Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

August 17, 1896: Leslie Richard Groves Jr. the third son of a U.S. Army chaplain, future Manhattan Project director was born.




August 17, 1943 – World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

August 17, 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program.

August 17, 1945 - 1945 Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel.

Augist 17, 1945 – The novella Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published.

August 17, 1959 - 7.1 quake strikes Yellowstone National Park. Whoa, we're all still here!

August 17, 1988 - Nevada Test Site - Area 19. As a symbol of international good faith and cooperation, the Soviet Union flag is raised to the top of the emplacement tower to be flown beside the U.S. flag for the Touchstone Kearsarge test on Pahute Mesa. The Joint Verification Experiment brought Soviet scientists and technicians to the Test Site for most of 1988. Kearsarge was detonated at 10 a.m., August 17, 1988.


Operation Touchstone, US nuclear test series, 13 nuclear tests conducted in 1987–1988. The series included Touchstone "Kearsarge" 140Kt underground nuke detonated, a joint US-Soviet test as part of the Joint Verification Experiment (JVE). The JVE's purpose was to provide yield data to both parties about each other's nuclear test sites so that accurate remote measurements could be taken to verify each other's compliance with the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT). This was the 1,013th nuclear test by the US out of a total 1,054 nuclear detonations, ending on Sept 23, 1992.

I'm not sure why the Kearsarge was chosen as a mascot for the sticker, but the USS Kearsarge (1861) was a famous steam sloop-of-war launched on 9/11/1861, best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider Confederate States Navy (CSS) Alabama off Cherbourg, France during the American Civil War. 17 of Kearsarge's crew received the Medal of Honor for valor during this action.

USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship commissioned in 1993 and remains in active service.

August 17, 1988 - Poppy Bush nominated for President.

August 17, 1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.


Just ahead of DNC 2024, enjoy this Saturday Evening Post cover from 1968, by John Huehnergarth. The details are great - cops and tear gas, GOP spy balloon and (my favorite) the guy with the peace sign punching somebody out, with the cameras rolling.




Pay scale for those who played at Woodstock 55 years ago in 1969.


Santana’s astronomically low fee ($750) doesn’t come as much of a surprise. When he began his 45-minute Saturday afternoon set, he and his group were relatively unknown; their debut album had not yet been released, and he’d only begun to gain an underground following. But as the group’s Latin percussion ricocheted off the crowd, Santana quickly gained approval — and by the end of the set, the guitarist had launched himself into the echelons of rock history.


The 404 page on the Financial Times is a work of genius...




National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), "WE OWN THE NIGHT", patch commemorates the August 17, 2000, NROL-11 launch of a "classified NRO payload" atop a Titan IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California.


"IF I TOLD YOU I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU... then cut your head off and put it in a safe."
NRO LAUNCH A PICTORIAL HISTORY 1996 - 2021




Do we still have the same monkeypox czars? And are they still referred to as the monkeypox czars?



"Imagine a virus, the most terrifying virus you can... 

and then imagine that you and you alone have the cure. But if your ultimate goal is power, how best to use such a weapon?

Well, it's at this point in our story that along comes a spider. He's a man seemingly without a conscience for whom the ends always justify the means. He suggests that their target should not be an enemy of the country, but rather, the country itself. 

Three targets are chosen to maximize the effect of the attack: a school, a tube station and a water-treatment plant. Several hundred die within the first few weeks.

Three Waters has, in fact, been contaminated. Authorities are attempting to control its deadly spread. Sent destruction through the Underground. Fueled by the media, fear and panic spread quickly fracturing and dividing the country until, at last, the true goal comes into view. 

Before the St. Mary's crises no one would have predicted the results of the election that year. No one. And then not long after the election, lo and behold, a miracle. Some believed it was the work of God himself. But it was a pharmaceutical company controlled by certain party members that made them all obscenely rich.

A year later, several extremists are tried, found guilty and executed while a memorial is built to canonize their victims.

But the end result, the true genius of the plan, was the fear.

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government. Through it, our politician was ultimately appointed to the newly created position of high chancellor.

The rest, as they say, is history."

"Can you prove any of this?"

"Why do you think I'm still alive?"

— V for Vendetta




Some humans have no respect...






If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.

This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.
— Hannah Arendt