November 27, 2010 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Saturday, November 27, 2010

November 27, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 1:49 PM :: 15767 Views

Monday marks the voter registration deadline for people wishing to cast ballots in the special election for City Council District 1, the Leeward Coast-Ewa seat vacated by Todd Apo last month.

The election is being held primarily by mail-in ballot, with walk-in voting at Kapolei Hale and Honolulu Hale from Dec. 13 to 17. Ballots must be received by the city clerk by 6 p.m. Dec. 29, when results will be announced.

Ballots will be mailed by Dec. 9.

Auditor finds minor problems with 121 state funds

State Auditor Marian Higa has found minor problems with 121 revolving and trust funds overseen by the state judiciary and several agencies.

In a report released Friday, the auditor said she reviewed 27 revolving funds, 59 trust funds and 35 trust accounts as required by law….

However, she says her office found that 17 of the 121 funds did not meet applicable criteria and/or may not be properly classified.

http://www.state.hi.us/auditor/Reports/2010/10-09.pdf

Lingle reflects on her governorship, eyes future political endeavors

She said that in relation to a senator's role in bringing federal tax dollars back to their home state, such as the earmarks Senator Dan Inouye has called himself the king of.

“The reality is there is no more bacon in Washington to bring home. Our nation is facing record debt levels. Huge annual deficits, and the next United States senator is going to have to be someone who can understand how to position Hawaii in the public's mind all across America, so that they understand the strategic and diplomatic importance of this state."

She leaves office with the republicans in the lowest ratio in the legislature of any state and despite a republican resurgence on the mainland. She thinks that same tide could reach Hawaii after a democratic governor takes over along with the heavily democratic legislature.

"You had President Obama elected, a very popular president whom people wanted to succeed, and then 2 years later you have this historic defeat of the democrats in Congress, and I think certainly the same thing can happen in Hawaii."

HNN: Governor Lingle talks about her immediate future

SA: Tam should serve jail time

After making the obligatory confession on the record to gain acceptance of his guilty plea and avoid trial, outgoing City Councilman Rod Tam quickly reverted for public consumption to his line that his grabbing taxpayer money for personal use was just a matter of sloppy bookkeeping. It's up to the judge in sentencing to bring home the reality to Tam that what he did was criminal conduct for which he has shown no real contrition.

People charged with crimes are required to acknowledge a modicum of guilt in order for judges to accept guilty pleas, and that is what Tam did. Part-time state District Judge Randal Shintani is to sentence him Jan. 27 for his conviction on 15 misdemeanor counts and 11 petty misdemeanors.

Atheist Capitol protestor found not guilty by Democrat judge, lawyer hopes case will bring an end to public prayer

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The head of Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church has been acquitted of a disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest while objecting a prayer being said at the beginning of a state Senate session in April.

When Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend to say the invocation, Mitch Kahle stood from his seat in the gallery of the Senate chambers and said, "I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it's a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object."

Kahle's protest lasted about seven seconds. Then he stopped talking and sat down. The Senate's Sergeant at Arms (Now targeted for removal by incoming Senate president Tsutsui.) was determined to remove Kahle. When Kahle resisted he was forcefully removed ~~and roughed up~~ handcuffed. The incident was caught by several video cameras including a camera belonging to Hawaii News Now. (See the video for yourself. Nothing unusual.)

"Their disorderly conduct (charge) was allegedly based upon his standing up and in the senate chambers and voicing his opinion, which he as a U.S. Citizen and a Hawaii citizen has a right to do," (FALSE) Harrison said. (You try that, dear reader, and watch what happens.)

After watching video of the arrest Harrison was sure his client would be acquitted, and he was right.

District Court judge Leslie Hayashi needed less than an hour to find Kahle not guilty. (Typical Democrat judge appointed by Waihee in 1990.)

"Number one, there was no disorderly conduct. Number two, he has a first amendment right to speak in a public forum such as he did. (FALSE) And number three, the legislature was violating our U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii constitution by having these invocations," (FALSE) Harrison said.

Univ. HS Student Acquitted of lesbian murder attempt in Hawaii, goes on to rob banks in KY

Louisville police records say Kaaiai displayed a knife and fled with cash from banks on Aug. 13 and Nov. 10. She robbed the public storage business with a large knife on Aug. 11, Oct. 22 and Nov. 2.

Kaaiai, an All-American in 1987 at University High School in Honolulu, played volleyball at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

In December 1991 she shot her former lover and college teammate, partially paralyzing her. Kaaiai was acquitted of attempted murder and assault with a firearm the following April.

She testified that she accidentally shot the woman during a scuffle. The victim, however, said Kaaiai was an obsessed lover who refused to end their relationship after the victim began dating a man.

Kaaiai was charged in February 2000 with possession of a controlled substance in Lubbock, Texas.

Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho announces incoming cabinet

The mayor's cabinet appointees include:

Managing Director Gary Heu, County Attorney Al Castillo, Finance Director Wallace G. Rezentes, Jr., Deputy Finance Director Sally Motta, County Engineer Larry Dill, Deputy County Engineer Lyle Tabata, Director of Parks and Recreation Lenny Rapozo, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation Ian Costa, Director of Economic Development George Costa, Housing Director Eugene Jimenez, and Transportation Director Celia Mahikoa.

Other mayor-appointed staff include:

John Isobe, Boards and Commissions Administrator; Janine Rapozo, Risk Management Administrator; Kylan Dela Cruz, Manager, Civil Defense; Donald Fujimoto, Environmental Services Officer – Solid Waste and Wastewater; Beth Tokioka, Director of Communications and Mary Daubert, Public Information Officer.

Department heads and their deputies include:

Director of Personnel Services Malcolm Fernandez, Director of Liquor Control Eric Honma, Director of Planning Michael Dahilig, Chief of Police Darryl Perry, Deputy Chief of Police Mark Begley, Fire Chief Robert Westerman, and Deputy Fire Chief John Blalock.

Nissan's silence on Leaf shipment frustrates isle residents

Nissan announced earlier this year that it would roll out the Leaf in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Tennessee in December, followed by Hawaii and Texas in January.

But questions began surfacing in recent weeks in online forums about how many cars Nissan would be able to deliver in its initial shipment from Japan. The VentureBeat website quoted a Nissan dealer in Seattle as saying he was told by the automaker that the five initial states will get just one Leaf per state in December.

"We were told that the first cars would arrive in January, but the 300 figure is for the whole year," he said.

Harnessing the elements: Water Department turns to air for power

DWS has applied for a state Department of Land and Natural Resources lease to construct the wind farm on about 80 acres of state land adjacent to several of its wells in the Lalamilo region, officials said Friday. DWS has eight high-capacity wells in the area.

If all goes as planned, a third-party developer/owner/operator could have the windmills churning this time next year….

A wind farm built on the site in the mid-1980s has been decommissioned and the site has been cleaned up, said Julie Myhre, DWS energy management analyst.

REALITY: Wind Energy's Ghosts

Greenpeace demands West & Central Pacific Fisheries commission ban fish aggregators

“By using fish aggregation devices in purse seining and removing juvenile tuna from the oceans, the tuna industry is driving the future collapse of tuna stocks, along with its own demise,” continued Thuellen. “FADs are at the root of an unsustainable industry, driving the overfishing of tuna populations, and hindering the recovery of species like bigeye and yellowfin. Greenpeace is calling on regional tuna management organisations to enact an immediate global ban on fish aggregation devices, if we are to have any hope for the future sustainability of tuna.”

Greenpeace is calling on politicians to take the opportunity to ban FADs at the West and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting in Hawaii on December 6th, where further measures to rescue the regions’ declining bigeye tuna stocks will be discussed.

Flashback: Honolulu Record backed North Korea

For Frank Marshall Davis, this stance is evident in a February 9, 1950 piece he wrote for the Honolulu Record, where he accused President Truman of "manufacturing crises" for the sake of Big Business and U.S. imperialism. This was the standard party line for Davis. Most interesting about this piece, however, is how Davis applied the assertion to two countries that today remain our most persistent challenges: North Korea and Iran.

"Temporarily balked but not defeated, our dividend diplomats, with the willing hands of President Truman, went into the crisis-making business," wrote Davis. "If Molotov coughed, it threatened our 'security' in Iran. If Vishinsky laughed, we were 'endangered' in Korea."

This was, maintained Davis, a bunch of bluster, a phony "propaganda barrage" by Truman, as were the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the creation of NATO, all of which Davis (following Moscow's lead) adamantly opposed. "We manufacture crises so rapidly," claimed Davis, "that a new one is shoved in front of us before we can examine yesterday's or the one rushed in this morning."

And Korea, insisted Davis, was the latest such case.

Documentary will feature never before seen photos of Atomic tests

Between 1947 and 1969, the material was edited to make more than 6,500 motion pictures in a secret film studio in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, just a few kilometers from the bright lights of Sunset Boulevard. The studio on Wonderland Avenue was called the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station. Using special film and high-speed cameras, cameramen and photographers used the film and photographic footage to artfully produce motion pictures and still photographs.

"Those men are great guys; they documented a period of time that was both unique and hopefully will never be repeated," says U.S. documentary filmmaker Peter Kuran, 54, who is working on the story of the "atomic filmmakers." Kuran wants to preserve the historic film material for posterity. "The photos are the icons of an era," he says.

At the height of the Cold War, the superpowers embarked on a spectacular race to develop nuclear weapons. It was accompanied by an unparalleled propaganda war that involved large numbers of tests. By the time the international Treaty banning Nuclear Weapon Tests In The Atmosphere, In Outer Space And Under Water, or Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), was signed in 1963, the Americans alone had already detonated more than 200 atomic and hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere. The goal, from the very beginning, was to create impressive images to convince politicians to approve ever-growing military budgets.

1860 Portland Oregonian publisher became emissary to Sandwich Isles

In 1860 Dryer threw his newspaper's weight to the Republicans and carried Oregon's three electoral votes to Washington, D.C., to cast for Abraham Lincoln. His reward was appointment as U.S. emissary to the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). Dryer, in lieu of back wages, figuratively tossed Pittock the keys to The Oregonian and headed over the Pacific horizon.

1931 Kamehameha School for Girls–”Everything Hawaiian was suppressed”

You weren’t allowed to speak Hawaiian, you weren’t allowed to dance the hula. But you could sing Hawaiian, because that’s what the tourists wanted, and they brought tourists to… But they educated you, we used to say, to be “good little haole servants.”

They taught you housekeeping, waiting on tables, cooking, and they..when I went to the university, I found I didn’t have any knowledge of what I should have had in math. we just didn’t have any. It was “arithmetic”. They didn’t prepare you the way schools are supposed to prepare you today. Just housekeeping.

Pro-democracy movement wins Tongan election

The party formed by Tonga's pro-democracy movement has won seventy per cent of the seats allocated for the People's Representatives in the first Tongan elections where those seats make up the majority in the Parliament.

Nine seats are still reserved for the nobles but the Friendly Islands Democratic Party has won twelve of the seventeen publicly contested seats….

FDIC Chair: Will the next fiscal crisis start in Washington?

Even as work continues to repair our financial infrastructure and get the economy moving again, we need urgent action to forestall the next financial crisis. I fear that one will start in Washington. Total federal debt has doubled in the past seven years, to almost $14 trillion. That's more than $100,000 for every American household. This explosive growth in federal borrowing is a result of not just the financial crisis but also government unwillingness over many years to make the hard choices necessary to rein in our long-term structural deficit.

Retiring baby boomers, who will live longer on average than any previous generation, will have a major impact on government spending. This year, the combined expenditures on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are projected to account for 45 percent of primary federal spending, up from 27 percent in 1975. The Congressional Budget Office projects that annual entitlement spending could triple in real terms by 2035, to $4.5 trillion in today's dollars. Defense spending is similarly unsustainable, and our tax code is riddled with special-interest provisions that have little to do with our broader economic prosperity. Overly generous tax subsidies for housing and health care have contributed to rising costs and misallocation of resources.

Not so akbar: Muslim terrorist wanna-be fails to blow up crowd at Portland Christmas tree lighting

Federal agents in a sting operation arrested a Somali-born teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, authorities said.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.

Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" - Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.