CASHLESSNESS

Consumers warned over tap-and-pay technology

 

Banks, financial institutions and now internet service providers are tapping into the market for contact-free payment systems. It is a time-saving temptation for busy people, but tech experts say consumers must be aware of the risks when opting for the technology.

Contactless credit cards and mobile phone chips connect to payment terminals via a short range radio frequency identification (RFID). Unlike traditional payment methods, they do not require a signature or PIN to verify the card holder's identity.

Rob Livingstone from the University of Technology says it is a win-win for banks and retailers because cash is expensive. "There's a number of benefits, some of which relate to increased customer service, a lower per-transaction cost and more importantly the potential elimination of cash," he said.

CORPOREAL CORPORATIONS

Repeal the farce of "Corporate Personhood"

 

 

A Kafkaesque fiction put forth by the power establishment is that corporations are "persons'. This is an absurd perversion of nature itself. A person, after all, has a navel. Where's the corporate navel – or its heart, brain, or soul?

Also, if a corporation is a person, shouldn't it be subject to front-line military duty, to jail for its criminal violations, and even to the death penalty?

MAIL MEMES

FLASHBACK: An email still doing the rounds, but a good time to recount it.

A front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle in early 2006 covered a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

ZERO TOLERANCE

The US schools with their own police
"Zero tolerance started out as a term that was used in combating drug trafficking and it became a term that is now used widely when you're referring to some very punitive school discipline measures. Those two policy worlds became conflated with each other," said Fowler.
Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground.
Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school.
The US is the only developed country to lock up children as young as 13 for life without the possibility of parole, often as accomplices to murders committed by an adult.