Ketchikan: Fire season is in full swing this year - The Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District would like to remind everyone that it is dry and the fire season is in full swing this year. District employees have responded to three fires in the last 10 days. The fires have ranged from a single-tree fire on Betton Island; to an unattended escaped campfire in Salt Lagoon near George Inlet; to the four-acre fire adjacent to the North Point Higgins School. Two of these were campfires left unattended and the four-acre fire fire at Point Higgins was probably started by fireworks.

Fire season is in full swing this year Unattended escaped campfire in Salt Lagoon near George Inlet Photo courtesy US Forest Service

"Suppression activities for these preventable fires can cost several thousand dollars," said Ketchikan Misty Fiords District Ranger Lynn Kolund. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

National: Looming '06 Congressional vote heats up election reform By ANN McFEATTERS - Nearly five years after the chaos of Election 2000, angry citizens still storm Capitol Hill and statehouses to demand investigations and changes to the electoral process while task forces continue to churn out recommendations for reform.

Congress did pass the Help America Vote Act in 2002, and it did appropriate $3 billion to improve the system.

Then came Election 2004, which was marred by delays, discarded ballots, mixed up identifications, allegations of electronic voting machine chicanery and other problems, all of which have spawned an industry of election-reform experts and lobbying groups. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

National: Identity crisis: Theft of private data grows By DEB KOLLARS - We have learned to lock the doors of our homes to protect our property. To memorize secret passwords to guard our bank accounts. To submit to searches in airports to defend our collective safety.

But when it comes to one of our most precious assets - our unique identities - good luck to anyone trying to safeguard a name, address, birth date, or Social Security number.

Once a fairly infrequent occurrence, assaults on identities are coming now in waves, and from all corners:

Thugs are raiding mailboxes for personal information, and turning Starbucks gift cards into fake IDs. Unscrupulous employees are stealing private data about their colleagues, then going on shopping sprees. White-collar criminals are running sophisticated identity theft rings, sometimes global in scope. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

National: Senators battle over Guantanamo policies By LAWRENCE M. O'ROURKE - The Pentagon on Wednesday defended the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay while senators exchanged barbs over allegations of mistreatment at the military base in Cuba.

Military officers told the Senate Judiciary Committee that about 520 detainees, most of them suspected terrorists, were in line as enemy combatants to eventually receive trials before military tribunals, but that the trials had been suspended while federal courts decide if the suspects are entitled to the rights of ordinary criminal defendants.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman who arranged the hearing, said that Congress rather than the courts and the Bush administration should define the legal rights of the suspects to replace the current "crazy quilt" pattern of laws and procedures. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

'Ducklings' Front Page Photo by Peach Naona Wallin More...

National: Debating whether global warming will trigger nastier hurricanes By LEE BOWMAN - A new scientific report about the potential effect of global climate change on Atlantic hurricanes appears likely to fuel debate over whether nastier storms are looming.

A perspective article published Thursday by Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colo., argues that a warmer, moister climate over the Atlantic is almost certain to make future hurricanes more intense and perhaps more frequent. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

National: Catholic bishops weaken sex-abuse regulations By PHILLIP ELLIOTT - When they meet Thursday in Chicago, U.S. Catholic bishops will consider revisions in the their sexual abuse policies that some say weaken enforcement.

While the proposed revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People do keep the "one strike" policy, they add that priests should be presumed innocent. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Gravina Island "Development" By Robert D. Warner - Thursday Downing Street Memo proves nothing By Karen M. Lewis - Thursday Nightmares and Despair By Don Hoff Jr. - Thursday Pork barrel? By Jay Jones - Thursday Selling the Crown Jewels By K.J. Metcalf - Wednesday Bridge to Gravina By Rob Glenn - Wednesday Trash in Sylvan Slums By Mike Sallee - Wednesday Dreams realized . . .at what cost? By Roberta "Bobbie" McCreary - Wednesday Dreams and hopes for Ketchikan are about to be realized By Colleen Scanlon - Tuesday Taking Care of Your Trash! By Jerry Cegelske - Tuesday Ticket for littering By Rhonda Erickson - Tuesday Pen-pals wanted By Torsten Behrens - Tuesday Summer break By Cecelia Johnson and Tom Skultka - Monday Magical Alaska By Neil Gray - Monday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter What Better Place By: Jeff Parker Florida Today Distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Editorial Cartoonist Roger Maynard Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report Updated AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements June 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S        01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30     Front Page Archives

Nancy Coggins: "Vegan Potluck Extravaganza" - A parade of vegan dishes streamed in the front door of the party house, shouting, "Here we come to show off our stuff!" Stars of the evening, these dishes took center stage. As if they had legs, dishes filled with all kinds of vegetables kept arriving for the Vegan Potluck Party. By 10:00 PM, at least 30 containers of food of all shapes and sizes covered the dining room buffet table and the spare side tables. The vegan dishes chorused, "It's time to celebrate healthy eating!" - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Dave Kiffer: "Things We Tell The Tourists" - A couple of weeks ago, I made light of the "unanswerable" questions that the visitors often toss at us.
 
For the record, I have been reminded that the Redington family (of Iditarod fame) did have a store here briefly and they had a couple of huskies on the premises so the question about where all the "cute little Iditarods" were wasn't totally off-base. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Jay Ambrose: Downing Street memo proves nothing - Repeatedly, those contending that President Bush lied us into the war in Iraq have had to face contrary evidence, stacks and stacks of it, and how have they handled this refutation of their fantasies? By ignoring it.

But give them something all but irrelevant to the argument, some itsy, bitsy thing that they can misinterpret as demonstrating the rightness of their view, and notice how some of them behave. Why, they say, the final proof is here at last. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Dan Thomasson: GM: What's sad for the nation - Let's face it. General Motors is not necessarily good for the country these days. In fact, GM isn't really very good for itself or its stockholders.

The other day, my son decided his family needed a second car to go along with the gas-guzzler he had seen as absolutely necessary a few years ago. He rejected advice to buy American, saying the GMC behemoth touted by Martha Stewart and other trendsetters of suburbia had improved his knowledge of basic economics considerably. He bought an Asian model with high gas mileage and slick looks. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Michael Fumento: PETA must be stopped - The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals say they're just animal lovers. In reality, they call humans a "cancer" and demand we all become vegetarians. They also say that all animal testing - necessary for discovering new drugs and critically important treatments - be eliminated.

"Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it," says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Congress starts looking for the exits - Even as the White House insists all is going well in Iraq, dismay at the continued inability of U.S.-led coalition forces and the new Iraqi government to suppress the insurgency is spreading in Congress.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., quoted in The Washington Post, said, "The war has gone on longer and more violently than people envisioned." And now there is growing talk, even among supporters of both the president and the war, that the administration needs to come up with some kind of exit strategy. - More...
Thursday - June 16, 2005