Whoever is in charge of the story arc over at the White House is really excited about the Fourth of July. This is Independence Day, of course; the day in which we celebrate our decision to kick the British off of the continent over their ever-more-dastardly taxation of the colonies. But, for Team Biden, the 2021 version of Independence Day is going to bring us freedom from the coronavirus. President Joe Biden urged more Americans to get their coronavirus vaccine Wednesday, warning they still had “more to do” in order to celebrate Independence Day with their families. “To celebrate our independence from this virus on July 4th with family and friends in small groups, we still have more to do in the months of May and June,” Biden said. And his speech writers have been stewing on this hokey, on-the-nose narrative for a while. Biden first proposed the idea of allowing families and friends to gather for Independence Day on March 11, but he expressed concern on Wednesday the country was not ready. “If we let up now and stop being vigilant, this virus will erase the progress we’ve already achieved,” he said. We can only imagine what terrible puns and portmanteaus the Biden PR cabal will drop on us come July 4th: “One if by J&J, two if by Pfizer.” “If the Continental Army had has masks, so many fewer future Americans would have died from smallpox.” “You know what else is ‘Common Sense’?  Social distancing.” The cringe cometh, folks.

Throughout much of modern history, Americans and their cash were two separate things.  One was a human being, breathing and walking about, earning money.  The money was an inanimate commodity of varying value that we used to keep the organism alive, fat, and happy. But in the future, it seems as though we may find ourselves intrinsically, and anatomically indistinguishable from our bank account.  In fact, it appears as though Amazon is banking on it. Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said it is rolling out biometric technology at its Whole Foods stores around Seattle starting on Wednesday, letting shoppers pay for items with a scan of their palm. The move shows how Amazon is bringing some of the technology already in use at its namesake brick-and-mortar Go and Books stores to the grocery chain it acquired in 2017. The system, called Amazon One, lets customers associate a credit card with their palm print. It offers a contact-less alternative to cash and card payments, Amazon said. Of course, the move is being regarded as a terrifying leap into Orwellian territory by privacy experts, as it appears to push us ever closer to a cashless society where hackers and power failures could doom us all to poverty in the blink of an eye.