Misty Pattison & her 41.9 pound king salmon Front Page Photo by Sam Willett

Ketchikan: Pattison holds lead with 41.9 pound king at end of derby's 1st week By M.C. KAUFFMAN - Leading unofficially at the close Monday evening of the first weekend of the 59th King Salmon Derby is long time Ketchikan resident Misty Pattison. Pattison moved into the unofficial first place position with a 41.9 pound king. Pattison said she was very exicited about sitting in the first place spot on the derby ladder and plans to keep fishing until the derby ends. She said she caught her big king around Pup Island which is north of Ketchikan and near the Knudson Cove Marina.

Before the start of the derby on May 21st, Wade Jardine also caught a big king salmon weighing in at just over 52 pounds in the Knudson Cove area. However, Jardine's good luck came a week too early as the 59th Annual King Salmon Derby started at 7:00 am, Saturday, May 27th. "Like I say good luck on the wrong weekend," said Jardine.

According to Ketchikan CHARR who sponsors the derby, over 1,200 anglers checked out to fish over the Memorial Day weekend with 314 kings entered in the derby.

Listed unofficially in second place at the close of the first weekend of the 2006 derby is Mary Whitesides with a 41.5 pound king salmon and following close behind Whitesides is Kenneth Comstock with a 41.4 pound king salmon. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

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

National: Democrats close gap on national security By JAMES ROSEN - For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, national security is no longer President Bush's trump card.

With violence grinding on in Iraq, a majority of Americans have been telling pollsters in recent weeks that they trust Democrats as much or more than Bush or his Republican allies in Congress to protect the country, combat terrorism and run a sound foreign policy.

"The advantage the president has had on national security is either much smaller now or is perhaps gone," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "What has been new in the last few months is a decline in support among the Republican base. Republicans are beginning to have doubts about the connection between Iraq and the larger war on terror. And they are less confident that we are doing well in the war on terror."

Bush's problems with Iraq and other national security issues have contributed mightily to the drop in his overall approval ratings, which have fallen into the low 30s.

Influential GOP political consultants agree that the turmoil in Iraq is by far the main reason for Bush's drop-off on national security. Beyond Iraq, they cite the current immigration debate and Bush's decision in February to allow Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emirates firm, to manage six U.S. ports. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

National: Senate immigration bill contains lots of fine print By MICHAEL DOYLE AND MARGARET TALEV - Foreign ice hockey players, territorial Mexican politicians and FBI bean-counters now have something in common: a stake in the Senate's big immigration reform bill.

There is a lot of fine print in the 600-plus-page bill passed this week. It's true, as senators say, that the legislation would erect more border barriers and seek to better manage the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. But it also includes perks to the privileged, blurs some border security provisions, and makes other substantive changes that activists on both sides of the debate are only now beginning to understand.

Some of these lesser-known provisions were included days before and simply got little attention because of the scope of the overall bill. Others were adopted just minutes before the bill's vote Thursday evening, part of a 100-page-plus "manager's amendment."

"It's a bear," Laura Reiff, co-chair of a business consortium called the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, said Friday of the manager's amendment. "I have not gone through it all. None us of really were privy to seeing it ahead of time. We as a business coalition are going to be going through it very carefully."

More minor-league athletes from other countries could get visas under the bill. More veterans could be recruited for border duty. The U.S. government would need to consult with various Mexican officials before new border fences could go in. Frequent Western Hemisphere travelers would get a new traveling card. More Canadian power-line workers could enter if they have received "significant training." - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

National: Ex-braceros leery of guest worker plan By TYCHE HENDRICKS - Picking beets, cherries and cotton and shoveling manure on farms across the United States as a Mexican guest worker in the 1940s and 1950s, Cecilio Santillana was glad to earn a few dollars a day.

He didn't complain about living in horse stalls without bathrooms or doing stoop work for 12 hours a day without breaks for fear he would be sent back to Chihuahua and lose the steady work that allowed him to support his family in Mexico.

But the 78-year-old San Jose man opposes a temporary worker proposal in the immigration bill the Senate passed last week.

"I'm against it, because they may do to the new workers what they did to us," he said. "We suffered a lot."

Some immigrant advocates say the new plan remedies shortcomings of the old Bracero Program, through which the United States recruited Mexican workers to toil at 4.5 million mostly agricultural jobs from 1942 to 1964. And they say it's a crucial alternative to the current state of affairs where migrant workers risk their lives crossing the border illegally. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

National: Canadians fearful of U.S. water grab By LAUNCE RAKE - We took their hockey, their oil and their beer. Now Canadians fear we will try to take an even more basic resource.

Specifically, the 32 million-strong country with the longest contiguous border with the United States fears that thirst will drive the American Southwest to tap water sources in the Great White North.

A front-page story in Maclean's, a Canadian news weekly, warned late last year that "America is thirsty," and featured the impact of drought on Lake Mead and Las Vegas. The Council of Canadians, a 20-year-old progressive political group, blared, "Water Fight!" in its magazine last month and urged Canadian citizens to block water exports. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Science - Technology: Where is the security for our personal data? By DAVID LAZARUS - It's astonishing that confidential information for 26.5 million veterans has gone astray after thieves made off with a laptop that an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs had taken home with him.

But no less troubling is that, after repeated incidents involving data-rich equipment disappearing, companies and government agencies still prove themselves unable to enforce basic security measures.

Moreover, from a consumer's point of view, it's still all but impossible to get a straight story from those involved in security breaches.

"The vast majority of companies issue a security policy only because their lawyers tell them to," said Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant. "It typically gets buried in an employee handbook and is never seen again."

Consumers, he said, have every right to expect to be fully informed when such incidents occur. Unfortunately, that's seldom the case. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters What to do with our unresponsive elected officials is the question! By Byron "Chilly" Whitesides - Tuesday Pinched NERVE By Virginia E. Atkinson - Tuesday RE: Balancing Patriots and Privacy By Glen Thompson - Tuesday Contractors in Iraq By William B. Boyce - Tuesday The Military-Industrial Complex By Tom Proebsting - Tuesday HOT SHOTS PAINTBALL FIELD OPEN-NO PLAY WITHOUT NET UP By Roberta "Bobbie" McCreary Minutemen being compared to Gunsmoke, or Bonanza By Kay Gettle Lopez - Monday What do we do with illegal immigrants? By Mike Harpold - Sunday Memorial Day By Sen. Ted Stevens - Sunday Paintball Field is NOT a Target Shooting Range By Bobbie McCreary - Sunday RE: Minutemen/Border Patrol By Walt Bolling - Sunday Balancing Patriots and Privacy By Mark Beatty - Sunday Minutemen By Kay Gettle Lopez - Saturday Minutemen By Virginia E. Atkinson - Saturday One Revilla Graduate's Success Story By Ralph and Lauren Mirsky - Friday Minutemen are good Americans By Mike Isaac - Friday Burning fuel By Robert McRoberts - Friday Scared to print the truth? By Pete Baltzer - Friday Ask Governor to veto appropriation for proposed aquarium By David Hanger - Thursday Tourists By Jerry Cegelske - Thursday Re: Minutemen/Border Patrol By Gerry Nance - Thursday Aerial Genocide on Long Island, Alaska By Robert A. Sanderson Jr. - Wednesday Oppose Head Tax By Anita Hales - Wednesday Minutemen/ Border Patrol By Virginia E. Atkinson - Wednesday New Front Roads By Patti Fay Hickox - Tuesday Vigilantes along the border By Neil Gray - Tuesday Homeland security? By Ken Lewis - Tuesday Don't Spray on Long Island By Frances C. Natkong - Tuesday Good to be home... By Archie Inoncillo - Tuesday Time to return to the gold standard? By Peter Morici - Monday "YES" on the Cruise Ship Ballot Initiative By Carrie L. James - Monday Wrong about the "vigilante" groups By Erni Grace - Saturday RE: New Guest Worker Program No Substitute For Cracking Down By David Levin - Saturday New guest worker program no substitute for cracking down By Mike Harpold - Friday Palin is Party's Brightest Hope By Lysa Maher - Friday Computer Users Over 60 By Lisa Pearson - Friday Guard Won't Solve Illegal Immigration Problem By Neil Gray - Friday Ketchikan By Marvin Seibert - Friday Paintball! Sunday May 21st! By Gregory Vickrey - Friday Revilla High School was there for me. By George Jackson - Friday National Security, Needles, and Haystacks By Alan Lidstone - Friday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan May Calendar Arts This Week Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements May 2006 Click on the date to read the stories 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 31       Front Page Archives

Jason Love: Free Cat - "Free kitten. Cute, cuddly, irresistible."

That's how the ad read. What I didn't know is that "free kitten" is one of those moron things like "working vacation" or "Microsoft Works."

During that first trip to Petco, I discovered that my free cat would require, among other things: box, litter, scooper, liner, cover, filters, and designated dust-vac; wet food, dry food, nibble treats, bowls, and specially formulated kitten milk; no-scratch spray for the couch and do-scratch spray for the scratch post; scratch post; collar; I.D. tag; chew toys; flea comb; shampoo; cat bed; spray bottle; lint roller; jungle gym; immunity shots; and if you know what's good for you, pet insurance.

It doesn't help that cats are anti-establishment. You buy tuna; they want chicken. Open a door; they use the window. I bought for our kitten, Homer, a twenty-dollar teaser wand and he spent the night playing with its wrapper. So it goes. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Peter Callaghan: Washington state must address its own gambling addiction - In what may be just the latest example of state lawmakers closing the barn door after the horses have fled, a joint committee is studying the explosion of gambling in Washington state.

It's at least the third time lawmakers have pledged to slow down and take a comprehensive look at the issue. Each time the hand-wringing has been followed by more expansions.

In 1996, the net receipts from gambling - that's the amount wagered minus prizes paid out - was $476 million. In 2005, it was $1.7 billion.

In that time, nontribal minicasinos have jumped from $15 million to $302 million. Tribal gambling has increased from $50 million to $1.02 billion.

While legislators don't have much say over tribal gambling, their decisions about nontribal gambling and the lottery fuel the expansion of tribal casinos because the tribes use it as an excuse to get more and more. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Martin Schram: Pentagon needs to rethink non-nuclear warhead plan - The capital cognoscenti are weighing in, pro and con, over a seemingly ideal Pentagon non-nuclear weapon plan that has this one minor flaw: By firing to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack, the United States might plunge the planet into the worst of unintended consequences - an accidental nuclear exchange.

That is why, before Congress rushes to vote, one more voice must be heard: A chilling warning from a Pakistani general who once explained to me in uncommon candor just how he or any other well-intentioned general might inadvertently fire the first nuclear weapon - and ignite a nuclear war - all due to a misunderstanding.

The words of retired Brig. Gen. Feroz Khan, spoken three years ago (in an interview I conducted for a PBS documentary series and book, both titled "Avoiding Armageddon") must be carefully considered today because they not only warn of what can go wrong - but point to a common sense solution. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Dick Morris: On Immigration, For Once, Bush Understands What The Public Wants - It is odd how there are so many issues on which the two political-party establishments in the United States sharply differ but on which the public is relatively united. As the debate rages in Congress on whether to be tough on the border or generous in granting citizenship and guest-worker status to illegal immigrants, the Fox News poll of May 9 echoes the public's point of view: Do it all!

While their party leaders steadfastly resist granting "amnesty" by allowing "illegal immigrants who have jobs in the United States to apply for legal temporary-worker status," voters back the proposal by an overwhelming 63-29 percent. And, despite the posturing of the right wing, Republican voters say yes by 63-30.

Nor are Democrats any more likely to fall in line behind their party's polarizing positions. Asked if they back "using thousands of National Guard troops temporarily to help patrol agents along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration, voters as a whole answer yes by 63-31, and even Democrats support the idea by 52-40. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006

Steve Brewer: Approach bureaucrats expecting the worse - When I was growing up in the South the local lore was that if a snapping turtle chomped onto you, it wouldn't turn loose until it heard thunder.

That seemed the ultimate in tenacity until I got older and encountered the species Officious Bureaucratus. A bureaucrat defends his territory fiercely, using every regulation and policy and precedent in his arsenal. His turf is pathetically small, but it's all he's got.

One of the great joys of working at home, alone, is that I rarely encounter bureaucrats. I forget just how frustrating they can be. - More...
Tuesday - May 30, 2006