Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy National Dog Day! As mascots in the Navy, some dogs were issued special ID cards. This pup named Apache had the rate of "Dog1c" (Dog First Class). Note the signature with a paw print and fire hydrant.




Elektro the smoking robot, as seen in "The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair," 1939.




"The War of the Worlds" opened August 26, 1953.
The film opens with a montage of color matte paintings by the father of space art, Chesley Knight Bonestell (1888-1986), illustrating the planets of our solar system (excluding Venus). His significant impact on art and space exploration is the subject of an award-winning documentary film titled Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With The Future.


The estate of H.G. Wells was so pleased with the final production that it offered producer George Pal his choice of any other of Wells' properties. Pal chose The Time Machine (1960).

As Bonestell’s fame spread as an astronomical artist and interest in space took off, advertisers took advantage of this to promote products as wide-ranging as flashlight batteries to whiskey in the 1950s.



Aside from advertisers his paintings greatly influenced Stanley Kubrick on his 2001: A Space Odyssey, special effects artist Douglas Trumbull (Blade Runner), Wehrner von Braun and many others that were deep into space exploration.

“I didn’t know what other worlds looked like until I saw Bonestell’s paintings of the solar system.”
– Carl Sagan


August 26, 1955: Cold War Ground Observer Corps network known as "Operation Skywatch": Spotter's buzz bonnet detects aircraft by electronics. Developed by Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss Air Force SAC Base, NY. The base was closed back in 1995 but the Rome R&D Lab is still active today on the former base which is now an International airport & industrial business park.




If you're thinking might this have anything to do with UFOs, you'd be on target...


Strange Daze, 1995

The Observer Corp network "Operation Skywatch" was disbanded in 1959 when NORAD's Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) eliminated the need for visual surveillance. Relics of the decommissioned SAGE were used in Dr. Strangelove and Colossus, and science fiction TV series such as The Time Tunnel. Also, WOPR in the movie WarGames which was part of the actual SAGE network in real life. The largest mainframe computer ever created by mankind costing more than the Manhattan Project.

Throughout its development, there were continual concerns about its real ability to deal with large attacks, and the Operation Sky Shield tests showed that only about one-fourth of enemy bombers would have been intercepted. Nevertheless, the show must go on & on. The early origins of the future Golden Dome which also have many of the same concerns, but surely AI will save us, right?


Excerpt from SIOP: Nuclear war from the inside (1983) by Peter Pringle & William Arkin:

In the budget races, the Air Force 'defenders' like Vandenberg lost out time and again to General LeMay's 'attackers.' But, nevertheless, the defenders produced a stream of million dollar 'minimum systems' and 'emergency coverage' requests to close the threats from the non-existent 'bomber gap'. The groundswell of their efforts spread across the nation, enabling the Air Force to persuade a large number of suitably frightened citizens to join an all-volunteer recon-naissance force known as the Ground Observer Corps. These highly motivated people, some 300,000-strong, started Operation Skywatch on 14 July 1952. They manned more than 10,000 observation posts, some on a 24-hour basis, to watch for low-flying Soviet aircraft slipping under the rudimentary radar net. At its peak in 1957, the Corps operated in 48 states with a peacetime army of 387,000 'regulars' and 170,000 'reservists' whose 19,000 observation posts ranged from lighthouses to the rooftops of private homes.

SIOP (pronounced Sigh-op) stands for the Single Integrated Operational Plan-single because it is the only contingency plan that accounts for the nuclear weapons of all branches of the United States' military, and integrated because it embraces all the nuclear contingency plans of the United States' regional commands in the Pacific, the Atlantic and Europe, plus the lesser forces of America's closest and only real nuclear ally, Britain. This plan was started in 1960 to wage a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

The BLUE ROOM Skywatchers...




SKYWATCH is a sci-fi proof of concept written & directed by Colin Levy. Six years in the making, funded via Kickstarter, and crafted by volunteering artists across the world. When two outcast teens hack into a ubiquitous drone delivery system to pull a prank on their neighbor, they accidentally crash-land a dangerous prototype – and find themselves entangled in a life-and-death conspiracy.




August 26, 1958: two teen Pranksters Explain Hoax With Rocket. The boys explained: "This was primarily a psychological experiment to see what would happen if the reported flying saucers had actually fired a reconnaissance missile."




Retired US Air Force Lt Colonel Buzz Patterson, Distinguished White House military aide during the Clinton administration, served in 70 countries while in uniform AND former Carrier of the Nuclear Football has some wild stories.


The military aide is also responsible for coordinating with all military personnel assigned to the White House. That includes Air Force One, Marine One, the White House Communications Agency, the White House Transportation Agency, and the White House kitchen.


Vietnam combat veteran Michael Reagan's portrait of Sgt. Nicole Gee who was killed on August 26, 2021 in the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan.




I dunno but it seems like Newsom's purpose, if he somehow wins in 2028, is to smooth out the contradictions between Trumpism and liberalism, creating an ideological Frankenstein's monster that's been grafted together out of bits and pieces of both.  The ironic appropriation of Trump's aestheics, Dark Woke, White Nationalists for Newsom -- this all seems to be headed in a very stupid direction. And much of his messaging is to the right of Trump. LOL.