Will Electronic Tattoos Replace Internet Passwords And All Other Forms Of Identification?

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Photo Credit: MC10

By Michael. Would you wear an electronic tattoo if you couldn’t log on to the Internet without one? That may sound crazy to many of you, but the technology for such a system already exists. RFID tattoos have existed for quite some time, and they are already being used on animals. But now an entirely new generation of electronic tattoos are being developed that can monitor your vital signs, interact with your mobile phone and even communicate directly with your mind. These new electronic tattoos are thinner than a human hair, and they are going to fundamentally transform the way that we think about human identification.

Right now, the Internet is being absolutely plagued by hackers and identity theft has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine if someone is actually who they say that they are. And as even more of our commerce gets conducted through the Internet, identity security is going to be absolutely critical. Without a doubt, there will continue to be a push for more secure forms of identification than we have today. But there is also a very dark side to this kind of technology.

What if someday a tyrannical government decides to make a permanent electronic tattoo for identification purposes mandatory for all citizens? What if you are not able to buy, sell, get a job, have a bank account or log on to the Internet without “proper identification”? What if the price for receiving your tattoo is to swear absolute allegiance to that tyrannical government? The truth is that technology is always a double-edged sword. It always brings with it the promise of progress, but it also always has a dark side that could potentially be abused. Read more from this story HERE.

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Motorola Pushes Plans for Electronic Ink and Digital Pills to Authentic our Daily Activies

By Victoria Woollaston. Motorola has announced it is looking at alternatives to traditional passwords in a bid to make logging into online sites, or accessing mobile phones, more secure.

Among the ideas discussed at the D11 conference in California on Wednesday were electronic tattoos and authentication pills that people swallow.

The tattoos, developed by Massachusetts-based engineering firm MC10, contain flexible electronic circuits that are attached to the wearer’s skin using a rubber stamp.

MC10 originally designed the tattoos, called Biostamps, to help medical teams measure the health of their patients either remotely, or without the need for large expensive machinery.

Motorola claims that the circuits, which also contain antennae and built-in sensors, could be adapted to work with mobile phones and tablets. Read more from this story HERE.

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Pentagon’s Mad Scientists Want a Tattoo That Tracks Troops’ Vitals

By Nick Stockton. In its ongoing quest to measure every aspect of U.S. troops’ physiology, Pentagon researchers are looking to develop a durable, unobtrusive device that can track the body’s physical response to stress. Military scientists believe that using the device — preferably a tattoo — to track heart-rate, temperature or bio-electric response during various training situations will help them crack the code of combat fatigue.

The Navy recently requested research proposals to develop the next generation of bio-statistic devices. The solicitation, which opened last month, hopes new technologies can transcend the current paradigm of patient monitoring of needles, gels and electrodes. And advanced materials make it possible to integrate everything from the sensors to the transmitter into thumb-sized membranes that can stick to skin — like temporary tattoos.

The Navy is hoping that whichever company wins the research contract will be able to use a relatively new technology known as epidermal electronic systems (EES) to make sensors that are both unobtrusive and durable enough for modern combat training. Using state-of-the-art, highly flexible materials, researchers can coil sensors, electronics, and transmitters into serpentine shapes that form a stretchable net. “This innovative design contains all of the necessary components in an ultrathin layer about the thickness of a human hair,” writes Zhenqiang Ma, an electrical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, in a review of the technology.

They are nearly as flexible as hair, too, and adhere to the skin using strong molecular forces. According to research by EES’ inventors at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, they can be pinched, poked, pulled, and stretched without damaging the device. In one experiment, researchers left a sensor tattoo attached to their subjects’ necks for over 24 hours before it wore off. Read more from this story HERE.

Anti-Gun Senate President Faces Likely Recall For Pushing Colorado Governor’s Gun Control Bills

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Photo Credit: Ed Andrieski

A recall campaign submitted stacks of petitions Monday to oust Colorado Senate President John Morse in what could become a national referendum on gun rights.

Organizers said they turned in more than 16,000 signatures, well in excess of the 7,178 valid signatures needed to force the recall and even more than the 13,866 votes received by Mr. Morse in the 2010 election.

“It just goes to show how interested people are in making sure Morse is recalled,” said recall organizer Rob Harris.

Mr. Morse, a Democrat from Colorado Springs, became a recall target for his role in pushing three gun-control measures signed by the governor in March.

Read more from this story HERE.

“Conservative” Supreme Court Allows DNA Collection From Anyone Targeted by Police; Scalia Writes Scathing Dissenting Opinion, Joined by Left

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Photo Credit: soychemist

The police may take DNA samples from people arrested in connection with serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The federal government and 28 states authorize the practice, and law enforcement officials say it is a valuable tool for investigating unsolved crimes. But the court said the testing was justified by a different reason: to identify the suspect in custody.

“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, “taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. He accused the majority of an unsuccessful sleight of hand, one that “taxes the credulity of the credulous.” The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, he said, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody.

But the Fourth Amendment forbids searches without reasonable suspicion to gather evidence about an unrelated crime, he said, a point the majority did not dispute. “Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” Justice Scalia said from the bench.

Read more from this story HERE.

Chris Christie’s Lautenberg Dilemma Is 2013-as-2016 All Over Again

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Photo Credit: AP

By Elspeth Reeve. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie can name a successor for Frank Lautenberg, who died at the age of 89 on Monday, becoming the 299th Senator to pass away in office. But it’s yet another moment when what’s good for Christie in 2013 might not be good for him in 2016. Christie, after all, is a Republican running a state that voted for President Obama by almost 18 points. “Replacing a Democrat with a Democrat and then saying the voters should decide what happens next in November would no doubt be very well-received by Democrats and moderates,” The Washington Post’s Sean Sullivan writes. But that would mean Republicans who are already annoyed with Christie and his Obama-hugging antics would disown him.

To understand the difficult position Christie’s in, look at these two tweets: “What lucky Democrat will Democrat Chris Christie appoint to Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat?” conservative thriller author Brad Thor asks. Salon’s Joan Walsh adds: “Hey Dem donors giving to Chris Christie: will you rethink if he picks a Republican to replace Lautenberg?” Read more from this story HERE.

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Major Democratic donors flock to Christie

By Salvador Rizzo. Gov. Chris Christie is cashing in donations from top Democratic fundraisers and other traditionally liberal donors across the country, even nabbing the support of a handful of rainmakers aligned with President Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Star-Ledger review of state and federal records shows.

The checks are flying into the Republican governor’s war chest from all sorts of unlikely places — the hedge fund run by liberal billionaire George Soros, for example, and the politically progressive halls of the University of California, Berkeley.

The nascent support from Democratic donors is an early sign of Christie’s fundraising prowess in a potential run for the White House in 2016, experts and Democratic donors said, and dovetails with recent polls showing him gaining popularity nationally among Democrats and independents. Read more from this story HERE.

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Christie faces tricky task in filling N.J. seat

By Dave Boyer. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s options for appointing a replacement for the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg include Tom Kean Jr., minority leader of the state senate and son of the former governor.

The Republican bench in New Jersey, a blue state, isn’t particularly deep and Mr. Kean would have the advantage of name recognition if he wanted to run for a full term. He won the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2006 but was defeated in the general election by Democrat Bob Menendez.

But there’s also a potential problem — there’s friction between Mr. Christie and Mr. Kean.

The governor “does not like Kean Jr.,” said a New Jersey political operative familiar with the governor’s thinking.

Among the governor’s other options are Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, and Joe Kyrillos, a Christie ally whom the GOP nominated for the Senate in 2012. Read more from this story HERE.

Ingraham Blasts ‘Classless’ Karl Rove for Stomping on ‘Political Grave of Michele Bachmann’

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Rove took a shot Sunday at outgoing-Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, saying that as the chairman of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, Bachmann “did nothing.”

Ingraham called out Rove and suggested he direct his fire at her instead of Bachmann.

“I’m getting a little tired of these Bush people,” Ingraham said. “We didn’t need Karl Rove taking a swipe at Michele Bachmann. That was classless. We’ll get into that as well — classless. You know, pick on me Karl, OK? She’s on her way out. For someone to say she’s never done anything for conservatism, she has never done anything, she doesn’t do anything — she’s bowing out. I mean, do you have to stomp on the political grave of Michele Bachmann? Does that really make Karl Rove feel better about himself?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Social Security Faces $9.6 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities: $83,894 Per Household

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Photo Credit: AP

The Social Security program faces $9.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years, which is up $1 trillion from last year’s projection of $8.6 trillion, according to the latest report from Social Security’s board of trustees.

The unfunded liability is the amount that has been promised in benefits to people now alive that will not be funded by the tax revenue the system is expected to take in to pay for those benefits. (The Social Security trustees calculate the unfunded liability for a period of 75 years into the future, from 2012 to 2087).

The report, The 2013 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, provides the latest data through the end of 2012.

Social Security is officially called the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, and consists of retired workers, their families, and survivors of deceased workers who get monthly benefits under the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program and disabled workers and their families who get monthly benefits under the Disability Insurance program.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Wall Street Journal Spins for the Senate Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

The Wall Street Journal editorial board took a strong stance Monday in favor of the Senate immigration bill, arguing that “immigrants will be crucial” to saving Social Security. The proof: a projection that immigrants will contribute $4.6 trillion (in today’s dollars) towards the Social Security trust fund over the next 75 years–nearly half the $9.6 trillion shortfall (for some reason, the Journal cites last year’s $8.6 trillion estimate.)

Even if true, that does not dispose of Social Security’s problems–and it may be misleading to consider the effects on Social Security alone, when new immigrants will also be making use of a host of other entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare.

That is not an argument against immigration, but reminds us that using immigrants to shore up failing welfare state programs may be a recipe for failure.

It certainly has been in Europe.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bill Clinton: “Obama Doesn’t Know How to Be President…He’s Incompetent. He’s an Amateur!”

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President Obama made a secret deal to support Hillary Clinton when she runs for president in 2016, campaign sources say, payback for the support her husband gave him in 2012.

Bill Clinton’s animosity toward Obama is legendary. A year before the last election, he was urging Hillary to challenge the sitting president for the nomination — a move she rejected.

According to two people who attended that meeting in Chappaqua, Bill Clinton then went on a rant against Obama.

“I’ve heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I’ve heard from Obama,” my sources quoted Clinton as saying. “I have no relationship with the president — none whatsoever. Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s an amateur!”

For his part, Obama wasn’t interested in Bill Clinton upstaging him during the presidential campaign. He resisted giving him any role at the convention. Read more from this story HERE.

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Bill Clinton’s Half-Million Dollar Speech is Drawing Outrage in Israel

By Sharona Schwartz. Senior Israeli media figures are voicing outrage at a revelation this weekend that former U.S. President Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a gala speech later this month in honor of Israeli President Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday.

The commissioned speech at the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot is expected to last 45 minutes, meaning each minute is costing sponsors $11,111.

According to Israeli news accounts, the large sum will go to the William J. Clinton Foundation which focuses its efforts on a range of causes including economic, health, leadership and environmental.

The Jewish National Fund paid the half-million dollar fee to secure the former president’s participation a year in advance, according to Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Jewish National Fund is known for its tree planting campaigns, park planning and nature reserve construction, which includes encouraging Jews around the world to buy a tree in Israel. As TheBlaze reported last year, it has also been the focus of pro-Palestinian activists who accuse the organization of “war crimes” for its environmentally-friendly activities in Israel which the activists consider to be on Palestinian land. Read more from this story HERE.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

As Average Americans Lose 55% of their Wealth, the DC-Connected Enter the Gilded Age

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Photo Credit: 401(K) 2013

What Sequester? Washington Booms as a New Gilded Age Takes Root

By Elizabeth Williamson. On a bright spring morning, Debbie Driesman and her interior decorator surveyed progress on Norton Manor, the 40,000 square-foot house she’s building with her husband, information-technology entrepreneur Frank Islam. To make way for the French chateau-style manse, the family bought two houses on adjacent 4-acre lots and invited the local fire department to destroy them. For practice.

The manor, in suburban Washington, features a reflecting pool (just as the Capitol does), east and west wings (like the White House) and is configured for easy Secret Service coverage when VIP guests attend the couple’s Democratic Party fundraisers. Decorator Skip Sroka scoured the globe for Norton Manor’s marble fireplaces, hand-loomed carpets and several tons of gilded and Venetian chandeliers. The gardens are modeled, in part, after those of Henry VIII’s Hampton Court palace.

“If there’s something he can’t have that he wants, you have to find a way,” Ms. Driesman says of her exacting husband. “You can’t just tell him ‘no.’ ”

The sprawling compound is a product of Washington’s Gilded Age—a time of lush business profits initially fueled by government outsourcing and war. Some demographers predicted the boom here would ebb as federal spending shrank amid troop withdrawals from the Middle East and efforts to trim the deficit.

Instead, the region has shown surprising resilience, thanks to an economy that has steadily broadened beyond the government. More than a generation of heavy federal spending, it turns out, has provided the seed money for a Washington economy that now operates globally—less tied to the vicissitudes of the capital’s political rhythms. Read more from this story HERE.
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Wealth of most Americans down 55% since recession

By Constantine Von Hoffman. Increasing housing prices and the stock market’s posting all-time highs haven’t helped the plight most Americans. The average U.S. household has recovered only 45 percent of the wealth they lost during the recession, according to a report released yesterday from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

This finding is a very different picture than one painted in a report earlier this year by the Fed that calculated Americans as a whole had regained 91 percent of their losses. The writers of the report released yesterday point out that the earlier number is based on aggregate household-net-worth data. However, this isn’t adjusted for inflation, population growth or the nature of the wealth. Further, they say much of recovery in net worth is because of the stock market, which means most of the improvement has been a boon only to wealthy families.

“Clearly, the 91 percent recovery of wealth losses portrayed by the aggregate nominal measure paints a different picture than the 45 percent recovery of wealth losses indicated by the average inflation-adjusted household measure,” the report said. “Considering the uneven recovery of wealth across households, a conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified,” the researchers said.

Household wealth plunged $16 trillion from the top of the real estate bubble in the third quarter of 2007 to the bottom of the bust in the first quarter of 2009. By the last three months of 2012, American households as a group had regained $14.7 trillion.

The report says almost two-thirds of the increase in aggregate household wealth is due to rising stock prices. This has disproportionately benefited the richest households: About 80 percent of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. Read more from this story HERE.

Professor Calls for NRA Members to be Shot by Firing Squad for Treason

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Photo Credit: Biz Pac Review

A professor in West Virginia provides yet another example of the inescapable reality that the real threat to America, beyond a complicit media, is likely to be found in college classrooms.

Christopher Swindell, journalism professor at Marshall University, is calling on National Rifle Association members to be shot before a firing squad.

In an op/ed published in the Charleston Gazette on Thursday, Swindell offered his version of the “final solution” for supporters of the Second Amendment, as Independent Journal Review’s Michael Miller characterized his vile rhetoric.

While passing himself off as “mainstream,” Swindell labels the NRA’s concerns as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk” and accuses the organization of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government:

“Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad.

Read more from this story HERE.