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THE UNITED STATE’S DEATH MARCH

The ruling elites, who first built a mafia economy and then built a mafia state, will continue under Biden, as they did under Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, to wantonly pillage and loot. The militarized police will not stop their lethal rampages in poor neighborhoods. The endless wars will not end. The bloated military budget will not be reduced. The world’s largest prison population will remain a stain upon the country. The manufacturing jobs shipped overseas will not return and the social inequality will grow. The for-profit health care system will gouge the public and price millions more out of the health care system. 

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Invasion of the New Normals

They’re here! No, not the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We’re not being colonized by giant alien fruit. I’m afraid it is a little more serious than that. People’s minds are being taken over by a much more destructive and less otherworldly force … a force that transforms them overnight into aggressively paranoid, order-following, propaganda-parroting totalitarians.

You know the people I’m talking about. Some of them are probably your friends and family, people you have known for years, and who had always seemed completely rational, but who are now convinced that we need to radically alter the fabric of human society to protect ourselves from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms (or absolutely no symptoms at all) in over 95% of those infected, and that over 99.6% survive, which, it goes without saying, is totally insane.

I’ve been calling them “corona-totalitarians,” but I’m going to call them the “New Normals” from now on, as that more accurately evokes the pathologized-totalitarian ideology they are systematically spreading. At this point, I think it is important to do that, because, clearly, their ideological program has nothing to do with any actual virus, or any other actual public health threat. As is glaringly obvious to anyone whose mind has not been taken over yet, the “apocalyptic coronavirus pandemic” was always just a Trojan horse, a means of introducing the “New Normal,” which they’ve been doing since the very beginning.

The official propaganda started in March, and it reached full intensity in early April. Suddenly, references to the “New Normal” were everywhere, not only in the leading corporate media (e.g., CNN, NPR, CNBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Forbes, et al.), the IMF and the World Bank Group, the WEF, UN, WHO, CDC (and the list goes on), but also on the blogs of athletic organizations, global management consulting firms, charter school websites, and random YouTube videos.

The slogan has been relentlessly repeated (in a textbook totalitarian “big lie” fashion) for going on the past six months. We have heard it repeated so many times that many of us have forgotten how insane it is, the idea that the fundamental structure of society needs to be drastically and irrevocably altered on account of a virus that poses no threat to the vast majority of the human species.

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For The First Time, CRISPR Gene-Editing Has Been Used on Squid

For the first time, the innovative CRISPR gene editing method has been used on squid, marking a milestone in the scientific study of these creatures – and opening up many new areas of potential research.

CRISPR enables very precise, speedy, and low-cost DNA edits. Put simple, the ingenious molecular workings of the method are often described as something that allows us to ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ genes; in humans it promises to give us a way of tackling disease and killing superbugs at the genetic level.

In this case CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing was used on Doryteuthis pealeii (the longfin inshore squid) to disable a pigmentation gene, turning off the pigmentation usually found in the squid eye and inside specialised skin cells called chromatophores.

“This is a critical first step toward the ability to knock out – and knock in – genes in cephalopods to address a host of biological questions,” says marine biologist Joshua Rosenthal, from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at the University of Chicago.

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He Wanted To Make Some Money for School Clothes by Selling Mexican Street Corn. The Government Says He Owes $1,415 in Permit Fees.

When high school sophomore Miguel Lozano started selling elotes—Mexican street corn—he hoped to use the money he made to buy clothes for school. The Yamhill County, Oregon, teenager will have to put that goal aside, though, because last week the local government shuttered his makeshift cart.

Though Lozano already has a food service card, he will need to come up with $1,415 for a permit should he want to continue his small operation. The stratospheric cost would deter many would-be entrepreneurs, much less a teenager who just wants to sell corn on the cob for a few extra bucks.

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