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Dear Joe Biden: are you kidding me?
Perfluorooctanoic acid

Vatican asks Instagram how pope's account liked photo of Brazilian model

Mike Pompeo makes unprecedented visit to Israeli settlements

A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon - Playing with reality (20min+ read. A bit lengthy, but it worth)

In brief - apophenia. Just a tad more elaborated - induced/guided aphonenia.

What's fascinating is the buttons of human psyche that are pushed to sink people deep into the rabbit holes:
- Follow The Breadcrumbs - don't tell, just select the dots that are to be connected
- The Eureka Effect - the rush of the Aha! moments and the feeling of being rewarded
- Lamestream Media - passivate against the reality that's not supportive to the agenda
- Community - sense of belonging, behavior reinforcement; a population large and motivated enough to adopt an evolutionary strategy in selecting the best CT-es

All the above are exemplified - and these examples is how I got to get WTF Beyoncé has to do with QAnon.

So, if all it's an Alternate Reality Game, there's no harm, right? Not so fast, the US Military Academy ran the The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making? article in its "Combating Terrorism Center" journal, stating

QAnon represents a public security threat with the potential in the future to become a more impactful domestic terror threat. This is true especially given that conspiracy theories have a track record of propelling terrorist violence elsewhere in the West as well as QAnon’s more recent influence on mainstream political discourse.

How a Human Rights Angel Lost Her Halo (archive)

Ten years after she left house arrest and vowed to fight for justice, Myanmar’s civilian leader has instead become a jailer of critics and an apologist for the slaughter of minorities.

One day I'll have time for these.
All of them require no screws, nails or glue.

Pro-democracy lawmakers resign in Hong Kong's 'darkest day ... so far'

Cheung is among 15 lawmakers who announced they'll resign en masse on Thursday to protest the disqualification of four fellow pro-democracy legislators.

On Wednesday, Beijing's top lawmaking body, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, or NPCSC, empowered the Hong Kong government to bypass the local judiciary in order to ban any lawmakers deemed "unpatriotic" or considered to be conducting themselves in a manner that "endangers national security."

[...] By exiting the chamber, the 19 pan-democrats effectively leave the 70-seat legislature entirely to Beijing-friendly lawmakers, without any meaningful opposition voice. Their exodus also raises questions about how the democracy movement will move forward without any legitimate channels or democratic avenue for dissent.

Protests have more or less died down in Hong Kong because of pandemic restrictions on gatherings and the deterring effects of the national security law, which was directly imposed by Beijing in June.

Until this week, the democratic camp had vowed to continue to be a voice inside the chamber, but Cheung explained that when the four members were disqualified they "lost the one-third of the votes needed to avoid impeachment initiatives."

Britain, EU, Join U.S. In Condemning China's Crackdown On Hong Kong Lawmakers

_{(in the loving memory of Runaway1956, who succumbed after a long battle to gatewaypundits. May his brain rest in peace, squeaky clean and smoothed over)}

because "Doing your own research" is far easier nowadays than building the habit of thinking critically.
Add COVID-anxiety, a chaotic narcissistic Orange clown and compound with the lack of survival problems to solve for the everyday life in a westernized society and (where appropriate) a good dose of American exceptionalism.

Google admits to censoring the World Socialist Web Site

While both Dorsey and Zuckerberg refused to give names—claiming they would provide a list at a later date—when Lee got to Pichai, the Google executive responded that “we have moderation policies which we apply equally... We have had compliance issues with the World Socialist Review [sic], which is a left-leaning publication.”

Although Pichai used the name “World Socialist Review,” a print newsletter that ceased publication in 2011, it is clear that he was referring to the World Socialist Web Site. In fact, a Google search for “World Socialist Review” actually yields the WSWS in its top two results.

Pichai did not explain what he meant by “compliance issues,” but his response to Senator Lee was absolutely clear. He was saying that Google does in fact take censorship action against left-wing and socialist publishers, and an example is the censorship of the World Socialist Web Site.

Open your eyes and see

The sooner you stop bickering over election results, the sooner you can start doing something about it.

Trump admin funds plasma company based in owner's condo

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company’s “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina. Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo.

Zurlo’s company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.
...

It’s also another in a series of contracts awarded to people with close political ties to key officials despite concerns voiced by government scientists. Among the others: an ill-conceived $21 million study of Pepcid as a COVID therapy and more than a half billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices.

In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.

At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Zurlo’s company.
...
Top government officials began to take notice of Plasma Technologies after Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate, became part-owner, according to the records and AP interviews.

After Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for the company’s method of turning human plasma into a therapeutic product — a process the company has described as a game changer. In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.

Santorum, who’s held no elective office since 2007, remains influential among social conservatives, a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base.
...
Zurlo has deep ties to the Republican Party. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum’s campaigns and to other GOP campaigns and political action committees. He entertained Santorum and his family at the mansion Zurlo used to own on Kiawah Island, an exclusive golf resort in South Carolina.
...
Zurlo brought Santorum aboard after the agreement with Abeona fell through. “We’ve got an FDA problem. Can you help me?” Santorum recalled Zurlo telling him.

Righto, drain the swap by pissing billions into it.

Trump’s campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places.

As President Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake.

The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069.
...

Although there’s no way to determine definitively if cases originated at Trump’s rallies, public health experts say the gatherings fly in the face of all recommendations to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

True, correlation is not automatically causation, but don't dismiss correlation as irelevant.

Now, about entertainment part of it 'He's a salesman': why rallies are Trump's last best hope of clinging to presidency

For Donald Trump, surviving coronavirus has become just another punchline on the campaign trail.

“I had so many doctors and each one of them studied different parts of the body,” the president told supporters in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last weekend.

A roar of laughter.

“And I had a moment where almost every one of them was touching me simultaneously.” More laughter. “I didn’t like it!”

More laughter.

“I said, ‘Doc, I wanna to get out of here, I’ve gotta campaign, I’m in the midst of a campaign against ‘Sleepy Joe’. Can you imagine losing to this guy!?”

Cries of “No!” followed by Trump parodying the voice of a doctor, comparing himself to Superman and referencing “Barack Hussein Obama” – cue a chorus of boos.
...
Yet on the trail he continues to project the image of a happy warrior cruising to re-election, regaling big crowds with selective poll numbers, bogus conspiracy theories and his own brand of humor. And his base remains loyal to the end with cheers, merriment and chants of “Four more years!”, “Lock him up!” and “Build that wall!”

Can I be picky and ask for, I don't know, maybe Ozzy Osbourne for POTUS instead? I mean, look, he managed his entertainer career way better than Trump, he's also both a better iron man and paranoid than Trump (or Kanye West) was or will ever be.

Some consequences for being a fan don't limit only to the risk of being infected with Covid. One may end in hospital because of cold or hot weather.

Regardless on consequences the show must go on