Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 12, 1938: USS Enterprise (CV-6) was commissioned. War Department officials and VIPs attending the ceremony were presented with aluminum model "Big E" ashtrays that had been cast at the Newport News Shipbuilding foundry as souvenirs. The ashtrays are now valued by collectors.




Is this acceptable for the Master Bathroom ladies? Asking for a friend...





May 12, 1965: The Rolling Stones recorded "(I can’t get no) Satisfaction" in Hollywood.

Performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on February 13, 1966.



And they were just playing in Las Vegas Friday night.



The weather gods paused the deluge. Lovely day for a picnic...










Last night's Aurora show which I didn't see jack. Photoshop skills a little rusty. Just use a little imagination...




Mayor of the World...




We sure are on an interesting timeline. I'll see your UFO disclosure and raise you a Virgin Mary disclosure. Behold the Great Narrative guide is nigh...



Vatican preparing 'guidelines' for supernatural phenomena

Vatican to publish new document on Marian apparitions next week




Third annual joint Olive and Lavender Festival

I went to one of these olive festival's (ONCE) with the wife. Came back with an empty wallet and enough oil to supply the neighborhood for a year.

Solitary, Splendid Squalor

Fed up with the crime, congestion and cost of Orange County, Fred Hermon went looking for a place where he could be alone, a place so remote, so unappealing that few would ever want to live there.

His strategy was simple: Locate the popular, pricey towns on a map and move steadily outward. That’s where he found Trona.

When he searched the Internet for information, the word “hell” kept popping up -- ‘Is Trona Anywhere Near Hell?,” “Where the Hell Is Trona?,” “Long, Lonely Ride Through Hell.”

Hermon didn’t actually expect to find perdition as he descended through Poison Canyon into Trona three years ago, but the smell of sulfur, the blast-furnace heat and barren landscape made it feel uncomfortably close.

A real estate agent showed him a neighborhood with block after block of burned-out homes.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, no,’ ” he recalled. “Another area looked like Los Angeles after the riots. I love the desert, but this was pushing it.”

Nevertheless, he found a house for $24,000, installed an enormous swamp cooler and now spends his days digging for old artifacts while caring for nine cats, an inquisitive packrat and two desert tortoises, Speedy and Kid.

Hermon, 60, has already spent $2,600 on a chain-link fence and rarely leaves home for fear of being burglarized. On his first night in town, someone swiped his $15 garden hose. He stays for the solitude but wonders how Trona came to this.

“Something must have been going on for a long time to bring the town to this level of devastation,” he said.

Over the years, Trona, once a thriving community of 6,000 on the ragged edge of Death Valley, has shriveled to just 1,800. Drug dealers looking for cheap housing have moved in. Parolees abound. Arsonists have torched dozens of vacant homes, leaving charred skeletons behind. Business owners, unable to make a profit, have simply locked up and walked away.

Parts of “Planet of the Apes” and “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” [also Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space, and Planet of the Apes] were filmed at the Trona Pinnacles, towering mineral formations near town. Conspiracy buffs have long held that Trona was the site of NASA’s “moon landings.”

An old highway sign put it this way: “End of the World 10, Trona 15.”

The town was a stopover for the homicidal Manson family, who loaded up on water before heading to Barker Ranch about 20 miles east, where they were eventually arrested in 1969.

“I got my picture taken with Manson -- with the girls too,” said Robert “Ballarat Bob” Dunlap, an 83-year-old gold miner living in a desert shack.

Dunlap is one of the last in a long line of miners who burrowed and dynamited their way through here hoping to find a fortune.

Full article: Solitary, Splendid Squalor

Trona Pinnacles in the California Desert National Conservation Area:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Monday calling...




This week in 1953: RKO Radio Production / Dick Powell's atomic noir SPLIT SECOND opened in New York and Los Angeles. Watch the explosive trailer.



The escaped convict Bart Moore is played by Paul Kelly who himself spent 25 months during the late 1920s in California's San Quentin State Prison. He was convicted of manslaughter for the beating death of actor Ray Raymond, (1887-April 19, 1927) the first husband of actress Dorothy Mackaye (1899-1940), who was having an affair with Kelly and would later marry him. Dorothy also spent 10 months in prison for concealing evidence. They had one child together, a daughter Valerie Raymond (1922-1995), stage name as Mimi Kelly. Mimi would later have her own slight Broadway career. Both Dorothy & Ray died at age 40; Dorothy in a car accident.

Kelly's next film after this one was "Duffy of San Quentin" (Duffy of San Quentin (1954) where he plays the title role - the warden of the prison where he himself did time.



The Starlost (1980)
The Ark is a huge spaceship that is bearing the surviving cultures of a long-dead Earth. The cultures live in 50 mile wide Domes and are mostly ignorant of each others' existence. The three principal characters accidentally escape from their Medieval peasant environment, discover that the Ark's crew is long dead and the ship is adrift. They wander through the ship and its domes, seeking help to regain control of the ship and humanity's destiny. The original Starlost TV series was broadcast by CTV in 1973. In 1980, a set of 5 60-minute compilation movies were released. This one was made from two episodes guest-starring Walter Koenig as the alien Oro who seeks to gain control of the massive Ark for his own race.





May 13, 1988: The last episode of the ITV mystery series, Tales of the Unexpected, was broadcast. A British anthology series featuring tales of horror, mystery, and suspense created by Roald Dahl. Each episode told a story, with an unexpected ending. It had run for 112 episodes since 24 March 1979. Roald Dahl (1916-1990) British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace, AND member of British Security Coordination; a covert organisation part of MI6 setup in NYC, agent of influence, male honey trap/Romeo spy, and propagandist.



The more observant viewers called it "Tales of the Very Much as You Expected". The dancer in the opening titles was Karen Standley, a secretary and housewife from Berkshire. She was then 27, and the only person to appear in all 112 episodes. Her boyfriend worked on Top of the Pops (1964) and was contracted to produce the Tales of the Unexpected titles, so he used her as the dancer, dressed in a white body stocking and tights, and with arms, legs and face painted with white greasepaint. She was briefed to look "as sexy as I could".

Karen Standley was a 27-year-old secretary and housewife from Berkshire, and took a day off to record the sequence.

“The moves were my very own,” recalled Karen, who never danced professionally but got the job because her boyfriend at the time worked for Top of the Pops and was contracted to make the titles for Tales of the Unexpected.

She was seen only in silhouette on screen and for the recording had to wear a white body stocking and white tights, with white greasepaint on her arms and legs to achieve the necessary effect.

“The greasepaint kept melting under the hot studio lights,” she said. “It was horrible and uncomfortable and it took three baths to wash it all off. But it gave me some money – nothing staggering, but I got a new outfit out of it.”

“I was just told to look as sexy as I could and I made it up as I went along. I got a fair amount of fan-mail – mostly adolescents who wanted a picture of me. I suppose I was their fantasy woman.”

Karen is now a mother of two and works as a receptionist in a hospital accident and emergency department.

Roald Dahl fan site

Throughout the series the cast was made up of 680 actors (many well-known British, American, others) including Roald Dahl himself for the first 3 seasons as a fire-side storyteller. Some only appearing in one episode. Early episodes in the series were all set in the United Kingdom but a lot of the later episodes were made in the United States with American actors.



Monday looney & based memes...









KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES at the AMC Century City, Los Angeles.






Been an interesting spring thus far...




Don't forget your...




Monday words:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 14, 1945: a bomb-laden crazy kamikaze dove straight through five decks on USS Enterprise (CV-6) during the Battle of Okinawa. The resulting explosion blew the 15-ton forward elevator 400 feet into the air, killing 14 and wounding 68. Swift damage control extinguished all fires within 30 minutes. Amazing! Wait, there's more.


^^^ Appearing as if they were walking on water, USS Enterprise sailors who had been blown overboard by the explosion used the forward elevator as a life raft until being rescued by USS Waldron.

"Led by Lieutenant (j.g.) Shunsuke Tomiyasu, 26 Japanese A6M5 Zeke fighters, each armed with a bigger-than-usual 1,100-pound bomb (facilitated by the shorter range to the target)...The plane and bomb plunged right through the flight deck, creating a 12-by-20-foot hole, with the plane disintegrating in the hangar bay and the big bomb penetrating several more decks. The force of the explosion separated the elevator structure from the decking and blew the decking 400 feet into the air. (This explosion resulted in one of the more spectacular photos of the war, but did not blow the whole elevator as high as 400 feet, as most captions have it.)"

USS Enterprise (Task Force 58 Flagship), 14 May 1945


May 14, 1945: U-858 was taken over by a U.S. Navy crew. The German CO had surrendered the sub at sea four days earlier and was then ordered to proceed to Fort Miles, Delaware. The transfer was watched over by a (rare view) Sikorsky HNS-I, the first helicopter to enter U.S. military service. That blimp is a US Navy K class patrol blimp. K-ships were used for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) duties in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea.



U-858 was the first enemy ship to surrender to the United States forces (since War of 1912) following the defeat of Germany in World War II. After surrendering, she was used for publicity in War bond drives.


May 14, 1945: U-234 surrendered to USS Sutton after Hitler's successor ADM Karl Dönitz ordered all U-boats to turn themselves over to Allied forces. Her first and only mission into enemy or contested territory consisted of the attempted delivery of 1,200 pounds of uranium oxide and German advanced weapons technology to the Empire of Japan. Also, had two Japanese officers aboard who chose to commit suicide rather than surrender.


The Japs were in fact working on building a nuke. The 1,200 pounds of uranium disappeared. Some historians & researchers believe it was most likely transferred to the Manhattan Project's Oak Ridge diffusion plant.

Docu vid: Nazi Uranium for the Manhattan Project The U-Boat U-234 with U-235 Nuclear cargo



THE BIG THREE
One job done.
- Time magazine, May 14, 1945




Happy 105th birthday to CAPT Dale Reed, USN (Ret). CAPT Reed is the oldest living graduate of the United States Naval Academy (Class of 1942). When he passes he should get a state funeral.




"BUILD THIS CONELRAD." Boy's Life, January 1956. CONELRAD would cease to exist by 1963 - replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). Today we have the Emergency Alert System (EAS).





May 14, 1968: Lieutenant General Berton E. Spivy Jr. (1911-1997) wrote the "Freedom Drop" memo concerning the contingency use of nuclear weapons in North Korea during the USS Pueblo crisis. He was promoted to 4-star general in July 1968 and served as the U.S. Representative to the NATO Military Committee until retiring in July 1971 with 37 years active service. He then went to work as a weapons consultant for Martin Marietta (known as Lockheed Martin today). Well, of course he did.

Document 17:



Read full documents here:

USS Pueblo: LBJ Considered Nuclear Weapons, Naval Blockade, Ground Attacks in Response to 1968 North Korean Seizure of Navy Vessel, Documents Show





The largest number of U.S. Army and Air Force generals believed to have assembled in West Berlin since the end of World War II met, Jan. 22, 1965 for an executive board meeting of the Transatlantic Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Left to right: Bring. Gen. Harold K. Kelly, U.S. Air Force; Brig. Gen. Arthur W. Kellond, Cmdr. European Security Region; Lt. Gen. William W. Quinn, Cmdr. 7th Army; Brig. Gen. John Hay, Cmdr. Berlin Bring.; Maj. Gen. Berton E. Spivy, Jr. Cmdr. 3rd Arm. Div.; Maj. Gen. John F. Franklin Jr., Berlin Commandant; Maj. Gen. John Hardy, Cmdr. 3rd Air Force; Maj. Gen. Stanley R. Larsen, Hqs. USAREUR; Lt. Gen. R.M. Montgomery, Vice Cmdr. In Chief US Air Force Europe; Brig. Gen. Fillmore K. Meams Cmdr. V. Corps Art; Brig. Gen. D.E. Munson; 7th Army Support Cmd.; Brig. Gen. Glass, Asst. Cmdr. 4th Army Div.; Brig. Jos M. Heiser, Chief of Staff U.S. Army Communications zone Europe; Dr. Rob. M.O'Kane, head of U.S. schools in Europe Brig. Gen. J.B. Heines, Cmdr. Europe Exchange, Brig. Gen. F.C. Gray. Cmdr. US Air Force Turkey; H. Wechsler, US Embassy, Bonn. (AP Photo/Edwin Reichert)


May 14th - As far the public are concerned, Capricorn One lands, and footage is broadcast of the astronauts walking on the surface of Mars. In reality, they are still on earth and filming from the desert.


I remember watching this for first time on HBO as a kid and next morning had a dozen questions for my dad. LOL.


Subscribe to the National Review in 1989 and get a free copy of William F. Buckley's 1986 novel "High Jinx." Two minute TV ad for the conservative magazine. "Don't let this commercial fool you"

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Exceptional photo...

...From this thread: https://twitter.com/ianellisjones/status...9341399355


Name this band...


Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), Vivek Ramaswamy and Representatives Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Cory Mills (R-FL) blast the Trump hush money trial taking place in New York, calling it a “sham trial” and a “politicized persecution” of the former president. Fox news



Ya'll gonna have a field day with this one. Death of the monarchy system, anyone? Fading away or resurrection or their favorite globalist word, transformation to a new order? IDK. The 5-alarm color field, the butterfly hanging in space, the fixed detail vague while mutable expression is fixed. Life and death and bloodlines and damask. The butterfly at his right shoulder suggests rebirth, along the lines of all the red suggesting the alchemical phase of rubedo (final stage in the magnum opus or “great work”).

"King in Cherry Jello"


https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1...4072153328

I was just informed there is an update to the portrait. You can view it here.

That same artist (Jonathan Yeo) also did one of Kevin Spacey as Richard III.




Team Orca strikes again...


BBC Or ABC news


"Jeopardy!" is getting a spinoff on Amazon Prime Video titled "Pop Culture Jeopardy!" The game show will focus on music, film, TV, stage, sports and other nonsense that nobody cares about.


Variety





I wish the line of demarcation between Babylon Bee headlines and real life news was a bit more stark. Mayor of banana republic city...


NY Post


No really, look...


https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1...2468442574


"The real crisis in America has nothing to do with climate, capitalism, cattle, coal, or combustion. The real crisis in America has everything to do with the monstrosity known as the federal government."


America Needs a Great Reset


Interesting Bannerama of Words




New teaser for Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGALOPOLIS

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Logging on...



May 15, 1953: Happy Birthday to CONELRAD! (CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation) The Truman administration-initiated broadcast warning system became operational. It lasted for ten years before being replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System. We now have the Emergency Alert System.


By law, radio sets manufactured between 1953 and 1963 had these frequencies (640 or 1240 kHz) marked by the triangle-in-circle ("CD Mark") symbol of Civil Defense.

Part 6 - THE CIVIL DEFENSE PROGRAM (PDF)

The Sacramento Bee's CONELRAD reminder ran at the top of its radio listings from the day the system became operational to the day it was scrapped on August 5, 1963. On August 6th, there was no notice whatsoever.


Notable date: August 5, 1963: The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.


The REAGAN movie is coming to theaters in August.




Immerse yourself in real life with Criterion's 4K restoration of Albert Brook's brilliant first film "Real Life" (1979). Decades before reality television reigned supreme, there was Albert Brooks debut feature, a brilliantly deadpan, stylistically innovative satire about the perils and pitfalls of trying to capture the truth on film.


The writer-director plays “Albert Brooks,” a narcissistic Hollywood filmmaker who plans to spend the year in Phoenix embedded with Warren and Jeanette Yeager (Charles Grodin and Frances Lee McCain) and their two children, deploying an arsenal of cutting-edge equipment (including the over-the-head Ettinaur 226XL camera) to capture an American family’s ordinary day-to-day.
Mostly filmed in Phoenix, Arizona, including at the zoo.



May 15, 1972: President Richard M. Nixon spoke on the phone with Deep Throat (Mark Felt, Deputy Director of the FBI) about Arthur Bremer and the attempted assassination of George Wallace.





Bremer (born in 1950) was sentenced to 53 years, but was released after 35, in 2007, with time off for good behavior. He has since lived a quiet life in Cumberland, Maryland.

Arthur Bremer shot Gov. George Wallace to be famous


The hunt is on for...


BBC news

Somewhere the Traffic warden is muttering: "I just want to be left alone."



According to his Facebook profile??


AP World new - This shot comes just days after Fico formally and publicly rejected The WHO Global Pandemic Accord and has repeatedly stated that he would stop sending weapons to Ukraine. Last I heard, he's expected to survive.


Seasons in the sun...






Two quotes from the book:

"He who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world."

"If schools are what they were in my time, you’ll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul, bad talk. But never fear. You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother and sister hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you."

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Meet the "Traffic Warden" from THREADS (1984), Michael Beecroft...



WoW, they managed to find him in record time.

Traffic warden in BBC film Threads has been found

Documentary makers wanted to track down the warden from BBC film Threads, which was aired on BBC2 for the first time 40 years ago this September.

Now aged 84, Michael Beecroft was an actual traffic warden who dabbled in a bit of work as an extra at the time.

He said filming was "just a day's work" and was unaware of the image's impact.

Written by Kes author Barry Hines, the film showed in graphic detail the unrelenting impact of a thermonuclear blast on ordinary people in Sheffield.

Mr Beecroft, who has lived in Barnsley all his life, said at the time he was on the club scene, travelling around Yorkshire and the north of England for gigs.

But work was "drying up" so he took on a job as a traffic warden for South Yorkshire Police as well as doing extras work.

Then aged 44, he recalls it was a "very cold, wet, sleety February Sunday" when he went along to filming.

He said: "My agent rang me up and said there's this job available so I went down and was picked out and made up as a traffic warden.

"I didn't do anything other than the 30 second shot of me with the rifle shouting some swear words.

"Afterwards, they took some pictures of me and I went home and didn't think anything else of it. It was just a day's work as far as I was concerned."

Mr Beecroft said he didn't think anything else about the day until he got another call from his agent several months later asking if it was his picture in the Radio Times.

He recalls: "I said I don't know, but then when I looked I realised it was me.

"I didn't think it was that important. I suppose you don't at the time."

The image, used to publicise the film's release, depicts Mr Beecroft as an injured traffic warden - the injuries were in fact stuck on cornflakes - whose job was to keep the desperate people seeking medical help or food contained in tennis courts.

Craig Ian Mann, who is working on a documentary about Threads to accompany its release on Blu-ray in the US, said the picture had "become the iconic image of the film" and made a plea to trace the then-unknown traffic warden to speak to him about the role.

However, unbeknown to Mr Mann and his co-writer Robert Nevitt, BBC Radio Sheffield managed to track down Mr Beecroft with the three men meeting for the first time on the breakfast show on Thursday.

Mr Beecroft said he was unaware people were trying to find him and was "gobsmacked" by the interest in his role.

He said over the years, he had not spoken much about the part he played, other than to a few of his friends who had known about it.

Asked by Mr Mann whether he had any idea how iconic his character had become and the fact he had been made into an action figure, he replied: "Wow, I didn't know that. I'm totally amazed at the reaction people have had over it."

Running for almost 40 years, Harris’s List was an annual digest aimed at reviewing and cataloguing sex workers in 18th-century London, a bizarre melange of travel guides, yellow pages, and cheap erotica:

As historical documents, the surviving editions of Harris’s List — originally published in print-runs of roughly ten thousand copies — offer today’s readers a rare (though partial) glimpse into the sex trade of eighteenth-century London.

While the Scottish statistician Patrick Colquhoun once estimated that 50,000 women, either partly or wholly, “resorted to Prostitution as a livelihood” by 1800, the British Library puts the number closer to six or seven thousand. The lists’ authorship remains opaque: it is possible that Jack Harris, a tavern waiter at the Shakespeare’s Head — who styled himself “The Pimp General of All England” — began the project, while Samuel Derrick took over the task in later years, continuing to use the Harris name for titillation.

Published annually between 1757 and 1795, Harris’s List had precursors, such as The Wandering Whore (1660), which included a list of London’s “Crafty Bawds”, “Common Whores”, “Maiden-sellers”, “Night walkers”, and others who, according to this text, abided by the dictum that “mony and Cunny are good Commodities”. Yet Harris’s List proved the most popular example of this genre and has had a considerable afterlife: leading to spinoffs in other British cities, such as Ranger’s Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh (1775), and inspiring, by way of Hallie Rubenhold, BBC’s Harlots.

Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1757–95)



Happy AMERIKA Day! May 16, 1987, the first annual AMERIKA Day was held in Tecumseh, Nebraska. The purpose of the event was to celebrate the filming of the ABC miniseries of the same name. The *last* annual AMERIKA Day was held the following year.




I know @NightskyeB4Dawn will probably hate me for this, but May 16, 1986: TOP GUN premiered. We are still waiting for TOP GUN Day to be proclaimed a national holiday.






The cultural impact of TOP GUN is reflected in this Diet Pepsi commercial included on the 1987 videocassette release. The ad allowed the video to sell for $26.95 when many new releases retailed for $80. It became the best-selling video in history at that time.




It's National BBQ Day! During a joint U.S.-Canadian scientific expedition in the Central Arctic Ocean in 1994, US Coast Guard Polar Sea (WAGB-11) heavy icebreaker and Canadian flagship Coast Guard Louis S. St-Laurent encountered the Russian nuclear icebreaker Yamal near the North Pole. The crews of the three ships marked the chance meeting by gathering on the ice to have a BBQ and play softball.



Both the Russian & Canadian icebreakers are currently in active service. Meanwhile, "Polar Sea" has been out of service since 2010 due to failure of not one but five of her six Alco main diesel engines. Seven years later the bean counters decided it would be cannibalized for parts to support her sister Polar Star.


May 16, 1999: part one of ATOMIC TRAIN aired on NBC. Spoiler: The city of Denver does not survive part 2, but FEMA camps serve great coffee.


Well, there's your problem. The head vampire is the President. LOL.



The Vatican is finally going to admit it has been baptizing aliens in secret for over a decade. I feel a new religion coming forth.


Pope Set To Hold Press Conference on Aliens and the Supernatural

Gotta be Martians...and ancient aliens too. Who can up with that old narrative?


Pope Francis: Church Would Baptize Aliens


May 16, 2179: According to the novel Alien: River of Pain, this is the day that Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, was discovered after drifting in hypersleep for 57 years.




"Cleared Hot"...BRrrrrrrrrr

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Mahan-class destroyer USS Drayton (DD-366) was nicknamed "The Blue Beetle" after the ship was painted with the experimental Measure 1B "sapphire blue" camouflage scheme in 1941. The Drayton earned 11 battle stars during WWII.


On July 4, 1937 she got underway to take part in the search for the lost aviator Amelia Earhart. Drayton was decommissioned 9 October 1945 and sold for scrap 20 December 1946.

More photos at Destroyer Archive


B83 Strategic Thermonuclear Bomb - Total parts = 6,519


Parts not shown in photo are of course, classified.
The B83 is a variable-yield ("dial-a-yield") thermonuclear gravity bomb designed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the late 1970s that entered service in 1983...when we almost went to DEFCON 1. According to unclassified docs it has a maximum yield of 1.2 megatonnes of TNT and has been the most powerful nuclear weapon in the US nuclear arsenal since October 25, 2011 after retirement of the B53. Yes, it is still active in US stockpile. In 2022, the Biden administration announced plans to retire the B83. The B61-13 is planned to replace the B83. Both are designed to take out hardened bunkers, though it probably would only scratch Putin's bunker under a granite mountain and piss the bear off.


These 2 cars are the same size.


The Ponzo illusion, first demonstrated by Italian psychologist Mario Ponzo in 1911, suggests that the way we judge an object’s size is highly dependent on its background.


2025.

In year 4 of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The speed of smell...


FPVs, tethered drones could become formal Army programs in 2025


Judging from the number of people unable to differentiate AI-generated horseshit from reality, we're in for a long election season.


CNN


"This is Connie Chung. Coming up at six o'clock - Moscow's in flames and missiles heading towards L.A. Plus, Bill Style's perspective and much more."


1980 KNXT Gag Reel (@2:50)








Deep state drawer 1 of 4:






Bonus word: "cunctator" (17th century): a delayer; the person who always gets to a task just as it's being finished.


"The illusion that you can take in large numbers of people from a fundamentally different culture, without jeopardizing your own culture — and everything that depends on it — should have been dispelled by many counterproductive social consequences in Europe, even aside from the fatal dangers of terrorists.

Most refugees in the Middle East can be helped in the Middle East, and many Americans would undoubtedly be willing to financially help Muslim countries like Jordan or Egypt to care for these refugees in societies more compatible with their beliefs and values."
— Thomas Sowell

[EndtheMadnessNow]

R.I.P. Dabney Coleman (1932-2024)




This is called the Coffer illusion. In this image there are 16 circles.
Test your perception. Can you find them?


This is a brilliant example of how our brains process visual information.
The illusion cleverly uses straight lines and box-like structures to hide the circles in plain sight. It's a delightful challenge to try and spot all 16 circles amidst the seemingly straightforward pattern of rectangles and squares. The trick to finding the circles is to let your focus be a bit softer, almost looking through the image rather than directly at it.

This allows your brain to shift from recognizing the straight lines and angles to noticing the curved edges forming the circles. Don't despair, help is at bottom of this post...and you will not be able to unsee them.


40 years later...




The Vatican's new ruling on supernatural phenomena appears to have been more about addressing the rise of charismatic practices than any confirmation of such events occurring with any regularity... Specifically the use of such imagery as it relates to recent abuse scandals.



More details: In new vetting process for apparitions, Vatican nixes ‘supernatural’ label

"On UFOs... we cannot intervene."
— Cardinal Fernández





America is becoming a bad Exorcist sequel. A lot of people are calling this woman(?) a zombie but I don't think that's correct. That right there is an urban variant of a swamp hag: a gutter meth hag.



Like most malevolent fey creatures, they can only be harmed by cold iron. They dislike the sound of bells. They can mimic the sounds of injured urban wildlife to lure their victims into culverts, sewers, and cisterns. They have an unnatural strength and a taste for man flesh. Best to approach from range with overwhelming force.
Fox LA Swamp


Words for the weekend...




Wisdom for the weekend...rest up. War recommences on Monday. LOL.




Can you see them now...




Ad astra with...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 18, 1812: Merchant John Bellingham was sentenced to death, and hanged on the same day, for the assassination of the Tory British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, on 11 May 1812. They had speedy justice in those days. It’s the only instance in history of a British Prime Minister being assassinated...to date.


Bellingham is said to have been born in the building, at the corner of Huntingdon Street and Cambridge Street, St Neots, Huntingdonshire, England.

It only now remains for me to pass the dreadful sentence of the law, which is -

"That you be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead; your body to be dissected and anatomized."

Tried by the Third Middlesex jury, before Sir James Mansfield.

Trial account of John Bellingham

May 18, 1954: "If the H-Blast hit tonight, what would you do?" Ad in the Los Angeles Mirror for the "Atomic Attack" episode of ABC's Motorola Television Hour that was broadcast on this day. Starring Phyllis Thaxter & Walter Matthau and the Production company was Office of Civil Defense. It was adapted from the 1950 novel "Shadow on the Hearth" by Judith Merril.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZeE60uJnHY


UK #1 on this day May 18, 1967: Tremeloes: Silence Is Golden




May 18, 1980: freelance photographer Richard Lasher shot this epic photo of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. He was forced to abandon his Pinto and flee the giant plume of ash on his motorcycle. Lasher survived, the Pinto did not. "It was my fifteen minutes of fame." St. Helens did him a favor by freeing him of that Pinto.



Check out the short story: The Eruption and the Pinto - the writer very recently made contact with Lasher and will be updating the story.


https://x.com/StHelensIn1980/status/1791855837658394976


May 18, 1991: Helen Sharman from Sheffield became the 1st Briton to go into space, as part of a Soviet space mission. She was also the first British woman to visit the Mir space station.




R.I.P. Henry "Hank" Kudzik who passed away last Saturday at the age of 99. Kudzik served aboard USS Nautilus (SS-168) for eight war patrols that included the Battle of Midway and the mission to deliver Marine Raiders to Makin Island. Kudzik was also with the Nautilus when the sub rescued four nuns from behind enemy lines on Bougainville Island. He later served six war patrols aboard USS Gar (SS-206).



USS Nautilus 'Nautilus and the Nuns'




The 2024 Houston derecho storm caused damage from Space City to the Space Coast - that's right, from Houston, Texas all the way to Cape Canaveral, Florida! Derechos are just lines of thunderstorms that produce destructive winds over a wide swath.



For those keeping score, Houston has endured...

2015: Memorial Day flood
2016: Tax Day flood
2016: Halloween flood
2017: Hurricane Harvey
2018: 4th of July great flood
2019: TS Imelda
2020: TS Beta
2021: Grid collapse due to freeze, Hurricane Nicholas
2022: Extreme summer heat/drought
2023: Hottest summer on record (according to the weather boys)
2024: The Great Derecho



I got my 2nd PhD, wahoo!


Dr. Max Dow '24


Well, at least the poor dumbass came forward...


113-year-old tower in Death Valley National Park felled by clueless traveler

His fate will be decided next week at Badwater gallows.



"Hottest year" update:

Global warming brings coldest May in 74 years to Chile.


Mr Freeze visits Chile

The only thing that is going to stop this trend is if people start eating bugs. I see no other way out. I guess we're doomed. LOL.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Helicopter had a "hard landing" carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. Lost in the fog when Allah repositioned a mountain.



The Economist: "Nothing is ever as it seems in Iranian politics, though, and many Iranians have begun to speculate about more nefarious explanations. Mr Raisi has a long list of internal enemies, from the relative moderates he has marginalised to the fellow conservatives who think he has been an inept president. It is not unreasonable to wonder if domestic foes conspired to kill him."




Nuclear messaging...

NNSA completes subcritical experiment at PULSE facility in Nevada May 16, 2024
Note: wonder if it puffed / burped plutonium this time?


NNSA completes subcritical experiment at PULSE facility in Nevada


Meanwhile...

"North Korea threatened Monday to take powerful deterrent action against what it claims is the U.S. nuclear threat, denouncing Washington for its recent subcritical nuclear test."
N. Korea slams U.S. subcritical nuclear test, vows measures to bolster nuclear deterrence


May 19, 1897: Leading playwright, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde more commonly known as Oscar Wilde, was released from Reading Gaol, after serving a 2-year sentence with hard labour on charges of homosexuality. His reputation and health never recovered. He went to live in Paris and died there in 1900.


Like Wilde, well-known recent cults of personality such as late Anthony Bourdain, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, and others have also built their reputations by promoting what it is that makes each of them special. In the eternal words of the Irish author, Oscar Wilde, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life."


The Remarkable Rocket cartoon short narrated by David Niven originally made in 1975 and based on the story by Oscar Wilde. The story is a parody of aristocratic vanity and masculine conceit, although is written in simple language, the humor is directed at adults. As an incentive for you to take some time out of your busy day to watch it, and in the finest tradition of click-baiting, forward to 5 minutes and 25 seconds. You might be convinced it's akin to a certain politician.




When the Army began to relieve Marines on Guadalcanal in 1942, they landed with trucks full of food. Spotting an opportunity, a Marine yelled "Air raid!" As soldiers ran for cover, hungry Marines poured out of the jungle and drove off with the trucks of food. Dunno if that sea story is true, but Marines are well known to be resourceful!




May 19, 1943: then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and former President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) planned the D-Day invasion during a meeting at the White House. Originally scheduled for May 1, 1944, this Allied cross-channel invasion of northern France became the largest naval, air, and land operation in history. Despite efforts to speed up the attack to prevent the Axis powers from gaining an advantage, the initial date was considered premature and was moved to June 6, 1944, five weeks later.


Look Winston... No!

Not at me! Out There!

See that river?


Hold on...I thought this happens every summer.


NOAA’s Climate Crystal Ball Prediction Center


Ukrainian Throne of Drones. Looks like something out of Game of Thrones.


Project Safe Skies  ("The Westeros Wing" is an official photoshopped photo that was posted by the Obama White House.


May 19, 2019: The last episode of Game of Thrones was broadcast by HBO. It was created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO, adapted from A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. There were 8 series and 73 episodes since April 17, 2011.

The drone competition/consumption on steroids is like the cold war era of nukes.





The more things change, the more things stay insane.

"Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy. In theory they are the popular voices, the very quintessence, as it were, of the common point of view. But do not let us forget that this was in an even greater degree true of the priests."

— G. K. Chesterton "The New Priests" (1901)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 19, 1962: Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe, performed a sultry rendition of Happy Birthday, in the presence of US President, John F. Kennedy, in New York City (although his birthday was not until 29 May). His wife Jackie was not impressed by the flirtatious performance.


That legendary "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" gown, a flesh-toned dress that was custom-designed by Jean Louis and featured more than 2,500 hand-stitched crystals, sold for a record-setting $4.81 million at an auction in 2016. It was later that a Canadian billionaire, James Pattison was revealed to be the buyer of the gown following the sale; he turned 91 on Oct. 1st, 2016. Jacqueline "Jackie" Lee Kennedy Onassis died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in New York City on May 19, 1994, age 64.


May 19, 1974: The 3-D puzzle, Rubik’s Cube, was invented by the Hungarian Professor of architecture, Ernő Rubik. Over 350 million cubes have been sold worldwide, making it the world’s top-selling puzzle game.




The photo shows heart surgeon Dr. Zbigniew Religa resting after performing the first successful heart transplant in Poland in 1987.


This groundbreaking surgery at the time lasted 23 hours, pushing the boundaries of medical expertise and technology at the time. The photo also captures a glimpse of his assistant, who can be seen sleeping in the corner. The bottom photo, taken 25 years later, features Tadeusz Zitkevits, the recipient of the heart transplant. The patient died in 2017 (30 years after the surgery) and he outlived Dr. Religa, who died in 2009.


The last photo (colorized) of Hachikō (Nov 10, 1923 – March 8, 1935), the faithful Akita dog who waited over 9 years outside Shibuya Station for his master, Hidesaburō Ueno to return even after he had died.



Hachiko The Full Story of a Loyal Dog: AI Colorization & Real Bark




Camberley Kate and her stray dogs in England, 1962. She never turned a stray dog away, taking care of more than 600 dogs in her lifetime.


Katherine Ward (13 June 1895 – 4 August 1979), affectionately known as Camberley Kate, was a British dog lover and eccentric who is estimated to have cared for over 600 dogs in her lifetime. She was well-known to residents of Camberley, Surrey, for what historian Arthur Bryant described as the "astonishing spectacle" of her pushing a wooden cart along Camberley High Street "surrounded by dogs of every size and species" in his book "The Lion & The Unicorn: A Historian's Testament" (1969) by Sir Arthur Bryant (1899-1985) Book link Archive.org


Traffic warden halts traffic just for a cat to carry its kittens across the street, in NYC, 1925.




Colorized photo of Titanic Survivors Charlotte Collyer and her 8-year-old daughter Marjorie after they finally made it back to America.

Charlotte remarried in 1914, two years after the tragic loss of her husband. The relentless grip of tuberculosis ultimately claimed her life in 1916. She was just 32 years old.

Marjorie was taken in by her uncle and, in 1927, now a young woman, she married a mechanic from London and settled in Chilworth, Surrey. However, fate had another cruel twist in store: in 1943, her husband died suddenly, at the age of 41. Marjorie was left alone once again.

Throughout her days, she carried with her the lingering presence of the ill-fated ship that had forever marked and changed her life.

She died in a nursing home on 26 February 1965, aged 61.

How I Survived the Titanic

A pretty young woman cuts her birthday cake in Iran, 1973.



Mom's arm of safety standards in the 1960s:




Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974:


A Sense of Wonder


UK #1 on this day in 1973:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Today is Portuguese Navy Day. Founded in 1317, the Portuguese Navy (Marinha Portuguesa) is the oldest continuously serving navy in the world. May 20 was established as Navy Day to honor the date Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached Calicut, India in 1498 to link Europe and Asia by sea.


Manuel Pessanha of Genoa is appointed as the first Chief Admiral of Portugal (Almirante-mor) by King Denis on Feb 1, 1317, and charged with organizing a permanent navy for the kingdom, with 20 warships and hiring Genoese captains to recruit sailors. The organization of the Portuguese Royal Navy is completed by December 12.

And former US Navy sailor and writer Herman Melville referred to "The Lusiads" a Portuguese epic poem written by Luís Vaz de Camões which recounts da Gamma’s voyage in mythical verse as "the man-of-war epic of the world." Melville also wrote one of the most famous American novel's first published in 1851, titled, Moby-Dick.


May 20, 1959: THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL opened at the Capitol in New York City. Starring Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer.

A miner trapped in a cave-in resurfaces, and upon discovering mankind has been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, sets out to find other survivors.



As the film's final credits cut-in, the film states "The Beginning" rather than "The End."


May 20, 1967: The BBC announced a ban on Beatles song, A Day In The Life, from the Sgt Pepper album. The Beatles record company EMI received a letter from the BBC director of sound broadcasting, Frank Gillard, dated 23 May 1967, which suggested the lyrics encouraged drug taking. Allegedly based on the death of a Guinness heir Tara Browne (4 March 1945 – 18 December 1966) in South Kensington. His uninjured British girlfriend model, Suki Potier died in a car crash 14 years later.




Yet another austere religious scholar gone. Women, Children Hardest Hit.

Although Pol Pot was dogged by many controversies, it’s beyond dispute that he had a loyal following.


BBC World

US sanctioned Raisi for being “involved in the regime’s brutal crackdown on Iran’s Green Movement protests. Raisi participated in a so-called death commission that ordered the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.”


Biden’s regime joining the "chorus of condolences" for the Butcher of Tehran is shameful.


The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

State Sponsors of Terrorism > IRAN since January 19, 1984.

Here are the sanctions from 2019. Read for yourself.

I hereby declare 5 days of helicopter jokes.



There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down...




Madness I tell ya...


Pope Francis denounces attempts to close southern border as ‘madness’

Attention all Refugees: Follow me, EndTheMadness to Vatican City to end the madness.


Who did not see this coming...




Went to a military surplus auction and bought me one of these for my perimeter defense...


Actually this C-RAM system is being used at the floating pier off the beach in Gaza to protect Merchant Marine ships.


New week, new words...


I feel the need, the need for a Gytrash banner with a touch of Bishy-Barnaby and a sprinkle of Sirimiri on a Parterre setting.

Nature’s Battlefield
Across the parterre, insect regiments march,
Sly sirimir soaks a ceremonial arch.
A bishy-barnaby scuttles to find a safe place.
Gytrash whispers leave their chilling trace.

[Freija]

They had some surprisingly good cameras back then. I'm impressed!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Definitely turning that "feature" off...would you trust this guy?


LOL, but I cannot trust you, nor turning it off...as a passive update will just turn it back on. Your very own personal Recall, err Agent Smith always making copies of everything you do. No thanks. Maybe another incentive to switch to Linux.

It's like if a real estate agent was showing you a house, and started touting how it comes with free murderous ghosts in every wall.




American commando unit gets a reality check...

The military of Congo said Sunday that it had foiled a coup attempt involving foreigners, hours after a gunfight near the presidential palace in which at least three people were killed.

In a brief statement on state television, an army spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, initially offered little detail about the purported putsch in the capital, Kinshasa, other than to say that the plotters and their leader had been “put out of action.”

But he later told The Associated Press that three Americans were among the perpetrators, and the United States ambassador to Congo, Lucy Tamlyn, acknowledged publicly that American citizens may have been involved.

The United States will cooperate “to the fullest extent” with Congolese authorities “as they investigate these criminal acts and hold accountable any U.S. citizen involved,” she said on the social network X.

Her statement came hours after videos circulated widely on social media showing a white man with a bloodied face sitting at the feet of Congolese soldiers — one of three Americans the military accused of involvement.

President Felix Tshisekedi, who was reelected for a second term after a chaotic vote in December, was unharmed in the incident. But its brief and apparently confused nature, as well as many incongruous details, left many Congolese puzzled Sunday and triggered intense speculation about who was behind it, or whether it was even a genuine coup attempt.

A wave of military takeovers in central and western Africa in recent years has caused alarm in Washington, D.C., because they have undermined democracy in the region and given Russia opportunity to increase its influence. In Niger, where the military seized power in August, the government is pressing the United States to withdraw its troops from bases where Russian personnel have started to arrive.

Congo is a focus of U.S. policy in Africa for its deep reserves of cobalt, a key mineral in the production of electric vehicles. China owns or controls most of Congo’s cobalt-producing sites, a source of concern to the Biden administration.

But although most of the region’s recent coups have been led by senior military officers from those countries, the purported one in Kinshasa on Sunday appeared to have been led by an obscure opposition politician based in the United States, and appeared to have little prospect of succeeding.

It started about 4:30 a.m. Sunday when a group of armed men attacked the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a legislator and a candidate to be speaker of the National Assembly, which is based just over a mile from the presidential palace.

A gunfight erupted in which two police officers and one assailant were killed, a spokesperson for Kamerhe and, separately, Japan’s ambassador to Congo, said on social media.

The assailants then moved toward the presidential palace, the Congolese news media reported. At the same time, Christian Malanga, an exiled opponent of the Congolese government who runs a minor opposition party, posted a livestream video in which he appeared to be leading the attack.

The video, which The New York Times could not verify independently, showed Malanga, 40, surrounded by men in military uniform, some with American flags affixed to their vests. “Felix, you’re out,” he said. “We are coming for you.”

But when the assailants reached the nearby presidential palace, soldiers intercepted and arrested them, according to the military and local media reports. Images of Malanga’s body later circulated, and Ekenge told The AP that he had been killed while resisting arrest.

The names of the suspects were not immediately released, but images on social media provided clues.

In addition to the footage of a bloodied white man on the ground, sitting beside someone identified as Malanga’s son, an American, images also circulated showing the passport of another American, Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, said to be involved in the episode. News reports previously identified him as a cannabis entrepreneur involved in gold mining with Malanga.

Dino Mahtani, a former United Nations investigator on Congo, said the Congolese authorities told him in 2018 that they suspected Malanga of a plot to kill the previous president, Joseph Kabila.

Tshisekedi did not appear to be in any immediate danger Sunday; he is well known to live miles from the presidential palace, at his residence in another part of the city.

A website in Malanga’s name said his family settled in Salt Lake City in the 1990s as part of a refugee-resettlement program. He participated in the U.S. Army Junior ROTC, it said.

He returned to Congo to run for political office in 2011 but was arrested “on bogus charges” and held for several weeks by police officers who beat him, it said.

A year later, he returned to the United States, where he formed the United Congolese Party, “a grassroots platform that unifies the Congolese diaspora around the world opposing the current Congolese dictatorship,” the site said.

Failed coup attempt in Congo was led by a one-time Salt Lake City resident

His son Marcel (21), also from SLC, was taken captive in the coup attempt. Here’s his Twitter:




Across the pond we have more bizarre stories, though this may be considered normal nowadays...


The South Yorkshire Scoop


The making of the Hell Hounds Squadron...


Navy ‘Hell Hounds’ Squadron Crafting Missions for Small, Lethal Drone Fleet


Artist Man Ray and his French model, Alice Ernestine Prin (2 October 1901 – 29 April 1953), nicknamed the Queen of Montparnasse and often known as Kiki de Montparnasse, during the preparation of the shot "Le Violon d'Ingres", one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century (1924).


On May 14, 2022, Le Violon d'Ingres, which depicts Prin's back overlaid with a violin's f-holes, sold for $12.4 million, setting a record as the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.



The 2 people used in American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood stand next to the iconic painting. They were Wood’s sister, Nan Graham (July 26, 1899 – Dec 14, 1990), and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby (1942).




Treating constipation in the 18th century was a shared experience.




Here's Freija showing off again...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

An extremely rare First World War naval secret codebook has been sold for a four-figure sum. The lead-lined book of confidential signals, which should have been destroyed a century ago, was found in a box of donations at an Oxfam charity bookshop in Bath.



The National Museum for the Royal Navy in Portsmouth has bought the book for an undisclosed figure.



Every. Damn. Day.


5 Military Officers Escape Fat Leonard Scandal


Hackers backpack




I was abducted by the UFO girls.




France has declared a state of emergency & deployed its military to the territory.


France's president to fly to riot-hit New Caledonia


I have $42,000,000,000 to spend. What company should I buy next?






MSNBC

Trump’s Social Media Company Posts Q1 Revenue of $770,500 and Net Loss of $327.6 Million

“TMTG’s success depends in part on the popularity of our brand and the reputation and popularity of President Donald J. Trump. The value of TMTG’s brand may diminish if the popularity of President Donald J. Trump were to suffer,” the company said in a section of the 10-Q filing labeled “Key Factors Affecting Results of Operations.” The section continued, “Adverse reactions to publicity relating to President Donald J. Trump, or the loss of his services, could adversely affect TMTG’s revenues, results of operations and its ability to maintain or generate a consumer base. President Donald J. Trump is involved in numerous lawsuits and other matters that could damage his reputation. Additionally, TMTG’s business plan relies on President Donald J. Trump bringing his former social media followers to TMTG’s platform. In the event any of these, or other events, cause his followers to lose interest in his messages, the number of users of our platform could decline or not grow as we have assumed.”

I think this calls for a SCTV-style telethon...




Holy Moses!




This film is even more relevant today than it was in 1993. Why?

In a world where the gap between rich and poor has never been wider where kids are pushed into expensive colleges to get useless degrees that leave them with debts they can never hope to repay. Where people are making six figure salaries but can barely afford the rent. Where the very idea of owning a home is a crazy pipe dream belonging to previous generations. Where people are more angry, more isolated, more medicated, more exploited and more overwhelmed than at any time in human history. Where young people are quietly giving up on a society that blatantly doesn't care about them anymore. This movie is more relevant than it ever was and that is what Bill represents. He's everyone because everyone has the potential to end up just like him. All it really takes is one bad day.




Meet me at the Rogue cabin down by the river for tea.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 22, 1968: USS Scorpion (SSN-589) nuclear powered sub was lost with all hands - 99 crew. This is one of the last known photos of the submarine. It was taken by USS Tallahatchie County near Naples, Italy on April 10, 1968 just prior to the Scorpion departing on her final voyage. CDR Francis Slattery is visible atop the sub's sail.


Commander Slattery's last received message was that he was closing on the Soviet submarine and research group, running at a steady 15 knots at a depth of 350 ft "to begin surveillance of the Soviets."

At the end of October 1968, the sub was located some 400 miles southwest of Azores in the North Atlantic Ocean at the bottom, 9,800 ft down, imploded.

Theories about the loss:
1. Hydrogen explosion during battery charge
2. Accidental activation of torpedo
3. Explosion of torpedo inside sub
4. Malfunction of trash disposal unit
5. Soviet attack

The crew left behind 64 widows and 99 children. Some wives, pregnant at the time, later gave birth, adding to the number of children who lost fathers.
Luella Violetti still sobbed last August when she talked about her son, Torpedoman Robert Paul Violetti. In poor health at the time, Mrs. Violetti died a month later, "still expecting Robert to come through the door," said her daughter, Anne Pierce of Broomall, Pa. "My mother always believed my brother would come home." The son's life intertwined with the Scorpion twice.
As an 11-year-old Boy Scout, Violetti went with his troop to watch the launching of the Scorpion Dec. 29, 1959. He later joined the Navy and was assigned to the Scorpion July 31, 1967.

USS SCORPION NEWS COVERAGE

Stranger things is that three other submarines disappeared in 1968: the Israeli submarine INS Dakar (found 31 years later at a depth of 9,800 ft), the French submarine Minerve (disappeared two days after the Israeli sub), and the Soviet submarine K-129. All sank with unknown causes.



May 24, 1974: THE CHOSEN SURVIVORS was released. A group of diverse individuals are suddenly taken from their homes and flown via helicopter to a futuristic bomb shelter in the desert, 1,758 feet underground. There, they learn that a nuclear holocaust is taking place and that they've been "chosen" by computer to survive in the shelter in order to continue the human race. The shelter is designed to allow the people to exist underground comfortably for years, but they are faced with a threat nobody could have predicted: a colony of thousands of bloodthirsty vampire bats finds a way into the shelter and launches a series of vicious attacks where they claim the humans one by one.




Punishment Drills is a dark, foreboding title. However, China's main goal over the next two days will be to disrupt the status quo in and around Taiwan Strait even more. Taiwan continues to be squeezed and I'm betting this will continue over the summer months.


China Launches Military Drills Around Taiwan as ‘Punishment’



May 23, 2002: CIA file released regards to UFO investigation, Psychological Warfare balloons, electronic jamming devices over the Taiwan Strait. 1968: “Flying saucers over Taiwan strait" along with the 7th PsyOps GP on the distribution list.


CIA file released May 23, 2002



May 23, 2002: Netflix went public. $2,000 invested in the IPO would be worth about $1 million today.


The stock rose 12% on IPO day. Here’s how employees celebrated:






SpaceX launches first batch of satellites for the NRO’s reconnaissance satellite constellation

The Starshield program is led by former 4-star general Terrence O'Shaughnessy who previously ran NORTHCOM & NORAD, and just prior to that he was Commander, Pacific Air Forces; Air Component Commander for U.S. Pacific Command. You remember that general, right? This was on his watch and he received another star going directly to NORAD. Crazy times.




Coming out of France this doesn't surprise me.


End Time Headlines


Eric Schmidt of the techno priest class nonsense says the most powerful AI systems of the future will have to be contained in military bases because their capability will be extremely powerful and dangerous. They tried doing that with nukes and that did not work out so well.

The Future Of AI, According To Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt





One of senior advisors to Dr. Fauci doesn't even know what their ethics office is for? What a surprise.


‘You’re Going To Be Haunted By Your Testimony’


One of the earliest papers on Covid-19 out of China pointed out the Wuhan CDC was 911 feet from the market and right across the street from the hospital where many healthcare workers fell.


Epidemiological, Clinical, Radiological Characteristics and Outcomes of Medical Staff with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: Analysis of 101 Cases

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Memes are now a felony?

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Bud Anderson, who single-handedly shot down 16 German planes over Europe during World War II and became America’s last living triple ace, a fighter pilot with 15 or more "kills," has died at 102.


Bud Anderson, Last of World War II’s ‘Triple Ace’ Pilots, Dies at 102


May 24, 1968: a Soviet TU-16 Badger crashed while buzzing USS Essex (CVS-9) in the Norwegian Sea. After making a low pass of the carrier at 50 feet above the water, the Badger's wingtip hit a wave that sent the bomber into a cartwheel. None of the aircrew survived.



A translated copy of the documents recovered from the TU-16 is stored at the National Archives in Kew, London. (You have to visit in person to see/read them)


May 24, 1985: AOL was founded. A decade later, it was charging $20 a month for dial-up internet access. By 1999, it was worth 10 times more than Apple.




Morgan Spurlock, Born Nov. 7, 1970, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a documentary filmmaker who captured his own psychological and physical symptoms from eating McDonald’s every day for a month in the Oscar-nominated 2004 feature “Super Size Me,” died Thursday in upstate New York due to complications of cancer. He was 53.




Kabosu, the Japanese dog behind the Doge meme, has ascended to heaven.




More tunnels beneath Sin City...



I heard a deal is in the works to turn the state of Wyoming into a giant solar & wind farm to power the city of lights...Las Vegas.


And burned out tunnels...





Over in the weird dept...



It's not, as some might expect, about people with autism and comparing them to sasquatch. It is a case study of "sasquatch behavior and psychology" based on his personal interactions with sasquatch, wherein he argues that sasquatch are all inherently autistic.

Or you can visit his Youtube channel where talks all about it.


Apparently, they actually commissioned someone who has either never seen Kate Middleton or painting skills to draw a portrait of her to convince us they haven’t disappeared her. How is any of this real and not a cheesy movie plot.


Tatler magazine


They’re even disappearing Kate’s favorite clothing brands.


The Vampire's Wife Announces Closure After A Decade In Business


Stick that in your green pipe and smoke it...


Changing Conditions May Affect Future Management of Contamination Deposited Abroad during U.S. Cold War Activities (PDF)



May 24, 1986: Van Halen released the single "Dreams". To promote the song and take advantage of the popularity of TOP GUN, Warner Bros quickly produced a video using stock footage of the Blue Angels. The video became a hit on MTV and a recruiting boon for the Navy.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Joe Biden and his team are looking to hire a meme manager, and they are paying up to $85,000 salary. LOL!


Biden wants a memelord

Apply for this job!...

Partner Manager, Content and Meme Pages

The Biden for President (BFP) campaign is looking for a Partner Manager to join the Digital Partnerships team. In this role, you will initiate and manage day-to-day operations in engaging the internet’s top content and meme pages. The ideal candidate for this role is passionate about bringing political content to voters where they already are on the internet. They have a deep interest in politics and thrive in a fast-paced environment. This position is full-time and based in Wilmington, DE.

Key Responsibilities

• Cultivate and manage relationships with top digital media companies, podcasters, and meme pages across a number of social media platforms
  
• Work independently with external partners to identify and land engagement opportunities and manage them from beginning to end
  
• Engage internal teams and cross-functional partners to foster innovative ideas
  

$65,000 - $85,000 a year
Biden for President requires all employees to be "up to date" on COVID-19 vaccination status as prescribed by the CDC as a condition of employment, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law. If you seek a reasonable accommodation in relation to the campaign's COVID-19 policy, you should speak to the HR Department prior to reporting to an office location.

Hmmmm, what's going on here??


https://x.com/SteveGuest/status/1794324401048969465


Apparently, according to the msm, this is now controversial and far-right.


An Appeal to Heaven


Political chaos agents invent a scandal from thin air, alleging "facts" that didn’t exist until they said so. The record-keepers fall into line, revising the historical record to accommodate the new "truth." Meanwhile, you’re made to feel crazy, because you remember the before times.

Wikipedia edits on the Pine Tree Flag page are fascinating. On Wednesday, it was just a normal flag. On Friday, it's a now a symbol of Christian nationalism and right-wing extremism. And the Popular Culture section on the HBO miniseries has been completely removed.

May 22 version

May 24 version

Ironic how Wikipedia leaves out that it was flown at many BLM rallies during summer of love.



Wokepedia is the canary in the coal mine for the establishment narrative. It’s one of the best places to spot the topics that the narrative enforcers are focused on.



WEF Stooge Katherine Maher  |  TED Talk


Strange times...


San Francisco flies the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag over city hall

By Monday, every tween to arm chair media troll in the US will be a de-facto vexillologist.


We shouldn’t be surprised Democrats are denying Trump’s trial is a show trial given they also denied the Moscow show trials were show trials. That’s the New York Times doing it on March 14, 1938.




1982 CBS News report—featuring a 34 year old Al Gore—predicts the "widespread disruption of agriculture", and 25% of Florida ending up underwater, "due to the burning of coal and oil". This was 42 years ago. None of it happened. Yet, Al Gore is treated as some kind of environmental savant today. Aged like milk on a hot summer day...




May 25, 2006: USS Florida returned to service with a few modifications as SSGN 728, putting the F in OMFG. She was converted from a Boomer (ICBM) to a guided cruise missile submarine. The first Ohio-class boat to launch a Tomahawk (Giant Shadow) and first used in combat in Operation Odyssey Dawn...missile strikes on Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Motto: Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat ("Fortune Favors the Brave")



Life Aboard the USS Florida (SSGN-728)




Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has commented on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's call to lift restrictions on strikes by Ukraine on Russian territory.

“It is useful to know this for everyone who is invited to the alleged ‘peace conference’ in Switzerland."


NATO gives green light to Ukraine to strike Russian territory in major turning point

Ukraine attacked key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella — Russian senator

The US is so deeply involved in the conflict that it likely knew about Kiev’s plans, Senator Dmitry Rogozin says.

The US should be seen as directly responsible for a Ukrainian strike on a key element of Russia’s nuclear umbrella, Senator Dmitry Rogozin has said, warning that such attacks could lead to the collapse of the entire global nuclear security architecture.

In a statement on Telegram on Saturday, Rogozin, a senator who previously headed up the Russian space agency Roscosmos and is now in charge of a military technical center called Tsar’s Wolves, said that the attack targeted a nuclear early warning system in the southern Krasnodar Region. The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the matter, while the extent of the damage remains unclear.

Rogozin suggested that it was extremely unlikely that the strike, which Ukrainian media reported involved several drones, was carried out at Kiev’s sole initiative and without US involvement.

According to the senator, Washington has always sought to achieve military superiority over Moscow since the very dawn of the nuclear age, but this rivalry was mostly limited to a battle of minds between scientists, strategists, and policymakers.

This seems to have changed, however, as “the US has commissioned a crime by hiring an irresponsible bandit” to attack Russia’s early warning system, the official said, apparently referring to Vladimir Zelensky.

Rogozin claimed that Washington’s “deep involvement in the armed conflict and total control over Kiev’s military planning means that the version that the US does not know about Ukrainian plans to strike Russia’s missile defense system can be discarded.”

Thus, we stand not on the precipice, but on the very edge… If such enemy actions are not stopped, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of nuclear powers will begin.

The attack apparently targeted an advanced Voronezh radar station in the city of Armavir, which went into operation in 2013. The system can detect incoming cruise and ballistic missiles at a range of 6,000km and can track up to 500 targets. During the inauguration of the system, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it would significantly increase the country’s defense capabilities in the southern and southwestern directions.

Meanwhile, Russians today obliterated a hardware store in Kharkiv. Maybe it was a drone parts store.


https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/179...5764231230

[Bally002]

@"EndtheMadnessNow"#18 

Cheers for this.  Did like the early vid on the USS Florida.

Kind regards,

Bally