[geeks] Google Images Facial Recognition!

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> I'd much rather live here where I know that everyone with a weapon in
> the mall has been checked for a proper id or a license

That's depends on what you consider to be a weapon.  I'm a 113kg and
sink like a stone, and everywhere I go I wear steel-toed boots.  If I
feel like killing someone, I don't -need- a firearm.

For that matter, all this nonsense about identification and licensing
has the same basic problem as authentication in computer security:
intent.  Is a licensed weapon-holder really just a sleeper for an
organized crime or terrorist organization?  What about a person just
finally reaching a "breaking point" and going batshit crazy?

> and that if my kid gets seperated from us, strangers will consider it
> their duty to help them find us or take them to the information
> counter and the worst thing they will do is buy them an ice cream
> cone.

That's separate entirely from the issue of managing weapons and
dangerous cargo.  It implies a sense of societal duty that America has
sadly left behind.

Our greatest enemies are not men living in desert caves.  Our greatest
enemies are our fellow countrymen who refuse to see themselves as part
of a large community--people who fail to see that a society where people
only look out for themselves is an extremely dangerous society in which
to live.

> You really don't understand the second amendment until you go to the
> mall and see a teenage girl just out of high school carrying an M-1
> carbine two to three times her age. Soldiers are encouraged to carry
> their weapons on leave, even when in street clothes.

No, we really don't.  The last few generations of people here have been
brought up believing that guns are inherently a bad thing and that
people openly carrying firearms or knives are up to no good.

> If random Mexican men, women and children started yelling "Viva
> Zapata" and blowing themselves up in crowds, you'd change your mind
> too.

Visit the Texas border sometime.  Mexican vigilantes and
"reconquistadors" are taking town by town, shooting our police, and
generally terrorizing the place.  Funny how it so rarely makes the news.
I guess men in turbans are better for ratings than men in sombreros.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke ) "If we keep our pride, though paradise is lost, we
Elgin, TX        (   will pay the price, but we cannot count the cost."
USA               )                             --Neil Peart, "Bravado"