Wowsers —

I’ve been away for a few days and just had the opportunity to read my comments . . . To read what some of you wrote, you’d think I was writhing on the floor with a foamy mouth because I’m overreacting to an article that struck my interest and seems (IMHO) to foretell of things to come.

What really amuses me, is aside from the comments I wrote in response to the “tut-tutting” of some readers, I didn’t interject much of a personal opinion regarding the articles.  Simply a sentence or two.  I copied the articles, pasted them into my blog with appropriate credits given, for your reading pleasure and contemplation.

If anyone is overreacting, it is those who are determined to insist that I’m sitting there with a “tin-foil hat” foaming at the mouth in fear, when nothing could be further from the truth . . .

Please note the paragraph below which I emphasize in bold and italics —

First published:  Wednesday, April 14, 2004

By Sherrie Gossett

What the FDA Won’t Tell You about the VeriChip

By Dale Hurd
CBN News Sr. Reporter

CBN.com – (CBN News) – A little electronic capsule, smaller than a dime, could be one of the biggest technological advances in how we share and store private medical records. It may also be one of the most controversial.

Known as the VeriChip, it is a microchip that is implanted under a person’s skin, and then scanned with a special reader device to reveal important medical data about that person.

Applied Digital, the Florida-based company that makes the VeriChip, hopes the implant will revolutionize how doctors obtain medical information, particularly in emergency situations. Theoretically, if a person can’t speak, medics could scan that person and quickly be linked to a database that would provide crucial information like the patient’s identity, blood type and drug allergies.

Dr. Csaba Magassi, a plastic surgeon in Northern Virginia, is among a nationwide network of doctors who are ready and waiting to implant the VeriChip into willing patients. His office receives calls daily from people inquiring about the chip.

Dr. Magassi said, “If you are in an auto accident, [and] you are unconscious, they could scan you, know exactly who you are; your medical history can easily be printed out onto the hospital record.”

Dr. Magassi added, “If a patient comes in requesting the VeriChip, I usually tell them it takes between two and five minutes to place the device in place. A needle which contains the VeriChip is inserted. The needle pushes the device through, and it is implanted permanently. Put a bandaid on and you are done.”

Dr. Magassi demonstrated the procedure for CBN News on an apple. Once the microchip was inserted, the hand-held scanner read the number on the chip using radio frequency waves. Think of it as a human barcode.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the VeriChip implant for medical use in humans in October, a huge victory for Applied Digital.

In an effort to jumpstart interest, the company launched the “Get Chipped” campaign. It is offering a discount to the first few hundred people who get the implant, and also plans to donate hundreds of scanners to the nation’s trauma units to promote use of the VeriChip.

But in a letter obtained by CBN News from the FDA to the VeriChip makers, the microchip is not completely safe. In fact, the letter lists a whole host of health risks associated with the device, including “adverse tissue reaction,” “electrical hazards” and “MRI incompatibility.”

Applied Digital and the Food and Drug Administration refused our requests for an interview to discuss these risks.

Consumer privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht said, “There are millions of people that have read the press reports about all the positives of this technology, but really have no idea about its dangers.”

Albrecht strongly opposes the VeriChip for the physical risks it poses, as well as the privacy risks. She has been called “the Erin Brokovich of RFID chips.”

On her Web site, http://www.spychips.com, Albrecht reveals the potential dangers of the VeriChip and other radio frequency identification methods.

Albrecht said, “There’s a very serious concern that, already, engineers and people who think along those lines are already thinking like hackers and criminals — they’re already starting to say, how can this system be compromised, how can it be abused? When you are dealing with a radio frequency device, by design, it is transmitting info using invisible radio waves at a distance. In this case, that distance is only a couple of inches or a couple of feet so it’s not a huge distance, but it means that anyone who can get within a couple of inches or a few feet of you, even with a reader device they have hidden in a backpack or a purse, would be able to scan that number, obtain that info and potentially duplicate it.”

And it is not just private medical information at stake. The microchip implant technology has been around for several years now, and has been used for a variety of different applications.

Thousands of chips have been implanted in pets by veterinarians for identification purposes. Livestock is now chipped to track things like mad-cow disease. Manufacturers are putting chips in products like clothing and shoes for marketing research.

In Mexico, the attorney general and his top aides were chipped for security purposes. And, in Spain at the Baja Beach Club, patrons can get a microchip with their financial information implanted, so they can pay for their cocktails with a swipe of the arm. As these pictures seem to suggest, getting chipped is fun and painless.

Applied Digital also launched a brand new application for the chip last year called the “VeriPay.” This implant would hold all of a person’s financial information. Rather than swipe a card or pay cash, consumers would scan their wrists for purchases. And, if a swipe of the wrist becomes too troublesome, there are already prototypes made of doorway portals that can simply scan a person and their purchases as they walk through the door.

Allbrecht said, “I think there is a very real concern that, down the road, such a chip would become mandatory. And not necessarily initially, but it would be voluntary, in the same way let’s say as credit cards or a drivers license is voluntary. No one forces you to have a driver’s license or to have a cell phone, but yet the vast majority of people do, because it is very difficult to function in a normal society without it.”

For now, though, a microchip implant is voluntary. Only a few thousand chips have been sold and only a fraction of those have been implanted in humans.

For someone who wants an implant for medical purposes, Dr. Magassi and others are standing by. Magassi says, “If they want it, God love ‘em. I’ll put it in. It’s as simple as that.”

The VeriChip just recently made its debut in a Miami, Florida nightclub, where patrons had the opportunity to “Get Chipped,” much like the Baja Beach club patrons in Spain.

Privacy . . . does it exist, or is it just a dream???

Perhaps you’ve heard about the court that ruled a teenager’s right to privacy had been violated when said teenager’s parent eavesdropped on a telephone conversation? ( http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41880 )

Well, here’s something that goes even further to demonstrate how rare an animal true privacy is becoming (italicized text copied from www.spychips.com — check it out for additional information regarding what I consider to be a huge indicator of Christ’s imminent return):

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, a technology that uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID “spy chips” have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco – and they are already being used to spy on people.

Above: Magnified image of actual tag found in Gillette Mach3 razor blades.

Each tiny chip is hooked up to an antenna that picks up electromagnetic energy beamed at it from a reader device. When it picks up the energy, the chip sends back its unique identification number to the reader device, allowing the item to be remotely identified. Spy chips can beam back information anywhere from a couple of inches to up to 20 or 30 feet away.

1. With today’s bar code technology, every can of Coke has the same UPC or bar code number as every other can (a can of Coke in Toronto has the same number as a can of Coke in Topeka). With RFID, each individual can of Coke would have a unique ID number which could be linked to the person buying it when they scan a credit card or a frequent shopper card (i.e., an “item registration system”).

2. Unlike a bar code, these chips can be read from a distance, right through your clothes, wallet, backpack or purse — without your knowledge or consent — by anybody with the right reader device. In a way, it gives strangers x-ray vision powers to spy on you, to identify both you and the things you’re wearing and carrying.

3. Unlike the bar code, RFID could be bad for your health. RFID supporters envision a world where RFID reader devices are everywhere – in stores, in floors, in doorways, on airplanes — even in the refrigerators and medicine cabinets of our own homes. In such a world, we and our children would be continually bombarded with electromagnetic energy. Researchers do not know the long-term health effects of chronic exposure to the energy emitted by these reader devices.

Many huge corporations, including Philip Morris, Procter and Gamble, and Wal-Mart, have begun experimenting with RFID spy chip technology. Gillette is leading the pack, and recently placed an order for up to 500 million RFID tags from a company called “Alien Technology” (we kid you not). These big companies envision a day when every single product on the face of the planet is tracked with RFID spy chips!

As consumers we have no way of knowing which packages contain these chips. While some chips are visible inside a package (see our pictures of Gillette spy chips), RFID chips can be well hidden. For example they can be sewn into the seams of clothes, sandwiched between layers of cardboard, molded into plastic or rubber, and integrated into consumer package design.

This technology is rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Now RFID spy chips can even be printed, meaning the dot on a printed letter “i” could be used to track you. In addition, the tell-tale copper antennas commonly seen attached to RFID chips can now be printed with conductive ink, making them nearly imperceptible. Companies are even experimenting with making the product packages themselves serve as antennas.

As you can see, it could soon be virtually impossible for a consumer to know whether a product or package contains an RFID spy chip. For this reason, CASPIAN (the creator of this web site) is proposing federal labeling legislation, the RFID Right to Know Act, which would require complete disclosures on any consumer products containing RFID devices.

We believe the public has an absolute right to know when they are interacting with technology that could affect their health and privacy.

Don’t you?

Join us. Let’s fight this battle before big corporations track our every move.

I know part of the reason it hurts so bad — I feel like I let her down.  I didn’t keep her safe.  And I can never fix that.

It keeps hitting me in waves.  I think I’m okay, and then I’ll look at a particular spot on the floor and I can SEE her lying there.  My chest hurts so bad, it just feels like there’s a hole where my heart should be. 

Monday night I stayed up late to work on a Christmas present.  AJ decided to go to bed, and Sydney watched to make sure he was “in for the night.”  Then she quietly walked around to his (her) recliner and hopped up.  She rested her chin on the arm of the chair and her eyes closed in that peaceful way that dogs’ eyes do when they’re sleeping.  I can’t tell you how many times I’d wander back into the living room after turning in for the night to find her curled up in the chair, or better yet, lying on her back on the sofa.  I figured, when a dog’s reached the ripe old age of 11, she’s entitled to a few perks.  So I never made her get down. 

She’d become quite a beggar in her later years.  I blame this completely on AJ.  He was always slipping her little bits of this and that when he thought I wasn’t looking.  And since I knew it was pointless to fight him on it, I started slipping her little things here and there, too.  She loved cheese, and a bit of ham here and there.  Especially a raw egg cracked in her bowl.  When AJ gathered the eggs and found a cracked one in the dozen, it was a banner day! 

The day before she died, Jami got very put out with her.  She had a piece of fried chicken on a plate on the dining room table.  She went to get something, and guess who snatched the chicken from her plate?  What a stinker!    She wasn’t usually so bold, but I guess the chicken was within easy reach . . .

There’s still a few of her hairs on the recliner cushion.  I don’t want to vacuum the cushion.  Totally irrational, I know.  Something else I know is that I’ve been crying for what seems like hours and I just can’t seem to find an end to it.  I miss her so much and I want her back.  And that’s not going to happen.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so full of grief over the loss of an animal.

I know it will pass, eventually.  The pain will become an ache, dull and not so intense.  And I’ll be able to think about her without feeling this way.  Please forgive me for wailing away on my blog.  I’d like to scream, but I’d wake Jami up and disturb the neighbors.  So thank goodness for the blog.

Thank you . . .

I really appreciate all the great thoughts and prayers you’ve sent our way.  It’s quite encouraging to know that there are people with hearts still on the planet (you wouldn’t know, based on the evening news sometimes).

Several of you mentioned the pups would help — and you were right.  Last night, AJ and I settled in for the evening . . . he in his recliner and me on the couch . . . each with a black puppy under one arm for comfort.  They are so sweet and I think Sydney would be proud of how loving they were to a couple of wounded people-pups.

The profile pic to the left is of Tina.  She’s got a magnolia seed pod in her chompers.  They’re all over the yard and she loves to chomp, chomp, chomp on them.  She’s rather partial to pecans, too.   Odd dog.  Just the way we like ’em.

She’s gone.

The vet called later in the day with an update.  It became apparent to him that she had suffered a spinal cord injury in the neck area, and even if she recovered from the more obvious wounds, she would be paralyzed — unable to walk or relieve herself without assistance.

AJ and I went out to the clinic about 3:30 p.m. and said our goodbyes.  We told her how much we loved her and spent a few minutes with her and then they gave her a shot and she went to sleep for good.

I wish you could have known my doggie.  A better pup there never was.  Her parents belonged to one of the groomsmen from our wedding.  We’d gone over to his house for a July 4th cookout in 1993.  There were all these roly-poly puppies!  So sweet.  And the runt of the litter was Sydney.  I fell in love with her that second.  David was selling them for $250 each, but AJ worked a deal with him — he’d help David build a pole-barn for his horses in exchange for Sydney.

I read an article one time that said Australian Shepherd puppies are put in a pen and observed for natural herding instincts.  The puppies with the strongest instinct are the ones chosen for training as ranch dogs.  Sydney would have been at the top of her class, had she had the opportunity.   At one point we had four other dogs:  a German Shepherd, a Weimaraner/Lab mix, a Cocker  Spaniel, and a Pomeranian.  We observed more than once Sydney literally herding the other dogs around the backyard!  She was incredibly smart.

When we decided to have a people baby (that would be Jami), we knew we had to thin out the pet population if we were going to be able to afford people baby food.  Sydney and our Pomeranian, Logan, stayed with us, while the other dogs went to good homes.  Logan passed away almost five years ago — old age reasons.  I wish Sydney could have had an old age death, too.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  I’m going to be weepy for a while . . . I don’t handle these things well at all.  But I know we made the right decision, as painful as it was.  It’s kind of odd how things work out . . . about three months ago, two new puppies joined our family — Lab/Border Collie mixes.  I can’t help but wonder if part of the reason they came to us was to help ease this loss a little bit.  No one will ever take her place, but it lightens the heart a little bit to see these pups rolling on the living room floor.

I would appreciate it if you all would pray for my dog, Sydney . . .

This morning, my dog was hit by a  car.  We always let our Australian Shepherd, Sydney, outside for a bit in the mornings . . . I run Jami down the street to school (a mere 1/2 mile away) and when I get back, I let the dog back in.  Well, this morning as I was about to turn into our driveway, I noticed a truck further down the road going around something in the middle of the road.  I don’t know why, but I knew almost immediately that it was Sydney.

I raced down there, put on my hazards and hopped out to get her.  She was lying on her side, blood bubbling around her nose.  A neighbor coming from the other direction stopped and got out to help me.  I couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt, but Richard managed to pick her up and lay her across the back seat of my pickup truck.  I went straight to the vet’s, no purse, no driver’s license, no nothing.  Just me and Syd.

When we got there, the office was still closed.  Our vet actually has a mobile clinic (http://www.mobilevetbc.com/), with a physical address where he operates a kennel and recovery clinic for animals with lengthy recoveries their families may not feel qualified to care for.  The driveway to the clinic is long and there’s a gate across the entrance.  I started to head for our vet’s house, but then thought better of it, since we might pass each other enroute.  So I turned off the truck and jogged down the length of the drive to see if there was anyone at the clinic.  No such luck.

I walked next door to see if I could borrow the phone.  An elderly gentleman (probably 80 – 85) answered the door.  Hard of hearing, but he was very kind and let me call Dr. Suazo.  Dr. Suazo said that his staff should be arriving shortly and he would be there as quickly as possible.

By the time I’d gotten back to the truck, Amanda was pulling up in the drive.  She opened the gate and we both trucked it down to the clinic.  She carried Sydney inside and began stabilizing her with medications for shock and by warming her with a heating pad and towels.  I tried to stay out of the way, but she looked so helpless lying on the metal treatment table. 

Dr. Suazo arrived and looked her over.  He said that she had no apparent injuries to her body, but that she must have taken the hit head-on.  It appeared the impact was on the left side of her head.  He told me that they’d given her something for pain and enough steroids for a horse (to control inflammation).  He said it was a good sign that she’d lasted this long, and really all that could be done now was to wait and see how she responded. 

He encouraged me that they’ve seen several patients hit by cars recently that had similar injuries and that they’d recovered.  So . . . hopefully, she will be like them.

I called a while ago for an update and they said she was still stable and that her temperature was normal.  I’m going to call again in a bit to see how she’s doing.

This old girl is eleven years old.  We got her when she was a puppy — July 1993.  AJ helped a friend build a pole barn for his horses to pay for her.  She’s so sweet and she doesn’t act old at all.  I will be so sad if she doesn’t make it.  Please, please keep her in your prayers.

When a friend is unjustly accused, I feel a strong need to set the record straight . . .

In the last few weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday, Miss O’Hara has been utilizing her gifts to promote charities that she felt were worthy causes — in hopes of encouraging others to (a) encourage their own readers to think of others during this season, and (b) dig a little deeper and give time, talent, and/or money to any or all of these causes.  She was very clear to state that if any of her readers had their own “pet” causes, to please recommend them and not feel obligated to only support the causes she had listed on her own blog.

When visible response was not what she had hoped for/expected, she got discouraged and vented on her blog.  Apparently this irritated some readers, because apparently Miss O’Hara’s blog is not hers to do with as she will.  Apparently, a gentle reminder to think of others, cloaked in the structure of a charity drive, is one of the unforgivable sins.  (Yes, I know I used apparently three times in two sentences . . .)

One particularly venomous writer said the most hateful things, accusing Miss O’Hara of ugliness that those of us who’ve read her for any length of time know to be false.  Granted, there is such a thing as free speech, because we do live in the United States.  But free speech crosses a line when it makes unsubstantiated accusations against someone and even goes further to omit facts in order to slant public opinion in its favor.

I made comments to this blogger regarding her unfair representation and she posted the following to my comments section: