Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

July 12, 1854: George Eastman was born in Waterville, New York. Circular snapshots from the very first Kodak camera (the first truly portable camera) — invented by George Eastman. To sum up the Kodak system, Eastman devised the brilliantly simple sales slogan: ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’


On March 14, 1932, George shot himself in the heart, leaving a note which read, "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?"


July 12, 1930: The singer-songwriter, actor and DJ, Peter Scott Peters (Peter Sikorski) was born. His song "Fallout Shelter" (1961) is heard on the soundtrack of William Nunez's documentary, THE CONQUEROR: HOLLYWOOD FALLOUT (2023).


I’m not scared
I’m prepared
I’ll be spared

I’ve got a fallout shelter, it’s nine by nine
A hi-fi set and a jug of wine
Let the missiles fly from nation to nation
But it’s party time in my radiation station

A fourteen-day supply of multi-purpose food
Water, medicine, be sure to include
Build a bomb bungalow, you needn’t postpone
With no down payment and an FHA loan

Let the tests go on in the atmosphere
In my fallout shelter, I’ll have no fear
My baby and me, cozy we will be
Away from radioactivity

Twenty megatons is the size of the boom
And if they let it go, I’ll feel no doom
Let the cats run about, helter-skelter
I’m gonna, live, live, live in my fallout shelter...



The Sept 29, 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, titled "The Shelter,” tackled precisely this problem, with a man who prepares ahead and builds his own shelter. When a warning comes across the radio that the U.S. was under attack, all of his neighbors try to join him in his shelter that was only built for a few people.



July 12, 1943: World War II: Battle of Kursk: German and Soviet forces engage in the Battle of Prokhorovka on the Eastern Front, one of the largest tank engagements of all time. The battle took place 65 miles north of Kharkiv, Ukraine, the second largest city in Ukraine today.



It was a large tank battle, However...

For decades the Battle of Kursk has been widely believed to be the largest tank battle in history.

In particular the fighting at Prokhorovka on the 12th July is often reported to have involved anywhere from 1200 to 2000 tanks clashing at point blank range, resulting in the destruction of up to 1200 vehicles.

However since the end of the Cold War extensive research by historians in the Soviet and German archives have analysed records of the units that took part.  As a result it’s now generally accepted that these numbers have been greatly exaggerated and that Prokhorovka wasn’t the largest tank battle.

This post gives a very brief overview of the results of this research.  The numbers presented here are taken from ‘Kursk 1943:  A Statistical Analysis’ by Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson and ‘Demolishing the Myth’ by Valeriy Zamulin.

...
So if Kursk wasn’t the largest tank battle in history, what was?

It’s now generally accepted that it was the fighting around Brody and Dubno between the 26th and 29th July 1941, rather than Kursk.  This was part of the border battles fought at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.  It involved up to 3500 Soviet and 750 German tanks.  The battle was a heavy Soviet defeat, they lost hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers. Indeed by early July most of the units involved had been reduced to less than 10% of their tank strength.

Prokhorovka and the Myth of the Largest Tank Battle

Stalin’s claim of Prokhorovka tank victory destroyed by hoard of pictures



July 12, 1957: the annual civil defense drill known as Operation Alert [1954-1961] commenced. There is no way such an alert could possibly be carried out today, unless martial law was declared which of course would be absolute uncontrollable chaos. The New York Daily News always had the best psychological headline coverage of Operation Alert with amazing precise numbers.


Operation Alert 1957 (possibly) marked the first publicly disseminated photograph of the Nuclear Football. Eisenhower's military aide Captain Evan "Pete" Aurand carries the satchel. Aurand (June 10, 1917 – June 7, 1989) retired as a 3-star admiral.

Not to Worry, Only the President Can Launch Nukes, Pentagon Report Says


Whicker's World (TV Series 1959–1994) British journalist, tv presenter and broadcaster Alan Whicker (2 August 1921 – 12 July 2013) Britain's debonair broadcaster travels the globe, uncovering unique cultural, historical, and social stories in witty and insightful episodes. By the late-1960s Whicker's on-screen persona—both his trademark look of moustache, glasses, and a blazer, and his distinctive voice had become iconic within the UK.


In the documentary Whicker's War (2005) he revealed that he was one of the first allied officers to enter German occupied Milan and that he took into custody an SS general and staff who were surrounded at the time by an Italian mob out for blood. They were guarding the SS's paymaster's payroll money used to pay the SS troops, along with large amounts of cash in various foreign currencies, all contained within a large trunk. Whicker later handed over the SS men and the trunk of cash to an American commander of an advancing US armoured column. While in Milan Whicker shot footage of the body of Benito Mussolini and was also responsible for taking into custody British traitor John Amery, a Nazi collaborator.

Here's a Wicker's World playlist of 159 videos.



Finland's Parliament approves controversial border law changes

NATO: Russia’s hybrid war against the West

In an article previously published on NATO Review, I explained that the nature of modern warfare is changing at a rapid pace. Consequently, wars are no longer merely about kinetic operations. This means that it is not just physical warfare, but also non-military strategies and tactics that define modern-day conflicts and wars.

What has also become commonplace is that kinetic operations - which by themselves have become increasingly complex - are combined with non-military strategies aimed at undermining the security of an antagonist. The combination of military and non-military instruments and strategies is done not randomly but in a synchronised way to achieve synergistic effects. In other words, it is this synchronised fusion that optimises the results.

The bottom line is that a particular country can potentially unleash physical force against an adversary to achieve certain goals. But if the use or threat of conventional or unconventional force is combined with and/or preceded by a degree of subversive tools such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, the overall damage inflicted on the antagonist can be optimised.

Despite state-driven hybrid warfare entailing a systematic integration of military, political, economic, civilian, and informational tools, it often plays out in grey zones below the threshold of a conventional war. In these grey zones, the military instrument is used unconventionally and innovatively to avoid attribution, responsibility, and sometimes even detection. So a hostile state can employ non-state actors or a non-attributable military force (like the “little green men”) in a clandestine war to deny involvement, but at the same time achieve strategic objectives.



Russia’s hybrid war – myth or reality?

One of the core facets of the common tools that states conflate to unleash hybrid warfare, such as non-state actors, political assassinations, espionage, cyber-attacks, electoral interference, and disinformation, is that there is ample room for plausible deniability – and there is often little evidence to establish culpability. Not all actions are disowned – sometimes aggressive posturing requires taking responsibility for one’s actions, but escaping culpability often offers strategic dividends. So when it was politically and strategically expedient to disown the "little green men” who invaded parts of Crimea in 2014, Russia did so (for a time).

...

Method behind the madness?

Moscow sees itself fighting a long war against what it deems a Western hegemony. It is in this context that Russian President Putin terms “Western elite” the enemy. What exactly he means by Western elite is kept ambiguous, perhaps for political expediency, but his ultimate nemeses are clearly the US and European powers who lead the global political and economic order.

Moscow’s hostility towards the West is just the tip of the iceberg. In terms of a grand strategy, Moscow, under President Putin’s leadership, desires a return to the power balance of the past wherein the Soviet Union was a superpower and could thus define the rules of the international order on a global level. But Moscow realises that it structurally cannot find much space in the international political order, which places a premium on values like freedom and democracy – ideals that are extremely limited in Russia. So the international order ought to be redefined in a bid to (re-)establish Russia’s ascendency over global politics and economy. This is apparent within the Primakov Doctrine – so-called for former Foreign and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. The Doctrine posits that Russia should aim to establish a multipolar world so that the global order cannot be defined by a single power or pole. It is for this reason that Moscow aims to undercut what it views as Western power and Western influence around the world.

The biggest obstacle for Russia is that it has neither the hard power nor economic influence to be able to achieve this grand goal. Perhaps the Kremlin believes that its hybrid warfare toolkit can help it find a way around this issue. The idea is two-fold: enhancing Russia’s power capabilities through an integration of military and non-military means, and exploiting and exacerbating the internal vulnerability of Western powers. The goal is clear: truncate power asymmetry between Russia and Western powers in order to triumph over them.

Full article: NATO: Russia’s hybrid war against the West

NATO summit summary: money printer go BRRRRR for Ukraine! According to Mike Benz in the vid interview that @727sky posted, Ukraine has $12.2 Trillion in natural resource assets. So the hundreds of billions we are spending on Ukraine may some day be paid back 3 fold or more. But, of course the sheeple will see very little.





Friday words...



EYE AM "Cryptomnesia" (his voice sounds like a young Ozzy)