Momentum: Lingle Ahead by 6 Points
HART Halts Rail Construction
Enviros win 90% in Hawaii Supreme Court
Barron's: Hawaii Bonds Risky, Not Rewarding
How Do You Say 'Public Forum Doctrine' in Hawaiian?
0.3% of Hawaiians Sign up for Akaka Tribe
Rep Pine Asks Queen's to Expedite Reopening of HMC West Emergency Room
Queens-HMC Agreement Outlines Plans for Ewa Beach Hospital
Big Island is Obamacare Laboratory
82 Hawaii Republicans in Tampa for Convention
Say, Souki coy about battle for speakership of House
Borreca: Palolo Democratic Rep. Calvin Say's 13-year leadership of the state House may be challenged by his old rival, Maui Democratic Rep. Joe Souki.
It was Souki, 79, who lost the position of House speaker to Say, 60, when Souki was unable to round up the 26 votes needed to maintain control of the 51-member House.
With the general election still months away, the final House roster is not set, but with Democrats controlling the majority, efforts are now starting to remove Say.
"I have been asked by groups of about 18 to be speaker. I have not made a commitment. This group feels that I am the only one who can bring the two parties together: the dissidents and the loyalists," Souki said in an interview.
Souki, who like Say is also a former House Finance Committee chairman, reports a higher-than-usual level of frustration among the dissidents, a group made up of some of the younger and more liberal members of the House Democratic block.
"They are tired of being a divided body and they want to somehow unite," Souki said. "They feel I have the capability to bring both parties together."…
politically powerful public employee unions have been stymied in attempts to knock off Say, whom they view as an impediment to increased worker benefits. In past sessions, Say has tried to reduce retirement and other worker perks, arguing that the state could not afford them.
This year, Say noted that he would like to return as speaker so he could work with Gov. Neil Abercrombie to restore public employee health benefits and salary cuts.
"Would we be able to increase the employer's contribution for health care, I would love to," Say said.
As for the drive to organize the House, Say is enigmatic.
"I will let the cards fall where they fall and what happens, happens. Is it time to pass the torch? When is the best time?" Say asked.
The dissident Democratic group did not talk on the record about their new maneuver.
And Souki said he doesn't believe "a good leader is one who goes out and knocks on doors."
"Many things can happen. It is a feeler, and we will see how far it goes. If nothing happens so be it," Souki said.
read … Maui Controls Everything
SA: Supreme Court Stretches Burials Law
Three points should be raised:
» The city should pull out the stops to accelerate its archaeological survey, which is the key to reducing costly project delays.
» It's not clear what the court considers compliance with the ruling. The city has reportedly halted major rail building, while banking on ground rules being set to allow some kind of work to continue in the interim. But that determination must come from the state Circuit Court, to which the justices have remanded the case.
» At that point, depending on the security of the funding commitments and projections about the extent of the delays, the reality is that key decisionmakers could find their resolve on rail shaken.
We fervently hope that is not the outcome of the high court's strict reading of the burials law. The relevant sections of Hawaii Revised Statute Chapter 6E and the administrative rules, on the books for some 16 years, were put in place for the affirmative purpose of ensuring the respectful treatment of Native Hawaiian burials. Its intended function was not to unilaterally kill projects, including one such as this.
Burial protections are only as good as their enforcement, and over the years that enforcement has seemed selective. In some cases, the councils recommended relocating burials and in others they have drawn a hard line, insisting that they be preserved in place. In addition, some councils have had difficulty maintaining a quorum and meeting regularly.
Projects this consequential should be guided by the considerations of the burial councils, but not be wholly directed by them. That outcome belongs in the hands of county and state decisionmakers who have to balance competing interests — the respectful treatment of burial sites, along with everything else.
read … Disrespect to iwi isn’t rail’s intent
Lingle parallels Hirono on Social Security fixes
SA: Former Gov. Linda Lingle would gradually raise the payroll tax cap for Social Security so workers with higher incomes would pay a greater share, a position that mirrors the approach U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, her Democratic opponent for U.S. Senate, would take to help stabilize the federal retirement program.
Lingle, a Republican, said she was persuaded by the recommendations of two bipartisan deficit-reduction panels that the $110,100 cap on wages subject to payroll taxes should be increased. They are the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force.
An estimate by the National Academy of Social Insurance suggests that gradually raising the cap to about $215,000 over five years would cover 90 percent of all earnings — instead of 84 percent today — and meet more than a third of Social Security's funding gap.
Lingle said she would also consider a gradual one-year increase in the retirement age to claim full Social Security benefits starting in 2027. Hirono opposes increasing the retirement age.
"I think it makes a lot of sense," Lingle said of raising the payroll tax cap. "I think, from a mathematical point of view, it would be one of the key things to consider. It's always been one of the options that I've been looking at."
read … Lingle parallels Hirono on Social Security fixes
Legislators, DLNR, Maui Councilmembers Begin Push for Environmental Courts in Hawaii
MN: "I've learned over the years that if you get them by the wallet, their hearts and minds follow," Potter said to about 100 people at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.
Potter said that an environmental court here is a perfect fit - and long overdue. There's just so much to protect and balance in this delicate paradise, he said.
"The environment is everything here. It's so precious to the people and the culture," said Potter, who said he's been coming to Maui for three years to organize the court. "And y'all need a court to protect all this beauty."
Among those at the event were state Rep. Gil Keith-Agaran, who represents Central Maui; County Council Members Gladys Baisa and Danny Mateo; and state Department of Land and Natural Resources enforcement head Randy Awo.
"I challenge you to dream. By golly, just you in this room can change the whole state," Potter said.
Baisa said she "would definitely support the idea."
"It would really make our island beautiful and get rid of our junk," said the council member, who was told the county should get involved.
Awo said that he believes that the existence of an environmental court will act as a strong deterrent against home-demolition dumpers, exotic fish poachers and others who commit crimes against nature.
"I'm not diminishing rape at all, but I do consider what these people do to be rape of the land," said Awo. "Because of this unique place and our isolation, I really believe this is a great idea. Let's face it, what we are doing now is not enough."
Community Work Day Executive Director Rhiannon Chandler said this court is imperative. Too often the state judicial system hands out small fines or throws out cases for overfishing and polluting because it doesn't realize the significance.
Supporters said one of the keys to success of an environmental court is finding a “fair” judge with the “right knowledge” and desire to handle annually hundreds of environmental cases. The environmental court Potter developed has injunctive authority to deal with environmental problems in Memphis and Shelby County, a news release said.
In 1982, Potter administratively helped create the Memphis Environmental Court, which was the first environmental court in the state and the third in the country, according to Potter's biography. In 1991, he helped write a law to create the Shelby County Environmental Court that was eventually established by the state Legislature.
Keith-Agaran, who is an attorney, House Judiciary Committee chairman and a former Board of Land and Natural Resources chairman, is at the fore of the project and spoke Saturday. Keith-Agaran said that supporters hope to either persuade the state Supreme Court chief justice to set up the court administratively or to get lawmakers to pass a bill. It'll need a budget, too.
Keith-Agaran said that lawmakers, with maybe the public's help, will decide the court's powers.
Many of the courts go after everything criminal and civil from "hoarder houses" to zoning violation bribes, Potter said.
read … Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
State will conduct $2 million road study
KHON: It's a traffic study that officials say, has never been done before. It's so comprehensive, it will take two years to complete at a cost of $2 million.
The state will study the H-1 Freeway and other major roads to find out what improvements are needed and how to prioritize those needs.
Although transportation officials do not want to speculate on what the improvements and solutions could be, they will say that road congestion will definitely be studied.
"We really do have it seems, too many cars on the road and too many people so, what the DOT can do to help the traffic flow," Sluyter said.
Officials hope this two-year study will help identify realistic improvements and prioritize them. They also hope this study will help assist in securing funding for those improvements.
The study will start by the middle of next year and may include lane closures.
(Translation: Officials have purposefully kept traffic jammed up in order to create demand for Rail. Now they have decided Rail isn’t gonna happen and their new Progressive bosses want to kill the old-boy project and keep the Billions for themselves.)
read … State will conduct $2 million road study
Kaleikini Was Plaintiff in Ward Village Burials Lawsuit
HM: The name of one of the plaintiffs in the suit to stop the construction—Paulette Kaleikini—sounded familiar. HONOLULU readers last met Kaleikini in Ronna Bolante's Nov. 2007 article, "Bones of Contention." Then, Kaleikini was suing the state of Hawaii over its handling of the Ward Village Shops development in Kakaako, where construction was turning up an unusual number of Native Hawaiian remains. Read all about that at "Bones of Contention."
read … NHLC Recycling
Wonder Blunder Shows Violation of NCAA Rules?
ILind: Employees of the University of Hawaii’s Athletic Department had unusual direct access to top “system” level administrators, apparently allowing them to bypass routine administrative channels, reviews, and safeguards on the Manoa campus, according to the factfinders report on the background of the failed Stevie Wonder concert.
The timeline outlined in the report appears to show then-Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw remained in the dark about the concert until just days before tickets went on sale, when UH President M.R.C. Greenwood sent her a message asking about the event. At that point, the concert planning had already been underway for three months.
Kathy Cutshaw, Vice Chancellor for Administration, Finance, and Operations on the Manoa campus, apparently didn’t learn of the concert until after a payment of $200,000 had already been sent to someone posing as an agent for Wonder.
Instead of working within the Manoa bureaucracy, key employees in the athletics department were able to go directly to the office of the university’s general counsel, which drafted the agreement setting up the concert deal with Honolulu promoter Bob Peyton. When questions were raised, athletics officials used what was actually only limited involvement of the general counsel’s office to deflect the concerns.
For example, Chancellor Hinshaw was contacted on June 19 by President Greenwood. Hinshaw then requested a briefing on the concert, which was provided by Athletic Director Jim Donovan, who told her athletics was working with the Office of the General Counsel. Hinshaw repeated this point in her reply to Greenwood. Apparently neither Greenwood nor Hinshaw pursued the matter further because mention of the university lawyers’ involvement acted as a shield against further scrutiny.
The chain of events underscores the degree to which control over the Manoa intercollegiate athletic program had shifted from campus administrators to top administrators of the statewide university system, contrary to NCAA rules and to assurances given to the NCAA during a program review last year.
read … UH Athletic Department enjoyed unusual autonomy, access to top administrators
Troubled UHH telescope may not work for years
HTH: The University of Hawaii at Hilo’s troubled Hoku Ke‘a telescope is still in pieces and is on its third director, with extensive problems that have included an improperly shaped primary mirror, a damaged secondary mirror and no operating system to control the telescope.
Pierre Martin became the observatory director Aug. 1, replacing Joshua Walawender, who was hired on an 11-month contract to evaluate the telescope and make it work. Walawender had applied for a renewal of the contract but did not get it.
Four days later, Jay Slivkoff, a UH-Hilo observatory technician who was handling much of the work on the telescope, fell off a ladder while working on a roof and died.
In an interview with the Tribune-Herald last November, Walawender identified four areas of Hoku Ke‘a that needed work — rebuilding the optical system, fixing the leaking dome, fixing the dome drive system and rebuilding the telescope control system. He also estimated the telescope could have basic operations by this summer….
“Instead of being kind of a concave bowl shape paraboloid, it was actually shaped more like a spoon. Very, very bad from any reasonable standpoint, and the mirror never should have been accepted from the contractor,” Purves said….
“I think Pierre (Martin) is coming into this with eyes wide open and owes no allegiance to any particular point of view,” Purves said. “I’m in complete agreement with his assessment that in fact it will cost so much money and take so much time to bring this telescope into any kind of operational status that it’s going to be a very difficult decision for the university administration to make whether to continue with this or basically to start over.”
read … Telescope
Hawaii Parents Pay over $12K for childcare
PBN: The report found that parents of infants pay an average of $12,876 for child care. That works out to 14.7 percent of the median income for a two-parent family, which is $87,430, but it’s more like 43.7 percent a single mother, whose median income is $29,466.
It’s just slightly easier for parents of a preschooler, defined as a 4 year old. The average cost for care at a daycare center in Hawaii drops to $7,752.
That’s almost as much as a year of tuition at the University of Hawaii, which the report listed as $8,352. The cost of keeping an infant in daycare is 54 percent higher than tuition at UH, the report found.
New York was the least-affordable state for infant care — parents there pay an average of $14.009, or 15.9 percent of a two-parent family’s median income. The most affordable infant care was in Mississippi, where parents pay an average of $4,591, or 7 percent of a two-parent family’s median income.
read … $12,876
Judge Blocks Big Island Blogger's Efforts To 'Humiliate and Debase'
HR: Circuit Judge Glenn Hara issued the injunction against Thomas Lackey, author of a blog called “The Lack,” and also ordered Lackey to remove previous posts concerning Tiffany Edwards Hunt, publisher of The Big Island Chronicle.
Hunt, past president of the Big Island Press Club, sued Lackey for defamation earlier this year, alleging that he posted scurrilous, pornographic cartoons about her after she began researching a news story about cyberbullying.
Attempts by Hunt to pursue criminal charges against Lackey were unsuccessful.
Lackey also posted derogatory comments about Hunt’s husband as well as material that appeared to refer to her newborn child.
In a court hearing last month, Hara pressed Hunt’s lawyer, Steven Strauss, to identify the untrue, defamatory statements which Lackey made about Hunt.
“She’s not a whore. She’s not a prostitute. She does not engage in sex for money. She doesn’t cheat on her husband. She doesn’t engage in in deceptive business practices,” Strauss answered.
Lackey did not attend the hearing.
read … Lackey
Liberals: Gay Rabbi Should ‘Go Back to San Francisco’
JTA: Leading up to the election, Halevi’s mother sent an email that featured images of a swastika and Adolf Hitler, alleging that her son had been the subject of “Nazi-like propaganda,” reported the Star Adviser.
In the last year, Temple Emanu-El lost 60 of its 230 member families.
"The temple is in debt because people have left and voted with their feet," said Alice Tucker, a congregant of 51 years and former board president in the 1980s who lost her re-election bid on Sunday.
Tucker also told the Star Adviser that she heard temple members say of Schaktman, who is gay, that "he should go back to San Francisco and be with his kind."
"No one has ever made an issue of that to me, even indirectly,” Schaktman told the Honolulu paper. “I'm gay, and the people who hired me knew that I was gay. I didn't announce it to the congregation, but it wasn't a secret."
read … Surprise!
Alleged Homosexual on Trial for Allegedly Drugging, Raping Sailor
SA: A male nurse at Kwajalein Hospital is facing criminal prosecution in Hawaii for allegedly drugging and raping a drunken crew member of a U.S. Coast Guard vessel docked at U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll….
The FBI says Henry slipped the prescription sedative Ambien into the beer of a male crew member of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sequoia on March 24 then sexually assaulted him.
(Quick IQ Test: Are you having a politically incorrect thought right now?)
read … Victim not ‘turned’
Irradiation techniques help maintain food safety
SA: For many people the term “food irradiation” conjures negative images of glowing radioactive food and food processing that is spooky and futuristic. Claims are made that food irradiation causes the formation of dangerous radiolytic chemicals and free radicals.
This method is not new, however. It has been under extensive study for more than 100 years, and its use in food processing has been regulated in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration for about 50 years. As world food demands grow and food safety issues multiply, food irradiation is likely to become a more common food safety technology.
read … Irradiation techniques help maintain food safety
Cannabis smoking 'permanently lowers IQ'
UKT: Researchers found persistent users of the drug, who started smoking it at school, had lower IQ scores as adults.
They were also significantly more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life, than their peers who abstained.
Furthermore, those who started as teenagers and used it heavily, but quit as adults, did not regain their full mental powers, found academics at King’s College London and Duke University in the US.
They looked at data from over 1,000 people from Dunedin in New Zealand, who have been followed through their lives since being born in 1972 or 1973.
Participants were asked about cannabis usage when they were 18, 21, 26, 32 and 38. Their IQ was tested at 13 and 38. In addition, each nominated a close friend or family member, who was asked about attention and memory problems.
She said: “Adolescent-onset cannabis users, but not adult-onset cannabis users, showed marked IQ decline from childhood to adulthood.
“For example, individuals who started using cannabis in adolescence and used it for years thereafter showed an average eight-point IQ decline.
“Quitting or reducing cannabis use did not appear to fully restore intellectual functioning among adolescent-onset former persistent cannabis users,” she said.
Although eight points did not sound much, it was not trivial, she warned.
It meant that an average person dropped far down the intelligence rankings, so that instead of 50 per cent of the population being more intelligent than them, 71 per cent were.
“Research has shown that IQ is a strong determinant of a person’s access to a college education, their lifelong total income, their access to a good job, their performance on the job, their tendency to develop heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and even early death,” she said.
“Individuals who lose eight IQ points in their teens and 20s may be disadvantaged, relative to their same-age peers, in most of the important aspects of life and for years to come.”
The cognitive abilities of the 10 per cent of people who started in their 20s - who could loosely be classed as college smokers - also suffered while they were still smoking.
However, if they gave up at least a year before their IQ test at 38, their intelligence recovered, suggesting their brains were more resilient and bounced back.
UKI: Teen cannabis use may damage brain for life, warns major study
read … Stupid Potheads
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