Hawaii barrel tax may rise nearly 3,000%
The state Senate Ways and Means Committee has agreed to raise the tax from 5 cents a barrel to $1.55. Most of the tax increase would go into the state's general fund to help close a $1.2 billion budget deficit through June 2011, while the rest would be divided among food security and alternative energy programs.
The tax increase could raise an estimated $33 million a year, according to the committee, with $22 million going to the general fund. The petroleum industry would likely pass the tax hike on to consumers, who could pay 2 to 5 cents more per gallon of gasoline and a few dollars more on their monthly electricity bills
PDF: A Bill For An Act: H.B. No. 2421 H.D. 2
REALITY: Advertiser sides with “sustainability” billionaires
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Socialist Hawaii 49th in charitable giving
The finding, contained within a 162-page report by Mark Wong and Commercial Data Systems for the Honolulu Symphony, contradicts the widespread belief in Hawaii that local residents are especially generous in giving back to the community.
Hawaii residents are more likely to make tax deductible charitable contributions, with roughly 90% doing so, compared to only 70% nationwide. But measured by total deductible dollars giving to charity, only West Virginia (also a corporatist State) ranks lower than Hawaii.
(Socialism kills charity—on purpose.)
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SB: Car-seizure bill an empty gesture
“As proposed by Councilman Charles Djou, the anti-prostitution bill isn't much of a deterrent…. The Djou proposal is a waste of time that doesn't even make us feel better that something is being done about street prostitution.”
Fascinating. Ed Case’s uncle Dan Case is a member of the Editorial Board of the Star-Bulletin. Apparently the Cases didn’t learn much about the ineffectiveness of media manipulation back in 2006.
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Affordable housing project in revival: State assembles EIS notice in attempt to develop Leiali‘i (After 16-year war with OHA)
So for construction and sales to occur within Villages of Leiali'i, the state will need to follow a law established last year.
The Legislature must approve the sale by a supermajority vote preceded by a community meeting and land appraisal, according to Act 176.
The state Hawaii Housing Finance & Development
Corp. said it would also lease property in the Leiali'i project to comply with the new law.
(Thanks to OHA, it is harder for working families to own their own homes. OHA seeks to dominate Hawaii as landed aristocracy.)
REALITY: OHA driving Hawaiians out of Hawaii
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200 rally against proposed homeless lunatic project
About 200 Chinatown residents gathered at the Sun Yat Sen Cultural Center on Kukui Street yesterday to show their opposition to a proposed city project for chronically homeless people.
They also said that when homeless people get a place to stay clean, do their laundry, get mail and be safe from predators on the street they are much more successful in dealing with their other problems. (Idea is to maintain them as homeless in Downtown and Waikiki in order to attract the maximum funding for the project. This is exactly the methodology which caused so much destruction in LA’s skid row. Treatment for chronic homeless must be based on use of law enforcement to force them into shelters away from urban core.)
REALITY:
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Maui mayor proposes cutting helicopter air ambulance service (Washington Monument Gambit to make case for tax increase)
The county is facing a $56 million budget gap for services and programs in fiscal year 2011, which could be increased by another $17.5 million if the Legislature decides to take the county's share of the transient accommodations tax, or hotel tax, as the state battles its own budget woes.
Medeiros presented a plan Tuesday to erase the county's $672,215 half of the funding for the 6-year-old helicopter ambulance program. The state Department of Health pays for the rest of the $1.2 million annual service.
(Billy Kenoi’s trick was threatening to cut the County Band, which consumed a similar proportion of the county’s shortfall and of course generated a similar public outcry.)
RELATED: Washington Monument gambit
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Naeole-Beason calls to delay new energy standards: Postponement could cost county federal 'green' money
"It's a rather one-size-fits-all document." It's designed for a more-northern climate like San Francisco and would have "unintended consequences" if applied here, Morrison said.
"We have a law that was generated by people who don't understand our unique environment," he said.
For example, Morrison said his designs call for wall insulation with an "R-11" value, while the new law requires thicker, more expensive "R-19" insulation and larger wall studs to contain it.
(But The Obama is holding out the lure of golden lucre…..)
Putting off the building requirements also will disqualify Hawaii from competing for "green" stimulus money the federal government has been awarding, Hoffmann said.
"We have to do this or we're not going to receive any stimulus money, now or in the future, regarding energy efficiency," he added. "That's certainly another reason not to delay implementation."
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Bird Kill hypocrisy: Environmental groups sue KIUC
Four cultural and environmental groups — Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, Hui Ho‘omalu i Ka ‘Aina, Center for Biological Diversity and American Bird Conservancy — are accusing the co-op of continuing to violate the Endangered Species Act by allowing “unpermitted ‘take’ of federally listed species,” according to the documents supplied by attorneys from Earthjustice….
(So the enviros have stepped up to stop bird-chopping wind farms? No . . . )
Power lines, streetlights and other utility facilities account for nearly 200 Newell’s shearwater and Hawaiian petrel takes each year, as the structures interfere with the seabirds’ flight path from the mountains to the sea, according to studies supplied by KIUC.
In 2009, the co-op estimated some 87 Newell’s shearwaters were killed by its power lines, including around 17 which were “breeding adults” with chicks that still required parental care.
KIUC also estimated that last year around 70 Newell’s shearwaters were killed by light attraction from its streetlights and other facilities, as the birds become disoriented by the bright lights — confusing them for the moon — and fall to the ground unable to fly again, where loose dogs can kill them.
(Meanwhile wind farms are lauded as “sustainable” and “holistic”. Perhaps there is a money trail to explore here….).
ALSO: 3 new KIUC directors elected
RELATED: Wind Energy's Ghosts
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Eco-scammers blame fake coral extinction on fake global warming
But the more corals listed as endangered, the more fines can be levied.
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Legislature hones in on the big issues: State resolution touts cockfighting as cultural activity
The House Tourism, Culture and International Affairs Committee will consider HCR277 today.
The resolution — introduced by three representatives, including Kaua‘i’s Roland Sagum, D-16th District — says cockfighting is the national sport in the Philippines and a “cherished tradition in many cultures throughout the world.”
The resolution also says “two founding fathers of our country — George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — recognized the value of cockfighting as participants in the activity, and Abraham Lincoln was nicknamed ‘Honest Abe’ not for his politics, but because of his honesty as a cockfight referee.” (Finally the socialists find something they like about the Founding Fathers.)
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Kauai County manager proposal dormant, but not dead
“To date neither the County Attorney nor the Boards and Commission office have provided any assistance in authoring a county manager measure,” Mickens wrote, offering a detailed, lengthy summary of years of attempts to get the proposal on the ballot. (No surprise there.)
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Shipment of Honolulu's trash delayed until end of April
Shipping of O'ahu garbage to the Mainland has been pushed back yet again, this time until at least the end of April.
City and state officials last week said they've been told by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it won't be until then that Hawaiian Waste Systems LLC gets the OK to send barges of municipal waste from Kalaeloa to the Pacific Northwest to be landfilled.
Hawaiian Waste has a contract with the city to send 100,000 tons of trash to the Mainland but has been unable to ship it since it began accepting waste on Sept. 28. More than 20,000 tons of baled and sealed solid waste is sitting on three different parcels at Campbell Industrial Park.
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Catholic policy toward gays misguided
Randy Roth: “None of the many gays we know claims to have chosen that sexual orientation. Our gay son, for example, laughs at the suggestion that someone would consciously choose to be homosexual.”
Wisdom from leftist Gore Vidal: “There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo -- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.”
More from the APA: Psychologists dump 'Gay Gene' theory
REALITY for those who dare: The Disunited States
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SB: Hawaii a natural place for Obama library site
No. Here Obama mostly smoked dope, snorted coke, and hung out in hooker bars—except for a short stint at the military deserters’ church. It is Chicago where he learned the Alinsky method. Its gonna be in Chicago.
OBAMA’S HONOLULU REALITY:
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Shapiro: Local TV news lacks serious reporting
A defining moment at the NewsMorphosis 2.0 conference on the future of local news was when Hawai'i News Now news director Chris Archer expressed dismay at watching the three local newscasts simultaneously and seeing them all covering the same stories….
I agreed with his concern about pack journalism, but almost choked on his conclusion — that maybe there just isn't enough news in Hawai'i to cover….
If TV newsrooms can't find enough news to cover, it's only because they have lost so much leadership and experience in the market consolidation that they don't know where to look anymore….
There's plenty of news out there, just fewer local media committed to digging it out.
(And we at Hawai`i Free Press provide those lazy ***** a handy guide every day…. The ingratitude!)
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