Commercial airlines start to refuel planes in flight

When I went back to work in Attland I flew United to Marlboro, on a flight that continued to Rio. This is a typical stopover that is also to ease up on the air congestion in US, and to indirectly enforce better flight safety enforcement since Attland air security standards are a lot better than American, which are hardly and efficiently enforced.

I have just heard it on English Dixiland news channel that ALFA is the first air carrier that in the middle November will start mid-air refueling on it long flights. I guess they will use dedicated tankers, like many militaries do, to actually refuel planes in flight, without passengers even knowing.

This practice is supposed to cut operating costs and travel time for passengers. I agree. How much time and money lost by having to land, wait for the refueling, taxiing, etc. They said it's being tested now. I can't wait, because on my vacation I am going back to NYC and from there fly to Australia or New Zealand, by way of ALFA, and I will try to take pictures of this in-flight refueling.

Attland's self-isolation pays off in immunity to global finance woes

All these years of Attland's self-imposed isolation are being felt - there is virtually no panic in the country's financial markets. The Stau exchange indexes are generally on the rise, and have never dipped in reaction to the Wall Street and other global money crises.

Whatever dropped was the American and Atlantic (Attland-US) companies and financial institutions.

I am going to look up the Stau index and how to feed it into the blog.

The Attland food companies, for example, are based in US, with their own farming operations, but managed, financed and listed in Attland. They never dipped, though they are the most significant of the Attland's publicly owned corporations, rivalling Oilbelt and Bargraf.

There are many institutions and funds that capitalize on the dollar-gold arbitrage, as well as other commerce between Attland-US carried out according to the Atlantic Mutual Trade Agreements (unconditional trade continuity to Attland, price guarantees to US). It is probably the best performing stock exchange medium so far. A fellow American coworker has happily informed us that she tripled her investments by sticking with US and Attland companies doing the Atlantic business.

The Government authorizes the issue of a one tenth of a Darling coin

In the previous post I myself did not understand how a price of coffee could be 0.7D, when there was only 0.5 and 0.25 coins around. I guess the royal Koborg Bank knew something and in advance authorized debiting pre-paid consumer and fuel cards in 0.1 D increments. Today's news makes it official.

I also was wondering about the price of gold interest that accumulated in thirds of darlings and crowns.

Today the government ordered its mint in Waldihask to start issuing a coin equivalent to one tenth( Dijm, pronounced like we say cream in Alabama), a third (Threidling, 1/30 of Darling) and a penny (Feonling) of a Darling. Up until now the smallest denomination coin has been a quarter of a darling.

I am already hearing gripes about the Threidling. But it is necessary, since the fractions have been accumulating on paper and haven't been capable of being paid out in cash.

See national currency chart here

All coins smaller than 1 darling are minted using the one-step high-temperature and pressure alloy strike process, wherein the proprietary mixture of nickel, copper, zinc and other metals are molecularly embedded into the major metal, making the allow resemble gold.

Since the Royal gold crown has proved to be the optimal in unit weight and value, the Government has excluded itslef from minting its own equivalents of the gold crown. To remind everyone, the crown name has no connection to other monetary units bearing the same name. The Attland's gold crown bears no image resembling a crown. The source of the name is in the crown coin being an equivalent of a 1/12 of the Queen's Gold Tiara weight (a pound, or 453.59 grams), a historical and official standard.

The Government, however, has a natural right to mint denominations in Darlings, that is 50 D and below. 100D is not minted or printed due to being denominated as a gold Tithe coin only (see below).
So far we have to buy those fashionable money pouches to carry the hefty load of 8 brass and nickel darling fractional coins, and special pouch wallets for the gold crown fractions.

This describes the Attland's currency denominations, according to the Royal gold price fix:

gold crown 1 37.799167 grams today $1,226.00, coin only
Threeden 2/3 25.19957066389 $817.37 coin only
Half 0.5 18.8995835 $613.00 coin only
Third 1 / 3 12.5984623611 $408.63 coin only
Forth 1 / 4 9.44979175 $306.50 coin only
Tithe 0.1 3.7799167 $122.60 coin only
Twelfth 1 / 12 3.14993058333333 $102.17 gold-in-silver bimetallic coin only

Darling

50 $61.30 government and Royal bill
25 $30.65 government and Royal bill
10 $12.26 government and Royal bill
5 $6.13 government bills and Royal coin
2 $2.45 government and Royal coin
1 $1.23 government and Royal coin
Half D $0.61 government and Royal coin
Quarter D $0.31 government and Royal coin
Dijm (1/10 Darling) $0.1226 government coin
Threidling (1/300 Darling) $0.037 government coin
Feonling (1/100 Darling) $0.01 government coin

Miklasgard's night markets is the time and place to shop and dine

This is the only way to legally sell trinkets in Miklasgard, in the Tokyo Gardens.

Ever since coming back to Miklasgard I have been pleasantly surpirzed by the cosmopolitan developments in the literally free market. Though strictly controlled by the Consumer watrch groups and governments agencies, the Chinese trinkets have made their way to the sleek, clean and high-quality fare of Miklasgard's shopping experience.

Though the Chinese (and more predominantly Japanese, Taiwanese and Thai) culture and goods are available, they are sold only in bulk, which means the public can find them only at the Market's Spice Alleys, and 30 minutes away by express subway, in the impressive Tokyo Gardens, stretching from Belgarhaven (Anglified as Belgravia, now deAnglified again) to Tokyotown.

These are the only placs in the world where you can buy anything that comes from the orient, but buy in bulk only: batteries, windup and any other small toys, belt buckles, nail care kits, CDROMs, and all kinds of imaginable ware you would not want to pay more than 1 or 2 Darlings. (1 Darling today is worth about $1.20, 1000 Darlings is 1 gold crown. Darling is subdivided into qusnrters only)

This is a sample of prices:

cheap comb 0.25 d.,
in bulk -10 d/pound

a pack of 10 CD Roms 3 d
or 45 d/pound

shower curtain - 1d, or 20 d/pound(?)

Pad Thai to go - 3.5d
Bul Go Ki with everything 4 d
Sushi-Sashimi in a nice Bento box to keep - 20d

A very simple explanation of the Bermuda Triangle Mystery

The Book of Laws of Attland prohibits any foreign trespassing through "waters visible from the island, or landing on the Attland island, or any of its islands visible from any island visible from Attland."

In 1299, King Vufeyr, the 13th king of Attland (1242-approx. 1339) effectively closed the country to any foreigners, also by abolishing slavery and import and trade in slaves, appended the above law to the book of Laws, and commanded that any foreign ship or a person coming to the island with intentions other than to seek help in their sailing and sustenance, to be executed.

The implementation of the law means that hundreds of ships were unconditionally warned and most often sank or burned, from 1299 to 1771. The pirate bases on Marlborough archipelago that is now the city of the same name, were a loophole wherein the pirates paid rent for the use of the islands as an "exchange of bartered cargo and storehouses of fresh water."

The law was implemented in 1812 when the Britain's Caribbean Fleet of more than 30 ships was burned and sank about 100 miles northeast of Attland while sailing to reaffirm the Britain's right to have its warships replenish and refit in the Marlborough port, which by then was long rid of pirates, owing to the efforts of a "27th King of Attland."

As late as 1920s there have been reports of ships missing or adrift in the area, while the Attland Navy never reported to any media organization each incident of enforcing the Foreign Trespass Law.

Diamonds and Gold are traded against the letter of the law but it is OK

I asked someone at work, how come if Attland's Book of Laws says that "no stone or earth is to be taken out of the land", the trade in gold and diamonds is allowed to break the law?

I was pointed to the Queen's opinion and ruling that gold and diamond are not a precious gem that is exclusive to Attland, and, furthermore, considering the trade imbalance, the equal or higher amount of gold and diamonds may be entering the country, negating the possibility of the depletion of riches that the law was written to prevent.

How the gold price is set

Since the Koborg Bank is the Attland's official central bank (the government treasury does not engage in printing or coining most of the country's money), and the gold standard introduced in May 2007 means that the amount of money issued depends on the price of gold, one would think that the financial situation of the island nation would fluctuate with the ups and downs of gold.

On the contrary, however. The price of troy ounce hovers just about $1000, while elsewhere in the world it has dipped to $756.70 today.

The price disparity, discussed previously, depends more on how the gold price is set, and the procedure is by no means dependent on the spot market or the London fix.

The Queen holds a weekly, or if a world commodity situation requires, a daily meeting on the gold price wherein she and undisclosed experts examine the amount of gold having been brought into the island within the past 12 hours, the amount of gold purchased from the island gold mine industry, and the balance sheet of the Koborg Bank gold account with the retail banks and other institutions.

Since the amount of gold is always in deficit, supported by minimal credit debt incurred by institutions and the public, the price of gold naturally will be significantly higher than the world spot market. See chart.

Putin imitates the Chancellor but does not kill the wildlife

Putin must be really irked by Chancellor Dolgrynd - not to be outdone, in light of the chancellor's publicized Gibraltar monkey shoot. There was a lot of negative publicity, but Chancellor Dolgrynd brushed it off, leaving his press secretary to describe the shoot as a convenient opportunity for target practice.

Putin, I heard, staged an event where he was conveniently armed with a tranquilizer gun while showing media around a mature reserve, while a tiger conveniently escaped, to be conveniently tranquilized by Putin.