Hawaii Congressional Delegation: How They Voted July 16, 2012
City Announces Annual Bus Service Changes for School Year
Big Island Part of National Test of Health Information Exchange
Harmful U.N. Sea Treaty Stalls in Senate
Hoku Loses Control of Its Own Website
VIDEO: Berg Grills Grabauskas
Hawaii state tax revenues Fall Short of CoR Projections
PBN: Hawaii's state tax revenues got a 14 percent tax boost from tourism to end the fiscal year with a 10.2 percent increase in total tax collections, the state Department of Taxation said.
Hawaii tool in a total of $4.975 billion during the fiscal year that ended June 30, which was 14.9 percent more than the $4.3 billion collected during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011. However, when $187.4 million in delayed tax refunds released in July 2010 are factored out, the increase to state tax revenues deposited in the general fund was 10.2 percent, Director of Taxation Frederick Pablo said in a statement….
The state Council on Revenues had forecast 12 percent revenue growth for the fiscal year.
read … Rise 10%
Campaign Finance: New Gang of Crooks Backs Gabbard vs Old Gang of Crooks backing Hannemann
GABBARD: Energy Henk Rogers, Blue Planet Software president and CEO ($2,500); Paul J. Gaynor, First Wind CEO ($2,500); Rod Braunthal, Revolusun principal ($1,000); Mark Duda, Distributed Energy Partners principal ($2,500); Kenton T. Eldridge, Aina Koa Pono co-founder ($600); Kelly T. King, Pacific Biodiesel Technologies executive ($2,500); Robert A. King, Pacific Biodiesel president ($2,500).
Finance, Development, Construction Don Horner, First Hawaiian Bank executive ($600); Lance Inouye, Ralph S. Inouye Company president ($2,500); Ralph S. Inouye, Ralph S. Inouye Company general contractor ($2,500); Victor Kimura, Kyo-ya Management Company executive ($1,400); Glenn M. Okino, Mitsunaga Construction president ($2,500); William A. Paik, Grace Pacific Corporation president ($500); Albert Shigemura, PVT Landfill owner ($2,500).
HANNEMANN: Tourism Chris Tatum, Marriott International executive ($1,000); Rick Egged, Waikiki Improvement Association executive director ($1,050); Jean E. Rolles, Outrigger Enterprises ($4,000); Barry Wallace, Outrigger Enterprises executive ($2,500); Melvin Y. Kaneshige, Outrigger Enterprises Group ($5,000); Alan Kimi, Seaside Hotels Hawaii ($5,000); David P. Carey III, Outrigger Enterprises executive ($5,000).
Construction and Development Nelson N. S. Chun, Alexander & Baldwin executive ($1,000); Joel M. Wine, Alexander & Baldwin CFO (Calif.) ($1,000); Stanley Kuriyama, Alexander & Baldwin president and CEO ($2,000); Mark Y. Watase, Mark Development ($2,500); Geraldine Y. Watase, Mark Development corporate secretary ($2,500); Robert M. Creps, Grace Pacific Corporation executive ($2,000); Gordon C. K. Yee, Grace Pacific Corporation executive ($2,000); David C. Hulihee, Royal Contracting Co. executive ($2,000), Ernest K. Nishizaki, Kyo-ya Company executive ($1,667 for in-kind hotel and transportation).
Finance Gary Caulfield, First Hawaiian Bank vice chairman ($2,500); Allen Doane, retired ($2,000); Walter Dods, retired ($2,500).
Utilities Robert A. Alm, Hawaiian Electric Corp executive ($250); Constance H. Lau, Hawaiian Electric Industries president and CEO ($1,000).
Borreca: Donations to candidates are a form of public polling
Background: Good News: A small elite no longer runs Hawaii -- Bad News: Mufi thinks he can
read … A new gang of crooks in town
Hawaii Co Council Candidate tied to Bob Marx Rejected in Grab for Public Money
HTH: Rachel Thompson, a candidate for the 2nd Council District seat in Hilo, turned in 219 signatures but 60 were disqualified.
She inadvertently (LOL!) ran afoul of the Campaign Spending Commission by pre-purchasing $5 money orders for residents of the district who wanted to contribute but who didn’t have a personal check or money order.
Although Thompson followed the law, the commission has said that campaigns are not allowed to pre-purchase money orders because of the potential for abuse and the lack of a money trail.
That mistake cost her campaign $14,559 — which is the amount that opponent J Yoshimoto received. A paralegal for (Congressional candidate) Robert Marx, Thompson is staying in the race by using scrap paper from her office and paint from under her house to make handmade signs.
read … $250,000
Mazie: Values Mean Abandoning the Family and Falling into the Arms of Government, Academia
SA: When the liberal congresswoman speaks about values, she does not mean the left or right politics of Washington, D.C., but the examples she learned from her mother, who fled an abusive husband in Japan to bring her children to the islands (leave the nuclear family, enter paradise). She means (government-provided) education that unlocks the opportunity for children (who have been failed by the nuclear family) to succeed….
read … Now you know why she keep telling that story
Pine Leads Fund Race, Berg Second
- Tom Berg (Incumbent) Cash on Hand $10,120.57
- E.J. Delacruz Cash on Hand $368.37
- Mel Kahele Cash on Hand $6,730.33
- Kymberly Pine Cash on Hand $25,938.80
- Alex Santiago Cash on Hand -$409.09
read … Rundown on all Honolulu Council Races
Star-Advertiser Compares Senate Candidates on the Issues
Senate Democrats build fall campaign cushion—Except in Hawaii
NOLA: Democratic candidates in many pivotal Senate races are raising more money than their GOP counterparts, but they'll need the cushion to counter spending by independent conservative groups determined to win a Republican majority.
Democrats outraised Republicans in seven of 10 key races in the April-June period, according to quarterly reports that had to be filed by midnight Sunday with the Federal Election Commission. In Hawaii, New Mexico and North Dakota, GOP candidates had a fundraising edge.
One roadmap of the most competitive races is where American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, are spending their money. The groups, guided by former Bush political adviser Karl Rove, recently announced they had reserved $23.5 million of TV air time for Senate campaign ads this fall in six states: Missouri, Nevada, Florida, Virginia and Ohio in addition to North Dakota. Altogether, Crossroads plans on spending $70 million supporting Republican Senate candidates in the fall.
Four other states also in play are Massachusetts, Montana and New Mexico and Hawaii….in Hawaii, former Republican Gov. Linda Lingle raised $1.3 million versus $941,000 by Rep. Mazie Hirono, the favorite to win the state's Democratic nomination.
read … Lingle among the few
Carpenter: Large Contingent of Democrats Want Closed Primary
Dante Carpenter, doesn't like the current system, either.
"We've always had a concern about crossover voting — those who would confuse or confound for the pure hell of it rather than in support of a party person," he said. "There is a large contingent of the Democratic Party in favor of reverting to a one-party or closed primary. We call it a 'pure party primary.'"
Carpenter's counterpart in the Hawaii Republican Party, David Chang, also doesn't like crossover votes, which are often cast with the intention of electing the weaker primary candidate to help their preferred candidate in the general.
"I've been telling people that it's not a good idea," he said. "I can see what they are saying, and their heart is in the right place that they want Republicans to win, but I say, 'Let Democrats figure out for themselves who to vote for. Vote for candidates with Republican values.' We want consistency."
Indeed, Chang sent out a letter earlier this month to party members in Senate District 25 urging them to vote for Republican Fred Hemmings, who is unopposed, instead of pulling the Democratic ballot to vote in the hot race between Laura Thielen, incumbent Pohai Ryan and a third Democrat.
"These candidates hope to overcome their Democrat Primary opponents with Republican assistance," wrote Chang, adding, "Let the Democrats pick among their lesser candidates. Give your vote and your whole hearted support to Fred Hemmings at every stage of the campaign."
read … Closed Primary
UH President Greenwood’s involvement in athletics called “unprecedented”
ILind: According to a recent report by the Faculty Athletic Representative to the UH Manoa Faculty Senate, President M.R.C. Greenwood has had an “unprecedented” degree of involvement in major athletic policy decisions. According to the April 2012 report by Peter Nicholson, a professor of English and the designated NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative, an NCAA peer review team that visited Manoa last year identified “governance of the Athletics program” as an issue still needing to be dealt with.
LINK: Read the full Faculty Athletics Representative annual report dated April 26, 2012.
read … Greenwood Involvement
Queens Perfoms First Kidney Transplant
HNN: After nine long years waiting for a kidney, an Ewa Beach grandmother received a call on Monday morning that doctors had found a donor. Less than 12 hours later, Sabrina Josue, 47, was in surgery. She is now the first kidney recipient at Queen's Medical Center's new transplant facility.
read … Organ transplant wait ends for Ewa Beach grandmother
DHHL Gets $12M from HUD
KITV: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced Tuesday $12.7 million in funding to produce affordable housing for low-income Native Hawaiian families.
read … DHHL
Free The Grid Ranks Hawaii 'F' on "Interconnection'
FTG: And 'B' for 'Net metering' ...
read ... Clean Energy?
Public Land Development Corp to Hold Public Meetings in August
CB: The Public Land Development Corporation, a private development arm of DLNR and the brainchild of Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, will hold public meetings on rules proposed to govern the corporation.
The meetings are scheduled as follows and will not exceed two hours....
CB: PLDC Meeting Canceled — Trips Over Sunshine Law, Again
read ... Land and Power Development
NYT: Anti-Sonar Agit-Prop Debunked
NYT: scientists have discovered that whales can decrease the sensitivity of their hearing to protect their ears from loud noise. Humans tend to do this with index fingers; scientists haven’t pinpointed how whales do it, but they have seen the first evidence of the behavior.
“It’s equivalent to plugging your ears when a jet flies over,” said Paul E. Nachtigall, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii who led the discovery team. “It’s like a volume control.”
(This means that 30 years of feeeel-good anti-military propaganda is lies. Will e receive an apology for all the noise we had to listen to?)
read … Whales, Somehow, Are Coping With Humans’ Din
Misanthropes Push to Boost Nearshore Shark Populations
CB: Pacific reef sharks will swim into oblivion without more regulation and effective enforcement, the latest science says.
But a federal agency that could recommend changes to turn this trend around by closing certain fishing areas or pushing for ways to reduce bycatch is dismissing the findings as overblown.
"What would you rather see, lots of people swimming in the water or lots of sharks?" said Paul Dalzell, a senior scientist with the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council….
….the sharks are important as the top natural predators on the nearshore reefs, said Andrew Rossiter, who heads Waikiki Aquarium.
Radio Australia Audio: Sustainable fishing in Hawaii
Related: Monk Seals Dying in NW Hawaiian Isles Because of Fishing Ban
read … Misanthropes’ Ally
Hawaii's biotech papayas hold a lesson for America
SA: A new supply of fresh papayas from Hawaii is on grocery store shelves in Japan, and consumers have biotechnology to thank for it.
The first "Rainbow" papayas — genetically modified to withstand the deadly ringspot virus — are the first GM (genetically modified) food that Japan has approved for commercial release. It represents an important step for a country that has resisted a technology that is now conventional in North and South America, and increasingly common in Africa and Asia.
The story of how cutting-edge agriculture defeated disease and saved Hawaiian papayas shows that we have much to gain from GM crops, even as professional protestors peddle scientific ignorance to frighten the public about this essential food source. The rest of the United States may want to pay attention, as voters in California and legislators in more than a dozen states consider burdensome food-labeling laws.
Related: The Future of Fraud
read … Lesson
Clean Energy? Biomass Feed Clogs Big island Highway with Logging Trucks
HTH: The harvesting and trucking of eucalyptus trees along Highway 19 is continuing, and the Hawaii Police Department is reminding motorists to be aware of the increase the number of trucks on the roadway, especially from Laupahoehoe to Kawaihae.
Police are also asking motorists to use “added caution when sharing the road with any truck or bus” because of their size and cargo. Safety tips include: being aware of falling or kicked up debris and that larger vehicles make wider turns; watching out for blind spots; expecting frequent stops by buses; noting that larger vehicles need longer stopping distances due to their size and weight; and using more time when passing large vehicles because of their length.
read … To feed the Biomass Burner
Hawaii waging campaign for Obama library
Politico: Reed Dasenbrock, the vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Hawaii’s flagship campus in Manoa, said the school has been prepping for the opportunity for years. Faculty members have met with officials from just about every one of the 13 presidential libraries in the United States.
In the fall of 2010, Dasenbrock led a delegation to the National Archives, which oversees presidential papers, he said. The entire state seems to be on board, from the Honolulu City Council to the University of Hawaii faculty senate to the governor, he said.
“Obama won the election because he out-organized the opposition,” Dasenbrock told POLITICO. “No one thought in 2004 that he was going to win in 2008. [Similarly,] we’re a much poorer, smaller, less well-known institution than the University of Chicago, if they’re competing…we don’t want to seem like we’re organizing prematurely, but it’s a decision the president will make sometime after the next election and therefore we need to be ready.”
In Hawaii, two places have been discussed as potential future library locations: one at the university’s West Oahu campus, and the other on state-controlled land in Honolulu — “a stunning [site] close to the ocean with great views and great access for tourists,” Dasenbrock e-mailed.
read … Dream on
Learning Socialism: Obama spent youth ‘in Hawaii smoking something’
TH: Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu…points out that President Obama doesn’t understand “how the American system functions” because “he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something.”
“He has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, and spent the next set of years in Indonesia,” Sununu told Fox News on Tuesday. “And frankly, when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure, and then got into politics in Chicago. There has been no experience in his life in which he has earned a private sector paycheck that meant anything.”
Ignore This: Obama's Puck's Alley Drug Dealer Killed by Gay Lover
Future President: Medical marijuana stolen during home invasion robbery
read … Marijuana makes perfectly good human beings into liberals