1 Meanwhile, more and more stores are demanding 100% use of masks.

And in a related development, there are stores who won't accept cash because of the risk of spreading the disease through personal contact. I was just talking with a friend who's more than a bit Luddite, who went to a plant store earlier today, took his (expected) purchase to the counter, pulled out some cash and was told they weren't accepting cash. The way he described it, they were rather porky about it, though I think it was probably just his usual dramatic manner. He retorted with "Fine. I've been a customer of yours for at least 25 years. That ends today" and stalked out, went to another store and found the same stuff for considerably less money -- and they accepted cash.

2 Point dominance is simply bit of the conundrum. One of the enormous focal points of enrolling our British undertaking creators is that they reflect the nuances of British culture.

3 Masks are a talisman, as Fauci said in May, or a sacrament as I like to call it. Get people to wear them and they are "baptized" into the Church of Covid. It makes people feel a part of it, then they will do whatever Simon says. It was an old tactic used by spies and oppressive governments; get people to do one symbolic act and then you have them.

Cathy was talking about the coming cashless society; funny that was an ambition of many for a long time. A cashless society is a trackable, controllable society. I believe the Antichrist will have a cashless society, as you have to have that rfid chip to do business - sort of like what Bill Gates is wanting to put in a vaccine for Wuflu.

4 I don't regard using a credit/debit card with an embedded chip as a mark of the beast. It's not been implanted in me. I have been using Apple Pay lately in places that will accept it; it's a lot faster than pulling my physical wallet from my pants, extracting the card and shoving it into the reader. And no chip involved there either.

I do keep seeing articles about physical chips getting stuck into ya, and somehow Bill Gates' name keeps popping up in those articles. Hmmm... I ain't gonna go there!

5 I agree Dana; a credit card t'aint the Mark of the Beast, and I use them regularly. BUT I choose to use them; I can choose to use cash if I prefer. What is going to happen is they will stop taking cash, then when credit card theft and fraud become endemic will require you get an implanted rfid chip, so as to prove you are the card holder. It's as inevitable as the sun rising, I think, once they make us go cashless.

6 On the one hand: The do-it-yourself checkout lines in lots of the stores here will accept cash, cards, stuff like Apple Pay. Cash is bills only, of course. It would be very interesting if one wanted to pay by coins only, which might be one of our eventual ploys to foil the Beast. Dunno how we'd do that. . . In a checkout line with a cashier, coins are accepted. I think they have stopped accepting checks.

My wife and I use an online bank. Our deposits are made through our smartphone cameras. We can get cash from approved ATMs -- there's a charge but the bank reimburses us. With "unapproved" ATMs there's no reimbursement for charges. We cannot deposit any kind of cash -- there's always a downside in life. This is a full-service bank and offers a lot of services, including Bill-Pay, Zelle, and other fancy stuff. We've been happy with it and their customer service. The only thing is that when we deposit a check, it takes at a minimum of two business days to clear. OTOH, they are hawkeyed as far as any possible frauds.

7 I hardly ever use cash these days. When I order food delivered (like pizza) I still use the card.

Which is a bit worrisome; here I am giving my card number to a minimum wage employee. But I rarely have the money in my wallet to pay cash. I only use cash for paying the grass guy and for going to the Ozark Hilton (in case I get stuck and have to pay some local to tow me out of some ditch.)

That said, I fear where this will go. What is today voluntary and convenient will tomorrow become mandatory. How many pay telephones are left? My wife refuses to get a cell phone, but nobody has pay phones anymore. If she needs to make a call she has to go beg a stranger to borrow their phone! While there is no law, cell phones are pretty much mandatory. So are computers; my brother Brian has to do online classes these days (he hates computers.)

We sound like a bunch of luddites, don't we!  Well, in high school they had a computer lab and I never went because I didn't think they would ever really catch on...