To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Going Cashless As Small Change Dries Up
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 08:45:19 -0400

Friday May 19 10:40 AM ET

 Going Cashless As Small Change Dries Up

 By Crispian Balmer

PARIS (Reuters) - A strike by armored van security guards, now in its 11th
day, is turning France into a cashless society.

Sales are down in small shops, waiters are losing out on their usual tips and
beggars are deprived of the few coins they live off.

With the normal flow of cash between banks and shops cut off, the small
change and banknotes normally used for everyday purchases are becoming
ever harder to find. Credit cards and checks are often the only way to pay for
purchases.

French state railways and the Paris metro system announced on Friday they
would accept checks as low as five francs (68 U.S. cents) -- even less than
the eight-franc metro ticket.

The guards who transport cash between banks and shops to feed automated
teller machines (ATMs) and collect shop earnings went on strike on May 9
for more risk money following a series of brutal hold-ups, some with
bazookas and automatic weapons.

The French government appointed a mediator for the dispute earlier this week
after negotiations between unions and bosses broke down. But despite his
intervention, no deal appeared forthcoming and more talks are expected at
the weekend.

``Business for us is down by at least 50 percent. It's a disaster,'' said Jean-
Paul, an assistant at the Soguisa fishmongers in Paris' bustling Rue
Montorgueil.

``Customers feel embarrassed about buying a fish for 15 francs ($2.00) with
their credit cards. They are going to supermarkets and doing all their
shopping there,'' he said.

Debit cards with ``smart chips'' are widely used in France, but normally only
for purchases of 100 francs and up. Many shops had to slash the threshold
for credit card payments when the supply of small change and notes dried
up.

``The trouble is we have to pay commission on the credit card sales so this
is costing us,'' said Gregory Bernard, owner of the An II bar on the lively Rue
Faubourg du Temple.

``We have run out of 50 franc notes and everyone brings in big notes wanting
change which we haven't got,'' he said. In desperation he went to a branch of
the Bank of France but even they had run out of 10 franc coins.

A waitress at a bar across the street said she was starting to feel the pinch.
``Hardly anyone is leaving us tips any more. Everyone seems to be holding
onto their coins,'' said Diane.

At the bottom of the money chain, Paris' homeless beggars were also
struggling. ``I know you haven't got much money on you, but please give me
whatever you can spare,'' said one young man travelling the metro in search
of handouts.

Many people appeared to be hoarding what is left of their cash for
emergencies, while others tramp the streets trying to find a cash dispenser
that works. Some banks reported that up to 80 percent of their ATMs were
now empty.

``When you see a line you join it in the hope the machine is still giving out
money,'' said Kay Rolland, publisher of Where magazine in Paris. ``You get
a panicky feeling that you can't get hold of your own money.''

Susanne Baille, who runs a newspaper kiosk on Paris' Place de la
Republique, said she had started offering her regular clients credit. ``Some
people want to pay for papers with checks, but I say no. This is getting silly.''
 

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000519/od/shortage_1.html

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Playing Ball With DNA
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 08:53:12 -0400

Playing Ball With DNA

Firms Tag Items Using Genetic Code

Cypher Science lodges microscopic beads in a diamond fissure (2000x magnification.) (Cypher Science)

By Sascha Segan

May 18 — Your DNA code is unique. So is that of Mark McGwire´s 70th home run ball.

To balk counterfeiters, Cypher Science in Cardiff, Wales and DNA Technologies in Los Angeles are imprinting DNA, the chemical code inside every living cell, on objects from sports collectibles to barrels of oil. For secretly tagging valuables, a string of DNA is perfect, said Cypher Science´s research manager Robert Sleat.

It´s a technique that could be used in the future by spies to hide messages, and by the government to authenticate hundred-dollar bills.

A chemical tag “must be impossible to counterfeit. It must be used in minute quantities. It must be environmentally safe, environmentally friendly, and easily formulated. There are very few, if any molecules that fit the bill apart from dear old DNA,” Sleat said.

A Slick Idea

Cypher Science, which has been using DNA tagging for three years, got the idea from fuel oil.

“In the ´80s, when the price of oil was horribly high, a lot of oil was being diverted from tankers to be used either as fuel for the tankers or to be sold on,” said Alan Costain, senior executive at Cypher Science. Lloyd´s of London, which insured the oil, wanted to find some way of marking oil in the cargo of ships to see if it showed up in the fuel tanks. DNA, which is microscopic, cheap to produce and doesn´t affect the quality of the oil, fit the bill.

Tagging came into demand from art collectors who wanted to prove pieces were authentic and from perfumeries wanting to prevent gray-market importers from undercutting official prices.

“We do works of art, antiques, perfumes, clothing, inks, jewelry, oil …” Costain said. The huge number of available tags means every lot of perfume or individual painting can get its own label.

DNA Technologies developed its system six years ago while looking for a way to tag artwork. Now, the International Olympic Committee is using the company´s tagging system to stop counterfeit merchandise at the Sydney Olympics. Official items will be marked with both special ink — which can be detected with a laser scanner in the field — and with DNA, said DNA Technologies president Chris Outwater.

“Police will be using a hand detector to look for the optical mark, and of course if there´s any question they go beyond that to probe for the DNA,” he said.

Tiny Little Tags

Unlike McGwire´s game, DNA has four, not three, bases: the chemical building blocks adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. A chain of 50 bases has more than a nonillion possible combinations — 10 followed by 30 zeroes. Cypher Science uses up to 100 bases for industrial products and works of art. DNA Technologies uses 25 for its sports collectibles.

The companies come up with a random sequence of DNA by computer, and then send it out to a fulfillment house to be synthesized.

Cypher Science then attaches the DNA to tiny beads that lodge in microscopic cracks in solid objects. DNA Technologies mixes its into invisible ink. They paint it on, spray it on, or inject it into the item to be tagged. The beads and the ink provide authenticators with a way to find where the DNA has been applied.

DNA Technologies charges less than $10 to tag an item; synthesis is cheap.

The tag can´t be seen with the naked eye, and can´t be decoded without DNA sequencing equipment — common in bioscience labs, but not portable. If a purchaser wants to verify that an object is authentic, the object must be sent to a lab for testing against an encrypted database of items and DNA tags.

Whose DNA Is It Anyway?

Both Cypher Science and DNA Technologies generally use synthetic DNA. Cypher Science checks its against known databases of viruses and other existing DNA to make sure its code is harmless and inert.

But DNA Technologies previously had a side business marking collectibles with chunks of famous athletes´ DNA. “We take a small fragment of a real person´s DNA and we amplify that fragment and put it into our inks,” Outwater said. The fragment is too small to have any biological effect, he added — just prestige value. The company has used former New York Jets player Joe Namath´s DNA, as a novelty, to tag collectibles. (Namath´s autograph sells for up to $150.) But how about other ex-football stars?

“OJ probably doesn´t want to know about DNA tagging,” Outwater laughed.

Copy This

There are a few flaws in the DNA system. A DNA code is almost impossible to guess. But if a counterfeiter gets ahold of an original item, he could theoretically copy the DNA code onto other items, said Miguel Castro, CEO of Biosynthesis, a biotechnology company in Lewisville, Texas.

“In principle, even one molecule could be copied … even if you don´t know the sequence, you can copy it,” Castro said.

And DNA isn´t indestructible. Cypher Science embeds microscopic beads into items and DNA Technologies uses special labels to protect the fragile helices. Otherwise, a wash with bleach could break down the DNA, Castro said.

Handling could also contaminate an object with many peoples´ DNA, Castro said.

But on an object like the home run ball — precious, not often touched — DNA is the best option, said Jason Meyerson, president of Professional Sports Authenticators, which uses DNA Technologies´ process. “It´s very simple, it´s very inexpensive, and we feel it´s the best process out there,” he said.

Secret Messages

Tagging isn´t the only non-biological use for DNA. In an article in Nature last June, two doctors and a high school student explained how they encoded a secret message in a molecule of DNA.

The team, led by Dr. Carter Bancroft of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City, hides a tiny amount of secret-message DNA in a human genome, where each molecule of the message is camouflaged by up to 30 million molecules of ordinary human DNA.

The message was “June 6 invasion: Normandy,” an homage to the World War II tactic of encoding messages as microdots, photographically reduced down to a tiny size. If a recipient knows to look for the DNA, and knows a special “hook” sequence attached to the end of the message, a lab can make the secret-message DNA multiply until it´s easily noticeable, Bancroft said. The DNA was then hidden in an item where only the recipient would know where to look for it.

“We took the secret message DNA, applied it to a period in a letter and mailed it,” Bancroft said. The DNA was on a tiny scrap of filter paper held in place by a fraction of a drop of Wet n´ Wild clear nail polish, he said.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/CuttingEdge/cuttingedge.html

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - A Parable
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 09:14:29 -0500

In David Stern's commentary on Romans 3:25-26 from his book "Jewish
New Testament Commentary" (page 350), he discusses the paradox that
justice and mercy presents. Although we know that God is just AND
merciful, it's sometimes hard for us to understand how God can render
due punishment for sin and at the same time be merciful and forgiving
towards sin to those that trust in the sacrifice of Yeshua. Stern
explains that God has "justly poured out the full measure of his
wrath in Yeshua" and through God's great mercy He "regards anyone who
identifies fully with Yeshua as already fully punished for his past
sins."

The following questions are then asked: "But how does this make God
both just and merciful? How can an individual rely on someone else's
taking the punishment which he himself deserves...?

Stern relates a parable of unknown source, which "does not fit the
theological realities at every point" but does get the point across I
believe:

"Once upon a time there was a king who was strong, brave and
possessed of all other good qualities. He ruled his country justly,
loved his people and was loved by them. Because of this there was no
crime in his kingdom -- until one day it was discovered that a thief
was loose in the land.

"Knowing that wrongful behavior would multiply unless he took a
strong hand against it, the king decreed that when caught the thief
would receive twenty lashes. But the thefts continued. He raised
the punishment to forty lashes in the hope of deterring further
crime, but to no avail. Finally, he announced that the criminal would
be punished with sixty lashes, knowing that no one in the country
could survive sixty lashes except himself. At last the thief was
caught, and it turned out to be -- the king's mother.

"The king was faced with a dilemma. He loved his mother more than
anyone in the world, but justice demanded that the punishment be
carried out. Moreover, were his subjects to see that it was possible
to commit a crime and not be punished for it, social order would be
completely undermined. At the same time, he knew that if he were to
subject his own mother to the punishment that would kill her, the
people's love would turn to revulsion and hate toward a man so
lacking in compassion and ordinary affection, and he would be unable
to govern at all. The whole nation wondered what he would do.

"The day arrived for adminstering the prescribed punishment. The
king mounted a platform in the capital's central square, and the
royal flogger took his place. Then the king's elderly mother was
brought forward, fragile and trembling. On seeing her son the king,
she burst into tears. 'I'm ... so sorry... for what I did!' she
wailed, between sobs. Then, recovering, the bent, white-haired
figure made her way toward the flogging harness. The people gasped
as the flogger raised his muscled arm with the leather whip.

"Just as it was about to crack down on the exposed back of the woman
who had given him birth, the king cried 'Stop!' The arm poised in
mid-air, the whip fell limp. The king rose from his seat, removed
his robe, walked to the harness, embraced his mother, and, with his
broad frame covering his mother and bared back exposed to the
flogger, commanded him, 'Execute the sentence!' The sixty stripes
fell on the back of the king."

But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:5-6)

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Re: Going Cashless As Small Change Dries Up
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Haiot")
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 13:16:56 EDT

Things are not as bad as news tell.

I have lived in France for the past 12 years, and:
- Every payment done to the Public Treasure, has to be done by check:
. small amounts as 13Fr (2 dolars aprox) - which is the cost per/day of a
ticket for the school cafeteria
. fines for car breaking laws, as low as 25Fr
- In the High Ways, instead of throwing tokens from your car, the credit card
may be inserted, for rates as ridiculous as 10Fr
- To pay Parkings, most of the time by a machine, where you insert your
credit card for 30Fr...
- There are lots of shops and boutiques that accept credit cards for 50Fr
- In France, service at the restaurantes is already included in the bill,
only foreigners or turists give a tip...
- Even in markets, checks and credit cards had been accepted, for small
amounts...
- Most of credit cards are not "credit cards" but "debit cards"...
- Tickets for buses and metro had been payed, for years, with checks and
credit cards... small amounts as 50 Fr
- Beggars do not ask only for money, but for "ticket meals"...
- To pay the "cleanning person" at home: mostly by check, and sometimes we do
pay straight to the Mayor's Local Office (Mairie). This not to increase
"jobs-without-paying-taxes"...

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - HATAF=death
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 13:34:08 -0400

"Some six years before Nasser created the PLO, Yasser Arafat had started
his own group dedicated to an armed struggle to 'liberate Palesinte.' Then
living in Kuwait, where he made quite a bit of money as an engineer, Arafat
and a handful of revolutionaries created a military organization. They called it
the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. In Arabic the initials spelled
out HATAF, which was the word for death. So they turned the letters around
to spell FATAH."

Jerusalem Betrayed: Ancient Prophecy and Modern Conspiracy Collide in
the Holy City
Mike Evans

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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - The Divine letter "shin"
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 13:45:05 -0400

"...mezuzah, the rectangular box that is attached to the right doorpost of the
entrance to every observant Jewish home and to every habitable room
therein. Available in myriads of sizes and styles that reflect the taste of the
owner, each mezuzah is a signpost on the door of the Jewish home that
proclaims it a household separated unto God and his service."

The box generally "is inscribed in some manner with the Hebrew letter shin,
which has come to be a symbol for the Divine...The significance of the shin
in the mezuzah as a symbol for God is seen in the literal, material fulfillment
of God's statement regarding the placement of his name. In 1 Kings 11:36,
God declared that Jerusalem is 'the city which I have chosen me to put my
name there.' It is striking that the three valleys that circumscribe and
intersect the city of Jerusalem (the Kidron, the Hinnom, and the Tyropoeon)
form the Hebrew letter shin. Any topographical map or aerial photograph of
Jerusalem will confirm this fact. God, therefore, placed his name
(represented by the letter shin) on Jerusalem in the very topography of the
city."

Living Emblems, Ancient Symbols of Faith
John D. Garr, Ph.D.

[I have been unable to find a picture of this. If someone finds it, please
forward it to me so that we can put it on the website.--Moza
(moza@butterfly.mv.com)]

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