Plane in terrorism scare turns up sporting a respray: For some reason, this ongoing story has captivated the attention of myself and several friends. Thanks, A., for sending me the link to this update.

“A Boeing 727 cargo plane which caused panic among US intelligence agencies after mysteriously disappearing from Angola’s main airport turned up last week in Guinea, the Guardian can reveal.

The plane, which was feared to be in the hands of international terrorists, was spotted on June 28 in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, by Bob Strother, a Canadian pilot. It had been resprayed and given the Guinean registration 3XGOM. But at least the last two letters of its former tail-number, N844AA, were still showing.

The plane, which was recently converted into a fuel tanker, was said to be owned by a member of West Africa’s Lebanese business community, and was being used to shuttle goods between Beirut and Conakry, according to Mr Strother.

‘There’s absolutely no doubt it’s the same aircraft, the old registration is clearly visible,’ said Mr Strother by phone from Conakry. ‘Whoever owns it must have some important friends to get it re-registered in two days: going by the book, the whole process usually takes a couple of months.’

Western intelligence agencies were said to be scouring Africa’s clear skies and mouldering runways for the missing tanker, fearing that it could easily be aimed at an American or British embassy on the continent. Yet an American official in the region said this was the first he had heard of the plane since its disappearance from Angola’s capital, Luanda, on May 25.” Guardian/UK

Hello,

I’m a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Upon arriving here my dimensional warp generator stopped working. I trusted a company here by the name of LLC Lasers to repair my Generation 3 52 4350A watch unit, and they fled on me. I am going to need a new DWG unit, prefereably the rechargeable AMD wrist watch model with the GRC79 induction motor, four I80200 warp stabilizers, 512GB of SRAM and the menu driven GUI with front panel XID display.

I will take whatever model you have in stock, as long as its received certification for being safe on carbon based life forms.

In terms of payment:

I dont have any Galactic Credits left. Payment can be made in platinum gold or 2003 currency upon safe delivery of unit.

INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE FOLLOWED EXACTLY:

Please transport unit in either a brown paper bag or box to below coordinates on Wednesday August 6th at (exactly 5:00pm) Eastern Standard Time on the dot. A few minutes prior will be ok, but it cannot be after. If you miss this timeframe please email me. I will not be there prior to 4:45pm EST, so do not transport before then.

Item is to be delivered at (out of service tennis court) located at: Latitude N 42.47935 & Longitude W 071.17355 and the Elevation is 119.

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRANSPORT ITEM BY REGULAR MEANS OF TELEPORTATION. THEY ARE MONITORING AND WILL REDIRECT THE SIGNAL!!

I DO NOT CARE HOW YOU HAVE TO GET IT HERE, JUST DO IT IN A WAY THAT NO SPYING EYES WILL POSSIBLY BE ABLE TO REDIRECT THE TRANSFERENCE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU BE ABLE TO MONITOR THE TRANSFER.

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SEND IT SO THAT THEY CANNOT REDIRECT IT??? If in doubt do not transport actual unit until your method of transfer can be confirmed as a success. You just might need to send a intergalactic courier to deliver item safely to me. If so be VERY careful at how they approach me IN MY WHITE CAR.

After unit has been delivered please email me at: info@federalfundingprogram.com

with payment instructions. Do not reply directly back to this email.

Thank You

Anyone out there who might help this unfortunate individual out? Who knows to what location the specified latitude and longitude point? [Is this a troll for whatever is at federalfundingprogram.com?]

How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election:“Purging voter lists is just the beginning: the U.S. has embraced a form of electronic voting that is unreliable, unverifiable and funded by the radical Christian right.” — Sandeep Atwal, infernalpress.com (“No Smoking Gun, But Plenty of Bullets on the Floor”).

One of those (obviously the best informed, and putting me right in my unlettered place) who wrote back to comment on my post about tortured Indian English [making me thankful I read FmH’s comments section] was Nancy Gandhi, a weblogger who characterizes herself as “an outsider in Chennai”, in Tamil Nadu, southern India [I didn’t know mapquest did India! — FmH]. Under the Fire Star is her exotic, rich and enriching weblog, largely observing Indian culture. I gather she is an expat westerner; she does not directly tell much about herself. You get to know her through her exquisite eye, but are left longing for an “about me” page, something (anything) of a narrative about what she is doing in Chennai and how she came to be there. Would love to learn the significance of the weblog’s title as well. I speculate as to whether she is married to Ramesh Gandhi, to whose web page she offers a link. In any case, drink deeply, and drift back through her several months’ archives. And here is a catalogue of Indian webloggers, if you wish to drink more broadly.

Postscript: Nancy Gandhi writes back to say, in part:

“Under the Fire Star refers to Agni Nakshetram, ‘fire

star’, the astrological period ruled by the fire-god

Agni, which is traditionally the hottest time of the

year here. It’s always hot — I feel that Agni should

by rights rule the entire year.”

Well, no one knows for sure: “Unbeknown to most people there is not a single accepted way of telling the time, but several different scales running concurrently. The differences are usually small, but the scales can be as much as 30 seconds apart and the gap between them is growing steadily.” Guardian/UK