Archive for February, 2010
Priest Uses Fingerprint Reader to Monitor Mass Attendance
February 7th, 2010Via: Reuters: A Polish priest has installed an electronic reader in his church for schoolchildren to leave their fingerprints in order to monitor their attendance at mass, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily said on Friday. The pupils will mark their fingerprints every time they go to church over three years and if they attend 200 masses […]
FBI Wants Records Kept of Web Sites Visited *Yawn*
February 7th, 2010I’m posting this to let those of you (who are submitting this) know that I don’t understand why you find it noteworthy. With all the posts I’ve done on network surveillance, I’m getting story submissions about retention of URLs? Guys, splash some cold water on your faces, break out the smelling salts, wake up. It […]
Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included
February 6th, 2010Via: Wired: The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch. As part of its budget for […]
Greece ‘Dress Rehearsal’ for U.S.
February 6th, 2010Via: Bloomberg: The cost of insuring against U.S. and U.K. debt defaults may rise in the same way as it has for so- called European peripheral nations including Greece and Portugal, Deutsche Bank AG said. “The problems currently faced by peripheral Europe could be a dress rehearsal for what the U.S. and U.K. may face […]
South Carolina Now Requires ‘Subversives’ to Register, Pay Fee
February 6th, 2010The Onion couldn’t have done it better than South Carolina. Via: Raw Story: Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina’s Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed […]
Secret Meeting of Top Bankers in Australia
February 6th, 2010Via: Herald Sun: THE world’s top central bankers began arriving in Australia yesterday as renewed fears about the strength of the global economic recovery gripped world share markets. Representatives from 24 central banks and monetary authorities including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank landed in Sydney to meet tomorrow at a secret location, […]
Gever Tulley on Radio New Zealand
February 6th, 2010Via: Radio New Zealand: Our guest author is American computer scientist, Gever Tulley – founder of the Tinkering School, a summer camp that encourages kids to play with fire, throw spears and take risks. He has now released a new book called “Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)” which he co-wrote with […]
Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure
February 5th, 2010Via: Bloomberg: Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said. Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is […]
States Storing Newborns’ DNA Without Parental Consent
February 5th, 2010Via: CNN: When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis. While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she […]
Mysterious Danish Group Builds Exotic Compound on Baja Coast
February 5th, 2010This is a weird one. Via: San Diego Reader: Tvind Alert says that the complex cost $10 million to build. The watchdog website says that a Mexican-Danish company bought the land from local landowners between 1999 and 2003. Attorney Morachis informed me that the landowner is a Mexican company. Allegations have been made that title […]
