Source: Yahoo Tech

It works for Fido, so why not you?

The same RFID implants used to identify lost pets are now being adapted for use on you and me, and not how one might have originally expected. As with all pioneering technologies, it’s leisure pursuits that are getting the first stab at the tech.

Specifically: One beach-oriented Barcelona nightclub, the Baja Beach Club, is using the implants to free customers of the burdens of having to carry their purses or wallets. Makes sense: When you’re spending the day in a bikini and flip-flops, where do you keep your ID? Instead, the bouncer just scans your arm with an RFID reader, and you’re in. And since you can’t carry a credit card or cash either, the implants do double duty: You can pay for drinks with a quick scan of the chip. Chipped patrons also gain access to VIP areas of the club.

The implant procedure is simple and mostly painless (except for all the legal paperwork required): The area where the chip is injected is thoroughly numbed, then the glass capsule is injected beneath a layer of skin and fat on the arm. Continue reading →

Reuters | April 19, 2007
Matthew Bigg

The Virginia Tech killings have set off calls for tighter U.S. gun laws but anyone wanting to know why those demands likely will make little headway should visit Kennesaw, a town where owning a gun is both popular and mandatory.

The town north of Atlanta had little prominence until it passed a gun ordinance in 1982 that required all heads of a household to own a firearm and ammunition.

Kennesaw’s law was a response to Morton Grove, Illinois, which had passed a gun ban earlier that year as a step to reduce crime.

But it also was an affirmation of what gun advocates say is a blanket U.S. constitutional right, under the Second Amendment, for citizens to keep and bear arms. Gun opponents challenge that right and say the language in the Constitution is open to interpretation. Continue reading →

With a subtitle like “From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again” run, don’t walk, to your nearest kiosk and buy Matt Taibbi’s latest piece in Rolling Stone magazine. One of the best comprehensive profiles of Government Sachs done to date. Speaking of GS, they sure must be busy today, now that Bernanke is about to be impeached and take the fall for all their machinations. Continue reading →