Grassroot Institute Talking About Kakaako
Legislators Conspire to Impose pot dispensaries after Election
SA: ... the time has finally come for Hawaii to take that leap, with the state exploring its entry into a new regulatory responsibility: seeing that a product of reliable quality and fair price gets delivered to those authorized to purchase.
A newly constituted Medical Marijuana Dispensary Task Force has begun meeting to craft recommendations for lawmakers to enact when they convene in January for the 2015 Legislature. Appropriately, the state Health Department, also starting in January, will take over the supervision of medical marijuana, duties formerly handled by the Department of Public Safety.
The dispensaries are needed because under the state's 14-year-old law, patients may be legally qualified to use marijuana but have no reasonable means of getting it. They either must grow it themselves, have a caregiver grow it for them, or buy it illegally.
Health officials have said the task force must settle whether the dispensaries would be publicly or privately operated and whether they will be run as nonprofits or as for-profit enterprises. Members will have the opportunity to review the experience of other states in weighing other issues, such as training requirements for staff, security, tracking patients and zoning requirements....
News Flash: How to Use Anti-GMO Ordinances to Seize Marijuana Plants: A Guide for Police Departments
read ... Keep the People Stoned so we can pick their pockets
Kahe Solar Farm to Cost $0.161 per kwh
PBN: The pricing of all nine (of the green energy scammers') projects is below $162.5 per megawatt hour with the average pricing being $158 per megawatt hour, sources say.
Hawaiian Electric’s rate-based project (ie project based on what the green energy scammers are charging) near its Kahe Generating Station in West Oahu would be priced at about $161 per megawatt hour, according to its application to the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission.
Sources (Green energy scammers) question Hawaiian Electric justifying moving forward with its own higher cost project while not proceeding with readily-available lower-cost projects, such as the nine waiver projects.
(We want to steal from the ratepayers, they all cried out in unison!)
read ... Fighting over Sandwich Profits
Before Fire, Threat to Burn Coco Palms Resort?
SA: One day before the historic Coco Palms Resort on Kauai went up in flames on the Fourth of July, a post appeared on the resort's Facebook page saying, "Best thing we could do is get 1,000 gallons of gas and burn it down."
The message appeared on the resort's Facebook page at 12:56 p.m. Thursday. Less than 24 hours later, the resort was on fire.
Bob Jasper, site manager for the shuttered property, reported the Facebook post to police and fire investigators even as the Coco Palms continued to burn Friday.
"There's no electricity down there," Jasper said Friday night. "So there can only be one cause, and that would be that somebody set it," he speculated. "It's a real mess."
Kauai resident James Kimo Rosen told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he wrote the post about the Coco Palms two weeks ago on someone else's Facebook page. Rosen, a frequent contributor to the Garden Island newspaper, said he has never posted messages on Coco Palms' Facebook page and did not know how his message appeared there the day before the fire.
"It's a total coincidence," Rosen said. "Of course it's a coincidence. I regret that people misinterpreted it. But it's the consensus of the majority of the people on the island that it makes no sense to renovate the place and start from scratch. Everybody has said the best thing that could happen is to burn it down and start from scratch."
read ... Burn it Down
Fresh faces fill Honolulu City Council campaigns
SA: Hawaii Kai resident Natalie Iwasa is a certified public accountant and Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board member. Known by many as "Bike Mom" because of her support for bike-friendly programs and initiatives, Iwasa often testifies at the Council as an advocate for fiscal responsibility and transparency....
Sam Aiona, former Hawaii Republican Party chairman and onetime state representative who finished second to Fukunaga in 2012 by about 1,300 votes, is seeking a rematch this year.
read ... Fresh faces fill Honolulu City Council campaigns
Usual Activists Complain About Urination Ban
SA: Jenny Lee, staff attorney with the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, said the point lost by supporters who argue the greater good is at stake is that "these are human beings we are talking about citing."
(Compromise: Designate Appleseed offices as 24-7 free-urination zone.)
Nothing can be gained by imposing the law further, but there are consequences for those cited that could keep them from getting out of homelessness, Lee said.
Both Lee and attorney Brian Brazier, who has represented (de)Occupy Honolulu in its legal challenges against the city's controversial sidewalk removal ordinances, said the city needs to open up more bathrooms 24 hours a day to the public, and not just the homeless, before considering extending a urination-defecation ban outside of downtown.
(Compromise: Designate Occupy lawyers' offices as 24-7 free-urination zone.)
"Until you have a place where you can use the bathroom, and you don't offer them an alternative way of being in compliance with the law," the net effect could be criminalizing homelessness, Lee said.
Brazier called it a basic human rights issue. "They need to offer an option for people. People need to relieve themselves, and it can't be illegal if there's no place to legally do that," he said.
read ... 213 cited under state urination ban
Fisheries service moves to protect sharks
WHT: The agency said it’s listing scalloped hammerhead sharks in the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans as endangered, which means they’re at risk of becoming extinct.
The populations in the central and southwest Atlantic, and the Indo-West Pacific are being listed as threatened, which means they’re likely to face the risk of extinction in the future.
The central Pacific population, which includes scalloped hammerheads living in Hawaii waters, is considered fairly healthy and isn’t being listed.
The new classification responds to a petition filed by the environmental groups WildEarth Guardians and Friends of Animals.
Related: Anti-Aquarium Nuts Attack Big Isle Fisherman For Catching Delicious Tiger Shark
read ... Fisheries service moves to protect sharks
The Obamas Have Spent Over $44,351,777.12 In Taxpayer Cash On Travel
DC: In 2013 alone, President Obama incurred $7,396,531 in flight expenses for his family vacations to Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard, as well as a trip to California to appear on the Jay Leno show.
read ... The Obamas Have Spent Over $44,351,777.12 In Taxpayer Cash On Travel
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