Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Basic Rules Fuel Prices By Ken Lewis - Saturday PM Christmas lights and displays By Cindy Inouye - Saturday PM RE:The State Jet By Charlie Johnson - Saturday PM Plane wreckage? By Josh Stamm - Saturday PM Jet By Frances C. Natkong - Saturday PM Good Deeds By Mark Neckameyer - Saturday PM Sallie Mae should change its name to Bullie Mae By C. Victoria Patrick - Saturday PM As long as we are holding auctions... By Hunter Davis - Thursday The State Jet By June Allen - Thursday Army Recruitment ad By John Harrington - Wednesday High Fuel Cost By Joseph J Chadwell - Tuesday AM The price of gas and public officials By Craig Moen- Tuesday AM Ketchikan Community Concert Band concert By Judith Green- Tuesday AM Army Recruitment Ad on Top of Alaska News Page? By Dan Mortenson- Tuesday AM Stopping abuse of any form. By Janelle Hamilton- Tuesday AM High Cost of Oil and Gas - Give us a break! By Janelle Hamilton - Saturday Outrageous Salaries! By Robert D. Warner - Saturday High cost of fuel By R.K. Rice - Saturday Christmas Lights Around Town By Diana Chaudhary - Saturday Ketchikan Lions Club By Jim Sundahl - Saturday Apology owed to NTVFD By Liz Hook - Saturday Will Ketchikan's gas prices ever go down? By Richard John Jr. - Saturday Ketchikan's high gas prices By Jon Van Essen - Saturday RE: House Approves Measure to Preserve WWII Internment Camps By Shirley A. Weiss - Saturday The Sam Pitcher Memorial Scholarship Concert By Judith Green - Thursday Senior center By Gretchen Klein - Thursday RE: Gas Prices By Jerilyn Lester - Thursday Thank you to those who serve By Anita Hales - Thursday About KPU giving Bad Service By Scott Willis - Thursday When do we get help!! By Laurie Price - Wednesday Gas prices By Chuck Moon - Wednesday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Ketchikan Ketchikan Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Today's Forecast Satellite Today's Weather Images Marine Forecasts Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map CLASSIFIEDS Auto-post your ad in the proper category, or email your ad & photos to ads@sitnews.us  CLASSIFIEDS' CATEGORIES Announcements For Sale / Free Stuff Garage Sales Homes / Apts/ Property Pets Wanted Lost & Found Local Services December 2006 Archives Click on a date to view that front page. 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             More Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: Statistically Speaking - I love statistics.

When I was a little kid, I memorized reams and reams and reams of sports "stats".

And even though I sometimes have trouble remembering my current telephone number (225- uhh, 08, uhh 70) and my various passwords and pin numbers, I can still spout Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average (.367), Wilt Chamberlain's 1961-62 scoring average (50.4) and the fact that Sandy Koufax struck out 382 batters in 1965.

Now that I am older, natch, I have reached the point where weather stats are of great interest.

No, I do not watch the Weather Channel 24-7 (although "Storm of the Century" is very compelling TV!). But I do like to keep track of our local weather info (Highest ever Ketchikan temp: 96 degrees in 1913; lowest ever temp: minus 8 in 1916!). - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006

Steve Brewer: Reassigning assembly duty - Grumpy dads everywhere dread the approach of the holidays. To us, the gift-giving season means one thing: "ready-to-assemble."

We'll spend the waning days of the year hunched over a random collection of parts that don't fit together so well, trying to assemble them into something useful. We'll try to decipher instructions written in a secret code by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of English, while we simultaneously keep one eye on televised bowl games. - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006

Ann McFeatters: Judge's patience with FEMA at end - The judge's outrage comes hurtling through his words, demanding the government respond to his order that cutting off rental aid for thousands of Katrina victims just weeks after the deadly storm struck was unconstitutional, premature, incredible and "Kafkaesque."

But his fury is not new. It's been building for months. And all that seems to happen is that government lawyers file appeals. - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006

Clifford May: President Bush can still avoid defeat in Iraq - I was privileged to serve as one of the "expert" advisors to the Iraq Study Group (ISG), along with former ambassadors and CIA operatives, retired military officers and distinguished academics. It was a stimulating, edifying and - ultimately - disappointing experience.

We were divided from the start: A minority thought the mission was to find a way forward in Iraq; a majority thought the mission was to find a way out of Iraq, a way to manage what they view as America's inevitable defeat. - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006

Deroy Murdock: Look for ISG report in fantasy section of bookstores - Among the many shortcomings in the widely panned Iraq Study Group (ISG) report is its blame-Israel-first mentality. If only the Jewish state would surrender more land to the Palestinians and hand Syria the now-occupied Golan Heights, grateful Iraqis would burst into song, defuse their Improvised Explosive Devices, and build a safe, free, and prosperous republic. The fact that so many of them are doing the opposite is - what else? - Israel's fault.

"Iraq cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from other major regional issues, interests, and unresolved conflicts," the ISG report declares. America cannot "achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict." - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006

Dale McFeatters: More than you want to know - The best book ever written about the United States came out Friday. It comes out every year - this is the 126th - and goes by the deceptively bland title "Statistical Abstract of the United States."

The prose is lean and spare - in fact, there is almost no prose - but the 1,400 tables and charts compiled by the Census Bureau is jammed with information about who we are, what we do, where we live, what languages we speak and whether we eat our broccoli. (We do: 5.7 pounds per person per year.)

Like the blurbs on a book jacket, the Census teases us with a few facts.

We watch too much television (our judgment, not the government's) - 65 days' worth a year.

In 2005, Internet users made 92 million purchases online and created 13 million blogs.

Yes, there is grade inflation. Almost half of incoming college freshmen had an A average in high school compared to 20 percent in 1970. In 1970, an overwhelming percentage of kids went to college to develop a "philosophy of life." Now, the same percentage wants to be "very well off financially." - More...
Friday AM - December 15, 2006