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Thursday
January 25, 2007
Tongass Sunrise
Thursday's sunrise
as viewed from the airport.
Front Page Photo by Jodi Muzzana
Ketchikan & Statewide:
Statewide,
Alaska's Population Increased; No longterm growth in Southeast
- Alaska's statewide population increased by 6.6 percent, or
42,520 people, in the six years from July 1, 2000-July 1, 2006,
based on new population estimates released in December 2006 by
the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Alaska Department of Labor
and Workforce Development utilized the federal figures to calculate
growth estimates released today for the state and by boroughs,
census areas and places.
The population gain in Alaska
was slightly faster than the 5.9 percent growth in the same period
for the United States as a whole. The number of people living
in the state climbed from 627,533 at the time of the July 1,
2000, to a provisional July 1, 2006, estimate of 670,053. - More..
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
Alaska: Governor
Submits Ethics Bill to State Legislators; Focuses on Restoring
Trust in Government - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced
today the introduction of her ethics bill into the State House
and Senate Chambers.
"This bill cleans up our
executive house and provides greater transparency," said
Governor Palin. "We need to assure Alaskans that we are
working for them and ensure that they have no doubt as to the
intent of our decisions. As we work closely with the legislators
on ethics reform, I look to swift passage so that we may also
tackle PERS / TRS and the gasline bill this session." -
More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
Alaska: Governor
Palin Honors Eight Fallen Paratroopers - Alaska Governor
Sarah Palin today offered her condolences to the families of
the eight paratroopers who died on Saturday in Iraq. Four paratroopers
with the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team and four from the 25th
Infantry Division were killed in separate attacks.
In the first incident, soldiers were repelling an attack on the
Provincial Joint Coordination Center (PJCC) in Karbala, Iraq.
An illegally-armed militia conducted the attack using grenades,
small arms and indirect fires.
In the second incident, Fort Richardson paratroopers were conducting
a mounted patrol when their Humvee was struck by a roadside bomb
near Karmah, Iraq.
"Our state is affected deeply by the loss of these brave
soldiers," said Governor Palin. "Todd and I extend
our deepest sympathies to their families and friends. These fine
men risked their lives to protect our freedom and they will stay
in our hearts forever." - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
Alaska: Too
young to drive? By ZAZ HOLLANDER - Joshua Smith, 7, was riding
a powerful snowmobile made for an adult-size rider when he lost
control and crashed Jan. 13.
The little boy died the next
day.
His death raises difficult
questions in a part of the state where young children riding
big snowmobiles is a fairly common sight:
How young is too young? At
what age should children be allowed to ride adult machines that
go from 0 to 60 mph faster than some cars? - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
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National: GOP
in House call Dems heavy-handed By EDWARD EPSTEIN - Rep.
Nancy Pelosi publicly and repeatedly pledged before November's
election that if Democrats won a House majority and she became
speaker they would treat Republicans with respect and comity
and would foster bipartisanship.
Instead, three weeks into a
session in which the strong-willed Pelosi has rammed through
important legislation and major rule changes, increasingly exasperated
and angry Republicans are asking when the new Democratic speaker
and her leadership team will keep their pledge to create a less-partisan,
more-open atmosphere.
Democrats counter that their
much-ballyhooed "Six for '06" legislative package,
which included items such as raising the minimum wage and fostering
embryonic stem cell research, was a hurried exception to the
deliberative, inclusive fashion in which they expect to run the
House over the next two years. They also say that the same Republicans
guilty of heavy-handed behavior when they ran the House shouldn't
be so quick to criticize the new majority just getting its feet
wet.
"Whine me a river,"
one senior Democratic House aide said, referring to GOP gripes.
- More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
Business - Economy: Push
to conserve oil could affect prices By SHAWN MCCARTHY - President
George W. Bush is not alone in promising policies that would
slash oil demand - the European Union and China have also set
ambitious efficiency targets.
And that concerted action by
the world's three leading energy consumers could put a damper
on demand for crude oil and downward pressure on prices over
the long term.
While Bush talks about ending
dependency on imported oil from the Middle East, Canada is the
largest single supplier to the United States - exporting as much
crude to the U.S. as the Persian Gulf countries combined. And
it is the high-cost producers, such as Alberta's oil sands companies,
that would be hit hardest by weak demand and soft prices.
"If I was a producer,
I would be really, really concerned," said Paul Ting, a
long-time Wall Street energy analyst who now runs his own consultancy.
"There's not going to be demand destruction, but there will
be erosion, and that is going to be a big problem for them."
- More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
National: Bill
would nip microchips in humans By ALAN GATHRIGHT - For years,
people have been implanting tiny microchips under their pet's
skin so that if Rover's collar slips off, there's still a way
to find him if he wanders away.
Now a state lawmaker has added
a twist to that concept with a bill that would make it a misdemeanor
for anyone to require two-legged critters to have a microchip
implanted under their skin.
Under the bill, employers could
not track workers' movements, for example. - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
National: Cell
phone didn't set man ablaze, probe finds By MATHAI CHAKKO
KURUVILA - Days after saying that a cell phone in a pants pocket
set a sleeping man ablaze, Vallejo, Calif., fire investigators
have ruled out the phone.
Investigators from Nokia, one
of the world's largest cell-phone manufacturers, flew out to
Vallejo, inspected the phone in question made by their company
and convinced investigators that the phone didn't spontaneously
combust, as fire officials initially said. - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
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Ketchikan: Eichner
Selected For Robert E. Trimble Memorial Award - Ketchikan
resident Ken Eichner, founder of TEMSCO Helicopters (Timber,
Exploration, Mining, Survey, Cargo Operations), has been selected
by Helicopter Association International (HAI) as this year's
recipient of the Robert E. Trimble Memorial Award.
Eichner is an Alaskan aviation
pioneer pilot who has spent his career navigating through the
high altitude and mountainous terrain of Southeast Alaska. Eichner
received his Commercial Certificate in 1960, followed by a Rotorcraft
rating in 1962.
Eichner helped form the Ketchikan
Volunteer Search and Rescue Squad (KVRS). He went on to found
TEMSCO Helicopters with one PA-12 floatplane and one Hiller UH-12C.
Previously, Eichner ran a bus company. When he decided to launch
TEMSCO his wife and son thought they would keep the company running
while dad "fooled around with helicopters." Quickly,
helicopters and rescuing others became the family's number one
priority.
Eichner himself made many rescues.
During his first rotor wing rescue, Eichner landed in the White
River Valley to save a local minister. Another rescue involved
a stranded goat hunter. Eichner and a colleague flew in treacherous
winter weather, set up camp for two days in a cave, and flew
the hunter to safety once visibility improved. Still another
involved an airline crash in Ketchikan, which prompted Eichner
to put TEMSCO's entire inventory in the air to help. Eichner
personally rescued the flight's delirious second officer. - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
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Ketchikan: Over
$39,000 Donated by KGH Auxiliary During its annual meeting
on January 13th, the Ketchikan General Hospital (KGH) Auxiliary
voted to donate equipment totaling $39,773 to the hospital.
The Hospital Auxiliary raises
funds by operating a gift shop in the hospital's lobby, staffed
entirely by volunteers. Carolyn Wilsie, Auxiliary President,
said "Our shop's buyer, Margaret Lynne, does an extremely
good job finding new things for the shop, keeping the merchandise
fresh and appealing." - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
Ketchikan: Temporary
parking disruption at hospital - Work will begin on Monday,
January 29th, to repair the fireproofing in the hospital's parking
structure. This will necessitate the closure of the upper parking
garage, which is typically reserved for patients and visitors
only.
Instead, several spaces in
the lower parking garage will become patient and visitor parking.
In addition, many of the spaces in the outdoor parking lot adjacent
to the main hospital driveway, as well as near the Wilson Building,
will be marked for patients and visitors only. - More...
Thursday PM - January 25, 2007
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Columns - Commentary
Dave
Kiffer: Totems
- In the last few years, we've all watched our Downtown turn
into something different than we all remember. Part of that is
just the one constant in all our lives: Change.
Nothing ever stays the same,
no matter how comforting that sameness is. I have watched many
familiar businesses close or move out of downtown and it saddens
me, but unfortunately it is as inevitable as the weather.
Recently, I have also been
to far too many funerals for my liking. Six people I have known
have died since October. This is a change I could do also do
without. Each loss leaves an empty space and Ketchikan is the
poorer for it.
When I was in Ireland years
ago, I was impressed by a poem by one of the great Irish writers
John Montague in which he compared the "old people"
around his youth to "dolmens" or Irish standing stones.
The old people were immutable, always there. - More...
Tuesday - January 23, 2007
Martin
Schram: Fanning
the flames of misinformation - It is a problem long recognized
but rarely admitted: We in the news media too often end up fanning
the flames when we cover the fires.
But our craft's dilemma becomes
far worse when the fires we cover were set by arsonists in our
midst.
And that is what happened this
week. Just days after the consensus presidential frontrunners
got off to their way-too-early start of campaign 2008, a small
but ever-ready segment of the news media sparked the first brushfire
so quickly that even the traditional political dirty tricksters
got caught with their matches down.
A little-known conservative
publication, Insight Magazine, which is owned by a company controlled
by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, which also owns The Washington Times,
put on its Web site an item that it presented as truth, even
though it was an unverified, and ultimately untrue, non-fact.
Insight Magazine reported that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama,
during in his childhood in Indonesia, had been educated at a
madrassa, one of those highly religious schools at which fundamentalist
Islamic teachings stress militancy and hatred - schools that
have produced many Islamic extremists. - More...
Tuesday - January 23, 2007
Jay
Ambrose: Getting
serious about Social Security - Now that House Democrats
have given us 100 hours of razzmatazz - the speedy, unreflective
passage of six bills that the Senate will mercifully either kill
or amend - maybe they will do something responsible, something
desperately needed, something crucial for the country. Maybe
they will address the restructuring of Social Security.
More than likely, they won't.
It's easy enough to slap energy
and drug companies around because, well, who likes them, anyway,
and how many voters get it that the consequence of enacting this
vindictive legislation in the years ahead would be boosted oil
prices and fewer life-saving drugs? The other initiatives were
likewise the stuff voter-approval dreams are made of. But reworking
Social Security in substantive fashion is not. - More...
Tuesday - January 23, 2007
Dale
McFeatters: The
year's official nadir - This past Monday is the most depressing,
miserable day of the year, according to a British psychologist,
thanks to a dismal convergence of unpaid holiday bills, lapsed
New Year's resolutions, the now dissipated glow of Christmas
and bad weather-induced lethargy.
And maybe there's something
to that 24-hour perfect storm of moodiness. We have days for
everything else, why not designate the fourth Monday in January
as Blue Monday, a day to be dedicated to moping and self-pity,
comforted only by the thought that - if Dr. Cliff Arnall of Cardiff
University is right - things have gotten as bad they're going
to get for the year and will begin taking a turn for the better
on Tuesday.
The drawback to that melancholy
observance is that the large army of shrinks, diet gurus, fitness
nuts and TV morning show guests - among them Dr. Arnall himself
- dedicated to bucking people up will ruin Blue Monday for the
rest of us. He says we can snap ourselves out of our funk by
resolving to change our behavior "such as giving up smoking,
eating better, exercising more and getting that new job."
Oh thanks, doctor. We would have never thought of any of that
on our own. - More...
Tuesday- January 23, 2007
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