UPDATE: Iselle Hits -- Julio Coming Sunday
Iniki: Years later Kauai Population, Workforce Still Suffered
When A Hurricane Hits Do We Realize Our Priorities
Primary Election to Continue as Planned Saturday
SA: At a news conference earlier today, state Attorney General David Louie said his office was in contact with the Office of Elections, National Weather Service and state Civil Defense and was preparing to carry out the primary election as planned on Saturday.
UPDATE: Two Big Island Precincts Voting Postponed
read ... Sunshine and Blue Skies Tomorrow
Iselle Shredded by Impact With Mountains, Oahu Spared Worst
SA: Tropical Storm Iselle may brush Oahu between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, according to Mayor Kirk Caldwell.
Caldwell said the tall, twin peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea tore apart the storm apart, forcing it to veer slightly to the south.
That means the bulk of the storm may pass further south of Oahu than expected, the mayor said....
As of 7 a.m. no electrical outages or trouble calls involving flooding or coastal wave damage were reported by the fire department or Hawaiian Electric Co.
There were at least 2,000 people who took refuge from the weather at Red Cross evacuation shelters throughout the state.
Caldwell said 577 people spent the night in 10 Oahu evacuation centers.
Caldwell said the largest group was at Nanakuli High School with 265 people, followed by McKinley with 187 and Kaimuki High School with 58.
The smallest number was at Waipahu High School with 2, and 5 at Campbell High School.
Although bus service on Oahu was cancelled because of the storm, the city allowed 28 express buses to run, starting at 4:30 a.m. to get workers to Waikiki to service the more than 94,000 visitors there, the mayor said.
read ... Protected by the Mountains
Democrats Brawl in Hawaii Primary
WSJ: Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii's Democratic governor, bustled through a breakfast crowd of supporters at an elementary school one recent Saturday, reminding them that "It's the same Neil"—the same longhair, iconoclastic graduate student who first ran for the state House of Representatives as an outsider 40 years ago.
"Every breath I take is for Hawaii," Mr. Abercrombie, 76 years old, told the crowd, his voice welling with emotion. "I know very, very well my shortcomings, and my faults."
VIDEO: Looking Back at Neil Abercrombie 'Highlights' as Governor
read ... We Know Your Faults, Too
Anti-GMO Councilmember Pounded by Accurate Information
WHT: Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, pummeled by attack ads from a Honolulu political action committee, has received a late-campaign $4,000 shot in the arm from genetically modified food opponents.
According to late campaign reports filed Wednesday with the state Campaign Spending Commission, Wille received $2,000 each from two Charlevoix, Michigan, individuals. One of them is Kent Whealy, co-founder of the Seed Saver Exchange, and a GMO opponent who gave $1 million to an unsuccessful 2012 California ballot initiative to require GMO labeling.
The money is significant as Wille had raised only $7,935 as of her last campaign filing....
The super PAC, which operates independently of candidates, is also funding mailers on behalf of Ronald Gonzales, one of two challengers for the incumbent councilwoman’s seat. Gonzales has raised $17,328 on his own.
Gonzales, who didn’t report any late campaign contributions, said he’s getting attacked as well.
“I’m definitely leading the race and getting smeared,” Gonzales said. “All these letters to the editor, I’m getting painted in the most negative way.”
Gonzales said he hasn’t taken any money from GMO companies, although he is getting a lot of support from local farmers.
The third candidate in the race, Oliver “Sonny” Shimaoka, has raised only $400 so far.
read ... Drive the Loons Out
Hurricanes Latest Excuse to Push Vote by Mail Fraud
Borreca: Tomorrow is a day of history and significance with Hawaii on the verge of setting a new political direction. The election is a big deal, but because of the hurricane threat, much is in doubt.
For elections officials, however, the concern is not so much about who will run state government and represent Hawaii in Washington, but who will make sure the lights stay on at Naalehu Elementary School, which is the 1st Precinct in the 5th House District and as of late Wednesday, lay directly on the plotted course of Iselle.
I asked Scott Nago, Hawaii chief elections officer, what would be the difference if Hawaii were like Washington state, Oregon and Colorado where elections are conducted entirely by mail.
"We would not be worrying about maintaining polling places, assessing them for possible damage; we wouldn't have to worry about election volunteers," Nago said. (That's the argument. Scott Nago is just too bothered to run an election so lets all give up.)
read ... Latest Excuse for Fraud
Lassner's Plan: UH Will Start Next Google, Balance Budget With IPO
PBN: “One Google. One Sun Microsystems. One new drug – that can change the economics of the university pretty substantially,” he said. (Or not.)
“I truly believe The University of Hawaii is the most important institution to the future of this state,” Lassner said. We’ve got a great set of initiatives (launched by Tom Apple) to move it forward.”
(Translation: Carbone is going to cure cancer and make us all rich.)
Reality: Apple Unredacted: Did Attack on Carbone's $300K 'Assistant' Precipitate Removal of UHM Chancellor?
read ... Pie in the Sky
Schools buy $26M in Common Core texts
SA: Dewey Gottlieb, the Department of Education's specialist for math helped vet materials....Gottlieb and Petra Schatz, the DOE's specialist for language arts, said an inventory of what was being taught in the state's 255 public schools found 288 different math curricula and 287 different reading curricula in use.
The DOE formed review committees, made up mostly of classroom teachers, that evaluated math and reading programs that met Common Core criteria.
The DOE selected a math program called Stepping Stones by Missouri-based Origo Education for pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade, and a program called Go Math by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for sixth through eighth grades....
For language arts, the DOE selected the Reading Wonders program by New York-based McGraw-Hill for students in kindergarten to the fifth grade, and the SpringBoard language arts program by The College Board, also of New York, for grades six through 12....
"All of the high school programs that we reviewed did not meet that minimum threshold to be considered for adoption," Gottlieb said. "The teachers felt that the programs that were available for high school mathematics didn't represent what Common Core was asking them to do."
read ... $26M -- Who got the Commission on that deal?
Hawaii DOE Facilities Executive to Resign
CB: Ray L’Heureux, the Hawaii Department of Education’s assistant superintendent for school facilities and support services, is leaving the DOE this September.
Department spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz confirmed L’Heureux’s resignation today but declined to elaborate on his reasons other than that, after two years on the job, he’s “decided to move on.” L’Heureux made $120,000 under an at-will contract.
L’Heureux has agreed to stay on the job until September 15 to ensure a smooth transition, Dela Cruz said. Dela Cruz didn’t have details as to what the transition plan will entail.
“It’s not that this was an all-of-a-sudden decision — it just happened,” Dela Cruz said.
read ... Smart--Announce During Hurricane
Hawaii County Early Walk-In Sites Closed Early
NYT: In preparation for the storms, early voting was curtailed on the island of Hawaii at 1 p.m. Thursday, and several islands closed schools, as many were converted into emergency shelters.
read ... The NYT
Mental Illness Overlooked in Health Debate
CB: I do, however, suffer from a mental illness, something that is often overlooked in the public discourse about healthcare.
It is difficult for me to find a doctor who accepts my brand of insurance, leaving me with a half-baked approach to medical treatment....
alcoholism had been hurting Native Hawaiians for over a century. In 2012, my uncle died of liver cancer in a hospital room in Honolulu, miles away from his home on Maui. Medical interventions were too little, too late.
read ... Mental Illness
Congress Isn’t Alone in Struggling to Obtain Obamacare Records
NRO: As news breaks about the Department of Health and Human Services’ missing HealthCare.gov e-mails, it’s pertinent to note how difficult it has been to obtain records in general about Obamacare, as I’ve learned personally over the past many months.
In Nevada, National Review had to sue the state health exchange before we were able to obtain records about how many Obamacare navigators had criminal backgrounds, despite the fact that they were handling consumers’ private information. (As it turned out, at least eight did.)
We faced similar struggles in California....
In Hawaii, the legislators saw it fit to totally exempt the health exchange from the state’s sunshine laws, creating what one reporter described to me as “a huge accountability problem.”
read ... Congress Isn’t Alone in Struggling to Obtain Obamacare Records
Hurricane Julio Emits Gamma Burst, Flings Anti-Matter into Space
LS: On Monday (Aug. 4) at 4:19 a.m. EDT (0819 GMT), when Julio was still a fledgling tropical storm hundreds of miles off the coast of Mexico, Fermi witnessed what's known as a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF) above the clouds, according to NASA. [Elves, Sprites & Blue Jets: Photos of Earth's Weirdest Lightning]
"As far as I know, a TGF from a tropical storm has never been reported before," Michael Briggs, a member of the team in charge of Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GMB) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said in a statement from NASA.
TGFs rank among the highest-energy forms of light that naturally occur on Earth, and they can be produced by the powerful electric fields in thunderstorms, which is why they are sometimes called "dark lightning." According to the space agency, there are an estimated 1,100 TGFs every day. Previous research using Fermi data has even shown these bursts can fling antimatter into space.
read ... Radioactive Cloud
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