Washington DC itself. My father told the broadcasters that as long as the airwaves were a scarce resource, they would have to do better to live up to their statutory obligation to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity, especially with regard to coverage of news and programming for children. He worked over the next half-century to make more choices available, including cable and satellite as well as the creation of a robust public television station. He helped get the original funding for “Sesame Street,” served as chairman of PBS and of the Chicago affiliate WTTW, served on the board of CBS, helped create the Presidential debates, pushed for closed captioning to make television programming available to hearing-impaired viewers, and argued one of the only cases in history to have a broadcast license rescinded — a station that spewed hatred across the airwaves. And in protest of his critique of television, the sinking ship on “Gilligan’s Island” was named after him, the S.S. Minnow!

Quote:On May 10, 1865, Union troops captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia. Davis and his Cabinet had retreated from Richmond after General Lee’s defeat at Petersburg on April 2, 1865. For several weeks the Confederate government had been in flight from the Union Army. Davis’ plan was to escape by sea from the east coast of Florida and to sail to Texas where he hoped to establish a new Confederacy.

Quote:    Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. Mr. Davis received timely warning of their approach…He started down to the little stream hoping to meet his servant with his horse and arms…Knowing he would be recognized I plead with him to let me throw over him a large waterproof wrap which had often served him…for a dressing gown and which I hoped might so cover his person that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognized. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was around my own shoulders, seeing that he could not find his hat…When he had proceeded a few yards the guards around our tents with a shocking oath called out to know who that was. I said it was my mother…

    Letter, Varina Davis to Montgomery Blair describing the capture of her husband, Jefferson Davis, June 6, 1865. Blair Family Papers. Manuscript Division

En route, the Cabinet disbanded, taking payment from the gold of the Treasury. With rumors spreading among the Southern troops of the defeat of the Confederacy, the Davises were in hourly anticipation of attack by marauding Confederate soldiers in search of treasure. When the Union soldiers charged their camp, Jefferson Davis mistook them at first for the expected marauders.

Jefferson Davis Captured!

Quote:GMOS, FRANKENFOODS, AND LAB-GROWN MEAT, BUT NOT IN FLORIDA

There's some interesting news out of Florida regarding the most recent version of frankenfoods that "the elite" want all of us to eat while they continue to dine on typical human things. In the "rules for thee but not for me" universe of Baal Gates and der Hochklaus Freiherr von Blohschwab und Bloviation, while we're all dining at our local scorpion-and-crickets all-you-can-eat-buffet with a big juicy lab-grown rib-and-eye steak-like-product (i.e., a "meat-like product" containing various eyes and rib parts from various failed laboratory experiments), Baal and der Hochklaus will still be dining on wine made from real (non-GMO grapes) and steak and eggs made from real grass-fed cattle and laid by real free-range chickens.  And of course, if the planscamdemic template was any indicator of what we can expect, then we know that various "mysterious ingredients" in the quackcines of a "proprietary nature" could not be disclosed, while people around the world are dying of rubbery clots from the clot shots that they with reckless abandon called "vaccines". In short, they deliberately conducted a trial on uninformed humans who had no ability to give informed consent. Or to put it more bluntly, they used the opportunity to poison people. Think they won't use the opportunity in their frankenfood agenda to do the same thing?

With that in mind, consider the following story shared by W.G., T.S. and others (with our thanks) about Florida's governor DeSantis signing into law a bill banning "lab-grown meat" in his state:

Continued at The Giza Death Star

Quote:Fables for the Frivolous (with apologies to La Fontaine), (1899) by Guy Wetmore Carryl.

One of the earliest works by the American parodist Guy Wetmore Carryl, this collection of fables are adapted from Jean de La Fontaine's Aesop-style originals from more than 200 years earlier. Carryl's light-hearted re-tellings are rendered in verse, each ending without fail with a moral and a (normally dubious) pun. This particular edition benefits also from a series of illustrations by the wonderful Peter Newell. As well as this take off of Fontaine, Carryl also leant his parodying pen to Grimm's Fairy Tales, including “How Little Red Riding Hood Came To Be Eaten” and “How Fair Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe”.

Quote:This is a letter Philip K. Dick wrote in response to Israel’s bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981. It’s worth reading these days because, as with his science fiction, PKD remains prophetic.

The letter is fascinating in many regards; for a start PKD’s approach is well thought out, in his first paragraph he outlines the logical problems inherent in Israel’s attack on Osirak. In the second, he discusses the state of mind that leads to such paranoia, and in the third, he warns Israel, and insinuates that they are possessed by the memory of a madman…

Quote:The Clinton Administration notified Congress today that it had approved the export of technology to China to permit the launching of a communications satellite aboard a Chinese rocket next month.

President Clinton said in a letter to Congress that the transfer would not harm national security or significantly improve China's military capability in space. The President was required under a 1998 law to certify that all such technology exports are in the national interest.

The certification was the first such notice to Congress under the law, which was passed in the aftermath of a Congressional uproar last year over the transfer of sensitive missile technology to China.

The President's action will affect the June 7 launching of a Motorola Iridium satellite, which is to fly into low orbit to provide paging and cellular telephone service. Mr. Clinton said that he had approved the export of satellite fuel and explosive bolts, which eject the satellite from its launch vehicle.

The timing of this certification is not connected in any way to the tragic accident of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy," said David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "Approval was recommended by the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense and is consistent with our policy of supporting the launch of U.S. communications satellites by China subject to strong safeguards being in place."

A staff member of the intelligence panel said it was unlikely to contest the approval of the technology. But he said questions might be raised over whether the explosive bolts might someday be used to help eject nuclear warheads from a missile.

Quote:Our final poll question asked Minnesotans their thoughts on the new state flag recently approved by a special commission. In our survey, 49% want to keep the old flag, 23% like the new flag and 21% say the state should start over with a new design.

“It’s funny because what you learn through this is that all Minnesotans are graphic designers and everybody has an opinion on something like this,” McClung joked. But Reichgott Junge says going back to the old flag should not be an option.

“The old flag has a lot of issues around it,” she says of concerns about how it depicts Native Americans. “It really does need to change.”

Some lawmakers will introduce a bill this session asking for the flag issue to be put before Minnesota voters.

KSTP/SurveyUSA poll

Quote:DFL Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has said a direct public vote on the flag likely wouldn't be allowable under the state constitution, as Minnesota does not have statewide referendums like other states.

If the public vote options fail, Republicans are calling for a new commission to reconsider the design.

"There is dissatisfaction with the current flag, let's go back to the drawing board, try again," Rep. Bjorn Olson (R-Fairmont) said.

If there is no legislative action to change or reject the designs, the new state flag and seal will become official on May 11.

Quote:Minnesota’s current flag includes the current state seal against a blue background. The seal depicts a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with his rifle leaning on a nearby stump. The imagery suggests to many that the Indigenous people were defeated and going away, while whites won and were staying. Not only do the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe tribes consider that offensive, but experts in the scientific and scholarly study of flags — known as vexillology — say it’s an overly complicated design.

The commission narrowed down the flags from a field of more than 2,000 options that were submitted by the public.



Minnesota's new flag & seal