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Mask Psychosis: NYT Confirms The Liberal Mask Cult Is Here  To Stay

Via Revolver News

All at once, the powers that be want Covid-19 to be finished. Mere weeks ago, the CDC wanted Americans to wear face masks almost everywhere they went. Now, masks are out. The CDC says people with vaccines no longer need to wear them. They’ve become optional in Virginia and in Andrew Cuomo’s authoritarian bailiwick of New York. It’s amazing what one month of really bad jobs numbers can do to the science.

Whatever its political shortcomings, the Biden administration wants the country reopened and things (mostly) back to normal so they can reap the political dividends of undoing the calamitous lockdowns that liberal ideology created in the first place.

There’s just one problem: The regime’s propaganda was too effective. Millions of loyal cattle are too traumatized to go back to their old way of life. In a recent poll conducted by The Hill, forty-two percent of registered voters and a majority of Democrats said that, regardless of advice from the CDC or other health officials, everybody should still wear masks outdoors no matter what…

For a great many on the left, if not an outright majority, mask mania has become a deeply personal commitment. Despite all the babbling for a year about “trusting the science,” when the official science says to stop wearing masks, millions of the Globalist American Empire’s cattle are proving more loyal to masks than to science. In fact, as a recent MIT investigation discovered, vaccine and mask skeptics are more likely to have seriously weighed the science in question.

What is happening right now with masks isn’t science. It’s a new cult, created through a mix of political pressure and old-fashioned terror. This cult, created almost by accident, is now too entrenched and too powerful to be turned off by the people who created it.

Even now, step outside in New York City and more than half the passersby will be masked up, CDC and vaccination status be damned. A New York Times article released Monday profiled the sad story of Americans so mentally broken they plan to keep wearing masks, possibly forever.

Whenever Joe Glickman heads out for groceries, he places an N95 mask over his face and tugs a cloth mask on top of it. He then pulls on a pair of goggles.

He has used this safety protocol for the past 14 months. It did not change after he contracted the coronavirus last November. It didn’t budge when, earlier this month, he became fully vaccinated. And even though President Biden said on Thursday that fully vaccinated people do not have to wear a mask, Mr. Glickman said he planned to stay the course.

In fact, he said, he plans to do his grocery run double-masked and goggled for at least the next five years. [New York Times]

The saddest thing of all about Glickman’s routine is that it didn’t even work. He still got the coronavirus (and presumably, like most Americans, was barely affected). Yet he doggedly persists in this hypochondriac religious ritual, and plans to keep at it for years to come. MORE.

Wearable “Solutions” and the Internet of Incarceration

Via Unlimited Hangout

A new push is underway to sell wearable devices and sensors as the solution to the opioid and prison crises in the US. However, this “solution” is set to come at a major cost to civil liberties and human freedom in general.

On paper, the World Economic Forum (WEF, also known as the International Organization for Public Private Cooperation) is an NGO and think tank “committed to improving the state of the world.” In reality, it’s an international network of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people on Earth. The organization is best known for its annual gathering of the (mostly white, European and North American) ruling class. Each year hedge fund managers, bankers, CEOs, media representatives and heads of state gather in Davos to “shape global, regional and industry agendas.” As Foreign Affairs once put it, “the WEF has no formal authority, but it has become a major forum for elites to discuss policy ideas and priorities.”

In 2017, WEF Founder Klaus Schwab put out a book called “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.” The WEF uses the term Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to denote the current “technological revolution” that is changing the way people “live, work, and relate to one another,” and with implications “unlike anything humankind has experienced before.” The 4IR is characterized by new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, 3D printing, and the “internet of things,” which essentially denotes embedding things with sensors – including human bodies in the form of wearables.

Like the industrial ‘revolutions’ that came before, the main theme for the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution is that it will allow companies to produce more, more quickly and for far less money.

In the book, Schwab positions wearable technology as key to helping companies become organized around remote work by providing one’s employers “with a continuous exchange of data and insights about the things or tasks being worked on.” In a similar vein, Schwab emphasizes the “wealth of information that can be gathered from wearable devices and implantable technologies.”

But unlike the industrial ‘revolutions’ of the past, the WEF’s 4IR aims to blur the distinction between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. And the WEF is a vocal advocate for wearables in their propensity to propel what it calls ‘human enhancement.’

In 2018, Schwab teamed up with WEF’s “Head of Society and Innovation” Nicholas Davis to write a follow up book entitled “Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”Having been with the organization for over a decade, Davis was the obvious choice to co-author this book as he now “lead[s] the theme of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” at the WEF.

Schwab and Davis see wearables as just a stepping stone for the 4IR, writing that wearable devices “will almost certainly become implantable” in the body and the brain. “External wearable devices, such as smart watches, intelligent earbuds and augmented reality glasses, are giving way to active implantable microchips that break the skin barrier of our bodies, creating intriguing possibilities that range from integrated treatment systems to opportunities for human enhancement,” they write.

The authors note the potential to “drive an industry of human enhancement” that would, in turn, enhance “worker productivity.” However, other groups, including those partnered with the WEF, see other potential applications for their use well beyond the workplace. MORE.

Beware the Rise of Scamerica

Via Zero Hedge

As America descends into policy disarray, the scamming of others is increasing. Wire fraud is rampant, as is the impersonation of government workers, apparently because Americans now expect government officials to accost them for quick cash at least occasionally. I focus here on a much more insidious type of scam that also seems to be on the rise, something that I will politely refer to as “substandard work,” but that in informal adult conversation usually goes by a fecal four-letter word followed by “job.”

Much of the substandard work being conducted across the country right now ultimately is the government’s fault, specifically a set of policies seemingly deliberately designed to induce Americans not to work: extra unemployment pay; major school systems remaining virtual until fall; bizarre summer camp masking requirements. The first entices lower income people to stay out of the labor market and the latter two make parents think twice, or thrice, about returning to work.

As a result, many usually reliable businesses cannot find any workers, much less good ones. Robin Jones, a regional manager for a major fast food chain in the Upper Midwest, recently told me that April and May of this year have been the tightest labor market he can remember in his 43-year restaurant career, which includes stints in Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. His back is giving out because his desk job has turned into a role as a stopgap line worker in the cheap taco wars. While he does what he can, he is only one man. The extreme dearth of workers means much longer wait times than usual and substandard service overall.

A restaurant in a resort town in New Jersey recently purchased a robot called Peanut to deliver food to customers. It reportedly “can open kitchen doors, deliver orders to tables, and bus the dishes when everyone is done eating.” It works until it breaks down and doesn’t demand tips.

The labor shortage is hardly restricted to food services. The pool business pictured below, for example, had a good reputation until recently, when it charged a friend of mine $260 to remove the cover from her pool. Just a regular cover. U.S. dollars, not Zimbabwean ones. Inflation is relatively high, but it ain’t that high! If the company had added some suddenly hyper-expensive chlorine to the pool, maybe it would have been okay but it appears the workers were inexperienced newbs flummoxed by simple problems. They removed and stored the cover successfully (bravo!) but couldn’t figure out how to get the pump pumping, got frustrated, and left. But they didn’t want to tell their new boss about their pathetic failure so they charged for the full spring opening service even though they didn’t provide it. Not so smart.

All manner of employee malingering and moral hazard appear to be on the rise because every low wage worker knows that they can get fired one morning but hired elsewhere that same day, usually at higher pay. Although full official statistics are available only through 2019, it appears that sexual harassment and other types of employment-related complaints have increased of late. Some of the increase is due to stricter laws and enforcement and more awareness of workplace harassment issues but some may be due to employees hoping for a quick, lucrative settlement, confident that they will be able to find work elsewhere even if their claims are found meritless after investigation. Even remote workers are pressing harassment claims. Unwarranted harassment complaints are simply a more sophisticated type of pilfering than taking home office supplies or using Zoom rooms for personal use, which is also likely on the rise. MORE.

LEGO Releases LGBT Rainbow Toy Set to Celebrate ‘Pride’ Month

Via Breitbart

The LEGO toy company has announced the release of its rainbow “Everyone is Awesome” set for kids, just in time for Pride month.

The multicolored set features 11 single-colored, non-gendered figurines that together form a rainbow with black and brown stripes as well as the “transgender flag colors,” LGBTQ Nation reported Thursday.

“The buildable display model is inspired by the iconic rainbow flag which is used as a symbol of love and acceptance by the LGBTQIA+ community,” LEGO said on its website, “and features 11 monochrome minifigures each with its own individual hairstyle and rainbow colour.”

“I wanted to create a model that symbolizes inclusivity and celebrates everyone, no matter how they identify or who they love,” said LEGO set designer Matthew Ashton, a LEGO vice president. “Growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid – being told what I should play with, how I should walk, how I should talk, what I should wear – the message I always got was that somehow I was ‘wrong.’”

“Trying to be someone I wasn’t was exhausting,” he added. “I wish, as a kid, I had looked at the world and thought: ‘This is going to be OK, there’s a place for me.’ I wish I’d seen an inclusive statement that said, ‘Everyone is awesome.’”

The figures in the set are supposed to “express individuality, while remaining ambiguous,” and do not come with pre-painted faces or clothes. The only distinguishing features are their different hairstyles and colors.

Ashton said the purple figure, however, is supposed to be “a clear nod to all the fabulous drag queens out there.” MORE.

Chicago releases 1,000 FERAL CATS onto its streets to deal with surging rodent problem after city was named the rat capital of the US for sixth year running

Via The Daily Mail

Chicago has released 1,000 feral cats onto its streets in an effort to deal with the city’s rodent problem after it was named the rat capital of the United States for the sixth year running.

Animal shelter the Tree House Humane Society is behind the Cats at Work program, neutering the animals before they are returned to patrol the Windy City.

The shelter says it uses felines that who ‘wouldn’t thrive in a home or shelter environment’, or ‘those cats cannot be reintegrated into their former colonies’ for the pest control.

Chicago was named the rat capital of the US for the sixth year running in October last year after pest control specialists Orkin ranked metro regions by the number of new rodent treatments performed from September 2019 to August 31, 2020.

Tree House Humane Society started the program in 2012; since then it has released up to 1,000 cats on to the city’s streets, WGN9 first reported.

The shelter says: ‘Cats are placed two or three at a time into residential or commercial settings in order to provide environmentally friendly rodent control.

‘Property and business owners provide food, water, shelter, and wellness to the cats who work for them. In most cases, our Cats at Work become beloved members of the family or team and some even have their own Instagram pages.’

Chicago has had problems with rats dating back to the 1970s when residents were paid $1 to kill one.

Last May it was reported rats had become even more aggressive in their search for food in US cities as their supply dried up amid coronavirus restaurant lockdowns.

Things became so serious that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out a new advisory alerting people to be aware of ‘aggressive rodent behavior’ on the unsuspecting public.

‘Community-wide closures have led to a decrease in food available to rodents, especially in dense commercial areas,’ the CDC said at the rime.

‘Some jurisdictions have reported an increase in rodent activity as rodents search for new sources of food.’ MORE.

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