OHA: Does Draft Audit Blow Blackmail Scheme?
NRA Statement on Corporate Partnerships
Supreme Court Justices Excoriate Union Lawyers Defending Forced Dues
Will Legislators Give $25M to Scam Satellite Launch Company?
IM: …Regenerative Breaking is a method of braking in which energy is extracted from the parts braked, to be stored and reused.
Why would Regenerative Breaking help launch satellites?
No legislator asked.
One California individual formed a mainland company with only one officer, himself.
The company is not registered to do business in Hawai`i.
Life of the Land questioned this, but no answer was provided.
SpinLaunch proposes to use a vast amount of energy from some source to create ground-based electricity to propel satellites into orbit without the need for rocket ships.
SB 2703 states that SpinLaunch will grab a share of the growing Hawai`i market of “abundant, infinite, renewable energy resources” to provide the necessary launching power, and the system will also use “regenerative braking”, whatever that means.
This upshot will allegedly be a multimillion dollar construction and launching industry in Hawai`i. This will facilitate a “pro-growth environment for the developing commercial space industry” that will “contribute to space exploration, observation, and transportation.”
SB 2703 would authorize SpinLaunch to get $25 million in Special Purpose Revenue Bonds….
HNN: A company wants to fling satellites into space with a catapult — based on the Big Island
read … Using Regenerative Breaking to Launch Satellites
$25M Special Purpose Revenue Bonds for Rocket Launch Scheme?
HTH Feb 18, 2018: …“We use a concept that allows for electricity to be used, as opposed to rocket propulsion in order to achieve orbit,” said Jonathan Yaney of SpinLaunch Inc.
Yaney declined to explain how the technology is supposed to work because the company is pursuing patents and he doesn’t want to tip off competitors. But the name does give a hint.
State Sen. Glenn Wakai, D-Oahu, visited the company’s office in Sunnyvale, Calif., (free junket?) last October and described the launch mechanism under development as a centrifuge. He said he saw a “very small scale version of it.”
“It’s like a big water tank with an arm on the end,” Wakai said. “The arm is like the rocket. It spins up to 5,000 miles per hour and launches out of a chute into space.”
(Clues: Escape velocity is 25,000 mph. Low Earth orbit velocity is 17,000 mph.)
While SpinLaunch hasn’t put anything into orbit, and the concept has yet to be proven, Wakai said he thinks it is “very doable.”
He introduced a bill to authorize $25 million in special purpose revenue bonds to help the company set up a launch site on the island. The bonds are sold to private investors who provide the funding in exchange for tax-exempt interest payments….
read … Company with new tech exploring sites to launch satellites
Mizuno: Which Frankenbill will Include Massive Festering Homeless Tent City?
SA: …Rep. John Mizuno, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, wants to resurrect proposals in dormant bills as well as introduce new ideas — such as offering a state lease to relocate the nearly 200-person homeless encampment next to the Waianae Small Boat Harbor known as Pu‘uhonua o Waianae….
(Translation: We’re going to move the tent cities around and call it a solution.)
Out of nine homeless-related House bills introduced this session, only three remain active:
(Three is the number for a shell game.)
>> HB 2147 would create a pilot project that would refer alleged homeless criminals with mental health or substance abuse issues to appropriate help rather than arrest them. The pilot program would apply only to nonviolent, nonfelony offenses committed on state property on Oahu. The 2017 Point in Time Count homeless census found that 23 percent of Hawaii’s homeless have mental illnesses and 19 percent have substance abuse problems.
>> HB 2281 would create an “Ohana Zone Program” within the state Department of Human Services that would designate areas around the state where homeless people could live and would provide toilets, showers and other hygiene facilities; areas for food preparation; on-site child care; and transportation to school, jobs, medical appointments and other services not found in the Ohana Zone. The proposal adds more details to the previous concept of “Safe Zones” that Mizuno and state Rep. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako) have been pushing for more than a decade.
>> HB 2753 also would create an “Ohana Zone Program” but has fewer details than HB 2281.
Mizuno led an informal discussion Thursday at the state Capitol to figure out which ideas in the stalled bills should be inserted into each of the three remaining House bills before they cross over to the Senate next month….
read … Tent Cities Everywhere
Potemkin Tent City: Homeless Tweeker Camp Show and Tell
HNN: …Borge says there are just under 200 residents (tweekers) and about 150 dogs (excuses) living on the property near the Waianae Small Boat harbor.
Borge has called it home since 2006 (12 years with no progress) and says things have changed for the better (meth is easier to get)….
More than 550 visitors went on the tour….
"We are just a bunch of people trying to get by," said Theresa Sale, a 19-year-old Puuhonua o Waianae resident (get ‘em started young)….
The open house of sorts is the latest move from Puuhonua o Waianae leaders to gain support (for massive festering homeless tent cities) as concerns grow that the state may soon evict them….
SA: Noah, who suffers from schizophrenia, is now somewhere “on the streets in Honolulu”
read … Tweekers
After Pushing ‘Gender Equity’ and Trannies in Bathrooms Worldwide, Hawaii Progressives Suddenly Notice that DoE Girls Haven’t had Locker Rooms for 50 years
CB: …How utterly pathetic, then, to see girls at Hawaii’s largest public school changing clothes in empty classrooms, bathrooms and even outside. Lacking a locker room since the school opened more than 50 years ago, the girls must stash sports bags in classrooms.
(Progressivism is about what other people do, not about what the progressives themselves do.)
The fact that bathrooms are sometimes locked, forcing girls to run nearly a mile to Burger King to use the facilities….
gender inequity is not confined to James Campbell High School. More than two dozen schools across the state lack adequate facilities and the Department of Education has a lengthy backlog of projects….
If she were still alive, what would Patsy Mink make of all this?
(Answer: Nothing. This was all happening while Patsy Mink was alive and she said nothing.)
(After 50 years of doing nothing) The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii is (suddenly) insisting that the DOE provide female athletes access to the same amenities as male athletes. The group wants to see a plan, one that includes construction dates, and if the DOE doesn’t respond by March 12, the ACLU will go to court….
Meanwhile: First transgender recruit signs up to join US military
read … Phonies
OIP: 683 Days and Counting to get a Decision
CB: …My single experience with OIP has been written about before, but here’s what you really need to know: I asked for basic information from the state’s Sheriff’s Division about who it employed. This is information that state law plainly and clearly requires to be provided(since, you know, we’re paying to employ these people, so we should be able to know who we are employing, right?). One of the state’s primary law enforcement agencies chose to not follow the law and release that information to me when I asked for it.
So I was told I could either file a lawsuit or an OIP complaint. I chose the OIP route, and I’ve been waiting now 683 days (almost two years) for the decision, which, by the way, is nonbinding (so even with an OIP ruling in my favor, the Sheriff’s Office still can decline to release the information, and we could be headed to court anyway).
Only in OIP director Cheryl Kakazu Park’s “staggeringly misleading” characterization of the OIP is it functioning as it should. In her press release, she goes to great lengths to defend and justify the current system, which is underfunded and understaffed, but I have to wonder how much of that operational duress is primarily due to its mismanagement and the choices it makes in processing complaints….
read … My Own Experiences With OIP Have Been Terrible
Civil Beat Dumps ‘Crappy’ Comments Section
CB: Civil Beat gets more than 200,000 unique visitors every month. Yet fewer than 100 participate regularly in the comments at the bottom of stories….
People still posted ill-conceived, mean-spirited and crappy comments about pretty much everything…
In 2016 we came really close to ending the comments section. But then a new company emerged, Civil Comments, with a new software that promised to ferret out uncivil comments through a peer-review system where other commenters could block problematic posts by voting them down. But Civil Comments allowed anonymity and provided a way for people to game the system and knock out comments they simply disagreed with. Or just for the heck of it.
In October, again on the verge of shutting this whole mess down, we heard about Talk, another new commenting system. This one was much easier for us to manage, including allowing close moderation of comments before they published. We have been approving or rejecting comments manually for the past several months….
read … We’re Killing Comments — Here’s Why
Passenger Ships Killed by Act Before Jones Act
LAT: ..The Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 decreed that ships from foreign countries could not carry passengers between two U.S. ports.
The law is still on the books, which makes life interesting because most cruise ships are foreign-flagged.
That means "non-U.S. flagged ships are unable to cruise from one U.S. port to another without first stopping in a foreign port, so cruises from the U.S. [mainland] to Hawaii will first stop in Mexico, and cruises from Hawaii to the West Coast will sail directly to Canada," said Chris Gray Faust, senior editor at CruiseCritic.com.
(But wait. What about those Hawaiian Island trips on Norwegian Cruise Line? American-flagged.)
Although some ships do sail round trip, Hawaii-L.A., "At this time, no cruise lines allow you to take just one leg" of that itinerary….
read … Protectionism
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