It was 124 years ago today: Hawaii Becomes US Territory
How to increase Hawaii’s healthcare capacity
Hawaii Cockfighters Continue Shipping Fighting Birds to Guam, Enabled by Territorial Department of Agriculture
Honolulu: Highest Tourist Taxes on Earth
Court Martial Coming After Tulsi Gabbard fills in on Tucker Carlson Tonight?
TW: … Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) guest hosted Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight on Friday, further distancing herself from the party whose nomination for president she sought in 2020.
"Now whatever your views are on [former President] Donald Trump, there's no denying that the unprecedented raid on his Palm Beach home earlier this week has set our country on a dangerous new course, and there's no turning back," Gabbard said.
Gabbard, who also serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, claimed on air that American law enforcement had been "weaponized to target the political opponents of the uniparty" and the "Biden regime," tactics she described as "hallmarks of a dictatorship."
Kristopher Goldsmith, a combat veteran and consultant who studies far-right movements, suggested that Gabbard had violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice by criticizing Biden. The UCMJ stipulates that "[a]ny commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President" could face a court-martial….
read … Tulsi Gabbard fills in on Tucker Carlson Tonight
Rolling Blackouts Coming: Realities sink in as Hawaii ditches coal
PBN: … For more than a century, the mission of electrical utilities (as with phone and cable companies) had been to make service ubiquitous, affordable and reliable. The green mission put upon them instead makes power ubiquitously expensive and unreliable.
Without a stable renewable base, like nuclear energy, Hawaii policymakers have us relying on … the weather.
The Legislature mandated that we ditch coal. Policymakers approved replacing it with battery storage, fed by non-petroleum sources — I can’t bring myself to say “renewable” in this sentence; windmills and batteries don’t just grow like daisies, their ingredients are mined out of the Earth — like wind and solar.
A question the politicians never seem to have considered: What will recharge our giant battery back-ups if the weather doesn’t cooperate? In 2006, Hawaii was blanketed in heavy rain for 41 straight days. What do we do when that happens again, or if a severe storm or hurricane trashes solar panels and windmills?
Maybe the PUC should mandate the construction of utility-scale hamster wheels for us to run in, because Hawaii’s grids are totally isolated.
We cannot do what Texas did when the weather knocked out wind farms, which was to buy electricity from other states. Only those of us raised on Gilligan’s Island will be prepared to survive and even then, I’m not sure the Professor’s inventions were entirely sound….
HNN: End of coal heralded as step toward greener future, but transition is a rocky one
read … Realities sink in as Hawaii ditches coal
Aloha Petroleum Sues AIG Insurance Company re Honolulu & Maui Climate Suits
IM: …Aloha Petroleum, Ltd., Plaintiff, v. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA, In the United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i. Case 1:22-cv-00372-JAO-WRP filed August 10, 2022….
This action concerns insurance coverage for two separate but related lawsuits filed against Aloha (and other defendants) by the City and County of Honolulu and Honolulu Board of Water Supply (filed March 9, 2020 in the First Circuit Court, State of Hawai‘i, Civil No. 1CCV-20-0000380 (LWC), amended March 22, 2021), and the County of Maui (filed October 12, 2020 in the Second Circuit Court, State of Hawai‘i, Civil No. 2CCV-20-0000283)…
To date, Aloha has incurred more than $880,000 in defense costs in connection with the Climate Change lawsuits, and Aloha expects that it will continue to incur significant additional defense costs, as the litigation progresses….
In its April 19, 2021 letter, National Union denied coverage for the Climate Change Lawsuits under the 1985 National Union Policy and asserted the position that exclusion (f), the so-called “qualified pollution exclusion,” in the 1985 National Union Policy precludes all coverage – both defense and indemnity – for the Climate Change Lawsuits….
read … Aloha Petroleum Sues AIG Insurance Company re Honolulu & Maui Climate Suits
Firefighters union: Prescribed burn could have contributed to huge Big Island wildfire
HNN: … The state says the fire started weeks ago in the Pohakuloa Training Area and then spread to state property.
“It just basically was low lying and just waiting for this type of perfect weather. As soon as the weather kicked up a few days ago, it just kind of reignited it,” said Kaanapu Jacobsen, Federal Fire Fighters of Hawaii union president.
Jacobsen says on July 21, they were ordered to use a back burn against the smaller wildfire that was 500 acres.
But instead of controlling the blaze, it made it worse.
“After they put the drip torches down to the ground, it got up close to I’d say over 2,000 acres that day, and probably spread to another five to another 1,000 acres as the fire burns out,” he said.
Kaanapu added: “That day due to the lack of supervision ... (and) just the selfishness of the supervisor that day decided to basically back burn in the whole area and totally stepping outside of the plan.”
He said the decision goes against best practices.
U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii says it’s aware of the union’s concerns. An after-action report will be completed, but the focus now is on containing the fire….
read … Firefighters union: Prescribed burn could have contributed to huge Big Island wildfire
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