Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

October 12, 1859: Joshua Abraham Norton who declared himself Emperor of the United States the previous month and issued a decree on this day to abolish the U.S. Congress. He had no legal power, but his proclamation resonated with public discontent of the U.S. government.




October 12, 1945: Private Desmond T. Doss (February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006) of the Army medical corps became the 1st conscientious objector to win the Congressional Medal of Honour. He distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving 75 men. His exploits featured in the 2016 Hollywood film, Hacksaw Ridge.




October 12, 1979: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was published in the UK. It follows the last surviving man, Arthur Dent, after the destruction of the Earth, who is rescued by Ford Prefect, a human-like alien and then hitchhikes on a passing spacecraft.

The first episode of Douglas Adams’s wildly original radio series was first broadcast on BBC 4 in the UK on March 8, 1978. The first US broadcast was on NPR Playhouse on June 7, 1981.

The entire enterprise began as an improbable science fiction-comedy radio play, before it was adapted into a series of books, a TV series, and much later, a movie (sadly, Adams died unexpectedly at 49 in May 2001).



The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (BBC)

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
— Douglas Adams

So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear?
You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that
Grow around you
So long, so long and thanks
For all the fish...

From The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, 1984.


The research team has named the period the Adams Transitional Geomagnetic Event, or Adams Event, after sci-fi writer Douglas Adams, who famously declared the number 42 the ultimate answer to life, the Universe, and everything.

Earth's Magnetic Field Flipped 42,000 Years Ago. The Consequences Were Dramatic

The article ends with this last sentence...

"We urgently need to get carbon emissions down before such a random event happens again." Sigh.


"I guess when I was around 12 or 15... I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean?

It all seemed quite meaningless and then we happened to have some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14 (laughter). It is bad, it’s really negative.

So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question..."  — Elon Musk (one of 25 books recommended by Elon)




October 12, 2000: 17 sailors were killed and 39 injured when the destroyer USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers in Yemen's Aden harbor. The blast created a 40 foot hole on the Cole's port side but the crew saved the ship through 96 hours of sustained damage control.



FBI and NCIS agents sent to Yemen to investigate the bombing worked in an extremely hostile environment. They were met at the airport by Yemeni special forces with "...each soldier pointing an AK-47." Speakers in the Yemeni parliament "calling for jihad against America" were broadcast on local television each night. After some delay, the Yemenis produced a CCTV video from a harborside security camera, but the crucial moment of the explosion was deleted. "There were so many perceived threats that the agents often slept in their clothes and with their weapons at their sides." At one point, the hotel where the agents stayed "was surrounded with men in traditional dress, some in Jeeps, all carrying guns." Finally the agents abandoned their hotel to stay at a US Navy vessel in the Bay of Aden, but they still did not feel safe. After being granted "...permission from the Yemeni government to fly back to shore," an agent said their helicopter took evasive action during the flight due to fears of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles.
Source: The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006) By Lawrence Wright; pages 322-331.

From that book, the story of John P. O'Neill's role in the bombing is well worth knowing. He was the top FBI al-Qaeda investigator, assigned to investigate the bombing, only to have his visa revoked by Ambassador Barbara Bodine for political purposes. As a direct result of this, O'Neill eventually retired from the FBI. So when all of the anecdotal info about al-Qaeda was coming in, especially the laptop, he was not there to properly process it. The incredibly sad irony of his story is that he had taken a job as head of security for the World Trade Center, and died in the South Tower doing his job.

Good PBS Frontline docu on him The Man Who Knew.

On 30 October 2020, Sudan and the United States signed a bilateral claims agreement to compensate families of the sailors who died in the bombing. The agreement entered into force in March 2021 with the United States receiving $335 million provided by Sudan.



A friend went vampire hunting today, somewhere in Pennsylvania. He says the devil is real.


The guy who owns the place is not an ordained priest, and therefore cannot qualify as an exorcist, but he attended an eight-day course on exorcism at the Vatican, where he said he learned possessions and oppressions have become more frequent over the last five years.


Nobody does Hurricane lunacy like America...


Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive


DARPA dogs of war...


https://x.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1840022448286150938
DARPA in Ukraine


Who you gonna call? The EchELONs