Originally Posted by andrzej
Please don't make up facts as needed. When and if you have something to back up your made up claims, come back and argue your point.
I and few others have witnessed and agreed on this issue. You are very well known to make up stories just so you can debate issues.
Your claims are your claims. Everyone can find people to "agree" with them. That does not make them right.
(Not to go off-topic further, but about "making up stories", here's just one example where such claim was made: I posted about prison abuses in Iraq before they were publicized, it too was basically called "making up stories just so you can debate issues". We know what came of that. I could go into a whole list of other such examples, but then that would take us to OMNI-land, and that's not where this thread is located.)
Originally Posted by andrzej
(AA CEO stating that AAdvantage has outlived it's purpose, is one of the funniest ones)
[Knock, knock.]
Trick or treat? Trick or treat?
Halloween. Halloween (in a certain time zone) from the first post to the last post, and some got "scared". Bad trick apparently. Let's not lose a sense of humor in the process.
Bringing up ancillary matters from outside of a given thread seems to be -- what do they say? -- off topic? But that won't get around the following non-response to questions asked.
Originally Posted by andrzej
I will not reply to any of your posts from now on unless you provide some credible evidence to back it up. Just stating some unsubstantiated facts won't do. Sorry!
That's ok, but how convenient. I answered your question but you skirted mine.
Here's a reminder of what I posted and what was not responded to:
Originally Posted by GUWonder
That said, could you please explain this little fact -- what are these "EU biometric passports" of which you speak?
Last I heard with (just) the Swedish and Spanish officials involved with these matters for their own countries, there was still disagreement between various countries (within the EU) on various aspects of biometric passports, from beginning of implementation, to issuance, to desired end product (and much in between the different covers). Maybe I'm a little dated.
Regardless of skirting the question or not, should you not have cited where you brought in what were clearly quotes from an article? The least we can do is attribute published quotes we cut and paste to their source.
Passports, please
The push for better passports began in 1997 under the guidance of the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, a UN agency. An ICAO technology working group was charged with establishing better security standards for travel documents, standards that could be applied worldwide and would be cost effective.
In 2002, ICAO came out with what is called the "New Orleans Resolution" (named after the city where it was voted on). In the resolution, ICAO endorsed facial recognition as the biometric identification technology of choice, with fingerprints and iris scans as optional, supplemental forms of biometric identification.
Fingerprints--despite providing the most accurate means of identifying a person--were ruled out because of the criminal overtones. Governments worried that their citizens would feel like they were being arrested.
"Australia, Canada and the U.S. ruled it out right away," said Kefauver, the former U.S. official, who chaired the technology working group on this issue for ICAO.
See what was "it" that was ruled out? I highlighted it in bold: fingerprints as the sole biometric.
Maybe the author of the following article
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5313650.html is not wholly or properly informed/communicating, but on that basic point he appears to be right (certainly according to Swedish and Spanish government employees involved in these matters and according to what transpired in 1997).
Originally Posted by andrzej
I do appreciate your help with travel questions, especially Buenos Aires. Thanks!
You are welcome. It's a great place with which I have much material connection (i.e., I also hope the currency again appreciates sooner than later). In any event, one can disagree about certain matters, but certain experiences -- food and more -- are certainly not disagreeable to the stomach. "Viva lomo!"