National: What's next for budget bill? By MICAHEL DOYLE - After much huffing and puffing, the House of Representatives has passed a $49.5 billion budget-cutting bill. So what, and what's next?

On Capitol Hill, this is huge. The budget bill has tormented Republican leaders for weeks, as they have struggled to pass the measure that finally squeaked by on the narrowest possible 217-215 margin. The work isn't finished, though. When Congress returns from Thanksgiving break in December, the House and Senate will have to reconcile their very different bills. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

National: The claims and facts on Iraq weapons By ROBERT COLLIER AND ANNA BADKHEN - Rarely in recent memory has a political debate turned on such diametrically opposed claims about the factual record.

As the Bush administration and war critics, most of them Democrats, are engaged in a slashing battle of words over the conflict in Iraq, what the president and his advisers knew and when they knew it have become a domestic second front. In the past week, this verbal battlefield consumed the House of Representatives and stretched across the Pacific to Asia, where President Bush delivered major defenses of his Iraq policies. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

National: Bush Says Setting Iraq Withdrawal Deadline Would Court Disaster - Setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would be "a recipe for disaster," President Bush said November 19.

Speaking at a U.S. military base in South Korea during a trip to Asia, Bush vowed that the United States will prosecute the fight against terrorists in Iraq "until we have achieved the victory our brave troops have fought and bled for. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

National: At center of Iraq controversy, Cheney stands firm By MARGARET TALEV - With his blunt talk and trademark grimace, no one has ever mistaken Vice President Dick Cheney for the gossipy type.

These days, his stoicism may be fashioned more by circumstance than by his own choosing.- More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Wallet Watch: For many, the plan is to hold down holiday spending By MARY DEIBEL - High winter heating bills, plus $3-a-gallon gasoline last summer, have shoppers vowing to hold the line on holiday spending, but consumers' best-laid plans usually go awry in the season of giving.

Thirty percent of consumers say they plan to spend less and 51 percent about the same as they did last year, with 41 percent citing energy costs as the chief reason for being budget-minded, according to a survey of 1,000 adults by Opinion Research Corp. International. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

International: Handlers shadow pedophiles By COLIN FREEZE - Corrections officials in British Columbia have quietly begun to hire handlers to follow released pedophiles everywhere they go, in what is believed to be a first for the Canadian criminal-justice system.

"I don't think anybody has ever done this before," said Bob Ens, who runs a Kelowna, B.C., halfway house where one such plan is being tried out. "It's very unique ... any time (the pedophile) leaves the facility, he's under supervision." - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

National: Migrant forest workers caught in web of exploitation - Part 1 By TOM KNUDSON AND HECTOR AMEZCUA - During the day, the men swung machetes and worked in the woods. At night, they lay in ragged tents, wrapped themselves in layers of clothing and nearly froze.

As the migrant workers suffered, U.S. Forest Service officials in Idaho supervising the work were taking notes. But their primary concern was trees, not people. "Pace too slow," one jotted in a memo. "Foreman not active enough vis a vis quality, production, direction." - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

International: AIDS Cases Climb, Amid Signs of Progress Against Disease; Annual update on state of epidemic released for World AIDS Day - The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world rose by 5 million in 2005, according to AIDS Epidemic Update 2005, an annual report on the state of the epidemic released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization.

There are 40.3 million persons living with the disease, the report finds, and 3 million died of AIDS-related causes in 2005. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters "Why not me?" By Brenda Bratley - Monday am THANK YOU By Ken Levy - Monday am Glenn/Metzenbaum debate By David Landis- Monday am To Those Who Criticize... and Patriotism By Gregory Fast- Monday am The Bridge Battle By Don Hoff Jr.- Monday am Better come up with another plan By Robert McRoberts- Monday am To Those Who Criticize... By Dave Henderson - Friday Bridge Battle By Elroy C. Edenshaw Jr. - Friday Camelot By Terry O'Hara - Friday PATRIOTISM By Marie Monyak - Friday Holiday Lights By Judee Mettler - Thursday Imagine a world of increasing communication By Rick Grams - Thursday To those who criticize our commanders By Walter Bolling - Thursday Dumpers are at it again! By Jerry Cegelske - Thursday T&H members Ketchikan area By Elroy C. Edenshaw Jr. - Thursday Overhaul? By Linda Burger - Thursday Question By Nyna Fleury - Thursday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan Monday - November 21, 2005: 5:30 pm -The Ketchikan Borough Assembly will hold a regular meeting in the City Council Chambers. Agenda & Information Packets 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

Laine Welch: New plant will shuck and show oysters - Visitors to the Homer Spit will soon learn a lot about local oysters, and have a chance to slurp a few.

Thanks to a $1 million federal economic development grant, Kachemak Bay shellfish farmers will soon break ground for a processing and education center for the region's 13 farmers, who produce roughly 40,000 dozen oysters each year. "The new plant will allow them to stabilize and expand production," said Gary Siems, president of the Kachemak Mariculture Association and the local Shellfish Growers Cooperative. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Dave Kiffer: And Not A Drop to Drink - Stop the presses! The hydrologists and meteorogists and fearmongerologists say the western United States is running out of water.

As I write this, I am staring out the window at soggy Salmon City's 30th consecutive day of rain.

Sure, no one is building an Ark yet, but you have to admit this has been one of the poorest Falls in recent memory as far as the relentless Chinese Water Torture goes (drip, drip, drippity, drip). - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Marie L. Monyak: GETTING OFF THE "ROCK" - Saying it's raining again isn't exactly news when you live in Ketchikan. Like everyone else this time of year, I need to get away from the rain, I need to get off the "Rock". Being unemployed just doesn't lend itself to such frivolous expenses like a vacation, even if it would save my sanity. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Preston MacDougall: Chemical Eye on Webb Feet - Bubbles Smith probably had many secret admirers in Toronto during the roaring '20s. Poems such as "Ojistoh", by Canadian poet Pauline Johnson, were among her repertoire as an elocutionist in what is now known as Old Massey Hall.

Some of her fans, such as former classmates, may have known that her real name was Verna. But her other secret was only revealed to family members. My turn came when I married her bubbliest granddaughter (during the otherwise boring '80s). Bubbles had webbed feet. - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Focusing on Iraq, not each other - There is an old joke about a tourist lost in New England who asks a farmer how to get to Pooter's Corners. "Well," opines the old Yankee, "to begin with, I wouldn't start from here."

And that about sums up the venomous exchange of charges and countercharges in Washington about whether the Bush administration misled Congress and the public so it could invade Iraq. The question is interesting but increasingly belongs to the historians. As a practical matter, it's beside the point. We're there. We can't go back and start from somewhere else.

The nation's leadership should be focused on winning the war, not arguing about how we got into it, but the urge to score political points is overwhelming. Vice President Cheney called the accusation "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." And that, shot back Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, is "a weak, spineless display of politics at a time of war." - More...
Monday - November 21, 2005