Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the United States, it’s estimated that at least 7 million people over the age of 65 have dementia. If current trends continue, by the end of the decade, more than 9 million Americans are expected to suffer from this loss of cognitive functioning—that’s equivalent to the population of New York City.

Memory impairment isn’t just affecting the elderly. By 2050, the number of U.S. adults over the age of 40 living with dementia is expected to more than double, from 5.2 million to 10.5 million. To compound matters, there’s a new type of dementia plaguing Americans, one that’s affecting people much younger than 40. It’s called digital dementia, and millions of unsuspecting, young Americans are at risk.

A major health epidemic, digital dementia occurs when one part of the brain is overstimulated and another part of the brain is understimulated. When we mindlessly use digital devices, the frontal lobe, which is responsible for higher-level executive functions, gets little, if any, use. Meanwhile, the occipital lobe, the visual processor located at the back of the brain, gets bombarded with sensory input. Slouched over and spaced out, people, both young and old, are abusing their brains, day in and day out. Preteens and teens are particularly at risk for two reasons:

• An American 8 to 12-year-old spends an average of 4.7 hours a day scrolling their lives away. That’s around 70 days in a given year.
• The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the brain region responsible for planning and decision-making, doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25.

Digital dementia impedes both short-term and long-term memory. Moreover, as research shows, excessive screen time during brain development increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, in adulthood. Not surprisingly, excessive screen time is intimately associated with digital addiction. This, in turn, fuels digital dementia, which results in the shrinking of the brain’s gray matter. White matter facilitates communication between gray matter areas. But without gray matter, which plays a critical role in emotions, memories, and movements, there’s really nothing to communicate. White matter helps the traffic get from A to B. Grey matter, on the other hand, is the traffic.

It gets worse. As Gurwinder Bhogal, an excellent British-Indian writer, recently noted, not only is “gray matter shrinkage in smartphone-addicted individuals” a growing problem, the Western average IQ is declining—rapidly, he added.

This has been the case for decades. The decline of brain power has been particularly notable in America. Lead exposure, and, more recently, the effects of draconian lockdowns, have had deleterious effects on Americans’ IQs. As technology continues to rise, IQ continues to decline. Is there an association? The answer appears to be yes.

What we’re witnessing is the Flynn effect in reverse. Named after James R. Flynn, the renowned intelligence researcher who passed away in 2020, the Flynn effect refers to a steady upward shift in IQ test scores across generations. In recent times, however, that steady upward shift has transformed into a spiraling nosedive. This isn’t surprising. In fact, as our lives become more intertwined with technology, and as we outsource more of our thinking and doing to search engines and ChatGPT-like systems, we should expect this nosedive to increase in velocity.

As Mr. Bhogal noted, common sense suggests that the decline in IQ is “at least partly the result of technology making the attainment of satisfaction increasingly effortless, so that we spend ever more of our time in a passive, vegetative state.”

“If you don’t use it,” he added, “you lose it.” Indeed. By “it,” of course, he means your brain. But brain function isn’t the only thing being lost.

The rise of digital dementia, digital addiction, and lower IQ scores is a reflection of a much broader problem. The United States isn’t just struggling with demographic decline; it’s also wrestling with the unholy trinity of spiritual, psychological, and intellectual decline. The country is becoming fatter, sicker, older, and dumber. The movie “Idiocracy” wasn’t a parody; it was a prophecy.

As intelligence levels continue to plummet and test scores continue to fall in the likes of math and reading, the United States risks becoming a society of brainless, aimless individuals, a nation consisting of millions of obese zombies. Contrary to popular belief, societal collapse doesn’t occur overnight; it occurs in increments, a death by a thousand cuts. The biggest threat to the United States isn’t necessarily external; it’s posed by the numerous digital devices in our hands and homes. Technology has consumed both our minds and our souls; are we going to get either of them back?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Hans Mahncke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now admits that it recommended COVID-19 vaccines for people who had recovered from COVID-19 despite the fact that CDC subject matter experts didn’t have access to the underlying data.

The stunning disclosure came in reply to a FOIA request for information on the CDC’s claim, first made on Oct. 29, 2021, that unvaccinated people with previous infection were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than vaccinated people.

The CDC’s claim was based on a CDC study published in the Nov. 9, 2021, edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The conflicts-of-interest section of the study had noted that a number of the study’s authors were being sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline. At least four of the listed pharmaceutical companies were involved in the manufacturing and sale of COVID-19 vaccines.

Given that the conflict-of-interest disclosures were made at the time the study was first published, the CDC would have been aware of the heightened need to scrutinize its findings. However, this appears not to have happened. Notably, the CDC’s public pronouncement about unvaccinated COVID-19 survivors being five times more likely to get reinfected was made on the same day that the study was released as a preprint. This would have left no time for any review.

A lawyer who specializes in FOIA cases subsequently made a formal request for the data underlying the study. Last week, the CDC replied by admitting that the CDC didn’t have this data. According to the CDC, the data was held by an “external partner organization and was maintained by a contractor.” Notably, the CDC also acknowledged that “CDC subject matter experts didn’t receive copies of the raw data prior to the contract termination.”

Put another way, the CDC made its vaccination recommendation for people who already had COVID-19 without ever seeing or having had access to the underlying data. Furthermore, that data is now no longer available, meaning that neither the CDC, nor the general public, may ever know what it said.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had previously pointed out problems with the CDC’s study. He further highlighted the fact that the study’s authors had conflicts of interest. Mr. Massie’s concerns have now not only been confirmed but have also been aggravated by the fact that the CDC never reviewed or audited the study. 

The CDC’s failure to scrutinize the study before making sweeping recommendations to the public is exacerbated by the fact that the emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines specifically excepted people who had previously been infected with COVID-19. 

Pfizer’s emergency use authorization specifically stated that the “available data are insufficient to determine whether such individuals could benefit from vaccination.” Moderna’s emergency use authorization acknowledged that its vaccine study “was not designed to assess the benefit in individuals with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.” Johnson and Johnson’s emergency use authorization used similar wording. 

When it was pointed out in 2021 that the emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines didn’t account for people who had already had the disease, Twitter (now known as X) promptly marked this fact as misinformation. 

The existence of natural immunity, meaning that the human body remembers how to fight off diseases that it has previously been afflicted with, has been known since ancient Greek times. When the plague tore through ancient Athens in 430 B.C., Thucydides noted that those who had been previously afflicted weren’t getting sick. He stated that “the same man was never attacked twice–never at least fatally.” However, when COVID-19 broke out, the CDC appears to have cast aside 2,500 years’ worth of medical wisdom. As we now know, the CDC did this without accessing or analyzing the underlying data.

The latest revelations about the CDC are the topic of an upcoming episode of “Truth Over News” to be aired on EpochTV on Nov. 15.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s career appears to be fading to blackface – as his approval ratings, which now suck, have plummeted thanks in no small part to housing and inflation woes fueling a firestorm of disapproval. Despite a safety net agreement with a left-leaning opposition that defers his political reckoning until 2025, the rumblings within his own party suggest Trudeau’s leadership is skating on increasingly thin ice.

Hoping to capitalize on Trudeau’s tumble is Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party leader, who’s turned public grumbling over “Justinflation” — a catchphrase linking the economic downturn to Trudeau’s governance — into a national rallying cry, Bloomberg reports.

Social media, that modern-day gladiator arena, has become Poilievre’s coliseum after a viral video of him munching an apple while parrying a journalist’s queries went viral – earning clicks and cheers from the online crowd, including notable figures like Elon Musk.

How do you like them apples?

PART 1 pic.twitter.com/RkDBAn13nl

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) October 14, 2023

As Trudeau’s fellow Liberals seem to be floundering for a response, their political adversaries are surging ahead with a clear message and a digital savvy that’s capturing the Canadian imagination. The Liberal caucus, a band of 158 MPs, is getting antsy as the Canadian electorate’s thirst for change is growing more parched by the day. The political barometer suggests a storm is brewing, and if current trends continue, Trudeau’s tenure could end not with a heartfelt farewell but with the blunt force of a political reckoning.

Poilievre, meanwhile, has tapped into the vein of economic dissatisfaction coursing through the country. The Conservative leader’s mantra that life has become more expensive under Trudeau has struck a chord with voters who are feeling the pinch in their wallets. Meanwhile, the Liberal camp’s attempts to retaliate are too little, too late, as they scramble to portray Poilievre as a northern Trump. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are running a charm offensive, pumping their campaign funds into feel-good ads featuring Poilievre’s family and wholesome hockey-playing past.

Getting desperate?

In a policy pivot that smacks of political desperation, Trudeau’s landmark carbon tax on home-heating oil has been suspended, in a nod to Poilievre’s “Axe the Tax” battle cry. This backtrack has ruffled feathers among environmentalists and provincial leaders alike, showing Trudeau’s struggle to balance policy principles with political survival.

Beneath the surface of these tactical maneuvers lies a deep-seated frustration among voters, who’ve watched their cost of living soar under Trudeau’s watch. The Prime Minister’s efforts to address the housing crisis and food price inflation have so far failed to deliver the relief many Canadians seek.

As the Trudeau administration grapples with a litany of challenges, both domestic and international, and as the Conservative shadow looms large, the central question remains: Can Trudeau regain the trust of Canadians after eight years of political wear and tear?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Think back to those grim days of mid-March 2020. Many things didn’t make sense. There were screams about a new virus but no tests available for anyone to find out if we had the dreaded disease or not. The main question in everyone’s mind was, “How can I find out if I have this strange new bug?”

Hold on just a moment there. If there were no tests, how do we know that there was a reason to panic? If there were only a handful of positive tests, how do we know for sure that the virus wasn’t here and spreading months earlier? Maybe what they were calling COVID-19 was here for a year or more.

Was there really any way to know? Sure, we could have done seroprevalence tests on the population, but there were none underway. The one that came out earliest, in May 2020, showed that exposure had already happened by March, a fact which completely undermines the entire cockamamie policy response. The study was brutally attacked.

Why precisely was it mid-March 2020 when all official institutions, including media, not just in the United States but all over the world, decided suddenly to freak out? Why not in January 2020? Why at all?

Indeed, it wasn’t even clear what the point of the lockdowns was. Were we trying to make the virus go away through brute force? Early on, then-Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci even told The Washington Post that the virus would be defeated by social distancing alone.

What precisely would be the point of delaying infection and spread by two weeks, then another two weeks, and so on? There are endless questions. How did we know how many ventilators were going to be needed and where? And ventilation itself is a strange approach in any case, since it’s so deeply damaging and even deadly.

There was zero evidence in mid-March that this virus was potentially fatal for working-age people, and even among healthy elderly people, the survival rate was extremely high.

Another strange fact of those days was that they kept screaming that there was no treatment. Well, are we sure of that? No one in official channels was looking for treatments. How do we find treatments? By talking to experienced doctors who treat patients. But every time one of them spoke out, they were quickly and brutally shouted down and denounced.

As it turns out, many clinical physicians did, in fact, discover very effective treatments, from Vitamin D to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Huge and well-connected private sources of wealth funded deeply flawed studies that were trying to debunk them.

There was a ton of prattle about a vaccine, but this never made sense of any history of such products. A coronavirus is fast-mutating. Never before had there been a vaccine for the same virus that fuels half the common colds. There was no reason to expect that such a product would ever arrive. Even if it did, it would take five to 10 years to pass safety and efficacy tests. Plus, there’s always a grave danger of vaccinating your way out of a pandemic: It can drive mutations and wreck immune systems.

Again, all of this was known, not even controversial a year earlier. Still, in the chaos of those lockdown days, vaccine producers were given billions in tax dollars for development, all the privileges that come with “emergency use,” and wide indemnification against injury. Why is this not, and very obviously, an extremely bad idea?

Knowing that all of this was happening, alongside the locking down of the country, was enough reason for any discerning individual to cry foul. But there was another problem: We were by and large forbidden from gathering in groups. There could be no meetings. The few that took place were denounced by the media. Most were simply illegal.

The world was in chaos, and the professional class that could have put the pieces together was forced into a kind of digital isolation and paid the big bucks to sit around at home. Everyone was told that doing so was saving lives, even though there wasn’t a shred of evidence that this was true. But the media was howling in absolute union as if any of this made sense.

As the months went on, there were other crazy things happening, such as the gradual discovery that the PCR tests were good only for discovering the presence of the virus but nearly useless for delineating sick from not sick. Everything positive was declared a case, even though in the past the word “case” was reserved for people who were actually sick and in need of some treatment.

We were told to test, test, test, but there was never an action item of what to do with a positive case. Isolate, fine. That was for somehow “controlling the spread,” but for how long were we going to attempt to do that? If everyone was going to get this thing and develop immunity, what precisely could have been the point in all of the disruption and destruction?

Coincident with all this insanity, Congress was authorizing trillions and trillions of dollars in spending bills, generating debt that the Federal Reserve would buy with new money that was sure to generate inflation at a later date. Had all fiscal sanity just been thrown out the window?

Also in the midst of all of this, we had an extreme relaxation of ballot rules over voting. This happened right away and prepared a path for an explosion of the mail-in ballots that would decide the election against President Donald Trump.

Then you had the emergence of intense censorship from all main social media accounts. Before Joe Biden was inaugurated, President Trump was removed by Twitter entirely. Over the following week, the social media site Parler was shut down by Amazon, which was hosting its website, just before the app was removed from Apple.

At this point, it should have been obvious what was happening here: Media was being nationalized, bit by bit; all important sectors of it, in any case—that which reaches the 99 percent.

Now, at this point in the narrative, we were invited to believe that all of these weird things were discreet incidents, perhaps various interest groups piling on to take advantage of the chaos.

Some people, at the time, said there was no way that this was all the unfolding of a giant conspiracy. Governments aren’t that smart. Consider all that had to come together: media-generated panic with no serious outliers, bad PCR testing, neglect of therapeutics, mass intubation, indemnification of vaccine makers, global lockdowns, media censorship, social media takedowns, cancellation of dissent, relaxation of voting rules, worst inflation and spending in 40 years, and I’m probably missing a few things.

Surely all of this couldn’t have been planned from the top.

Maybe. And yet this week, we’ve been presented with incredible evidence of how the government worked very closely with social media companies through third-party institutions that were themselves funded by the government. They flagged accounts for takedowns. This so-called switchboarding was deployed to hide censorship.

I knew all of this, but the evidence is now all before us. It’s an avalanche of confirmation of our worst suppositions.

Here’s what stands out to me. We now have emails from April 2020 showing that Twitter officials knew for sure that the Election Integrity Partnership of the Stanford Internet Observatory was being established by the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security precisely to monitor and control social media.

One can presume that these efforts began a few weeks earlier, roughly fitting the timeline of the censorship efforts together with lockdowns.

In other words, it all happened at once. From what we can see, the turning point was March 13, 2020. That was the date of the coup. It was never announced. It just happened. The lockdowns and public panic were the dry ice deployed by magicians to hide their tricks.

President Trump was mostly not in charge of anything after that date, which is why he was so anxious to change the subject as the summer months of 2020 approached. At that point, he couldn’t restrain the immense bureaucracy that had taken charge of the country.

How the rest of the disaster fits in, we still need to know. There’s so much more to discover. But this one bit of information—that censorship and lockdowns went together—is highly suggestive of an integrated plan.

After all, if you were plotting a coup, with some of the world’s smartest and most powerful people, would you not plan it out in great detail? Indeed you would.

There’s so much more to learn about this disaster, or scandal, for the ages.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

One Day after the resignation of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s US chief marketing officer, attributed to plummeting US sales amid an ongoing boycott of Bud Light following the controversial ad campaign featuring transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney in April, a new report has surfaced indicating just how much the brewer spent on Mulvaney. 

On Thursday, Steven Crowder posted a video on social media platform X revealing a “never before seen financial statement” that shows Bud Light allegedly paid Mulvaney $185,000 for the early April campaign. 

BREAKING: Mug Club Undercover Obtains Never Before Seen Financial Statement Showing @BudLight Paid Dylan Mulvaney $185,000 For Disastrous Influencer Campaign pic.twitter.com/r0oAyqKtNa

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 16, 2023

“This is an exclusive that was sent to us, and we verified,” Crowder said. He said, “The figure is much higher – Mulvaney was paid – there was one deposit there of $185,000 paid by Bud Light.” 

Crowder continued: “Yes, another man is being paid more than WNBA players.” 

He said, “You don’t pay $185,000 to an influencer if you don’t continue some type of campaign – they were testing the waters – this would’ve become a national campaign if they thought it was going to work.” 

pic.twitter.com/Iy6QYScTxp

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 16, 2023

However, readers know the story: Americans are fed up with the man pretending to be a woman and boycotted the brewer. The woke company reported a 13.5% drop in third-quarter US revenue per 100 liters, a key metric of beer sales. 

AB executives risked $185,000 to wipe out 21% of the company’s market cap, or nearly $29 billion. In recent weeks, shares have risen, and the current market cap is around $123.4 billion, which is still a $11 billion decline. 

Bud Light has lost its long-held nation’s most popular beer title to rival Modelo over the summer. The brewer recently ‘bribed’ distributors to keep the beer on shelves. 

The best form of revolt against this woke brewer is to shop at your local brewer. Americans woke up to the fact AB was selling them ‘piss water’:

The NFL and Bud Light trying so hard. The product the NFL has out now sucks. The game is unrecognizable and the refs suck. They disrespected this country and their woke shit makes me want to puke. Bud Light, give it up piss water beer!

— BuckyBadger (@Reggiebarker) November 14, 2023

Bud Light is not beer, it’s piss water.

— Katie Nick (@KatieNick14) November 16, 2023

I totally get ya, tho I would argue that the VERY worst beers are what I like to call “Barbecue Dad” beers. Bud Light, Coors Light, Corona. The kind of mellow piss water you find at suburban cookouts that taste like the puddles that form under air conditioners.

— Jacob Firestone (@jfrancisfright) November 17, 2023

Authored by Igor Chudov via Igor-Chudov.com,

Oh, how much the times have changed!

The United States Army is now begging COVID unvaccinated soldiers, who underwent involuntary discharge for their refusal to take the vaccine, to return to service and also permits them to correct their military records!

Just two years ago, in a shameful campaign, the Pentagon was gleefully discharging soldiers who refused to take Covid vaccines:

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/12/14/air-force-…

We were assured that these discharges would “not affect military readiness.”

“I can tell you there are no operational impacts across the force for readiness,” Marine Corps Lt. Gen. David Ottignon told lawmakers. “There’s no one community that has signaled an instance where a [leader], an NCO or another enlisted Marine is not present because of that.”

The Marine Corps has, by far, kicked out the most service members: 1,968 total, 20% of whom received an honorable discharge. That amounts to just under 1% of the total force, which stands at about 215,000.

However, the readiness suffered: thousands of service members were dismissed, and potential recruits declined to enlist in the Armed Services, because, guess what, young healthy men loath COVID vaccines.

More than 17,000 service members balked at taking the shots, citing safety fears linked to the vaccine’s speedy development and spurred by misinformation about messenger ribonucleic acid technology, as well as concern over fetal cell lines used in formulation and testing. The more the controversy raged in the news, the more troops asked to skip the shots, Military Times reporting found.

The COVID vaccine mandate removed three times as many servicemembers (8,339, see above) compared to the 2,402 soldiers tragically killed in Afghanistan. The involuntarily terminated soldiers were, of course, the best, the brightest, the healthiest, and most conscientious, who cared the most about their health.

Thousands were given career-destroying reprimands:

Lt. Col. Terry Kelley, a spokesman for the Army, said that 2,767 soldiers have received “general officer written reprimands” — killing their opportunities for promotions or transfers within the military — and that two battalion commanders as well as four other officers have been relieved of their duties but remain enlisted in the military.

The leadership, sadly, stayed silent. (pictured here is Lloyd Austin)

As a result, the military is missing its recruitment goals by 25%:

COVID vaccinations and other reasons “caused [the army’s] end strength to fall from an original level of 485,000 in late 2021 to around 452,000 active duty soldiers today”.

Now, COVID vaccinations are all but forgotten, but the bitterness, nastiness, and senselessness of the mandates should be remembered. Remember how those dismissals were cheered by the media, such as the LA Times:

I am sorry about the destroyed careers of the best servicemembers. They kept their health — they will get military discharge papers corrected — but they will always remember the unfairness, the trauma, and the helplessness they felt as their commanders dismissed them for not taking experimental and non-working COVID vaccines.

Life is not fair; the soldiers have not been compensated, but they at least remained healthy and true to their principles.

Please appreciate how hard it was for those brave souls to stick to their principles: their entire lives and careers were being wrecked by the illegal COVID orders. These are courageous people – and the military needs stoic and strong heroes, of which 8,331 were dismissed due to insane orders of the Biden administration.

Was that an intentional campaign to rid the military of critical thinkers? Let us know what you think!

Get woke, go broke strikes again? 

A year ago the Miss Universe Pageant made headlines after a Thai business tycoon, transgender activist and biological male named Jakapong Jakrajutatip purchased the organization for $20 million.  The CEO is the biggest shareholder of JKN Global Group and was made popular after appearing on Thai versions of television shows such as Shark Tank and Project Runway.  

Now known as “Anne” Jakrajutatip, the new pageant owner raised eyebrows when he declared himself the “first female owner” of Miss Universe, and gave a speech at the event about “female empowerment.”  Critics noted that Jakrajutatip is actually not a woman and knows nothing of female empowerment, but in the midst of the woke movement’s war on biological reality the first casualties are words and their meanings.  

The acquisition of Miss Universe was widely applauded by the political left, but it is just one of many attempts by activists to supplant natural beauty standards and undermine pageants, which they view as “sexist” organizations catering to men.  Ironically, these pageants are now stacking their competitions with men posing as women and giving them awards.   For example, the Miss Netherlands competition recently gave the crown to a biological man over a long list of female contestants.  It would seem you don’t need to be attractive to win a beauty contest anymore, you just need to be at the top of the woke totem pole.

And let’s not forget Victoria Secret’s suspension of its famous “Angels” runway show three years ago.  The event, known for its revealing lingerie on some of the most beautiful models in the world, tried to deconstruct its own brand by creating a new show that included a lumbering brigade of plus-size women and trans models.  Ratings and revenues plummeted and the company now says it plans to “bring back sexy” in the next year, essentially admitting that woke is not sexy and does not sell.

Jakapong Jakrajutatip is making a similar discovery as JKN Global Group filed for bankruptcy protection in Thailand after missing a payment on a debenture tranche on Sept. 1, triggering cross-defaults on six others.  JKN’s business model relied heavily on content programming, which was boosted by covid lockdowns and captive audiences throughout Asia.  With the lockdowns gone, the company is now in the hole for almost $200 million.  

For Miss Universe, however, the problems go deeper, with an insider judge for the pageant revealing that outrage over the trans controversy has damaged the brand.  Ratings for the 2023 show which includes two trans contestants are expected to decline substantially.

Trans involvement in women’s venues is meeting increasing resistance as real women finally begin to realize that they are being replaced by men within their own competitions in a virtue signaling free-for-all.  While one should never underestimate the average progressive woman’s propensity for self sabotage, it would seem that resistance to the trans ideology is expanding well beyond conservative spheres. 

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

November 17, 2024: Harvard launches “Jihad Immersion” study abroad program

Harvard University, long known for its progressive academic offerings, has stirred controversy with its latest array of courses. In response to growing student interest in Palestinian causes, the university has introduced a series of provocative new classes.

One of the most contentious courses, “Intro to Explosive Expression: Bomb Making 101,” purports to explore the “art and science” behind explosive devices, framed as a study in “political and revolutionary engineering.”

Critics have lambasted the course as being in poor taste and potentially dangerous, while supporters argue it provides critical insight into the struggles faced by oppressed groups.

In a similar vein, a course titled “Decapitation as Discourse,” examines the history and technique of beheading as a form of political statement.

Special guest lecturer Mohammed Deif, the Supreme Military Commander of Hamas, will guide students through the study and practice of the most effective means of separating a head from a body— using cadavers, of course.

Students in this course will also learn how to use proper lighting and filming techniques to livestream a beheading on YouTube. However Harvard administrators were quick to point out that they do not condone violence, and the course is merely about political and emotional expression.

There’s also a new course entitled “A Survey of Jewish Anatomy”, which resurrects the old pseudo-science of phrenology. Students will study updated methods of taking cranial measurements to determine skull size, forehead slope, and distance between eye sockets, so that they can correctly determine whether they are in the presence of Jews.

A number of Palestine-focused study abroad programs have also been added, including the “Jihad Immersion” option; according to university officials, this program was so popular with Harvard students that it filled up within 3 minutes of being released.

Intifada Immersion also satisfies multiple physical education credits, as students will spend a semester at a Hamas training camp. According to the program’s brochure, they will learn vital skills, such as how to swing across monkey bars wearing a balaclava with an AK-47 slung across their backs.

University officials state the purpose of the program is to encourage physical activity while enhancing empathy and understanding of guerrilla movements.

In addition, Harvard will also fund the “Pride March in Gaza” field trip for the Queers for Palestine student organization. The group aims to highlight the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ rights and the Palestinian cause.

All trip participants, however, are required to sign a waiver that holds the university harmless in the event of a brutal lynching.

Another controversial addition is Harvard Law School’s new concentration on Sharia Law. This course includes a unique project where students compete to shout down visiting conservative legal scholars by screaming “Allahu Akbar” the loudest and most times in a row.

Harvard also hired a new professor, former Rep. Rashida Tlaib, to teach a capstone course entitled “Women’s Rights in Palestine.”

Palestine currently requires women to seek court approved permission from a husband or other male head of household in order to go about in public without a male chaperone.

The course— which will now be a graduation requirement for all students— seeks to frame what may appear to be oppression of women as a liberating force which actually promotes feminist power.

For example, the course asserts that full body and face coverings in the Islamic world actually help free women from toxic masculinity and patriarchal standards of beauty.

Despite the backlash, Harvard maintains that these courses are meant to push the boundaries of traditional academia and encourage critical thinking on complex global issues.

Harvard officials have also stated that these offerings reflect the university’s commitment to academic freedom and the exploration of diverse perspectives.

That said, Pro-Israel students who protested the new courses have been expelled.

*  *  *

PS: If you can see what is happening, and where this is all going, you understand why it is so important to have a Plan B. That’s why we published our 31-page, fully updated Perfect Plan B Guide, which you can download here.

Roughly seven months after screwing over California homeowners with a 75% reduction in rates paid for energy fed back to the grid, the golden state is also screwing over apartment owners, farms, and schools, Bloomberg reports.

In a unanimous vote on Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, with a 5-0 vote, those who wish to install solar power on schools, apartment buildings, and farms will also receive less credits for exporting power to the grid. This adds to the challenges the solar industry faces, which has already struggled with high-interest rates and sliding demand.

Under the new rules, the aforementioned categories, as well as commercial strips and other facilities where more than one electric meter is on the same site, will receive less money from utilities in exchange for excess solar produced.

“This (new rule) forces them to sell low and buy high,” Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association, told local paper CalMatters, warning, “No one is going to go solar under that setup.“

The decision will hurt new solar development and could result in future layoffs. It adds more pressure to the solar industry, struggling with sliding sales and high-interest rates that have made rooftop solar systems less affordable. 

The decision is a setback for solar companies struggling with sagging sales as higher interest rates make consumers less willing to finance rooftop solar systems. In addition, California — the biggest solar market — slashed incentives for house installations in April to make sure the costs to run utility grids are shared fairly.

That move has proved devastating for the state’s rooftop solar industry, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association. The trade group said its members reported an 80% drop in sales since the decision and anticipates a loss of about 20% of California’s solar jobs by early next year. -Bloomberg

SunPower Corp., Sunnova Energy International Inc., Enphase Energy Inc., and SolarEdge Technologies Inc. are some of the largest solar companies operating in California. Shares in these companies have crashed this year. 

And just how does California plan to eradicate fossil fuels with ‘green energy’ to meet 100% carbon-free electricity targets by 2045 if it was disincentivized new solar development?