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Legalizing Medical Marijuana Is Linked To Reduced Use Of Tobacco And Amphetamines, New International Study Shows

There’s a “strong negative association” between tobacco use and legal medical marijuana sales, according to a new international study—indicating a “strong potential substitution effect” where people choose to use cannabis where it is allowed instead of smoking cigarettes.

The study, based on data from 20 countries, also found that amphetamine use is “negatively associated” with medical cannabis sales, “suggesting substitution dynamics.”

The researchers additionally concluded that a “well-regulated [medical cannabis, or MC] market can generate sustained economic benefits, emphasizing the need for comprehensive legal frameworks that address licensing, production standards, and access pathways,” adding that “removing barriers to access and enhancing consumer education will support the development of a responsible and sustainable market.”

The analysis also showed “a sustained growth trajectory” in medical cannabis sales after legalization, finding that the policy change is “associated with an average annual increase of 26.06 tons of MC sales in legalizing countries.” After excluding the U.S., which the researchers called “a major outlier in market size,” there was “a slightly lower average effect of 20.05,” which “still supports the persistent market expansion.”

The authors, based in Germany and Lebanon, cautioned that “given the ecological nature of the design, these results should be interpreted as population-level associations rather than individual-level causal effect.”

“Nonetheless, they highlight the potential economic relevance of cannabis legalization in expanding regulated markets and reshaping consumer behavior,” the paper says. “The study contributes to debates on legalization, public health, and economic policy by providing empirical evidence on the associations between legal reforms and market dynamics.”

The study comes amid new research indicating that marijuana use is linked to lower alcohol intake and diminished cravings in heavy drinkers, according to a new federally funded scientific paper.

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Dem Mazie Hirono admits ‘physiological differences’ prevent many women from doing pull-ups for FBI fitness test

Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono protested a pull-up requirement that has been implemented at the FBI since Kash Patel became the agency director. Patel was in a hearing on Tuesday in the Senate. Hirono cited “physiological differences” between men and women as the reason, despite the common left-wing argument that gender is a social construct and the near total party refusal to define the word “woman.”

Patel was speaking answering questions during a Senate Judiciary hearing, when Hirons asked, “You are now requiring applicants to be able to do a certain kind of pull ups, which a lot of women cannot because of physiological differences. Are you requiring these kinds of pull ups?”

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‘City killer’ asteroid 2024 YR4 could shower Earth with ‘bullet-like’ meteors if it hits the moon in 2032

New simulations reveal that the infamous “city killer” asteroid 2024 YR4 could shower Earth with “bullet-like” debris if it hits the moon in seven years’ time, potentially triggering an eye-catching meteor shower — and endangering the satellites that orbit our planet.

2024 YR4 is a potentially hazardous asteroid measuring roughly 200 feet (60 meters) across, making it large enough to wipe out a large urban area if it were to hit Earth head-on. It was first discovered in December 2024 but made headlines earlier this year when scientists first predicted that there was a chance it could smash into Earth on Dec. 22, 2032. The odds of a collision peaked at 3.1% in February, which was enough to prompt NASA to study it extensively. However, subsequent analysis revealed there is zero chance of it impacting our planet.

But in April, researchers realized that, while Earth is no longer in the firing line, the space rock could still hit the moon. The odds of such a collision have grown slowly but steadily, and most recently jumped to 4.3% earlier this month. Experts will likely know the final likelihood by 2028, when the asteroid will make its next close approach to our planet.

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The End Game for Gaza

I’ve taught military history “from Plato to NATO,” as we used to joke, but my expertise focused on technology and warfare. Along with “revolutions” and “transformations” in weaponry, I probably spent too much time focusing on “decisive battles” and “great captains” in history. When you look at the course of military history, most deaths from war didn’t come in battle. They came from hunger and disease, from famine and pestilence. Sometimes, mass starvation and pandemics were unintentional byproducts of chaos and societal disruption caused by war, and sometimes starvation and disease were intentional weapons and products of war.

You might call this apocalyptic war, from the Bible and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which included famine and pestilence among the death riders.

An apocalyptic fate seemingly awaits Palestinians in Gaza. I’ve written about Gaza as a genocide, the mass bombing by Israel, the mass killing, with the apparent goal of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza, but I haven’t given enough thought to the use of mass starvation and diseases as weapons in this genocide.

A reader, Dan White, brought this lesson home to me, and I’d like to quote his message to me at length:

I can’t think of a better word than the etiology of starvation. It hasn’t been adequately addressed by the snoozemedia. Starvation death rates have a funny shaped curve. During the first stages of starvation – can’t give any figures on a time period for this or any other part of the process/curve, due to there being varying levels of food deprivation – there are few deaths, generally (but not always) those persons with compromised health/preexisting health problems that make them more susceptible to death than others in the population. After some (varying length) period of starvation, people start to die in larger numbers, and then all of a sudden, everyone is dying, and then everyone is dead. This period of death is fairly short compared to the period of starvation. Again, due to varying levels of starvation and varying levels of preexisting health and varying levels of surplus consumable body tissue in the starved group, this period has no fixed length, but it happens all of a sudden, and it doesn’t take long for everyone to die once it starts – couple of weeks seems common.

The starving residents of Gaza haven’t reached the mass-death stage of starvation, but it could well start happening tomorrow. I can’t say because I don’t know the food reserves preexisting, the food delivery figures since the ‘war’ started, and nobody in the news biz has bothered to look for them, either. There really should have been some government or multi-state agency who has looked for them and published them, but nobody has.

When the mass-death stage hits, people in Gaza will be dying by the tens of thousands a week. Stopping the mass-death by all of a sudden providing food isn’t going to work very well, on account of logistical delivery problems and the medical problems of alleviating starvation at this advanced stage – folks’ digestive tracts may well not work well enough even if they get food. That will be the real genocide, and I’d bet money it happens, and bet more money that this is the real objective of Israel’s ‘war’ in Gaza. The notion of Israel’s war objective is displacement of Gazans is an absurdity – you want someone to leave, well they have to be able to walk, right? And they have to have a place to go. Israel is counting on the rest of the world to all of a sudden do a mass-evacuation of Gazans combined with a mass feeding and mass medical intervention all at the same time in order to prevent this mass death of Gazans from occurring? NFW – Israel’s leaders have accepted mass killing as an official state policy, and have commenced doing it, and do it as we speak. And Israeli hasbara [propaganda] will blame us for it, and a whole lot of whored-out American and European politicians, as well as Israel-worshiping American Jews, will go along with it.

What Dan White posits here is horrifying – and increasingly likely. Of course, as people are weakened through starvation, they become more susceptible to various diseases associated with famine and unsanitary conditions.

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Fugitive Vaccine Researcher Behind Infamous ‘No Autism Link’ Study ARRESTED for Stealing $1 Million from CDC

Breitbart News has reported that Poul Thorsen, the Danish researcher whose work has been used for two decades to dismiss any link between vaccines and autism, has finally been arrested in Germany after more than a decade as a fugitive.

Thorsen, 64, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta in 2011 on 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors allege that from 2004 to 2010, he stole more than $1 million in CDC research funds—money intended to study autism, infant disabilities, genetic disorders, and fetal alcohol syndrome. According to the indictment, Thorsen funneled funds into his own accounts using fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead.

He has been on the HHS “Most Wanted” list for over a decade. Acting on an INTERPOL red notice, German authorities finally took him into custody in June. The Department of Justice is now working with Germany to extradite him for trial in the United States.

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Leftwing Magazine Calling Charlie Kirk ‘Racist’ Denies Soros Ties Exposed by JD Vance

The president of a leftwing magazine that tied slain conservative icon Charlie Kirk to Nazis with false information denied Vice President JD Vance’s accurate claims that George Soros funds the outlet.

Vance’s comments about radical leftwing billionaire financier George Soros funding The Nation follows its publication of a column by former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers comparing the slain Turning Point USA founder to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbles and labeling Kirk “an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist.”

As Breitbart News reported, the latter name-calling appeared in the lead paragraph only of the 1000-word essay under the headline: “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning.”

The publication is well-funded by Soros to amplify radical leftwing propaganda, Vance said Monday.

“The Nation isn’t a fringe blog,” Vance said while guest hosting The Charlie Kirk Show. “It’s a well-funded, well-respected magazine whose publishing history goes back to the American Civil War. George Soros’s Open Society Foundation funds this magazine.”

The president of The Nation quickly disputed Vance’s claims, seemingly using well-chosen wording to hide the magazine’s connection to Soros.

“I’m not sure where he’s getting his information, but JD Vance is lying about The Nation magazine,” Bhaskar Sunkara, who identifies as a “democratic socialist” in his profile, posted to X Monday. “We’d welcome donations from anyone who respects our editorial independence, but we’re not funded, not one dime, by Soros or Open Society Foundation.”

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The Rise Of Neo-Feudalism: Germany’s Conservatives Bow To Socialist Wealth Taxes

In Germany, a heated debate has erupted over the taxation of inheritances and wealth—and the Union (CDU/CSU) isn’t even attempting to curb these anti-civilizational trends. In fact, it has become part of the problem.

Unassuming, loyal voters of the Union parties are rubbing their eyes in disbelief these weeks. Faced with the envy-driven push by the Social Democrats for higher inheritance taxes and the possible reintroduction of a wealth tax, many are shocked—or even repelled—by the statements of their own political representatives.

Union Politicians Fuel the Debate

When it comes to citizens’ lawful property and how they use it, Union circles have recently sounded like this: “Those who already had, always gain more. In recent years, particularly during the low-interest phase, wealth grew almost automatically, without much personal effort. Property values, stock values, and more—this is a problem of wealth distribution.” – Jens Spahn, CDU parliamentary group leader.

His colleague Dennis Radtke, social zealot and head of the Christian Democratic Workers’ Association (CDA), goes even further: “We should examine the exemptions in inheritance and gift taxes, under the concept of wealth assessment. These exemptions allow billions in wealth to be gifted and inherited without a single euro in taxes paid… This wouldn’t be a tax increase, just closing loopholes.“

In the view of this gentleman, the fundamental act of wealth creation—which, in a healthy bourgeois society, extends one’s economic actions to one’s descendants—is just a “loophole” if the state cannot freely access our assets.

This makes one thing clear: the party cartel is united when it comes to power. L’État, c’est moi! The citizen is nothing more than a supplier of political power, packaged in liquidable assets.

Generational Contract and Bourgeois Values

We can expect this understanding of the state from Germany’s socialist parties, whether the BSW, The Left, or the Greens. The openly socialist-populist SPD has long since fallen to the point of seeing citizens as nothing more than cows to be milked. Since the disastrous years under Angela Merkel, any voter should have realized that a party embracing open-border policies, eco-socialist climate politics, and bellicist tendencies—as seen in the Ukraine conflict—can no longer serve as a bourgeois counterweight.

Thanks to years of media propaganda, however, many Germans still perceive the chancellor as a representative of bourgeois values. Closer inspection reveals that the green-socialist spectrum of parties—including the Union—ultimately follows the same globalist ideology.

Undermining the family as society’s cornerstone, promoting state-driven culture and media influence, they all follow an unmistakably socialist script.

The centralization of political power in Brussels and dramatically increasing censorship pair with statist economic policies, whose latest victims are German industry. The inheritance and wealth tax debate fits perfectly into this ideological framework, trampling the true generational contract—between parents and heirs.

Neo-Feudal Tendencies

A power structure that manages to secure majority approval for substance taxes—whether inheritance or wealth taxes—through a debate framed around “justice” inevitably becomes a neo-feudal apparatus. Every form of wealth use—portfolio holdings, gifts, or inheritance—comes under arbitrary state administration. Every house, every stock account an individual acquires becomes a fief, requiring continuous tribute to avoid full expropriation.

The media-endorsed debate over “substance” or “resentment” taxes is thus anti-civilizational, anti-bourgeois, and devastating to capital formation. It accelerates pauperization trends now visible throughout the country.

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Liberals admit to pushing emissions cap without studying impact on Canadian families

The Liberals are pushing ahead with their oil and gas emissions cap, a production ban in everything but name, while failing to study how it will impact Canadian families.

Conservative MP Arnold Viersen asked the Liberals to spell out the real-world consequences:

  • What will it mean for the price of groceries, gas, and home heating over the next eight years?
  • How many jobs will be lost in the oil and gas sector?
  • What impact will it have on imports from countries with lower environmental and human-rights standards?
  • How will it affect other sectors like construction, manufacturing, finance, and hospitality?
  • And how does Canada compete if global rivals like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, or the U.S. face no such restrictions?

Instead of answering, Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin pointed to modelling in the Canada Gazette. That “analysis” claimed the cost to families would be “minimal” because energy prices are set internationally, but it gave no breakdowns for household bills. Instead, the government focused on industry stats: oil and gas production is projected to rise 16% with the cap versus 17% without, and labour spending to grow 53% instead of 55% — a 1.6% difference Ottawa is holding up as proof Canadians won’t feel a thing.

The government never studied the effect on families’ wallets. By refusing to account for higher energy costs, job losses, or the knock-on impact on food and housing, Ottawa is leaving Canadians in the dark about how much this policy will cost them.

The emissions cap, announced in November 2024, is supposed to cut oil and gas emissions by one-third starting in 2030.

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‘Eastern Sentry’: The New NATO Initiative To Protect The Eastern Flank

Some eight NATO allies have prepared operation ‘Eastern Sentry’ following last week’s alleged Russian drone breach of Poland. It is a new joint military mission to bolster defense of Europe’s eastern flank, also after Romania had more recently reported a Russian drone incursion, resulting in the scrambling of fighter jets to track it.

“Following the Russian drone incursions into Poland, I have decided to deploy three Rafale fighter jets to contribute to the protection of Polish airspace and of NATO’s Eastern Flank together with our Allies,” President Emmanuel Macron announced on X this week. Along with France, the effort includes the UK, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and The Netherlands. More nations are expected to join.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed that his country will deploy Royal Air Force jets to Poland, while Italy will contribute two Eurofighter jets, and Germany has readied four Eurofighters. Denmark will also sent jets, and Czech Mi-171S helicopters have also arrived in Poland. Over 150 NATO troops have also initially arrived along with the equipment.

Meanwhile, eastern European and Baltic countries are already calling for more, including:

Anti-drone defense systems in NATO countries still need to be developed, Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics told a press conference on Tuesday.

NATO on Friday launched “Eastern Sentry,” a new military mission to bolster defense of Europe’s eastern flank in response to Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace last week.

The Washington Post wrote on Monday, “The incident raised serious questions about the alliance’s readiness to counter the relatively cheap, highly maneuverable but devastatingly destructive unmanned aerial vehicles that have redefined modern warfare since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

Additionally, in a Monday interview, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called on NATO countries to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

“We as NATO and the EU could be capable of doing this, but it is not a decision that Poland can make alone; it can only be made with its allies,” he said.

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Shooting Down Russian Drones Over Poland: Who Is Trying To Start World War 3?

The world is now closer to a full-scale war between NATO and Russia than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  In the early morning hours of September 10, 2025, Western air defenses spotted a fleet of Russian drones that had entered Poland’s airspace.  Shortly thereafter, NATO fighter planes intercepted the intruders, shooting down 16 of them. NATO’s military forces also elevated their alert status.

Questions immediately arose about whether this episode was a deliberate provocation on Russia’s part, or simply a case in which Moscow’s contingent of unmanned drones heading for targets in Ukraine flew off course.  Not surprisingly, high-level officials in both Warsaw and Kyiv, including Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, insisted that the airspace violation was intentional, despite the lack of definitive evidence.  The Washington Post’s editorial board embraced a somewhat different argument, concluding that it really didn’t matter if the incursion was deliberate or not; in either case, the members believed that the situation amounted to a test of NATO’s air defenses and, more important, the Alliance’s “resolve.”

Hawks in many NATO countries also exploited the incident to argue that the Alliance needed to accelerate the pace of its ongoing military buildup and to boost its security solidarity with Ukraine.  In other words, such advocates seek to escalate NATO’s existing proxy war that uses Kyiv as a tool to weaken Russia.  The contemplated escalation would take the form of increasing the Alliance’s direct military involvement – even though that step would risk the outbreak of combat between Russian and NATO units.  NATO leaders have now used the drone incident to adopt a new confrontational mission, dubbed Eastern Sentry.

Such a move would intensify NATO’s already alarming confrontation with Moscow.  Ironically, a reasonably dispassionate assessment of the circumstances surrounding the drone episode would suggest that it was more likely an inadvertent intrusion than a hostile probe.  At the same time that Alliance defenders were knocking the Russian drones out of Poland’s skies, Russian ally Belarus announced that it was taking similar action against such drones that had penetrated its airspace.

The nature of Minsk’s response indicated that a Russian drone fleet launched against Ukraine had been disrupted by Ukrainian or NATO electronic warfare measures, causing it to deviate onto a new course over Poland.  It would be ironic if the Western powers had brought this problem on themselves through their own electronic warfare actions, but the overall circumstances suggest that that it is the most likely explanation.

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