Will the dreaded Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) become a thing? Will they be as awful as the ruling parasite class is planning? Will they be able to enforce our compliance with whatever rule they choose to impose, oppressing us under a draconian system of arbitrary restrictions and prohibitions? Spoiler alert: they won't.

Over the last few months I was asked about CBDCs in a number of podcast interviews. The questions generally reflect the unease and anxiety about the prospect of finding ourselves in a totalitarian dystopia. With the CBDCs, the bankers would presumably have the ability to 'see' every purchase we make and condition our access to money through a permits system enabling them to micromanage any and all of our transaction choices in real time. This is what they mean when they say, "programmable" CBDCs.

The plan is far too ambitious

But programmable CBDCs will almost certainly fail, for a number of reasons. First, development of a viable system of administering people's accounts with all the permitting rules, quotas, restrictions and challenges/appeals will prove far too ambitious a project, to say nothing about managing its evolution and keeping it secure. While such systems are conceptually possible, in all likelihood they'll degenerate into an unmanageable morass.

A pervasive foreboding has enveloped the world, a feeling that we're on the verge of something traumatic and epochal. The feeling has been stoked by overlords at the World Economic Forum and other globalist groups, promising us a miserable future, ostensibly to fight germs and changing temperatures, but actually to institute global governance and totalitarian control. That the overlords no longer hide their agenda, and that their bleak program has made the remarkable headway it has, hints at some sort of sinister, unrecognized force at loose in the world. Some say it's satanic, though the world has been here before.

The historical analogue is Europe in 1517, just before Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints Church and launched the Reformation. That epochal movement involved a crisis of faith in a human institution — the Catholic Church — and a wrenching reexamination of belief that led to centuries-long intellectual ferment and sectarian violence across Europe. The Reformation sparked the Enlightenment and eventually a belief that was stronger than faith in the Catholic Church: faith in government. As that latter faith falters, the new reformation will be just as wrenching and violent as the old one, probably more so.

One of Sam Bankman-Fried's colleagues and former FTX Engineering Chief, Nishad Singh, testified on Monday that the FTX head used money from his Alameda Research hedge fund to make political donations even after learning it owed $13 billion to customers of FTX.

Put simply, Bankman-Fried was using customer funds to make political donations to Democrats, according to the testimony.

Singh said that when he found out about the shortfall, he confront SBF in an hour long conversation in September 2022, according to Yahoo Finance. In that conversation, SBF told him that he was going to raise more cash and cut expenses.

However, Singh then said that in the interim, "he continued to receive transfers from Alameda and allow Bankman-Fried associates to use the money to donate to U.S. Democratic candidates".

According to the report, Singh called it a "straw donor" scheme.

This past Wednesday, apparently in conjunction with the observance of National Coming Out Day, a new directive was handed down by Health and Human Services and some federal judges. The directive mandated that federal employees and people appearing in some federal courts must use preferred pronouns. The genesis of the mandates has been traced back by Just the News to guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management. Much of the document is written in standard Federalese, but here is the pertinent portion.

Names and Pronouns

All applicants and employees should be addressed by the names and pronouns they use to describe themselves. Using correct names and pronouns helps foster workplaces free of discrimination and harassment. This practice also creates an inclusive work environment where all applicants and employees are treated with dignity. The isolated and inadvertent use of an incorrect name or pronoun will generally not constitute unlawful harassment, but, as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has explained, continued intentional use of an incorrect name or pronoun (or both) could, in certain circumstances, contribute to an unlawful hostile work environment.

For an employee to be referred to by the name they choose and their identified pronouns in everyday interactions, both written and oral, agencies should not require a legal change of name or gender marker, any medical certification, or any other documentation.

The ban on gas and diesel vehicles is officially making its way across the globe, with Stockholm the next city in the queue.

The Swedish capital now has a plan in place to ban gas and diesel cars in part of the city beginning in 2025, according to Bloomberg. The ban is going to begin in a 20 block area around the capital's finance hub, the report says.

The same area also houses the city's main shopping attractions. It'll only allow "electric cars, some hybrid trucks and fuel cell vehicles", the report says, citing rules reported by SVT that will be presented mid-week.

Stockholm is poised to become a trailblazer among major capitals by considering the prohibition on a scale previously unseen. The proposal surpasses the efforts of cities like Paris, Athens, and Madrid, which have also set their sights on banning diesel cars.

Are you aware of the Great Travel Reset that is already underway? You should be! Are you outraged about the fact that one of your most basic human rights is being stolen from under your very nose? You ought to be! Are you willing to spend more than a few minutes a week informing yourself about this issue? You'd better be! If you want a two-minute explainer on this topic, go to TikTok. For everyone else, this is The Corbett Report.

Moscow has a pivotal role in creating a multipolar world because of its significant influence in energy production, Dr. Jose M. Katupha told RT.

The importance of Russia's role in the energy sector cannot be overlooked, and it will remain significant in this field, Dr. Jose M. Katupha, Mozambique's ambassador to Russia, told RT on Wednesday, during the Russian Energy Week forum.

Russia's significant influence in the energy sector makes it "an important player in creating a multipolar world," Ambassador Katupha said. He believes that when it comes to energy production, nothing "can go without Russia" and Moscow "is playing its right role in the world today."

"There is no Europe without Russia," the ambassador stated, adding that Mozambique is waiting to secure more cooperation in the energy sector.

Amid a wave of confusion, the argument that the country's intelligence and air defenses failed is unfounded

On Saturday, Hamas militants attacked Israel, quickly seizing several border settlements and establishing control over a large area of territory.

The terrorists used bulldozers to overcome fences on the frontier with Gaza. The use of boats (in small amphibious landings) and paragliders was notable in the course of the fighting.

Taking advantage of the total surprise of the attack, the terrorists managed to take partial control of the relatively large Israeli towns of Sderot, Netivot, Ashkelon, and Ofakim, as well as some settlements and kibbutzim in border areas.

Hamas militants also stormed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bases at Kibbutz Re'im and Nahal Oz. The IDF suffered significant losses in terms of killed, wounded, and captured. The total size of the invading force has been estimated at around 1,000 (essentially a reinforced battalion).

A man of Chechen origin who was under surveillance by French security services over suspected Islamic radicalization stabbed a teacher to death at his former high school and wounded three other people Friday in northern France, authorities said.

France raised its threat alert to its highest level, and the attack was being investigated by anti-terrorism prosecutors amid soaring global tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas. It also happened almost three years after another teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a radicalized Chechen near a Paris area school.

The suspected attacker had been under surveillance since the summer on suspicion of Islamic radicalization, French intelligence services told The Associated Press. He was detained Thursday for questioning based on the monitoring of his phone calls in recent days, but investigators found no sign that he was preparing an attack, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

• The path for young Americans starting a career in farming is becoming increasingly narrow as prohibitive capital costs and greater innovation mean larger farms and older farmers working more land.
• The average age of farmers rose from 56.3 years in 2012 to 57.5 years in 2017, following a long-standing trend of aging farmers as labor continues to be mechanized, according to a census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• "I think it's really hard if they are not coming into an existing farm operation," Howard Halderman, CEO of Halderman Real Estate & Farm Management and fellow at the Farm Foundation, said about a young person getting into farming without an existing family farm to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Farming is becoming increasingly inaccessible for young Americans as capital costs rise and large family-owned farming operations grow, agricultural experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Large-scale farms, which are those with yearly gross profits above $1 million, have increased over the last decade, rising from 35% of the total amount of production value to 46% from 2011 to 2020, and in that same time frame, rising in the total share of farms from 16% to 24%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) most recent America's Diverse Family Farms report. Farms are consolidating among families and creating more large-scale operations, leaving the profession inaccessible to the vast majority of younger people looking to make it in farming, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.