ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

Would you hop onto a plane
if the pilot was snorting speed? [MAC]

The answer may well be YES!


Pilots Fell Asleep During Approach To Denver Iinternational

A commercial pilot and his first officer fell asleep while approaching Denver International Airport* in an A319 Airbus jet, going twice the allowed speed, according to a federal safety web site.

The incident, which occurred on March 4, 2004, was one of several incidents that was brought out during a congressional hearing on airline safety in Washington this week.
Rep. Bart Gordon , D-Tenn., wanted to know why this information was available on a public web site where pilots anonymously report the incidents themselves, while NASA wasn't willing to release it as part of a larger survey.

NTSB: Both Pilots Asleep on Hawaii Flight

The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed an initial finding that the captain and first officer of a flight that overflew its destination in Hawaii inadvertently fell asleep while the plane was on autopilot.The NTSB on Monday issued its final report in the case of a 2008 go! airlines flight from Honolulu that overflew Hilo International Airport by 30 miles.

I wasn't asleep, says pilot who forgot to land

PREVIOUSLY: Oct 25, 2009

One of the pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight carrying 144 passengers that missed its destination of Minneapolis by 240 kilometres has denied he and the captain fell asleep at the controls.
First officer Richard Cole also denied they had an argument causing them to fly into the neighbouring state of Wisconsin before they turned around.
Air traffic controllers tried for more than an hour to contact the pilots.
Both were repeatedly called on their mobile phones and sent text messages but not until they were 240 kilometres past their destination did they respond.

Mr Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land but insisted they were not asleep or arguing.

The pilots have told authorities they were having a discussion.

This excuse however has prompted deep scepticism with the national transport safety board set to question them on Monday about whether they did fall asleep.

DENVER AIRPORT BUILT BY "NEW WORLD AIRPORT COMMISSION"




Denver Airport Underground base and weird murals

An African woman in colorful native garb; a Native American woman who's heritage the airport's art supposedly celebrates; a blonde girl with cupid bow lips, a Star of David on her chest and a bible in her hands. Each lay dead in open coffins for your viewing pleasure. A burning city, children sleeping on piles of bricks, a line of mourning women in rags with dead babies, limp in their arms. A huge, looming military figure in a gas mask brandishes a sword and machine gun. Part of an actual note written by a child interred in a Nazi death camp. Strange words embedded in the floor with no explanation about what they mean. Welcome to Denver Internatinal Airport!



Mustang
a 32-foot tall cast fiberglass sculpture by New Mexico artist Luis Jiménez, made its long-awaited debut at Denver International Airport. Mustang was one of the original public art commissions for DIA from 1993. The 9,000-pound sculpture was his masterpiece—by far the largest sculpture of the artists’ career. Tragically, Jiménez died while working on the sculpture, having completed the painting of the head of the horse. The final sanding and painting of Mustang was completed posthumously by his studio staff and family, along with professional lowrider/race-car painters Richard LaVato and Camillo Nuñez. Once the work was complete, the sculpture was shipped in three pieces to Kreysler and Associates in California. There, Mustang was finally assembled, reinforced and wrapped for shipment to its final home atop a windswept knoll between the inbound and outbound lanes of Peña Boulevard at DIA. The bright blue rearing mustang with gleaming red eyes was installed permanently on a windy morning, February 11, 2008.
http://www.denvergov.org/RecentInstallations/LuisJimenezMustangFebruary2008/tabid/428802/Default.aspx
"New World Airport Commission" - - Denver International Airport

STASI STATE

Dressed in old prison clothes, Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel contemplates his cell

Reliving Stasi isolation - for art

The West German political activist had been demonstrating in East Berlin against the arrest of political prisoners and had suddenly become one himself.

He was locked up in a secret Stasi prison. He spent the next nine months in complete isolation, as his Stasi interrogators tried to break him. He was subjected to psychological torture.

Now Mr Holzapfel has returned to the former Berlin jail, Hohenschoenhausen, to relive his incarceration.

FIRST DROPS

Asteroid explosion over Indonesia raises fears about Earth's defences

An asteroid that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere with the energy of three Hiroshima bombs this month has reignited fears about our planet’s defences against space impacts.

On 8 October, the rock crashed into the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The blast was heard by monitoring stations 10,000 miles away, according to a report by scientists at the University of Western Ontario.
Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster.
The asteroid, estimated to have been around 10 metres (30ft) across, hit the atmosphere at an estimated 45,000mph. The sudden deceleration caused it to heat up rapidly and explode with the force of 50,000 tons of TNT.

HIDDEN EVIDENCE

Ship built from 9/11 steel sets sail

A warship built with steel salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Centre has set sail for New York.
Its bow stem contains 7.5 tonnes of steel, salvaged from the rubble following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

[Many would still like to know why that twisted metal wasn't analysed forensically, as would have happened at any other similar air crash site. Instead, metal from the site was spirited away, melted down and co-opted for the glorious homeland's hearts and minds campaign.]

PORN & VIOLENCE

Pornography 'desensitised' teen rapist

The Northern Territory Supreme Court has heard a teenager who raped a 24-year-old woman had been surrounded by pornography, alcohol and drug abuse as a young child.
The 16-year-old boy pleaded guilty to raping the woman in an Alice Springs park in February.
The court heard he had been drinking with the woman as part of a larger group and convinced her to go for a walk.
He attacked her when she refused his advances.

Chief Justice Martin acknowledged the boy had been desensitised to violence, including sexual violence, as a young child, having watched pornography with his uncle as a six- or seven-year-old.

[Note that the judge says the boy was desensitised to violence through watching porn, not through watching Arnie flicks or Wrestle Mania. More likely he was desensitised to violence by being beaten and abused himself. Or perhaps he was born a psychopath.]

DREAM PREMONITION

Yes, we do have a sixth sense: our intriguing dreams

The death of 116 innocent children, killed in the school, tore at the very heart of the nation. In a cruel irony, the youngsters had been making their way back to their classrooms after singing All Things Bright And Beautiful at morning assembly when the disaster struck.

No one in the close-knit community was unaffected by the tragedy and the bereaved parents would never recover from their loss.

But for one family, the overriding grief was even more acute. For one of those killed, 10-year-old Eryl Mai Jones, had not only predicted the catastrophe, but had warned her mother of it, too.

In the days leading up to the atrocity, Eryl had told her mother she was 'not afraid to die'. 'I shall be with Peter and June,' she added.

Eryl's busy mother offered her imaginative daughter a lollipop and thought no more about it. Then, on October 20, the day before the disaster, Eryl said to her mother: 'Let me tell you about my dream last night. I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it!'

The next day, Eryl's horrific premonition came to pass and she was killed alongside schoolfriends Peter and June. They were buried side-by-side in a mass grave, just as the youngster had predicted.

DON'T CALL ME

Mixed signal from mobile studies review

Studies on whether mobile phones can cause cancer vary widely in quality and there may be some bias in those showing the least risk, a review has found.

The best studies suggest some association between mobile phone use and cancer, the team led by Dr Seung-Kwon Myung of South Korea's National Cancer Centre found.
Dr Myung and colleagues at Ewha Womans University and Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul and the University of California, Berkeley, examined 23 published studies of more than 37,000 people in what is called a meta-analysis.

[Journal of Clinical Oncology]

CANCER VANISHES

Aliens cure woman's cancer

An overjoyed mother-to-be says aliens took her aboard a spaceship – and cured her of leukemia!
“They saved my life and the life of my child,” Greta Brandt, 34, told reporters in Berlin, Germany.
“My own doctors said we were doomed and there was nothing they could do for us.
“But those strange men knew exactly what to do. They used all sorts of strange lights and instruments to cure me of the killer leukemia.”

Dr. Frans Wenderoth, the woman’s obstetrician, confirmed that she developed leukemia, but miraculously she no longer shows any signs of having the terminal disease.

THOU SHALT

Death row inmate tells story of own execution

Around 2:00pm, after a shower, a phone call to his brother and several cups of coffee, Romell Broom was told his 25 years on death row would end later that day with him being executed by lethal injection.

Lucasville prison warden Phillip Kerns read the death sentence and a short time later two nurses began to administer three chemicals: one an anaesthetic, one to paralyse his muscles and another to stop his heart.

It was his punishment for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl, a charge he has denied.

"There were three guards present in the room. One guard was on the right side of me, one was on the left side of me and one was at my feet," he said, according to written testimony made three days after the ordeal.

Broom's lawyers have filed a suit, arguing that the botched execution and an attempt to execute him a second time violated his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.

ONE-EYED SUPPORTER

Afghani girl in a one-eyed niqab. Revealing two eyes encourages
the use of seductive eye make-up, says Saudi cleric.

Saudi cleric (man) favours one-eye veils (for women)

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The ultra-conservative cleric, who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.

SHOOT THE MESSENGER

iiNet 'allowed 100,000 dodgy downloads'

The Federal Court has heard almost 100,000 illegal downloads of video and music files were detected during a 59-week investigation of the internet service provider iiNet.

A group of 34 film, television and music companies is suing the company for allowing its customers to illegally share files.

The court has heard the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft had warned iiNet during the investigation that its customers were illegally sharing files, but the internet provider failed to act.

The prosecution alleges iiNet drew up a policy document dealing with repeat copyright infringers, but never implemented it for fear of driving away customers and losing revenue.

Outside court, an iiNet spokesman said blaming the internet service provider for copyright infringement was akin to suing Australia Post if drugs were sent in the mail.

THE QUICKENING

Emergency Brakes Needed to Stop Climate Crash

In the end, governments accepted evidence from the world's top scientists that climate change impacts could be abrupt and irreversible, and that they require urgent action.

"We are riding in an airplane with the bolts falling out while heading into a storm," Tonser said.

The IPCC has greatly underestimated the climate storm ahead, says British scientist James Lovelock. He calculates that when all the earth systems are taken into account an atmospheric concentration of 500 ppm of CO2 will result in a six degree rise in global temperatures, not the two degrees Celsius the IPCC says is most likely.

"The IPCC's Synthesis Report must show that while it is already too late to prevent some of global warming's impacts, we do have the ability to stop the rot," says Stephan Singer, head of WWF's European climate and energy programme.

"Governments must wake up. They could be responsible for the next mass extinction of species if they don't act to stop carbon pollution now," said Singer