From: Steve Kilbane steve@whitecrow.demon.co.uk Back to risks, though - Joanne wrote:
when all that's really required is some sort of card which has a name, a photograph, and a signature on it.
Alas, that's not enough, because it's amazingly easy to forge.
<wail> I know, I know, I know. And to answer Julia's question, I don't have a passport. Never had one. Not seen anyone else's recently. Only time I've been out of the country was 1985, before the Fijian coup meant passports had to carried by passengers on cruise ships. (You'd have good grounds for arguing, however, that the Fairstar was a perambulating piece of Australian soil, and that I've never really left the country in any meaningful sense.) I wasn't looking for this sort of response - I did try to indicate that I know that any sort of simple, or simplistic, solution would cause complex problems in trying to execute it. It wouldn't work.
I know we've discussed the possible origins of the Federation itself before, but it might be held up as an example of this. Banding planets together is one thing; keeping them together after the initial enthusiasm had passed would've been another thing altogether, until the methods and rules and so forth produced the political entity we all know and loathe.
Regards Joanne
_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.