The Pankian Metaphor 3111

The US requirement for machine readable pbuttports originally came into effect on 1 October 2003, but was postponed for some countries. It had appled to Belgium since May of that year. It applied only to people entering under the visa-waiver program. It wasn't well publicised.

"Machine-readable" pbuttport shouldn't be confused with "biometric" pbuttport. It means only that there are 2 lines of OCR printed data that can be read by swiping rather than typing in by a human, so it is just a time-saving measure, and makes no difference to the database access. This kind of pbuttport had been issued by many countries for some years before 2003. I happened to have a non-machine-readable one, because I had lost mine in NY in 1988 and had to get a replacement from the NZ embbutty in a hurry - I buttume they had old stock. Fortunately I picked up on the new requirement and got mine replaced before arriving in the US on 16 Oct. If any other countries require machine-readable pbuttports, they haven't publicised the fact.

I don't know what country's pbuttport he was using. He is probably enbreastled to several, including the USA. He is Prince Robert of Luxembourg. His mother is a Dillon (daughter of Douglas Dillon, I think) who married into the Euro royalty. The Dillon family owns Chateau Haut-Brion, in Bordeaux, and he was travelling to NY for a tasting of their fine product - a master clbutt at the Metropolitan Club conducted by Kevin Zraly (ex Windows on the World at the WTC). I was at that tasting, and Robert spoke about what has happened to him earlier that day.

--brian

-- Wellington, New Zealand

"What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh."