The Week in Review: Terrorists attack hotels in Amman

Suicide bombers attacked three U.S. chain luxury hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing at least 59 people, including guests at a wedding party. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility, linking the blasts to the war in Iraq and calling Amman the "backyard garden" for U.S. operations. In response, hundreds of angry Jordanians rallied outside one of the hotels, shouting, "Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!"

Tornado kills 22 in Ohio Valley

A tornado with 200 mph winds killed 22 people in Indiana. A mobile-home park was obliterated. Emergency sirens sounded twice before the tornado struck, but many in the mobile-home park said they did not hear them because they were asleep.

Bad day for GOP

Democrats held on to the New Jersey and Virginia governorships, electing new people to the posts. Republicans, as expected, kept the New York mayor's seat - with Michael Bloomberg's landslide re-election - but in California, voters blocked reform measures sought by GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Governor calls for Aruba boycott

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley called for a travel boycott of Aruba, saying island authorities were failing to cooperate with the family of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, who has been missing since a graduation trip in May. Riley asked the governors of the other 49 states to join in the boycott. Holloway's family lives in suburban Birmingham, Ala.

Curfew ordered in France

French President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency and imposed curfews on riot-torn cities and towns. The measures were aimed at stopping France's worst civil unrest in decades. Arson fires and vandalism swept the country's impoverished neighborhoods with large African and Arab communities. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Washington Calling: Traffic jams ... Falwell's Christmas ad campaign ... other items By LANCE GAY - Congressional pork-barrel highway projects are worsening traffic gridlock rather than clearing it up.

The Texas Transportation Institute says that its analysis of congestion in 75 cities shows that gridlock has steadily increased since 1982, even though Congress has approved massive increases in highway spending with special projects aimed at untangling overloaded highways. More than 55 percent of the nation's highway system today is gridlocked in peak rush-hour periods.

Paul Gessing of the National Taxpayers Union blames Congress and says Washington doesn't have the expertise to iron out the difficulties. Gessing says pouring more money into politically chosen projects doesn't help, and Washington lawmakers need to turn over highway planning to experts in local and state governments.

X...X...X

Republican leaders are now saying publicly what everyone in Washington has been saying privately for months: Social Security reform is dead.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting that he spent hours trying to hammer out compromise legislation, but found no middle ground. "I can't even get consensus among Republicans," he said.

Stay tuned. Grassley predicts the issue will be back after the 2008 presidential election. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Thinking about the old boys marching... By Kelli Carlin-Auger - Sunday am Teen Blogging in Schools By Kathi Collum - Sunday am Ketchikan Borough Water By Robert McRoberts - Sunday am Alaska's Governor Gets Sleek Jet By Don Hoff Jr. - Sunday am THE AMERICAN REPORT CARD: ARE WE REALLY BETTER OFF? By René Ryman - Sunday am VETERANS DAY By June Allen - Friday In Honor of Veterans By U.S. Senator Ted Stevens - Friday am We Owe Our Veterans Immeasurable Thanks By U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski - Friday am War on Veterans By Arthur H. Wilson - Friday am Assembly Passed The Buck Again By Patrick Bethel - Thursday pm Pipe Dreams for Economic Growth in Alaska By Don Hoff Jr - Thursday pm Golden Fleece Bridge By Charlotte Tanner - Thursday pm Halloween on Jackson Street By Jacquie Meck - Thursday pm Gas Prices By Frances C. Natkong - Thursday pm Principles and Legalized Torture By Mark O'Brien - Wednesday pm Future job prospects for Alaska's youth By Blain Anderson - Wednesday pm Alcohol Problem in Alaska By Morgan Doubleday - Wednesday pm Blogging Worries Parents By Christopher Davin - Wednesday pm Missing the point By Danielle Groghan - Wednesday pm We do have humor... By David Anderson - Wednesday pm More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Veterans Day Salute RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Today's Political Cartoons E-mail Political Cartoons Ketchikan November Calendar Today's Forecast Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements November 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

Dave Kiffer: Splat - My four year old asked me an unanswerable question last week.

It had nothing to do with where babies come from or what happens after a person dies.

"Daddy," he said, as we drove through the soggy streets of Our Fair Salmon City. "Why do we live where it always rains?"

He has been thinking about rain here since we got back from a visit to his grandfather in New Mexico a few weeks ago. Granted, he thought it was pretty darn hot in the Southwest and complained about that just a wee bit. But it was clear he had had his eyes opened to a life in which you didn't always grab your gore-tex sun bonnet every time you stepped out the door and was very intrigued by it. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Dick Morris:  Get Serious About Immigration Reform - President Bush seems impaled on the false choice of appealing to the Hispanic vote or enforcing laws against illegal immigration. Politically, legally and morally there is no conflict - and there is a great deal of synergy - among these objectives.

Bush, searching for a way to recapture the national agenda, needs to seize this issue and make it his own. A full and reasoned program will galvanize national support and unite the nation behind tough measures to enforce our laws and maximize opportunities for those who already live here legally. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Michael Reagan: Win, Lose or Draw - In the Iraq war there are three strategies: win, lose or draw. Our choice is to win.

When my dad was asked what his Cold War strategy was, he said that it was simple: "We win, they lose."

That is the only strategy in war that makes any sense. You don't go to war to end up in a tie game. If you have a single ounce of common sense and courage, you go to war to win and you do whatever you have to do to come out victorious. To do less is to betray those who died fighting the war.

Now thanks to the Democrats, most of whom voted to go to war, we are seeing a new strategy: win, lose or run. My party is the one that wants to win. The Democrats want to run. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Linda Seebach: The evolution wars - Progress in Dover, Pa. Setbacks in Kansas. So it goes in the evolution wars.

The Dover Area School District has been in the news lately, because a group of parents sued the district over the inclusion of intelligent design in the science curriculum. The case is Kitzmiller v. DASD, and it's been extensively covered, from the pro-evolution side, by the blog pandasthumb.org. If you want to read how it looks from the other side, try idthefuture.com, a blog sponsored by the pro-ID Discovery institute. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Intelligent by design in Dover - Voters tend to ignore their local school boards until the board does something outrageous, which the Dover, Pa., board did last year by requiring that all ninth-graders hear a prepared statement on intelligent design before starting their biology course.

The statement begins by saying that the state requires that students study Darwin's theory of evolution and then disingenuously adds, "Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is being discovered," as if the theory itself was not settled science. - More...
Sunday - November 13, 2005