Telescope: OHA Greenmail Overplays its Hand?
Honolulu VA has Lowest Job Vacancy Rate in USA
Hawaii 3rd Skinniest State
Tulsi Gabbard for President? Campaign Decision by Christmas
TPI: …Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker from Hawaii in the US Congress, is considering to run for American presidency in 2020, according to sources close to her.
On Friday, at a Medtronic conference in Los Angeles an eminent Indian-American Dr Sampat Shivangi introduced Gabbard, 37, and said that she could be the next president of the US in 2020.
The brief statement was marked by a standing ovation, in the presence of the four-term Congresswoman from the 50th US State.
Gabbard, a Democrat, who addressed the gathering, however neither confirmed or denied that she is running for president in 2020.
A decision on this could be taken before Christmas, which might not necessarily result in a formal announcement as that could be delayed till the next year, people familiar with her thinking process told PTI.
However, it is said that she and her team has quietly been reaching out to prospective donors, including a large number of Indian Americans, and volunteers to build an impressive campaign for her 2020 run….
read … Tulsi Gabbard weighing US presidential bid for 2020
Hawaii Ethanol Craze Ran Amok Producing Bad Legacy Legislation
IM: …The ethanol crazy offered a “green” solution.
Without analyzing the amount of energy needed to make it and without looking at environmental impacts, green fuel production was promised.
Stillwater Associates produced a study for the Hawai`i Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism in 2003.
“For the ethanol producer, federal and state production incentives equal 40 cents per gallon for plants producing up to 15 million gallons per year.”
“For ethanol blended with gasoline, the State waives the General Excise Tax, worth about 4 cpg [cents per gallon] and the federal government reduces gasoline excise taxes by about 5 cpg.”
The Hawai`i ethanol industry wanted even more subsidies.
Hawaii passed the Renewable Portfolio Standard metric in 2001 to measure the gradual increase the percent of electricity made from renewable energy.
The Hawai`i Legislature passed Act 95 (SB 2474 SD3 HD2) in 2004 which asserted that biofuels and hydrogen can be considered part fossil fuel and part renewable energy.
“Where biofuels, hydrogen, or fuel cell fuels are produced by a combination of renewable and nonrenewable means, the proportion attributable to the renewable means shall be credited as renewable energy.”
Ethanol investors promised ethanol plants that would be located on the islands where the Chairs of the House and Senate Energy Committees lived: Kauai and Maui.
In exchange, the Chairs pushed through Act 162 (SB 3185 SD3 HD2 CD1) in 2006, removing the renewable energy requirement for biofuels.
"`Biofuels` means liquid or gaseous fuels produced from organic sources such as biomass crops, agricultural residues and oil crops, such as palm oil, canola oil, soybean oil, waste cooking oil, grease, and food wastes, animal residues and wastes, and sewage and landfill wastes.”
The definition would have allowed Kauai`s Gay & Robinson to mix bagasse with imported Australian coal to make green energy that would be considered 100 percent renewable…..
Related:
read … Hawai`i Ethanol Craze Ran Amok Producing Bad Legacy Legislation
DOH to hold hearing on Hu Honua power plant
HTH: …The state Department of Health will hold a public informational meeting and hearing Wednesday on the Hu Honua Bioenergy plant being built at Pepeekeo.
The meeting at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo will address the project’s applications for a storm water discharge and underground injection permits. The power plant site is located on a cliff above the coastline….
read … DOH to hold hearing on Hu Honua power plant
Hawaii Trannies Put on Blackface Show while Pushing Gay Bullying Policy in DoE
HN: …A recent video posted to Facebook (embedded below and also here) of a drag show on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, featured a blackface drag king performance. After seeing the tone-deaf, controversial number, the internet lost its collective mind.
Referred to as “A Show Fit for a Queen,” the drag show, which took place on Friday, Nov. 9 at the Kauai Beach Resort and has been referred to as “a small charity event on the island supporting a youth suicide prevention group,” featured a bevy of queens who we assume are mostly local talents — Luna, Chastity Maybe, Zanna, Aliyah, Tatyana Deschanel, Chevis Regal, Alara Deschanel, Illyana Monroe and Vescois.
All were featured prominently on the event’s flyer, with one more name also front-and-center: Special Guest Male Impersonator Muddy “The King of Memphis.” A picture of “Muddy,” the blackface drag king performer, is also included on the flyer.
No one has yet taken responsibility for the performance. A Facebook post from Oct. 27 refers to the event as “put together by Matt Sagum . promoter of the biggest drag bar…. scarlet!!”….
read … Blackface Gays
Bills 79 and 80: Outlaw Affordable Housing ‘Monsters’
SA: …The key component of the city Department of Planning and Permitting proposal, Bill 80, is that it limits the size of houses proportional to their lots. It requires that, generally, houses on properties zoned for residential use have a floor area ratio, or FAR, no larger than 0.7.
FAR is computed as the ratio of the floor area of house to its lot size. A 5,000-square-foot lot would allow a house no larger than 3,500 square feet, and a 10,000-square-foot lot would limit a house to up to 7,000 square feet.
Under current law the size limit of a home is not determined by its FAR. Instead, houses are restricted by how much of the lot of is covered by the house, or its footprint. Currently, the footprint of a house can be up to 50 percent of the lot in a residential zone.
The City Council’s Planning Commission, however, voted at its Oct. 17 meeting to recommend a stricter 0.6 FAR limit. Under the commission’s proposal, a 5,000-square-foot lot would be limited to a house no more than 3,000 square feet, and a 10,000-square-foot lot a house would be limited to 6,000 square feet. The commission’s proposal is not in a bill, but is instead part ofa memo that accompanied Bill 80.
While the DPP draft has a more lenient 0.7 FAR ceiling, it would impose stricter conditions on those who build between 0.6 and 0.7 FAR. They would need to have more parking stalls, greater side and backyard setbacks and other restrictions….
Also up for consideration Wednesday will be Bill 79, a draft initially proposed by Councilman Trevor Ozawa, who’s been at the forefront of the discussion on large-scale houses. It calls for additional restrictions such as a limit on wet bars and requiring more parking, while allowing a homeowner to petition for a permit to go larger.
A temporary moratorium that prohibits new building permits for single-family homes over 0.7 FAR has been in place since March. DPP officials said this drastically reduced the number of permits for homes with more than eight bedrooms and seemed like a reasonable new standard….
(Summation: Politicians never seem to do anything to add more affordable housing, but they sure act quickly to destroy it.)
read … The Real Affordable Housing Policy
Schatz: Remove Troops from Border so Caravan of Democrat Voters Can Get in
TH: …Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Sunday said that it was scandalous for President Trump to keep troops at the southern border during Thanksgiving for “no national security reason.”
“Deploying troops to our own border for no national security reason is one of the biggest scandals of this Presidency,” Schatz said in a tweet. “These dedicated, skilled, highly trained men and women will likely miss Thanksgiving w family, are near American cities but eating MREs.”
“Let them go home,” he added….
read … Dem senator: Scandalous that troops at border will miss Thanksgiving for 'no national security reason'
Hawaii Students Drugged
HTH: …The number of Big Island middle and high school students who report using drugs and alcohol is higher than state averages, according to new statistics from the 2017 Hawaii Youth Risk Behaviors Hawaii School Health Survey.
According to the state Department of Education, more than 16,300 public middle and high school students across the state participated in the survey, a joint project of the DOE, state Department of Health and the University of Hawaii.
• 58.7 percent of Hawaii County high school students surveyed said they had ever drank alcohol, compared to the statewide rate of 49 percent and the 2015 rate of 58 percent;
• 32.1 percent had at least one drink of alcohol in the past 30 days (24.5 percent statewide) and 16.3 percent reported binge drinking in the past 30 days, (12.6 percent statewide);
• 41.6 percent had ever used marijuana (31.1 percent statewide) and 24.1 percent used marijuana in the past 30 days (18.1 percent statewide);
• 7.5 percent had used any form of cocaine (7.1 percent statewide), 7.2 percent had used ecstasy (6 percent statewide), 10.9 percent had used hallucinogenic drugs (7.6 percent statewide), 6 percent said they had used heroin (4.5 percent statewide), 5.7 percent used methamphetamines (4.8 percent statewide), 8.7 percent had used synthetic marijuana (6.3 percent statewide) and 3.5 percent have used a needle to inject any illegal drug (2.8 percent statewide)….
read … Student alcohol, drug use higher than state average
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