Columnists | The Kennebec Journal, Augusta, ME

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

MIKE TIPPING: Poll results only as good as their methods, sample size, questions

If you've read this column regularly, you know that misrepresentation of polling data is one of my pet peeves.

Monday, February 6, 2012

MAINE COMPASS: Free children's vaccinations will encourage preventative health care

Families concerned about health care costs now have one less thing to worry about: As of Jan. 1, children 18 and younger get their vaccinations without having to pay the cost of the vaccine.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

DANA MILBANK: GOP freshmen's media show gives evidence of lowered expectations

House freshmen have been on the job for almost exactly a year, and until now they've done little more than talk about cutting the national debt.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Assad's fall would hinder Iran, benefit US, Arab League

Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not just signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. It prefigured the collapse of the Soviet Union itself just two years later.

THEODORA KALIKOW: Culling old clothes, books can inspire change in ideas, beliefs

Cleaning out is my No. 1 task these days. I'm getting ready to retire and my move out of the President's House at the University of Maine Farmington to camp in Mount Vernon in June.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

M.D. HARMON: Obama's insurance ruling quashes moral concerns about abortion

After the events of recent days, have Roman Catholics -- or at least the ones who go to Mass regularly and try to live by the historical teachings of their faith -- finally realized that President Barack Obama doesn't care what they or other traditional believers think about him?

Friday, February 3, 2012

DENIS THOET: Welcome to Maine, Sunshine State of the North

By my count, Maine has more sunny and partly sunny days per year than any other New England state.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

COMMENTARY: Young woman is one of many who's not limited by stereotypes

Seventeen-year-old Kyla Kolb is busting stereotypes. A senior at Lakewood High in the St. Petersburg, Fla., school's Center for Advanced Technology, she is a computer programming whiz with a 4.2 weighted grade point average.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

GEORGE SMITH: Lack of snow puts damper on Vacationland's draw for tourists

Mainers have always had a love-hate relationship with tourists. We've made them the centerpiece of our jokes, derided them as people "from away," or worse, and even been subject to advertising urging us to be nicer to them.