Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Samuel Perry "Powhatan" Carter (August 6, 1819 – May 26, 1891) is the only man in U.S. history to hold the rank of general in the Army and admiral in the Navy. An 1846 grad of United States Naval Academy, he was appointed brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was promoted to rear admiral in the Navy in 1882. In 1850-53 he was an assistant professor of mathematics at the Naval Academy.


Archived Obit  | Samuel P. Carter Marker


May 26, 1941: US Navy pilot ENS "Tuck" Smith spotted the Bismarck and then transmitted the German battleship's coordinates. The U.S. was officially neutral at the time but Smith was secretly training RAF pilots to fly PBY Catalina seaplanes. The next day would be Bismarck's last.




May 26, 2012: thousands of spectators watched as USS Iowa passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific on her final voyage. The venerable battleship was towed from the San Francisco Bay to the Port of Los Angeles where she became a floating museum.




May 26, 1970: BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES opened in Los Angeles. Proceeds went to the City of Hope charity. Russ Meyer and fiancée Edy Williams attended along with Clint Eastwood, Lee Majors, Farrah Fawcett, Tippi Hedren, Sam Elliott and many others!




BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES...Reimagineered poster art by Eric Powell.



May 26, 1971: ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES had its world premiere in Los Angeles.




May 26, 1973: The first episode of "That’s Life" was broadcast on BBC1. It was a light-hearted consumer affairs programme, presented by Esther Rantzen. It regularly drew audiences of 15 million, and ran for 21 years until June 19, 1994.




RIP Richard Sherman. Cover by Duke Ellington.




Richard M. Sherman, two-time Oscar winner who collaborated with brother Robert B. Sherman on the songs for “Mary Poppins,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and the enduring Disneyland tune “It’s a Small World (After All),” has died. He was 95.



If the whole history of the Earth was squeezed into one day... humans on earth is hardly worth mentioning. What happens when midnight comes around again?


History of Earth in 24-hour clock


An invitation to our conquerors...Please get here soon!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 27, 1956: Ed Sullivan gave a generation of youngsters atomic nightmares when he aired the animated short film "A Short Vision."

“I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated…”

    -- Ed Sullivan introducing the apocalyptic short film A SHORT VISION on the May 27, 1956 broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show

    “Years later I met a man from Canada who had shoulder length dark hair, but in the center of his head was a small spot where his hair grew out a silvery white color. I asked him about it, and he told me that he was a medically documented case of a person whose hair had turned white from fright. As a child, he had seen A SHORT VISION while alone in a house, and he experienced extreme panic and terror for some time, and one result was that his hair began to grow out white from that one spot on his head.”

    -- Excerpt from a remembrance written for CONELRAD by Michael Mode, baby boomer, who also saw the end of the world on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956

INTRODUCTION: Sunday Night at the Apocalypse

From the vantage point of today’s media-saturated, 24/7, TV-in-every-room, on-demand world, the concept of a must-see, live, prime time television show starring an awkward newspaperman nicknamed “Old Stone Face” is hard to fathom. Throw in the fact that the show was a bona fide institution for over two decades and the premise begins to sound like science fiction. The closest current analog to The Ed Sullivan Show in terms of popularity is FOX’s American Idol, but Idol producers would sell what is left of their souls to get Sullivan’s audience share. The proudly untelegenic host dominated Sunday nights in an era well before TV fractured into 500 channels. But today Ed Sullivan’s significance to broadcasting is practically unknown to Americans born after the baby boom generation.

The primary purpose of this article then is to present the rich history of a remarkable film so that it is no longer shrouded in a haze of uncertain recollection. Another goal we hope to achieve by posting this comprehensive feature is that more people will come forward with their unique memories of seeing A SHORT VISION back in 1956. A sidebar to this article presents the testimony of several baby boomers who remember watching the film on Sullivan. Given The Ed Sullivan Show’s immense viewership, there must be many more people out there.

It is easy to see how even a black and white broadcast version of A SHORT VISION could traumatize a generation of children who were accustomed to the benign animated fare of Eisenhower-era kiddie shows: it depicts a phantom object from the sky decimating all life below with a giant fireball. And to be fair to the baby boomers, the melting faces sequence would probably freak out today’s most sophisticated five-year-old, too.

The Fifties kids were also at a psychological disadvantage because of the way Sullivan soft-pedaled his first parental advisory: “I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated…” As we will quote in full later in this article, the host would strengthen his warning considerably when he ran the film a second time two weeks later.

Full detailed post at A SHORT VISION: Ed Sullivan’s Atomic Show Stopper

If you want to watch it: A Short Vision (1956) | Color copy from BFI National Archive. Note they sketched in a "black triangle bomber".





TIME, June 11, 1956


15% of PRC's power generation comes from hydroelectric.
Approx 50% of that comes from dams in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Nearly all of the nation's hydroelectric water supply originates in the Tibetan Plateau, control of which is an ongoing source of tension with India.



Bomber Command No.617 Squadron - Known as "The Dambusters", for its actions during Operation Chastise against German dams during WWII. Motto: "Aprés moi, le deluge" ("After me, the flood").

The squadron was formed on 21 March 1943 under great secrecy for the specific task of attacking three major dams that contributed water and power to the Ruhr industrial region in Nazi Germany: the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe. The plan was given the codename Operation Chastise and carried out on 17 May 1943.
The squadron had to develop the tactics to deploy Barnes Wallis's "Bouncing bomb", and undertook some of its training over the dams of the Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, as the towers on the dam walls were similar to those to be found on some of the target dams in Germany.




Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II.



The Dambusters Raid (1990) by John Sweetman, reportedly gives the most accurate account.

In the 1955 film The Dam Busters, Wallis was portrayed by Michael Redgrave.



The last living Dam Buster pilot at the time, New Zealander Les Munro (1919–2015), offered his services as a technical adviser in "The Dambusters: 70 Years On" along with historian Dan Snow. "The Dambusters Raid" (2001) is reportedly the most accurate docu.

The Dambusters reformed on April 18, 2018, and was equipped at RAF Marham in June 2018 with the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning, becoming the first squadron to be based in the UK with this advanced vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) type. The unit is composed of both RAF and Royal Navy personnel, and operates from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The No. 617 Squadron was declared 'combat ready' on 10 January 2019.


Effects British attacks on German dams in World War 2

617 Squadron RAF Official Web Site & BATTLE HONOURS

UK Dambusters Website

Operation Chastise (Wiki)

The night of the 16th/17th. May 1943 - "Operation chastisement": The destruction of the Möhne Dam (German history site)


Barnes Wallis - Bouncing Bomb Tests, Dambusters



There is a few hundred Dambuster vids on Youtube.


May 27, 1977: Annapolis graduate and former Navy submarine officer President Jimmy Carter took a day-long spin on the nuclear sub USS Los Angeles (SSN 688). FLOTUS, Rosalynn Carter accompanied.



President Carter wrote about the submarine trip in his White House diary. The entry includes a description of a conversation Carter had with Hyman G. Rickover re: the legendary admiral's thoughts on atomic energy and nuclear weapons.






World’s longest-serving flight attendant dies aged 88


Please take billionaire friends with you...


Ohio billionaire plans to take $20M sub to Titanic site

[Bally002]

Mein Gott
Mein Gott
Mein Gott!!!!

A lot to go through here.  Down the flamin rabbit hole for hours.

Love it,

Kind regards,  Bally)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy National Hamburger Day!

The term "sliders" originated on U.S. Navy ships where burgers are said to be so greasy that they slide down the gullet. Another theory is that the term refers to burgers sliding on grills as ships pitch and roll. Both are true in my experience.

Yes, that sounds good. Two Batburgers, please. With a side of Alfred fries.


https://x.com/FreyjaTarte/status/1795463718089678978


May 28, 1945: FADM Chester Nimitz addressed the crew of HMS King George V to emphasize the vital role of the Royal Navy in winning the war in the Pacific. To further express U.S. appreciation of British efforts, Nimitz gave the crew an American ice cream machine. Well known fact is sailors love ice cream.

At American insistence, the ship [HMS Victorious] underwent significant changes for Pacific service. She immediately entered drydock upon her arrival in the United States, remaining there until 31 January 1943. Dockyard workers performed an extensive and apparently badly-needed overhaul, and made a number of changes to the ship. Her flight deck was extended by ten feet at the aft end and new American search radars (air and surface), communications gear, homing systems and cypher equipment were installed. She received additional 20mm anti-aircraft guns, expanded mess space and fire-suppression systems in her crew areas.

After a great deal of discussion and bureaucratic wrangling, the Admiralty and the U.S. Navy agreed that Victorious would retain her British air crews, but they would operate American aircraft using American procedures. New arrestor wires were fitted to the flight deck to handle the heavier American planes, and the British deck crew learned American take-off and landing procedures. All of the British crew received American-issued dungarees (for the enlisted men) and khakis (for the officers) to wear while operating in the Pacific.

Together with the American destroyers Pringle, Bache and Converse, Victorious set out from Norfolk on 3 February, conducting flight exercises as she steamed southward. Her official call sign, “Robin,” became the unofficial name applied to her by American and eventually British sailors while she served the U.S. Navy. The Avengers proved just as troublesome in flight as on deck, with two fatal accidents claiming British aircrew.

Victorious barely fit through the Panama Canal, even after her crew removed some of her sponsons and aerials. She exchanged scrapes and gashes with the Gatun Locks, prompting the canal management to present a bill for damages to their facility before she entered the Pacific. Mackintosh scrawled “Lease Lend” across it and handed it back.

Victorious arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4 March, continuing to exercise her air and anti-aircraft crews during the voyage. More Avenger landings proved that the British arrestor system simply could not handle the huge brutes. The carrier went into dockyard hands again at Pearl Harbor to receive new arrestor wires, additional 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft guns, and a coat of U.S. Navy battleship-gray paint outside and fireproof paint inside. Victorious also received a Coca-Cola dispenser and three ice-cream machines. “Ice cream is always available in large quantities,” Mackintosh reported to the Admiralty in a description of American practices, “and is much appreciated and is looked upon as essential.”

South Pacific: USS Robin (Part One)

Chris Sheehy, "USS Robin” - An Account of HMS Victorious’ First Mission to the Pacific:

Ray Barker remembers the time spent at Pearl Harbor as a great adventure. He and others explored the islands of Hawaii, though there was much grumbling about the 6 pm curfew imposed on all military personnel. The people of the island, both military and civilian, were helpful and generous and made sure the crew were well entertained. Barker also recalled the changes made to the ship while at port, including the removal of rugs and carpets and repainting most of the interior with a non inflammable paint. The exterior of the ship was also painted the blue grey favoured by the USN. The final addition to the ship, that he considered truly made Victorious into a USN ship, was the installation of three ice cream machines and a coca-cola machine. The crew adopted the work dress of the USN, a request made by Commander Ross earlier in the voyage. The new dress of denim shirts and pants replaced the RN’s traditional tropical whites.

Jim I. Gallie, RN, (HMS Victorious from Mar. 29, 1941 to Sept. 12, 1945): Manuscript

On a lighter note, the dehydrated potatoes and eggs did not get a vote of approval when they first appeared on the menu. The potatoes were like wallpaper paste and the eggs defied description. An SOS was sent out, and shortly thereafter a destroyer pulled alongside Saratoga, and two senior cooks were transferred, via the destroyer, to us, along with 80 one gallon buckets of ice cream as a consolation prize. The two American cooks stayed on board for two weeks, and by the time they left, we were being served with top quality creamed, mashed potatoes and delicious scrambled eggs. I don.t know what other magic the American cooks worked, but our overall menu was vastly improved, And the supply of ice cream became a regular thing.

It became a joke among us; their order of priority when taking on stores. First was the mail, then the latest films, then Ice Cream, followed by food stocks, and last of all ammunition.

That account by Gallie was still absolutely true when I was in the Navy. Continuing...


And some 50 years later I arrived at Ford Island.

The Ship that never was: USS ROBIN (excellent lengthy article)


In 1903, Elizabeth Magie created The Landlord’s Game and patented in 1904.

It was meant to teach people about the dangers of wealth concentration.


Magie held her 1923 patent (refiled due to expiration) until 1935, when she sold it to Parker Brothers for $500. In 1933, unemployed salesman Charles Darrow made his own version called Monopoly. Magie then did two interviews showcasing copies of the original board, with The Washington Post and The Evening Star, to show that Darrow was not the inventor of the game.

He sold it to Parker Brothers and became a millionaire. Surviving copies of The Landlord's Game manufactured by Parker Brothers are considered by many the rarest of all 20th century board games.


"All names and places are fictitious for obvious reasons." Frank Sutton is an obscene caller on "The Phoner" episode (S1:E3) of DECOY (TV Series 1957–1958) starring Beverly Garland (1926-2008) in 1957. Available on Amazon Prime.


The first cop show with a female protagonist. Beverly Garland said doing the TV series was a big mistake in her career. 'I had done television. That was an absolute no-no. In those days nobody who was in movies did television. I had to start all over again. I never got that momentum going again.'


I was watching the Michael Douglas Apple TV+ series "Franklin" and my pet theory is that Ben Franklin, through necromancy learned from both French, English, and German occult secret societies had attained extended lifespans and wound up running the Dept of Energy as Ernest Moniz.


Ernest Jeffrey Moniz, (born December 22, 1944) is an American nuclear physicist and from May 2013 to January 2017, he served as the 13th United States secretary of energy in the Obama administration. He was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1973, serving as head of the department of physics from 1991 to 1995. He also founded a NGO called the Energy Futures Initiative, where he has promoted the concept of a "Green Real Deal" as a "practical, science-based" solution to climate change.

In 2018, Moniz was hired by the government of Saudi Arabia to serve as member of the global advisory board of the Neom project, a $500 billion planned megacity. I heard that wet dream is not going so well.

In November 2020, Moniz was named a candidate for energy secretary in the Biden Administration. However, that former governor of Michigan, crazy lady Jennifer Granholm was chosen instead.


Speaking of energy, here's a disturbing story from the Smithsonian of all places...In the 1950’s MIT and the Atomic Energy Commission, with the cooperation of the Quaker Oats Company, fed radioactive corn flakes to developmentally disabled Massachusetts orphans who thought they were getting free breakfast from a science club — they did this for a decade.


A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Radioactive Oatmeal Go Down


When it comes to self-defense, skunks and spitting cobras have nothing on the bonnacon. If threatened, it fled. While fleeing, it defecated. Violently. According to Pliny the Elder, the excrement voided the animal’s body with such explosive force that it could hit targets more than a football pitch away. Contact with its dung was said to burn like a kind of fire, scorching hunting dogs and anyone not equipped with protective gear. (There is some uncertainty whether the weapon was liquid or gaseous, super-heated or acidic.)


As with many mythical medieval creatures, the bonnacon was a composite: the head of a bull, the mane of a horse, and its horns were “bent inwards upon each other, as to be of no use for the purposes of combat”, writes Pliny.
Medieval Illustrations of Bonnacons


Helga cracks me up....



Long weekend is over, but I feel the need to bang-a-bonk...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 28, 585 BC: A solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales, while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares in the Battle of the Eclipse, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other dates can be calculated. It is also the earliest event of which the precise date is known.




May 28, 1908: Ian Fleming was born. While serving as an officer in the Royal Navy's Naval Intelligence Division, the creator of James Bond traveled to Washington to advise Col. "Wild Bill" Donovan on the development of the U.S. intelligence agency (OSS) that eventually became the CIA.


https://x.com/BBCArchive/status/1795341737310974112


Please don’t use explosives again!


Dead whale beached on the Oregon shore at Manzanita

Good time flashback...






Netherlands’ hard-right coalition chooses former spy chief as PM


Meanwhile...


https://x.com/HowardMortman/status/1795552445793260022






Trust The "Science"


A broadside illustration from 1597 depicting the execution of an alchemist, hanged upon a gallows made from the two tons of iron that he failed to turn into gold: 


The Gilded Gallows of Georg Honauer (1597)


The couple Nick Ercoline & Bobbi Kelly Ercoline on the Woodstock album cover, were still together 54 years later.


His wife passed away last year.
Woman who featured in iconic Woodstock album cover



1969: A Record Of The Year (Audio archive)

1. Richard Nixon
2. The Astronauts On The Moon
3. Senator Edward M. Kennedy
4. Vice President Spiro Agnew
5. The Woodstock Festival
6. Vietnam
7. Joe Namath
8. Prince Charles
9. The Vietnam Moratorium
10. New York Mets

This is a combination of songs from the 40th Anniversary edition of Woodstock bonus features. Its not any single disc from that collection:



0:00 - Woodstock festival setup
3:21 - Volunteers by Jefferson Airplane
6:19 - 3/5th Of A Mile In 10 Seconds by Jefferson Airplane
12:00 - Something's Coming On by Joe Cocker
16:14 - I Live One Day At A Time by Joan Baez
20:32 - Sparks by The Who
25:58 - We're Not Gonna Take It by The Who
35:06 - My Generation by The Who
42:42 - Mama Tried by The Grateful Dead
45:36 - I Put A Spell On You by Creedence Clearwater Revival
49:47 - Mean Town Blues by Johnny Winter
1:00:39 - Evil Ways by Santana
1:04:36 - Teen Angel by Sha Na Na
1:07:57 - Spanish Castle Magic by Jimi Hendrix
1:15:07 - Woodstock festival cleanup

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 29, 1886: pharmacist John Pemberton and Confederate States Army veteran the inventor of Coca-Cola, places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.


Pemberton suffered from a sabre wound sustained in April 1865, during the Battle of Columbus. His efforts to control his chronic pain led to morphine addiction. In an attempt to curb his addiction he began to experiment with various painkillers and toxins. The development of an earlier beverage blending alcohol and cocaine led to the recipe that later was adapted to make Coca-Cola. He sold its rights to the drink shortly before his death in 1888. Just imagine if he didn't get injured in the war; we might not of ever got to drink coke! Drank it like crazy as a kid but haven't had a coke or really any soda in past several years.


White House staff surprised JFK with a party to celebrate his 46th birthday on May 29, 1963. There were gifts, singing, and of course: cake!




Aired May 29, 1964: The plot of tonight’s Twilight Zone, "The Fear" the penultimate episode of the series, involves a giant terrorizing a small town in the mountains that turns out to be...a balloon sent by small aliens to try to terrify humans.




"Vere are da nuclear wessels?"


U.S. Navy Bases are Ejecting Foreign Nationals 2-3 Times a Week

We keep ejecting them and Beijing just sends 6 more.


About as relevant a topic to national security as you'll find. The world has evolved, but we're still operating off a childcare model that predates the Clinton Administration...

Families across the country have been increasingly struggling with the soaring cost of child care and monthslong waitlists after more than 100,000 workers left the industry and more than 16,000 child care centers permanently closed during the pandemic.

The military has offered child care on its bases for several decades after Congress mandated in 1989 that the Defense Department develop its own formal child care system. The Pentagon now has the nation’s largest employer-run child care operation, providing subsidized child care to more than 200,000 children. But like other child care providers, it too has struggled to find enough workers since the pandemic, leaving around 9,000 children on monthslong waitlists for military-run child care centers.

...
She said the struggle to find child care and the frequent moves have prevented her from working in the 14 years since she married her husband, despite being a registered nurse and having a degree in geospatial intelligence.“Child care is so very expensive. We’re here on a military salary, which doesn’t compete with the private sector,” said Robinson. “I see a lot of people struggling with ‘How do I pay for the child care that I need to get a job, but I don’t have a job to pay for the child care?’”

Robinson’s family is currently stationed in the Washington, D.C., region, where the demand is so high that the only children to receive spots at her husband’s base are those of single parents or parents who are both in the military, she said. The privately run day cares in the region average $24,000 a year. As a result, she says, she’s had to put her professional aspirations on hold indefinitely.

America's child care shortage is pushing military families to a breaking point

Florida Man, meet Florida Priest. You two should get along just fine.


Priest Bites Woman After Refusing Her Communion at Mass

C'mon gimme that cookie! What's in the water down there???

Seriously, what in hell is in the water down there??....

Challenger Astronauts have allegedly been found to be alive...


https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1795913954591731992


All the world is a stage.




Problem-Reaction-Solution...not to worry hipster Starbuckies, the robots are being outfitted right now.


NY Post


Abandon, lost & unloved...


What most don’t realize is one of the leading companies that made these speakers DITMCO (Drive-In Theater Manufacturing Company) is still around and they manufacturers cable-testers used in some of today’s most advanced systems like airplanes, missiles, and rockets. Drive-In Mfg. Company is a division of Wolf Enterprises, established in 1985 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

DIT-MCO began in 1948 under the name Drive-In Theatre Manufacturing Company


Sen. Roger Wicker: Today, I am releasing a plan. More, more, more...


More Defense Spending

We've spent around $12 trillion since 9/11, what has that gotten us exactly?
The crusade on terrorism [Iraq/Afghanistan] was $8 trillion.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 29, 1944: German U-boat U-549 torpedoed and sank USS Block Island (CVE-21) near the Canary Islands. Six crewmen were killed in the attack; the remaining 951 were picked up by the escorting destroyers. Block Island (named after Block Island Sound off Rhode Island) was the only U.S. Navy carrier lost in the Atlantic during World War II. The U.S. Navy avenged the loss of Block Island by sinking U-549 later that night by depth charges. 57 dead (all hands lost).


Lt. Roy Swift, the intelligence officer for the CVE 21, had been a newspaper editor in Texas prior to joining the Navy. He wanted to create an information paper that could be given to the crew that went beyond the daily reports. He also wanted to create some kind of document that members of the crew could send home to their families. As a result, CHIPS was born.


Words of the day...


The information landscape is filling up with post-logos, post-human defenders of civilization. The civilization they defend is not yours, it has no living humans. It has only robots and lizards and feral wizards in coyote skins.

Did you know there are 535 obstreperous tinctumutant parasites in the DC swamp. If you ever visit you'll be in a world of dépaysement, mostly bad.

Outside the swamp is an invisible society in the deep desert that oversees the "human domain" with artificial intelligence, affective computing chatbots, predictive algorithms, and 100s of billions of dollars in DoD funding.



Tax dollars. Your money. You are funding the speciation of a new, post-human race: the COGSEC skinwalker.

The Cognitive Security industry is slowly becoming a breakaway civilization, completely divorced from reality. It has its own narratives and culture, little of which overlaps with simple hu-man concerns like ethics or the natural right to cognitive autonomy.

Gestating in the deep-state desert, that liminal wasteland where the entire ecology subsists on DARPA and DoD grants, it has grown into a $30 billion grift based on one simple game... first, define people’s activity online as the product of automated influence operations.


Then, use this as casus bellum to deploy all the techniques in your "disinformation kill chain". Essentially, all-out cognitive warfare against the domestic population.


A subset of COGSEC, is social media analysis, best represented by Graphika, who are directly funded by state organizations such as the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Minerva Initiative, and has received grants from the U.S. Navy and Air Force.


The Pentagon began tracking online "conspiracy theories" about Covid-19 on December 16, 2019, two weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed about the virus outbreak and even just four days after the first patients reported symptoms in Wuhan, China.

The COVID-19 “Infodemic”

Graphika Global Insights: COVID-19 Vaccination Misinformation

"Covid-19" wasn't named until February 11, 2020, and was not officially declared a pandemic until March 11, 2020. As if from the future, Graphika was keeping a close eye on the term "Covid-19", working with the Pentagon to delete accounts and posts on Twitter and Facebook.


The civilization they defend is not yours, it has no living humans. It has only robots and lizards and feral wizards in coyote skins.

Disclaimer: Just a pet conspiracy. Might be true.


Kurt Russell in a lobby card for Disney's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, 1969.




Community notes for the turbulent win...


https://x.com/FaceTheNation/status/1794748977000153310





In late 2022 Neuroenhancement Lab, Inc. renamed/rebranded themselves to NeuroLight.

Neurolight, Inc. is a neuroscience R&D startup engaged in developing new technologies in the field of neuromodulation and neuroenhancement. The proprietary technology being developed by Neurolight is based on the idea that mental states can be “transplanted” by replicating neural correlates of these states from one person to another. This technology is the subject of several pending patent applications.



Meh, I'll pass.




FLYNN, the movie...


https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1795982152103764451


I'll leave you with Seasick Steve on Route 66...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Whoa! Lots of theater today. What are we being distracted from this time?





May 30, 1381: The English Peasants’ Revolt began (also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising). It grew out of a gradual build up of socio-economic tensions, consequences of the Black Death in the 1340s, but the final trigger was the attempt to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood. The revolt then spread across the south-east region and lasted till November which resulted in:

Sacking of Tower of London and mass execution of royal officials
Charters granted to rebel towns
Eventual suppression of revolt and execution of rebel leaders.




May 30, 1431: Joan of Arc (aged 19), was burned at the stake in Rouen, France, for heresy by an English-dominated French tribunal. She became a French folk hero and martyr. The Roman Catholic Church remembers this day as the celebration of Saint Joan of Arc. 500 years later, that burning event led to a well-imagined collaborationist propaganda poster, following the bombing raid of Rouen by the Royal Air Force in April 1944.




May 30, 1631: Gazette de France, the first French weekly magazine, was published for the first time. It was founded by Théophraste Renaudot (French physician, philanthropist, journalist) and the paper became the mouthpiece of a royalist faction known as the Legitimists. It ceased publication in 1915.




Circa 1969: TRUMP CINEMA in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.   

Part of Fred Trump's "Trump Village", was a small 25-seat theater which closed in 1977, due the nature if its XXX programming. When the theater first opened it showed movies for kids to mainstream Hollywood releases. These type of XXX theaters were a dime a dozen in the NYC boroughs of the early-mid 70s era.


The Trump Cinema was opened in late 1968 with Zeiss Ikon 16mm projectors as a prototype for its owner, Automated Theatres of America. They, like Jerry Lewis, sold "turn key" theatre packages. The main difference between them and Jerry Lewis theatres is that ATA franchises were all equipped with Zeiss Ikon 16mm projectors and NOT 35mm. Trump theater began screening 16mm prints until it was eventually equipped for 35mm. By mid 70's, the tiny theater was unable to make a profit so they switched to adult only theater.

The location was replaced with a Radio Shack up until January 2016. The building was demolished with the remainder of the shopping center in late-2016-early-2017.


May 30, 1977: Roy Neary and several other people from Muncie, Indiana witness UFOs flying in the sky. Reported in the newspaper the next day.




May 30, 1989: The Rise and Fall of the Goddess of Democracy. The 33-foot high "Goddess of Democracy" statue was unveiled in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China by student demonstrators. Constructed out of foam and papier-mache, it was destroyed and smashed to bits on June 4, 1989, by Chinese soldiers clearing protesters from Tiananmen Square.




Flag flew for 60 years in Civic Center Plaza... until the New York Times story on Alito.


San Francisco quietly removes 'Appeal to Heaven' flag

The memory hole has been working overtime during this Administration. “A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” - GK Chesterton

San Francisco is hopelessly dead and without a moral compass. Comply, or risk being ostracized. They throw history away to comply with a radical dogma. They have to rewrite history, to custom fit the narrative.

I think the fact that it flew above San Francisco city hall until a few days ago contradicts the description of it as "controversial".


San Fran Chronicle

"Appeal To Heaven" Flag Timeline:

1775: Controversial (if British)

1800: Not Controversial

1900: Not Controversial

2000: Not Controversial

2023: Not Controversial

2024: Controversial (if Dumb, Brainwashed, going with the current thing)


Movie posters by Bob Peak, born on this day in 1927. Illustration legend Bob Peak changed the face of movie advertising. Dubbed “The Father of Modern Movie Posters” - Peak art.


20 covers for Time magazine
39 covers for TV Guide
1984 Olympic stamps and  “Olympic Golden Moments” book
Over a hundred movie posters
Fashion magazine articles and advertising art Cosmopolitan, Life, Redbook, Boys Life, Vouge.

He was the father of Matthew Peak, who is best known for illustrating posters for the Nightmare on Elm Street film series.

He also designed several Ferrari one of a kind prototypes.
This 1961 Ferrari 250 GT N.A.R.T. Spider by Fantuzzi sold for $1,017,500.00

[Freija]

I made a movie poster once.



LOL

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Liberal madness, LOL, gotta luv it!


Happy Freija, I mean Friday!




May 31, 1916: the greatest naval battle of WWI begins. British naval forces commanded by Vice Admiral David Beatty confronts a squadron of German ships, 75 miles off the coast of Denmark. The opposing forces opened fire on each other, beginning the Battle of Jutland which involved a total of 100,000 men aboard 250 ships.


It was the largest sea battle of the WWI. Both sides claimed victory. The Royal Navy suffered much higher losses but succeeded in containing the German fleet. Directly after the war Beatty was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet, surpassing his former boss, Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe.


May 31, 1918: Lt. Edouard Victor Michel Izac (Dec 18, 1891 – Jan 18, 1990) was captured by German submarine U-90 after his ship USS President Lincoln was torpedoed. Keeping secret that he spoke German, Izac gathered valuable intel about German sub operations by watching and listening to the crew. After being transferred to POW camps, he attempted several daring escapes including diving headfirst through the window of a moving train. He finally succeeded by disguising himself as a German guard during a mass nighttime escape in which the American prisoners cut the power to the camp and he swam down the River Rhine. He was awarded the Medal of Honor and later served five terms in Congress. At the time of his death in 1990, he was the last living MoH recipient from WWI. When is the movie about his life?


The Hall Of Valor

He received the "Tiffany Cross" version of the medal. Only awarded to sailors and Marines and only 22 ever awarded. Served as Calif congressman in House of Representatives from 1937 to 1947. After leaving office, he moved his family to Gordonsville, Virginia, where he became a farmer and led a simple life raising cattle and growing various fruits & vegetables. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Survived by five children, nineteen grandchildren and twenty-five great-grandchildren.

The Tiffany Cross (designed by Tiffany & Company) later became unpopular, possibly because it closely resembled the German Iron Cross. In 1942, the Navy returned to using only the original 1862 inverted 5-point star design, and ceased issuing the award for non-combat action. During the Tiffany Cross's active status, the next lower naval award was the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, followed by the Navy Cross. By congressional action on August 7, 1942, in the same act that terminated the Tiffany Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Navy Cross swapped places, with the Navy Cross also becoming solely a combat award.

Book: Prisoner of the U-90 by Lt. Edouard Izac (1919)


May 31, 1988: in Red Square, a famous Football shot by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Joe Marquette (1937-2016).




Hmm, logo looks familiar...

Keir Starmer unveils logo of Great British Energy

Retweeting the logo will help keep the lights on. LOL.


Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia) has officially left the Democratic party and registered as an Independent.




Phase 0: The Total Destruction of Hamas.




One of these things is not like the other... Banana republic & one jester. In other news apparently the fund raising tactic worked!



"It doesn't matter what rights you have under the Constitution of the United States, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn't matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials' power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences.

In other words, the Constitution cannot protect you, if you don't protect the Constitution with your votes against anyone who violates it. Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.

As long as millions of Americans vote on the basis of who gives them free stuff, look for their freedom — and all our freedom — to be eroded away, bit by bit. Our children and grandchildren may yet come to see the Constitution as just some quaint words from the past that people once took seriously."
— Thomas Sowell

"In order to achieve their end, collectivists must create power—power over men wielded by other men—of a magnitude never before known, and that their success will depend on the extent to which they achieve such power." — Friedrich Hayek


Former Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Robert Burke Arrested by Feds on Bribery Charges.

A retired Vice Chief of Naval Operations was arrested Friday on charges of bribery stemming from an alleged government contract scheme between 2020 and 2022.

Robert Burke, a retired four-star admiral, allegedly worked with two CEOs to arrange a contract with their company to provide training for the Navy in exchange for a position with the company.

Burke is charged with bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, performing acts to affect a personal financial interest and concealing material facts. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, according to the DoJ.

Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger, the co-CEOs of the company, which was not named in the Department of Justice release, were also arrested.

Allegedly, Kim and Messenger secured a government contract to provide training for a group in the Navy from 2018 to 2019, when the Navy ended the contract and ordered Burke to no longer contact the two CEOs.

Instead, the three met in 2021 to set up a situation in which Burke would use his influence as a Navy admiral to get the company a contract with the Navy, the release alleges.

“They allegedly further agreed that Burke would use his official position to influence other Navy officers to award another contract to Company A to train a large portion of the Navy with a value Kim allegedly estimated to be ‘triple digit millions,’” reads the release.

Retired 4-star admiral busted

Words for the utepils Weekend...




Buckle up your seatbelt and grab a tinfoil hat...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 1, 1494: the Exchequer Rolls of James IV of Scotland record the granting of malt to Friar John Cor in order to make "aqua vitae" in what is considered the first recorded mention of whisky – or at least distilling – in Scottish history in Lindores Abbey, Fife, Scotland.



The Lindores Abbey distillery re-opened in 2017 and began distilling scotch whisky by December of that year. It is owned & operated by the McKenzie Smith family.

Drew McKenzie Smith spent most of his life cooking for the rich and famous, unaware of his ancestral home’s connections to early Scottish distillers. He tells Gavin Smith about the day he decided to leave the kitchen and build a distillery at Lindores Abbey.

‘My great-grandfather had bought the Lindores Abbey farm in 1913 and my grandfather gifted it to my mum when she got married. It’s a huge thing for me to think that through the distillery we can keep the abbey in the family for another 100 years and, perhaps more importantly, preserve the abbey ruins for future generations of whisky lovers, enabling them to make their own pilgrimage to the spiritual home of Scotch whisky.

‘I first got the idea for the distillery around 20 years ago, when Helen and I were running Myres Castle, an exclusive-use property in Fife. After finishing a busy evening service, I sat down at the computer (I don’t think laptops even existed then) and I was looking at a website called Connoisseur Scotland, which was dedicated to the finer things in Scottish life, one of them naturally being whisky. I was just scrolling through when the words ‘Lindores Abbey’ sprang out at me, it was the first I had heard of Friar John Cor and the Exchequer Rolls of 1494.

June 1, 1914: Dry times begin. General Order 99 was issued. It stated that all alcohol on U.S. Navy vessels and bases would be prohibited after July 1. The fleet rushed to consume the stores of booze before the deadline. The Navy has since remained dry - with exceptions.




June 1, 1939: The Royal Navy submarine, HMS Thetis, built in Birkenhead, sank during sea trials in Liverpool Bay, after a carbon monoxide leak. It was carrying 103 men, twice the number it was designed to hold. A total of 99 crew were killed.



She was salvaged, repaired and recommissioned as HMS Thunderbolt serving in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres until she was lost with all hands on 14 March 1943. This makes Thetis one of the few military vessels that have been lost twice with her crew in their service history, like the H. L. Hunley.

HMS Thetis sinks... British submarine


June 1, 1944: supercomputer Colossus Mark II goes online at Bletchley Park, just in time for the Normandy landings on D-Day.



A Colossus Mark 2 computer being operated by Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens). The slanted control panel on the left was used to set the "pin" (or "cam") patterns of the Lorenz cipher. The "bedstead" paper tape transport is on the right.

Ten Colossi were in use by the end of the war and an eleventh was being commissioned. Bletchley Park's use of these machines allowed the Allies to obtain a vast amount of high-level military intelligence from intercepted radiotelegraphy messages between the German High Command and their army commands throughout occupied Europe. The existence of the Colossus machines was kept secret until the mid-1970s.

In January 2024, new photos were released by GCHQ that showed re-engineered Colossus in a very different environment from the Bletchley Park buildings, presumably at GCHQ Cheltenham.

There was a fictional computer named Colossus in the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project which was based on the 1966 novel Colossus by D. F. Jones. We are told this was just a coincidence as it pre-dates the public release of information about Colossus, or even its name.



Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon (1999) also contains a fictional treatment of the historical role played by Turing and Bletchley Park.

BONUS: the word "metaverse" was coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson in his dystopian novel "Snow Crash", that referred to a persistent virtual world, accessible via special goggles, where people could meet, flirt, play games, buy and sell things, and much more besides.



Book Review: The Girl from Station X: My Mother’s Unknown Life


The Secret Mulberries of D-Day




This factory worker called Norma Jean Baker would soon change her name to...


Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926.
Her films grossed ~$200 million (equivalent to $2 billion) by the time of her death in 1962.


June 1, 1949: NY TV debut on WPIX, The Ghost Camera (1933). 15 year old Ida Lupino's last film before her Hollywood debut, released in the UK in 1933, had its first US theatrical exposure concurrent with its arrival on television.




"I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear."

— Sen. Margaret Chase Smith's "Declaration of Conscience" June 1, 1950.



A Republican, she was among the first to criticize the tactics of Joseph McCarthy in her 1950 speech, "Declaration of Conscience". Smith was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1964 election; she was the first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party's convention. Upon leaving office, she was the longest-serving female senator in history, a distinction that was not surpassed until January 4, 2011, when Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland exceeded her record. Smith was ranked as the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate, a distinction that was not surpassed until January 3, 2021, when Susan Collins, who holds the same Senate seat she previously held, was sworn in for a fifth term.

The Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application or NERVA was a nuclear thermal rocket engine development program that ran for roughly two decades. Its principal objective was to "establish a technology base for nuclear rocket engine systems to be utilized in the design and development of propulsion systems for space mission application."

NERVA was on the edge of being ready to fly when it was cancelled. The most capable rocket engines ever built and one of the biggest ironies in space tech history. They cancelled it because they were anti space and anti NASA not anti-nuclear. Congress defunded the program in 1968 and LBJ needed more $$$ for the Vietnam War.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and was managed by the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) considered NERVA a highly successful program in that it met or exceeded its program goals. Where would we be if this engine program had continued through the 70s.

In late 1968 SNPO deemed that the latest NERVA engine, the XE, met the requirements for a human mission to Mars. The program had strong political support from Senators Clinton P. Anderson and Margaret Chase Smith but was cancelled by President Richard Nixon in 1973.

At the time of the NERVA NRX/EST test, NASA's plans for NERVA included a visit to Mars by 1978, a permanent lunar base by 1981, and deep space probes to Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer planets. NERVA rockets would be used for nuclear "tugs" designed to take payloads from low Earth orbit (LEO) to higher orbits as a component of the later-named Space Transportation System, resupply several space stations in orbit around the Earth and Moon, and support a permanent lunar base.

An Historical Perspective of the NERVA Nuclear Rocket Engine Technology Program (1991)


June 1, 1999: Jason Bourne was successfully inducted into Treadstone.




On the brighter side of news...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 1, 1982: An alien spaceship arrives and hovers over the Johannesburg, in South Africa.




June 1, 1990: Total Recall is released. In the movie there is a scene where Quaid’s character removes the mask of a woman he was wearing that unfolds in multiple segments which looks a lot like a piece of pottery from ancient Mexico. It is interesting that this movie was filmed in Mexico City.




Oouch, a lot of unhappy sailors. We have less than what’s needed for our do everything, everywhere, all at once Combatant Commander driven "I need a bigger portfolio than the next guy" mentality.


Pentagon chief extends deployment of aircraft carrier, ships in the Red Sea as Houthi attacks go on


May you live in interesting times...Mexico poised to elect its first female president on Sunday, a socialist of Jewish ancestry.


Quietly Jewish scientist poised to win Sunday’s Mexican presidential election

Meanwhile...


Mexico is heading towards its most violent election ever


I guess the negotiating table has been used for cannon fodder, and will continue to be financed by tax payers across the Atlantic while risking nuclear annihilation and/or general misery for all people.

Ah, more misery indeed...

Alexander Stubb, president of Finland.


A Man for All Seasons - The Devil Speech
From Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons," this is Sir Thomas More's speech about the primacy of man's laws over God's laws.










The good ole days...




Nothin like the boomin 50s...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 2, 1953: The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey, London. It was the 1st British coronation to be televised live, with TV cameras allowed inside Westminster Abbey for the first time. It’s viewed as the first major BBC TV live event.



But there was a problem in the Abbey: the carpet...and it poured rain!


Operation Crash Recoveries under Project Moondust (1967-1972):



Many more telegrams & memos between US State Dept to various countries from Mexico to Kathmandu and the question of ownership of the fragments is not clear under the Treaty on Outer Space. No surprise the Smithsonian Institute museum played a big role on finders/keepers regards to diplomatic backchannels (what goes on public display & what remains hidden at Wright Patterson AFB) in this 93 page PDF:

Department of State (DOS) Communications Regarding Recovery of Deorbited Space Debris (Project Moon Dust)

Project Moon Dust was a covert project by the US Air Force during the Cold War that existed at the Air Force Missile Development Center at Holloman Air Force Base.

On something seemingly unrelated - UFO conspiracy theorists often quote names of Air Force programs that they believe have actually obtained extraterrestrial hardware. I am not a UFO conspiracy theorist - however, I have found validity in the project names mentioned at least. The one I am curious about is Blue Fly. I have documentation from the AF Historical Research Agency that states Blue Fly was a part of the Air Force Missile Development Center (Holloman AFB).

Project Blue Fly originated in 1961 as part of the Foreign Technology Division project activities to “exploit” when possible enemy materials. There were three projects, Blue Fly, to exploit Soviet hardware when it comes more or less permanently into US or allied hands, Round Robin, to exploit Soviet hardware when it comes temporarily into US hands (e.g. Russian aircraft landing at international or US airfields) and Moon Dust, to exploit big booster or missile and satellite equipment which fell from the air hence the name applied (e.g. the piece of Soviet equipment which fell into Wisconsin). There were two teams at Holloman ready to deploy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Another input we got was a lot less specific and the dates were earlier, and the author related it to Project Blue Book, the AF UFO investigation.

Air Force Missileers Newsletter (page 18 of Volume 19, Number 4 December 2011)

George Orwell writing in 1943...

Not much has changed. It was published in Orwell’s essay “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War” in 1943.


Have megatons of fun with the...THE NUCLEAR WAR FUN BOOK by Victor Langer and Walter Thomas with illustrations by Brent Richardson. (1982)
128 pages of Fun for the whole family & grandparents too on rainy days!


However, you'll need to setup a Go-Fund-Me account to afford a copy...
Amazon US


R.I.P. Ron Edmonds...


Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photographer Ron Edmonds dies. His images of Reagan shooting are indelible

TIME magazine, Behind the Photos

Ron Edmonds Photography

By the time Magnus Hirschfeld died in exile on May 14, 1935 — his sixty-seventh birthday — the German sexologist had already witnessed his own annihilation at least twice over. Presumed dead after a brutal attack by far-right thugs in early Weimar-era Munich, he got to read his own obituary in the newspaper while convalescing. And years later, shortly after the Nazi takeover of Germany, an exiled Hirschfeld viewed a newsreel of the first major book burning, which showed the SA not only casting decades of his research onto the pyre, but a bust of Hirschfeld himself.

Magnus Hirschfeld was born to a Jewish family in the Prussian spa town of Kolberg in 1868, but the man whose investigation of difference so incensed his countrymen came forth on a later birthday — May 14, 1897 — when Hirschfeld formed the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee at his medical practice in Berlin. Arising out of culturally conservative Wilhelmine Germany, this Committee was the world’s first gay activist group, from which Hirschfeld later emerged as one of history’s most important figures in the study of gender and sexuality.

Full essay: Out on the Town


If they want to play pro ball they should go to a different school. This is  yet another example of how we have lost focus. Who in Congress is pushing this nonsense?


Military Times


If you don't already see where this is going, and going soon...you're not paying attention:


https://x.com/Alfaiomi/status/1797224238232834162

Every port, refinery, nuke/power plant, food plant, and airport in CONUS needs to be hardened. As I been sayin for past few years, I'm just wondering when political opponents start getting whacked by these assassin drones, as we continue to accelerate down the proverbial slippery slope. Of course, the perpetrator will always be "a loner" in the media headlines. The implications are profound and the possibilities limitless.


What could possibly go wrong?

This is the submarine that will take billionaire Larry Connor to the Titanic shipwreck...


Though being up in Space and the forbidden depths of the Mariana Trench, I guess he knows the risks.
Dayton entrepreneur first to reach space, ocean depths in a year

June 2024 Skywatching Tips from NASA

All month – All the planetary action continues to be in the morning sky, with Saturn and Mars rising in the early morning hours. They are joined later in the month by Jupiter.

June 2 – In the hour before sunrise, reddish Mars hangs just beneath the crescent Moon. Find the pair low in the east with Saturn lurking nearby, toward the south.

June 3 – The crescent Moon sits beneath Mars in morning twilight. Look for them low in the eastern sky.

June 6 – New moon

June 21 – Full moon

June 24 – Jupiter is now visible low in the east before sunrise. Look for the bright planet around 10 degrees above the horizon this final week of June, forming a line with Mars and Saturn that stretches toward the south.

June 27 – Look for the Moon rising in the east with Saturn around midnight. By dawn this morning, you'll find them high in the southern sky. They appear super close together – close enough to appear in the same field of view through binoculars.

"Planet Parade" note: Some online sources have shared excitement about a "parade of planets" visible in the morning sky in early June (June 3 in particular). In reality, only two of the six planets supposedly on display (Saturn and Mars) will actually be visible. In early June, Jupiter and Mercury will be at or below the horizon in morning twilight and not visible; Uranus and Neptune are far too faint to see without a telescope, especially as the morning sky brightens. The closest thing to a planet parade will be June 29, when Saturn, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter will line up across the morning sky.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

New week...


(Norma Shearer in A Free Soul, 1931)


June 3, 1965: Gemini IV launched on a mission to study the effects of prolonged spaceflight (4 days!), and perform NASA's first spacewalk. "I feel like a million dollars" —Ed White, the first American to open the hatch of his spacecraft and float out into space.




June 3, 1983: John Badham's "WarGames" premiered. President Ronald Reagan saw it on June 4, 1983 at Camp David. Fred Kaplan has a chapter about it in his 2016 book, "Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War."





June 3, 1996: the Japanese destroyer Yugiri accidentally shot down a U.S. Navy A-6E Intruder with a Phalanx CIWS during a training exercise. The Intruder crew from VA-115 ejected and were recovered. It was the first foreign plane shot down by Japanese forces since 1945. 



I've seen that happen in real life during a CIWS test with a fighter jet towing a drone. The CIWS was put into auto mode, shot the drone to shit and started following the cable line up to the jet. The pilot kicked in the afterburners to Mach 1.5 and got the hell outta dodge. 


The Royal meme taster...




With Fauci plastered all over the headlines it gave me a flashback...


https://x.com/COVIDSelect/status/1730692429051826435


While it may have dropped out of the news, traffic through the Red Sea has not really recovered at all since the beginning of Houthi attacks in December.


IMF PortWatch



This report comes from a group of 20 nutrition "experts" elected by the Dept of Health and Human Services and the US Dept of Agriculture who have been tasked with drafting new national nutrition recommendations about what Americans should eat from 2025-2030.


Daily Nutrition


One would think that Mexico should be one of the most rich and advanced nations on the planet. It is blessed with natural riches from agriculture to oil, a hard working population, superb geography, sustainable demographics, but is cursed by corruption, bad governance, drug cartels, and the violence it begats.


SKY news


BONUS: Re-run of the week:

Donald Trump has promised to release the JFK, 9/11 and Jeffrey Epstein files once he’s elected...



...if that sounds familiar it’s because he did the same thing last time too. I’m sure he means it now. Sigh.


New Week, New Words...




Bad to the bone comin’ outta the grave
Skeletons gonna break the cage
Get the blood in circulation, infuse!
Been kickin’ down the Pearly Gates
Your soul ain’t mine to save
Ain’t never gonna seal our fate
So long overdue

Freedom
You ain’t got no time left to waste
Now we’re kickin’ ass & takin’ names...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 4, 1942: during the Battle of Midway, USS Nautilus attempted to deliver the coup de grâce to the burning Japanese carrier Kaga. Nautilus hit Kaga amidship, but the notoriously unreliable Mark 14 torpedo failed to detonate. Japanese sailors then used the broken torpedo as a life raft. The carrier eventually sunk by dive bombers from the USS Enterprise. The planes for the attack on Pearl Harbor came from the Kaga. Also on this day in '42, pilot LCDR Wade McClusky from USS Enterprise followed a Japanese destroyer to find the enemy carriers near Midway. He then led the attack that sank the Kaga and Akagi. McClusky died in 1976 and is buried in front of the U.S. Naval Institute's HQ at Beach Hall.


Japan has resurrected the "Kaga" name for it's latest helo aircraft carrier. Kaga is currently being upgraded into a fixed-wing carrier, capable of operating VTOL aircraft such as the F-35B.

"Wars are not won by evacuations"

"We shall fight on the beaches"

- PM Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940, on the last day of Dunkirk. Four years and two days later, D-Day. Photo from Gold Beach...




An absolutely chilling account of Omaha Beach 80 years ago...





Short Video about Major Stanley Bach's remarkable firsthand account of his harrowing experience landing on Easy Green Sector of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, during the D-Day invasion. Bach recalls the difficult fight for the beach, the struggle up the cliffs, and the initial fighting inland. This is an eye opening account of one of the most harrowing events of the Battle of Normandy and what took place on Omaha Beach on D Day.

D-Day and the Combat Cameraman

This week marks the 80th Anniversary of the D-Day Operation. Starting on June 6, 1944, about 175,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, supported by 5,000 naval craft and more than 11,500 aircraft. By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed on the Normandy shores. In what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history, the operation, codenamed Overlord, was the beginning of the liberation of Northern Europe from Nazi occupation.

How To Locate D-Day Footage in NARA’s Moving Image Holdings

June 4/5, 1989: You’ve seen the famous Tank Man photo from Tiananmen Square of a brave protector standing up to Communist tanks. Amazingly, the full zoomed-out shot that shows the full scale of what he was standing up to, 18 tanks. Also, tank man did this on June 5th after the massacre had already begun, not before. Hundreds of fellow protesters were already dead. Probably friends, maybe family. I think he knew exactly what that tank might do.



The People's Liberation Army cleared demonstrators from Tiananmen Square June 3-5 in 1989. While condemning the brutal crackdown, critics charged the Bush administration with weakness in refusing to impose punishing sanctions on China. Boston Globe, June 27, 1989:




Tiananmen Square from various phones:




The epic money laundering "Epoch Times" CFO...


CFO of Epoch Times busted for money laundering

Calling your criminal network the "Make Money Online team" is so rich. LOL!
I'm sure there is a $$ connection to the Falun Gong cult in NY.




That 100 days is long over, LOL...



I'm starting to see signs that the proverbial pendulum is starting to swing the other way. Then again, I'm probably fooling myself and summer hasn't even begun.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Geneviève de Galard who passed away last Thursday at the age of 99. Galard was serving as an in-flight nurse for the French Air Force in 1954 when she became stuck at Dien Bien Phu after her plane was destroyed on the ground by Viet Minh forces. She volunteered to work in the field hospital, providing care and comfort to wounded French soldiers throughout the battle. For her efforts, she was awarded the Légion d´honneur. The Naval Institute Press published her autobiography THE ANGEL OF DIEN BIEN PHU in 2010.




Janis Paige has died at the age of 101. Her films include Silk Stockings, Romance on the High Seas, Please Don’t eat the Daisies, and Of Human Bondage. During the war, United States Army Air Forces pilots flying the P-61 Black Widow chose her as their "Black Widow Girl". In appreciation, she posed as a pin-up model, dressed in an appropriate costume.


In April 1947, she was crowned "Miss Damsite" and participated at the ground-breaking ceremony for the McNary Dam, on the Columbia River, alongside Cornelia Morton McNary, Senator Charles McNary's widow, and Oregon Governor Earl Snell.


Team Daily Mail & "NATO" making decisions about sending US troops into the meat grinder?


Daily NATO Mail

Generations of Americans have worked on revisions of this OPLAN during the Cold War. I don't see this happening. Feels like a trial balloon leaked by the European side to pressure Putin and/or signal resolve to defending Ukraine. I dunno but Ya'll know what happens when you corner a bear.

And the Democrats go...




Pay no attention to the hideous vehicle. There's a Fallout Shelter Sign! At East 87th Street in NYC.




From The Late Show with Stephen Colbert...




Bruce Dern is 88!









Quite the interesting soldier poet...


Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War.

Sassoon's bravery was so inspiring that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night raids and bombing patrols, and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander.

Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read:

2nd Lt. Siegfried Lorraine [sic] Sassoon, 3rd (attd. 1st) Bn., R. W. Fus. For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in.

The Sassoon family, known as "Rothschilds of the East" due to the immense wealth they accumulated in banking and opium trade, are a Baghdadi Jewish family.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 5, 1883: The Express d’Orient embarked on its inaugural journey from Paris to Vienna. The train was officially renamed Orient Express in 1891. The glamour and rich history of the Orient Express has frequently lent itself to the plot of many books, films, music, games, and as the subject of TV documentaries.


A one-track life

On December 14, 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate entirely and the route disappeared from European railway timetables, a "victim of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines."


No fan of spiritualism while alive, in death it seems Thomas Carlyle changed his mind. His body had lain in its grave for nearly four decades when, in 1919, his spirit appeared to a certain Dr. Wm. J. Bryan, with the urgent need to author another text.

In 1869, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle horrified legions of spiritualists with a letter, printed in the American Scotsman, that described the new religious movement as a “Liturgy of Dead Sea Apes”. Carlyle enlisted a favorite insult: a fable held that when a wayward tribe, who lived by the Dead Sea, refused to listen to the wisdom of Moses, they were transformed into apes, “gibbering and chattering very genuine nonsense”, as Carlyle narrated in Past and Present (1843). “They sit, with… such an air of supreme tragicality as Apes may; looking out through those blinking smoke-bleared eyes of theirs, into the wonderfulest universal smoky Twilight and undecipherable disordered Dusk of Things”. For Carlyle, the notion that people could converse with the dead, encountering vaporlike spirits as they sat in the darkness, was the latest instance of ape-consciousness, the “truest, tragicalest Humbug conceivable by the mind of man”.

The Discarnates: Thomas Carlyle in the Spirit-World (1920)

The look of love...

Miniatures are a subset of portrait paintings, and within miniatures is yet another, more obscure, subset: paintings of a left eye, or a right eye, amid little else. Dubbed “lovers’ eyes” by a canny antiques dealer, nearly all miniature eye portraits were painted with watercolor on ivory in the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth century. They were set in rings, lockets, brooches, toothpick cases, and the like, and gifted between lovers. Luminous, exquisite, and fragile (a drop of water might wash away the tiny brushstrokes), lovers’ eyes did not mean, as it might seem, “I have my eye on you”, but rather, “You have my heart, and here’s my eye to prove it”.

The Lens of Desire: Eye Miniatures (ca. 1790–1810)

PHOTO OF THE DAY: Giant Aryan German soldier, Jakob Nacken, thought to be the tallest soldier to fight for the German Army in WWII at 7 foot 3 inches. At age 38 he was captured in Calais France, and is seen speaking to a Canadian soldier (1944).


Nacken and his wife emigrated to the United States on the SS Atlantic from Genoa, Italy, arriving in the port of New York City in 1950. He continued doing what he was doing prior to the war as a circus performer and died in 1987. Genesis 6 Giants


D-Day was originally scheduled for June 5, 1944. But on June 4, as a severe storm approached the English Channel, General Eisenhower decided to postpone the invasion for 24 hours. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s original "D-day Statement to Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force.”



"The Great Crusade": Remembering D-Day



Commemorating The 40th Anniversary Of The Normandy Beach Landings - This Reverential 1984 British TV Documentary (1 hr 51 min) was made special because it was understood that it would be the last great reunion of its veterans. Written and presented by Desmond Hamill.

British Pathé D-Day Collection.


June 5, 1967: The "Six Day War" between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan began. Israel emerged with a comprehensive victory and seized the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the West Bank of the Jordan River during the conflict. These territorial adjustments as we all well know remain disputed.


Myths & Facts - The 1967 Six-Day War


June 5, 1968: ABC News coverage of Robert Kennedy’s speech and shooting. The moments when the network begins to learn of the shooting start just after the 23:30 mark in this Video and described by Classic TV historian, It's About TV.


Godfathers of climate chaos, UN death cult chief urges global advertising ban on fossil fuel companies, calling the industry "godfathers of climate chaos" in a major speech. Article is chock full of lies, more lies, and damn lies.

UN Secretary General António Guterres called coal, oil and gas corporations the “godfathers of climate chaos” who had distorted the truth and deceived the public for decades.

Just as tobacco advertising was banned because of the threat to health, the same should now apply to fossil fuels, he said.

His remarks were his most damning condemnation yet of the industries responsible for the bulk of global warming. They came as new studies showed the rate of warming is increasing and that global heat records have continued to tumble.

Last year was the hottest on record and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday that the record could fall again as soon as this year.

A group of around 50 leading scientists separately reported that the rate of global warming caused by humans has continued to increase.

They found that ongoing high emissions of warming gases mean the world is moving closer to breaching the symbolic 1.5C warming mark on a longer-term basis.

“I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies,” he told an audience in New York.

“And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising.”

They need to fall quickly if global targets have a chance of being met, with every fraction of a degree of warming worsening climate impacts.

"Every degree matters; every tenth of a degree matters," says Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary General.

"The difference between 1.5C and say 2C could mean [...] dire consequences, for coastal communities, for fragile ecosystems, and the biodiversity that is contained within them, and for glaciers and the frozen parts of the world."

Ban fossil fuel ads to save climate, says UN chief

Lifelong socialist parasite for the win...He served as president of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. Does the General know that anyone who owns a computer or cell phone is a client of fossil-fuel companies - including the Internet; including the thousand dollar suits he wears? It is anti-civilization to hate oil, the very substance that produced modern civilization, prosperity, health, and flourishing economies. Even the extra CO2 has benefited earth's ecosystems.


25 years of stagnation...


Our World in Data

Did something happen in 2011 to discourage development and China rocketed to the moon?
Yes. Morgan Freeman and Keanu Reeves discuss this issue here back in the '90s. Pretty straightforward as to Mr. Freeman and his backers' beliefs.







Word/Words of the day...

"I must break away

and get out into the mountains

to learn the news."

― John Muir

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Finally got a little bit of rain today. Though beneath the thick canopy in my backyard remains dry.




INVASION!!!


More front pages here.


June 6, 1944: while supporting the Normandy landings, the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Corry (DD-463) sank off of Utah Beach after hitting a mine and being struck by German 210 mm artillery fire. The Corry was the only U.S. Navy warship lost on D-Day.




June 6, 1944: with the invasion of Normandy and due to the variety of aircraft involved, Allied planes were painted with "invasion stripes" to help distinguish friend from foe. For the 50th anniversary in 1994, A-6E Intruders from VA-34 nicknamed "Blue Blasters" were painted with stripes as a tribute. Their radio call sign is "Joker" as tribute to their WWII brothers who were young inexperienced pilots who were called "Jokers".


Escort carriers HMS Tracker, HMS Pursuer, and HMS Emperor conducted anti-sub patrols in the western approaches to prevent U-boats from entering the English Channel during the Normandy landings.


USS Texas (BB-35) was used as a temporary camp to hold German, Italian, and French prisoners captured during D-Day. Several of the POWs suffered from seasickness while aboard the battleship. All the prisoners were transferred to an LST (amphibious Landing ship) that took them to England for interrogation. Texas then resumed bombarding enemy positions in Normandy.




THE D-DAY EDITION: Transocean News Service, a propaganda tool of the Nazi regime, was the first to report that Allied parachutes landed in France on June 6, 1944, breaking the story of Operation Overlord and D-Day. The Associated Press picked it up soon afterwards.


J.D. Salinger – yeah, that J.D. Salinger, was among the first wave of troops to hit the Utah beach on D-Day.


Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and only one whose son also landed that day. Captain Quentin Roosevelt II (Nov 4, 1919 – Dec 21, 1948) in first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach. 5 weeks after landing at Utah Beach, Roosevelt Jr. died of a heart attack in France. Posthumously awarded Medal of Honor on Sept 21, 1944. Quentin was killed in a plane crash in Hong Kong.



R.I.P. WWII Navy vet Robert Persichitti who passed away last week at the age of 102 while traveling to Normandy. Persichitti served as a radioman on USS Eldorado in the Pacific and witnessed the flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. He was going to France with other WWII vets to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day when he died.


USS Eldorado (AGC-11) was a Mount McKinley-class amphibious force command ship, named after a mountain range in Nevada. Honours and awards for WWII, Korea, Vietnam. Decommissioned in November 1972; sold for scrap in 1976.


"Into the Jaws of Death", Robert F. Sargent’s famous D-Day photo, and the press release with his account of the landing. (Written by Thomas Winship, who went on to become editor of The Boston Globe.)


4-page PDF


The Merchant Marines are veterans too...


Supplying Victory: The History of Merchant Marine in World War II


Poem of the day by John Masefield, and a quote from C.S. Lewis:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

"Arizona, noon, on the 7th of June, When they highballed over the pass, Bulldog Mack with a can on back, And a Jaguar haulin’ ass." Truck driver "Rubber Duck" was passed by a hottie in a Jaguar, which led to a run in with a state trooper.






Buried in this Congressional record vol. 103, Part 7, page 8559, Friday June 7, 1957 we read:




June 7–10, 1966 — New York City: US Army Releases B.globigii into NY Subway System. The US Army releases Bacillus globigii into the tunnels of the New York City Subway system during peak travel hours as part of a field experiment on the vulnerability of subway passengers in New York City to covert attack with biological agents.



How the U.S. Government Exposed Thousands of Americans to Lethal Bacteria to Test Biological Warfare (July 13, 2005)

US Army Activity in the US Biological Warfare Programs (24 Feb 1977)

Project 112 (Wiki)

Biological Weapons and Modern Warfare (1991)

The history of biological warfare (2003)


More laws to protect the parasites...

New Jersey Law Will Limit Access to Government Records


D.C. Circuit rules that under FOIA the CIA does not have to release original text of a key Able Archer 83 record that was posted in a State Department history and then deleted from the State Department's website.

CHILDS , Circuit Judge: In 1983, during the Cold War, Leonard H. Perroots, then an Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the United States Air Forces in Europe, allegedly recommended a course of action to his Commander
in response to an elevated alert status demonstrated by the military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (“Soviet Union”), which helped avert a nuclear crisis.

Subsequently, in January 1989, Lieutenant General Perroots wrote an End of Tour Report Addendum (“Perroots Memo”) to detail the “chain of events” from 1983 to help the U.S. Intelligence Community learn lessons “as relates to our [Indications and Warning] capability and exercise planning.” JA250, JA278.

Approximately thirty-two years later, a non-governmental research institute known as The National Security Archive (“Archive”) submitted a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request to the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) seeking disclosure of the Perroots Memo. The CIA produced the Memo’s cover letter but did not provide any further substance of the Perroots Memo’s text. Thereafter, the Archive sued the CIA seeking to compel disclosure of the Perroots Memo under FOIA. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the CIA because the Archive conceded that the response was justified under FOIA Exemptions 1 and 3, 5 U.S.C. §§ 552(b)(1) and (6), and the CIA had not waived its right to claim the exemptions. Nat’l Sec. Archive v. CIA, C/A No. 21-2857, 2022 WL 5062523, at *5 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 2022). The district court denied the Archive’s motion to amend judgment as well. Nat’l Sec. Archive v. CIA, C/A No. 21-2857, 2022 WL 18493099, at *1 (D.D.C. Nov. 16, 2022). The Archive appeals both decisions. Upon de novo review, we affirm.

National Security Archive FOIA Vs CIA (12-page PDF)

The Silver lining is that National Security Archive has preserved the key "Perroots memo" warning of danger of Able Archer 83 and neither CIA nor State can ever put this "historical toothpaste" back in the tube:

U.S. Air Force, Lt. Gen. Leonard H. Perroots, Letter, "End of Tour Report Addendum," January 1989

Some say The Internet is forever but I think that is coming to a close.

More on the memo here:


Able Archer War Scare “Potentially Disastrous”



Manhattan Project symbol of the Los Alamos laboratory, designed by George T. Beyers...

First trade edition (preceded only by a mimeographed version prepared for the press). Signed on the front free endpaper and on the half title by 25 of those involved in the production and destruction of the first atomic bomb.

We have been able to confirm that at the first 19 of these individuals (and likely the other 6 as well) were part of the 'Project Y' team at Los Alamos. Mounted inside the front cover is a 3x3" printed label with the symbol of the Los Alamos Laboratory, designed by George Beyers, head of security at Los Alamos. This is the symbol for "Project Y", code name for the laboratory that designed and fabricated the first atomic bomb. We can locate only one other mention of this symbol on any related artifact or document.

PBA Galleries Specialists in Exceptional Books & Private Libraries at Auction

Apparently it sold at Christie’s Auction for $161,000 in 2014.


Ever wonder the depth of the lagoon for "Gilligan's Island"?


Only 4 feet! It was located at CBS Radford Studios in Studio City. Shooting on the "deserted" isle had to pause whenever traffic on the Ventura Fwy got too loud. "If you watch the opening shot of the titles closely, you’ll notice that as the Minnow leaves port in Hawaii, there are several flags flying at half-mast behind it. That’s because this shot was filmed on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination."
CBS Studio Center Newsletter (2015) Adieu to the Lagoon (4-page PDF)


The Mystery behind why a EA-18G “Growler” Electronic Warfare Aircraft with Electromagnetic Attack Squadron 130 (VAQ-130) also known as the "Zappers" was spotted in May onboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in the Southern Red Sea, with a Helicopter Kill Marking has been solved. A U.S. Navy Official revealed earlier today that during one of the Strike Operations over Yemen, a EA-18G attached to the Eisenhower utilized a AGM-88E Advanced Antiradiation Guided Missile (AARGM) to destroy a Houthi Mi-24/35 “Hind” Attack Helicopter while it was on the ground in Western Yemen.


EA-18G Growler Killed A Houthi Mi-24 Hind


The Diabolical Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency is preppin for another (novel) manufactured crisis...


DARPA is interested in technology and implementation solutions that would enable an industrial base (defense and commercial) to rapidly (in less than 30 days) address unanticipated crisis needs (greater than 10 times baseline production) with minimal impact to day-to-day operations and rapidly (less than 30 days) return to normal operations at the conclusion of a crisis. Examples of potential crisis demands may include a natural disaster, pandemic, or armed conflict.
Industrial Mobilization for Crisis Manufacturing

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Ramfeezled Friday!


Found that word, "sgiúnach" in the Gaelic etymological dictionary (1896/1911)



The Words of the Week - June 7


The Swords in the Rock (Sverd i fjell)


This peace monument was unveiled by Norway's King Olav V in 1983. It commemorates The Battle of Hafrsfjord, a great naval battle fought in Hafrsfjord sometime between 872 and 900 that resulted in the unification of Norway, later known as the Kingdom of Norway. After the battle, the victorious Viking chief Harald Fairhair proclaimed himself the first king of the Norwegians, merging several petty kingdoms under a single monarch for the first time. The swords stand over 30 feet tall and are sculpted to look like traditional viking sabers. The are forever planted into the rock of a small hill (god help us if someone large enough to pull them from the stone should ever come along). The tallest of the three swords is a bit more elaborate, representing the King Harald’s victory and the two smaller swords represent the defeated petty kings.


Ya'll think if the Russians and Ukrainians meet half-way in the Tunnel of Love they'd end the war?


Tunnel of Love in Klevan, Ukraine, a Fairytale Train Track


USS Augusta (LCS 34) and USS Montgomery (LCS 8) are in port Astoria, Oregon providing the public an opportunity to tour a U.S. Navy ship. Praise to the Second Class here for her being in the proper uniform and representing our service. Also, Marines trying to steal the show.





"Musk is a character out of Heinlein. A once in a generation figure who inspires love and loathing, and who will leave an indelible mark on our society and human history."
Starship Launch: Mostly Successful, Including Soft Landings for Both Vehicles

In some instances he's like a modern day Howard Hughes and in other cases like the equal of Delos D. Harriman, in The Man Who Sold The Moon. He is an entrepreneurial businessman who masterminded the first landing on the Moon as a private business venture. His story is part of Heinlein's Future History.


In an alternative universe the film companies made many sequels to this masterwork...


However, if they did to Master and Commander universe what they have done to the Star Wars universe, then perhaps we should be happy to have this jewel to hold up as what it should be.

On March 28, 1979, a handful of Air Force officers and a Mormon civilian employee from Hill Air Force Base arrived in Salt Lake City for an unusual meeting. They were seeking a blessing: For the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' top leaders to endorse a plan to construct 8,500 miles of roads and 4,600 concrete garages for a nuclear weapons system.

The system would constantly shuttle 200 missiles on racetracks, playing a "shell game" intended to keep the Soviet military guessing where America's nuclear warheads really were located at any given moment. The Soviets could, of course, just build more nuclear weapons and take out the entire missile field at once, so American war planners imagined the project—called "Missile, Experimental," or MX—would continuously expand, becoming 8,250 garages and 360 missiles by 1990. And so on.

Utah is home to several Northrop Grumman facilities producing missiles for nuclear warheads.

Of the population that did exist in the basing area, however, roughly 80% was Mormon, according to an account of the MX battle in The Mormon Military Experience, a book recently published by historians Sherman L. Fleek and Robert C. Freeman from West Point and Brigham Young University, respectively.

The generals left the meeting with the church's then-president, Spencer Kimball, and his two top counselors feeling "elated," according to an academic who interviewed one of the officers. They would later be blindsided by the church's opposition, apparently unaware on that March day that Kimball, who had visited Hiroshima for missionary work, was already entertaining dissent.

Kimball had—three years prior to the meeting—published a jeremiad about the state of the nation and the Cold War arms race. His essay, "The False Gods We Worship," was—somewhat awkwardly due to its critical take—featured in an edition of the church's official magazine that was dedicated to patriotism and America's bicentennial.

"When enemies rise up," Kimball wrote at the time, "we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance."

Good long article if interested: No tobacco, nukes ok—Mormon tithes finance nuclear weapons contractors


The not-so-friendly skies...LOL


"The balloon club named for a cartoon about a flying house wondered if it was suddenly at the center of an international action drama."

After dubious shootdowns, NORAD now checks with balloon hobbyist groups


Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0: Electric Boogaloo...

HAVANA -- Four Russian ships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, will arrive in Havana next week, Cuban officials said Thursday, citing “historically friendly relations” between both nations and as tensions escalate over Western military support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Cuba’s foreign ministry said in a news release that the ships will be in Havana between June 12 and June 17, noting that none of them will carry any nuclear weapons and assuring their presence “does not represent a threat to the region.”

The announcement came a day after U.S. officials said that Washington had been tracking Russian warships and aircraft that were expected to arrive in the Caribbean for a military exercise. They said the exercise would be part of a broader Russian response to the U.S. support for Ukraine.

The officials said that the Russian military presence was notable but not concerning. However, it's taking place as Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that Moscow could take “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere in the world in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike inside Russia to protect Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Russian warships will arrive in Havana next week, say Cuban officials citing 'friendly relations'