In Britain there are people who have a hobby trainspotting. Enthusiasts find a spot where they can get the details of every train passing and faithfully record the details. I'm not sure if the hobby is as popular as it was, with the number and variety of trains being much reduced these days, but certainly it still has its followers. People who continue the hobby into later life are thought to be on the autism spectrum. Still, these guys are credited with being instrumental in the term “anorak” being adopted as a colloquialism.
These days there are also 'planespotters. They stand for hours at airports all over Britain, day and night, in all weathers, and record the registration, make and model, time and date of each and every arrival and departure.
Some time back under the Bush administration the subject of torture became a sensitive topic in the USA so the policy of “extreme rendition” was introduced. People that the USA wanted tortured were secretly flown by the CIA to countries with marginally less scruples about such matters.
Not unnaturally some people in the UK were concerned that UK airports were being used to facilitate this traffic. Questions were asked. The Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stated categorically that British airports were not used by the CIA for these flights. Immediately 'plane spotters responded by publishing details of suspected CIA flights arriving and departing British airports. Most were only refueling stops, an hour or two, but others stayed overnight. That was very likely when the politicians first learned about the existence of planespotters.
A variation of the plane spotting hobby might be the infinitely more comfortable hobby of monitoring control tower frequencies. In the small hours this morning our local time there was a report on Twitter that US Air Force 1 was passing over Yorkshire in Britain. It was using a different call sign and ID but it was still believed to be AF1.
One guess at the different c/s was that the passenger might be the Vice President. A more popular guess was that Trump was secretly visiting troops in a war zone The next development was a report that the plane was in Hungarian airspace.
Somebody with the appropriate access reported that there was no Marine at the West Wing door of the Whitehouse. When the president is in, there is always a marine guard outside the door. On the face of it that's not great security on the part of the USMC or the Whitehouse security. If the President is on a secret mission they might conceal the fact that he is not at the Whitehouse by leaving the guard on the door.
Sometime after 7.00AM our time the BBC announced that President Trump was visiting troops in Iraq.
Donald J Trump's first visit to a war zone is only fifty years late, but better late than never?
Coincidentally it's reported in the news today that the daughters of one of the doctors who certified that Trump had heel spurs are convinced that their father was doing Fred Trump a favour. Both he and the other doctor who signed the certificate had premises in buildings owned by Trump's father.
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Originally Posted by AllanB
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