Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[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.

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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..."