Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 6, 1836: Davy Crockett (age 49) pioneer, soldier, politician, known as the "King of the Wild Frontier" was killed by Mexican forces under General Santa Anna at the Battle of the Alamo, during the Texas Revolution. His death made him a legendary southern folk hero. While the exact details of his death remain a matter of debate among historians—some say he died fighting, others suggest he was captured and executed—what’s undisputed is his larger-than-life legacy.




Didn't have horses back then that broke the sound barrier so News traveled slow back then.



March 6, 1961: Wigan-born entertainer George Formby died at age 56. Over 100,000 people lined his funeral route. He was a mega super star for 40 years. In the 1930s, he was the most popular entertainer in the UK and the UK's highest-paid entertainer. Famous for playing the banjolele (banjo-ukulele hybrid) and his songs were full of risqué double entendres. A typical example was With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock.

    "To overcrowded flats I've been,
    Sixteen in one bed I've seen,
    With the lodger tucked up in between,
    When I'm cleaning windows!

    Now lots of girls I've had to jilt,
    For they admire the way I'm built,
    It's a good job I don't wear a kilt,
    When I'm cleaning windows!"

– Banned by the BBC: "The Window Cleaner", second recorded version.

In May 1941, George's wife and manager Beryl Ingham informed the BBC that the song was a favourite of the royal family, particularly Queen Mary, while a statement by Formby pointed out that "I sang it before the King and Queen at the Royal Variety Performance". The BBC relented and started to broadcast the song.

BIAD can probably relate to this one (LOL) George Formby - When I'm Cleaning Windows (1936)




The George Formby Society Website and its Youtube Channel


March 6, 1962: Ethan Allen-class ballistic missile submarine USS Sam Houston (SSBN-609) was commissioned. Named after Sam Houston (1793–1863), president of the Republic of Texas (1836–1838, 1841–1844). Sponsored by Texas First Lady Idanell Brill (Nellie) Connally, wife of Governor John Connally. In March 1963, she was the first Boomer sub to enter the Mediterranean Sea, where she joined NATO forces. Her insignia, designed by John Wayne, included Sam Houston's honorary Cherokee name "Raven" and his personal motto "Try Me".


In the early 80s she was heavily modified & converted into an attack sub that included conversion of ballistic missile tubes into air locks and stowage for equipment used by SEALs. She was known as the SEAL mother ship.

Sealed reactor compartments are shipped by barge out of Puget Sound Naval Base down the coast and along the Columbia River to the port of Benton. From here the radioactively-contaminated hull sections are transferred to special multiwheeled high-load trailers for transport to the Hanford Reservation in Washington State. The compartments are expected to retain their integrity for more than 600 years. Below image is the burial ground for spent fuel of 77 nuclear reactor submarines (including Sam Houston) as of March 2003:


Disposal site for nuclear submarine reactors



March 6, 1975: Film of the 1963 JFK assassination by Abraham Zapruder was shown on Goodnight America on ABC Television, for the first time hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Viewers were shocked as the film seemed to indicate the fatal shot had not come from behind but from the grassy knoll. Before this broadcast, the footage had been largely kept under wraps—Life magazine owned the rights after buying it from Zapruder for $150,000, and it had only been seen by select investigators and officials.

The original Geraldo vid if you never seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNrgzkjCNCE


U.S. top 40 for March 6, 1965:



The Temptations - My Girl (looks to be an original from circa '65)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CSjcm-z1w



March 6, 1985: Tory MP Sir Ivan Lawrence gave the longest House of Commons speech of the 20th century (4 hours and 23 mins). The subject of his marathon speech was on the topic of introducing Fluoride into drinking water.  "I don't know to what extent my involvement achieved anything, but I know that there's no more water fluoridation now than there was in 1985," he added.  But his largest political contribution perhaps comes in the form of the National Lottery, which was put forward by Sir Ivan in a Private Member's Bill in 1991.





March 6, 1992: The Michelangelo computer virus activates and begins to affect computers on Michelangelo's birthday. The virus first came to widespread international attention in January 1992, when it was revealed that a few computer and software manufacturers had accidentally shipped products, for example Intel's LANSpool print server, infected with the virus. Although the infected machines numbered only in the hundreds, the resulting publicity spiraled into "expert" claims, partially led by anti-virus company founder John McAfee, of thousands or even millions of computers infected by Michelangelo.

Michelangelo Madness.

The Michelangelo Virus

The Michelangelo virus was first discovered in February 1991 by Roger Riordan; an Australian anti-virus expert. Riordan realised that this new, then unnamed, virus was a variant of the Stoned Virus; a fairly passive little piece of code that utilised the randomness of your system clock to throw up the message “Your PC is now Stoned!” approximately 1 in every 8 boots. However, with this new virus, there was no message, no warning, it just did it’s thing and disappeared into the night. Unfortunately its thing was a lot more nasty than Stoned.

During a virus meetup in the Netherlands during April 1991, a date the media often touted as its discovery date, it was discussed by the community and identified as a possible strong future threat. Its payload was designed to activate on March 6th every year, Michelangelo’s birthday, the reason why Roger Riordan would name it the Michelangelo Virus. Of course, 1991’s March 6th had been and gone, but the virus by then, hadn’t had much chance to propagate, and therefore very minimal damage was done. However March 6th 1992, what would have been Michelangelo’s 517th birthday, could be a different matter. By October of ’91, most new anti-virus software of the time was able to detect and remove the virus, but back then, software didn’t automatically update, and most people weren’t even aware they should be using Anti-Virus. However with computers becoming ever more popular, disk sharing and file copying was rife, making for the ideal circumstances to spread chaos.

Now just like Stoned, and in fact, the real Michelangelo, who apparently slept in his boots, Michelangelo is a bootsector virus. This means that it doesn’t actually execute from within the operating system, which would have been DOS at the time. Instead it executes at BIOS level on AT based IBM PC Compatibles.

When you turn your computer on, there’s a small period of time where the BIOS is actually in charge of proceedings. The BIOS is really the gateway to your computer’s hardware, but at some point, it passes control over to operating system, and it does that by going to the first sector of your hard-drive, or floppy disk if one is inserted, and running whatever it finds.

The Virus Commeth

On 28th January 1991 various news outlets reported that American computer manufacturer Leading Edge had shipped up to 500 computers between December 10th and 27th infected with the Michelangelo virus. Warning of it’s dangers, Leading Edge had stated they planned to send customers special software designed to track down and eradicate the virus. Apparently the virus had spread from the driver disk of a modem vendor. The New York Times had also contacted John McAfee, president of McAfee Associates, who stated “It’s an extremely common occurrence. It just doesn’t happen all that often to companies the size of Leading Edge”, in what certainly would not be the last words we hear from him. In a fantastic move of foresight, Osicom Technologies also announced it would bundle an antivirus package with all personal computers on the same day.

The next day United Press reporter Jack Lesar stated that “Michelangelo could erase data of hundreds of thousands of computers around the world”, whilst Winn Schwartau, director of the International Partnership Against Computer Terrorism stated “usually a virus can’t be propagated by just reading a data disk. But it appears to no longer be true”, making Michelangelo seem like some kind of magical nefarious being. McAfee also piped up again stating “The Michelangelo Virus is the third most common in terms of reports of infection. It accounts for 14 percent of infection reports – a total of about 6,000 last year, each which may be one machine or 100”.

As February rolled around, things only got worse. On the 3rd, it was reported that Da Vinci systems had distributed 900 infected disks during January and by the 11th McAfee was back again, this time stating that 5 million computer around the world were infected. Something that Reuters reporter Wilson da Silva would relay to the masses.

By the 13th, the rest of the Anti-Virus world, was getting a little jealous of McAfee’s spotlight and decided to do something about it. Microcom announced a free problem to disinfect the virus, and by the 19th Symantec had announced their free program, which they advertised to the readers of Computerworld in a full page spread. Users could download a copy via Compuserve, go to a local dealer, get one delivered or use a Bulletin Board System. The only problem with the latter was that lots of the media were now incorrectly suggesting that Michelangelo was spread through Bullet Boards. Gotta love the media. Reporting news accurately since, well, since the dawn of time.

By the end of February, the hype was insane. Various “Anti-Virus” experts had piped up, along with computer columnists such as Lawrence Magid who suggested leaving your computer on from the 5th of March to the 7th in order to evade the pesky virus. All good Lawrence, unless you have a power cut on the 6th, and your computer automatically reboots.

On the 28th Seattle Based Egghead Software had offered to ship a copy of the Norton AntiVirus Michelangelo Edition for just $4.99, unfortunately, they wouldn’t actually ship most copies until after the 6th March, rendering it, a little bit useless.

March...

As Judgement day loomed, McAfee was back, this time on the today show, repeating his claim that 5 million systems are now infected globally. He doesn’t even use the word estimate. Apparently, now, this is a cold hard fact. It sends the media into further meltdown, as broadcasters and publishers rush to get last minute stories out, warning people of the global pandemic threatening life as we know it.

On March 3rd, Poland woke up to the headline “Michelangelo, The Mass Murderer, Will Attack on Friday”. Back in the States, not only had the Associated Press reported the Michelangelo had invaded Capitol Hill, but even Intel had problems, having to cease shipment of their LANSpool networking program, after discovering 839 disks infected with Michelangelo. They had been using anti-virus software, but it failed to detect the Stoned variant.

If Intel were having problems, then that didn’t bode well for the rest of us.

4th March: Ross Greenberg, the programmer behind Microcom’s Virex-PC Package disappears for four days. He won’t return until after the 6th.

5th March: Scattered reports from around the globe indicate Michelangelo had triggered a day early in some computers, who internal clocks failed to detect the leap year this February.

McAfee and Charles Rutstein argue on the News Hour Show about reports of how many will suffer.

V-Day Arrives. *panic* *confusion* *screaming*

As dawn broke on 6th March, the first news stories started rolling in. Most of them were just talking about the virus, what was expected to happen, etc. An acknowledgement of the day more than anything, after all, how can you have a printed article about events which are currently taking place. This wasn’t the internet.

But what we did have, even then, were timezones, with places like Asia and Australia able to report back just in time for Western media.

AP: “Personal computer users reported scattered outbreaks today of the Michelangelo virus, but no widespread damage from the much-hyped software invader”

UPI: “The long awaited Michelangelo virus struck around the world Friday, though it did not appear to be the data disaster that some had predicted”

These weren’t the frenzied, chaos laden headlines we were expecting. These sounded more like sedate weather reports than the dawn of a global pandemic. But maybe things would be different in the States, in Europe, maybe the virus had taken a stronger foothold in these technological havens.

At around midday, 1,200 automated teller machines in New York shut down. Shortly afterwards 3/4s of New Jersey’s lottery machines went offline. The New York Hilton’s systems went down, and Philadelphia cable TV subscribers found their sets locked to the channel they had been watching the prior day. Maybe Michelangelo really had taken hold here. Maybe sh*t was about to get real.

It turned out that CitiBank had suffered a power outrage affecting cash machines, a computer glitch had affected the lottery systems, a power lead had been knocked out at Hilton and cable TV was, well being cable TV. Although residents were quick to blame the virus, these turned out to be unrelated incidents, with the day rolling on with not so much as a harsh word being uttered.

Based on reports to his company, McAfee himself rapidly changed his estimate from 5 million to 10,000 computers worldwide, and sure, just like Y2K, some of the damage would have indeed been limited by the hyperbole and people taking anti-virus precautions, but .2% of the original estimate is quite a drop.

Symantec claimed that a quarter of a million users around the world had obtained a copy of their disinfector program, clearly helping to deaden the impact. But the actual shouts of infection were pretty limited. AT&T reported that two of their company computers had gone down, out of their quarter of a million machines worldwide. A bowling centre in Swanton lost their bowling league information, and Rev. Stan Wilkins of the New Salem Baptist Church lost his congregation records.

Further reports the following day would indicate that damage was a little more widespread, 750 computers in South Africa, responsible for managing the country’s pharmacies succumbed to the villainy. Scotland Yard reported that two British companies suffered considerable losses and three computers at Boston University were DOA.

What didn’t happen was 5 million machines needing a full reinstall.

McAfee would chime in with “The biggest loser in this whole thing is going to be the anti-virus community”. Which given the amount of sales they made from this escapade didn’t really seem to be a problem, and really, was nonsense anyway.

and Scotland Yard Reported that two British companies suffered considerable losses, and three computers at Boston University were dead upon boot.

Although the entire Anti-Virus world received some backlash, with some even claiming that anti-virus companies were to blame for planting the destructive code in the first place, it was McAfee who took the brunt of it, with countless newspapers jumping on his 5 million computer claim; a claim that McAfee himself refuted, noting that he had estimated between 50,000 and 5 million machines, with the media running with the upper limit. Perhaps the real problem here was actually the hypocritical media for being so damn sensationalist, in a bid to sell more of their own product; newspapers.

Or maybe, like most things, it’s a bit of both. Always both.

McAfee would resign from the National Computer Association the first business day after the Michelangelo media fiasco, concentrating on selling more and more McAfee product. His company would go public in October 1992, raising $42 million in its initial public stock offering, and of course, remains with us today, even if McAfee himself doesn’t, having allegedly been found hanged whilst inside a Spanish prison cell, just hours after a court ordered his extradition to the United States on tax charges.

Funnily enough Michelangelo is also still with us, with detections still happening in the wild. It appears that a few floppy disks are still very much infected and attempting to do their thang.

The main lesson the media learnt was that they should probably speak to experts instead of anti-virus salesmen when trying to gather facts and foresights. However, given a similar scaremongering tale had happened only a few years prior with the Datacrime II virus, which also wiped out hard drives on Friday 13th, although not very many at all, it seems like lessons take a few attempts before they’re learnt.

It’s no wonder that the next Friday 13th Virus, which funnily enough was due just a week after Michelangelo, went pretty much unmentioned by the embarrassed media.

The Michelangelo Virus (Great article, has it all including newspaper clippings)

The Victoria Advocate, March 7, 1992

How the Michelangelo Virus Infected Us and the World Learned the Name "McAfee"



What 'if' the origin of the mysterious "Men in Black" meme in ufology is actually... clergy?

And if so, could they have been Episcopi Vagantes, "wandering bishops"?


The Man in Black by F.M. Lehman (1913)

The connective tissue between the wandering bishops and ufology seems to be comprised of sociopathy, con artistry, far right politics, occultism, heavy use by intelligence agencies, and a nauseating large amount of kiddy diddlers in their ranks.


Jim Keith talks about the history of Men in Black during this Art Bell interview from 1997:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVpHVlW78Q



March 6, 1998: The comedy film The Big Lebowski, starring Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey ("The Dude") Lebowski, a Los Angeles free spirit and avid bowler was released. It was a dud at the box office, but it took on a life of its own after that. The Big Lebowski has subsequently become a cult classic and ardent fans call themselves "achievers". This movie is a pop culture phenomenon. It's influence has spawned festivals, art, philosophy, academic analysis and even religion, you can now be ordained as a Dudeist priest. The Dude is simply an icon.

The Dude writes a cheque for 69¢, dated 9/11/91. He watches Bush Sr. say "this aggression will not stand" a line he lazily repeats later in the film.



Lebowski-land - Big Lebowski Dream