Salma passed her dissertation defense! Congratulations!

My voter-registration card arrived yesterday.  So, looks like I’m legal for Election Day.

Sometimes I get weird calls at work; this was one of them.

The guy started out simple enough; he had seen an ad in a magazine for a free business book, and he had read to call our number — had he reached Riverglenn Publications*?

No, we used to be Riverglenn, now we’re Streamfield; sorry, sir. Yes, we’re still located at 412 Winterset, Minneapolis. No, we don’t offer that book anymore. Must’ve been an old magazine!

And that would normally have been that. But the guy went on. He was talking from somewhere noisy; I heard clacking shoes, clanging, conversation . . .

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A flight to Mumbai from Amsterdam on Wednesday had its own personal terror alert and was turned around, by the pilot, for an emergency landing — afterward, 12 passengers were held overnight by Dutch police. Why? The NYT has the scoop:

The pilot of Northwest Flight 42 . . . turned back about 20 minutes into the flight . . . after several passengers were observed passing cell phones back and forth and unfastening their seat belts.

Well, was the fasten seat belt light still on?!? If a man unfastens his seat belt, or . . .

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In Michigan, three Palestinian-American men were arrested last week after being found to be in possession of nearly 1000 disposable cell phones. They are under suspiscion of participating in a scheme to sell the phones to help fund a terrorist cell. In a similar case in Ohio, charges were recently dropped, but Caro, Mich. police are holding firm. From the Star Tribune:

The FBI said Monday that it had no indication that the men had any ties to known terrorist groups. Local prosecutors, however, were standing by the charges.

. . .

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