Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Leap Day to all who observe and remember, nothing that happens on Leap Day counts. Real life is for March!






The US Navy thought a "leap year boat" would be lucky, the skipper and crew of USS Cavalla (SS-244) successfully campaigned to have the submarine commissioned on 29 February 1944. On her maiden patrol Cavalla, en route to her station in the eastern Philippines, made contact with a large Japanese task force on 17 June. Cavalla tracked the force for several hours, relaying information and... sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōkaku. This contributed to the United States victory in the Battle of the Philippine Sea (commonly known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot") on 19–20 June 1944. She is now a museum boat in Galveston Texas.




The US Navy Parachute Team "The Leap Frogs" was commissioned in 1974 and is made up of active-duty SEALs, Special Warfare Combat Crewmen (SWCC), Divers (ND), Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians (EOD), & Aircrew Survival Equipmentmen (PR).


LEGENDS IN THE SKY


Photo of a Merlin HM-2 from 820 NAS releasing flares over the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales (R-09), for exercise STEADFAST DEFENDER 2024. Apparently, there was a German frigate close by. LOL.


Mega huge photo here


America-class amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA-6) entered the port of Osaka on the morning of February 27, 2024:


Super Size


So it begins...

Navy Pins First Robotics Warfare Specialist


I sense a pattern...Some companies founded in leap years:

Airbnb
Alaska Airlines
AMC Theatres
Apple
Boring Company (Elon)
Cisco
Domino’s Pizza
DraftKings
Duracell
Facebook
Expedia
Geico
GM
Holiday Inn
MGM
Neuralink (Elon)
Nike
Ray-Ban
Red Lobster
Rubbermaid
Toys R Us
Twilio
Williams-Sonoma
Yelp
Zipcar (Elon)


Feb 29, 1956 (Leap Day), INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS opened in Los Angeles with THE ATOMIC MAN (1955).


The Atomic Man story was broadcast as a live play on TV by the BBC in the mid-'50s. It was preceded by a solemn announcement to the effect that the hospital practices depicted bore no relationship to those of the National Health Service.


Feb 29, 2016: Anna finally arrives in Dublin, to propose to her boyfriend Jeremy on "Bachelor's Day", just like Grandma Jane did. Being the asshat that he is, Jeremy proposes to her first, but not out of love.



Feb 29, 2020: The Sevastopol, a Russian stealth submarine, is hit by it's own torpedo after the A.I. it was using deceives the crew into attacking a phantom target.


Source


Feb 29, 2020: Russia Gets Its Disneyland, a Cold War Dream Come True! The $1.5 billion "Dream Island" in Moscow opens. The largest indoor theme park in Europe. There are ten themed zones: Fairy tales, Hello Kitty, The Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mowgli in the land of dinosaurs, Snow Queen's Castle, Dream Race, Abandoned house, Under the Dome.


Official Dream Island Site | Wiki


Freya Beer - Write Her Off - 2024/01/26 - 33 Oldham Street, Manchester

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Ooops!


Hall Of Shame! German Navy Attempts To Shoot Down ‘Friendly’ MQ-9 Reaper Drone But Fails Twice


The Daring-class destroyer HMS Dragon is the only Royal Navy ship to be adorned with a dragon on each side of her bow. The Welsh dragons were removed when the bow was repainted during a refit in 2011, but a campaign raised the funds to restore them in 2016.

Leap Year Traditions, Celebrations and Superstitions

    One of the most widely practiced leap day traditions can be traced to 5th-century Ireland. At the time, it was common practice that proposals were solely a gentleman’s privilege. However, during leap day, the roles were reversed and matrimony-minded women were presented the chance to propose to their man instead. In Scotland, the tradition is still taken very seriously, requiring men who refuse a proposal to pay a fine. In the United States, this tradition inspired an American adaptation known as Sadie Hawkins dances, in which girls ask boys to be their dates.

    Known as the leap year capitol of the world, Anthony, Texas, boasts a huge four-day festival celebrating leap day in style. People travel from all over to take part in parades, hot air balloon rides and birthday dinners celebrating leap day babies.

    Many cultures believe being born either on leap day or during a leap year is bad luck. In Scotland, it’s thought that people born on Leap Day are doomed to have bad luck forever. Likewise, in Russia, Taiwan and Italy, leap day is not met with happiness. The Italians have a saying, “anno bisesto, anno funesto,” which translates to “leap year, gloomy year.”

    Those whose birthdays fall on Feb. 29 are known as “leapers” or “leaplings.” They usually celebrate their birthday on Feb. 28 or March 1 depending on their state of residence. The odds of being born on Leap Day are 1 in 1,461, although if you’re lucky enough to beat those odds, you gain exclusive membership to the Honour Society of Leap Year Day Babies. Once every four years, people born on Feb. 29 can celebrate on their actual birthday.

The Logic and Lore of Leap Day

NCSC Wall of Spies Artifact: One of the 16 IBM Selectric typewriters at the US Embassy Moscow found to have KGB bugs in them in 1984. NSA’s Project GUNMAN discovered the bugs after removing, replacing, and examining every piece of communications equipment at the Embassy.





Fun Fact: Actor and artist Tom Wilson and David Brooks (WSJ & later to present a columnist for NY Times) were on the Radnor Pennsylvania High School debate team together and was roomates with Andrew Dice Clay. Brooks later reviewed BACK TO THE FUTURE for the Wall Street Journal. Listen to Tom discuss it at about the 32:40 mark:



Did not know he's also a Pop Fugue Artist.


Screencaps from his short video at Tom Wilson - I AM POP ART

Longer vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsWSLoYQKPo


Cautiously looking forward to this one... Apple TV+ has ordered a series adaptation of the William Gibson novel "Neuromancer."


The 10-episode series hails from co-creators Graham Roland and JD Dillard. Roland will also serve as showrunner, while Dillard will direct the pilot.

Cyberpunk art for Neuromancer:



Cyberpunk 2.0. art by Hubert de Lartigue, Larry Elmore, John Zeleznik, Doug Anderson...




TAKE OFF... On a Completely Unique Experience!




Remington Rand Univac Ad (1956) & SPARTIVAC: Tonight We Divide By Zero!!




Feelin like a rebel Rogue...hammer down in 22 movie clips from Jim Morrison driving a 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 to Death Proof (2007)...Let's GOooo...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy National Pig Day!


Dating back to the early 60s, a prank played by aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean was to surprise their relieving carrier by releasing greased pigs on the flight deck. This 1986 video is of a helicopter from USS America (CV-66) dropping off pigs on USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). Three pigs painted with Red, White and Blue food coloring and lathered in grease. LOL!



The holiday celebration in the USA was started in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley, a teacher at All Saints Episcopal School in Lubbock, Texas, and Mary Lynne Rave of Beaufort, North Carolina. According to Mary Rave the purpose of the National Pig Day is "to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man's most intellectual and domesticated animals."
The Virgin Islands Daily News - Feb 23, 1980


Happy Birthday to EC Comics publisher, William Maxwell "Bill" Gaines (March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992) was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics.


William Gaines became one of the most important figures in comic book and humor history by accident. Gaines' father, M.C. (Max) Gaines, was the publisher of Educational Comics (EC). When the elder Gaines died in 1947 as a result of a freak boating accident, the younger Gaines found himself publisher. At the time, EC put out a wide variety of titles. Gaines noticed that the most popular sellers were the horror and SF titles. He canceled all the educational comics, changed the E in EC to Entertaining, and focused his efforts on developing the remaining lines. By the early 1950s, EC was a top performer, featuring such titles as "Vault of Horror", "Tales from the Crypt", "Crime Does Not Pay", and "Weird Science".

By 1955, however, a backlash against these types of comics developed, spearheaded by Dr. Fredric Wertham who, in his book "Seduction of the Innocent", argued that comic book violence led to juvenile delinquency. This was followed by a Senate investigation, and the founding of the Comic Code Authority, which made publication of the old style EC comics all but impossible.

In 1954, Gaines testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. In the following exchanges, he is addressed first by Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser, and then by Senator Estes Kefauver:

Beaser: "Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?"

Gaines: "No, I wouldn't say that there is any limit for the reason you outlined. My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste."

Beaser: "Then you think a child cannot in any way, in any way, shape, or manner, be hurt by anything that a child reads or sees?"

Gaines: "I don't believe so."

Beaser: "There would be no limit actually to what you put in the magazines?"

Gaines: "Only within the bounds of good taste."

Beaser: "Your own good taste and saleability?"

Gaines: "Yes."

Kefauver: "Here is your May 22 issue [Crime SuspenStories No. 22, cover date May]. This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?"

Gaines: "Yes sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody."

Kefauver: "You have blood coming out of her mouth."

Gaines: "A little."

Kefauver: "Here is blood on the axe. I think most adults are shocked by that."

Luckily for Gaines, EC had one other comic that was untouched by the CCA; a little humor comic called "MAD". Gaines changed the format of MAD from full-color comic to B&W magazine in order to be completely free from the supression of the CCA. Along with editor Al Feldstein and "the usual gang of idiots", publisher Gaines made MAD a touchstone of satire and humor for young people throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. Gaines was still publishing MAD Magazine when he died in his sleep on June 3rd, 1992.


March 1, 1950: Atomic Spy Klaus Fuchs found guilty of violating Official Secrets Act, sentenced to 14 years in a UK prison. He served 9.

Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the hydrogen bomb. After serving nine years in prison he then migrated to East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader. He was later appointed deputy director of the Central Institute for Nuclear Physics in Dresden, where he served until he retired in 1979.

As of 2014, British official files on Fuchs were still being withheld. As of 2020, the National Archives listed one dossier on Fuchs, KV 2/1263, including the "Prosecution file. With summary of early interrogations ... and details of the scientifical/technical information passed to the Russians". The date of release of this material was not stated.[43] According to an October 2020 book review, author Nancy Thorndike Greenspan "appears to have had access to some of the Fuchs files that have been withheld at Kew, such as the AB/1 series, which has been closed for access for most human beings".

In 2022 Fuchs was the primary focus of the second season of the BBC World Service's podcast The Bomb.

He is portrayed by American actor Christopher Denham in the 2023 film Oppenheimer.

March 1, 1953: the notorious Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke after an all-night dinner with Lavrentiy Beria & Co. Hilarity does not ensue. He never regained consciousness and dies March 5th.




March 1, 1954: Rand Corp completes project FEED BACK extensive study on feasibility of satellite reconnaissance.


Project Feedback Vol I  |  Project Feedback Vol II


March 1, 1954: Four members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party opened fire on the House Floor in a violent act of protest demanding immediate independence for the island. Wounding 5 congressmen; all survived.





25 years later their life sentences were commuted by President Jimmy Carter and all four were returned to a hero's welcome in Puerto Rico and later same year were all awarded the Order of Playa Girón in Cuba.

Officer John Allen Murphy started his shift with a corned beef sandwich & coke. Minutes later he responded to a shooting at the Capitol.

"I was in the Republican cloakroom…All of a sudden I hear pop, pop, pop…and the phones suddenly started, ring, ring, ring, ring. Everything was lighting up." Joe Hillings recalls the cacophony as the shooting began.

1954 Shooting in the House Chamber (House Gov history with audio, transcripts, pics & vids)


March 1, 1991: American scientist and inventor, Edwin H. Land died. Key player in development of spy tech, including Genetrix balloon borne cameras, optics for the Lockheed U-2 spy plane & reconnaissance satellites (CORONA), the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, advisor to President Eisenhower on photographic reconnaissance matters, AND the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation in 1937. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.


He was a fellow member of the Royal Society, The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and honorary member of The Royal Institution of Great Britain. Land resigned from his role as Presidential Advisor during Nixon's Watergate scandal in 1973. He was one of the names in Nixon's "political opponents" (following the original top 20 enemies). He was often referred to as "Dr. Land" despite never acquiring a PhD nor any college degree.

Land's family, his wife, Helen, and two daughters, Jennifer and Valerie declined to disclose the cause of his death. Land himself disliked being written about, wanting to leave behind a legacy of published scientific work, rather than a cult of personality, and so, on his death, Land's family had a laboratory associate shred his personal papers and notes, a task that would take three years to complete.




More cold war spies, Hang'em high...


Career US diplomat abruptly admits to spying for communist Cuba for decades

Cuba again. Goes all the way back to Nixon and JFK. In more recent times we've been infiltrated by Chicoms, Russians, Ukrainians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Saudis, etc., hell probably North Korean operatives too recruiting Americans in high level positions, especially those with diplomatic immunity.

While the so-called 'honey trap' is a Hollywood cliché, it is also an enduring piece of tradecraft in the real-life world of spy versus spy. Employed by virtually every intelligence service in times of war and peace, the work of femme fatales and Romeo spies have shaped policy and history through seduction, betrayal and scandal. Perhaps the most well known though least understood element of espionage, the use of honey traps can be found throughout history in religious texts, lurid headlines and pop culture mythology.



Given all the spies and honey traps the past 80 years, how in the hell does the deep state MIC keep the UFO secrets, secret??? Weird.

[Snarl]

While the so-called 'honey trap' is a Hollywood cliché, it is also an enduring piece of tradecraft in the real-life world of spy versus spy. Employed by virtually every intelligence service in times of war and peace, the work of femme fatales and Romeo spies have shaped policy and history through seduction, betrayal and scandal. Perhaps the most well known though least understood element of espionage, the use of honey traps can be found throughout history in religious texts, lurid headlines and pop culture mythology.

I knew three of 'em, though I can now only recall two of their names. Their methods of employment (and unemployment) are surprisingly effective. The motivations of doing this 'work' are just jaw dropping.

Given all the spies and honey traps the past 80 years, how in the hell does the deep state MIC keep the UFO secrets, secret??? Weird.

 I could tell ya ... 

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Have you seen BIAD's garden?!




March 2, 1965: THE SOUND OF MUSIC premiered. Georg von Trapp, the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers, was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World War I. He was credited with sinking two Allied warships and 11 merchant ships.



Last December, for the first time ever, nearly 59 years after the film’s release, listen to Christopher Plummer’s ORIGINAL vocals for "Edelweiss" in The Sound of Music. (ICYMI: he was dubbed by Bill Lee in the 1965 film.)





Androla in Labyrinth (1984) by Shusei Nagaoka

Shusei Nagaoka (November 26, 1936 – June 23, 2015) was a Japanese illustrator. He is best known for his music album cover art in the 1970s and 1980s. Artists for whom he illustrated covers include Electric Light Orchestra, Earth, Wind & Fire, Deep Purple, Space, Maze, George Clinton, Kitaro, Rose Royce, Caldera, and Pure Prairie League.

He assisted in the designing of the 1970 Osaka Expo, and was selected as one of the most significant artists in 200 years of American Illustration. He received several awards, along with platinum and gold albums, in recognition of his work. Several books of his artwork have been published, and in 1981 examples of his work were launched into outer space and orbited via the Russian Mir space station.

March 2, 1951: the U.S. Navy launched its first "hunter-killer" submarine USS K-1 (SSK-1) to counter the rapidly growing number of advanced Soviet subs. Jimmy Carter was a member of the crew. Later renamed USS Barracuda, the sub had a huge bow-mounted sonar array.


Fate: Sold for scrap, 21 March 1974.
K-1 Barracuda (SSK-1) (SST-3)


March 2, 1953: A short TIME magazine report on Arthur Godfrey informing his radio audience that he (and Edward R. Murrow) had been pre-selected for World War III broadcasting duties.



March 2, 1991: four different generations of aircraft carriers from Battle Force Zulu steamed in formation after the cease-fire that ended Operation Desert Storm: USS Midway (CV-41), USS Ranger (CV-61), USS America "Don't Tread on Me" (CV-66) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71).



Of the four carriers, only USS Theodore Roosevelt remains in service. USS America was scuttled as part of a weapons test in May 2005 and she was the largest warship ever sunk. Former crew members were pissed and wanted to see her instituted as a memorial museum. USS Ranger was scrapped, and USS Midway is now a museum.




March 2, 1990: THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER premiered. The film was based on the Tom Clancy novel published by US Naval Institute Press. The Naval Institute had never published original fiction but decided to take a chance on the unknown Clancy who was working as an insurance agent at the time. One reason why the Navy gave full support to "The Hunt for Red October" is that "Top Gun" actually had been too successful. So many Midshipmen and ROTC students were opting for aviation that the Navy was concerned for the future of the surface and sub communities.

According to the U.S. Naval Institute: After THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER premiered in 1990, people wondered what the Soviets thought about the movie. When three Soviet ships made a historic visit to San Diego, their top public affairs officer wore a baseball cap embroidered with the film's logo. Apparently he was a fan. One ping only.


In 1990 three Soviet Navy ships sailed into San Diego Bay for an historic visit from July 31 to August 4, marking the first such military visit to the West Coast in more than a century and signalling a new era of openness in Russian-American relations.

From the San Diego Tribune, Saturday, August 4, 1990:

Siren’s song is fading fast to distant past

This longer article dated August 1, 1990 from Los Angeles Times will no doubt make you think we are living in an alternate reality right now:

Soviets Put In at San Diego in Historic Visit




R.I.P. Philip Kindred Dick (PKD) died this day, March 2, 1982.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Sssssss...




March 3, 1923: Time publishes its first issue.


The first issue of TIME, dated Mar. 3, 1923, lacked the distinctive red border for which the magazine has come to be known. The cover subject was the now-obscure Joseph G. Cannon (the former House Speaker). The whole thing was only 32 pages, including the front and back covers. There are only a few photographs or illustrations, and nary a chart or graphic in sight.

Read the First-Ever Issue of TIME


March 3, 1969: Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 to test the lunar module.


James Alton McDivitt Jr. (June 10, 1929 – October 13, 2022) US Air Force
David Randolph Scott (born June 6, 1932) - US Air Force
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (born October 25, 1935) - US Air Force


DUNE author Frank Herbert on "the battle between good and evil."




Mega Earths: A look at creating artificial planets, ones vastly bigger than Earth, or potentially even an entire solar system.



ICYMI, one of Lifeboat's Advisory board members for Finance & Futurists was Jeffrey Epstein. They also design giant bunkers. A lifeboat as above, so below for his master race transhumanism ideology.


Speaking of bunkers... the good ole cold war days are back...


Japan plans more bomb shelters for outlying islands

Yes, those good ole community shelters are going to be great!




March 3, 1974: Two Palestinian hijackers armed with guns and hand grenades take control of a British Airways VC-10 90 minutes after the plane’s departure from Beirut. The plane lands in Amsterdam, where the hijackers release the 102 passengers and crew, then blow up the plane.


VC10 G-ASGO was on the last leg of a Bombay-Bahrain-Beirut-London flight when it was hijacked over Rhodos by 2 men. The aircraft diverted to Amsterdam Schiphol APT. All 10 crew and 92 passengers were released and the hijackers threw inflammable liquids around the cabin and set the plane on fire. Both men were captured running from the plane.


March 3, 1974: Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a DC-10 crashes near Paris, killing all 346 people aboard, after the plane suffered an explosive decompression at 23,000 feet due to an incorrectly secured cargo door at the rear of the plane burst open and broke off, causing an explosive decompression. Among the dead are British trade unionist Jim Conway and British Olympic track athlete John Cooper.





From the back cover:

SHE WAS SHAMELESS!

Mady kicked off her shoes. She tossed her clothing in the bushes. Then she smiled at Paul and walked into his eager arms . . . For Paul Hekke, native of Curacao, it was just an interlude. But neither passion nor drink could banish the dark bitterness of his dual heritage. Son of an aristocrat and an island girl in a land where only Macambas (white men) counted, Paul was an outcast. And his rebellion drove him into weird adventures. He learned black magic in a smoke-filled hut. He watched the Tamboe, the forbidden dance of passion. He even became a killer in Holland's Underground. Only when he met Doerga, the Javanese girl who loved him with a fervor that leaped all barriers, did he find the true meaning of existence.


Titanic - Macumba (1973; Norwegian band) Macumba is a syncretic religion practiced in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. It is sometimes considered by non-practitioners to be a form of witchcraft or black magic.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

THE CRUEL SEA (1953) is the film adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat's 1951 novel about Royal Navy sailors fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic.



A runaway success, the novel had already sold over 4 million copies in just 2 years when Ealing Studios decided to make the film version. Filmed aboard an actual Royal Navy corvette, THE CRUEL SEA tells the story of the sailors aboard the HMS Compass Rose: the bonds that form between them, the daily pressures they face and their epic struggle to overcome the enemy. Nominated for a BAFTA for Best British Film, stars Jack Hawkins, Sir Donald Sinden and Stanley Clarke, and is a gripping insight into the lives of unsung heroes at sea during the war, and the agonizing decisions and incredible peril they faced on a daily basis.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joUDAD3GB3g


March 4, 1969: General Minoru Genda (16 August 1904 – 15 August 1989) made a controversial appearance at a U.S. Naval Institute event. Genda, who had played a major role in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, stated that the Japanese would have dropped the atomic bomb on the U.S. if they had it in 1945. In 1961, while visiting London for five days as Chief of Staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, he commented he had no regrets about the attack on Pearl Harbor except that "We should not have attacked just once--we should have attacked again and again." (NYT 4 September 1961)


In case you are wondering: the rank of General was his post-war rank as Chief of Staff of the Japanese Air Self Defence Force. Simply put: During the war he was Navy, and after the war he was Air Force.

The Service’s White Elephant
By J. M. Caiella
March 2024

Perhaps the least known of the U.S. Navy’s Civil War–era ironclads was a highly innovative, technologically advanced, high-freeboard seagoing ship built solely to battle the Royal Navy. But she was never accepted into the U.S. Navy. Excitement over her construction lasted about one year, after which the supposed British threat evaporated and focus could be maintained on producing relatively inexpensive, quickly built riverine and light-draft monitors to combat the genuine (Confederate) threat. Through it all, the Dunderberg—Swedish for “thunder mountain”—suffered an extended gestation that resulted in her being obsolete at birth.

In early 1862, just a year into the Civil War, the United States feared two external threats: European—specifically, British—recognition of Confederate independence, and military intervention in support of that recognition. The Union blockade of Southern ports that shut off England’s supply of cotton for its textile industry, along with incidents such as the Trent Affair, brought the issues to the fore. War with England had to be avoided because, as Attorney General Edward Bates stated, “for the plain reason that now we are unable to meet it.”

At the time, the U.S. Navy was ill-prepared to fight the Royal Navy. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles believed that seagoing ironclads were necessary for protection; the Navy had but one, and she, the New Ironsides, was still under construction. The press, particularly The New York Times, strongly advocated large seagoing ironclads. New York shipbuilder William Henry Webb answered the call, sending the Navy Department a model of a “Steam Battery” in April 1862. The design was for a wooden-hull, casemate ironclad of 7,000 tons.

After discussions, primarily with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, Webb signed a contract on 3 July to build the warship for $1.25 million. The contract was extremely general with virtually no specifications. She was to be 350 feet long, with a beam of “at least” 68 feet, and a draft of no more than 20 feet, 6 inches. She was to carry two turrets atop her casemate, each armed with two XV-inch Dahlgren guns behind 11 inches of armor. Additional armament included eight XI-inch Dahlgrens within the casemate. She was to make 15 knots “in smooth water.” Completion was due within 15 months. Webb named her the Dunderberg.


....

[Lots of design changes, problems, delays]

On 1 May, the ship was sold to France along with the veteran Civil War monitor Onondaga. Webb received $2.5 million from France for his ship and reimbursed the federal government $1.1 million. His profit, however, was significantly less once his added expenditures were deducted.

On 19 July, the Dunderberg set steam and sail for France; renamed the Rochambeau, her service life was brief. After nearly three years of trials and modifications, she was commissioned in the late summer of 1870, decommissioned and stricken on 15 April 1872, and scrapped in 1874. Reportedly, the French had “endless trouble” with the ship.

At the time of her construction, the Dunderberg was innovative. Elements of her construction, unusual and considered unimportant in her time, are today regarded as essential to any seagoing ship. Included among them are double bottoms, collision bulkheads, watertight transverse and longitudinal bulkheads extending from keel to spar deck, fully enclosed water-tight engine and boiler rooms, and air and water pumps independent of the main engines. Nevertheless, she remained the Navy’s great white elephant.

The Service’s White Elephant

The biggest bubble in history! Nvidia is now worth more than all of these companies combined:

1. AT&T
2. Boeing
3. Coca-Cola
4. Disney
5. FedEx
6. General Motors
7. IBM
8. McDonald’s
9. Nike
10. Starbucks
11. UPS
12. Walmart

Nvidia valuation as of March 2024: $2.053 Trillion!

Nvidia was founded in 1993 during a breakfast meeting at Denny’s. Jensen Huang, the lead founder used to work the graveyard shift as a waiter at Denny’s.



Half of Nvidia employees earned over $228,000 salary in 2023.
Today, Nvidia makes more money in four hours than Denny’s makes in a year.


It's always nice to see the NYPD is using its $5.4 billion budget to focus on important things, like arresting Final Fantasy cosplayers, And Community Notes is innovating new techniques in bootlicking, sigh...




"If you want to tell the truth, you write a novel, if you really want to lie, you write a biography..." - Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas & Michael Parkinson - BBC 1978 (quote @1:35)




The one and only...







UFO Twitter Disclosure Vortex...




Artifact from Sci-Fi 80s movies...


Plenty of Youtube videos showing you how these mysterious comm devices operated.


A short story about phones with cameras in 2001:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 5, 1616: Operation Censorship - Nicolaus Copernicus's book, "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) which explained his theory of the earth orbiting the sun, is added to The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) 73 years after it was first published.


You can view/read it all at the University of Edinburgh

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a changing list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (a former Dicastery of the Roman Curia); Catholics were forbidden to print or read them, subject to the local bishop. Catholic states could enact laws to adapt or adopt the list and enforce it. The Index was active from 1560 to 1966. It banned thousands of book titles and blacklisted publications, including the works of Europe's intellectual elites. Ironically, Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf was never added to the Forbidden Index...which given how the Vatican operated with the Nazis, was no surprise.


March 5, 1918: the collier USS Cyclops (AC-3) disappeared without a trace. Theories for the losses blame structural flaws, U-boats, and storms to unfit captain & demoralized crew. The disappearance of the Cyclops is the greatest non-combat loss of life in U.S. Navy history.


USS Cyclops - The Deadliest Unsolved Mystery in the Navy


A few decades later in an eerie set of coincidences, both of the USS Cyclops’ sister ships, the USS Nereus (AC-10) and the USS Proteus (AC-9), also disappeared, in 1941 with all hands lost in the Atlantic. At the time of her disappearance, the USS Nereus was on the same route as the doomed USS Cyclops.


March 5, 1942: the name "Seabees" and insignia were officially authorized for U.S. Naval Construction Battalions. The Disney-inspired character in the insignia was deemed appropriate because bees are industrious workers that are prepared to fiercely defend their territory. The hard working and hard fighting Seabees have earned a reputation for being tough, resulting in many stories such as this one:



March 5, 1943: the fifth prototype, serial DG206 became the first flight of the Gloster Meteor, at RAF Cranwell, piloted by Michael Daunt. Britain's first combat jet aircraft and the Allies only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations against the Nazis. Commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with No. 616 Squadron RAF.


The DG206/G was first flown on March 5, 1943; while the DG202/G was first flown 24 July 1943. The "/G" appended to the aircraft serial denoted that the aircraft was to have an armed guard at all times while it was on the ground.

The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Frank Whittle (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) and his company, Power Jets Ltd. He is credited with having invented the turbojet engine and known as the 'father of the jet engine'.

Post WWII and over the decades, England had propelled Frank Whittle to apotheosis level within the aerospace world, both in the UK and US Navy. His history is really off the charts amazing. Monuments, sculptures, statues of Sir Whittle all over the UK.

• Retired from the Royal Air Force in 1948 with the rank of Air Commodore and was knighted that same year by King George VI.
  
• Became a Naval Research Professor at the United States Naval Academy in 1977 and was an Adjunct Research Professor in 1979.
  
• Wrote the “Gas Turbine Aero-Thermodynamics” textbook which is highly regarded in its field.
  
• Awarded the Order of Merit in 1986 by Queen Elizabeth II.
  
• In 2017, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.
  
• In 2023, King Charles III broke ground on the New Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
  

March 5, 1946: at Westminster College in Fulton, Missiouri, Winston Churchill delivered what has come to be called the "Iron Curtain" Speech. The New York Daily News ran with it...




March 5, 1947: THE BEGINNING OR THE END opened at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge, TN. The film had already opened in many cities across the US weeks earlier.




March 5, 1953, Stalin kicked the bucket.



Listen to Ray Anderson's celebratory country song, "Stalin Kicked the Bucket" (1953): https://



Released on CD compilation in 2005 by German Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age Of Homeland Security.

Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, notable  works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken, and Peter and the Wolf - Symphonic Tale for Children.




Albums: Peter and the Wolf (1975 rock album) - Youtube

David Bowie Narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (1978) (Youtube)

Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf is a 2003 album that combined the orchestral composition Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev with a 2002 composition, Wolf Tracks, which had its score written by French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus and text written by Walt Kraemer. The project was conceived and commissioned by the Russian National Orchestra, under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano.

Wolf Tracks, which has the alternate title The Wolf and Peter, is meant to be both a sequel to and a retelling of Peter and the Wolf. Recordings were made in several languages. The main version, in English, had Peter and the Wolf narrated by Sophia Loren, and Wolf Tracks narrated by Bill Clinton.
The recording received a Grammy in 2004, for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, the first one ever awarded to either a former U.S. President or a Russian orchestra.

Petr & The Wulf is the debut studio album by Munly & The Lupercalians, a side project founded by musician Munly Munly around 2007. A concept album, (Country Rock, Art Rock, Avantgarde, Neofolk) a loose adaptation of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. It was released on compact disc on August 31, 2010 and on vinyl on October 5, 2010 through the record label Alternative Tentacles.

Munly & The Lupercalians (Youtube album)


AIRPLANE DISASTERS that occurred on March 5th:



March 5, 1963: Aeroflot Rossiya Ilyushin Il-18 Flight 191 crashes while landing at Ashgabat International Airport, killing 12 of 54.

March 5, 1966: British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Flight 911 (call sign "Speedbird 911"), a Boeing 707 aircraft, breaks apart in mid-air due to clear-air turbulence and crashes into Mount Fuji, Japan, killing all 124 people on board.

Eerie Flight 911 factor: Several booked passengers cancelled their tickets at the last moment to see a ninja demonstration. These passengers, Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, Ken Adam, Lewis Gilbert, and Freddie Young, were in Japan scouting locations for the fifth James Bond film, You Only Live Twice (1967).

March 5, 1967: Lake Central Airlines Flight 527 Convair 580 crashes near Marseilles, Ohio, killing 38.

March 5, 1968: Air France Flight 212, a Boeing 707-328C crashes into La Grande Soufrière, killing all 63 aboard.

March 5, 1973: an Iberia Flight 504 DC-9 flying from Palma de Mallorca to London collided in mid-air with a Spantax Flight 400 Convair 990 flying from Madrid to London. All 68 people on board the DC-9 were killed, including music manager Michael Jeffery...of The Animals and Jimi Hendrix. The CV-990 made a successful emergency landing at Cognac – Châteaubernard Air Base.

March 5, 1991: Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Flight 108 crashes in Venezuela, killing 45.

March 5, 1993: Palair Macedonian Airlines Flight 301 crashes at Skopje International Airport in Petrovec, North Macedonia, killing 83, 14 survived.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 5, 1970: premiere of "Airport" jump-starting a slew of disaster flicks. A lot of star power on these posters.




March 5, 1950: Traumatized World War II veteran Freddie Quell had his first "Processing" session with Lancaster Dodd.




March 5, 1980: Ted Striker, an ex-fighter pilot and traumatized war veteran, saved the lives of everyone on-board Flight 209 after the flight crew became sick with food poisoning.


The date was mentioned in Airplane 2 (1982).


This tweet by Secretary of Vet Affairs Denis McDonough was in response to a VA memo from RimaAnn O. Nelson, Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations that's circulating the Interwebs stating the iconic "V-J" photo is to be removed from all VA facilities due to psychological trauma.
Well, that kind of BS sounds about right for the devolving times.


LIFE magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took one of the most ICONIC pictures in history, deeming it as one of the most widely used pictures to this very day and removing it from VA buildings would be doing a huge disservice to the men and women who fought for and helped win WWII. Assuming the memo was authentic (according to the Military Times it was), the bitch needs to be fired, tarred & feathered, deported, tagged & bagged, final destination...air dropped over Gaza.


The bloody reign of Nuland the Carpathian (aka the Scourge of Carpathia, Sorrow of Moldavia, Nuland the Cruel, Nuland the Torturer, Nuland the Despised, and Nuland the Unholy) has finally ended.


It’s rather surprising to see such a tenured official resign when Ukraine is supposedly close to victory against the Russians, especially considering their counteroffensive. (sarc) With her resume, she’s a perfect candidate for Meta and Google's woke ideology departments.


Advertisement for the Antikamnia Chemical Company established around 1890. Depicts the skull-headed company icon "Funny Bones," wearing glasses, attired in a suit, and holding an "AK" tablet in his hand, and shrugging. Antikamnia (opposed to pain) was a toxic and addictive medicine often mixed with codeine and quinine. Funny Bones was designed by pharmacist and doctor Louis Crucius.


The rise of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.


Watching Elon troll Zuck face and the metaverse makes me a happy surfer...




Damn Bug got smashed on the bumper of my Shelby Mustang! Freija, was that you?!!


LOL LOL


Everything you ever wanted to know about...




Heavenly Lavender fields in Tasmania, Australia:




Masters of Reality - J.B. Witchdance - Stoner Rock - 1993 - USA

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 6, 1836: Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. His descendant Lt. Cmdr. Davy Crockett was a U.S. Navy F6F Hellcat pilot during WWII. After being shot down and captured in France in 1944, where he joined other Americans, Englishman, Frenchman, and Algerians. When the German garrison was informed that the war was over, they surrendered to Lt. Cmdr. Crockett. After the garrison surrendered with ~500 Germans, Crockett worked together with French forces to detain and process their former captors as prisoners of war.




Happy birthday to Bernie Sanders letter recipient... and the first woman in space, Major general, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova! Born March 6, 1937. AFAIK, she's still running the State Duma. That's a lot of shiny bling-bling.




March 6, 1944: William Patrick "Willy" Hitler joined the fight against his uncle Adolf by enlisting in the U.S. Navy. Initially rejected, he received permission to serve after writing to FDR and getting cleared by the FBI. He later changed his name and lived quietly in NY until his death in 1987. Hell of a letter...




It's National Dentist Day. When Hideki Tojo was imprisoned in Occupied Japan, a Navy dentist fitted him for new dentures into which "Remember Pearl Harbor" had been drilled in Morse code. When news of the prank got out about 3 months later, the dentist quickly removed the message to avoid a court-martial.


Japanese politician, military leader and convicted war criminal Hideki Tojo who served as prime minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944. By order of general Douglas MacArthur he was arrested at his house on September 11, 1945... however he shot himself in the chest with a pistol, but missed his heart. Unlucky for him the American soldiers saved his ass. Tojo was sentenced to death on November 12, 1948, and executed by hanging on December 23, 1948. Tojo's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean approximately 30 miles east of Yokohama from a US Army aircraft on the same day. Before his execution, he gave his military ribbons to one of his guards; they are on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.

His grand daughter grew up to be an ultra-nationalist politician, Imperial Japanese apologist, and stern denial of Jap war crimes. She died from interstitial pneumonia at the age of 73, in 2013.


March 6, 1988: the TOP GUN-inspired drama series SUPERCARRIER premiered on ABC. The Navy initially allowed scenes to be filmed on USS John F. Kennedy, USS Missouri and USS Vandegrift (FFG-48) but later dropped support because of issues with the scripts! The series only lasted 8 episodes.

Classic TV Theme: Supercarrier (two theme versions) - the second 'Living on the Edge' @1:35:



The show was trying to ride the popularity of both Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee by featuring an Australian F-14 pilot. USS Vandegrift was sunk as a target on 17 June 2022 in SINKEX as a part of the Valiant Shield.


Opportunities to cruise aboard a battleship are rare, so two tickets to ride the museum ship USS New Jersey (BB-62) from Camden, New Jersey to a dry dock at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on March 27 are being auctioned on eBay. Bidding has already reached $5,100... for a ~5 mile towed trip down the Delaware River. LOL!




They're on a mission from Xenu...


Based on views and zero comments, nobody cares.


Alan Moore's WATCHMEN (Nov 1986)




Deadvlei in the Namib-Naukluft Park in Namibia:


Dead Vlei has been claimed to be surrounded by the highest sand dunes in the world, the highest reaching 1000–1300 feet, named "Big Daddy" or "Crazy Dune", resting on a sandstone terrace. The Sci-Fi psychological thriller "The Cell" (2000) was partly filmed here.


Have you ever swam or rowed a boat through the Durdle Door?...



Its most notable landscape feature on a five-mile stretch of coastline on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. It is privately owned by the Weld Family who own the Lulworth Estate, but it is also open to the public. How bloody nice of them. The name Durdle derives from an Old English word 'thirl' meaning bore or drill.

Wow, didn't even know they had a coastline named "Jurassic" and obviously, a lot more to explore here, aside from the landscape the family & history I'm guessing has some interesting gems and maybe spooky tales. Just happened to notice the "Door" when Microsoft so graciously gifted my desktop background this morning after logging on. The Wiki page alone notes some interesting nuggets. This location has now definitely been added to my bucket list.

Dorset-born Arthur Moule, a friend of Thomas Hardy and missionary to China wrote these lines about Durdle Door for his 1879 book of poetry Songs of Heaven and home, written in a foreign Land:

Durdle Door (Resort Dorset)

• Legend has it, the rocks are approximately 140 million years old.
  
• The structure is about 200 feet tall.
  
• The first time it appeared on the Ordnance Survey Map, way back in 1811, it was called Dirdale Door.
  
• The footpath from Lulworth Cove is used by over 200,000 people each year - the busiest across the whole of the South West.
  
• It's a great spot for music videos, used by Billy Ocean and Tears for Fears. The Jurassic Coast is home to other famous music videos too.
  

Ha, a very popular song back in the 80s (still is today) that I heard every time I walked into a nightclub, I'm just now learning...See how Durdle Door looked in the eighties... much like today but with a few fashion tweaks!

[Freija]

It wasn't me.

[BIAD]

Not wishing to interupt EndTheMadness' intriguing and well-researched thread, in regards of strange rock formations,
may I mention Marsden Rock on the North Sea coast that had a similar shaping. Sadly due to safety fears, the arch
was demolished in 1997 and yet the Grotto area still enjoys regular visitors.



What remains of the limestone stack is situated just north of the village of Whitburn, where it has been suggested
Lewis Carroll derived his idea of the Walrus and the Carpenter during a meeting with such a tradesman making his
way home from the nearby -and now redundant, many shipbuilding enterprises on the river Wear.

Carroll was staying at his cousin's (Wilcox) home in Whitburn at the time and they often joined Lewis in making-up
verses to delight themselves in the art of word-conjuring. It was here that Carroll’s contributed to their mirth with a
stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry which begins:

"Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe."

Referencing the Jabberwocky in his publication 'Through the Looking Glass' in 1872, a beasty said to have been
procured from Carroll's imagining of The Sockburn Worm legend. (Also a posting on the archived Rogue Nation site!)

Carroll -having grown up in the region (the rectory at Croft-On-Tees), regularly visited the area where his neighbour at
Oxford University (Henry Liddell) frequented due to be being born in Sunderland (Wonderland?!) The young Lewis once
sketched Frederika Liddell on Roker beach with a backdrop of Spottie’s Hole in the Holey Rock. This was the entrance
to an underground passage, thought to lead to Hylton Castle, but is now bricked-up.

Frederika has a sister that was said to be a later inspiration for Carroll's famous tales, she was called Alice.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

@BIAD - Holy Rockin Alice I did not know that! The rock nor about Carroll.


It's National Cereal Day! Cap'n Crunch was at the center of a stolen valor scandal in 2013 when the media noted his three stripes indicating he was only a commander. The Navy jokingly responded that he was being investigated by NCIS. Now forgotten is his 1970's shipmate Harry S. Hippo. Sometime later he was promoted to full bird captain.

A Little Cereal History:

Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant, began the cereal revolution in 1854 with a hand oats grinder in the back room of a small store in Akron, Ohio. His German Mills American Oatmeal Company was the nation’s first commercial oatmeal manufacturer.  In 1877, Schumacher adopted the Quaker symbol, the first registered trademark for a breakfast cereal.

Granula, the first breakfast cereal, was invented in the United States in 1863by James Caleb Jackson, operator of Our Home on the Hillside, which was later replaced by the Jackson Sanatorium in Dansville, New York.  The cereal never became popular since it was inconvenient as the heavy bran nuggets needed soaking overnight before they were tender enough to eat.

The cereal industry rose from a combination of sincere religious beliefs and commercial interest in healthy foods. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg experimented with granola.  He boiled some wheat, rolled it into thin films, and baked the resulting flakes in the oven; he acquired a patent in 1891.  In1895 he launched Cornflakes, which overnight captured a national market.

In 1906, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s brother, William K. Kellogg, after working for John, broke away, bought the corn flakes rights from his brother, and set up the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.  His signature on every package became the company trademark and insurance of quality.

Charles W. Post introduced Grape-nuts in 1898 and soon followed with Post Toasties.

Because of Kellogg and Post, the city of Battle Creek, Michigan is nicknamed the "Cereal Capital of the World."

March 7, 1778: Irish-born Captain John Barry (March 25, 1745 – Sept 13, 1803) led 27 men in row boats to capture two British supply ships and an armed schooner in the Delaware River. The Americans also took 116 prisoners. Barry sent a captured jar of pickled oysters and a large wheel of cheese to George Washington.



Captain Shepard was the carrier of the Presidential Emergency Satchel of which JFK called it the "black bag" and later to present known as the nuclear football. Capt Shepard made the second phone call (after FBI J. Edgar Hoover) to RFK informing him his brother is dead. Capt Shepard retired as a two-star Admiral; died June 21, 2013 age 92. His son Tazewell Taylor Shepard III died October 10, 2022, age 68.

More JFK related trip to Europe: Ireland, Wexford, June 27, 1963 photos at JFK Library

John Barry has been credited by some as "The Father of the American Navy", sharing that moniker with John Paul Jones and John Adams, and was appointed as a captain in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. Barry was the first captain placed in command of an American warship commissioned for service under the Continental flag. After the Revolutionary War, he became the first commissioned American naval officer, at the rank of commodore, receiving his commission from President George Washington in 1797.


March 7, 1973: Robert Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE premiered in Los Angeles.


The comeback film for Elliott Gould who was blackballed by Hollywood for 2 years.

Both Leigh Brackett and Robert Altman have said that Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangelove) and Elliott Gould's dialogue during the drinking scenes was improvised. This was because Hayden was drunk and stoned on marijuana most of the time. However, Hayden wrote his own scenes. Ha!

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

This is just the second screen role for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had no lines in this film. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Arnold's famous line "... on August 29, 1997, Skynet becomes self-aware at 02:14 am Eastern Time." Just so happens to be Elliott Gould's birthday.


I guess Kevin Shields is vindicated!


The Guardian  |  Kevin Shields via Pitchfork


The British Conspiracy Iceberg version 2:




Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian company was founded on March 7, 1984. Its flagship product, the Blackberry, was created 15 years later in 1999.




All the stars are here...



I'm so excited...







Fencing going up around the Capitol ahead of bumbling clown, Bai Den Dzhao's State of the Union speech.



Does anyone know? Has it ever been determined who, if anyone, from the Trump administration served as "designated survivor" for the Biden inauguration on January 20, 2021? According to Military.com, outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the highest-ranking official in the line of succession who did not attend the inauguration, but it was never officially reported whether he, or anyone else, served as designated survivor. Maybe it was Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland).




Betty Boop for President 1932 - not much has changed in near 100 years.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Pistachio Wars needs $$$...


Pistachio Wars


Climate change art by David Egge, Don Dixon, Ron Miller, and uncredited.



Another one by Don Dixon, this time a "whimsical look at the good side of global warming, as New Yorkers enjoy sun and surf" 1981:




Art prints by Ollie Jones - Painter and Illustrator from Edinburgh, Scotland:




Trespassers in grandma's garden will be eaten alive! No exceptions!!




A rough Boeing landing in British illustrator Reg Hill’s pre-production art for H.G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 1979.




SoF Pussycat Warriors, found in OMNI, April 1988:


Has parallels to today's UFO circus clowns.


The Flat Earth Kids from 1988...


Still going strong in 2024!


Funny coming from a super multi-billionaire who could cover it all in a stroke of a pen.




Yep, everything is a magical mystical tour...soon to be going off a cliff.


Scratch that, we're already accelerating to the bottom and will be transformed into ???. Ever wonder what comes out the other side of blackhole, wormhole, a Door? We're gonna find out soon enough.


Calm before the Storm!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 8, 1930: William Howard Taft, the 27th US President (1909 to 1913) and the 10th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1921 to 1930), died in Washington D.C. at age 72. The only person to have held both of these offices.




The 1944 Hanford phone directory is now online. Did you know that "Homer Simpson" worked on the Manhattan Project!


How did Matt Groening know Homer Simpson was involved in nuclear industry from the start?? According to a nuke historian archivist who discovered it, this doc/file was not yet declassified until circa 1995.


March 8, 1954: MARILYN VS. MOSCOW - Tempo magazine




March 8, 1958: Battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) was decommissioned, leaving the Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1895.  The Wisconsin was recommissioned in 1988 as part of Reagan's 600 ship Navy but only to fire her guns for the last time in Desert Storm 1991 before being decommissioned again on September 30, 1991. As of March 2007 the Wisconsin is a museum ship operated by Nauticus in Norfolk, Virginia.



Her final awesome salvo fury was unleashed on May 28, 1991. Volume up!




Project Paintshop: In 2023, sailors from HMS Prince of Wales volunteered to help clean and repaint Wisconsin.


https://twitter.com/HMSPWLS/status/1727789191142965252


March 8, 1968: the Soviet submarine K-129 sank in the Pacific. After the U.S. found the wreck, the CIA began the top secret mission "Project Azorian" Hughes Glomar Explorer to recover the sub and its nuclear missiles using a ship with a giant hidden claw. The official story is the sub broke apart but a section was partially recovered in a covert salvage operation by the CIA in 1974.


Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million, or $4.7 billion today.

The entire salvage operation was recorded by a CIA documentary film crew, but this film remains classified...well of of course it is. FOIA attempts on the CIA are met with neither confirm or deny the existence of such documents. This type of non-responsive FOIA reply has since come to be known as the "Glomar response" or "Glomarization". Dude, you just been Glomar'd!

Alternative theories::
Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell makes the claim that Project Azorian recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor, and in fact, "Despite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim the project had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".

In August 1993, Ambassador Malcolm Toon presented to a Russian delegation K-129's ship's bell. According to Red Star Rogue, this bell had been permanently attached to the middle of the conning tower of K-129, thus indicating that in addition to the bow of the submarine, the critical and valuable midsection of the submarine was at least partially recovered by Project Azorian. Additionally, Ambassador Toon is quoted from the 6th Plenum of the U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs as saying, "Our Director of Naval Intelligence has concluded that no U.S. sub was within 300 nautical miles of your sub when it sank". Red Star Rogue places K-129 at 24°N by 163°W, less than 350 miles from Honolulu. This site is consistent with the discovery of radioactive oil reported to the Hawaii Institute of Geophysical Research at the time.


March 8, 1971: the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI pulled off the perfect heist. They broke into the Media, PA FBI field office while Frazier & Ali battled in the ring. Liberated files were mailed to reporters. J. Edgar Hoover went into a blazing towering rage.


How to break into the FBI: 50 years later, Media burglars get local honors


Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Ike" and Herbert Hoover at Bohemian Grove, July 23, 1950. How future presidents are decided:



Happy International Women's Day which coincidentally is also International Women's Collaboration Brew Day. Found in 2014 by Sophie de Ronde, a British brew master. The first year, over 60 women in five countries brewed a pale ale called Unite.




Last night's Designated Survivor: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona




Happy State of the Union! Until that clown leaves the White House...



And if you've never heard Puddles, you're in for a treat!

Checkout his channel for more: Puddles Pity Party

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Kickin ass & takin names...you don't mess with Edith Garrud:


London Historians' Blog / Edith Margaret Garrud (1872–1971) was a British martial artist, suffragist and playwright. She was the first British female teacher of jujutsu and one of the first female martial arts instructors in the western world.


100+ years later we have Katie 'super cringe' freakgandist:


https://twitter.com/deep_beige/status/17...5606694035

Soundtrack for the Katie Britt Experience:

AND THAT'S CALLED, GLAD

AND THAT'S CALLED, BAD

AND THAT'S CALLED, SAD

(The Shangri-Las: "I Can Never Go Home Anymore.")




Oh lord, even Lockheed is still promoting this DEI nonsense.


EXCLUSIVE: F-35A officially certified to carry nuclear bomb


March 8, 1983: Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida - President Reagan calls Soviet Union "an evil empire."


Reagan used the word "evil" 9 times in his speech.

Transcript (PDF)

The heavily marked up annotated Draft (PDF)

March 8, 1983: "Evil Empire" Speech (VIDEO)


Build strong atomic lungs!








Interesting...






Aston Martin Bulldog Concept (1980) vs Elon toy truck:



Well, I'm standin' at the station
And the rain don't make a sound
Got a Bible in my pocket
Cause my plane was just shot down
My mind is all confusion
I believe I'm in a play
Throw my Bible out the window
As the train goes on its way
Gonna leave my blues behind me
Gonna find another town
Gonna try and find some people
Who this time won't bring me down
As I step out of the carriage
The station looks the same
As the one I left behind me
Though it has another name...

Ten Years After - Standing At The Station - 1972 - Classic Rock

[EndtheMadnessNow]

March 9, 1862: during the U.S. Civil War, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia engaged in the first battle between ironclads. The ships fought to a stalemate, but the Battle of Hampton Roads signaled that the age of wooden warships was coming to an end.


CSS Virginia vs USS Monitor Civil War Naval Battle

The world is well familiar with the iconic design of the ironclad USS Monitor, but there is compelling evidence to suggest that the images of her in battle are not correct.

Attached to a wall in Preble Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, is one of the oldest and, for its time, largest artifacts from the USS Monitor. It is not particularly exciting to look upon—although it is humbling to be able to actually touch a piece of this famous ship—but this artifact is the key to picturing a distinctly different image of how the Monitor’s turret actually looked during history’s first battle between ironclads—the Monitor’s clash with the CSS Virginia on 9 March 1862, during the Battle of Hampton Roads. This relic may help prove that the well-known round turret, in fact, had a prominent flat shield attached.

The artifact is made of 1-inch-thick wrought iron, is 32½ inches wide and 20¼ inches high, and appears to be an armor plate from the famous ship. It is inscribed by Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1866. Fox was very influential in the development of ironclad ships, especially the Monitor type. He became close friends with the Monitor’s inventor, John Ericsson, and witnessed, from the deck of the USS Minnesota, the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia. The inscription on the relic reads:

    Piece of the first Monitor, removed after her battle with the Rebel Steamer Merrimac [CSS Virginia] in Hampton Roads March 9th 1862. Presented to the  U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY by G.V Fox Asst Secty of the NAVY 1866.

It is flat, not curved like the wrought iron plating of the turret, and is pierced in six places for bolts or rivets. Weighing about 100 pounds, it has three flat sides, a clearly damaged side—and a cut-out circular area.

A New Look for an Old Icon

Change comes hard to all navies, and there was fierce resistance to ironclads when they first appeared. They ridiculed the Monitor as a "Cheesebox on a raft." Little did they know what this humble ship would develop into. Flash forward to 21st century, today's version of the Monitor looks odd too.



Namesake is Admiral Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. (November 29, 1920 – January 2, 2000) was a United States Navy officer and the youngest person to serve as Chief of Naval Operations. USS Zumwalt's first commanding officer was Captain James A. Kirk. Star Trek Captain James T. Kirk wrote a letter of support to Zumwalt's crew in April 2014.


March 9, 1924: Katharina von Oheimb, the most prominent woman member of the German Reichstag, won’t seek re-election after four years. The suffragist and left-leaning member of the German People’s Party says she is "sick" of politics and will seek change by social means.





March 9, 1954: Edward Murrow reported on the "Red Scare" investigation of Communists led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.


Really good history, drama-bio film, written/directed/starring George Clooney as Fred W. Friendly with David Strathairn as Edward Murrow and Jeff Daniels as Siegfried Thor "Sig" Mickelson, the first president of CBS News from 1959 to 1961.

Friendly served as president of CBS News from 1964 to 1966.
Murrow and Friendly broadcast a revealing See It Now documentary analysis on Senator Joseph McCarthy (airing March 9, 1954) that has been credited with changing the public view of McCarthy and, being a key event leading to McCarthy's fall from power. In 1966, Friendly resigned from CBS when the television network ran a scheduled episode of I Love Lucy instead of broadcasting live coverage of the first United States Senate hearings questioning American involvement in Vietnam.


An uptight, leather-clad female alien who goes by Nyah, armed with a ray gun and accompanied by a menacing robot, comes to Earth (lands at a Scottish Inn) to collect Earth's men as breeding stock.



Patricia Laffan (1919-2014) a statuesque and striking actress with vaguely reptilian aspects, at once sinister and alluring; a smile never more than a whisker away from a sneer and a commanding, imperious presence suggesting innate superiority. Difficult to cast, Patricia Laffan seemed destined to portray the villainous or the eccentric. The daughter of Irish rubber planter Arthur Charles Laffan (1870-1948) and London-born Elvira Alice née Vitali (1896-1979), Patricia was schooled at the Institut français du Royaume-Uni in London and trained in dramatic arts at the prestigious Douglas-Webber School. She emerged on stage in 1937 and made her screen debut by 1945. In between a cluster of nondescript or uncredited roles, we remember her for two indelible cinematic performances: first, as that sumptuously decadent, scheming, malicious Empress Poppaea in MGM's epic blockbuster Quo Vadis (1951) -- sardonic and disdainful in her delivery, at times running close to overshadowing even the great Peter Ustinov in his most famous role as Nero. One of her lavish outfits included a 14 carat gold dress designed by Herschel McCoy. A contemporary BBC interview with Laffan also recounts an incident during the making of Quo Vadis. In this, the actress, while reclining on a divan next to a couple of cheetahs at the end of a love scene with Robert Taylor, was set upon by one of the not so tame cats but managed to escape with a torn dress (the gold one ?) -- "on the other hand, the lions in the arena scene were so bored that they went to sleep in the shade instead of looking hungrily at the Christians".

Laffan's other fondly remembered showing on screen was in the campy Devil Girl from Mars (1954), a typically low-budget Danziger Brothers attempt at emulating the success of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Justifiably derided at the time (for such valid reasons as inane writing, lacklustre direction and props acutely reminiscent of kitchen appliances), it has become a surprising cult touchstone for sci-fi aficionados. Why? Certainly because of the picture's sole meritorious component: Patricia Laffan as the Martian invader Nyah, exotically made up, outfitted in PVC jumpsuit, miniskirt, Darth Vader-style cape and skullcap and making the most of her scenes, delivering her lines with practised cold, languid authority.

Mystery Trivia:
Her death, just 9 days shy of her 95th birthday, was not announced publicly at the time and it wasn't until two and a half years later, when a researcher uncovered her death certificate, that it was made public. This would help explain why there are no press obituaries for her.

A clip showing her firing a ray gun in Devil Girl from Mars (1954) is often used in commercials and documentaries, such as the TV remote episode of the History Channel series "History's Lost and Found" (early remotes used a beam of light and looked like a ray gun). History Channel still uses the prop gun out on Skinwalker Ranch.  Kidding. Then again you never know.




March 9, 2015: A hacker caused an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong.




On this day, heroic Sean Kirkpatrick of AARO and steadfast Chris Mellon of the CIA/DIA have both received an honor worthy of their talents as "deceivers of the public and scalawags of the Republic," by their secret society The Knights of Malta. Huzzah!




Drone swarms are coming...


Houthis conduct largest & most complex attack to date—sending 28 one-way attack drones toward U.S. & coalition ships. All 28 drones were shot down with no injuries or damage.
US Navy & Royal Navy Admirals: We just be testing our new toys. We don't want to annihilate them too early or our R&D boys will not be happy.
Houthis with a war budget not even worth mentioning vs USA/NATO of over $1 Trillion.


Silent service out/in...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Oscar Day!



The photo will get more views than the Oscars.


March 10, 1983: the era of U.S. seaplanes ended when US Coast Guard retired the last operational Grumman HU-16E Albatross. The last U.S. Navy seaplane was the P5M Marlin which was retired in November 1967.


The Albatross and classic "two-story" Sikorsky H-34 helicopter were featured in the 1964 Richard Widmark, Yul Brynner film "Flight from Ashiya" about the USAF Air Rescue Service.

Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T085x3XhAeE

HU-16A / 16B were USAF
HU-16C / 16D were US Navy
HU-16E was US Coast Guard
The USAF also had a 16E with modified with long wing.

An H-34 was featured in the famous early-Vietnam War Time-Life photo essay "Sudden Death in Vietnam: One Ride With Yankee Papa 13", photographer Larry Burrows, which depicted stages of a disastrous combat mission in which several crew were wounded or killed.


How is it that in the 40th anniversary year of THREADS, we *still* don't know the name of the actor/extra who played the iconic Traffic Warden?



Resurrecting the Cold War: Huge Nuke section in the Sunday NYT Opinion section. The Danger of the President’s Nuclear Powers...



Sole Authority - complete with interactive 15 minute count-down timer to armageddon.


"The most alarming of the intercepts revealed that one of the most senior Russian military commanders was explicitly discussing the logistics of detonating a weapon on the battlefield."....


NY Times or Archived


Theodore F. Koop [1907-1988], creator and first host of Face The Nation and director-designate of the Eisenhower/LBJ/Nixon secret censorship office. He was the longest serving deep state shadow government standby censor: "One of the worst kept secrets in Washington." 1970.




The first annual Bucks County Para-Con in South Eastern PA.




Royal watchers have spotted a potential editing problem and issued a "Kill Notice" on piss poor photoshop skills:



Apparently the AP decided instead of all out kill we'll just crop out the lower hands...but leave in Princess Kate's upside down hand. LOL! NO comment from Kensington Palace.

Looks like their AI image fact checker needs tweaking.

First photo of Princess of Wales since surgery is retracted because image appears manipulated


We scream for more ice cream! Always that third fake hand that apparently this time fooled da media. Emotional (fake) anger intensifies!


I been hearing this is not the first time the royal family has doctored photos.





Saturday night, dance, I like the way you move...



Whigfield (Danish singer Sannie Charlotte Carlson) scored a UK #1 hit with "Saturday Night" in 1994, being the first foreign debuting artist to have done so, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.

[BIAD]

I just don't see what all the ooh-hah is all about -except to appreciate the concern that the people
who steer the Public Relations of the Royal Family would have if a such a photograph didn't originate
from one of their own outlets.

"...PA Media, the UK's biggest news agency - through which the Royal Family regularly releases its
official information, including to the BBC - said it had not killed the picture on its service..."
BBC:

If this is a covert swipe at AI abilities that could cost jobs in the legacy media business, I can see
why such controversy would end-up on the front pages, but as far as fingers and sleeves being
'manipulated', it's been common practice in their circles for years! Fashion magazines would back
me up on this!

If it's not AI generated, then someone the people in the photograph felt comfortable with, took the
shot and I'll wager they had permission from someone in the Royal PR system.

[Bally002]

I just don't see what all the ooh-hah is all about -except to appreciate the concern that the people
who steer the Public Relations of the Royal Family would have if a such a photograph didn't originate
from one of their own outlets.

A very elegant and gracious lady.  

Cheeky lad.

Kind regards,
Bally)