The Woman Who Came Back: What One Dose of Psilocybin Revealed About the Self We Thought Alzheimer’s Had Erased

In 1971, psilocybin was declared to have “no accepted medical use.” In 2026, it appeared to reach into the ruins of an advanced Alzheimer’s brain and switch a human being back on.

Not permanently. Not by reversing the disease. But for days and weeks—long enough for her family to have her back, long enough to force a question that mainstream neurology has spent decades trying not to ask.

I’ve reported before on psilocybin as a longevity molecule—the Emory findings showing psilocin extending human cellular lifespan by up to 57%, aged mice surviving 60% better, telomeres preserved, neuroplasticity switched on. In that piece I listed Alzheimer’s among the “neurological frontiers” where this ancient fungal ally was beginning to be tested. I did not expect the frontier to move this fast.

The paper is titled, in the careful language of clinical medicine, Transient multidomain functional improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin-containing mushroom administration. Behind that title is a woman.

She was an octogenarian Japanese-American woman living under continuous family and caregiver supervision. Her Alzheimer’s had been progressing for roughly ten years. For the last five, her speech had collapsed into monosyllables. She was chronically incontinent. She could not dress herself, could not walk unaided, struggled to swallow, and had lost most of her capacity for spontaneous interaction. Her affect was flat. By every conventional measure, she was in the late, “irreversible” stage of the disease—the stage where medicine offers comfort and little else.

Under supervision, she was given a single oral dose of 5 grams of psilocybin-containing mushrooms (the “Enigma” strain)—a deliberately high dose, well above what modern psychiatric trials typically use.

The acute phase was not gentle, and I want to be honest about that up front. She showed signs of autonomic overdrive: clinically suspected hyperthermia, profuse sweating, and a long, deep, sleep-like state. This is not a small detail, and I’ll come back to why it matters enormously.

Then, approximately nineteen hours later, at 3:30 in the morning, she woke up and began to talk. Not in fragments. She spoke about her own life—autobiographical, spontaneous, coherent—for something on the order of four hours.

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“Robin Hood In Reverse”: The Pentagon Is Stealing From the Working Poor to Pay for War and Enrich Contractors

In an era of high prices for fuel, food, and housing, an extra $4,000 could make a lifesaving difference for many families. But instead, that’s what the average household had to shell out for the Pentagon last year.

That’s right: The average US taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. In the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027.

For the growing number of working poor in the United States, that money can mean the difference between making rent or falling behind, or between being able to afford an emergency trip to the doctor or going without care.

Money directed to the Pentagon represents nothing but betrayal for many Americans. A large majority oppose our wars, especially the latest conflict in Iran. And roughly half of the Pentagon’s budget flows to for-profit contractors, fueling the billionaire (and now even trillionaire) class.

Take SpaceX, one of many companies built on government contracts funded by taxpayer dollars. Elon Musk’s company would not exist without US taxpayers. As early Tesla investor Ross Gerber put it, “There would not be (Tesla and SpaceX) if it weren’t for the government.”

Early investments and contracts from the US government helped propel SpaceX to success, while continued awards from the Pentagon provided the stable revenue that made the government one of Musk’s largest customers. The company is now valued at more than $1 trillion. Private investors alone did not make Musk a trillionaire—taxpayers across the United States did.

But Musk isn’t the only person who made himself rich off the backs of American workers.

Lockheed Martin receives over 70% of its revenue from US government contracts. The numbers for Raytheon and General Dynamics are similar. These military contractors simply would not exist without the taxpayers—and a new $1.5 trillion budget would send hundreds of billions of dollars more to people who already have more than most Americans could even conceptualize.

At the same time, while taxpayers are subsidizing the military-industrial complex, the jobs those industries are allegedly providing are in decline, with the war industry creating over 2 million fewer jobs than it did 40 years ago.

Worse still, under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans passed a year ago, the money for these ever-rising Pentagon budgets comes directly from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other programs that help Americans make ends meet.

Under those cuts, millions of Americans—including children—have lost SNAP benefits already. And that’s impacting not just families but the farmers who helped feed them.

SNAP benefits were “guaranteed money in the pockets of farmers,” said Reese Amxy, a policy organizer at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. But 150,000 people in the state have already lost eligibility.

It’s not just Illinois. Arizona has seen the steepest decline, with 50% of recipients—nearly half a million—already losing benefits. Louisiana (21%), Florida (20%), Oklahoma (16%), Virginia (16%), Texas (14%), Wyoming (13%), and Arkansas (12%) round out the rest of the hardest hit states so far.

Yet the person who lost SNAP and the farmer who lost their income alike will be asked to foot the bill for the $1.5 trillion war budget. This is Robin Hood in reverse. Worse still, the weapons those taxes buy are often to use to kill children like ours in Gaza and Iran.

The weapons and tech CEOs that would benefit from the massive war budget, and the politicians bought off by them, seek to keep this cycle going next year at an even grander scale. Americans need to demand their lawmakers say no more Pentagon spending—and invest in the things that actually keep our communities safe instead.

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Communist Tyrant Daniel Ortega Announces There Will Be No More Elections in Nicaragua

Communist tyrant Daniel Ortega announced this weekend that there will no longer be national elections in Nicaragua.

Ortega has been in power since 2007.

Daniel Ortega: “There will be no more elections here so that they [the opposition] can try to seize the government and seize power.” He added that “never again” would parties backed by the United States or “Somocistas” return to power.”

The pro-Cuban communist made the announcement during an official speech in Managua commemorating the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, that is traditionally observed on July 19th.

Ortega has jailed many of the potential rival candidates. US Democrats are following in his footsteps as they continue to persecute Trump and his supporters including supporters in the media.

According to Grok, this announcement effectively cancels or rules out Nicaragua’s next scheduled general elections (originally set for November 2027, after earlier term extensions). It represents a further consolidation of power by Ortega (in office continuously since 2007) and his wife, Rosario Murillo (co-president).

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Erin Brockovich’s crusade against data centers is going crowd-sourced

Erin Brockovich is getting Americans to report data centers in their backyards.

The renowned environmental activist, whose work inspired the Julia Roberts film “Erin Brockovich,” launched a registry of US data centers in April, inviting nearby residents to report how the projects are affecting their communities.

Speaking in an interview with podcaster Theo Von, released on Sunday, Brockovich talked about how she woke up one day to find 30 emails from people talking about the issues living around data centers.

“So I created what’s called brockovichdatacenter.com, where people, if they were having issues with data centers in their backyard, could self-report,” she said.

“This is a place where people who I believe are living, breathing, and experiencing these issues are the best source of information,” Brockovich added.

According to her May Substack post, she launched the registry on April 27. She said on the podcast that within 72 hours of launching the registry, the website crashed twice because of the volume of reports.

Brockovich said the reports shared a common thread: Residents had not been informed about the data center projects by their city councils and often woke up to find construction underway.

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Federal Ban on Home Whiskey Distilleries Now Heading to Supreme Court

When I was a young man, roaming around the woods and hills of northeast Iowa, two old guys had a still tucked away somewhere in the woods near Highlandville. I know that moonshining is something generally associated with the South, but nobody seems to have told these two old fellows, and from them you could buy a Mason jar of what they called “corn squeezings” for $10. It wasn’t bad, although if you had any left after a night’s revelry, you could always use it to strip paint and blast stumps.

Now, selling homemade hooch is one thing, I admit. But honestly, this is a free country; one should be able to set up a small still and make your own booze for personal use. And now, a case with that as a possible result, is headed to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to legalize home whiskey distilleries in the United States by a conservative-leaning think tank in Ohio.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the federal ban against home whiskey distilleries is unconstitutional. However, the 6th Circuit upheld the federal ban.

The federal government said the law is constitutional because it was enacted to prevent tax evasion and that it would be easier for a distiller working out of their home to conceal the business and therefore avoid paying taxes.

That last bit seems a bit of a trite argument; it’s certainly possible now for a person to do this, just as it would be if home use were legalized, as it is now for wine and beer. And, if anyone can point out to us in the Constitution where the government is authorized to regulate booze, I’d love to see it. 

As evidence of the ambiguity of all this, we might note that two different courts of appeals issued conflicting rulings in this matter, which is why the case is going to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Buckeye Institute filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to decide between the two conflicting appeals-court rulings.

“Two courts of appeals considered the same provisions, against the same constitutional challenge, on materially identical facts, within 11 days of each other, and issued opposite judgments,” Buckeye’s Monday petition to the Supreme Court states.

That seems a pretty clear-cut argument for the escalation.

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Pelosi Dodges Questions About Her Husband’s Latest Hit-and-Run Crash 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dodged a Fox News reporter who asked her questions about her husband’s latest hit-and-run crash.

Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, 86, was charged with a misdemeanor hit-and-run after his car crash in Napa County in California.

The crash happened on July 3 on Yountville Cross Road.

Pelosi was not charged with a DUI in his latest hit-and-run.

Paul Pelosi damaged a parked Tesla and fled the scene, according to the criminal complaint.

This is the second time Paul Pelosi has been involved in a car crash in the last few years.

Recall that in May 2022 Paul Pelosi was hit with 3 years probation after drunkenly crashing into a Jeep.

According to court documents, Paul Pelosi slurred his speech and had a ‘drug’ in his system during his drunk driving arrest on May 28, 2022.

Pelosi had red, watery eyes, was “unsteady on his feet” and “he had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emanating from his breath.”

Fox News confronted Pelosi on Tuesday about her husband latest crash.

“Can you tell us if you think the misdemeanor charge against Paul was fair?” a Fox News reporter asked Nancy Pelosi.

Fox News continued to press Pelosi: “Any reaction to the charge that he’s facing?”

Pelosi ignored the questions as she got into a vehicle and took off.

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Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron

Look at what Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle officially owe, and the numbers seem large but manageable. Look off the books, and a second, bigger pile of debt appears.

Nikkei study put that hidden figure at $1.65 trillion, up roughly eightfold in four years. It is more than the $1.35 trillion the five report outright.

The Enron echo

The money is tied up in off-balance-sheet vehicles, the same kind of structure Enron used to hide debt before it collapsed 25 years ago. Back then it was fraud. Now, tightened rules and fuller disclosures make it legal.

The tools are still there, though. “Enron’s crime wasn’t having special purpose vehicles,” analyst Gil Luria told Bloomberg Law. “Enron’s crime was hiding them.”

The mechanics are simple. A company packages the debt for chips, servers, and power into a separate legal entity, often a joint venture, so the cost never flows through its own accounts.

Take Meta’s Hyperion data centre in Louisiana. Meta and Blue Owl Capital both put equity into a separate structure that took on $27 billion in debt. Meta is the sole tenant, yet argues it does not have to record that debt, because it is not the one who must find replacement tenants.

Oracle has $260 billion of future lease commitments that will eventually land on its books. Nvidia carries $119 billion in purchase obligations. Alphabet and Microsoft keep their vehicles off-book too.

The numbers behind the boom

The scale is the story. Meta’s off-balance-sheet debt alone is about $420 billion, nearly triple its reported debt. Oracle’s has grown roughly thirtyfold in four years.

It is all in service of the same race. The industry is expected to spend more than $3 trillion through 2028 building and equipping AI data centres, much of it financed against the chips inside them.

Why it matters now

The timing is awkward. Four of the five report earnings in the next two weeks, and the reported debt will look tidy. The $1.65 trillion sitting in the footnotes will not make the headlines.

The catch is what happens later. When a data centre goes live, its lease rolls onto the balance sheet at once. If AI demand falls short, the facility is marked down, and the loss lands on the lenders and insurers who funded it.

Some already see the risk. S&P has cut Oracle’s credit rating over stretched leverage, and both Morgan Stanley and Moody’s have flagged the wider issue. “What if one of these companies was a house of cards,” asked accounting consultant Tom Selling, “and was propping itself up with this accounting treatment?”

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Musk’s Unrealistic Future View is a New World Communist Vision

Elon Musk’s reasoning that AI and robots will make work optional is based on a core economic absurd argument: AI and robotics will create such an abundance of goods and services that the very concepts of work and money become largely obsolete. However, this vision also faces significant challenges and raises complex questions about the human desire for purpose. I was doing research in the Firestone Library at Princeton University. I became friends with one professor who had known Einstein.

He asked me what I was so intensely researching. I explained that I was trying to ascertain why all governments rise and then crash and burn throughout the centuries. He then said to me that I reminded him of Einstein. I was taken back. I said I was no Einstein. He then explained to me to me that the subject matter did not matter. It was curiosity that was the mother of all discovery. Without someone being curious, human society would stagnate.

During the late 1970s, I went through Check-Point-Charlie into East Germany. I wanted to see what Communism was all about and why they needed a wall to prevent people from fleeing. Those words from that professor suddenly rang true. The government feared individualism and curiosity. Because of that, the Russian economy could never compete with Capitalism because it suppressed the very essence of how human society advances. It requires that curiosity to make innovations that expands the economy and raises the standard of living.

Musk’s argument is rooted in what he sees as the logic of productivity and deflation. His reasoning can be broken down as follows.

  1. The core idea is that AI and robots will be capable of performing nearly all physical and cognitive labor at near-zero marginal cost . This would lead to a massive surge in the production of goods and services. However, it would be like Communism lacking that curiosity and this would suppress any advancement.
  2. The resulting supply would vastly outpace the available money supply, causing the prices of everything from food and housing to healthcare and education to plummet towards zero . For example, current productivity might see one worker produce 100 units per day, while one AI could produce 10,000, fundamentally breaking the link between work and survival.

In this state of “post-scarcity,” money, which Musk describes as an “information system for labor allocation,” would lose its purpose. If you can have anything you want without needing to direct someone else’s labor, he assumes that the currency system collapses. He has stated, “I think money will stop being relevant at some point in the future.”

To manage this transition, Musk proposes a “universal high income” (UHI), which goes beyond a basic safety net to ensure a comfortable life for everyone, funded by the massive surplus generated by AI and robots.

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State University of New York System Implements Mandatory Tutoring Program Because ‘Record Number’ of First Year Students Are Failing Math and Writing

The State University of New York (SUNY) is implementing a mandatory tutoring system because a record number of first year students are failing reading and math. This problem is widespread and not isolated to New York.

Part of this problem is due to what happened during Covid-19, when school systems across the country shut down for months and conducted classes via Zoom. Students everywhere fell behind and never caught up.

It is also due to the fact that so many schools have abandoned basic elements of education in favor of pushing woke garbage about social justice, race, and gender.

The College Fix reports:

SUNY institutes mandatory tutoring, extra class time due to ‘record’ number of first-years failing math, writing

Due to a “record” number of first-year failures in freshman writing and math courses, the State University of New York system now will require students to have weekly meetings with a one-on-one tutor, and will add additional time to classes in the latter category.

According to the Times Union, SUNY reported that a quarter of its freshmen failed the introductory math course, and 22 percent flunked English.

This fall at SUNY Albany, selected first-years will have to get tutored in writing for an hour each week, and for 90 minutes in math/science. “Hundreds” of high-performing students have been tapped to help with the effort.

Dean for Undergraduate Education JoAnne Malatesta said that the assisting students, who “did well” in the writing class, will “direct freshmen to the tutoring center and encourage them to go to the professor’s office hours.”

Some 375 student tutors also will hold “90-minute ‘supplemental instruction’ sessions” each week in math and science that freshmen are “expected” to attend.

Malatesta said similar sessions in the past have led to “significant gains” in academic performance.

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‘VPNs are lawful technical tools,’ says EU Court in landmark Anne Frank copyright ruling

In a major victory for digital rights and common sense, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has officially categorized Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as “lawful technical tools” while establishing new boundaries for online copyright disputes.

The landmark judgment — handed down in July 2026 — stems from a complex legal battle over the online publication of Anne Frank’s historical manuscripts. At its core, the case forced Europe’s top judges to answer a highly technical question: if a publisher actively tries to block visitors from a specific country, are they still breaking the law if a user sneaks past the digital border using circumvention software?

According to the CJEU, the answer is no. As long as a website employs “state-of-the-art” geo-blocking technology, the publisher cannot be held liable for copyright infringement simply because a determined reader decides to fire up the best VPN to bypass the restrictions.

The ruling sets a massive precedent. It confirms that copyright holders cannot point to the mere existence of VPNs to claim a website’s security measures are completely ineffective.

More importantly for privacy advocates, the court firmly pushed back against the demonization of privacy software, cementing the legitimate status of VPN providers across the European Union.

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