Cashless Society, The Penny Drops

...And now for a world government

"I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might."...more:

Microsoft wants to get under your skin • The Register

Microsoft's HealthVault, the medical records database, is to be integrated with VeriMed's human-embedded RFID tags, allowing doctors to access the medical records of unconscious patients with a quick scan of the arm.

VeriMed consists of an RFID tag that is embedded in the arm of a hopefully willing participant, and responds with a 16-digital identity code when queried at 134KHz. This code can then be used to identify the person through VeriChip's website, and will soon be able to link to their medical records as stored on Microsoft's HealthVault system.

"VeriMed adds an exciting RFID-based option for HealthVault users trying to keep themselves and their families safe," says Sean Nolan, the chief architect for HealthVault, quoted in RFID Journal. If you're excited about the idea of being electronically indexed then this is probably the technology for you.

Not that the future of VeriMed is in any way certain, despite the Microsoft link. The company's parent, VeriChip, has already tried to sell off the human-implanting part of the business as punters prove remarkably reluctant to be serial-numbered. Should the business fail entirely, a connection to HealthVault could be the best hope for the poor souls who've already succumbed to having chips embedded in their arms. ®...source

Behavioral screening -- the future of airport security? - CNN.com

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- Keep your shoes and belts on: Waiting in long airport security lines to pass through metal detectors may soon be a thing of the past.

Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers' intentions and emotions.

"We are seeing a needed paradigm shift when it comes to security," says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based security company.

"This 'brain-fingerprinting,' or technology which checks for behavioral intent, is much more developed than we think."

Nowhere is the need for cutting-edge security more acute than Israel, which faces constant security threats. For this reason, Israel has become a leader in developing security technology.

Several Israeli-based technology companies are developing detection systems that pick up signs of emotional strain, a psychological red flag that a passenger may intend to commit an act of terror. Speedier and less intrusive than metal detectors, these systems may eventually restore some efficiency to the airplane boarding process.

One firm, WeCU (pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration, signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack....more

Hungarian Sausage Commercial

U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011

"The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement."...more

A Microchip to Track HIV/AIDS?- US News and World Report

Leaders in Indonesia's Papua province say they support a bill that would require some people with HIV/AIDS to get a microchip implant, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The bill—which targets 'sexually aggressive' patients—is part of extensive efforts to monitor the disease. Lawmakers say they hope the microchips will enable them to track and punish people who deliberately infect other people with HIV/AIDS. The bill is expected to pass, and it could become law next month" ...source

It's the Educated vs. People Easily Fooled by Propaganda

Millions of Americans live in a non-reality-based belief system informed by childish clichés - they can barely differentiate between lies and truth

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities. ...More

THE CONSERVATIVE MALAISE

I suspect that the malaise that has afflicted the conservative movement is not simply due to the defeat of John McCain and Sarah Palin. I think that their despondency goes much deeper than an electoral defeat. My hunch is that their depression is much more owing to a sense of serious discomfort arising from the knowledge that Democrat Barack Obama is about to acquire all the omnipotent powers that conservatives relinquished to President Bush as part of his “war on terrorism.”

The power to arrest people, including Americans, as “enemy combatants.” Indefinite detention. Torture. Isolation and sensory deprivation. Rendition. Military tribunals. Denial of due process and trial by jury. Suspension of habeas corpus. Secret judicial proceedings. Use of hearsay and tortured testimony. Warrantless searches. Signing statements. Spying on Americans. The power to ignore constitutional and statutory constraints on presidential power. The power to invade and occupy foreign countries with no congressional declaration of war.

Conservatives were willing to let President Bush acquire and exercise all those dictatorial powers because, they said, national security depended on it. The terrorists were everywhere, they said, and they hate America for its freedom and values, not because of the U.S. government’s foreign policy. The war would last for decades, perhaps even forever. We have no choice, conservatives said, but to vest the president with full power to wage this war until we kill them all.

Whenever libertarians and some liberals defended civil liberties and the Bill of Rights during the past 8 years, conservatives went on the attack. We were just soft on terrorism, cowards, pacifists, unpatriotic, even treasonous, they said.

The conservatives know that they have boxed themselves in. Can they now argue that the war on terrorism is over when they previously said it would last for decades? Can they now argue that the president should not be trusted with such omnipotent powers? Can they now argue that such powers are unconstitutional? Can they now argue that national security no longer turns on the president’s wielding of such powers?

No, in their hearts conservatives know that they must now argue that President Obama, the man they are convinced is coming to take away their guns, increase their taxes, spend more money than even President Bush, has ties to terrorists, has a Muslim name, and is friends with a radical Christian preacher, should wield all the same dictatorial powers that they relinquished to President Bush.

No wonder conservatives are suffering from malaise, despondency, and depression Jacob G. Hornberger, The Future of Freedom Foundation

Vatican evolution congress to exclude creationism, intelligent design

Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 2009 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian, told Catholic News Service Sept. 16 that organizers "wanted to create a conference that was strictly scientific" and that discussed rational philosophy and theology along with the latest scientific discoveries.

He said arguments "that cannot be critically defined as being science, or philosophy or theology did not seem feasible to include in a dialogue at this level and, therefore, for this reason we did not think to invite" supporters of creationism and intelligent design....more

The Real Truth Concerning How The Earth Is Ruled

It truly amazes me when people continue to think in terms of Democrat, Republican or left-wing and right-wing. Why? Both carefully created polarities are financed, controlled and operated by the same oligarchical globalist order which has been patiently constructing and deconstructing nations, states, wars, famines, stock market rises and crashes for quite some centuries now. The modern twentieth and twenty-first century organs of this group are known to anyone who cares to do even the most basic research on the subject. The plans for global dictatorship have already been well-documented by a number of important white papers from organizations such as The Council on Foreign Relations, The Tri-Lateral Commission, The Club of Rome, The International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, The Lucis Trust, and other similar organizations.
The ultimate goal is the creation of a one-world government and religious system sustained and supported by a uniform monetary base. ...more

The New World Order revealed - Video

Shoppers to use fingerprints or eye scans to pay for goods - Telegraph

The futuristic systems, like those used
by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, are being
developed by scientists for Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is investing a seven-figure sum in "contactless payment" technology.

This allows customers to use everyday items they carry around with them
- such as mobile phones, key fobs or even their eyes or fingerprints -
to make payments.

It means shoppers will no longer have to rely on cards.

Barclaycard, which is part of Barclays, has already introduced a
new-style cash machine in the United Arab Emirates enabling people to
use their fingerprints to withdraw money and shoppers in the UK may
soon be able to use the same technology.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: "It's possible
we'll see an end to plastic in the next five to 10 years with new
technologies to take its place emerging now. It could turn out to be
one of the shortest lived payment methods in history, going from being
ubiquitous to a museum piece in the same way as the video cassette."

Barclaycard also aims to have one million customers upgraded to its
contactless payment system OnePulse by the end of the year. OnePulse
enables people to buy items for less than £10 by touching their card
against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet.
It can also be used as an Oyster card on London transport.

Barclaycard said people may soon be able to hover their mobile over the
price label of an item in a shop, confirm their purchase and take it
away without having to go to a checkout or get a receipt.

Mr Jenkins said: "If I had said to you 10 years ago that you couldn't
pay with a cheque at the supermarket, you wouldn't have believed me.
That is now the reality, and we see plastic cards going the same way
eventually." ...Source

Fears over possible genetic profiling from birth

A BRAVE NEW WORLD OF GENETIC profiling in which humans will be categorized at birth according to health and likelihood of illness could lead to widespread discrimination by the government, the NHS, big business and insurance companies.

Experts are now clashing over whether genetic profiling is something to be feared, with some warning that techniques used to identify medical complaints before they take hold are ripe for abuse, and others saying there is nothing to worry about.

"Genetic profiling will be used to categorise people, to sort and
select, to create profiles of types and to predict and pre-empt - and
all that leads to discrimination," said Dr David Murakami Wood, a
research fellow in surveillance at Newcastle University.
advertisement

"Our
bodies and our DNA are some of the last things we hold private. My
first reaction is forget about privacy', but we should still fight for
our privacy because the fight for our communications and personal data
is already lost. At the moment our genetic privacy still exists.

"It
is more special than our financial data because it is the essence of
who we are and what our bodies are and I believe the line has to be
drawn here. Once our individual genetic information is out there, all
bets are off. It will be out of our control... more

The microchipped licence will tell all

There is a new and developing twist in the movement to microchip humanity. This one is called the "enhanced driver's licence." British Columbia is currently trying it out with 500 volunteers and someday the microchip may show up as integral to all driver's licences. If you don't have a driver's licence you may be included in the microchipped club with a microchipped identification card issued to everyone. The enhanced driver's licence is being tested in B. C., with Ontario watching from the wings.

The new twist is that each of these driver's licences will broadcast a number which, when picked up with an appropriate receiver, will translate into a screenload of data about you with access to everything from your birth date to what you had for breakfast at the local greasy spoon. The present design gives the chips a broadcast range of 10 metres.

This has come to the fore as a way of easing border-crossing issues between Canada and the United States. As you cruise up to the gate the border guard will not even need to have you stop. He will have your number before you even get to the gate and can decide to stop you or just give you the wave if he determines that you are one of the good guys. ...more

DARPA plans soldier-tagging system for US troops

DARPA, the Pentagon boffinry outfit which bestrides the tech world like some mighty, erratic robot colossus with a frikkin laser beam on its head, has made a new move. The plan is to electronically tag US combat soldiers in a similar fashion to criminals under judicial restraint, the idea being that the troops can then be swiftly found and rescued if they get into trouble.

DARPA calls the plan "Individual Force Protection System", and it intends to have it taken forward by monster US defence contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Apparently in DARPA's view, "SAIC is the only known source in the case of a follow-on requirement with the in-depth knowledge and experience with the Individual Force Protection System"....more

Naomi Wolf - US Finalizing 10 Steps To Fascism -Vid

Technological Enslavement Is All Around Us

The technological enslavement grid is getting increasingly more insane and most people don’t even care. Apparently most people and Americans especially like being slaves just as long as they are told that they are free. First off, we have Mothers Against Drunk Driving an organization with a long track record of endorsing anti-freedom policies advocating that breathalyzers should be included in every automobile by 2012 under the guise of drunk driving prevention. Microsoft, Google, EBay among others have helped found an organization called the Information Card Foundation whose goal is to create a driver’s license styled identification card that will be required for users to go online. The U.S. Senate is set to pass a bank bailout bill that will include a provision in the legislation that will require almost all online financial transactions to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Artificially intelligent surveillance cameras are being developed and they even want to forcibly implant microchips in prisoners. There is no question that this system the establishment is setting up represents nothing short of total enslavement and despotism. ...more

U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students

A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices. ...more

Microchipping humans? Part 2

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - WINK News told you about a project underway right now to microchip people. So far, it's geared toward Alzheimer's patients who might wander away, but as reporter Maggie Crane uncovered, more than just patients are choosing to microchip themselves.

She went to West Palm Beach, where what sounds like science fiction has now become science fact. A perfectly healthy 38-year-old man has decided to get chipped, and after hearing about the new tracking technology, a local family tells WINK News they'd like to microchip their mother....more

Apocalypse Now? Floods, Tornadoes, Locusts

In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth, and he saw that it was good. So begins the Book of Genesis, the dramatic opener of the Old Testament.

But things went downhill from there.

God's wrath seems at work these days, as the heavens and Earth have unleashed earthquakes in China, a cyclone in Burma, killer tornadoes and record floods across the U.S. and even a plague of locusts (cicadas) in New England.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa today, floodwaters forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were underwater.

"We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said this week as record floods hit the Midwest. "We're going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding."

By the final Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the Earth suffers "Seven Plagues" -- from disease to "intense heat" and drought, then finally a shower of deadly hailstones.

And then comes the Apocalypse, the final judgment of man and destruction of the world by fire.

Biblical imagery is all over the news these days  even including a story last week of a New York baby being enwrapped by a snake in its crib, harking back to evil lurking in the Garden of Eden.

[There was a practical explanation: the non-poisonous snake had embedded itself in a mattress shipped by Toys 'R' Us from California.]

Most theologians and scientists don't take seriously warnings that the end of the world is nigh. But many reputable scholars do lend some credence to the notion that the world is in for some kind of disaster, be it meteorological, ecological or geopolitical.

ABC News will air a dramatic two-hour broadcast in September, Earth 2100, bringing the greatest minds across the globe together to tell us what we must do to survive the next century. And what may happen if we don't....more

Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life

Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.

That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?

Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says. ...more

Bush 'may convert to Catholicism' -

President George Bush was given such a splendid welcome by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that rumours started flying that the President, like Tony Blair before him, was on the verge of converting to Catholicism.

It was a Vatican visit such as no other head of state has ever enjoyed. Instead of greeting him, like all previous high-ranking visitors, in the papal library of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope took Mr Bush round the medieval St John's Tower then gave him a tour of the Vatican gardens, culminating in a brief open-air concert by the Sistine Chapel Choir.

The Pope waited for the President at the entrance of the tower. As he arrived, the President was overheard gushing "What an honour" as the two men disappeared for a half-hour tête-à-tête, details of which have not been made public.

The special reception was seen as a return of favours for the magnificent party thrown for the Pope two months ago when he turned 81 during his US tour, attended by up to 9,000 guests. But yesterday the Vatican was seething at rumours that there was much more to it than protocol: George Bush,lifelong Methodist, was about to convert.

The notion was given extra mileage by the fact that the President's brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida, converted to Catholicism on marrying his wife Columba, a Mexican.

The Vatican differs from the White House on immigration and the death penalty but on other issues including stem cell research, gay marriage and abortion there has been, as the Catholic daily L'Avvenire put it, "total harmony."

Cardinal Pio Laghi, the papal envoy to the White House, said: "Bush believes in the values of the Church and his brother is a convert." ...source- The Independent

Got you, under the skin - Telegraph

Old people will be implanted with microchips to remind them to take their medicine, according to a vision of the future conjured up by Ofcom, the communications regulating quango.

It won't end at that. We already see cats and dogs verified as rabies-free by chips implanted beneath their skin.

For humans it might sound quite handy to be reminded by an implant to take one's library book back or to send a birthday card to a niece. But what if the taste of the medicine is less welcome and the computer chip keeps buzzing away until you've swallowed it all?

In one of the more nannyish Scandinavian states, there used to be a system making it impossible to buy alcohol unless one's income tax was paid up to date. Such an arrangement would be child's play to a well-programmed implant.

So unless state ID schemes are resisted today, tomorrow you'll have had your chips....source

Army Yanks 'Voice-To-Skull Devices'

The Army's very strange webpage on "Voice-to-Skull" weapons has been removed. It was strange it was there, and it's even stranger it's gone. If you Google it, you'll see the entry for "Voice-to-Skull device," but, if you click on the website, the link is dead.

The entry, still available on the Federation of American Scientists' website reads:

Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulse-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of person or animals. NOTE: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages. One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports.

The U.K.-based group Christians Against Mental Slavery first noted the change (they also have a permanent screenshot of the page). A representative of the group tells me they contacted the Webmaster, who would only tell them the entry was "permanently removed."

The image above is one person's self-styled depiction of how a "voice-to-skull" weapon might work. source Wired.com

Another interesting read from Wired.com is The Voice of God Weapon Returns