Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 1, 1960: The world's Liveliest Gossip paper.
Ziva Rodann born March 2, 1933 in Haifa, Palestine [now Haifa, Israel]. Daughter of Yeshaiahu "Shaya" Blechman, a Russian-born Israeli professor of mathematics.




May 1, 1967: Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Priscilla first met Elvis in 1959, when she was only 14. At that time, Elvis was serving in the US Army in Germany. The marriage only lasted until 1973.




May 1, 1973: The island of Summerisle held their annual May Day celebration. Police Sergeant Neil Howie, who was investigating the disappearance of a child on the island, was invited to join in the celebration.




May 1, 1983: The Invasion Will Be Televised! The original V aired as the 1st part of a 2-part TV mini-series.


The series was intended as a literal retelling of the Nazi takeover of various countries, and the resistance movement against them. However, because of the popularity of the "Star Wars" saga and other science fiction hits, as well as the belief among network executives that U.S. citizens would not believe a fascist takeover, the network executives had the producers change it to a science fiction miniseries. Other ideas were also discussed, but discarded. The Visitors' symbol is actually a modified swastika.

The miniseries is dedicated to the memory of Dominique Dunne, the original actress cast as Robin Maxwell before she was murdered by her boyfriend.  The end of the first series was left deliberately open-ended with many unresolved plot threats dangling. This was all in the hopes that a cliffhanger ending would generate interest in either a TV series or a second mini-series; and the producers in fact got both. "V" tv series came out the following year in 1984 and lasted 19 episodes.


John Oliver on nuclear weapons. LAST WEEK TONIGHT, HBO, S1:E12, 7/27/2014.



LMAO!



If he only knew how many nuclear weapon mishaps we've had since 1950 he'd have a stroke followed by a heart attack and finishing off with a massive cerebral hemorrhage. You know it's bad when the Air Force came up with codenames such as NUCFLASH, Bent Spear, and Broken Arrow to indicate a nuclear mishap/incident.





Spotted today in front of BBC Broadcasting House...


The first two years of intel training is brain surgery.


May 1st - Jack Torrance's shift as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel was due to end, with the hotel re-opening on the 15th.




Science teaches us that cats hate closed bathroom doors. It's evolutionary.




Words for May Day...




Mark Knopfler - What It Is - Time Traveler Edition

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 2, 1933: the first modern-day sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was reported in the Scottish Highlands. The Royal Navy would later claim that the sighting and all those that followed were due to strings of horned mines. The dummy mines had been moored to the bottom of Loch Ness during a WWI experiment but began to break free and float to the surface in the 1930s.




A fond look back at the 42nd Street Movie Center (Known as the "Deuce"), from the mid 1960's through the mid 1980's. A magical, bizarre and seedy entertainment center, stretching from 42nd Street into Times Square.



Relive it for 5 minutes:




On May 2, 1968 then-real estate mogul Lawrence Wien, the owner of the Empire State Building as well as other engineers and commercial landmark owners took out a full page ad in the NY Times warning that the World Trade Center could have catastrophic ramifications and headlined it as the following...




May 2, 1982: The Argentine light cruiser, General Belgrano, was sunk by British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror (S48) during the Falklands War: 323 died, making up just over half of all Argentine military deaths in the conflict. The Argentine Navy claimed it was hit outside an exclusion zone.


Daily Mail

This was the first time a Royal Navy submarine flew a Roger since World War II. Flying the Jolly Roger is also a tradition in US silent service, but does not necessarily mean it sunk a ship. The only nuclear submarine ever to sink an enemy warship.

HMS Conqueror was decommissioned in 1990 and the periscopes, captain's cabin and main control panel from the submarine's control room are on display in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport. As of 2019, Conqueror is one of 20 nuclear submarines still held in storage by the Ministry of Defence, awaiting final disposal.



May 2, 1982: The Weather Channel 24 hour live cable network launched. The channel originally focused just on providing weather reports and other meteorological information. Wow, what a concept! Prior to the Internet, it was all about getting more cable subscribers.


Screencaps from The Weather Channel Inaugural telecast on May 2, 1982, with smooth jazz playing in the background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZHIhAIGDY8

Their slogan 1982–1983: "We Take the Weather Seriously, but Not Ourselves". By second half of 1983 it changed to: "The Cable Television Network for America's Lifestyle" and many other slogans down through the years to 2024-present: "Be a force of nature". The graphics got better but the data went into a centrifuge of marketing fluff & drama fest entertainment.

The Weather Channel co-founder was John Coleman (1934-2018), a long time meteorologist anchorman who fiercely opposed the global warming/climate change nonsense. Primarily, he championed skepticism about the human role in causing climate change.

Weather: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) from Oct 13, 2019, starting at 7:00 min mark about naming winter storms is a bad idea and other really good points on "marketing" weather data.



Archived at Ghostarchive.

In August 2023, it was announced that IBM was selling The Weather Company (parent company of the Weather Channel) and its assets to the Francisco Partners. An American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses with offices in San Francisco, NYC, and London. As a part of the deal, IBM will retain the company's weather data which it uses to power AI models to sell its enterprise clients for NASA. Meanwhile, the plebes get AI entertainment.


May 2, 2011: Osama bin Laden (aged 54), the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the USA, was shot dead in his home in Abbottabad,  Pakistan by Navy SEALs of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The operation was code-named Operation Neptune Spear. (I'll skip the controversy over that 'operation') The CIA has a whole reading room archive named "Abbottabad" for your reading pleasure.




Today is Baby Day. Navy tradition allows for sailors to have their babies baptized in their ship's bell. The name of the baby is then engraved inside the bell as a permanent record.


I was already long off the ship when my first was born so did not do this tradition. Instead, it happened here...




We didn't need that bridge either...


Tractor-trailer carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline explodes into massive inferno

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Update on Jolly Roger: "The Pirates of the Pacific": DDG-100 is the only US Navy vessel currently authorized to continuously fly the Jolly Roger.
Previously: USS Kidd (DD-661) & USS Kidd (DDG-993).


Why? Sailors aboard the first USS Kidd, Fletcher-class destroyer USS Kidd (DD-661), named after Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, started the tradition because of the Scottish Captain Kidd.

Here’s Why The Destroyer USS Kidd Was Flying A Huge Pirate Flag As It Pulled Into Port


From tonight's JEOPARDY. One of the contestants got it.




May 2, 1999: macho legend Oliver Reed died at 61 while filming GLADIATOR. Reed had consumed 8 pints of beer, 12 shots of rum, half a bottle of whisky, and shots of cognac after challenging sailors from HMS Cumberland to a drinking contest in a pub. He was arm wrestling sailors when he collapsed. "You sold me queer Giraffes." Some say that's called an honorable death. "We Mortals Are But Shadows And Dust" - R.I.P. Proximo. Frens, take it from a former sailor, don't arm wrestle and drink with sailors.


The ghost of Proximo now haunts Russell Crowe.


Me, if Biden gets re-installed.

Funny, but thought I glimpsed a bit of Jack Nicholson. Err, maybe Orson Welles too, muttering "Rosebud" just before the last gulp.


Interesting words for today...


Just splooting while waiting for the skelcher to stop.


Even CNN knows he posts bangers.




Splooting and looting, our modern rules-based international order.




This 2006 patent for a Full Body teleportation system using a pulsed gravitational wave wormhole generator that teleports a human being through hyperspace from one location to another is probably one of the most bizarre gobbledegook patents I've ever read. We Rogues could build one and teleport ourselves to a remote south pacific island. Yay, freedom!


Disclaimer: Not all body parts may arrive in same location...some may land on Pitcairn Island.

Teleporting back to reality, John Q has a number of bizarre patents. "Walking through walls training system" - surely gets the internet buzzing, because 'abandonment' status.


America tilted. One ping only, please.


Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin on the set of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990)
Connery considered Baldwin to be a bloody idiot as it took him many takes to get his lines right. BTW, you can buy a nice 16x20 print for $1,250.00.


On Stranger Tides...


eWrestlingNews Tales


"From the high desert in the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening or good morning, wherever you may be across this great land of ours and beyond..." ― R.I.P. Art Bell [Coast to Coast AM]




JEOPARDY answer:
Angelus: “What is a fallout shelters?” ($1800)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 3, 1919: Folk singer-songwriter Pete Seeger was born in New York City. His best known songs were "We Shall Overcome" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" - "Turn! Turn! Turn!" He viewed folk as a vehicle for political protest and he was a key inspiration to Bob Dylan and many others.



On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists.  Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.

In one of Pete's darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "And Quie Flows the Don". Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as "Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?" Shortly after she sang it in German.  The song's impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It's universal message, "let there be peace in the world" did not get lost in its translation. To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it...




May 3, 1945: USS Aaron Ward (DM-34) was pummeled by six kamikaze strikes near Okinawa. The crew battled against raging fires and exploding ammunition to keep the ship afloat. A kamikaze propeller can be seen lodged in her superstructure, just forward of the 5"/38 guns.




May 3, 1950: Happy birthday to pop star Mary Hopkin, born in Pontardawe, Wales. She’s best known for her 1968 UK #1 hit, Those Were The Days released in the UK on 30 August 1968. After winning the ITV talent show, Opportunity Knocks, she was signed up by Apple Records. Her early hits were produced by Paul McCartney.

18 yr-old Mary Hopkin on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 27, 1968:




Futuro House around Christchurch, New Zealand, 1975. The Matti Suuronen-designed prefab structure operated as a "Space Bank" during the 1974 Commonwealth Games.




Sydney Jay Mead (July 18, 1933 – December 30, 2019) was an American industrial designer and neo-futurist concept artist. He made designs for science-fiction films such as Blade Runner, Aliens, 2010, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Tron, Elysium, Tomorrowland.

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

May 3, 1985: Max Zorin writes Stacey Sutton, the heir to Sutton Oil, a check for $5,000,000 for the company.




May 3, 2007: Madeleine McCann (aged 3), went missing from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. She has never been found despite a massive police hunt and the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history, and the tireless campaigning efforts of her parents. In 2020, German prosecutors stated they believed she is dead. I forgot what that genetic mutation is called in her right eye.





Hey, Dems - Have you memorized the new talking points yet? You'd better. If you get caught spouting the old ones they will destroy your entire life. Here are the latest eternal truths. Get these out on your lawn immediately if you know what's good for you.




Not sure why Rocketman (Supreme leader Kim Jong Un) is trending but never forget his Boss Hog cosplay while launching a submarine...


Fresh meat for a Virginia class sub. He does have a rather large surface navy. Famous last words...

"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?

Teflon Don delivering pizzas to FDNY during court recess. What a guy!




Words for the Weekend...


This beautiful, hidden 20 ft. plunging waterfall about 300 feet off the trail was discovered in 2006. Mossy Grotto Falls is the proposed name by local waterfall hunter Zach Forsyth. If you take the Eagle Creek trailhead and hike several miles past Punch Bowl Falls and through a tunnel you'll enter a lush green wonderland beyond belief with many waterfalls. Like out of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Most people stop at the Punchbowl and go back, totally unaware of what lies further down the trail.

A Dance At Dawn

In fernshaw's hush, where shadows crawl,
And fallen babbaloobies sprawl,
Lagopodous tread through morning rain
She'll dance to gökotta's song again.

The weekend is here and I have many outside chores to ponder on which to tackle first. It's going to take a lot of sprezzatura to do any of these jobs.

Sprezzatura
A certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.
Sprezzatura has also been described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance".

My weekend word is "fudgel" (18th century): to make a big show of working hard whilst actually doing very little. That sounds like a politician. LOL.

Bonus word: Dunno if this is true but I heard a favorite word of the Scots: "Flenched", used for weather that promises to improve but never actually does.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

A long time ago in a manuscript far, far away...

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

And of course the links to the illustrations in the manuscript at the British Library are still eff'ing down due to a cyber attack so they say.


May 4, 1852: Alice Pleasance Hargreaves aka Alice Liddell, English schoolgirl model for Alice in Wonderland, is born in London (d. 1934).


An acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass. Reading downward, taking the first letter of each line, spells out Liddell's full name.

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

I did not go on an underground hunt to authenticate, but supposedly this is the only known footage of Alice Liddell:






TV commerical from 1980, C3P0, R2D2, and Boba Fett join some singing and dancing children to sell underwear with printed Empire Strikes Back designs... And that's about all I have to say about that.
"In the not so distant future on a planet called 'Earth' it's... Underoos!"
"Don't be so ridiculous Artoo, Underoos are for earthlings!"



The little girl in the C3P0 Underoos is Erika Eleniak. Her first film role was in the sci-fi blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), by Steven Spielberg. Her film credit given was "Pretty Girl". Playboy Playmate of the Month July 1989.




According to VFX artist Paul Huston, scenes of the Rebel attack on the Death Star in 1977's STAR WARS were inspired in part by imagery of kamikaze attacks on U.S. Navy ships during WWII.

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

In the United States, May 4 is informally observed as "Dave Brubeck Day". In the format most commonly used in the U.S., May 4 is written "5/4", recalling the time signature of "Take Five", Brubeck's best-known recording.

After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the US Army, serving in Europe in the Third Army under George S. Patton. He volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show; the show was a resounding success, and Brubeck was spared from combat service. He created one of the US armed forces first racially integrated bands, "The Wolfpack".

A US Department of State-sponsored tour in 1958 featuring the band "Dave Brubeck Quartet" inspired several of Brubeck's subsequent albums, most notably the 1959 album Time Out. Despite its esoteric theme and contrarian time signatures, Time Out became Brubeck's highest-selling album, and the first jazz album to sell over one million copies. The lead single from the album, "Take Five", a tune written by Desmond in 5/4 time, similarly became the highest-selling jazz single of all time.

In 2010, Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood produced Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way, a documentary about Brubeck for Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to commemorate his 90th birthday in December 2010.

Dave Brubeck – Take Five
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs


May 4, 1970: At Kent State University in Ohio, national guardsmen called in to control a student antiwar demonstration open fire, between 61-67 shots in 13 seconds toward the parking lot. killing four students and wounding nine during protests against Nixon’s Cambodia invasion. The student antiwar strikes became one of the largest coordinated sequences of disruptive protests in American history, with walkouts spreading across more than 883 campuses involving more than a million students.


Photos by Kent State student Ralph Solonitz. More of his photos at Ralph Solonitz papers and artifacts (Kent State Special Collections and Archives)

I heard this girl was identified 48 years later and spoke with the photographer for the first time on Facebook.


Youth often at times are the by product of how they were brought up. They learn love or hate at home. Sometimes they evolve.


May 4, 1974: ~1,000 people rally on Christopher Street, Manhattan for equal rights for gay and lesbian people.

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

May 4, 1974: Cannonade, ridden by jockey Ángel Cordero Jr., wins the 1974 Kentucky Derby, the 100th running of the event with 163,628 people in attendance. Other excitement was a streaker climbed a flagpole at the Derby and sits on top; he is the first known naked flagpole sitter.



May 4, 2024: Congratulations to Mystik Dan (on the inside) by a nose in a nail-biting photo finish!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 5, 1940: the British Grampus-class mine-laying submarine HMS Seal was captured by German forces after the sub had been damaged by a... mine. Upon inspecting the sub, the Germans concluded that Seal was inferior to their U-boats but had superior torpedoes.



She was the only submarine the Germans captured at sea during World War II. Her capture allowed the Germans to correct a critical fault in their U-boat torpedoes.
Fate: Scuttled on May 3, 1945.

Lieutenant Commander Lonsdale was the only British captain to surrender his ship to the enemy in the entire war. He, with Lieutenant Trevor Beet, faced court-martial in 1946; they were honourably acquitted.


A double headline from the May 5, 1970 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:


Caption: Thousands of protesting University of Washington students and faculty members blocked Interstate 5 for nearly an hour as they marched to a rally at the U.S. Courthouse downtown. The crowd had gathered on campus to demand that the university take a moral stand against the killing of four Kent State University students by National Guardsmen and the bombing of Cambodia by U.S. forces. About 30 state troopers in riot gear blocked the crowd at the Roanoke interchange. The crowd, in a congenial mood, sat down and continued to chant. After some impromptu negotiations with the police, the marchers left the freeway and followed Eastlake and Fairview Avenues to the courthouse.
Museum of History & Industry Collection

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

The list leaves out the University of Kentucky, where things culminated with the burning of the ROTC building (May 6) and Governor Louis Nunn sending in the National Guard.



Remember her?



John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, explored the tendency of Dixon and her fans to promote her few correct predictions while ignoring the larger number of incorrect predictions, naming this habit "the Jeane Dixon effect."

Auchincloss Brown was a major influence on 'New Age' authors amd mystics who were warning about a coming pole shift and cataclysmic Earth changes. Among those were Jeane Dixon and her protégé, veteran White House journalist Ruth Montgomery.


Ruth Montgomery wrote extensively about the subject of walk-ins whereby a person's soul can depart a anguished body and be replaced with a new soul which overtakes the body. She presented an extensive list of individuals she said were examples of walk-ins including several US presidents. William Cooper cited a few passages from her book ("Herald of the New Age") back in his "Mystery Babylon" series (specifically episode "Maitreya" first aired in 1993) that he lectures on some wild ancient religion beliefs leading up to the rise of New Age movement belief system. She died 5 months before Bill Cooper in 2001.


Remember this? We need to bring it here, state side:



May 5, 1994: American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism. Fay's sentence was ultimately reduced from six to four whippings after US officials requested leniency.

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."

The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times ran editorials and op-eds condemning the punishment. Meanwhile, USA Today had to up the condemning by reporting that the caning involved "Bits of flesh are said to fly with each strike, along with copious amounts of blood."

Maybe Not. Apparently, the caning did not work as after his release from prison in June 1994, Fay returned to the United States to live with his biological father, and been in trouble with the law ever since.

I was in Singapore 2 years earlier and can definitely say it was the strictest SE Asia city I ever visited and also the cleanest, you could eat off the sidewalks. Computers & software were dirt cheap and also all pirated.


Remember this show?


Adam Scott says ‘SEVERANCE’ Season 2 will release in the “somewhat near future” and “Your patience doesn't have to hold on too much longer.”  Praise be, I can't wait!



Coast To Coast AM (12/12/1997) Art Bell Shirt (prices are a tad steep)


LMAO!





On a serious note, this world has way too many energy vampires. Clip is from "What We Do in the Shadows" (2019–2024) Season 2, Episode 7 on Hulu.




New Pride Flag...Legend has it that there is rainbow under that whole mess.


Has more color than Sherwin-Williams. LOL.


Being his secret service agent must be a trip. Run around Manhattan, deliver pizzas to FDNY & NYPD, go golfing every weekend, goto F1 races, battle every intelligence agency on earth, vibe, chill, hang out with the trophy wives of Palm Beach.


He's looking at the McLaren with the same skepticism as he did the coronavirus. LOL.


"Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost perpetually, he deliberately deceives himself about that precious little fragment as well." ― Philip K. Dick

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 6, 1840: World's first adhesive postage stamp, the "Penny Black", is first used in the UK. It was first issued in the UK on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria.




May 6, 1889: Exposition Universelle (World's Fair), the Eiffel Tower was opened to the public in Paris. Not to be outdone, London decided to get a new tower of their own and held a competition to design it, with some interesting results!


Catalogue of the 68 Competitive Designs for the Great Tower for London (1890)


May 6, 1895: Rudolph Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Italy. He was the 1st male Hollywood original Latin Lover "sex symbol" during the silent film era. Films include: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Sheik (1921), Blood and Sand, The Eagle (1925), and The Son of the Sheik (1926) his final film, released shortly after his death. He died August 23, 1926 of ruptured gastric ulcer and general peritonitis.




May 6, 1937: the LZ 129 Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Killing 35 of the 97 on board and 1 on the ground.





Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951). The Kettles leave their ultra-modern home and return to the country looking for uranium. Ma and Tom's mother-in-law, Mrs. Parker, fight over whether their grandchild will be raised "hygienically". Imagine her for a mother in law!


Marjorie Main


Orson Welles (born May 6, 1915), discussed Citizen Kane on the BBC programme, Monitor, with Huw Wheldon. Originally broadcast 13 March, 1960. "Anything you say about Hollywood is true, good or bad there is no statement too extreme which does not apply."




May 6, 1965: at a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones can't sleep because there's a guitar riff running through his head. He rolls a tape, falls asleep and wakes up the following day to find he's recorded the riff to...




May 6, 1966: Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were found guilty of murder. Between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England they had killed 5 children aged between 10 and 17: Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evans, and were sentenced to life. It was one of the most shocking British criminal cases.

Dozens of books, movies, & docu's about these two evil psychopaths.


Article from The Telegraph (July 2009) & Wiki.


May 6, 1983: The Hitler Diaries, initially verified by the British historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003), and serialised in The Sunday Times, were revealed as fake within two weeks by forensic scientist Julius Grant. It was deeply embarrassing for Trevor-Roper as he had previously been regarded as a leading expert on Hitler’s Germany. This incident prompted the satirical magazine Private Eye to nickname him "Hugh Very-Ropey", "Lord Lucre of Claptout", or more concisely, "Lord Facre". I guess he should of stuck to England's history of the 16th and 17th centuries.



The Hitler Diaries were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks (£2.3 million or $3.7 million) by the West German news magazine Stern, which sold serialisation rights to several news organisations. One of the publications involved was The Sunday Times, who asked their independent director, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, to authenticate the diaries; he did so, pronouncing them genuine.

Konrad Paul Kujau (27 June 1938 – 12 September 2000) on his release from prison after three years, became something of a minor celebrity, appearing on TV as a "forgery expert", and set up a business selling "genuine Kujau fakes" in the style of various major artists. He stood for election as Mayor of Stuttgart in 1996, receiving 901 votes. Kujau died of cancer in 2000.

In 2006, someone claiming to be his grandniece, Petra Kujau, was charged with selling "fake forgeries", cheap Asian-made copies of famous paintings with forged signatures of Konrad Kujau.


May 6, 1985: The Highwaymen - Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson - released their debut album, Highwayman.




The only way this thing is gonna make any money is a "coupon: the movie" style lawsuit where everyone in the country is legally required to watch it.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

How the hell would he know?




Kids Exploring Ancient Ruins...




Oxford's word of the day is right on cue...


Meghan Markle Allegedly Told Prince Harry She Spoke to His Late Mom Princess Diana


Moloko Plus or Knifey Moloko, stemmed from the Russian word for milk, is the barbiturate-spiked milk served within the Korova milkbar. Korova is Russian for Cow. There are three types of Moloko plus served within the Milk Bar; Vellocet (mixed with most likely amphetamines), Synthemesc (mixed with synthetic mescaline) and Drencrom (mixed with adrenochrome and possibly unnamed hallucinogens). It can be served to minors because of its lack of alcohol. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence.


See Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE in 35mm on May 7th & 9th at Prince Charles Cinema.


Tonight’s tasting, a 2022 cask strength Talisker special release called "The Lustrous Creature of the Depths". Does not disappoint, hot, sweet, and of the sea.




May Monday words...




Trump eats stress for breakfast...




Once you stare into the saucers, the saucers stare back at you.




Mad Max unhinged again...


https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1...0320689252


Girls of the Wild by Nikita Gill

They won't tell you fairytales
of how girls can be dangerous and still win.
They will only tell you stories
where girls are sweet and kind
and reject all sin.
I guess to them
it's a terrifying thought,
a red riding hood
who knew exactly
what she was doing
when she invited the wild in.


I'll see you in the...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 7, 1915: A German U-20 submarine torpedoed and sank the Cunard liner, RMS Lusitania, killing 1,197 people. As 128 Americans were on board, citizens of a neutral power, and the attack significantly shifted public opinion in the United States against Germany, contributing to the later American entry into the war.




May 7, 1945: the majority of the crew of HMCS Uganda indicated in a "poll" that they did not intend to continue participating in operations against Japan after the Canadian government announced that only volunteers would be deployed in the Pacific. The ship had to return to Canada.


The only Canadian ship to fight against the Japanese in the Second World War, HMCS Uganda also had the distinction of being the only ship to vote itself out of that war. Uganda arrived in Canada Aug. 10, 1945; the day Japan proposed a conditional surrender. The war ended three weeks later.


May 7, 1974: The last episode of the children’s show, Bagpuss, aired on BBC1. It was made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate and had run for 13 episodes since 12 February 1974. The lead character was described as "a saggy, old cloth cat."





In 1989, PepsiCo technically possessed the world's sixth-largest naval fleet for a brief moment. In a strange deal, Russia sold to Pepsi, 17 submarines, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer to maintain the flow of Pepsi soda into the country. However, the vessels were immediately sold for scrap to a Norwegian company. The Pepsi must flow.


How did Pepsi obtain the 6th Largest Naval Fleet in the World?


British Film Institute - The Parallax View available Nov 14.




WoW!


Parallax Advanced Research

Parallax - Ohio X-tech - AI doctor bots, come join us!




May 7, 2010: Iron Man 2 was released... how Elon Musk’s cameo came to be:




Iron Man was published by Marvel Comics, co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby. The character first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 in 1963, and received his own title with Iron Man #1 in 1968.

Stan Lee said the character was based on Howard Hughes. But when Iron Man came to the big screen...


Robert Downey Jr. was seeking inspiration for his character and he found it in Musk. He wanted director Jon Favreau to meet with Musk.

Not only did their meeting lead to Musk’s cameo in Iron Man 2...…Justin Hammer’s evil weapons factory was also filmed at SpaceX. Musk was a good sport. He even put a life-size cutout of Iron Man at SpaceX headquarters.

He even used the Iron Man movies as inspiration for the SpaceX team. Here he is in 2013 discussing (vid clip) SpaceX technology inspired by the films.



The pair would later have some fun again on the set of The Mandalorian.




Checking in on the tiny tyrant to the north in TURDeau Landia...


Canada To Imprison Anyone Who Has EVER Posted ‘Hate Speech’ Online

"The Online Harms Act"


"The wisdom they claim we gain, is just all the wisdom we already had, but was oblivious to it, because we were too busy trying to change what we couldn't and refusing to change what we could, when we could."
― NightskyeB4Dawn

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 8, 1945: VE Day...




They Call It Stormy Monday But Tuesday Is Just As Bad




The boys found the secret down in Anarctica...




The original creator of Twitter Jack Dorsey has abandoned ship, the lefts "twitter killer" and endorsed X. This weirdo punk has no integrity. If there was any law and order in America, he would be on trial for treason, along with most of the mainstream media carnival barkers.


All in it together where ever the money flows.





These were their first offices...


...They’re now collectively worth $9.9 trillion. Mind boggling.





Some high octane speculation that is probably true or partly true.


https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status...6635160622


Tomorrow will be an all-hands fun in the sun paint detail...


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.


Are you joking me...


C-130 Floatplane Program Put ‘On Pause’ By Special Operations Command

Of course they'll kill it. None of the people who made this decision will either themselves nor their kids have to worry about punching out somewhere between Taiwan and Guam with the nearest helo 3-days away.
FFS, can we just buy the one thing that works and is in production?




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.

[BIAD]

Really...? Anything retro?!

[Bally002]

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.

Hopper - the real deal.

Nebraska and A-10's - Operated by real patriotic educated and smart people.  Pics are testimony.  The best of America.  Don't let it fail.

Kind regards,

Bally)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Eisenhower: "The  mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7,  1945"...


Eisenhower’s Message for the End of the War in Europe

May 9, 1945, edition of The Maple Leaf

Originally published during the Second World War to inform and entertain the Canadian troops posted overseas, The Maple Leaf has continually adapted to the changing media landscape. In 2017 we moved to a digital-only platform, with the final print issue published in July 2017.


May 8, 1945: Remastered footage of VE Day Celebrations, filmed in West Gateshead, England.



Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s message to the nation and the commonwealth on VE Day, 8 May 1945.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkQ8uFiqx4k


May 8, 1911: Naval Aviation began when Capt. Washington Chambers ordered a Curtiss A-1 Triad amphibious plane. USS Independence (CVA-62), USS Saratoga (CVA-60) and USS Intrepid (CVA-11) marked the 50th anniversary in 1961.


Type: Pusher Biplane
Crew: Pilot and passenger
Powerplant: One 75 horsepower Curtiss V-8 engine
Dimensions: Length: 28 ft., 7 1/8 in.; Height: 8 ft., 10 in.; Wingspan: 37 ft.
Weights: Empty: 925 lb.; Gross: 1,575 lb.
Performance: Maximum Speed: 60 MPH.


May 8, 1963: James Bond DR. NO opens in America. Stars Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder & some Scottish guy. Mostly Ursula Andress.




R.I.P. Steve Albini. Here’s a video of him doing a 9/11 on the Sears Tower.



This entire trailer melted my brain when I first saw it. Just pure 90's cocaine energy.

I don't understand how Steve Albini could have died of a heart attack. He seemed so health conscious. Hmm. Unfortunately, Steve went mask looney tunes.


Steve Albini, Studio Master of ’90s Rock and Beyond, Dies at 61

The evolution of Steve Albini: ‘If the dumbest person is on your side, you’re on the wrong side’ (The Guardian; Aug 15, 2023)


I didn't have this one on my 2024 election Bingo Card!


RFK Jr says doctor told him a worm ate part of his brain Oh the irony. Many, many live parasites on Capitol Hill.




Standards and discipline are the bedrock of culture. Let those slide and bad shit happens. In this particular case, real bad.


How sexual harassment and the shipyard crippled a Navy warship

On August 4, 2022, Bulkeley departed Norfolk for a homeport shift to Rota, Spain, arriving on 17 August.

USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer named for Medal of Honor recipient Vice Admiral John D. Bulkeley (19 August 1911 – 6 April 1996) nickname "Sea Wolf" was one of the most decorated naval officers during WWII. He was also the PT boat skipper who evacuated General Douglas MacArthur, his family and his staff on March 11, 1942 from Corregidor island in the Philippines. MacArthur said, "You have taken me out of the jaws of death. I shall never forget it." Later that year while back in the United States helping to raise War Bonds as a lieutenant commander, he met former Ambassador to Britain Joseph Kennedy at New York's Plaza Hotel, and shortly after was instrumental in recruiting Lieutenant John F. Kennedy into the Navy's Motor Torpedo Boat Training Center (MTBTC) at Mellville, Rhode Island. Years later Bulkeley was promoted to rear admiral by President John F. Kennedy.


Bulkeley retired from active duty in 1975. However, he was recalled to active duty in a retired-retained status in order to serve as the commander of the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) which conducts inspections and surveys of U.S. naval vessels before their commissioning and deployment. In 1986, Bulkeley conducted an inspection of the USS Iowa, finding numerous deficiencies and recommending it be taken out of service immediately. His advice was not heeded, and three years later, it suffered the USS Iowa turret explosion, killing 47 crewmen. Later promoted to Vice Admiral, Bulkeley retired from the Navy in 1988, after 55 years of service.

What I did in the Arabian Gulf back in the day:


^^^ All that too. Except my instructors were Navy SEALs who demonstrated very little mercy on us. My main job was both a Data Systems tech and ET in CE division on a different ship, not the Bulkeley.


I remember the plot of this movie. It didn't end well for mankind.


Defense think tank MITRE to build AI supercomputer with Nvidia

Mitre was just "hacked" last month. So they may wanna work on their cybersecurity before embarking on this little adventure...

MITRE Response to Cyber Attack in One of Its R&D Networks - a breach in the "NERVE" - Networked Experimentation, Research, and Virtualization Environment.

[Bally002]

Quite enjoyed that lot.  I sent 'Duelling Firemen' to my wife because it stars "Yolanda" (her name) and her family are fire fighters.

Had to laugh.  


Kind regards,

Bally)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 9, 1958: Stanford dropped controversial figure Mulford Q. Sibley [1912-1989] and Peru apologized for stoning Vice President Nixon. The San Fran Examiner misspelled his first name as "Milford." Sibley wrote extensively on pacifism, utopianism, civil disobedience, and was an outspoken opponent of the US war in Vietnam, often speaking on the campus green, bullhorn in hand, at University of Minnesota anti-war rallies.




Her father, Newton Minow, age 35, Chairman of the FCC, told the National Association of Broadcasters to live up to the pledge to serve the public interest they made to get their licenses to broadcast over the public airways. He helped create PBS and served as its chair, helped create the Presidential debates in 1960 and the debate commission, and served 8 Presidents. Also, the sinking ship on Gilligan's Island was named after him. (with an extra N)


Newton N. Minow Speech - Quite the ear opener in hindsight!! Minow telling broadcasters to their faces that TV was a "vast wasteland."

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."
- Newton Minow (Wasteland speech)


"Just sit right back, and you’ll hear a tale..."

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...6845484033]

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!

Anniversary of the Vast Wasteland Speech that Changed Television, May 9, 1961

Newton Norman Minow (January 17, 1926 – May 6, 2023), his law firm hired Barack Obama & Michelle Robinson and later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


All three daughters are lawyers. Martha L. Minow, law professor and former dean of Harvard Law School; Mary, a library law expert appointed to the Obama administration, and Nell a shareholder activist and movie critic. She was named queen of good corporate governance by BusinessWeek Online in 2003. You can follow Nell Minow (@nminow) on Twitter.

On the flip-side in this video interview from 1996 with Sherwood Schwartz...
Link is cued to start @ 17:40: https://youtu.be/7sG_bX9JhXA?t=1060

* He states TV used to be driven by Ad Agencies not TV Networks... until 1962, Newt Minow the Chairman of the FCC director changed TV (in his words, Minow ruined Television). Minow now places each network in charge of every show. Whatever they (the networks) say, goes.

* He states The SS Minnow was named after Newt Minow.

* Minow recruited Obama in 1988 to work for his law firm Sidley Austin LLP as a summer associate, where Obama met his future wife Michelle Robinson.

* Minow pursued Obama on the recommendation of daughter Martha, who was Obama’s law professor.

* Barack Obama named him a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom  for 2016.

* He is great-uncle to Adam Frankel, a speechwriter of his former protege, Barack Obama.



Herbert Krugman's Discovery (similar to hypnosis)

Herbert E. Krugman (1921 - July 30, 2016) wrote "Why Three Exposures may be enough" while he was employed at General Electric. His theory has been adopted and widely in use in the advertising arena. The following statement encapsulates his theory: "Let me try to explain the special qualities of one, two and three exposures. I stop at three because as you shall see there is no such thing as a fourth exposure psychologically; rather fours, fives, etc., are repeats of the third exposure effect. According to Krugman, there are only three levels of exposure in psychological, not media, terms: curiosity, recognition and decision.

Herbert Krugman -  Interview by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC7e1eCNMyg


"Point of order! Let's watch a movie instead!" Syndicated "Channel Chuckles" cartoon by Bil Keane [1922-2011] published May 9, 1954. If you ever wondered what a cameo from Joe McCarthy in a Family Circus comic might have looked like, now you know...





May 9, 2017: FBI director James Comey was fired. Only 621 days until these photographs can be FOIA'd.


Trump's personal bodyguard, 6-foot-4, 250-pound former NYPD narco Keith Schiller, been at Trump's side for nearly two decades. Weird how later, Vince's wife Linda Marie McMahon was the administrator of the Small Business Administration under Donald Trump. She was named chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC back in 2019. 50 years ago she financed Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon Jump (we know how that went) and afterward filed for bankruptcy.


The Miami "no sound" machine...


Tubbs & Crockett as Shore Patrol!

SECNAV Del Toro Names Virginia-class Attack Sub USS Miami, Singer Gloria Estefan to be Sponsor

 



The tipping point is nigh...180 days.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

"Lost Tapes"




May 9th - A flying saucer sets a group of cows on fire.










The Sci-fi-like interactive "Portal" between New York and Dublin went LIVE yesterday.




As the prophecy foretold...





Depriving us of memes... when will the horrors end?!





RIP. From 1964...





Huh? In just 6 months... Inflation down from 300% to 11%; the first quarterly budget surplus since 2008; interest rates cut three times in three weeks; and the Argentine peso becomes the world's best performing currency.


Milei is already proving the Left-wing economic establishment wrong



Milei Is Absolutely Killing It in Argentina

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 10, 1863: Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson died from complications of pneumonia and wounds suffered at the Battle Of Chancellorsville eight days earlier.


General Jackson was returning to camp when he was accidentally wounded by his own men.
An Eyewitness Account of Stonewall Jackson's Wounding


May 10, 1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis captured in Georgia. Davis was wearing his wife’s shawl; cartoonists had a field day with that.

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.

    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!

Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have introduced a bill that would designate student protesters "Terrorists" and add them to the "No Fly List" (with zero judicial oversight) for protesting Israel, which is deemed "violence against the Jewish people"! Who didn't see this coming. Which equates to more $$$ for surveillance tech. If the left hand don't get ya, the right hand will.


Amendment to H.R.3935 — Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act (proposed Amend #65 of 243 amendments to this bill)

Main link to the bill cluster Act:
H.R.3935 - Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act



Someone needs to explain the hand holding here. I mean, the umbrellas are funny enough.


https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/17...1165316475

Furious anti-Tesla eco activists storm Elon Musk Gigafactory

Who wants to tell them what wind farms and solar farms do?
The umbrellas remind me of the Hong Kong protests.


In the Free State of Florida, we not only are quite happy to have a 15' (5 meter) American Crocodile (not alligator) at our public docks next to the filet table, we name it Fred and do all we can to protect him. (starting at 8:30 mark in the water by boat is good to show size). The film location is Black Point Marina in Miami.

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

Hand-carved into the mountains 2,000 years ago, the rice terraces in the Philippines Ifugao province are a spectacular sight to behold. There are five vast, UNESCO-listed terraces stretching hundreds of feet into the air. Local lore has it that if you joined all the paddies end to end, they’d reach halfway around the Earth. The rice fields and the life of the local people have remained largely unchanged for centuries.


The Ifugao rice terraces, the Philippines

Philippine court blocks GMO 'golden rice' production over safety fears


Clown travel alert: NYC Mayor Adams travels to Rome, Italy (taxpayer-funded boondoggle) to "figure out how to deal with Migrants" and the economy.


Twitter or Newsweek



Queen of the skies shall fulfill Doomsday prophecy, err I mean plane, luxury roomy plane.


Former Korean Air 747s Slated To Become USAF Doomsday Planes


Fox news refuses to let this one getaway...

Fox News still on the Prowl for Las Vegas alien

I learned long ago not to trust (at least be highly dubious) of any high strangeness that comes out of Sin City.

Latin poet Phaedrus said: "Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden."




SunWeatherMan says We have entered level 5 solar storm conditions - first time in 21 years.


A burst of plasma would set in motion a devastating cascade of failures

[url=https://unherd.com/2021/07/how-the-sun-could-wipe-us-out/][/url]
I don't care if half the world goes dark between now and tomorrow, but I'll be damn pissed & spittin fire if the Internet is down when I awake in the mornin!!!  [sarc-sarc-sarc]

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 10, 1945: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome, Marine badass pilot Bob Klingman used the propeller of his Corsair to chop off the tail of a Japanese plane. Because his guns had frozen in the insanely high altitude, he turned his fighter into a buzzsaw to down the enemy. Note, the Jap also had a tailgunner! With damaged blades, he still managed to fly back to base.


Story of Bob; drummer, pilot, legend


One of the most unique maps I've seen. Printed during WW2, it superimposes the Nazi invasion of the USSR over a map of the US. St. Louis stands in for Stalingrad, Detroit for Moscow.


"Russian War Relief, Inc., 11 E. 35th St., New York City, presents this map to help Americans to visualize the almost inconceivable extent of the need for American aid to the people of the Soviet Union. From the vast invaded area of the USSR, here shown superimposed on a map of the United States, 38,000,000 Russians escaped the Nazis in 1941..."

High resolution Map


I swear everytime I logon to this discombobulated 'X' platform, AJ is talking; doesn't matter if morning, afternoon, evening, or night, he talkin. Apparently, Elon gave him free reign. Anyways, AJ Friday night...



https://twitter.com/CartlandDavid/status...6385684924

While he's giving his typical satire monologue, former Sec. of Defense Esper (the one Trump fired) is sitting on stage. So weird. And I wouldn't call it "stunning monologue" unless you've never, ever heard Bill Maher. And of course at the end he has to also throw Trump under the bus.



As thus he sat beneath an oak
An acorn fell abruptly
And smote his nose: whereat he spoke
Of acorns most corruptly.

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”.

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…

Read it if you wish: Philip K. Dick on Israel




How solar farms took over the California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’





Maurice Nicoll is #1 in New Age Mysticism - at least in the states.




Banner weirdness synchronicity streamed across my network today.
My local boring evening news informed us that someone's small business burned to the ground because the owners were unable to call 911...all circuits were busy, unable to reach a human. Busy? Busy doing exactly what?? Before signing off the astute newscaster gave an update saying the owners lived in a cell dead zone. Ok, that much is true they do but their house has a landline and the location of their business is in town (not a deadzone by any stretch) from where they tried to make the call. Isn't modern technology great?!




“Your frequency is what you frequently see. Pay attention to synchronicity as there are valuable lessons to be learned in the repetition of your reality.”
― Jennifer Sodini


Beware the Joblijock my son...they can be such a pain in the heart of a dandyfloss day.




Ok, I'm ready to go back to 1983, let's GOoooo!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Good mornin, afternoon, evening. We're gonna need a bigger boat!




May 11, 1971: Britain's oldest tabloid "The Daily Sketch" founded in 1909, was published for the last time and its staff merged with the Daily Mail. The Sketch was Conservative in politics and populist in tone. It’s been suggested the populist element of today’s Daily Mail was inherited from the Sketch.




May 11, 1999: Clinton Approves Technology Transfer to China:

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.

Spin-off of The X-Files featuring the trio of computer-hacking conspiracy geeks popularly known as The Lone Gunmen. In the pilot episode, which aired on March 4, 2001, 191 days before 9/11, there is a hijacked plane that is being targeted at the World Trade Center. The last episode aired May 11, 2001.





May 11, 2024: Minnesota officially updates its flag to a third world flag and state seal to a loon. The blue in the new flag is meant to represent the thousands of lakes found throughout the state. The base design was created by a 24-year-old, and the commission said it received a lot of comments on it. Ya, I bet it did.


Flag expert calls new Minnesota state flag ‘outstanding,’ top 10 in the country


Roman Mars is obsessed with flags -- and after you watch this talk, you might be, too. These ubiquitous symbols of civic pride are often designed, well, pretty terribly. But they don't have to be. In this surprising and hilarious talk about vexillology -- the study of flags -- Mars reveals the five basic principles of flag design and shows why he believes they can be applied to just about anything.

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

One criticism (among many) of the design is its alleged similarity to flags from Somalia which was pushed aside by the commission overseeing the flag redesign.

In early March 2024, Republican state legislators announced plans to introduce a series of bills that would put the flag design to a public vote. Little late for that.

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.

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

Green stripe was a color too far and so was removed from the design.






The Dakota phrase "Mni Sóta Makoce", is translated to "land where the waters reflect the sky." I'm curious about the "red" dot for an eye.

The previous Official Minnesota State Motto was "L'Etoile du Nord", translated to English as "The Star of the North".

All of the finalist designs depicted a variation of an eight-pointed star.
Why the eight-pointed star, or octagram?

The 8-pointed star holds immense cultural and religious significance across various historical contexts. It symbolizes celestial entities like the moon, sun, planets, stars, and comets. Its origins trace back to ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Babylon, where it was closely associated with the goddess Ishtar. Ishtar held sway over domains such as love, fertility, and warfare, and she bore a connection to the planet Venus, often referred to as the Morning Star.

In Babylonian symbolism, the goddess Ishtar is represented by an eight-pointed starburst, and she is associated with the planet of Venus. Today, some people equate the Greek Aphrodite, whom the Romans equated with their Venus, with Ishtar.



In Babylonian myth there were seven spheres plus an eighth realm, the fixed stars, where the gods lived. As a result, 8 is often associated with paradise. Muslims believe that there are seven hells but eight paradises, signifying God's mercy.

Old Kingdom Egyptians recognized a group of eight deities, four male and four female, with the female bearing feminine forms of the male names: Nu, Nanet, Amun, Amunet, Kuk, Kauket, Huh, and Hauhet. Each pair represents a primal force, water, air, darkness, and infinity, and together they create the world and the sun god Ra from the primordial waters. Together, these eight are known as the Ogdoad, and this context is borrowed by other cultures which may represent it with an octagram.

In Judeo-Christian the number eight frequently represents beginnings, resurrection, salvation , and super-abundance. This has to do, in part, with the fact that the number seven is a number of completion. The eighth day, for example, is the first day of a new seven-day week, and a Jewish child enters into God's Covenant on the eighth day of life via circumcision.

In Judeo-Christian Esoterica, esoteric thinkers working with Hebrew and the names of God might place the Hebrew letters for YHWH and ADNI (Yahweh and Adonai) within the points of an Octagram.

A chaos star is eight points radiating from a central point. While originating in fiction – specifically the writings of Michael Moorcock – it has now been adopted into a variety of additional contexts, including religious and magical ones. Most notably, it has been adopted by some as a symbol of chaos magic. Hmm, Ilhan Omar & her squad certainly invoke chaos.




The second century Gnostic Valentinius wrote about his own concept of the Ogdoad, which again is four male/female pairs of what they considered primordial principles. First, Abyss and Silence brought forth Mind and Truth, which then produced Word and Life, which finally produced Man and Church. Today, various pursuers of esoterica have drawn upon various concepts of the Ogdoad.


In Hinduism, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, has eight emanations known as Ashtalakshmi, which are represented by two entwined squares forming an octagram. These emanations represent eight forms of wealth: monetary, ability to transport, endless prosperity, victory, patience, health and nourishment, knowledge, and family.

Buddhists use an eight-spoked wheel to represent the Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha as a means to escape suffering through the breaking of attachments. These paths are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

In Chinese tradition, the eight pointed star was a way to concisely depict the entirety of the Universe. It was believed that the Sky Emperor T'ai-Yi resided in a palace at the center of Heaven, at the top of the eight pointed star's axis, from which he ruled the eight divisions of Heaven.

Octagrams formed from overlapping squares often emphasize duality: yin and yang, male and female, spiritual and material. Squares are often connected with the physical world: four elements, four cardinal directions, etc. Together, they can mean both positive and negative aspects of the four elements, for example, and balancing them.

* * *

Ok, sorry I got hung up on flags & stars. Moving on to last night's realm of wonder!...

"What happened last night is something that I thought was only a dream. The strongest aurora ever, above the Dutch windmills. I still can't believe this was real. Captured after midnight in The Netherlands."


Dutch Source: @albertdrosphoto



The tweet that went nuclear (due to the usual misunderstanding) & overwhelmed the Geomagnetic storm...




See you on the flip-side...

"The desert toad takes me for a ride
The lizard king's always by my side
The hawk and eagle just want to fly
The owl watches where I've been..."

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Mother's Day from the Cold War...



Happy Mothers Day! And remember, dissent is patriotic. Mama knows best!



Learn more about Ronilyn McDonald, daughter of the late physicist James McDonald, at the EFR online archive and her 1967 University of Arizona honors thesis, "Psychological Aspects of Unidentified Flying Objects".


A mother sent President Truman $10 and asked that it be used to pay for a birthday cake for her son in the Navy. Truman sent the request to the sailor's CO, who then had his cooks bake a big cake. Remember: Your mom will go to the top of the (food) chain of command for you.




May 12th 1943: The Bridge on the River Kwai, that will connect Bangkok and Rangoon must be completed by this date according to the POW camp commandant, Colonel Saito.




May 12, 1995: CRIMSON TIDE was released. The Navy declined to assist in the production because of 'problems with the script', so the director got the shots he needed by hiring boats and helicopters to chase down USS Alabama (SSBN-731) when the sub was spotted leaving Pearl Harbor. When the Captain of the Alabama requested that the helicopter cease filming, they submerged, which is what director Tony Scott was hoping for anyway. I'm sure Hollywood got approval from Navy brass to release the footage. I was there that day at Pearl Harbor monitoring air traffic from Ford Island.

"Set condition 1 SQ for strategic missile launch." Lt. Commander "Hunter" (Denzel Washington) managed to save humanity.




"In science-fiction films, the monster should always be bigger than the leading lady." — Roger Corman


When Day the World Ended (1955) was originally released theatrically in the UK in 1956, the BBFC made cuts to secure a 'X' rating. All cuts were waived in 1991 when the film was granted a 'PG' certificate for home video.



More Corman...Mama knows best!



The Intruder (1962). It's perhaps Corman's best film, which is saying a lot given his immense talent. Probably one of Shatner's best performances, too.


Obvious content warning applies. It's an anti-segregation film made in the early 60s, and it reflects the ugliness of that period.



Kirk Douglas and Robert Walker Jr. in THE HOOK (1963). Robert Walker Jr. and Michael Douglas in the STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO episode (S3.E21) where Keller goes undercover at a mental hospital (Feb 20, 1975, but pre-CUCKOO'S NEST premiere).


So happy I escaped that dreadful mansion of horrors.


May 11, 1962: the destroyer USS Agerholm fired an anti-submarine rocket (ASROC) equipped with a nuclear depth charge during the Operation Dominic Swordfish weapons test. This was the last U.S. use of a nuclear depth charge due to the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.


I got to launch one of these (dummy warhead) at a nuclear attack sub. The sub captain said it was a direct hit, we heard the clang, clang.

At minute 3:00 of the video you see sailors on Balao-class submarine USS Razorback (SS-394) testing the submerged effects. Imagine the mission briefing for that one.