Portland cyclists honor those killed on public streets
Thursday, May 21, 2009
By MIKE BENNER, Kgw.com

PORTLAND, Ore. -- More than three dozen cyclists honored fellow riders who were killed or injured on public roads Wednesday night during the fourth annual Ride of Silence in Portland.

The ride meant a great deal to Jim Parsons, who was hit by a car while bike riding in October 2007. His leg was broken in two places but he survived.

“If you don't have a motor you still have a right to the road. It's a public right of way and it's sad that so many people get killed every year,” he said.

Parsons has become an activist for bicycling since the accident.

“You hit an activist and you've only hit the activation button. I went from being a little involved to -- I'm reawakened and the fire is relit,” he said.

The group cycled past the corner of NE 69th Avenue and Fremont, where a drunk driver hit cyclist Eric Davidson.

Davidson suffered brain damage in the collision.

The cyclists also rode past the intersection of NE 57th Ave. and Prescott St., where cyclist Sandy Bass was killed last week when he rode in front of an oncoming car.

Parsons said he “understood” that cyclists had been found responsible in the last few deaths the community had endured.

“The last couple of people killed weren't in the right, but still, a simple mistake cost somebody their life,” he said.

Cyclists asked that everyone practice courtesy and safety, regardless of how many wheels you travel on.

Man rescued from hole on Seattle waterfront
by The Associated Press
Thursday May 21, 2009

SEATTLE -- Firefighters have rescued a man who fell into a 10-foot hole when a sidewalk collapsed on the Seattle waterfront this morning.

Fire Department spokeswoman Dana Vander Houwen says the man was not seriously injured in the accident about 8 a.m. on Alaska Way near South Washington Street.

-- The Associated Press

"The first noteworthy piece of real estate they destroyed was Edwards Air Force Base."
And to this very day, wing-nuts and data reduction clerks alike
Speak in reverent whispers about that fateful night
When test stand number one and the rocket sled itself got lunched,
I said lunched,
By a famous mountain and his small wooden wife."

Air Force jet crashes near Edwards AFB in Calif.
Thu May 21

CALIFORNIA CITY, Calif. – A military jet on a training mission crashed north of Edwards Air Force base in the desert on Thursday, authorities said. The fate of the two crew members aboard was not immediately known.

The T-38 Talon went down at 1:15 p.m. nine miles north of the base, Senior Airman Julius Delos Reyes said in a statement. Base officials had no immediate information on the cause of the crash.

It was the second crash of an aircraft from Edwards in less than two months. On March 25, an Air Force F-22A Raptor went down about 35 miles north of the base, killing a test pilot for prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

The T-38 Talon is a twin-engine, high-altitude, supersonic jet trainer used primarily for pilot training.

Test pilots and flight test engineers are trained in T-38s at Edwards, while Air Force Materiel Command uses the jet to test experimental equipment such as electrical and weapon systems. NASA uses T-38s as trainers for astronauts. The Navy and other air forces around the world also use them.

The jets are a little more than 46 feet long and have wingspans of about 25 feet.

The Talon, built by Northrop Corp., first flew in 1959. The Air Force acquired more than 1,100 before production ended in 1972. More than half are still flying, according to the manufacturer, now Northrop Grumman.

The company said that the average T-38 has flown 15,000 hours and about 75,000 pilots have trained in them.
In April, the 50th anniversary of the first Talon flight was celebrated at a Northrop Grumman facility in El Segundo, Calif.

Flash flooding, winds whip Australia's northeast
Thu May 21

SYDNEY (AFP) – Tens of thousands of homes were without power and hundreds of schools closed on Thursday as a wild storm front lashed Australia's northeast coast.

A state of emergency was declared overnight in Queensland state, which was pounded by gale-force winds exceeding 100 kilometres (62 miles) an hour and torrential rains.

A 46-year-old was killed when freak winds ripped a sheet of metal from a building on the Gold Coast tourist strip and it smashed through his office window, police said.

Up to 75,000 homes and businesses suffered blackouts as gusting winds felled trees and power lines, and the region received one-third of its annual rainfall in a single day, sparking landslides and causing roads to collapse.

Enough rain fell over 48 hours in Brisbane, the state's capital, to supply drinking water for more than a year.

Massive ocean swells up of up to 15 metres (50 feet) hammered the coastline, with waves at Currmbin so powerful a car was swept from a beach carpark into the surf.

The state's premier Anna Bligh said it was likely to be among the highest damage bills Queensland had ever seen, with the worst flooding since 1974.

"We are certainly not out of the woods yet, all the weather reports are indicating there is certainly more to come," Bligh said.
"There's a very high chance that what's coming will be as bad, if not worse, as some of what we've seen."

Almost 250 schools were closed and hundreds of homes were evacuated in the neighbouring state of New South Wales (NSW), where emergency services said they were bracing for flash-flooding and severe winds.

"This (storm) system will bring very heavy rain, high winds and large waves to northeast NSW over the next few days before weakening and moving away later Saturday," the weather bureau said.

"Destructive wind gusts exceeding 125 kilometres (78 miles) an hour are possible along the coastal fringe during the next few days."
More than 300 millimetres (12 inches) of rain was likely to fall, with low-lying coastal areas expected to be swamped by tides exceeding the year's highest mark, it said.

Floods unleashed by cyclonic rains in February saw much of Queensland declared a disaster area, with more than one million square kilometres (385,000 square miles) deluged and 3,000 homes damaged.

Further floods hammered the region last month, washing a number of motorists to their death and claiming the life of a 12-year-old girl who was swimming in a swollen weir.