March 15, 2010 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Monday, March 15, 2010

March 15, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 12:43 PM :: 9347 Views

LINK>>>Vermont Schools to Celebrate Islamic Feast Sept 10 (sound familiar, Hawaii?)

Debate on tap for Congress hopefuls (Tonight—tickets available)

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Case, City Council member Charles Djou and state Sen. Colleen Hanabusa are scheduled to participate in the debate, which will take place before a live audience at the HPR studio starting at 6:30 p.m.

HPR political reporter Wayne Yoshioka will moderate. The debate will be broadcast live on KIPO 89.3 and streamed on www.hawaiipublicradio.org.

A limited number of seats are available to the general public. Admission is free. To reserve a seat, call HPR at 955-8821

Djou hits Tam plan to cancel allowance: The City Council will hear a resolution this week to censure Tam

City Councilman Charles Djou says fellow Council member Rod Tam is trying to deflect attention from Tam's "theft" and "unethical behavior" by introducing a resolution to eliminate the allowance he misused.

Djou said if Tam does not know how to use the allowance, he can simply not use it.

"You don't need a resolution," he said yesterday. "He can do it right now." …

"Rod Tam's behavior is unacceptable and unwelcome at Honolulu Hale," said Djou, who introduced the resolution.

Mufi inflates rail employment numbers—project will peak at 2,000 temporary jobs

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who has made rail a priority of his administration, is using the promise of rail jobs — 4,000 this year and a peak of 17,000 direct and indirect jobs in 2013 — to bolster support for building the 20-mile East Kapolei to Ala Moana elevated train.

However, those job figures may be inflated, according to some local economists.

The city's job estimates are based on 2002 formulas. If the city's job estimates were restated using the most recent 2005 job creation formulas, the job estimates would be about one-third lower, said Sumner LaCroix, a University of Hawai'i economics professor.

Additionally, the city's estimate of new local jobs could be overstated because the calculation includes spending for items such as vehicles assembled on the Mainland, interest, insurance and land purchases, which have little impact on the local job market, LaCroix said.

A study released last year by UHERO predicted the city's rail project will generate a peak of 2,000 direct jobs in 2014. That's less than half the jobs predicted by the city.

Hawaii to help fund new workers' health care: State will cover half of new employees' medical premiums

With Hawai'i's unemployment rate hovering at the highest level in three decades, Gov. Linda Lingle will offer $10 million to help businesses hire new workers by covering half of the workers' health care premiums for one year….The state estimates it will save $123 million in unemployment insurance payments if the program covers 6,450 workers.

The state Department of Human Services has asked the Obama administration to authorize the use of federal Medicaid money for the program, which, if approved, would reduce the state's costs to around $4 million to $5 million.

If the Obama administration rejects the proposal, the state would have to make up the difference with state general-fund money.

Lingle personally raised the issue with President Obama at a gathering in February during a National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C.

At UH, the message may not be sinking in

UH President M.R.C. Greenwood hasn't explained how she plans to pay for the faculty reimbursements and raises. Unless the economy comes booming back faster and bigger than expected, drastic tuition increases or program cuts seem the only clear options.

Greenwood is holding out hope for more general-fund support despite what Lingle and legislators are telling her.

No surprise there: MRC Greenwood and "A Powerful Coterie of larcenous. . . ." (UH's next system President?) , Engineered choice: How to pick a Greenwood , Executive compensation at UC: MRC Greenwood and the $871 million dollar secret

Plan advocating sterilization continues to spark criticism, debate, support

some experts in the field of substance abuse, health care and contraception object to Harris' strategy, which finds her distributing information primarily in low-income areas.

"Their approach to prevention is very crude," said Pam Lichty, president of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii. "It perpetuates stereotypes about the kinds of women who use drugs." Lichty called the tactic "superficial."

Of more than 3,000 clients, she claims to have paid at least two people who once made six-figure incomes before succumbing to drug addiction.

(So this is not a sterilize-the-lower-classes program because 0.07% were once rich?)

"Pregnancy provides an incredible opportunity to provide a woman with the support she needs to stop addiction and be a good parent," Schuetter said….

But sterilization is another matter entirely, which tells women "they can't change and don't have value," said Schuetter. "It doesn't make sense to trample of their rights now in the name of preventing child abuse. It's re-victimizing them," she said, because many of them were drug-addicted babies themselves.

Children born of addiction: A program for addicted women could soon lose funding to feed the HGEA

Funding is in jeopardy for a clinic that has provided prenatal care to 200 pregnant women struggling with addictions and has delivered 82 babies with good results.

(If they were sterilized this program would not be needed. No wonder the Eugenics Squad gets so many government referrals, in spite of the SB’s false claims to the contrary.)

SB: Inouye should heed wind shift on earmarks

Members of Congress use earmarks to spend federal dollars on projects in their home states, and no one is more deft in doing so than Sen. Daniel Inouye. At some point, Inouye should prepare to accept guidelines issued by President Barack Obama and supported by House members claiming the ethical high ground….

(Making this change would further shift the balance of power within the Hawaii Democratic Party in favor of the gay/eco faction and away from the old boy/union faction headed by Inouye.)

Inouye has been effective in his effort to bring federal dollars home to Hawaii for various projects. None of his earmarks have been shown to be as outrageously wasteful as former Sen. Ted Stevens' $223 million earmark to build a "bridge to nowhere," linking a small Alaska town to a remote island.

(What about the $5B “train to nowhere?”)

Union retirees support raising excise tax

Our Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans (HARA) met for our third Biennial Convention on Jan. 9. We considered a proposed resolution: that HARA strongly supports an increase in the general excise tax (GET) by 1 percentage point, with a three-year sunset, to help the state close its budget deficit.

Before deliberating on the resolution to increase the GET, the nearly 100 delegates and guests listened to many speakers, including U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, then-Congressman Neil Abercrombie, Mayor Mufi Hannemann and Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.

(Then the voted to back tax increases. Geee what a surprise.)

ADV: HPD made right decision on DUI site

Creating an online gallery of people arrested for driving under the influence was a gutsy move, but HPD made the right decision last week to shut down the page after less than four months into a six-month pilot program.

(Really? How can ADV editors know it was the right move when the HPD has not explained why it shut the site down. For instance did they do it because they busted ANOTHER legislator for DUI?)

Checking out the Wednesday mugshots was a guilty pleasure, providing a quick laugh and a bracing shot of schadenfreude. But it was a cheap high, seeing frightened, befuddled people in their most vulnerable moment.

(Hmmmm. This editor thought the “frightened befuddled people were the ones hit by drunk drivers, not the drunks themselves. Sounds like something a defense attorney would come up with)

Woman alleges sexual extortion, theft in suit against Maui PD, 2 ex-officers

When Motelewski was released at about 5 a.m. the next day, her purse wasn't returned and she was forced to walk home, the complaint alleges. It also alleges that Galon, who was still on duty, pulled over on Honoapiilani Highway, offering Motelewski a ride and picking her up in his patrol car before pulling into a parking lot near Puukolii Road.

Galon made comments to Motelewski "crudely stating that he would destroy (a) pipe seized" if she would perform a sexual act, the lawsuit says. He allegedly forced her to perform the sex act before driving her to her neighborhood and releasing her.

Later, Galon called Motelewski "and told her that he needed to give the evidence custodian something in exchange for the removal of the pipe," the lawsuit says.

After Motelewski reported the incident to another police officer, she received anonymous threatening telephone calls, Sereno said.

The lawsuit alleges negligent supervision and training of the officers by MPD.

Without naming the officers, police reported that three officers were fired in March 2009 after an investigation into allegations that money was stolen from a woman who was arrested and then extorted for sexual favors in Lahaina. One of the fired officers was a recent recruit class graduate who was riding along with a more experienced officer.

New climate report details extreme risk to Isle birds (yep, some people still believe in global warming)

A stunning 93 percent of native Hawaiian birds have medium or high vulnerability to climate change, (and no, they aren’t talking about Global Cooling) according to the sweeping 2010 report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with government and private conservation groups.

(Interesting. 100% of birds are vulnerable to wind turbines. No report on that?)

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