Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, delivers a warning to those who complain on social media about their stabbing or beheading. Minister Benn notes the danger created by people online sharing information from Belfast after two days of civic unrest in the city following a migrant stabbing and slicing a local resident.
The need for control is always a reaction to fear. Apparently, the government of Great Britain is very fearful.
“Social media companies have a very heavy responsibility. It’s why we’re going to bring forward new powers next week to make it clear that social media companies need to take down illegal content, particularly when we are facing circumstances such as the ones we’ve seen in Northern Ireland over the last two days”
The entire Western world is ruled by a self-centered elite numbering but a few thousand. No one who is not either onboard with them or accepts being a servile toady to them (most politicians) ever gets anywhere near real political power, or honest social influence. What’s changed today is social media, especially X, does allow the honest voices of ordinary people to be heard. Historically, elites have always manufactured social and political ‘reality’. In today’s world many of their traditional tricks are not working as well as they did only ten years ago. Moreover, it is obvious to anyone paying attention that more voices and more information about anything actually results in better and truer information. Crowds crowd-sourcing themselves have proved to be much more savvy that a few thousand elites, who all bow to a small handful of super-elites. It is simply a fact that more information seen by more people who add yet more information yields better information. Bad info is quickly sifted out. Elites fear open-ended information more than anything because it quickly reveals how wrong, venal, selfish, dim-witted and crazy they are. If you want to lead ‘your’ people, listen to them and lead them with the truth. It’s that simple. It is the rigid elite of the West who will cause inevitable social upheaval and violence, not the people who dare to speak and act on the gruesome absurdity of mass migration-invasion of military-age men who hate White people and Western civilization. ABN
…French Gates, 61, became visibly emotional when discussing Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose ties to some of the world’s richest and most powerful men continues to cast a shadow years after his death.
Asked what it was about Epstein that disturbed her so deeply when she met him, French Gates struggled to contain her emotions.
‘My heart is racing,’ she said, according to The Guardian, before asking a striking question of her own.
‘Have you ever in your life been around somebody that you just know is evil?’
‘There you go. You just have your answer. We need to listen to our feelings about people.’
The reaction was so intense that French Gates briefly attempted to end the conversation before eventually continuing.
Have you ever in your life been in a country where only two people have faced serious consequences for their depraved associations with Jeffrey Epstein? Though the Epstein spy/ blackmail/ torture/ sexploitation and human trafficking enterprise was rife with a majority of Jews and Jewish supremacists, there have only been two people—Bill Gates and ex-Prince Andrew, both non-Jews—who have suffered any consequence for their contacts with Epstein, which were probably milder than most. OFC, the top perps have seen consequences — Ghislaine Maxwell is in jail and Epstein has either absconded (my view) or been killed. But none of the other many depraved co-perpetrators have suffered any consequence except mild and temporary notoriety for a few of them. Incidentally, I do sort of agree with Melinda that ‘we should listen to our feelings about people’ but also am well-aware that our feelings about people are frequently deeply mistaken. Anyone who does FIML for just a few months will see how deeply deluded our feelings can be. My guess, however, is Epstein probably radiated evil. If you have ever knowingly been in the company of a Jewish Supremist, they do give off an evil vibe but are also extremely good at concealing it. Deceit is their foremost social weapon. I myself have been fooled by them many times. ABN
A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space–time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials1,2,3,4. In animal models, psilocybin induces neuroplasticity in cortex and hippocampus5,6,7,8. It remains unclear how human brain network changes relate to subjective and lasting effects of psychedelics. Here we tracked individual-specific brain changes with longitudinal precision functional mapping (roughly 18 magnetic resonance imaging visits per participant). Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later. Psilocybin massively disrupted functional connectivity (FC) in cortex and subcortex, acutely causing more than threefold greater change than methylphenidate. These FC changes were driven by brain desynchronization across spatial scales (areal, global), which dissolved network distinctions by reducing correlations within and anticorrelations between networks. Psilocybin-driven FC changes were strongest in the default mode network, which is connected to the anterior hippocampus and is thought to create our sense of space, time and self. Individual differences in FC changes were strongly linked to the subjective psychedelic experience. Performing a perceptual task reduced psilocybin-driven FC changes. Psilocybin caused persistent decrease in FC between the anterior hippocampus and default mode network, lasting for weeks. Persistent reduction of hippocampal-default mode network connectivity may represent a neuroanatomical and mechanistic correlate of the proplasticity and therapeutic effects of psychedelics.
It is my understanding that the Buddha and/or the Buddhist tradition was and always has been well aware of psilocybin and probably other psychedelics and herbal drugs, like opium and cannabis.
In light of this, it is significant that the Fifth Precept for lay Buddhists proscribes only alcohol, and it does this very specifically by mentioning two types of alcoholic beverages (fermented and distilled) and nothing else. The Fifth Precept does not mention any other drugs.
As modern Buddhists, we can see that this conforms with what many of us have experienced with psychedelics and cannabis, among other ‘recreational’ drugs. Of course those drugs can be harmful but they can also do people a lot of good. Alcohol use, on the other hand, too often leads to very dangerous and spiritually stultifying mental conditions that do no one any good.
I have no problem with Buddhist teachers extrapolating the meaning of the Fifth Precept to include other drugs and sensory indulgences, but also believe that paying attention to the original meaning and its socio-environmental context (when people knew lots about plants) is important to keep in mind.
I asked Grok to fix this image up. The AI tried several times but always came back saying it cannot improve it due to ‘safety’ limitations. Please download the image and save it for posterity. ABN
The first trillionaire in human history – Elon Musk – Born in South Africa – Bullied relentlessly as a kid – Immigrated to North America – Arrived with a backpack and a dream – Built Zip2 with his brother – Sold it 4 years later for $300 million – Co-founded PayPal with the profits – Revolutionized digital payments – Sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion – Bet everything on Tesla and SpaceX – Got mocked for electric cars – Got laughed at for reusable rockets – Nearly went bankrupt in 2008 – Kept building anyway – Turned Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker – Made EVs mainstream and transformed the automotive industry – Made reusable rockets a reality – Reduced the cost of reaching space by 95% – Sparked the modern commercial space race – Built Starlink and connected millions around the world to high-speed internet – Turned SpaceX into the most valuable private company in history – Bought Twitter for $44 billion – The world said he overpaid – He was called reckless, stupid & crazy – Advertisers fled, media declared it dead – Critics called it the worst acquisition in tech history – Renamed it 𝕏 – Rebuilt the platform anyway – Turned it into one of the most influential platforms on Earth – Launched xAI and accelerated the global AI race – Sent astronauts to space – Is trying to get humans to mars – Created millions of jobs – Generated hundreds of billions in value – Inspired an entire generation of builders Before: – Failed repeatedly – Worked insane hours – Slept in factories and offices – Got bullied, laughed at and mocked – Constantly told “it’s impossible” – Kept building anyway – Made it possible Today: – Richest person on Earth – First trillionaire in human history – Largest IPO in history $1.77 trillion Most people quit when the world laughs at them. Elon Musk built the future instead. Love him or hate him… Nobody has changed more industries in a single lifetime. Payments. Cars. Energy. Space. Social Media. Communications. AI. History won’t remember the people who said it couldn’t be done. It will remember the people who did it anyway. Congratulations Elon. The first trillionaire.
Today, I’m releasing never before seen intelligence revealing new evidence of past US government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including Ukraine.
In support of President Trump‘s Executive Order to end federal funding of dangerous gain of function research around the world, and increase transparency and accountability, ODNI will continue working with partners across the Administration to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what “research” is being conducted.
The federal hemp ban is a law passed in November 2025 that reclassifies most intoxicating hemp-derived THC products (including delta-8, delta-9, THCA, and HHC) as Schedule I controlled substances, effectively closing the loophole created by the 2018 Farm Bill. This ban is scheduled to take full effect on November 12, 2026, at which point the sale, possession, and purchase of these products will be illegal in states where marijuana is not already legalized.
Key provisions and impacts of the legislation include:
Strict Limits: The law sets a cap of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container for finished consumer products and excludes synthetic or converted cannabinoids from the legal definition of hemp.
Affected States: Consumers in states without legalized marijuana (such as Idaho, Kansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) will lose access to these products, while states with legal cannabis markets will likely see sales shift to licensed dispensaries.
Exemptions:Industrial hemp (fiber, grain) and non-intoxicating CBD products without detectable THC generally remain legal, though some full-spectrum CBD items may need reformulation to meet the new per-container limits.
While the Trump Administration has claimed new legal authority to dismantle the market for these products, enforcement challenges remain due to limited federal resources and conflicting state laws. Some industry groups are lobbying for delays or regulatory frameworks instead of an outright ban, but as of June 2026, no legislation has successfully overturned the November 2026 effective date.
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Neither the federal government nor state or local governments should have any say in what individuals consume of their own free-will. Governments might do well to regulate potentially dangerous substances with the aim of making sure they contain no toxic additives or byproducts. Age requirements for purchase, warnings, and, in some cases a doctor’s prescription for use, make sense if done with the least restriction feasible. Rather than imposing high taxes on cigarettes, government would do better to make sure cigarettes are made from quality tobaccos, organic being best, with zero addictive or harmful additives. ABN
BANGKOK (AP) — An American scholar who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy was arrested by authorities in China on suspicion of spying, China’s foreign ministry said Friday.
The scholar, Min Zin, was suspected of “engaging in espionage activities that endanger China’s national security,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian.
A Burmese activist who knows Min Zin said he disappeared June 3 after going to Kunming, in China’s Yunnan province, for a conference. The activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of government retribution and arrest, said Min Zin had visited China multiple times before.
American Buddhist Net 