Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[Bally002]

Hmm.  HMS Beaver.  

Not a toy but it's cuddly.  

Bally out. )

[EndtheMadnessNow]

129 years ago, Common Sense was published...


1,000 pages of Medical Common Sense


April 8, 1990: premiere of TWIN PEAKS.


Timothy Carlson wrote a four page article titled “Welcome to the weird new world of Twin Peaks … where nothing is quite what it seems – and a killer is on the loose.”
TWIN PEAKS BLOG


I was under the impression the EU is an American project, to control Europe. Therefore, it was never about peace, except peaceful protests of course & constant diplomatic infighting. Germany disobeyed the master so the Nord Stream pipeline was taken away as punishment.


https://x.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1909481123337404730

I think the EU leaders want back a modern day Hanseatic League, but the US deep state (+ Brits) strongly disagree on that venture.

The League's long-lived success (13th to 17th century) and unity during a period of political upheaval and fragmentation has led to it being described as the most successful trade alliance in history, while its unique governance structure has been identified as a precursor to the supranational model of the "European Union." The New Hanseatic League and the UN Smart cities habitat. Bringing back Oligarchy, bringing back City States.



Jurassic Park "CRISPR" adventures coming soon... meet Remus & Romulus...


https://x.com/colossal/status/1909247817672957959




The First Dire Wolf Howl in Over 10,000 Years:



The Making of the Colossal Dire Wolves - World's First De-Extinction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5uCuOwK_VE

The Return of the Dire Wolf (TIME magazine)

Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus, and their sister, 2-month-old Khaleesi, into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished. TIME met the males (Khaleesi was not present due to her young age) at a fenced field in a U.S. wildlife facility on March 24, on the condition that their location remain a secret to protect the animals from prying eyes.

The dire wolf isn’t the only animal that Colossal, which was founded in 2021 and currently employs 130 scientists, wants to bring back. Also on their de-extinction wish list is the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Already, in March, the company surprised the science community with the news that it had copied mammoth DNA to create a woolly mouse, a chimeric critter with the long, golden coat and the accelerated fat metabolism of the mammoth.

“We are an evolutionary force at this point,” says Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, speaking of humanity as a whole. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.” The Center for Biological Diversity suggests that 30% of the planet’s genetic diversity will be lost by 2050, and Shapiro and Colossal CEO Ben Lamm insist that genetic engineering is a vital tool to reverse this. Company executives often frame the technology not just as a moral good, but a moral imperative—a way for humans, who have driven so many species to the brink of extinction, to get square with nature. “If we want a future that is both bionumerous and filled with people,” Shapiro says, “we should be giving ourselves the opportunity to see what our big brains can do to reverse some of the bad things that we’ve done to the world already.”

....

Whether the existing dire wolves or others Colossal might produce will be allowed to mate and spawn a next generation of wolves naturally is not yet known. Handlers can monitor the female estrous cycles and separate the animals at key times or employ contraceptive implants that keep the wolves from producing young until it is determined whether they have any abnormalities that could be passed on. The MHA Nation tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) have expressed a desire to have dire wolves live on their lands in North Dakota, a possibility Colossal is studying.

TIME article archived here

Hmmm, changing a Gray Wolf to make it into what you think a Dire Wolf was like doesn't sound like "De-extincting" to me. More like designer wolves or GMO wolfdogs. I think nature has other plans.

Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage

Abstract

Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.

Ecos: La Brea is a game based on peer-reviewed science where you hunt, migrate, and survive in Pleistocene Los Angeles, 25,000 years ago. Supposedly has graphics that depict what Dire wolves looked like and their environment.


Our new Secretary of the Interior is excited about the resurrection...



Colossal Biosciences, the de-extinction company is also working on bringing back the Tasmanian Tiger, Dodo bird and other extinct species. Not so sure this is a good idea. We all know how the movie ended. There is a reason why nature decides it's time for various species to end. Disrupting that process can and probably will lead to catastrophic consequences.

Colossal Biosciences co-founder is a world-renowned Harvard/MIT geneticist, molecular engineer, chemist, Synthetic Biology scientist, and world leading transhumanist on a quest for immortality: George Church.

In 2014, Elon Musk was asked who he believes is poised to make profound changes in the field of genomics, and he said: George Church.

Colossal's evolutionary molecular biologist in ancient DNA is Rhodes Scholar, Beth Shapiro, appointed as the chief science officer in 2024.

Colossal has over 40 PhD's on their Advisory Board. One of them is H. Wyman Howard III, CFR member and former Commander of United States Naval Special Warfare Command; retired U.S. Navy 2-star Admiral with over 32 years in the SEAL Teams. They even have actor Chris Hemsworth and Tom Brady, Seven-time Super Bowl Champion; and George R.R. Martin. And of course they also have a Youth Advisory Board. As you might guess, Colossal Biosciences is connected to the globalist orgs, UN, WEF, Wellcome Trust, Climate Change.


Prof. George Church - The Augmented Human Being (Video)

Genes of interest...

George Church plan for redesigning humans

Church also made a list of genes that could be targeted through genetic manipulation for the purpose of designing a new version of humans.
...

Here are some selections from the so-called Transhumanist Wishlist, drawing upon the philosophical movement of transhumanism that calls for using technology to enhance human physiology and intellect, leading to a transformation of what it means to be human.

The US military, namely Diabolical Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a big interest in some of those genes to create an enhanced super soldier.


More crazy science... CIA Dino assassins coming soon.

The CIA Just Invested in Woolly Mammoth Resurrection Technology

“We can clone all kinds of mammals, so it’s very likely that we could clone a human. Why shouldn’t we be able to do so?" When the interviewer reminded him of a ban on human cloning, George Church said, "And laws can change, by the way."


These dumb polls crack me up...


1200 "people" out of ~258 million people aged 18 and over. Amazon is already working on its hot new gadget, a digital security guard named Panopticon. It tracks your every move and feeds the info into an algorithm which predicts the likelihood you'll commit a crime. Anyone who refuses to turn themselves in loses access to the Deals.


CNN tried to trick viewers into thinking they had a "conservative" economist on, but in reality Stan Veuger is a dummy who is also a Democrat and Biden donor.


All of these think-tank mouth pieces are paid hacks.


No surprise coming from Brown University...


Source: Hamas
News Graveyards: How Dangers to War Reporters Endanger the World

That's not really saying much these days as the requirements to be a "journalist" are about the same as a Wal-mart greeter.


First trailer for Wes Anderson's THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Wes Anderson's material is so oversaturated with pastiche that you watch his films to see what you can see.

The title is a bit on the nose.

Starring Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, & Richard Ayoade.

[BIAD]

...That's not really saying much these days as the requirements to be a "journalist" are about the
same as a Wal-mart greeter....

There still exists some simple trues in the world and Ladies and Gentlemen... the above is one of them.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

I didn’t set out to be the Lumon guy. Posting from here tonight...



“THE CLEAVING OF JAME” is now on display at the Kier Museum of Art.
Sanctioned by Lumon Industries, this once-restricted visagenic relic emerges from the Archive for public veneration.

A solemn depiction of bifurcated sentience, JAME stands both divided and whole—his gaze a fulcrum between compliance and cognition.

Rejoice, O viewer, for the hour approacheth wherein even the uninitiated may behold such unspeakable grandeur.

Attendance is compulsory. Reverence is assumed.




April 9, 1925: A Boston investigation finds widespread drinking and even bootlegging among students at the city high schools. Five youths are arrested, including one who played hooky for 48 days to run his illicit liquor business. That kid has potential! Over 1,000 "filthy" pictures are also seized. Shock & horror! Carbon paper now banned!




April 9, 1941: Uncle Sam's new dreadnought North Carolina (BB-55), the lead ship of the North Carolina class of fast battleships. The mightiest floating fortress of the seas, joins the fleet.

Major battles:

1. Guadalcanal Campaign (August 1942)
   
2. Battle of the Eastern Solomons (August 24-25, 1942)
   
3. Solomon Islands Operations (Late 1942)
   
4. Gilbert Islands Campaign (November 1943)
   
5. Marshall Islands Campaign (January-February 1944)
   
6. Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19-20, 1944)
   
7. Marianas Campaign (June-August 1944)
   
8. Leyte Gulf Operations (October 1944)
   
9. Iwo Jima and Okinawa Campaigns (February-April 1945)
   

The ship earned 15 battle stars for its service, one of the highest totals for a U.S. battleship in the war, reflecting its extensive combat involvement.




UK #1 on this day in 1965: Unit 4 + 2 - Concrete And Clay




The Highwayman was a sci-fi tv series that ran on the NBC network in 1987.
Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of shows like Knight Rider and Airwolf, it featured a crime-fighting semi truck in a dystopian future. The "Highwayman," was one of a team of federal marshals empowered to right wrongs "where ordinary laws do not reach" and to haul special cargo. The truck was heavily armed and had a cab that turned into a helicopter for quick escapes. The show only lasted one season.

G. Gordon Liddy has a role in the pilot episode. The Command Center that was shown when Highwayman asks for authorization to go Full Stealth is the same Command Center used as N.O.R.A.D. in the 1983 movie WarGames. Filmed in Arizona with parts in Monument Valley.




Dr. Granville F. Knight's (1904-1982) dream is coming true...


Bill to ban fluoride in Florida advances to Senate


Almost like old cold war times... This kind of covert op would’ve taken a senate hearing to uncover decades ago. Now the coup perpetrators openly post about it on the everything app. Cobra Commander coming for you...


https://x.com/BTnewsroom/status/1909343154371018916


DHS PSA...


DHS to Begin Screening Aliens’ Social Media Activity for Antisemitism


It is things like this that tell me I'm living in a Wes Anderson alternate reality. Make Showers Great Again!


https://x.com/BoLoudon/status/1910065733645787635

EO: MAINTAINING ACCEPTABLE WATER PRESSURE IN SHOWERHEADS

How Congress Throttled Indoor Water Flow

I once paid $85 for a shiny chrome "high pressure" showerhead for my RV. Silly me. Marketing boys got the last laugh.

Next will be mandatory Smart Meters that control the usage.


The Tariff merry-go-round...




Just after the opening bell this morning and before announcing the 90-day tariff pause, Trump said: "This is a great time to buy!!!" Within 3 hours the stock market rose more than 7%, delivering a $3 trillion windfall...best day since October 2008 according to the Wall Street boys.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

It's National Gin and Tonic Day. The gin and tonic became popular after the British Army used the concoction to administer quinine and combat malaria. The Royal Navy created their own tonic to prevent scurvy by adding lime and lemon to gin.




That's a big haul...




Nevada National Security Sites (NNSS) 75 years of Securing America's Future.




Nuke Plants...


Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Santa Fe, New Mexico. Home of The Manhattan Project. Owned by the DOE, privately managed and operated by the (Dark) Triad National Security, LLC; which is made up of three members: Battelle Memorial Institute, The Texas A&M University System and the University of California. Within LANL's 43-square-mile property are approximately 2,000 dumpsites which have contaminated the environment. It also contributed to thousands of dumpsites at 108 locations in 29 US states.


Well, would ya look at that...


Israel, Turkey look to create deconfliction mechanism in Syria, sources tell ‘Post’

Since December, Erdogan’s government has been negotiating a defense pact with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Al Qaeda-dominated faction now ruling Damascus. The deal would formalize Turkey as the protector of Syria’s new Takfiri regime, providing air cover and military support.

et, Turkey’s ambitions go beyond mere patronage. Ankara has sought control of the strategic T4 airbase in central Syria, a move that would solidify its military foothold and potentially threaten Israel’s aerial superiority in the region.

But Israel, unwilling to tolerate a Turkish expansion with advanced air defenses, obliterated T4 in a devastating strike. This was more than a tactical hit; it was a message. Zionist Israel will not allow Erdogan to turn Syria into a forward-operating base for neo-Ottoman expansion.

Erdogan’s Double Game: Islamist Imperialism Masked as Mediation

Turkey’s president has long played a duplicitous role in the Middle East. He condemns Israel while maintaining covert trade ties. He buys Russian weapons while remaining in NATO.

He poses as a mediator while bankrolling extremist proxies. His vision is clear: a revived Ottoman sphere of influence, stretching from Syria to Libya, the Mediterranean to Central Asia.

But Erdogan’s ambitions have alarmed a growing coalition of regional players. Egypt, the UAE, Greece, France, and Israel—though ideologically disparate—now see Turkey as a common threat.

Egypt and the UAE view Erdogan as the chief patron of the Muslim Brotherhood, an existential danger to their regimes. Greece and France are pushing back against Turkish territorial claims in the Mediterranean.

Israel refuses to tolerate a Turkish-dominated Syria, especially one controlled by Takfiris who could slaughter the Druze and Kurdish communities, akin to what they did to the Alawites.

Israel’s Endgame: Balkanization vs. Neo-Ottoman Domination

While Turkey and Israel cooperated in ousting Assad, their visions for Syria’s future clash irreconcilably. Erdogan seeks a puppet regime in Damascus, extending his Islamic Brotherhood model across the region.

Israel, meanwhile, prefers a fragmented Syria—weak, divided, and incapable of posing a unified threat. The south, with its Druze and Kurdish populations, is a key Israeli interest.

Federalization or outright Balkanization would ensure that no strong central government emerges to challenge Israel’s security.

The Jihadist Regime’s Hollow Bluster

In Damascus, the HTS-led government’s response to Israeli strikes has been laughable: empty condemnations. Meanwhile, Julani’s supporters call for “jihad.”

But let’s be honest: A so-called "revolution" that invaded and obliterated its own country’s air defenses now claims it’s waging "jihad" against Israel? How exactly do you plan to pull that off?

Will the "jihad" be fought with loud Takbeers against the F-16s and F-35s?

On the other hand, a regime that owes its existence to foreign intervention—and which watched helplessly as its air defenses were annihilated—has no real means of resistance.

Conclusion: A New Middle Eastern Cold War

The fall of Assad did not bring stability—it opened a new front in the struggle for regional dominance.

Erdogan’s Turkey, emboldened by its role in Syria’s destruction, now seeks to reshape the Middle East in its neo-Ottoman-imperial image.

But Israel has a different vision for Syria and an appetite for conquering more lands for the Greater Israel project.

The coming years will determine whether Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dreams are realized or crushed under the weight of his overreach.

One thing is certain: Syria, already broken, remains the battleground where this conflict will be decided.

THE END.

Divide and conquer. The same for thousands of years.




https://x.com/Glenn_Diesen/status/1910032502489850309

They have no self-preservation. She & other EU leaders are trying to mimic Trump, which will backfire on them.
"Each generation must learn to fear war."


Eric Hoffer's The True Believer, which sadly, explains a great deal of things today.

"People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both."


Mass movements demand a total surrender of a distinct self is a prerequisite for the attainment of both unity and self-sacrifice; and there is probably no more direct way of realizing this surrender than by inculcating and extolling the habit of blind obedience. One identifies the most as “a member of a certain tribe or family," whether religious, political, revolutionary, or nationalist. Every important part of the true believer's persona and life must ultimately come from their identification with the larger community; even when alone, the true believer must never feel isolated and unwatched. Hoffer identifies this communal sensibility as the reappearance of a "primitive state of being" common among pre-modern cultures. Mass movements also use play-acting and spectacle designed to make the individual feel overwhelmed and awed by their membership in the tribe, as with the massive ceremonial parades and speeches of the Nazis.

First published in 1951, it depicts a variety of arguments in terms of applied world history and social psychology to explain why mass movements arise to challenge the status quo. Hoffer identifies three main personality types as the leaders of mass movements, "men of words", "fanatics", and "practical men of action". No person falls exclusively into one category, and their predominant quality may shift over time. Hoffer discusses the sense of individual identity and the holding to particular ideals that can lead to extremism and fanaticism among both leaders and followers.


Mid-week words...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

April 10, 837: It’s been established that Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to Earth on this day at a distance of 3.07 million miles. This cosmic event stands out as the nearest known passage of the comet to our planet, with historical records from astronomers in China, Japan, Germany, the Byzantine Empire, and the Middle East noting its striking appearance, including a tail that may have spanned 60 degrees across the sky. For comparison, during its most recent visit in 1986, the closest approach occurred on April 11, at a much greater distance of 39 million miles, making the 837 AD encounter significantly more dramatic. It will return in 2061 on its regular 76-year journey around the Sun.




April 10, 1790: The Patent Act of 1790 was signed into law by Pres George Washington. A Patent Board was created, headed by the Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. Their decision on patents could not be appealed. The first U.S. patent X000001 is issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for an improved potash process.


Unlike today, patents were not given a unique number. Instead, they were filed based on the date granted. Under the Patent Act of 1836 new patents were numbered, starting with one. All of the patents granted before 1836 were assigned an "X" and a number based on the order they had been granted. The second patent was for a method to manufacture candles issued to Joseph Stacey Sampson on August 6, 1790. Little else is known about it because a fire destroyed the record. The Patent Act of 1790 required each patent “to bear teste by the President of the United States.” Congress expected Washington to sign every patent for it to become official. There were more than 150 patents granted throughout Washington's presidency.

10 Facts about 18th-Century Patents


April 10, 1925: August Marhold, 67, kills himself by gas in Brooklyn, leaving behind a note: "I am tired of living, sick and can't get a decent drink. I am unable to get good beer—only poison." Prohibition times were rough. RIP old sport.




April 10, 1925: The Great Gatsby by American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published in New York City. It’s set in the Jazz Age of the 1920s and follows the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his obsessive love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan (Ginevra King). Narrated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's neighbor, the story unfolds on Long Island, where wealth, glamour, and excess mask deeper themes of longing, disillusionment, and the American Dream. Gatsby's lavish parties and relentless pursuit of Daisy, who is married to the brutish Tom Buchanan, lead to a tragic unraveling of secrets, infidelity, and betrayal. A 20th century classic—even if it wasn’t recognized as one in its own time.


Celestial Eyes, Cugat's most famous work depicts a female face of a flapper with poorly delineated contours, of which are seen only the eyes and mouth, suspended above the night sky of a city, evoking the Coney Island amusement park in New York. Inside the irises there are female nude figures and a green tint in correspondence of the right eye resembling a tear. The iconic motif of the cover is given by its abstractness, which gives it a mysterious charm, and that is why it has met with many strongly conflicting opinions.

Alfred Cheney Johnston (April 8, 1885 – April 17, 1971) was a New York City-based photographer known for his portraits of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls as well as of actors and actresses from the worlds of stage and film.


20 year old American socialite and heiress Ginevra King (Nov 30, 1898 – Dec 13, 1980) pictured on the July 1918 cover of Town & Country magazine. In January 1915, a 16-year-old King met future novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Love-struck at first sight, Fitzgerald courted King for several years. He visited her father's estate several times, and Ginevra wrote in her diary that she was "madly in love with him." However, Ginevra's upper-class family openly discouraged Fitzgerald's courtship of their daughter because of his lower-class status, and her father purportedly told him that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls". Rejected by Ginevra's family as a suitor because of his lack of financial prospects, a suicidal Fitzgerald enlisted in the United States Army amid World War I. 

Ginevra King later served as the inspiration for the character of Daisy Buchanan in Fitzgerald's literary masterwork The Great Gatsby.The original caption for this photo in Town & Country reads: MISS GINEVRA KING. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Garfield King, of Chicago and Lake Forest. She is a Westover girl and would have been a debutante last winter, but the war took her father abroad and she decided to devote all her time to war work. She is a Junior League player and drives in the motor corps. The Kings will spend two months at Rye Beach.

A Daisy of a House - Ginevra King, the model for The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan, spent her youth in this Lake Forest house that is now for sale. (2007)

Thanks to the sale of film rights, Fitzgerald does at least realize financial gain—although he hates the 1926 movie version. (It’s now a lost film; subsequent versions were made in 1974 and 2013.) He dies in 1940 believing that his favorite book was unappreciated.


Only in the '40s do critics begin to recognize the genius of "Gatsby." It has since beome part of the American canon, with its many striking passages: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy"... "That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" ... "The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg" ... "Her voice is full of money"... "They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man" ... "the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock" ... and, at the end: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."



Happy National Siblings Day! This 1954 family portrait is from a rare occasion when all four sister Iowa-class battleships were together. From front to back: USS Iowa (BB-61), USS Wisconsin (BB-64), USS Missouri (BB-63) and USS New Jersey (BB-62). All four battleships are now museums.




April 10, 1971: Forrest Gump traveled to China to play Table Tennis as part of US/China ping-pong diplomacy.



Forrest was right. American team visits China:


Ping-Pong Diplomacy: Artifacts from the Historic 1971 U.S. Table Tennis Trip to China

When 15 Americans returned from a table-tennis exhibition tour of China in 1971, during which they competed against the powerhouse Chinese team before massive crowds, the Los Angeles Times wrote that the group did “what the Paris peace talks . . . and the State Department couldn’t do in decades — unthaw one-quarter of the world.”



April 10, 2000: TIME magazine special... IN THE FUTURE, Will We...Live on Mars? In 1989 NASA estimated it would cost $450 billion to put men on Mars.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

April 11, 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte was forced to abdicate as French Emperor and under the Treaty of Fontainebleau was banished to exile on island of Elba. He escaped in 1815 and returned to power for his last "100 Days" which ended in defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.


In 2005, two Americans, former history professor John William Rooney (then aged 74) and Marshall Lawrence Pierce (then aged 44), were charged by a French court for stealing a copy of the Treaty of Fontainebleau from the French National Archives between 1974 and 1988. The theft came to light in 1996, when a curator of the French National Archives discovered that Pierce had put the document up for sale at Sotheby's. Rooney and Pierce pleaded guilty in the United States and were fined ($1,000 for Rooney and $10,000 for Pierce). However, they were not extradited to France to stand trial there. The copy of the treaty and a number of other documents (including letters from King Louis XVIII of France) that were checked out from the French National Archives by Rooney and Pierce were returned to France by the United States in 2002.



On the topic of Brainwashing this is possibly the first person that made a connection to fluoride was a Holocaust denier named W. D. Herrstrom, who claimed in late 1951 that Russians fed it to babies to make them "more amenable to dictatorship when they grow up." Herrstrom was a nutcase even by the lofty standards of the fringe right: he believed the Holocaust was a cover story for mass immigration.



The above is from the Journal of the American Dental Association
Comments on the Opponents of Fluoridation and from the book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993)


Bold or stupid move?


Estonian navy detains Russia-bound oil tanker in Baltic Sea


Anything goes in these crazy days...


Hamas urges UK court to remove terror label, claims it is battling ‘genocide’

Hamas Statement to British Sec of State (11-page PDF)

That war is going to be in the quad digits before it finally ends, or rather pauses for a while. Oct 7th would be legit by pre-modern standards, ie the Mongol invasions, the Roman destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of Helots, the African slave trade, the Spanish conquest of the Americas. And by those rules Israel's actions would be legit too.

Ten thousand years ago there were no rules. What archaeologists found in Kenya...

Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare

Seven thousand years ago there were no rules in Europe.

German mass grave records prehistoric warfare

In pre-Columbian America there were no rules.

Crow Creek massacre
The only natural laws of war are the laws of physics. Everything else is a product of civilization.


Next conquest...


Inside Trump’s Plan to ‘Get’ Greenland: Persuasion, Not Invasion

The True Size of Countries


Meanwhile, SecDef Hegseth says Greenland Commander has got to go...


Space Force commander fired after email the DOD says ‘undermined’ JD Vance



British propaganda is not what it used to be...




The 4.5 hour long meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg is now over. Is there any news on how it went?


Trump envoy's embrace of Russian demands worries Republicans, U.S. allies

Steve Witkoff’s visit to Petersburg today: what do we know?

The number two news item this evening was the visit of Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s personal envoy charged with negotiating a cease-fire in Ukraine.  I call out the order of reporting, because at this level nothing is left to chance. Everything has symbolic value.

Nonetheless, it was reported on state television for perhaps ten minutes, while tidbits of further information about the Witkoff visit appeared on Dzen and various other internet sites.

Let’s for a moment look at the tidbits, because they are also indicative of what is afoot.

We know that following his arrival in Petersburg, Witkoff was met by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russia Foreign Investment Fund with whom he had met a week ago in Washington. Dmitriev is Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy to the talks on ending the Ukraine war and is thus Witkoff’s direct counterpart. The business part of their talks was held in the Grand Hotel Europe, which has been the most distinguished hotel in the city for the past hundred and thirty or more years. It is where Piotr Tchaikowsky spent his first nights in Petersburg when arriving by train from abroad. I can only see in this choice that the Russian hosts wanted to give a personal touch to the visit and to ensure that his time would be concentrated in a very few city blocks in the center.

We also know that Witkoff was accompanied on this trip by his wife and they both, in the company of Dmitriev, did some high level tourism:  they went to the Grand Choral Synagogue and to the St Isaac’s Cathedral.

The logic of visiting the Synagogue was that tomorrow is the first day of Passover, and as a practicing Jew, Witkoff would surely have been interested in seeing the best and largest synagogue from the days of the tsars, when it stood at the center of the Jewish community of the capital. Not in a bad location, by the way: the Grand Choral Synagogue is just a five-minute walk from the Mariinsky Theater from where it recruited its cantors. Moreover, this synagogue was largely renovated with financial assistance from American philanthropists early in the new millennium.  Of course, the only actual Jews Witkoff is likely to have seen there apart from the chief rabbi would be members of the Israeli diplomatic community for whom it is a home away from home.

The visit to St Isaac’s needs no special explanation. It is the most beautiful church in Petersburg and a defining edifice in the city’s skyline.  It also has on its outer facade scars from the shelling of the city by the Hitlerite Germans during the Siege, a useful reminder of who was who that Messrs Merz and Pistorius would rather have us all forget.

I must ask myself whether Witkoff’s bringing his wife is an indication of the growing warmth of relations and good prospects for the war’s coming to an end with a nudge from Donald Trump. Or is it a premonition that this will be her last opportunity to see the sights of Petersburg before the Wall comes down again?

As of 20.00 o’clock tonight Witkoff was in a meeting with Vladimir Putin in downtown Petersburg. The venue is the Presidential Library (full name: Yeltsin Presidential Library), a place that is virtually never used for high level meetings.  Normally, such a meeting would be held outside the city at the glorious Constantine Palace on the Gulf of Finland.  But perhaps because the Witkoff visit is under time pressure in the hope of its being followed immediately by a direct telephone call between Putin and Trump, it was decided to meet downtown, just near the Admiralty buildings where Putin had had his conference with the naval officials.

Russian journalists assume that the talks between Witkoff and Dmitriev, like the ones between Witkoff and Putin, cover many subjects beyond the confines of the Ukraine war.  They mention, for example, the likelihood that they discussed the situation with respect to Iran and its nuclear program. This, of course, is another of Witkoff’s briefs, and it is an area in which the Russians are doing what they can to calm things down, not least of which by arranging the meeting that Witkoff has tomorrow in Oman with his Iranian counterpart.
                        *****

Given the paucity of information released by the parties so far, any prediction of what comes next in the American-Russian rapprochement is highly risky.  But there is reason to think that Washington and Moscow now have agreed on the general contours of a peace settlement.  It was remarked on Russian television that the meeting of the representatives of both sides in Istanbul last week made good progress on normalization of diplomatic relations.  It now appears that there is a tentative understanding on the return to Russia of its six diplomatic properties that were illegally seized in the waning days of the Obama administration and early in the Trump 1.0 administration.  The Russians will now be allowed to visit the properties to ascertain what damage may have been done to them. If this report is true, it is a very good token of good will from the American side.

Gilbert Doctorow, International relations, Russian affairs

TGIF words...



We need a modern day Botany Bay to drop all these swamp creatures from Washington DC, City of London, and Brussels.


3 minutes of pure LOL! Think of it as the Dems vs Trump.

[Bally002]

Bit of Trivia - Botany Bay was initially named 'Stingray Harbour'.  Due to many rays.

Changed names by Sir Joseph Banks.  Botanist. (And spoiled brat) Part of James Cooks crew.

Port Jackson, now Sydney Harbour, was named after a high ranking member of the admiralty, but not explored by, Captain James Cook.  Arthur Phillip, 1st Gov of the colony left Botany Bay, 1788 and found Port Jackson to be the finest deep water Harbour known in the world at the time.  Hence it was settled at Bennelong point (site of the opera house) by Phillip.

Kind regards,

Bally)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

April 12, 1861: the American Civil War began with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. The bombardment ended the next day with the surrender of the fort by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.




Happy Caturday. The Private Life of a Cat (ca. 1945) — Experimental film from Alexander Hammid (and possibly also Maya Deren) exploring the lives of their 2 cats (and then 5 kittens) with which they lived in their Greenwich Village apartment.



Interested or just plain bored? Watch the full silent film here:

The Private Life of a Cat

At 22 minutes long and full of lingering feline close-ups, your snappy cat meme video this is not. While not as overtly experimental as Meshes Of The Afternoon, the film is still fairly innovative for its time — featuring numerous takes from a cat's eye view, and graphic footage of five kittens being born seemingly unaided by the human hand (a scene which was to see the film banned by some cinemas). Indeed, the film is devoid of humans throughout, the wonderful footage cleverly edited to give an impression of a cat-only world, almost verging on anthropomorphism, as though these cats might be living in their Manhattan apartment independent of any owners.

U.S. top 20 for April 12, 1969.

First of six weeks at #1 for "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In."



Ronald Dyson and Company – Aquarius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V2q07GOe28

The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAjkokafomM

And The 5th Dimension hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOQqn1qH4o

Producer Bones Howe explains how the blended version came to be...

"I was aware of the album, and I said 'Well, you know, there have been some other people who have cut this song and it hasn't been a hit...' 'Oh no, the way we'll do it, it'll be a hit. It'll be a hit!' So I said 'Look, I've gotta come to New York so we can record the vocals for the rest of the songs on the Stoned Soul Picnic album. When I'm there, why don't I see the show? Then we can talk about "Aquarius".'

"Beforehand, I listened to the cast album, and I thought 'This isn't a complete song. It's an introduction.' There was so much talk about that show at the time because people were naked on stage, and 'Aquarius' was just part of the opening routine. Well, I went to see the show, and about four-fifths of the way through there was a song called 'The Flesh Failures', which was a typical '60s downer — you know, the world is falling apart, we're all killing each other with poison, and so on. A total environmental downer. But at the end of the song there were three bars just repeating 'Let the sunshine in, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in,' over and over and over again."

James Rado and Gerome Ragni, who were the show's writers alongside music composer Galt MacDermot, were also its star performers. "Rado was running through the audience while Ragni swung from a chandelier," Howe continues, "and they got the whole audience clapping along — 'Let the sunshine in, let the sunshine in...' It was very rousing and went over huge with everyone there, and I turned to my wife Melodie and said 'That's it! That's the other song! We can put the two of them together!'

Wow! On a whole other level.




The Radioactive Boy Scout part 2...


The Guardian

Crazy story that leaves a lot out and I'm sure we are NOT hearing the other side of it.

You may have heard of the "real" Radioactive Boy Scout, but if not this story in Harper's magazine is quite good.



Here's most of the Harper's magazine article from 1998:
(Warning this is long)

There is hardly a boy or a girl alive who is not keenly interested in finding out about things. And that’s exactly what chemistry is: Finding out about things—finding out what things are made of and what changes they undergo. What things? Any thing! Every thing!
—The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

Then in 1996, Jay Gourley, a correspondent with the Natural Resources News Service in Washington, D.C., came across a tiny newspaper item about the case and contacted David Hahn. Gourley later passed on his research to me, and I subsequently interviewed the story’s protagonists, including David—now a twenty-two-year-old sailor stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.

I met with David in the hope of making sense not only of his experiments but of him. The archetypal American suburban boy learns how to hit a fadeaway jump shot, change a car’s oil, perform some minor carpentry feats. If he’s a Boy Scout he masters the art of starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and if he’s a typical adolescent pyro, he transforms tennis-ball cans into cannons. David Hahn taught himself to build a neutron gun. He figured out a way to dupe officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into providing him with crucial information he needed in his attempt to build a breeder reactor, and then he obtained and purified radioactive elements such as radium and thorium.

I had seen childhood photographs of David in which he looked perfectly normal, even angelic, with blond hair and hazel-green eyes, and, as he grew older, gangly limbs and a peach-fuzz mustache. Still, when I went to meet him in Norfolk, I was anticipating some physical manifestation of brilliance or obsession. An Einstein or a Kaczynski. But all I saw was a beefier version of the clean-cut kid in the pictures. David’s manner was oddly dispassionate, though polite, until we began to discuss his nuclear adventures. Then, for five hours, lighting and grinding out cigarettes for emphasis, David enthused about laboring in his backyard laboratory. He told me how he used coffee filters and pickle jars to handle deadly substances such as radium and nitric acid, and he sheepishly divulged the various cover stories and aliases he employed to obtain the radioactive materials. A shy and withdrawn teenager, David had confided in only a few friends about his project and never allowed anyone to witness his experiments. His breeder-reactor project was a means—albeit an unorthodox one—of escaping the trauma of adolescence. “I was very emotional as a kid,” he told me, “and those experiments gave me a way to get away from that. They gave me some respect.”
You—Scientist!
—The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, Chapter 10

Despite the fact that David was shuffled between households, his early years were seemingly ordinary. He played baseball and soccer, joined the Boy Scouts, and spent endless hours exploring with his friends. An abrupt change came at the age of ten, when Kathy’s father, also an engineer for GM, gave David The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. The book promised to open doors to a brave new world—”Chemistry means the difference between poverty and starvation and the abundant life,” it stated with unwavering optimism—and offered instructions on how to set up a home laboratory and conduct experiments ranging from simple evaporation and filtration to making rayon and alcohol. David swiftly became immersed and by age twelve was digesting his father’s college chemistry textbooks without difficulty. When he spent the night at Golf Manor, his mother would often wake to find him asleep on the living room floor surrounded by open volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In his father’s house, David set up a laboratory in his small bedroom, where the shelves are still lined with books such as Prudent Practices for Handling Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories and The Story of Atomic Energy. He bought beakers, Bunsen burners, test tubes, and other items commonly found in a child’s chemistry set. David, though, was not conducting the typical adolescent experiments. By fourteen, an age at which most boys with a penchant for chemistry are conducting rudimentary gunpowder experiments, David had fabricated nitroglycerine.

David’s parents admired his interest in science but were alarmed by the chemical spills and blasts that became a regular event at the Hahn household. After David destroyed his bedroom—the walls were badly pocked, and the carpet was so stained that it had to be ripped out—Ken and Kathy banished his experiments to the basement.

Which was fine with David. Science allowed him to distance himself from his parents, to create and destroy things, to break the rules, and to escape into something he was a success at, while sublimating a teenager’s sense of failure, anger, and embarrassment into some really big explosions. David held a series of after-school jobs at fast-food joints, grocery stores, and furniture warehouses, but work was merely a means of financing his experiments. Never an enthusiastic student and always a horrific speller, David fell behind in school.

During his junior year at Chippewa Valley High School—at a time when he was secretly conducting nuclear experiments in his back yard—David nearly failed state math and reading tests required for graduation (though he aced the test in science). Ken Gherardini, who taught David conceptual physics, remembers him as an excellent pupil on the rare occasions when he was interested in classwork but otherwise indifferent to his studies. “His dream in life was to collect a sample of every element on the periodic table,” Gherardini told me with a laugh during an interview at Chippewa Valley before his 8:20 A.M. class. “I don’t know about you, but my dream at that age was to buy a car.”

Not even his scout troop was spared David’s scientific enthusiasm. He once appeared at a scout meeting with a bright orange face caused by an overdose of canthaxanthin, which he was taking to test methods of artificial tanning. One summer at scout camp, David’s fellow campers blew a hole in the communal tent when they accidentally ignited the stockpile of powdered magnesium he had brought to make fireworks. Another year, David was expelled from camp when—while most of his friends were sneaking into the nearby Girl Scouts’ camp—he stole a number of smoke detectors to disassemble for parts he required for his experiments. “Our summer vacation was screwed up when we got a call telling us to pick David up early from camp,” his stepmother recalls with a sigh.

Up to this point the most illicit of David’s concoctions were fireworks and moonshine. But convinced that David’s experiments and increasingly erratic behavior were signs that he was making and selling drugs, Ken and Kathy began to spot-check the public library, where David told them he studied. In variably, David would be there as promised, surrounded by a huge pile of chemistry books. But Ken and Kathy were not assuaged, and, worried that he would level their home, they prohibited David from being there alone, locking him out when they were away, even on quick errands, and setting a time for their return so that he could get back in. Kathy began routinely searching David’s room and disposing of any chemicals and equipment she found hidden under the bed and deep within the closet.

David was not deterred. One night as Ken and Kathy were sitting in the living room watching TV, the house was rocked by an explosion in the basement. There they found David lying semiconscious on the floor, his eyebrows smoking. Unaware that red phosphorus is pyrophoric, David had been pounding it with a screwdriver and ignited it. He was rushed to the hospital to have his eyes flushed, but even months later David had to make regular trips to an ophthalmologist to have pieces of the plastic phosphorus container plucked carefully from his eyes.

Kathy then forbade David from experimenting in her home. So he shifted his base of operations to his mother’s potting shed in Golf Manor.Both Patty Hahn and Michael Polasek admired David for the endless hours he spent in his new lab, but neither of them had any idea what he was up to. Sure, they thought it was odd that David often wore a gas mask in the shed and would sometimes discard his clothing after working there until two in the morning, but they chalked it up to their own limited education. Michael says that David tried to explain his experiments but that “what he told me went right over my head.” One thing still sticks out, though. David’s potting-shed project had something to do with creating energy. “He’d say, `One of these days we’re gonna run out of oil.’ He wanted to do something about that.”

The force hidden in the atom will be turned into light and heat and power for everyday uses. Chemists of the future, working with their brother-scientists, the physicists, will find new ways of harnessing and using the atoms of numerous elements—some of them unknown to the scientists of today. Do you want to share in the making of that astonishing and promising future?
—The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

In addition to showing “scout spirit,” Eagle Scouts must earn twenty-one merit badges. Eleven are mandatory, such as First Aid and Citizenship in the Community. The final ten are optional; scouts can choose from dozens of choices ranging from American Business to Woodwork. David elected to earn a merit badge in Atomic Energy.

His scoutmaster, Joe Auito, who lives on a rural road an hour or so north of Detroit and who resembles an aging Deadhead rather than the rock-ribbed conservative I’d expected, says he’s the only boy to have done so in the history of Clinton Township Troop 371. David’s Atomic Energy merit-badge pamphlet was brazenly pro-nuclear, which is no surprise since it was prepared with the help of Westinghouse Electric, the American Nuclear Society, and the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group of utility companies, some of which run nuclear power plants. The pamphlet judiciously states that America is a democracy and “the people decide what the country will do.” The pamphlet goes on to suggest, however, that critics of atomic energy were descended from a long line of naysayers and malcontents, warning that “if America decides for or against nuclear power plants based on fear and misunderstanding, that is wrong. We must first know the truth about atomic energy before we can decide to use it or to stop it.”

David was awarded his Atomic Energy merit badge on May 10, 1991, five months shy of his fifteenth birthday. To earn it he made a drawing showing how nuclear fission occurs, visited a hospital radiology unit to learn about the medical uses of radioisotopes and built a model reactor using a juice can, coat hangers, soda straws, kitchen matches, and rubber bands. By now, though, David had far grander ambitions. As Auito’s wife and troop treasurer, Barbara, recalls: “The typical kid [working on the merit badge] would have gone to a doctor’s office and asked about the X-ray machine. Dave had to go out and try to build a reactor.”

What is a breeder reactor? This simplistic description comes from a publication that David obtained from the Department of Energy (DOE): “Imagine you have a car and begin a long drive. When you start, you have half a tank of gas. When you return home, instead of being nearly empty, your gas tank is full. A breeder reactor is like this magic car. A breeder reactor not only generates electricity, but it also produces new fuel.”

All reactors, conventional and breeder, rely on a critical pile of a naturally radioactive element—typically uranium-235 or plutonium-239—as the “fuel” for a sustained chain of reactions known as fission. Fission occurs when a neutron combines with the nucleus of a radioisotope, say uranium-235, transforming it into uranium-236. This new isotope is highly unstable and immediately splits in half, forming two smaller nuclei, and releasing a great deal of radiant energy (some of which is heat) and several neutrons. These neutrons are absorbed by other uranium-235 atoms to begin the process again.

A breeder reactor is configured so that a core of plutonium-239 is surrounded by a “blanket” of uranium-238. When the plutonium gives off neutrons, they are absorbed by the uranium-238 to become uranium-239, which in turn decays by emitting beta rays and is transformed into neptunium-239. Following another stage of “radioactive decay,” neptunium becomes plutonium-239, which can replenish the fuel core. The nuclear industry used to tout breeders as the magical solution to the nation’s energy needs. The government had opened up two experimental breeders at a test site in Idaho by 1961.

Amid great fanfare, in 1963 Detroit Edison opened the Enrico Fermi I power plant, the nation’s first and only commercially run breeder reactor. The following decade, Congress appropriated billions of dollars for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor in Tennessee. Hopes ran so high that Glenn Seaborg, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission during the Nixon years, predicted that breeders would be the backbone of an emerging nuclear economy and that plutonium might be “a logical contender to replace gold as the standard of our monetary system.”

....

Unlike his predecessors, however, David did not have vast financial support from the state, no laboratory save for a musty potting shed, no proper instruments or safety devices, and, by far his chief impediment, no legal means of obtaining radioactive materials. To get around this last obstacle, David utilized a number of cover stories and concocted identities, plus a Geiger-counter kit he ordered from a mail-order house in Scottsdale, Arizona, which he assembled and mounted to the dashboard of his burgundy Pontiac 6000.

David hadn’t hit on the idea to try to build a breeder reactor when he began his nuclear experiments at the age of fifteen, but in a step down that path, he was already determined to “irradiate anything” he could. To do that he had to build a “gun” that could bombard isotopes with neutrons.

David wrote to a number of groups listed in his merit-badge pamphlet—the DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the American Nuclear Society, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Atomic Industrial Forum, the nuclear-power industry’s trade group—in hopes of discovering how he might obtain, from both natural and commercial sources, the radioactive raw materials he needed to build his neutron gun and experiment with it. By writing up to twenty letters a day and claiming to be a physics instructor at Chippewa Valley High School, David says he obtained “tons” of information from those and other groups, though some of it was of only marginal value. The American Nuclear Society sent David a teacher’s guide called “Goin’ Fission,” which featured an Albert Einstein cartoon character: “I’m Albert. Und today, ve are gonna go fission. No, ve don’t need any smelly bait and der won’t be any fish to clean. I mean fission, not fishin’.”

Other organizations proved to be far more helpful, and none more than the NRC. Again posing as a physics teacher, David managed to engage the agency’s director of isotope production and distribution, Donald Erb, in a scientific discussion by mail. Erb offered David tips on isolating certain radioactive elements, provided a list of isotopes that can sustain a chain reaction, and imparted a piece of information that would soon prove to be vital to David’s plans: “Nothing produces neutrons … as well as beryllium.” When David asked Erb about the risks posed by such radioactive materials, the NRC official assured “Professor Hahn” that the “real dangers are very slight,” since possession “of any radioactive materials in quantities and forms sufficient to pose any hazard is subject to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (or equivalent) licensing.”

David says the NRC also sent him pricing data and commercial sources for some of the radioactive wares he wanted to purchase, ostensibly for the benefit of his eager students. “The NRC gave me all the information I needed,” he later recalled. “All I had to do was go out and get the materials.”

The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff. . . . But curiously little has been said, at any rate in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely, “How difficult are these things to manufacture?”
—George Orwell, “You and the Atom Bomb,” 1945

Armed with information from his friends in government and industry, David typed up a list of sources for fourteen radioactive isotopes..Americium-241, he learned from the Boy Scout atomic-energy booklet, could be found in smoke detectors; radium-226, in antique luminous dial clocks; uranium-238 and minute quantities of uranium-235, in a black ore called pitchblende; and thorium-232, in Coleman-style gas lanterns.

To obtain americium-241, David contacted smoke-detector companies and claimed that he needed a large number of the devices for a school project. One company agreed to sell him about a hundred broken detectors for a dollar apiece. (He also tried to “collect” detectors while at scout camp.) David wasn’t sure where the americium-241 was located, so he wrote to BRK Electronics in Aurora, Illinois. A customer-service representative named Beth Weber wrote back to say she’d be happy to help out with “your report.” She explained that each detector contains only a tiny amount of americium-241, which is sealed in a gold matrix “to make sure that corrosion does not break it down and release it.” Thanks to Weber’s tip, David extracted the americium components and then welded them together with a blowtorch.

As it decays, americium-241 emits alpha rays composed of protons and neutrons. David put the lump of americium inside a hollow block of lead with a tiny hole pricked in one side so that alpha rays would stream out. In front of the lead block he placed a sheet of aluminum. Aluminum atoms absorb alpha rays and in the process kick out neutrons. Since neutrons have no charge, and thus cannot be measured by a Geiger counter, David had no way of knowing whether the gun was working until he recalled that paraffin throws off protons when hit by neutrons. David aimed the apparatus at some paraffin, and his Geiger counter registered what he assumed was a proton stream. His neutron gun, crude but effective, was ready.

With neutron gun in hand, David was ready to irradiate. He could have concentrated on transforming previously non-radioactive elements, but in a decision that was both indicative of his personality and instrumental to his later attempt to build a breeder reactor, he wanted to use the gun on radioisotopes to increase the chances of making them fissionable. He thought that uranium-235, which is used in atomic weapons, would provide the “biggest reaction.” He scoured hundreds of miles of upper Michigan in his Pontiac looking for “hot rocks” with his Geiger counter, but all he could find was a quarter trunkload of pitchblende on the shores of Lake Huron.

Deciding to pursue a more bureaucratic approach, he wrote to a Czechoslovakian firm that sells uranium to commercial and university buyers, whose name was provided, he told me, by the NRC. Claiming to be a professor buying materials for a nuclear-research laboratory, he obtained a few samples of a black ore—either pitchblende or uranium dioxide, both of which contain small amounts of uranium-235 and uranium-238.

David pulverized the ores with a hammer, thinking that he could then use nitric acid to isolate uranium. Unable to find a commercial source for nitric acid—probably because it is used in the manufacture of explosives and thus is tightly controlled—David made his own by heating saltpeter and sodium bisulfate, then bubbling the gas that was released through a container of water, producing nitric acid. He then mixed the acid with the powdered ore and boiled it, ending up with something that “looked like a dirty milk shake.” Next he poured the “milk shake” through a coffee filter, hoping that the uranium would pass through the filter. But David miscalculated uranium’s solubility, and whatever amount was present was trapped in the filter, making it difficult to purify further.

Frustrated at his inability to isolate sufficient supplies of uranium, David turned his attention to thorium-232, which when bombarded with neutrons produces uranium-233, a man-made fissionable element (and, although he might not have known it then, one that can be substituted for plutonium in breeder reactors). Discovered in 1828 and named after the Norse god Thor, thorium has a very high melting point, and is thus used in the manufacture of airplane engine parts that reach extremely high temperatures. David knew from his merit-badge pamphlet that the “mantle” used in commercial gas lanterns—the part that looks like a doll’s stocking and conducts the flame—is coated with a compound containing thorium-232. He bought thousands of lantern mantles from surplus stores and, using the blowtorch, reduced them into a pile of ash.

David still had to isolate the thorium-232 from the ash. Fortunately, he remembered reading in one of his dad’s chemistry books that lithium is prone to binding with oxygen—meaning, in this context, that it would rob thorium dioxide of its oxygen content and leave a cleaner form of thorium.

David purchased $1,000 worth of lithium batteries and extracted the element by cutting the batteries in half with a pair of wire cutters. He placed the lithium and thorium dioxide together in a ball of aluminum foil and heated the ball with a Bunsen burner. Eureka! David’s method purified thorium to at least 9,000 times the level found in nature and 170 times the level that requires NRC licensing.

At this point, David could have used his americium neutron gun to transform thorium-232 into fissionable uranium-233. But the americium he had was not capable of producing enough neutrons, so he began preparing radium for an improved irradiating gun.

Radium was used in paint that rendered luminescent the faces of clocks and automobile and airplane instrument panels until the late 1960s, when it was discovered that many clock painters, who routinely licked their brushes to make a fine point, died of cancer. David began visiting junkyards and antiques stores in search of radium-coated dashboard panels or clocks. Once he found such an item, he’d chip paint from the instruments and collect it in pill vials. It was slow going until one day, driving through Clinton Township to visit his girlfriend, Heather, he noticed that his Geiger counter went wild as he passed Gloria’s Resale Boutique/Antique.

The proprietor, Gloria Genette, still recalls the day when she was called at home by a store employee who said that a polite young man was anxious to buy an old table clock with a tinted green dial but wondered if she’d come down in price. She would. David bought the clock for $10. Inside he discovered a vial of radium paint left behind by a worker either accidentally or as a courtesy so that the clock’s owner could touch up the dial when it began to fade. David was so overjoyed that he dropped by the boutique later that night to leave a note for Gloria, telling her that if she received another “luminus [sic] clock” to contact him immediately. “I will pay any some [sic] of money to obtain one.”

To concentrate the radium, David secured a sample of barium sulfate from the X-ray ward at a local hospital (staff there handed over the substance because they remembered him from his merit-badge project) and heated it until it liquefied. After mixing the barium sulfate with the radium paint chips, he strained the brew through a coffee filter into a beaker that began to glow. This time, David had judged the solubility of the two substances correctly; the radium solution passed through to the beaker. He then dehydrated the solution into crystalline salts, which he could pack into the cavity of another lead block to build a new gun.

Whether David fully realized it or not, by handling purified radium he was truly putting himself in danger. Nevertheless, he now proceeded to acquire another neutron emitter to replace the aluminum used in his previous neutron gun. Faithful to Erb’s instructions, he secured a strip of beryllium (which is a much richer source of neutrons than aluminum) from the chemistry department at Macomb Community College—a friend who attended the school swiped it for him—and placed it in front of the lead block that held the radium.

His cute little americium gun was now a more powerful radium gun. David began to bombard his thorium and uranium powders in the hopes of producing at least some fissionable atoms. He measured the results with his Geiger counter, but while the thorium seemed to grow more radioactive, the uranium remained a disappointment.

Once again, “Professor Hahn” sprang into action, writing his old friend Erb at the NRC to discuss the problem. The NRC had the answer. David’s neutrons were too “fast” for the uranium).

[Manhattan Project scientists discovered that some neutrons can move at speeds of about 17 million miles per hour. If they are slowed down or "moderated," to about 5,000 miles per hour, they have a better chance of being absorbed by another atom.]

He would have to slow them down using a filter of water, deuterium, or tritium. Water would have sufficed, but David likes a challenge. Consulting his list of commercially available radioactive sources, he discovered that tritium, a radioactive material used to boost the power of nuclear weapons, is found in glow-in-the-dark gun and bow sights, which David promptly bought from sporting-goods stores and mail-order catalogues. He removed the tritium contained in a waxy substance inside the sights, and then, using a variety of pseudonyms, returned the sights to the store or manufacturer for repair—each time collecting another tiny quantity of tritium.

When he had enough, David smeared the waxy substance over the beryllium strip and targeted the gun at uranium powder. He carefully monitored the results with his Geiger counter over several weeks, and it appeared that the powder was growing more radioactive by the day.

Now seventeen, David hit on the idea of building a model breeder reactor. He knew that without a critical pile of at least thirty pounds of enriched uranium he had no chance of initiating a sustained chain reaction, but he was determined to get as far as he could by trying to get his various radioisotopes to interact with one another. That way, he now says, “no matter what happened there would be something changing into something—some kind of action going on there.”

His blueprint was a schematic of a checkerboard breeder reactor he’d seen in one of his father’s college textbooks. Ignoring any thought of safety, David took the highly radioactive radium and americium out of their respective lead casings and, after another round of filing and pulverizing, mixed those isotopes with beryllium and aluminum shavings, all of which he wrapped in aluminum foil.

What were once the neutron sources for his guns became a makeshift “core” for his reactor. He surrounded this radioactive ball with a “blanket” composed of tiny foil-wrapped cubes of thorium ash and uranium powder, which were stacked in an alternating pattern with carbon cubes and tenuously held together with duct tape.

David monitored his “breeder reactor” at the Golf Manor laboratory with his Geiger counter. “It was radioactive as heck,” he says. “The level of radiation after a few weeks was far greater than it was at the time of assembly. I know I transformed some radioactive materials. Even though there was no critical pile, I know that some of the reactions that go on in a breeder reactor went on to a minute extent.”

Finally, David, whose safety precautions had thus far consisted of wearing a makeshift lead poncho and throwing away his clothes and changing his shoes following a session in the potting shed, began to realize that, sustained reaction or not, he could be putting himself and others in danger. (One tip-off was when the radiation was detectable through concrete.) Jim Miller, a nuclear-savvy high-school friend in whom David had confided, warned him that real reactors use control rods to regulate nuclear reactions. Miller recommended cobalt, which absorbs neutrons but does not itself become fissionable.

“Reactors get hot, it’s just a fact,” Miller, a nervous, skinny twenty-two-year-old, said during an interview at a Burger King in Clinton Township where he worked as a cook. David purchased a set of cobalt drill bits at a local hardware store and inserted them between the thorium and uranium cubes. But the cobalt wasn’t sufficient. When his Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors down from his mom’s house, David decided that he had “too much radioactive stuff in one place” and began to disassemble the reactor. He placed the thorium pellets in a shoebox that he hid in his mother’s house, left the radium and americium in the shed, and packed most of the rest of his equipment into the trunk of the Pontiac 6000.

WASTE DISPOSAL. If you can dump your waste directly into the kitchen drain (NOT into the sink), you are all right. If not, collect it in a plastic pail to be thrown out when you’re finished.
—The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

At 2:40 A.M. on August 31, 1994, the Clinton Township police responded to a call concerning a young man who had been spotted in a residential neighborhood, apparently stealing tires from a car. When the police arrived, David told them he was waiting to meet a friend. Unconvinced, officers decided to search his car. When they opened the trunk they discovered a toolbox shut with a padlock and sealed with duct tape for good measure. The trunk also contained over fifty foil-wrapped cubes of mysterious gray powder, small disks and cylindrical metal objects, lantern mantles, mercury switches, a clock face, ores, fireworks, vacuum tubes, and assorted chemicals and acids. The police were especially alarmed by the toolbox, which David warned them was radioactive and which they feared was an atomic bomb.

For reasons that are hard to fathom, Sergeant Joseph Mertes, one of the arresting officers, ordered a car containing what he noted in his report was “a potential improvised explosive device” to be towed to police headquarters. “It probably shouldn’t have been done, but we thought that the car had been used in the commission of a crime,” Police Chief Al Ernst now says sheepishly. “When I came in at 6:30 in the morning it was already there.”

The police called in the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad to examine the Pontiac and the State Department of Public Health (DPH) to supply radiological assistance. The good news, the two teams discovered, was that David’s toolbox was not an atomic bomb. The bad news was that David’s trunk did contain radioactive materials, including concentrations of thorium—”not found in nature, at least not in Michigan”—and americium. That discovery automatically triggered the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan, and state officials soon were embroiled in tense phone consultations with the DOE, EPA, FBI, and NRC.

With the police, David was largely uncooperative and taciturn. He provided his father’s address but didn’t mention his mother’s house or his potting-shed laboratory. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving Day that Dave Minnaar, a DPH radiological expert, finally interviewed David. David told Minnaar that he had been trying to make thorium in a form he could use to produce energy and that he hoped “his successes would help him earn his Eagle Scout status.” David also finally admitted to having a backyard laboratory.

On November 29, state radiological experts surveyed the potting shed. They found aluminum pie pans, jars of acids, Pyrex cups, milk crates, and other materials strewn about, much of it contaminated with what subsequent official reports would call “excessive levels” of radioactive material, especially americium-241 and thorium-232. How high? A vegetable can, for example, registered at 50,000 counts per minute—about 1,000 times higher than normal levels of background radiation. But although Minnaar’s troops didn’t know it at the time, they conducted their survey long after David’s mother, alerted by Ken and Kathy and petrified that the government would take her home away as a result of her son’s experiments, had ransacked the shed and discarded most of what she found, including his neutron gun, the radium, pellets of thorium that were far more radioactive than what the health officials found, and several quarts of radioactive powder. “The funny thing is,” David now says, “they only got the garbage, and the garbage got all the good stuff.”

After determining that no radioactive materials had leaked outside the shed, state authorities sealed it and petitioned the federal government for help. The NRC licenses nuclear plants and research facilities and deals with any nuclear accidents that take place at those sites. David, of course, was not an NRC-licensed operation, so it was determined that the EPA, which responds to emergencies involving lost or abandoned atomic materials, should be contacted for assistance. In a memo to the EPA’s Emergency Response and Enforcement Branch, the Department of Public Health noted that the materials discovered in David’s lab were regulated under the Federal Atomic Energy Act and that the “extent of the radioactive material contamination within a private citizen’s property beg for a controlled remediation that is beyond our authority or resources to oversee.”

EPA officials arrived in Golf Manor on January 25, 1995—five months after David had been stopped by the police—to conduct their own survey of the shed. Their “action memo” noted that conditions at the site “present an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health or welfare or the environment,” and that there was “actual or potential exposure to nearby human populations, animals, or food chain. . . .” The memo further stated that adverse conditions such as heavy wind, rain, or fire could cause the “contaminants to migrate or be released.”

A Superfund cleanup took place between June 26 and 28 at a cost of about $60,000. After the moon-suited workers dismantled the potting shed with electric saws, they loaded the remains into thirty-nine sealed barrels placed aboard a semitrailer bound for Envirocare, a dump facility located in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert. There, the remains of David’s experiments were entombed along with tons of low-level radioactive debris from the government’s atomic-bomb factories, plutonium-production facilities, and contaminated industrial sites.

According to the official assessment, there was no noticeable damage to flora or fauna in the back yard in Golf Manor, but 40,000 nearby residents could have been put at risk during David’s years of experimentation due to the dangers posed by the release of radioactive dust and radiation.

Last May, I made the 90-mile drive from Detroit to Lansing, where Dave Minnaar works in a dreary building that houses several state environmental agencies. Because Patty Hahn had cleaned out the shed before Minnaar’s men arrived on the scene, he never knew that David had built neutron guns or that he had obtained radium. Nor did he understand, until I told him, that the cubes of thorium powder found by police at the time of David’s arrest were the building blocks for a model breeder reactor. “These are conditions that regulatory agencies never envision,” says Minnaar. “It’s simply presumed that the average person wouldn’t have the technology or materials required to experiment in these areas.”

“The real danger . . . lies in the radioactive properties of these elements. [Some] migrate to the bone marrow, where their radiation interferes with the production of red blood cells. Less than one-millionth of a gram can be fatal.”
—from David’s notes

David went into a serious depression after the federal authorities shut down his laboratory. Years of painstaking work had been thrown in the garbage or buried beneath the sands of Utah. Students at Chippewa Valley had taken to calling him “Radioactive Boy,” and when his girlfriend, Heather, sent David Valentine’s balloons at his high school, they were seized by the principal, who apparently feared they had been inflated with chemical gases David needed to continue his experiments. In a final indignity, some area scout leaders attempted (and failed) to deny David his Eagle Scout status, saying that his extracurricular merit-badge activities had endangered the community.

In the fall of 1995, Ken and Kathy demanded that David enroll in Macomb Community College. He majored in metallurgy but skipped many of his classes and spent much of the day in bed or driving in circles around their block. Finally, Ken and Kathy gave him an ultimatum: Join the armed forces or move out of the house. They called the local recruiting office, which sent a representative to their house or called nearly every day until David finally gave in. After completing boot camp last year, he was stationed on the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise aircraft carrier.

Alas, David’s duties, as a lowly seaman, are of the deck-swabbing and potato-peeling variety. But long after his shipmates have gone to sleep, David stays up studying topics that interest him—currently steroids, melanin, genetic codes, antioxidants, prototype reactors, amino acids, and criminal law. And it is perhaps best that he does not work on the ship’s eight reactors, for EPA scientists worry that his previous exposure to radioactivity may have greatly cut short his life. All the radioactive materials he experimented with can enter the body through ingestion, inhalation, or skin contact and then deposit in the bones and organs, where they can cause a host of ailments, including cancer. Because it is so potent, the radium that David was exposed to in a relatively small, enclosed space is most worrisome of all.

Back in 1995, the EPA arranged for David to undergo a full examination at the nearby Fermi nuclear power plant. David, fearful of what he might learn, refused. Now, though, he’s looking ahead. “I wanted to make a scratch in life,” he explains when I ask him about his early years of nuclear research. “I’ve still got time. I don’t believe I took more than five years off of my life.”

The Radioactive Boy Scout

On that note, what might be lurking in BIAD's shed?? I suspect nothing nuclear, but good deeds, err non GMO seeds.

Most of that story describes my dad "to a T" when he was that age, and had an obsession with the periodic table of elements. He was the youngest and only male with his 5 older sisters so he kept to himself after his father died when he was only 7. Most of his tween & teen years were spent alone between the library and his chemistry lab in the basement. He never blew himself up nor burned down the house. He later went on to become a chemist and later a machinist and then back to chemistry where he designed his own multi-million dollar chemistry lab for developing B&W and color film where he employed a former Soviet nuclear physicist to build a one of a kind photo enhancement printer...and got contracts with the Pentagon, ultimately personally meeting with Gen Colin Powell to develop satellite imagery over Iraq and film footage from Apache helo's during Desert Storm.

I was curious if David is still alive and stumbled across this Damn Interesting article where he or rather an annoying poser replies in the comment section. He posted over 50 times and his comments get more & more wild as you scroll down until apparently the real David Hahn joins the chat, 6 years later.




A TV documentary, The Nuclear Boy Scout, aired in the UK in 2003 in which Hahn reenacted some of his methods for the camera.

On April 23, 2007, the FBI received a lead regarding Hahn's alleged possession of a second neutron source in his freezer. Contacted via telephone, Hahn insisted that he was not in possession of radioactive material. The FBI decided no imminent terrorist threat was present but decided to attempt a personal interview. During an interview at an FBI office on May 16, 2007, investigators' questions touched on a variety of topics, such as flyers that Hahn had distributed promoting his book and upcoming film, theft of tires and rims from a vehicle prior to his Navy service, a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and a few less significant topics.

FBI agents then interviewed an individual (whose identity was not released) who stated that Hahn was using cocaine heavily, was not taking his prescribed medication, was paranoid about people who he claimed "had the ability to 'shock' his genitals with their minds", and had possibly been visited by prostitutes. The individual also stated that he believed that Hahn was still trying to build a reactor and was collecting radium. He stated that he did not believe Hahn had any intentions of hurting anyone but was concerned about his mental state.

Wiki

Always more to the 'story' but I had enough.

R.I.P. David Charles Hahn, October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016. You might think those late night nuclear shed experiments took a little more than 5 years off his life. However, the sadder story is his early death was ruled an accidental result of intoxication from the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl, and diphenhydramine.

In case you're wondering, No, my dad has never had any signs of mental illness and quit drinking when he was 33, never smoked & never any drugs, except for the usual pharma cocktail to control his high blood pressure.

If you made it this far, here's a short video on the Radioactive Boy Scout:





Trump picks Miami-based rabbi and businessman as US envoy for combatting antisemitism

Nothing is impossible with today's headlines any more. It is the 21st century.

To illustrate how nothing is impossible see:


South African helicopter crash blamed on penguin in a box


Tonight's movie... "Let my people go!" With the exception of 1999, Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956) has been broadcast annually (around Passover/Easter holidays) on ABC since 1973, and it's on right now. In some years it was so jam packed with propaganda commercials that ABC cut it in two and aired it over two nights. "So it was written, so it shall be done."

And the bean counters saw that the 1998 broadcast of "The Ten Commandments" attracted but 8.5 million households opposite HBO's mightily hyped Tom Hanks miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" and this year they cast out the Easter broadcast. And they scheduled instead "The Wonderful World of Disney," "20/20" and a rerun of "The Practice" on Easter Sunday.

And it came to pass that a reporter called up ABC to ask wherefore "The Ten Commandments" would not air. And ABC sent forth a messenger to say, We have not a Sunday 9-11 p.m. movie this season and do not wish to disrupt our regular Sunday schedule.

This was said even though ABC had renewed its covenant with Paramount to broadcast "The Ten Commandments" until the year 2009.

But in truth, ABC will disrupt its regular Sunday schedule, during the May sweeps, for a new movie about Cleopatra from Robert Halmi, and another starring divas Diana Ross and Brandy.

And the reporter said unto the ABC messenger, How long shalt thou not broadcast "The Ten Commandments?" For scheduling wise men have decreed no Sunday movie on ABC next season too.

And the ABC messenger did avoid the question and say only that she knew not.

And so it was that nothing in the Land of Television was sacred save the ratings.

The 'Ten Commandments': ABC's Exodus? (April 5, 1999)

According to Hollywood lore, while filming the orgy sequence that precedes Moses' descent from Mount Horeb with the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are engraved, producer and director Cecil B. DeMille was perched on top of a ladder delivering his customarily long-winded directions through a megaphone to the hundreds of extras involved in the scene. After droning on to the extras for several minutes, DeMille was distracted by one young woman who was talking to another woman standing next to her. DeMille stopped his speech and directed everyone's attention to the young woman. "Here", DeMille said, "we have a young woman whose conversation with her friend is apparently more important than listening to her instructions from her director while we are all engaged in making motion picture history. Perhaps the young woman would care to enlighten us all, and tell us what the devil is so important that it cannot wait until after we make this shot." After an embarrassed pause, the young woman spoke up and boldly confessed, "I was just saying to my friend here, 'I wonder when that bald-headed old fart is gonna call 'Lunch!'" Nonplussed, DeMille stared at the woman for a moment, paused, then lifted his megaphone and shouted, "Lunch!"

Until The Passion of the Christ (2004), this movie was the highest-grossing religious epic in history, earning over $65 million, over $772 million in 2025 dollars. In 1999, this movie was added to the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. It was released on DVD on March 30, 1999.

[BIAD]

Tonight's movie... "Let my people go!" With the exception of 1999, Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956) has been broadcast annually (around Passover/Easter holidays) on ABC since 1973, and it's on right now. In some years it was so jam packed with propaganda commercials that ABC cut it in two and aired it over two nights. "So it was written, so it shall be done."...

Over two nights...? Oh.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Ronnie Neary: Alright, everybody to bed!
Toby Neary: No way! Dad said we could finish watching "The Ten Commandments"!
Ronnie Neary: Roy, that movie is four hours long.
Roy Neary: I told them they could watch only five commandments.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

BIAD - awesome add on!


April 13, 1899: Alfred Mosher Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. He invented the board game Scrabble in 1938, a word game that combined elements of anagrams and crossword puzzles. Butts initially called the game Lexiko (Greek meaning "of or for words"), but later changed the name to Criss Cross Words after considering It, and began to seek a buyer. The game makers he originally contacted rejected the idea, but Butts was tenacious. Eventually, he sold the rights to entrepreneur and game lover James Brunot, who made a few minor adjustments to the design and renamed the game Scrabble.

In 1948, the game was trademarked, and Brunot and his wife converted an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, Connecticut, into a Scrabble factory. Over 150 million sets have been sold worldwide. It still sells 2 million a year in the USA alone.



Scrabble Board History 1948 - 1999 (more than you ever want to know)

The location of the beloved word game's humble origin, in a church basement in Queens, is today commemorated with a creative street sign that includes the Scrabble value for each letter of 35th Avenue. The Jackson Heights Community Development Corp was responsible for the sign.

After experimenting with this early version of the game, he made updates to the rules and gameplay. Initially, the revised version of the game was called "Criss-Crosswords." When the game became commercially sold it was given the name "Scrabble," and to this day that's the game played by millions of people.

In front of that Queens community church, right on the corner, there is a street sign commemorating Scrabble's local origins, with letters designed to look like tiles of the game. The novel design choice has attracted many admirers to that corner, some of whom have tried to steal the sign, and at least one of whom succeeded.

Most mysterious was the response from the New York City Department of Transportation when asked if they planned on replacing the special sign. The city had no clue who had put it up in the first place. There was no record of the original historical marker. Perhaps a devoted Scrabble fan installed the sign on their own? Despite the original sign's unofficial status, the community's love for it convinced the city to provide a new one retaining the Scrabble numerical values, which remain there to this day.

In addition to the street corner sign, there is an oval plaque commemorating the birth of Scrabble about 12 feet up on the exterior wall of the classroom building that is on 35th Ave.

The Birthplace of Scrabble

More from the New York Daily News; UPDATED: January 13, 2019:

New ‘Scrabble’ street sign will go up in Queens to commemorate birthplace of board game

For years it’s been a mystery as to who installed the witty little street marker more than 15 years ago.

The Daily News learned yesterday that it was the brainchild of Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, the former head of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

She received permission from Hasbro, which manufacturers the game, and asked award-winning designer Massimo Vignelli to create the look of the sign, Diamonstein-Spielvogel said.

“I thought it would be clever and interesting and make passersby aware of what went on in that church,” she said.

The sign became a distinctive feature of Jackson Heights – much like the bronze penguin on 75th St. – until it disappeared.

Diamonstein-Spielvogel theorized that it may have blown away in a storm or was stolen to adorn a college dorm room or den.

Dromm had his own ideas.

“There are conspiracy theories that Scrabble enthusiasts might have stolen it, that the city took it down – which they deny – that it fell down on its own and someone grabbed it and ran,” he said. “Anyone with information should call my office.”

Originally Published: July 21, 2011

April 13, 1925: California enacts one of the harshest narcotic laws in the U.S., increasing the standard prison sentence for drug dealing from six months to six years on a first offense, and setting a term of 6 to 10 years for simple possession.




"If one of your local television stations have a horror personality..." Promotional ideas from the SECONDS (1966) pressbook




Every man just wants a beautiful trophy secretary that’ll help him get away with things.




TIME for April 12, 1993: A new world of video entertainment and interactive services is coming to your home-sooner than you think!

In other news: "The US Navy has recommended to Sec of Defense Les Aspin that women be allowed to serve in all combat positions-except in submarines, where quarters are close."

And take a trip into the future on the electronic superhighway!


TIME magazine, April 12, 1993 issue


April 13, 2000: Playboy chairman Hugh Hefner rings the bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), along with his bunnies. The Dow-Jones loses 201 points (2.4%).




April 13, 2000: Britons, dressed as caribou and polar bears, protest against proposed BP oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.




Quite amusing Bernie is speaking to a music festival where the average ticket price is $1500 and all the profits go to a right-wing evangelical billionaire, Philip Anschutz.




R.I.P. RIP Vaughn Drake who was the oldest known survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor until passing away on April 7 at the age of 106. Drake was helping build barracks at Kaneohe Naval Air Station while serving with the Army Corps of Engineers when the Japanese attacked in 1941.


He was employed by the General Telephone Company for thirty six years, retiring in 1981 as valuation engineering manager. He designed and supervised construction of all the underground telephone conduit placed in the cities of Lexington, Morehead, and Ashland in the 1940s and 1950s. He was author of the GTE Manual “Conduit Engineering for Telephone Engineers”. From his Obit

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Between 1969 and 1974, the Navy spent $340,000 on packets of "Shark Chaser" repellant for survival kits. It was later determined that not only did "Shark Chaser" fail to provide any protection from attacks, the odor of the chemicals actually could attract hungry sharks.




Palm Sunday in Gaza at St. Porphyrius Church April 13, 2025:



Meanwhile, Palm Sunday, Israel bombed the Anglican Al-Ahli Arab Hospital and the Chapel of St. Philip, supposedly the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City. Genetic Laboratory??



Four years later it's hard to comprehend why any are still on the market.




The Russian version of Wizard of Oz, The Wizard of Emerald City (Part 1) is slightly different. Ellie instead of Dorothy. Toto talks. It has people eaters. Not a bad film adaptation. IMDB




The Polish Roswell... "PROJECT UFO": Netflix series drops April 16.


"After an alleged UFO landing, a TV star and an enthusiast investigate the ET beings' origins, debating their theories as a  politician exploits the paranormal news." Deadpan, Offbeat, Cold War, Poland.  IMDB




Given all the UFO hysteria since the Daily Mail published this old piece, RT picked it up and just tweeted the pertinent piece minus the journo nonsense.



"As reported by the authoritative magazine Canadian Weekly World News..."

Here's a reprint of the original article this CIA document is referencing. It was reproduced in the October 31, 2005 edition of the Weekly World News. So everyone freaking out over this is falling for an old WWN article. LOL.



It feels like everything is a distraction at this point. They've got people looking a hundred different ways to Sunday, all at the same time. The question is what are they trying to keep us from seeing?




Rested up & ready for another Monday.




Get Ready...

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy National Gardening Day! No John Hammond frankenflowers here.
The first garden club in America was founded in January 1891 as The Ladies Garden Club of Athens, Georgia.




“The flight of the Apollo 13 to the moon is in serious jeopardy this morning and is not going to make a moon landing.”

- CBS middle-of-the-night coverage, April 14, 1970




‘That was super!’

— Commander John W. Young

April 14, 1981: after having orbited Earth 37 times, John Young and Robert Crippen successfully brought America’s first space shuttle, Columbia, back to Earth, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.




April 14, 1986: USAF & USN aircraft carried out Operation EL DORADO CANYON, as ordered by President Ronald Reagan—in retaliation for the Libyan government’s involvement in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed one off-duty American soldier and mortally wounded another.  Refueling tankers, especially the KC-10, played a key role in getting F-111s to their targets. 7 women flew on the tankers. 24 U.S. Air Force F-111s departed Royal Air Force (RAF) Base Lakenheath along with five EF-111s from RAF Heyford.



45 aircraft in total, 300 bombs dropped, 48 missiles fired. 35 bombed, 1 missed, 1 lost, 8 aborts. 227 hits, 5 misses, 48 homing missiles. Wiki

As each F-111 aircraft exited the target area, they gave a coded transmission, with “Tranquil Tiger” indicating success and “Frostee Freezer” indicating that the target was not hit.


AIR FORCE Magazine, March 1999

1986 - Operation El Dorado Canyon

Although the mission was deemed a success, it was not without controversy. The Navy later claimed that the entire operation could have been accomplished using Navy assets. Furthermore, the commander of the 48th TFW believed that the original concept of a small group of F-111s had grown too large, leading him to believe that there was little chance to surprise the Libyan defenses and the number of aircraft would allow air defenses time to concentrate on the second wave of attackers. However, proponents of the larger strike force believed it would do significantly greater damage to the targets and was worth the risk. The attack killed 37 people and left 93 injured. Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi and appeared visibly shaken when he appeared on television 24 hours later to protest the strikes. Operation EL DORADO CANYON showed that the Air Force could successfully make precision strikes against targets thousands of miles away, an early example of the U.S. Air Force's Global Reach capability. Problems encountered during the operation were also addressed, and five years later the F-111s Pave Tack targeting system destroyed more targets than any other aircraft during Operation DESERT STORM.

Capt Gregory Ball, USAFR, Ph.D.

Eileen A. Bjorkman is a writer, pilot, aeronautical engineer, and retired Air Force colonel. As the sixth woman to graduate from the USAF Test Pilot School, she is widely recognized as an Air Force trailblazer. She was a flight test engineer during her Air Force career, flying more than 700 hours in twenty-five different types of military aircraft, including fighters such as the F-4 and F-16. She retired from the Air Force in 2010 as a colonel after thirty years of active-duty service. She is also a civilian pilot with more than 2,000 hours of pilot time. She is currently the Executive Director at the Air Force Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California and is the first woman to hold that position.

Interview with Eileen A. Bjorkman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK-I_HA-FQQ


April 14, 1999: A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history. The storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in its path. In total, over 20,000 properties and 40,000 vehicles were damaged during the storm with more than 25 aircraft damaged at Sydney Airport.



Sydney Hailstorm 1999 (short news compilation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zOhjSeNyc


April 14, 2003: The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%. Although this was reported to cover 99% of the euchromatic human genome with 99.99% accuracy, a major quality assessment of the human genome sequence was published on 27 May 2004, indicating over 92% of sampling exceeded 99.99% accuracy which was within the intended goal. Level "complete genome" was achieved in May 2021, with only 0.3% of the bases covered by potential issues. The final gapless assembly was finished in January 2022. Did Covid have a role in that completion?

Funding came from the US government through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as numerous other groups from around the world. A parallel project was conducted outside the government by the Celera Corporation, or Celera Genomics, which was formally launched in 1998. Most of the government-sponsored sequencing was performed in twenty universities and research centres in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, and China, working in the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGSC).

Back in 1990, the human genome project was considered highly controversial.
One of the big criticisms was that we'd get "enormous reams of uninterpretable and often useless data, essentially a computerized catalogue of genes".

Later, along came bioinformatic analysis of that "useless data" which led to breakthroughs like CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) of DNA sequences, in which today seems to be their holy grail gene editing platform.



Human Genome Project (Wiki)  |  Great 15-Year Project To Decipher Genes Stirs Opposition


The Blue Origin all-female crew have safely landed back on Earth following a brief trip to "Space". Katy Perry said she felt deeply connected to the "strong divine feminine" after her spaceflight alongside an all-female crew.  I'm all for launching celebrities into space. I don't understand the letting them come back part.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPZPjFnFvtM

Katy shared that she brought a daisy with her to space, a nod to her daughter Daisy, but also as a symbol of something greater.

"Daisies are common flowers, but they grow through any condition," Perry said. "They are resilient. They are powerful. They are strong."

Probably just a coincidence, but an interesting one.

Aside from launching the day after Palm Sunday - which seems a bit weird - April 14th is a very potent date of events.

1561 – A celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle.

1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.

1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City

1906 – The first meeting of the Azusa Street Revival, which will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement, is held in Los Angeles.

1909 – Muslims in the Ottoman Empire begin a massacre of Armenians.

1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and begins to sink.

1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl

1944 – Bombay explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300

1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.

1981 – STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight.

1986 – The heaviest hailstones ever recorded fall on Bangladesh, killing 92.

1994 – Twin U.S. Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down twin U.S. Army helicopters in Iraq

1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.

2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced.

2006 – Twin blasts triggered by crude bombs in the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi

2014 – Twin bombs detonate at a bus station in Nigeria, killing at least 88 people - Boko Haram claims responsibility.

2023 – The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is launched by the European Space Agency.


In case you thought she was the first diva in space:

On October 18, 1963, French scientists launched the first cat into space on a Veronique AGI sounding rocket. The cat, named "Felicette," was successfully retrieved after a parachute descent. No word on her singing aboard.

Laika and Her “Children”—Animals in the Space Race


LOL, some idiot 'vibe coder' is gonna accidentally take down the power grid or something...


LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything


May the Goddess put twinkles in your eyes.
May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. Hail Eris.




Monday words...



The SS Botany Bay was the sleeper ship launched by Khan (the same character as in the later movie Wrath of Khan, played by Ricardo Montalban) in the original Star Trek episode “Space Seed”. The name was given because they launched the ship to escape losing a conflict and sought a better home in the stars.

Here's one version:

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Shelter shed tips..."Avoid reds, oranges and deep yellows..." Fallout shelter paint tips from the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association as seen in this clip from the UPI on Nov 25, 1961.




How Concerned Are Teens About Fallout Shelters? A 13-year old said: "I think we should be ready for an attack, but I don't think so much stress should be put on it. I don't think any kind of fallout shelters would do any good. I think it would be useless. And anyway, if all mankind around you is dead, what's the use of surviving?"




Tax Day! Nixon on TIME April 15, 1974. Richard Nixon holds the record for the most TIME Magazine covers in history...54 covers!!




Happy Donald Rumsfeld IRS letter day to all who celebrate Known unknowns.


The WARGAMES rip-off PRIME RISK premiered forty years ago this week. The film includes some shots of Mount Pony. A female engineer, with the assistance of her pilot-wannabe male friend, discovers a way to rip off ATM machines, but in doing so stumbles upon a plot to destroy the U.S. monetary system. Filmed in Culpeper, Virginia and other places within the state.




An interesting Cold War bunker trivia nugget:

Mount Pony
Culpeper, VA

The Federal Reserve Board operated a 140,000 square foot radiation hardened facility in Culpeper, Virginia. Dedicated on 10 December 1969, the 400 foot long bunker is built of steel-reinforced concrete a foot thick. Lead-lined shutters can be dropped to cover the windows of the semi-recessed facility, which is covered by 2 to 4 feet of dirt and surrounded by barbed-wire fences and guard posts. The seven computers at the facility, operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, are the central node for all American electronic funds transfer activities. Until July 1992 the bunker also served as a Continuity of Government facility. With a peacetime staff of 100, the facility was designed to support an emergency staff of 540 for 30 days. But only 200 beds were provided in the men's and women's dormintories, which would be shared on a "hot-bunk" basis by the staff, working around the clock. Until 1988 the facility stored a $1 billion stock of currency to be used to reactivate the American economy following a nuclear attack.

In 1997 Congress approved the transfer of the bunker from the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond to the Library of Congress, which will use it as a central repository for the library's 150,000 film titles.

Located at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains this facility also housed the Culpeper Switch, which was the central switching station of the Federal Reserve's Fedwire electronic funds transfer system, which at the time connected only the Fed's member banks. The Culpeper Switch also served as a data backup point for member banks east of the Mississippi River. That would of been a trophy prize to tap into!

Until 1988, Mount Pony stored several billion dollars worth of U.S. currency?including a large number of $2 bills shrink-wrapped and stacked on pallets 9 feet high. Following a nuclear attack, this money was to be used to replenish currency supplies east of the Mississippi.

Shortly after the Iran–Contra affair was put to bed, all money was removed from Mount Pony in 1988. The Culpeper Switch ceased operation in 1992, its functions having been decentralized to three smaller sites. In addition, its status as continuity of government site was removed. The facility was poorly maintained by a skeleton staff until 1997 when the bunker was offered for sale. With the approval of the United States Congress, it was purchased by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond via a $5.5 million grant, done on behalf of the Library of Congress. With a further $150 million from the Packard Humanities Institute and $82.1 million from Congress, the facility was transformed into The National Audiovisual Conservation Center, also known as the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, is the Library of Congress's audiovisual archive which opened in mid-2007.

The underground vaults (some set to temperatures below freezing) contain nearly 90 miles of shelving, not including 124 highly flammable nitrate film vaults: the largest nitrate film storage complex in the Western hemisphere. In addition to 35 climate controlled vaults.

The Packard Campus Theater holds silent & sound film screenings year round.

The campus's data center is the first archive in the world to preserve digital content at the petabyte (1 million gigabyte) level. Yes, there is an 200-seat underground theater.



Concept art by Patrice Garcia in 1992 for The Fifth Element.
"Zaltman" was the original name of Corben Dallas.




Via last night's Stephen Colbert show...LOL





Mass. attorney says Department of Homeland Security told her to self-deport


LOL...


I shortened it up as they tweeted 25 consecutive separate images with a line, hence A LOT of scrolling.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

RIP game show host Winston Conrad "Wink" Martindale who died today at the age of 91. Among the shows he hosted was TIC-TAC-DOUGH during the 1980 winning streak of F-14 Tomcat pilot LTJG Thom McKee who set a then-record for game show contestants by earning $312,700, 8 cars, 3 sailboats, and 16 vacations by defeating forty-three opponents. Losing question: What leading actress appeared in both The Wind and the Lion and Starting Over? Answer: Candice Bergen.




Tax Day funnies...








She means the END of her beloved EU oligarchy.
My pet theory is Trump (or rather those think-tankers in Washington that write foreign policy agenda & serve it to Trump on a golden platter) are actually waging (economic war) lesson on the EU. The chaos of tariffs, namely on China, the Red Sea crisis & strategic bombing of Yemen, and the dumping of Ukraine on the EU are ALL connected and are sending pain to Europe. It appears the EU leaders are unaware of that and if they are, they have no idea on a proper reaction. I think the US leaders are trying to convince the EU that the days of security protection (land, air, sea) by surrogate daddy are over. We can no longer afford it... because our cross-hairs are now on China, China, China and that is going to cost trillions. Case in point...


Vance urges Europe not to be US 'vassal'

Stop making club alliances against Russia, make friends with Russia (even though they don't need you), make trade deals and move the F* on, otherwise get thrashed by the bear. We helped you big time twice, there will not be a third time.


The old Number Station is transmittin again...

https://x.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/191...5976864222

The Number Stations, will always remain a mystery because there is no coding of words. You can assign any meaning to a certain word. A meaning that only the one who decided to transmit those words knows, and the one who has to receive them. Then there is also the fact of the context in which those certain words are placed. So if you are not one of those subjects, there is no point in trying to decode.

This Russian living in America will tell you all about it in 10 minutes:




Drones, come one, come all... I get vibes of ENDERS GAME.




Hollywood scrambles to divert recent attention on the CIA involvement in the JFK Assassination by pulling out the 'Mafia Did It' card in new movie. This time with John Travolta as Sam Giancana, the crazed gangster who wanted to 'whack' the President...


YELLOWSTONE's Jefferson White To Play Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK Thriller NOVEMBER 1963


Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico responds to warning by Kaja Kallas:

"I will go to Moscow on May 9th to pay tribute to Red Army soldiers who died liberating Slovakia."

Not all is lost west of the Dnieper.


EU priestess Kaja Kallas is a Russophob psychopath.


RUSSIAN HELL MARCH - Epic Military Parade May 15, 2016




Over in the Russian sphere, Dmitry tweets are some of the best...LOL.


He's right, Europe would be annihilated off the smoldering map. Albeit, Russia would suffer a great deal, but will remain. If the US Defense Corps have a secret alien Death Star weapon that would obsolete nukes, now might be a good time for a live demonstration. I don't think Trump's "Golden Dome" will work or be effective enough or even needed, but till that time everyone will be wanting a 'Dome'. Then again, the Kremlin has probably been feasting on popcorn watching the EU clowns.