Ketchikan: The Gift of Education by MARIE L. MONYAK - Even the wind and rain didn't keep the community away from the new Fawn Mountain School's open house on Tuesday evening. Teachers, administrators, parents and children showed up to tour the new school and enjoy the refreshments that were served while the Cape Fox dancers performed.

Superintendent for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, Harry Martin, said it best, "It's great to be in a new building and everyone is excited. From everything I've heard, everyone's very pleasantly surprised and happy and everything is going as it should for the elementary schools." - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Top Stories U.S. News U.S. Politics Alaska Ketchikan

National: President says number of U.S. allies growing in War on Terror - The number of U.S. allies in the global War on Terror is growing and Muslims are turning against terrorists, whose tactics usually kill and maim innocents and fellow Muslims, President Bush says.

The president gave his assessment of the war against terrorism in a speech to the National Guard Association February 9.

Critics, who predicted his strategy of taking the fight to the terrorists would drive away international support, have found that the opposite has happened, Bush said. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

National: U.S. Thwarted Terrorist Attack Against Los Angeles in 2002 - The U.S. government, aided by foreign allies, thwarted an al-Qaida plot to fly a commercial jetliner into the highest skyscraper on the U.S. West Coast in late 2001 or early 2002, a senior administration official said February 9.

"There's an ongoing and effective international cooperation that is working to undermine al-Qaida's attempts to attack us," said Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism Frances Fragos Townsend in a telephone briefing with reporters following President Bush's speech about security issues earlier in the day. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

National: 'Cyber Storm' simulation aims to head off computer assault By LISA HOFFMAN - It had the makings of a "digital Pearl Harbor," a potentially catastrophic computer attack that crossed oceans and continents to target governments, companies and the infrastructure that underpins them.

In this case, the e-assault was a simulation that the Department of Homeland Security calls the first-ever international cyber-security exercise. Dubbed "Cyber Storm," the simulation began Monday and has unfolded in secret in Washington and beyond.

"Cyber Storm is intended to act as a catalyst for exercising communications, coordination and partnerships across critical infrastructure sectors," Homeland Security said in a news release about the exercise. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

International: Not every illustration of Muhammad has been a line in the sand By LANCE GAY - As the rage of anti-Western demonstrations in several Islamic countries shows, picture depictions of the prophet Muhammad are a sensitive issue in modern Islam.

But Islamic scholars note that there were some Islamic countries where depicting Muhammad was once accepted by local customs, and book illustrations of Muhammad in Islamic texts survive today that were drawn in Persian and Afghani cultures.

Some of the illustrations kept in Istanbul's Topkapi palace library and several Western museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington, show the prophet with a veil over his face, but others show a complete picture of Muhammad as a baby and an adult. There are colorfully written contemporary accounts written by his cousins of what Muhammad looked like in life. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Alaska: Polar bears to be considered for threatened species list By JANE KAY - Federal wildlife officials are considering declaring the polar bear a threatened species as a result of growing evidence that rising Arctic temperatures are melting the pack ice that is their home.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing climate-change studies and the status of the polar bear population and says it will decide within 12 months whether to offer protection under the Endangered Species Act to the furry white marine mammal.

If the polar bear is declared a threatened species, it would be the first mammal deemed in danger of extinction because of global warming. A listing could force the government to adopt curbs on carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas linked to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and ocean.

About 22,000 polar bears live in the Arctic Circle. The bears spend their lives on the vast floating sea ice where they sleep, mate and hunt for their prey, the ice seals. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus) Photo courtesy Alaska Fisheries Sceience Center National Marine Fisheries Service - NOAA Fisheries

Ketchikan: Subsistence Eulachon Fishery Closed in Federal Waters in Burroughs Bay Area - Ketchikan-Misty Fiords District Ranger Lynn Kolund has announced that he is acting immediately to protect eulachon stocks in the Burroughs Bay/Unuk River area north of Ketchikan, Alaska. The ranger, as in-season manager, is closing the Federal subsistence eulachon fishery to all users in Federal public waters in the Burroughs Bay/Unuk River area (Area 1D) due to very low fish numbers in 2004 and 2005. The Federal Subsistence Board has delegated to him this in-season management authority.

The closure will be effective 11:59 p.m., Friday, Feb. 25, 2006, and continue until 11:59 p.m., April 25, 2006. Any eulachon caught in this area must be immediately returned to the water unharmed.

Few eulachon have returned to the Burroughs Bay area since 2003. "Eulachon are an important subsistence fish for many residents of Southeast Alaska, so we're acting now to protect these stocks so we can rebuild fish populations for the future," Kolund said. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Ketchikan: Ketchikan Little League Registration Underway - Registration for the 2006 season at Ketchikan Little League will be held every Saturday in February, at THE PLAZA. Children ages 5 to 15 who live within the Ketchikan Little League boundaries are eligible to enroll to play T-ball, Coach-Pitch, Minor League, Major League and Junior League baseball. Registration is required even if the child played previously. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Return school "ownership" to the students By Linda Koons Auger - Thursday PM A Tale of Two Bridges by Rep. Vic Kohring - Thursday PM No Feed No Fish By Bill Vander Pol - Thursday PM Ridiculous bridges By Charlotte Tanner - Thursday PM Must We Squabble Over Everything? By Marie L Monyak - Thursday PM Life made better by your work By MJ Cadle - Thursday PM Feng Shui by Jason Love By Michelline Lee - Thursday PM Knik Arm Crossing Will benefit Entire State by Sen. Charlie Huggins - Wednesday PM To the Citizens of Ketchikan By Eric Woytek - Wednesday PM What's Next? Government to Tie Our Shoes for Us? by Rep. Jim Holm - Wednesday PM Response is right and just By Vicki O'Brien - Wednesday PM Re: Mentality of This Town By Lynne Miller - Wednesday PM Sealaska Shareholders By Don Hoff Jr. - Wednesday PM KETCHIKAN DOCK EXPANSION: THE BENEFITS By Jerry Cegelske - Monday Police Officers of Ketchikan By Phillip L. Alderson - Monday To Freeman's Family & Friends By Rick Watson - Monday Eye-Opener By Jacob Martin - Monday Unleashed dogs By Karen Ramsey - Monday Were the Democrats really out of line at the State of the Union Speech on Tuesday? By Cindy Schwartz - Monday Open Letter to Sealaska Shareholders By Martha Gallagher - Monday Dock expansion By Tracey Stall - Monday Democrats Misbehaving! By Virginia Atkinson - Monday Ketchikan's Drinking Water By Don Hoff Jr. - Monday Federal Subsistence Management Board Meeting By Charlotte Tanner - Monday Reasonable? By Bob Harmon - Monday Moral Integrity By Alan Lidstone - Monday Mentality of this town By Andrew Hamilton - Monday Thank you from the voters! By Roberta "Bobbie" McCreary - Monday am More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan February Calendar Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data New Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements February 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S    30 31 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         Front Page Archives

Alaska: Searching for signs of Lake Atna By NED ROZELL - This summer, John Jangala will raft down the west fork of the Gulkana River. He'll be looking for good campsites with a nice view, high enough to get away from bugs, but still close to the water. When he gets there, he'll search for signs of people who stood in the same place a long time ago.

An archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management office in Glennallen, Jangala will spend much of his summer trying to find traces of the earliest residents of the Copper River Valley. What he finds might shed light on the mystery of ancient Lake Atna, which filled the Copper River Basin thousands of years ago.

In 1898, Frank Schrader of the U.S. Geological Survey found fine sediments in the center of the Copper River Valley that suggested that an "inland lake" or an "arm of the sea" drowned the lowlands that now include the towns of Glennallen, Gulkana, Copper Center, and Tazlina. Since Schrader's exploration, geologists have found traces of old shoreline at today's 2,400-to-2,500-foot elevations. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

National: Lucky in love, longer in life By THOMAS HARGROVE - Getting married and staying married increases life expectancy by about eight or nine years, according to federal death records.

But the poets are wrong to suggest 'tis better to have loved and lost. Divorced people have the shortest lifespan of all.

Married men who died in 2003 had an average lifespan of 77.6 years, well above the 69.2-year average among men who've never married and 67.1-year average among divorced men, according to data from 2.2 million death certificates released this month by the National Center for Health Statistics. - More....
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Science - Technology: TV, Web move closer using telephone lines By ELLEN LEE - A few years ago, a team of Microsoft engineers invited some SBC executives to a small apartment in Mountain View, Calif. The engineers had jury-rigged an Xbox gaming console into a set-top box to control the television set.

The SBC executives were getting their first glimpse of IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, which uses your phone line to deliver programming to your television. Much like cable or satellite television, IPTV uses a set-top box that allows customers to cruise hundreds of channels such as HBO, MTV and ESPN, and order movies and other shows anytime through video-on-demand. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Jay Ambrose: Still trying to whip Kennedy? - Could Jimmy Carter be slyer than people think?

When he recalled at the funeral of Coretta Scott King that federal officials had wiretapped her and her husband, is it possible he was not taking a swipe at the secret surveillance program of a president sitting nearby, George W. Bush, but at Sen. Edward Kennedy?

Carter had to have known, after all, that the King wiretaps were ordered by Robert F. Kennedy, who was then the attorney general of the United States in the cabinet of President John F. Kennedy. Brother Bobby, who had served as assistant counsel on the staff of the communist hunter Joseph McCarthy, thought dissenters might have commie buddies and wanted to check out rumors about Martin Luther King Jr. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006

Dale McFeatters: Less than spontaneous combustion - Even in a flag-bedecked city like Washington, D.C., it would be tough on short notice to come up with enough Danish and Norwegian flags to burn at a spontaneous demonstration.

So how, in an impoverished, isolated place like Gaza, do demonstrators come up with a seemingly unlimited supply of Danish and Norwegian flags - how do they even know what they look like - to burn and trample on?

Thanks to Reuters, we have an answer. In Gaza, and probably elsewhere in the Muslim world, canny merchants try to anticipate demand for something to desecrate. Said Reuters, "When Gaza shopkeeper Ahmed Abu Dayva first heard about the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, he quickly ordered 100 Danish and Norwegian flags."

He is selling them for $11 each, and since the flags are burned or shredded, there's built-in repeat business. What Abu Dayva can't get locally, he orders from Taiwan. The Israeli flags for burning come from an Israeli supplier. - More...
Thursday PM - February 09, 2006