All the news that’s undeserving of a full post.

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This one is cool, Humans Felt The Effects of Weird Space Weather 41,000 Years Ago in which a couple of geophysicists and an archaeologist teamed up in a tough case of interdisciplinary work that paid off:

What happened to life on Earth when the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed roughly 41,000 years ago? This near-collapse is known as the Laschamps Excursion, a brief but extreme geomagnetic event named for the volcanic fields in France where it was first identified.

At the time of the Laschamps Excursion, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse as they do every few hundred thousand years. Instead, they wandered, erratically and rapidly, over thousands of miles. At the same time, the strength of the magnetic field dropped to less than 10% of its modern day intensity.

That doesn’t sound good, given the amount of crap from space that the field keeps out:

With the weakened magnetic field, more harmful radiation would have reached Earth’s surface, elevating risk of sunburn, eye damage, birth defects, and other health issues. In response, people may have adopted practical measures: spending more time in caves, producing tailored clothing for better coverage, or applying mineral pigment “sunscreen” made of ochre to their skin.

Those things do show up in the record and while archaeologists have spent years studying the effects of climate on ancient human behaviour, space weather hasn’t come into the picture before now. It would be nice to find a bunch of cave paintings where the ancients attempted to show the undoubtedly spectacular skies they would have seen.

“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.”

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It must be pointed out that many reporters always had this vibe, which was Christopher Hitchens became one, Journalists drink too much, are bad at managing emotions, and operate at a lower level than average, according to a new study:

Journalists’ brains show a lower-than-average level of executive functioning, according to a new study, which means they have a below-average ability to regulate their emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and show creative and flexible thinking.

Classic example the other day, CBS Reporter Claims He Got ‘PTSD’ After Trump Assassination Attempt. Now he wouldn’t be the first person who gets PTSD simply from being a witness but his reason tracks with the study above:

His entire response is strange. The President getting shot. A member of the crowd getting shot and dying. The weight and meaning of the whole thing.

But no, it’s all about him as the eternal victim: “Thank God he lived, otherwise we’d be dead”. Hang on! If you truly believed that an angry MAGA mob was going to kill you, wouldn’t Trump shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” have sent them over the edge, towards you?

Wanker.

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The Death of the Public Library:

Something bad is happening to public libraries in the United States. Visits to the community institutions fell a precipitous 56.6% between 2012 and 2022.

Nothing to do with government funding cuts either, but this:

It was due to fewer people willing to put up with the fact that American public libraries had become de facto homeless shelters. Homeless people have invaded many libraries across the country. Rather than deal with the problem firmly and reasonably, librarians have adopted the attitude that it doesn’t matter why the homeless people are in the library; they should be welcome anyway.  

This is no accident and not a result of kindness and compassion. It’s entirely deliberate and explained in a book, The Librarian’s Guide to Homelessness, by a guy who once ran a homeless shelter in Illinois:

Dowd’s essential belief is that not only do the homeless have every right to spend their days in libraries but that librarians should view their needs as a critical part of the job. He believes librarians should be trained to dispense Narcan. One of his seminars is called “Jerks with Homes: How to Deal with Members of the Public Who Are Being Jerks About Homeless Folks.” His scripts for addressing problematic behaviors include examples like, “Hey, I don’t care if you urinate on the Harry Potter books, but the politicians have a no-urinating policy. Therefore, I have to ask you to stop.”

The idea is to make society so terrible – including public libraries whose piss-stinking thresholds normies don’t want to cross – that The Masses will rise up and overthrow capitalism and thus end homelessness and poverty. As Russian writer and nihilist philosopher, Nikolay Chernyshevsky once said, with a phrase beloved by Lenin and other Communists, “The worse, the better”.

I don’t think these ideas have reached New Zealand libraries.

Yet.

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The following is AI but still…. Also appreciate the NPR-type male voiceover to lend authority to the piece.

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Speaking of natural and unnatural things, a Johnson and Johnson scientist was recently caught on video talking candidly about the testing of their Covid-19 vaccine – courtesy of James O’Keefe and his O’Keefe Media Group (he started Project Veritas to specialise in catching people with undercover video):

We didn’t do the typical tests... This was just, ‘let’s test it on some lab models… and just throw it to the wind and see what happens…. Do you have any idea the lack of research that was done on those products?…..People wanted it, we gave it to them.

This is my shocked face.

Okay, so things had to move fast: exceptions can be made, especially if it works.

There’s no proof. None of that stuff was safe and effective.

Oh!

Interestingly the guy writing the RedState article surrounding that YT video, has the personal experience to confirm all this:

I knew back in 2021 that the J&J vax was junk for two reasons. You see, I took it—I did not want to, but it was the only way I would be allowed to see a seriously ailing close relative—and the very next day the government issued a temporary pause on its use due to concerns it could cause blood clots. That sure made me feel good. Not too much longer after that, I came down with COVID. Some vaccine.

So not a denier, just a very pissed off victim of scientism, government and corporate bureaucracy and Police State tactics.