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El suizo Roger Federer se jugará el título del Master 1000 de Cincinnati ante el estadounidense Mardy Fich tras vencer en una hora y diez minutos por 6-4 y 6-3 al chipriota Marcos Baghdatis, verdugo de Rafa Nadal en el torneo .

A la ex autoridad, detenida ayer en Perú en calidad de prófugo, se le acusa de delitos de corrupción por 17 millones de dólares entre 1997 y 1999.

PAMPLONA. Aralar, Eusko Alkartasuna y la izquierda abertzale ilegalizada han iniciado una ronda de contactos, centrada exclusivamente en Navarra. Se trata de unas reuniones desarrolladas con enorme discreción, y paralelas a las que estas tres fuerzas comenzaron el pasado 19 de julio encuadradas en el contexto de Euskal Herria.

Cada año se encuentran a unos cien bebés abandonados en las calles de Malasia. Las autoridades buscan soluciones. Internacional, Malasia, bebés, abandonados, policía, autoridades

Un soldado presuntamente asesinó a tiros a dos militares de alto rango en el interior de una guarnición de Caracas. América Latina, Venezuela, tiroteo, guarnición

En un "acto inédito":http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2010-08-20/pareja-francesa-se-casa-en-el-memorial-al-che/, Muriel Jeanne Paulette Couzi y Philippe Maurice Benoit firmaron su matrimonio en el monumento donde se guardan los restos del revolucionario argentino

El objeto, que estuvo instalado en la casa del escritor estadounidense, tiene un precio de salida de un millón de dólares. Cultura, sociedad, salinger, retrete, literatur

El hallazgo será analizado para detectar la presencia de plagas o enfermedades cuarentenarias no presentes en Chile.

El secretario general del PSM, Tomás Gómez, ha participado en una entrevista en el programa La Noria de Telecinco, en donde ha asegurado que su partido está inmerso en una competición democrática frente a la batalla campal que viven Esperanza Aguirre, presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid y el alcalde de la ciudad Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón.

Una nueva sonda se encuentra a sólo 80 metros del lugar donde 33 mineros llevan más de dos semanas atrapados. América Latina, Chile, derrumbe, mina, emergencia, Copiapó, rescate, sondas, mineros, sin contacto

El Ministerio Público designó al fiscal 21° auxiliar del área metropolitana de Caracas, Juan Oropeza...

La pintura, valorada en US$50 millones, había sido robada en la mañana del sábado de un museo ubicado en la ribera del Nilo. Cultura, arte, robo, Museo, Egipto, italianos, Van Gogh

La pintura, valorada en US$50 millones, había sido robada en la mañana del sábado de un museo ubicado en la ribera del Nilo. Cultura, arte, robo, Museo, Egipto, italianos, Van Gogh

Flight attendant curses out passengers, slides down emergency chute | NWCN.com | NWCN - News

 Frankly I am not surprised that a flight attendant finally had enough. These folks routinely get abused by fed up passengers suffering from delayed flights, too small aircraft, ineffective luggage policies and frankly...militant (harassed) flight attendants.  And this is all after having run the TSA gauntlet just to get to these problems. 

I'm surprised fisticuffs were not involved.  At least the guy exited with a little flair.  Using the emergency exit was a guaranteed loss of job plus FAA and legal complications...but hey...the guy got home early. 

This is all dandruff falling from the heads of airline and government management of today's airline market. 

Packing materials used in both freight and express parcel movement are both expensive to produce and eat lots of petro resources.  Not exactly green materials.   

ZDNet has a great video on some new developments in creating biodegradable packaging for ecommerce uses as well as some interesting information on how bio materials are making their way into plastics used in everyday items up to and including automobiles.

Check this link out to the ZDNet site.

On Tuesday, July 27th, 2010, a Lufthansa MD-11 Freighter bound from Frankfurt, Germany to Riyadh, KSA crashed on landing destroying the air frame, however without loss of life.  LH8460 was subsequently scheduled to fly from Riyadh to Sharjah then on to Hong Kong.   Lufthansa only operates the MD-11 as a freighter. 

The MD-11 suffers from a bad reputation given its few numbers built (200 aircraft).   Of the 200 built, now 8 have crashed.   Three of those were FedEx freighters. Compared to other wide body jets this number of crashes is very high.  

Here are some comparisons to other aircraft currently flying.

• MD-11: 8 crashed out of 200
• B744: 3 crashed out of approximately 700 (166 pure freighters built)
• A340: 3 crashed out of approximately 390+
• B777: 1 crashed out of 860+

Previous MD-11 crashes are detailed here.

• 31-JUL-1997 MD-11F N611FE FedEx
• 02-SEP-1998 MD-11 HB-IWF Swissair
• 15-APR-1999 MD-11 HL7373 Korean Air
• 22-AUG-1999 MD-11 B-150 China Airlines
• 17-OCT-1999 MD-11F N581FE FedEx
• 23-MAR-2009 MD-11F N526FE FedEx
• 28-NOV-2009 MD-11F Z-BAV Avient

I'll be honest...if I was a FedEx pilot I'd be working on getting a rating to fly something else.  I have friends who are Delta pilots who "inherited" the MD-11 when DAL purchased other airlines.  There were always complaints that this aircraft was complicated to fly and was less-than-intuitive when it came to systems.  Most were not unhappy to see these birds retired.  

I will say as a passenger, I never liked the MD-11's older sister, the DC-10.  When American had the horrific crash at Chicago ORD many years ago, that crash scared me.   I always flew on the L-1011 because I thought it was a safer bird.   The MD-11 is a derivative of the DC-10. Perhaps the recent crashes are not linked, but as a guy who rides in back...I pay attention.

Lufthansa is still sorting out the freight manifest for this flight and as far as I know, no losses have been formally confirmed to freight forwarders or shippers with freight aboard.  That, I am sure is coming, but so far nothing has been put forward by the airline that I am aware of.

Eric

I've been in a rail fan kind of mood lately and reloaded Microsoft Train Simulator on my PC.  This is an old sim from almost 10 years ago, but being a transportation geek, I enjoy virtually moving trains around, especially Double Stack Trains and the old F and E unit car body locomotives... However, this is a French Duplex high speed train.  Speed to BURN baby.

That looks pretty cool...but this is a game. Check this video out. This is the real deal absolutely screaming across France.

Here's another video that compares the French TGV against the Japanese Shinkansen.  I've had the pleasure several times of riding the Japanese bullet trains.  They are fabulous.

And yes, I have a fairly current gaming computer.  I get over 50 frames per second in this old sim.