October 2009

Northwest jet overshoots Minneapolis airport

MINNEAPOLIS – Two Northwest Airlines pilots failed to make radio contact with ground controllers for more than an hour and overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles before discovering the mistake and turning around.
The plane landed safely Wednesday evening, apparently without passengers realizing that anything had been amiss. No one was hurt.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crew told authorities they became distracted during a heated discussion over airline policy and lost track of their location, but federal officials are investigating whether pilot fatigue might also have played a role.
The National Transportation Safety Board does not yet know if the crew fell asleep, spokesman Keith Holloway said, calling that idea "speculative."
Flight 188, an Airbus A320, was flying from San Diego to Minneapolis with 144 passengers and five crew. The pilots dropped out of radio contact with controllers just before 7 p.m. CDT, when they were at 37,000 feet. The jet flew over the airport just before 8 p.m. and overshot it before communications were re-established at 8:14 p.m, the NTSB said.
The FAA notified the military, which put Air National Guard fighter jets on alert at two locations. As many as four planes could have been scrambled, but none took to the air.
"After FAA re-established communications, we pulled off," said Michael Kucharek, a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman.
Andrea Allmon, who had been traveling from San Diego on business, said no one on the plane knew anything was amiss until the end of the flight.
"Everybody got up to get their luggage and the plane was swarmed by police as we were getting our bags down from the overhead bins," she said.
She said they were kept on the plane briefly while police talked to the crew, then allowed off. She said she was "horrified" to learn what had happened.
"When I do my job I do my job," she said. "These guys are supposed to be paying attention to the flight. The safety of the passengers should be first and foremost. (It's) unbelievable to me that they weren't paying attention. Just not paying attention."
As of Thursday afternoon, NTSB investigators had not yet examined the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which were being sent to Washington for analysis. He said the agency was also seeking to interview the pilots, but had not scheduled a meeting.
One of the two pilots should have been paying attention to the radio, said Ronald Carr, a former Air Force and American Airlines pilot who teaches flight physiology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. But he added that "sometimes you can have such heated discussions and get so distracted that you lose situational awareness, and when you're traveling seven miles a minute, that can happen pretty quick."
The two pilots have been suspended from flying while Delta Air Lines Inc. conducts an internal investigation, said Anthony Black, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based airline, which acquired Northwest last year. He refused to name them or give further details on their background or what happened in the air.
Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."
Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said. Controllers and the pilots finally resumed communication when the plane was over Eau Claire, Wis.
"Radar controllers were the whole time trying to make audio contact with that plane," said Tony Molinaro, an FAA spokesman in Chicago. He said he was not aware of controllers diverting any other flights, which was unnecessary because the Northwest jet was flying high enough to safely avoid planes approaching Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
It was not clear who initiated communications when contact finally was made, Brown said.

After the plane landed, two airport police officers boarded the plane at the gate, which authorities said is standard procedure after a crew loses communication with air traffic controllers.

Kelly Regus, a spokeswoman for the Delta branch of the Air Line Pilots Association, declined to comment.

The Federal Aviation Administration is updating decades-old rules governing how long commercial pilots can fly and remain on duty. The NTSB also cautioned government agencies this week about the risks of sleep apnea contributing to transportation accidents.

The board cited an incident in January 2008 when two go! airlines pilots feel asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination before controllers raised the pilots, who landed safely. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.

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Associated Press Airlines Reporter Joshua Freed in Minneapolis, AP writers Martiga Lohn and Brian Bakst in St. Paul, David Koenig in Dallas and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

FlightAware.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

Wireless Outdoor Speakers

These first loudspeakers used electromagnets because large, powerful permanent magnets were generally not available at a reasonable price. The coil of an electromagnet, called a field coil, was energized by current through a second pair of connections to the driver. This winding usually served a dual role, acting also as a choke coil filtering the power supply of the amplifier to which the loudspeaker was connected. AC ripple in the current was attenuated by the action of passing through the choke coil; however, AC line frequencies tended to modulate the audio signal being sent to the voice coil and added to the audible hum of a powered-up sound reproduction device.

Driver design, and the combination of one or more drivers into an enclosure to make a speaker system, is both an art and science. Adjusting a design to improve performance is done using magnetic, acoustic, mechanical, electrical, and material science theory, high precision measurements, and the observations of experienced listeners.

http://www.gracedigitalaudio.com/wireless-speakers-c-22.html

French Maid Costume

“Clothing worn in dance training generally reflects period, culture, and performance traditions” (Penrod 12). Throughout history clothing has become more simplified as dance becomes more physically demanding and free. In the past, dancers would dance in gardens and halls in elaborate and expensive costumes. However, in the eighteenth century they began to dance in theaters and to “discard cumbersome garments” (Penrod 13) by training in daily clothing.

The eyes are the most expressive part of the face. To enhance their features dancers should draw attention to and make their eyes appear larger. However, to maintain unity, the intensity of the eyes must be balanced with color and shape of the lips. The color of the lips needs to be complimentary to the skin color and costume (Art of Production 123).

French Maid Costume

Internet Radio Device

Internet radio (also known as web radio, net radio, streaming radio and e-radio) is an audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted broadly through wireless means. Internet radio involves a streaming medium that presents listeners with a continuous "stream" of audio over which they have no control, much like traditional broadcast media; in this respect, it is distinct from "on-demand" file serving. Internet radio is also distinct from podcasting, which involves downloading rather than streaming. Many Internet radio "stations" are associated with a corresponding traditional (or "terrestrial") radio station or radio network. Internet-only radio stations are independent of such associations.

Internet radio services are usually accessible from anywhere in the world—for example, one could listen to an Australian station from Europe or America. Some major networks like Clear Channel in the US and Chrysalis in the UK restrict listening to in country because of music licensing and advertising concerns.[citation needed] Internet radio remains popular among expatriates and listeners with interests that are often not adequately served by local radio stations (such as progressive rock, ambient music, folk music, classical music, and stand-up comedy). Internet radio services offer news, sports, talk, and various genres of music—everything that is available on traditional radio stations.

Internet Radio Device

Blazers waive Udoka, Collins

PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Trail Blazers waived forward Ime Udoka and center Jarron Collins, bringing their roster to 15 players for the start of the season next week.
Both Udoka and Collins were vying for the 15th spot, which went to draft pick Patty Mills, who is out with a broken foot.
Udoka has played five seasons in the NBA, including a previous stint in Portland. He averaged 6.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 18.8 minutes in five preseason games.
Collins, who played eight years with the Utah Jazz, played in four preseason games with an average of 3.5 points, two rebounds and 14 minutes.
Meanwhile, there was no official word Thursday whether the Blazers and forward LaMarcus Aldridge had signed a contract extension.
A person close to the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal had not been finalized told The Associated Press that the two sides were close.
The Blazers need to strike a deal with Aldridge by Oct. 31 to prevent him from becoming a restricted free agent next summer.
Aldridge, the second overall pick in the 2006 draft out of Texas, was acquired by the Blazers in a draft-day trade from the Chicago Bulls. Last season, he averaged 18.1 points and 7.5 rebounds.
Mills fractured the fifth metatarsal in his right foot during practice in the offseason. It is not clear when he will return.
After starring for Australia in the Beijing Olympics and for Saint Mary's in college, Mills was selected by the Blazers with the 55th overall pick in the NBA draft.
The 6-foot, 175-pound Mills averaged career highs of 18.7 points, 4.0 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 2.5 steals during his sophomore season with the Gaels before deciding to turn pro.

Cabinet Pulls

Cabinet Pulls

Cabinets usually have one or more doors on the front that are mounted with door hardware and occasionally a lock; they may also contain drawers. Short cabinets often have a finished surface on top that can be used for display, or as a working surface such as the countertops found in kitchens.

A cabinet intended for clothing storage is usually called a wardrobe or an armoire (or a closet if built-in). In previous centuries, such a cabinet was also known as a linen-press. In British usage, a wardrobe occasionally was referred to as an oakley, because of the oak wood used in its construction. In India, a cabinet is often referred to as an Almari.

Kevin Bacon loves the stage -- and not just for acting

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) –
When he's far away from the bright lights of Hollywood, actor Kevin Bacon spends much of his time in second-rate hotels and hauling his own bags while trudging through airports.

And he wouldn't change it for anything.

For the last 14 years, the star of such movies as "Footloose" and "Apollo 13" has sung alongside his older brother Michael as a member of the Bacon Brothers, a six-member rock group that plays up to 60 shows a year.

"There's a lot of stuff you have to do that's not fun," Bacon told Reuters recently. "Getting places. Airports. You get there, you get the gear, you put the gear on the sidewalk. You stand around. You eat bad food. You stay in crappy hotels.

"The cliches of playing in a rock band are very applicable. There is a certain amount of drudgery.

"But the time that you get to play is still great. It's so much fun. Playing in a band is such a lucky thing to experience. To be able to share music is a rush," he said.

Bacon, who has made more than 40 movies, knew it was risky to become a singer in a rock band. But taking a chance is a fundamental part of living, he said, leaning back, stretching out, and locking his hands behind his head.

"There is a certain element of risk to it," the 51-year-old Bacon said about an actor who turns to music, a transition that usually raises eyebrows, elicits groans, and can do irreparable harm to a hard-earned reputation.

"I knew that going in. So what do you do? Do you say, 'Therefore I'm not going to do it?' Risk is really an essential part of being a creative person.

"If you're not risking, then sing karaoke. You have to be pushing yourself. Doing something outside your wheelhouse, that's what keeps you alive as a creative person," said Bacon who sings, plays guitar and percussion.

The band played recently at the 500-seat Birchmere, a club in suburban Washington. In the opening song of the two-hour set, Bacon delighted the audience with a rousing version of "Only A Good Woman," a single from their 1997 CD Forosoco.

HUMBLE ROOTS

Kevin and Michael Bacon come from humble roots and were encouraged as children to explore their artistic side.

"We always played music in our house. We grew up in a very skinny townhouse in the middle of downtown Philadelphia," said Michael, 60, an award-winning TV and film composer.

"Our parents were sort of hippies, even though there weren't hippies back then. They believed in creativity. Play an instrument, get acting lessons, paint, dance -- that's what they valued. And that's what they gave us."

The brothers began by writing country songs to pitch to other artists when a friend of Kevin's asked them to get a band together and play a show in Philadelphia.

"We just really enjoyed it," recalled Kevin, who is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick, star of TV crime show "The Closer."

"We've been following it ever since. There was never really any kind of master plan. We're just taking it one show, one record, one song at a time."

He concedes, however, that he would love the band to create a top-selling record.

"You'd have to live under a rock if you didn't want a hit record," he said. "You have the dreams that you put in the back of your mind. In your quiet moments, you can fantasize about things like hit records, stadiums, rock stardom."

Perhaps ironically, it's Kevin, despite his often hectic movie schedule, who is the more productive writer.

"He's a really interesting and talented songwriter with no training in music whatsoever," Michael said of his younger brother. "I have all the training.

"But Kevin has a wonderful way of communicating through songs. He has a need to do it. That's what I hear in the songwriting that he does."

Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting

COLOMBO (AFP) –
Ministers in the Maldives dived in their final rehearsals Friday ahead of an underwater cabinet meeting this weekend aimed at drawing attention to the dangers of global warming for the island nation.

Ministers in full scuba gear dived six metres (20 feet) for the dress rehearsal near the Girifushi island, 25 minutes by speed boat from the capital island Male, coordinator of the event Aminath Shauna said.

"All arrangements are now in place and we are fully prepared to have Saturday's cabinet meeting underwater," Shauna told AFP by telephone.

She said the ministers would sign their wet suits which would then be auctioned on the protectmaldives.com website to raise money to protect coral reefs in the archipelago.

The government has arranged a horse-shoe shaped table at the bottom of the sea for the ministers to hold Saturday's meeting during which they will communicate using white boards and hand signals.

The Maldivian archipelago, located south west of Sri Lanka, is on the front line of climate change and has become a vocal campaigner in the battle to halt rising sea levels.

In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres (seven to 23 inches) by 2100 would be enough to make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable.

More than 80 percent of the country's land, composed of coral islands scattered about 850 kilometres (530 miles) across the equator, is less than one metre above mean sea level.

Maldivian officials said the idea to hold the attention-grabbing underwater cabinet meeting came from President Mohamed Nasheed when he was asked by an activist group to support its "environmental day" action on October 24.

"The 350.org group asked if the Maldives can hold an underwater banner supporting environmental day," an official from the president's office said.

"The president thought for a while and then came up with the idea to have an underwater cabinet meeting."

Denver Center Opens 'Raisin in the Sun,' Directed by Israel Hicks (Playbill)

A Raisin the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play about social change and the American Dream, opens Oct. 8 in a new production by Denver Center Theatre Company. Previews began Oct. 1 at The Stage Theatre in Denver.
Israel Hicks - director of DCTC's ten-play August Wilson cycle - returns to the Denver Center to direct the African-American family drama set on Chicago's Southside. Performances continue to Oct. 31.

In the classic, father's $10,000 life insurance settlement inspires three generations of the inner-city Younger
family to dream of very different ways to spend the money, according to DCTC. Mama dreams of living in a better neighborhood, her daughter plans to go to medical school and her son intends to buy into a
liquor store.

Members of the Denver Center acting company in the cast include Kim Staunton as Ruth Younger, Dawn Scott as Beneatha Younger, Harvy Blanks as Bobo, Mike Hartman as Karl Lindner, and Doug Bynum as a moving man. Returning to Denver Center stages are Marlene Warfield
as Lena Younger and Tyee Tilghman as George Murchison.

Appearing for the first time at DCTC are Russell Hornsby as Walter Lee Younger, Sheldon Woodley as Joseph Asagai, Cajardo Rameer Lindsey as a moving man and Tyler Palmer as Travis Younger.

The creative team includes scenic designer Michael Ganio, costume designer David Kay Mickelsen, lighting designer Charles R. MacLeod and sound designer Craig Breitenbach.

For more information, visit www.denvercenter.org.

AP source: Obama focusing on al-Qaida, not Taliban

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future and will determine how many more U.S. troops to send to the war based only on keeping al-Qaida at bay, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The sharpened focus by Obama's team on fighting al-Qaida above all other goals, while downgrading the emphasis on the Taliban, comes in the midst of an intensely debated administration review of the increasingly unpopular war.
Aides stress that the president's decision on specific troop levels and the other elements of a revamped approach is still at least two weeks away, and they say Obama has not tipped his hand in meetings that will continue at the White House on Friday.
But the thinking emerging from the strategy formulation portion of the debate offers a clue that Obama would be unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal's troop request is said to include a range of options, from adding as few as 10,000 combat troops to — the general's strong preference — as many as 40,000.
Obama's developing strategy on the Taliban will "not tolerate their return to power," the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan's central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said.
The official is involved in the discussions and was authorized to speak about them but not to be identified by name because the review is still under way.
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan's culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — the kind of peace talks advocated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to little receptiveness from the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban.
In Kabul on Thursday, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy and killed 17 people in the second major attack in the city in less than a month. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
Obama has talked positively about reaching out to moderates in the Taliban since he first announced a new Afghanistan strategy in March. It would be akin to, though more complicated than, the successful efforts in Iraq to persuade Sunni Muslim insurgents to cooperate with U.S. forces against al-Qaida there.
Obama has conferred nearly every day this week on the war, and continued that Thursday afternoon with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
On Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of the war launched by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Obama and more than a dozen officials in his war council met for three hours to focus on Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan. Another of those larger discussions — the fourth of five currently scheduled — is set for Friday, on Afghanistan. That meeting also could feature the group's first discussion of specific troop options.
In the first two of the sessions, which are taking place in the secure Situation Room in the White House basement, Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary, the official said.
The answer was al-Qaida, as it was back in March.
Amid changing circumstances in Afghanistan, the renewed determination has big implications for the current war debate.
There now are no more than 100 al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Instead, the U.S. fight in Afghanistan is against the Taliban, now increasingly defined by the Obama team as distinct from al-Qaida. While still dangerous, the Taliban is seen as an indigenous movement with almost entirely local and territorial aims and far less of a threat to the U.S.
Obama's team believes some elements in the Taliban are aligned with al-Qaida, with its transnational reach and aims of attacking the West, but probably not the majority and mostly for tactical rather than ideological reasons, the official said.
"They're not the same type of group," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "It's certainly not backed up by any of the intelligence."
That leaves the primary aim in Afghanistan to deny al-Qaida any ability to regroup there as it did when the Taliban was in power before the U.S. ousted them.

A focus on al-Qaida is the driving force behind an approach being advocated by Biden as an alternative to the McChrystal recommendation for a fuller counterinsurgency effort inside Afghanistan.

Biden has argued for keeping the American force there around the 68,000 already authorized, including the 21,000 extra troops Obama ordered earlier this year, but significantly increasing the use of unmanned Predator drones and special forces for the kind of surgical anti-terrorist strikes that have been successful in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere.

There also is increasing reluctance among Obama's advisers to commit large additional numbers of troops because of concerns about the impact on already severely strained U.S. forces and the troubled Karzai government.

In Pakistan, however, the administration has been encouraged by the government's recent willingness to aggressively battle extremists inside its borders. Getting additional cooperation from Pakistan is delicate, as the anti-extremist operations remain extremely controversial there and the U.S.-backed civilian government in Islamabad is weak. But the administration sees opportunity there nonetheless.

Clinton has not revealed how she is leaning in the sessions, according to aides. While she is broadly supportive of building up troop levels — although not necessarily in the bigger numbers favored by McChrystal — she also believes economic and other civilian efforts must be prominent parts of the plan too, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to detail her views.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, long wary of a large troop presence in Afghanistan, appears to have grown more comfortable with the prospect of a moderate, middle-path increase.

Many lawmakers from Obama's own Democratic Party do not want to see additional U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan. According to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, public support for the war has dropped to 40 percent from 44 percent in July.

Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who led an effort in 2007 to block money for the Iraq war, emerged with deep concerns from an hourlong Capitol Hill briefing Thursday for House lawmakers of both parties by Obama national security adviser James Jones. Obey cited the high cost to the country of a ramped-up war, as well as doubts about the ability of the Afghan and Pakistan governments to be effective partners.

Republicans, meanwhile, are urging Obama to heed the military commanders' calls soon or risk failure. "Unnecessary delay could undermine our opportunity for success," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said Thursday.

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Associated Press writers Anne Gearan, Pamela Hess, Matthew Lee and Ann Sanner contributed to this report.