Lingle calls on teachers, principals to reopen schools over HSTA/BoE objections
Honolulu Special Election: "Democrats petrified, going nuts"
Akaka may quit in 2012: Ed Case talks about Senate “opportunity”
With federal law at stake, Paid activists attack Hawaii fish farmers
Bill requiring number of public school days heads for final votes
If passed, it would be the first time the state has made a law for the number of school days.
Joann Marshall and her daughter Isabella may not agree on most issues, but what they both see eye to eye on is closing the book on Furlough Fridays.
Education Committee chairman, Senator Norman Sakamoto said. "The bill also says the Department should work to increase the hours within the school day, more instructional time, we're not talking about adult time and working towards six hours of instructional time which would bring it to 1,080 hours per year."
Most states require a 180-day school year but in Hawaii, the academic year is set by bargaining with the teachers' union.
SB: Our public schools are ready for change
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Civil unions bill must be voted on (Another religious leftist)
Most likely their fear stems from being challenged by loud and threatening religious groups. (Like the guy who attacked Mike Gabbard? Or the child molester working at the Legislature?) We all know who these groups are, whether they wear red shirts or white shirts.
Their opposition to same-sex unions is based in their own specific religious doctrines. (And yours isn’t?)
And they make such noise and threats about working against the re-election of legislators who disagree with them that legislators run scared from doing the right thing. In this case, the right thing is to ensure equal rights to a significant population of individuals and families who have heretofore been marginalized by those with antiquated understandings and norms of sexuality. (We, the advance, conscious, enlightened, and progressive are inventing new sexual norms and appropriating children to help a create Democrat voting bloc.)
These norms are of the same nature that legally marginalized people of color (including Hawaiians), marriages between races and ethnicities, and women.
REALLY? If you buy that bs, then you need to read this from a gay-oriented website: http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2008/11/n-word-and-raci.html
And this: Progressive Berkeley minister denounces ‘genocide’
And “The OTHER Duke Rape Case”: The Duke rape case the MSM won't cover, Media nervous on new Duke U. rape case (updated)
And this: Obama and the Disunited States
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Democrat Advertiser: The high cost of economic optimism
(Hatchet job editorial uses one 2-yr old quote from Gov Lingle to pretend that she is responsible for the Obama depression and the BoE and Leg’s failure to come to terms with it. This is a set up for the Dems line of attack against Aiona. See next article…)
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Obama's sister glad to be back in Hawaii after long visit to D.C.
On Thursday, after appearing at an Earth Day event at Maunalua Bay, Soetoro-Ng obliged supporters who pleaded for photos with her.
Soetoro-Ng, in e-mail exchanges with The Advertiser, shared a snapshot of life in Washington, D.C., and her future back home:
In Washington, "Konrad was a visiting scholar for the Smithsonian's AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) program and I combined days of writing a book on peace education with travel to do educational advocacy and peace days with kids, parents, and educators.
(Soetoro-Ng is being set up as an Obama surrogate to be utilized in the campaigns of local Democrats.)
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Voter numbers up 9,000 in advance of special election
Elections staff said there were about 316,000 voters counted in the district earlier this week. There were about 307,000 at the beginning of the year.
RELATED: iVOTE Rally on January 17, 2010 , A Catholic Mom in Hawaii: iVote Rally , Churches begin registering voters, conduct a voter registration drive in your church , July 4: Hawaii Churches to kick off massive voter registration drive , Churches Are Key to Creating Two-Party Political System for Hawaii , Churches begin registering voters , Is your church ready to vote May 1-22?
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A timid rewrite of campaign spending law
Second, the bill makes it easier to track the money that entities with deep pockets — including labor unions and corporations — give to candidates. For any aggregate contribution over $1,000, the donor must file a report with the state Campaign Spending Commission.
However, the commission needs the money and staff to make the information promptly retrievable online; otherwise, this improvement becomes inconsequential.
Third, lawmakers decided not to tinker with the existing ban on campaign contributions from anyone doing contract work for the state. That's a relief: We need fewer opportunities for influence-peddling in our laws, not more of them.
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SB: Tobacco fund needs to be kept healthy
Big Tobacco provides $52 million a year to Hawaii under the settlement, and Hawaii was ranked seventh last year in fund expenditures on quit-smoking programs in comparison with the percentage recommended by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. That amounts to $8.8 million, compared with the CDC's recommendation of $15.2 million.
(States are now senior partners in the tobacco biz and they are acting accordingly. The profit motive applies to the public sector as well.)
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Capitol Round Up - April 26, 2010
Details on 16 bills that are on the move.
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Soft-on Crime Appeals court rules out evidence in murder of pregnant woman
After his arrest, police served a warrant on Jackson authorizing them to photograph the suspect and take fingernail clippings. During that process, according to Hawai'i Police Department Detective Gregory Esteban, Jackson "asked out loud to no one in particular, 'What am I being charged for?'"
Esteban, who has since been promoted to lieutenant, told Jackson, "You're not being charged for anything right now but what we're investigating is serious enough that you may spend the rest of your life in prison."
Esteban said Jackson then became upset and said "something to the effect of, 'The rest of my life? I'm only 24. I'm a young man. How can I spend the rest of my life in prison just for fighting with my wife?'"
Jackson then said, "We were just fighting. She hit me two times. The second time she hit me in the head, I just lost it," according to Esteban's report.
Judge Nakamura ruled, and the Intermediate Court of Appeals confirmed in a 2-1 decision, that Jackson's statement could not be used against him because it was the product of a "custodial interrogation."
"By confronting Jackson with information that the police were investigating an offense that might put Jackson in prison for the rest of his life, Detective Esteban effectively accused Jackson of a serious criminal offense," the appeals court ruled.
Esteban's statement "was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response," the court found.
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Kawaiahao Church: Leader accused of theft resigns
The departure represents the latest controversy for the church known as "the Westminster Abbey of Hawai'i," which also faces questions from the AG's office over its fundraising practices and is being sued for disinterring dozens of human remains.
Earlier this month, Kanani Oleole resigned as Kawaiaha'o's vice moderator, which is one of the most important, nonclerical positions at the church.
The investigation into the theft allegations is separate from the attorney general's inquiries into the fundraising for the church's stalled, $17.5 million multipurpose center.
Last year, the attorney general's charities unit told Kawaiaha'o officials that some of their annual reports contained material misstatements about the center's fundraising costs. The civil probe is still pending.
Construction on the 30,000-square-foot center was halted in March 2009 after workers dug up 69 sets of human remains at the site.
Abigail Kawananakoa, heiress to the Campbell Estate fortune, and Dana Naone Hall, a Hawaiian cultural specialist whose relatives are buried at Kawaiaha'o's cemetery, have sued the church over its handling of the remains.
(Meanwhile OHA controlled activists attack the owner of a single family home on Kauai and say nothing about the burial grounds of Kawaiahao. Hypocrites.)
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Developed in Hawaii: Corn that can resist drought a 'blockbuster'
Monsanto Co., DuPont and Syngenta AG, all of which have operations in Hawai'i, are vying for a similar windfall. After battling for a decade to corner the $11 billion market for insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant technologies, the world's biggest seed companies are vying to develop crops that can survive drought. At stake is a new global market that may top $2.7 billion for the corn version alone.
"It's a race at the moment," said Juergen Reck, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. "They must see market potential."
Hawai'i's seed crop industry includes 10 farms (on O'ahu, Kaua'i, Moloka'i and Maui) cultivating crops on 6,010 acres.
RELATED: Genetically modified papaya problematic (Japanese protectionism masquerading as anti-GMO activism.)
RELATED: Agricultural biotechnology course for teachers offered (Deprogramming for victims of the anti-GMO cult.)
HFP: The Future of Fraud (Complete debunk of anti-GMO propaganda)
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Maui Land & Pineapple names new CFO
Esaki, a certified public accountant, will receive a $160,000 annual salary, $25,000 in moving expenses and other incentives to be determined by the board of directors.
Esaki has been deputy director of the Department of Public Works for the Big Island since 2009.
Before that, he was senior vice president of finance and accounting for 1250 Oceanside Partners, developer of the Big Island's controversial Hokulia project, a 1,500-acre, luxury residential community in Kona.
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Farm-worker housing bill hits home stretch
Farmers will have to meet three criteria to be allowed to build up to three additional dwellings on agriculture-zoned lands.
The bill was fashioned after a similar one in Maui County, but the Valley Isle only requires two of the three criteria be met. The Kaua‘i version will require that all criteria be met.
Annual inspections will enforce the rules. If a farmer fails to keep up with the criteria, the dwellings will have to be removed from the property.
Farmers will have to prove an annual gross income of at least $35,000, and be able to provide an agricultural plan. In addition, their farm will have to be approved in the Agriculture Dedication Program under the county Department of Finance Real Property Tax office.
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In Hawaii, the Most Powerful Waves Can Be Found at the Side of the Road
WSJ looks at the origins of political sign-waving in Hawaii.
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ACORN brought poor pimps into domestic politics (by Piven of Cloward-Piven fame)
This is a eulogy for ACORN as we knew it. Our premier anti-poverty organization has been forced into a massive reorganization, and its future is unclear. If we care about democracy, we should study the story of what happened to ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It is true that in its rush to recruit people and build its organization, ACORN was sometimes sloppy (tax advice for pimp importing underage prostitutes given at several offices) and should have supervised its people more closely. But those faults could have been corrected and ACORN's singular contributions (lots of voter registration fraud) to our polity sustained. (I just wanna cry.)
Co-author is Frances Fox Piven, who is also co-author of something else….CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY (CPS)
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