Bangor Daily News

Forum Debates Fisheries Future, Airs Animosities, Collective Hopes

ROCKPORT - The future of Maine fisheries will depend as much on community as biology, said fishermen, politicians and environmentalists, as they debated the industry's fate over the next three decades, during Friday's opening day of the 30th annual Fishermen's Forum. As fish populations have declined, debates over the right to fish have brought a decade of acrimony to this industry.

Guard Soldiers Volunteer to Serve Overseas 12 Brewer-Based Infantry Unit Members May Go to Afghanistan

BREWER - Several soldiers who belong to a Maine Army National Guard Unit based in Brewer have volunteered to join their comrades- in-arms deployed overseas in the fight against terrorism, according to the battalion commander. At least 12 soldiers from B Company, 3rd Battalion of the 172nd Mountain Infantry, who typically serve one weekend a month, have volunteered to serve overseas. The Bravo Company men, based in Brewer, found out a week ago that their individual requests were granted.

Maine Soldier Dies On Return From Iraq Unity Man Was Member of 133rd

UNITY - A member of the Maine Army National Guard who fell ill shortly after flying back from Iraq to the United States died Thursday in a New York hospital after complications from surgery, a family member confirmed. Sgt. 1st Class Michael Jones, 43, of Unity was a member of the 133rd Engineer Battalion's Company A, which returned Wednesday night to Belfast from Fort Drum, N.Y.

Correcting the Record

In the March 2 Style section, a recipe for Orange Mandarin Cheesecake with Butterscotch Sauce should have included 11/2 cups oatmeal in the ingredients for the crust. The oatmeal should be ground up first in a food processor. --

Osha Fines Firm for Lead Exposure Violations

LINCOLN - A Florida contractor will appeal $80,500 in fines levied by the federal government for alleged safety hazards uncovered during the company's work stripping lead from a bridge over the Penobscot River this summer. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Monoko Inc. of Tarpon Springs for 15 alleged willful and serious violations of workplace health standards during an OSHA inspection that began Aug. 25, OSHA officials said in a press release Thursday.

Greenville Business Facility Welcomes Furniture Firm

GREENVILLE - Specialized handmade furniture will be the first product produced in Greenville's Business Incubator, a town-owned manufacturing facility. Town officials announced on Thursday during an open house at the 10,000-square-foot incubator that its first tenant would be Maine House Furniture, a business owned by Meinulf Poiss and his family of Abbot.

Portland: Libra Foundation to Finance New Fund

Augusta: E-Filing Running at Record Pace

Augusta: Heating Oil Prices Climb

Bangor: Media Works Enterprise Moves to New Space

Bar Harbor: Bank Consolidates Leadership

Truck Weight Test

Last-minute political maneuvering by New Hampshire's senior senator last year allowed that state to increase the weight limit on its interstate highways, leaving Maine as the only state in the Northeast with an 80,000-pound weight limit. As they have for years, Maine's congressional delegation has teamed up to raise the limit, getting big, heavy trucks off the state's winding back roads. Their sensible suggestion is a three-year pilot program. If there are fewer crashes, the higher weight lim...

Bedside Manners

A dissenting report from the Commission to Study Maine Hospitals, which recently concluded its work, provides the state with a means to solve some long-standing disagreements about hospital care. Given the rising costs of health care, the Baldacci administration and the Legislature should use it along with the majority's report to improve the way hospitals work here. Both the author of the majority report, former Bath Iron Works CEO Bill Haggett, and a supporter of the minority side, Steven M...

A Stumper or Knot?

Recently I shipped a truckload of old growth spruce and fir logs to my local log yard for a great price. I was told these logs will be trucked to Canada to be milled into lumber and then most likely trucked back to the United States.

Small Comfort in Israel

Moorhead Kennedy wrote in his weekend op-ed piece that the "main problem" between Israel and Palestine is with the Israeli right wing. He noted that Islamic Jihad, as well as other Palestinian Muslim extremist groups, had said they would abide by a Palestinian- Israeli truce. I imagine this is small comfort for those five Israelis killed and dozens more wounded in an Islamic Jihad bombing last Friday in Tel Aviv. Kennedy's main point was that we need to deal with the complexities of foreign p...

'Cruel and Unusual'

Amendment 8 of the U.S. Constitution includes the proscription against the imposition of cruel or unusual punishment. Though undefined, one might logically assume that "cruel or unusual" referred to those 18th- century practices considered cruel or unusual at the time the document was written, e.g. boiling in oil, drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, amputating limbs, mutilation. Extreme measures such as hanging and execution by firing squad were probably OK punishments, since they w...

Photo Tells Unsafe Story

I too am a graduate of a two-year welding program. In my schooling I learned that your work area should be clear and flammables shouldn't be near your cutting operations. Denise Farwell's front page picture (BDN, March 1) depicts what looks to be a propane tank underneath Christopher Maseychik's cutting torch; not exactly what I would call a safe practice.

It's Not a Racial Issue

Maine's county jails and correctional facilities are all overcrowded. And to insinuate that Native American inmates ("Panel charges Passamaquoddy inmates abused," BDN, March 2) are treated any differently than any other ethnicity within the walls of the justice system is ludicrous. Red, yellow, black or white, criminals are mixed together within the confines of the jail or prison because they are convicted criminals, not because of their race. When sentencing took place, ethnicity, I am willi...

100,000 Dead a Big Deal

As I remember it was the current president's father who was responsible for driving Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. I would find it reprehensible that anyone can say that murdering 100,000 Kurds is no big deal, if that is what James Scroggy is saying in the letter, "Reasons to impeach" (BDN, Feb. 22). The sentence dealing with that matter is only slightly more confused than the remainder of his letter. What makes anyone think George W. Bush means for the Republican Party to commit suicide? Were B...

Early Start On Gambling

It seems it isn't enough that adults are gambling their money away. Now you want to teach children to gamble. At least that is the impression I got when I looked at a newspaper page that I assumed is for children. It is the page sandwiched between the colored comic pages; one side of this sheet has instructions for children's activities and the other has instructions for playing poker.