Thursday, October 30, 2008

What's Up With This Tent?

Ugly Tent in State Capitol

Visitors and residents coming to the Hawaii State Capitol better get used to seeing this new tent in the middle of the atrium. Looking much like a homeless shelter this tent and the surrounding wall around it was completed this week over the location of the "Aquarius" mosaic that has graced the capitol rotunda floor for many years.

What is happening here is that the "Aquarius" will be upgraded. From what I understand, the original tiles will be removed and replaced with new glass coated tiles of some sort. Underneath the "Aquarius", piping and other infrastructure will be repaired and upgraded. The process will take several months until at least June 2009.

The funny thing about this tent and the green wall surrounding it.... The green wall was built first being completed last week. On Tuesday morning, October 28, two sides of the wall were torn down and the tent was then erected inside the perimeter of the wall. People were wondering why the wall went up before the tent. Common sense would have dictated that the tent go up first (since it is located inside the green wall) and then the wall constructed around it.

Taro Protest Continues

Photo captions: Above is a view of the "Aquarius" mosaic as seen earlier this year from the State Capitol's second floor. As I can vaguely recall, the cost for upgrading the artwork is more than $200,000. Top Photo: Get used to seeing this tent in the Capitol rotunda for several months as work commences on the project. Won't make for very pretty pictures in the area, but then again, life and tourist attractions can be ugly.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Election Season in the Home Stretch

Sign Waving Downtown HNL

The election season is rapidly winding down to a huge climax on November 4 when millions of Americans throughout the nation and Hawaii finally cast their ballots for various candidates and issues. Supporters of Mayor Mufi Hannemann and his opponent Councilmember Ann Kobayashi were out in force yesterday sign waving along Bethel Street in Downtown Honolulu hours before a live televised debate was broadcast from the nearby Hawaii Theater on KGMB TV.

Along with the mayoral candidate supporters were sign wavers from both "Stop Rail Now" and "Go Rail Go", two groups dynamically opposed to each other on the thorny and expensive issue of fixed rail transit.

As the election week winds down, most people have probably made up their minds on who they will vote for. This is how I will be voting in this election:
  • U.S. President & Vice President - John McCain / Sarah Palin - This goes against the grain of most people in Hawaii, but for me this choice lies mainly in ideology, party loyalty and the fact that this ticket is fiscally as well as more socially conservative. Plus they are pro-life, strong on less taxation, support a strong national defense & security posture and upholding second amendment rights.
  • Honolulu Mayor - Ann Kobayashi - I am reluctantly supporting her candidacy over the incumbent. This is a vote against Mufi because I just simply don't like the train. I am not crazy about Ms. Kobayashi's fixed guideway proposal either, but I think she will listen and perhaps be open to other options. She also has the support of the person I wanted for mayor, Dr. Panos Prevedouros.
  • City Charter Amendment - Steel Wheel on Steel Rail System - Everyone knows I am an opponent to fixed rail and I will be voting NO on this expensive proposal. Stop Rail Now!
  • Constitutional Convention - I don't like the cost projections for this as I don't know who to believe. But if we can spend $30 million on convening the Hawaii State Legislature every year, I guess spending $10 million and hopefully not too much more on this will bring needed change and long term savings to taxpayers, responsible fiscal and social policy to the State as they amend the constitution. So for me the Con-Con will be a YES vote.
The outlook for November 4 is quite grim if you are a fiscal and social conservative in Hawaii or anywhere else. I think Barack Obama will probably win the Presidential election which will be a major fiscal and social setback for the nation as we head into the future with his vision of a socialist utopia. It is likely that Mayor Mufi Hannemann will win the his seat again, which will in turn bring us his extremely expensive choo-choo train.

I am not very optismistic about America's future as our nation makes a swing to the left. Our traditional values and freedoms are at stake. Higher taxes and blatant socialism may be in our future. Hold on to your wallets and pray that a miracle will happen to stop all of this. Go out and vote.

Photo captions: Stop Rail Now volunteers and Ann Kobayashi supporters join Mufi sign wavers along Bethel Street in downtown Honolulu yesterday.

Sign Waving Downtown HNL

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Economic Downturn Delays 2nd Superferry

Hawaii Superferry 10-12-08

The start of Superferry service to the Big Island of Hawaii will be postponed for a year. This according to the latest press release from Hawaii Superferry, Inc. The firm is blaming the slowdown in the economy for postponing the positioning of their second, new vessel to Hawaii.

Their new ship is completed and was scheduled to arrive in Hawaii by next year with Oahu to Big Island service commencing sometime in May 2009. With the downturn in the economy, Hawaii Superferry decided to keep the new ship on the mainland and possibly lease it out for the short term to another firm or the military.

I was so looking forward in going to the Big Island on the Hawaii Superferry, but I guess those plans will have to wait for another 18 months or so.

Hawaii Superferry already has regular scheduled service between Honolulu and Kahului, Maui using their present vessl, the Alakai (photo above). Their new ship was recently completed at the factory in Alabama.

I rode on the Superferry late last year.

Additional Links

PodCamp Hawaii: A Brief Wrap-Up

Laptop Brigade

I spent two days this past weekend at PodCamp Hawaii, an "unconference" that gathered geeks, computer users and mere mortals together for a number of concurrent workshops that focused on podcast production, podcast advertising, marketing, blogging, WordPress software and its use, and how social media platforms can impact life and business.

The two day conference was held at the Hawaii Convention Center on October 24 and 25 and attracted more than 330 attendees. I learned several things at PodCamp. In a short nutshell they included:
  • Use of WordPress software as a good content management system for general blogging and podcasting front ends.
  • How to customize and get the most out of WordPress.
  • It is difficult to install WordPress on your own hosted server. It may be best to go with a host that truly supports WordPress or hire a true geek who can install and possibly maintain WordPress and its associated files and database.
  • A good hosting company is better than a bargain basement host.
  • Most people who start podcasts burn out after 7 episodes.
  • Don't invest too heavily in hardware on your podcast until you pass 10, 20 maybe even 50 episodes.
  • Maintain a tight podcast format, know and be passionate about your subject matter, and stick to a regular podcasting schedule.
  • Learn how to market your podcast and put it in all the right places (like iTunes, etc.)
There was a whole lot more including the introduction to a new version of WordPress that is supposedly easier to install and maintain.

PodCamp is also a good place to meet fellow geeks, business people and network with them. I don't do very well in active networking, but if I am invited to join in with an individual or a small group, I warm up to the situation in time.
Photo caption: The laptop brigade soaking up information at PodCamp Hawaii.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Stop the Train, Vote NO on Rail

This video clip from HawaiiReporter.com is about a year old, but still very timely and informative to this day. If you have any doubts about how expensive and useless rail will be you ought to be watching this video. Rail is a special interest project that will only benefit the well connected politicians, government contractors, developers and labor unions. Look at who is sponsoring the Yes vote on rail. Power politicians like Senator Dan Inouye, the Carpenters Union and special interests such as Go Rail Go. And don't forget rail's biggest cheerleader, Mayor Mufi Hannemann who needs to be voted out of office.
Link
Yes, the time to Stop Rail is now. Do not vote for Mufi and Vote NO on City Charter Amendment #4. NO to Rail today!



Video courtesy of HawaiiReporter.com.

Additional Links

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Vote "NO" on Rail

Vote NO on Rail

The November Ballot Question #4 is:

"Shall the powers, duties, and functions of the city, through its director of transportation services, include establishment of a steel wheel on steel rail transit system?"

The answer to the question is
"NO"

www.stoprailnow.com

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Mokulele Airlines Expands Interisland Service

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Kona based Mokulele Airlines, a commuter air carrier that has been in operation since 1998 will expand their service by becoming Hawaii's newest major airline on November 19 when it begins new jet service between Lihue, Honolulu and Kona. The airline has entered into an agreement with Republic Airlines' Shuttle America service, who will be providing them with 4 new generation 70 passenger Embraer ERJ 170 twin engine jets. Republic's investment into Mokulele will amount to nearly $160 million in aircraft and spare parts.

The Shuttle America ERJ 170s will be flying the Mokulele Airlines colors (see photo above). Mokulele will be providing the day to day operations with an expanded employee base of at least 400 workers, up from their present employment base of 200. Many of the new employees at Mokulele Airlines are former Aloha Airlines employees who lost their jobs this past March after they closed.

Mokulele will be in direct competition with established carrier Hawaiian Airlines and upstart Go! operated by Mesa Airlines. Mokulele has been operating Cessna Caravan flights for Go! to Hawaii's smaller airports. Go! CEO Jonathan Ornstein will probably sever that relationship.

According to Mokulele Airlines' website ticket prices for a one way trip start at $61, three dollars less than the last current fare offered by Go! While Mokulele says they will not lower their fares to the ridiculous levels seen during the last fare war of 2006 - 2008, they do say that they will remain competitive. Time will tell whether or not Go! or even Hawaiian responds to the new competition.

Mokulele's jet operations will fly between Lihue, Honolulu and Keahole-Kona. They plan to expand jet operations to Hilo and Kahului by next year. Mokulele already flies Cessna planes between Molokai, Honolulu, Lanai, Kapalua, Kahului and Kona. They never had scheduled service into Hilo.

While a lot of pundits say Hawaii's interisland market is too small to support 3 major carriers, for the flying public I think it is a good thing since it offers more travel options and hopefully stable, if not lower fares.

Additional Links

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hawaii TV to go All Digital January 15, 2009

KITV 4 and....

Hawaii will convert all of its full power over the air TV stations from analog to digital broadcasts on January 15, 2009. The new deadline will put the state one month ahead of the rest of the nation which is mandated to make the switch by February 17, 2009.

The digital switchover will affect all full power broadcast TV stations and those viewers who get their TV reception over the air through a rooftop or "rabbit ear" antenna. The changeover for cable TV and satellite TV subscribers will be transparent and unnoticeable. There will be no need for cable or satellite TV customers to buy a digital converter box. Cable TV and satellite TV subscribers already have digital boxes supplied by their service providers.

For antenna users with standard analog TV sets, a converter box will be required to accommodate the change. The federal government is subsidizing converter box purchases with a coupon program. Digital converter boxes are available at most major electronics retailers.

Antenna users can also buy a new TV set. All new TV sets ranging from low end CRT models to high end flat screen HDTV sets now come with built in digital tuners. Antenna using consumers who already have a TV with digital tuning or who are going to buy one by January 15 will not have to get the converter box.

Hawaii's local TV stations will be launching a public information campaign over the next 120 or so days to inform the public about the switch. The P-R campaign for the February 17 deadline is now a moot point in Hawaii.

The switchover from analog to digital is being hastened in Hawaii mainly in an effort to move Maui's TV transmitters from the top of Haleakala to a new location a few miles downslope from the present place near the mountain's summit. This is being done to accommodate the nesting habits of some rare birds on Haleakala.

Over the air consumers will be impacted by this switchover for all islands except Kauai, who get their analog signal from low power (LP) transmitters not currently mandated by the digital change.

Some Maui and neighbor island antenna viewers who will get their over the air signal from the new digital transmitters at the new Maui location may get a weaker signal or no signal at all since some of the digital channels on Maui were relocated from the VHF portion to the UHF portion of the dial.

Hawaii Radio & Television Guide will be updating its TV channel grid in the next few weeks to accommodate the change.

Links to more information
This was originally posted to the Hawaii Radio & Television Guide website.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Shuttle America Coming to Hawaii?

Published reports indicate that Shuttle America, a regional carrier and division of Republic Airways, may be flying in the interisland market by the end of this year under the Mokulele Airlines brand name.

Mokulele Airlines is a commuter carrier based in Kona operating Cessna Caravan single engine planes to several rural airports. They also fly under the Go! banner in a code-sharing agreement.

Shuttle America flies regional service for carriers such as United Airlines and Delta on the mainland. They were once known as a low-fare airline.

Air fares in the Hawaii interisland market have shot up since the demise of Aloha Airlines this past March. The current low fare is published by Mesa's Go! airlines at $64 each way. However when you visit the Go! website, there are hardly any $64 flights available. Some flights are $69. Most are higher.

Hawaiian Airlines charges $69 for their lowest priced ticket. Most of their fares range between $89 to higher than $120 each way.

There is a possibility that if this new airline enters the Hawaii market, a new fare war will probably start. Most likely this will not be good for any of the interisland airlines' bottom line.

This will be good for budget minded consumers like myself who have cut back on interisland travel this year. Competition and low fares are good for interisland travelers and residents.

Should this airline enter the market, the aircraft they will oberate is the Embraer ERJ 170 (photo above) which seats 70 passengers. It looks like a smaller version of the Boeing 737 but is larger than Go's CRJ 200 which holds 50 passengers. Hawaiian Airlines flies Boeing 717s inteisland that can carry up to 120 passengers.

Time will tell whether or not this new carrier enters the market.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Go See "An American Carol"



"A spoof of left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore from Airplane! writer/director David Zucker. Starring Chris Farley's brother Kevin Farley, Kelsey Grammer, James Woods, Trace Adkins, Dennis Hopper, Robert Davi, David Allen Grier, Leslie Nielsen, and Jon Voight."

Finally someone makes a movie that pokes fun at the liberal left in the eye and everywhere else. Fast paced, funny and a bit rough in some places, An American Carol is a must-see for all political conservatives and anyone who can take a joke at the liberals' expense.

Kevin Farley is a near dead ringer for lampooned filmmaker Michael Moore.

The plot is based very loosely on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and revolves around Farley's Michael Malone, a documentary film producer who makes anti-American movies.

Malone is visited by the angels of Presidents George Washington, John F. Kennedy and General George S. Patton who try to set him straight and steer him on the "right" course to appreciate of his country. There are many funny bumps along the way and that is the crux of the entire movie. A message and a lot of laughs.

The pace of the movie is relatively fast and I think I missed some points along the way, which will prompt me to see this flick again when it heads to the second run dollar theater and ultimately on DVD.

An American Carol is a good laugh to see at least once on the big screen and a contender for your movie library later.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Sarah Palin Should be Our Next VP

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The selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be the running mate of Senator John McCain was a brilliant stroke of genius. Up until last month's Republican Convention, I was not a supporter of McCain. He is a legendary war hero, and can certainly run the nation, especially in a crisis situation like 9-11.

What I was weary of was how conservative McCain is on the domestic economic front. In my opinion he is still not as conservative as former Senator Fred Thompson or Senator Sam Brownback or even former Governor Mitt Romney. I would have preferred to vote for any of the 3 before considering McCain.

However, we do have John McCain. Other than the Democrat Party nominee, Senator Barrack Hussein Obama there is no other practical choice to vote for President of the United States of America. If I have to use my conservative values as a measure, then certainly my vote is going to the McCain-Palin ticket over the very liberal Obama-Joe Biden one.

Over the past 5 weeks, Governor Palin certainly has come under fire by the liberal press. Despite that I continue to support her candidacy mainly because she is a fairly good fiscal and social conservative. She brings validation to the McCain candidacy for anyone who is a conservative and cherishes fiscal conservatism, low taxes, traditional "American Family Values", traditional marriage, pro-life, free markets, a strong national defense and worldwide presence among other things.

In some of Governor Palin's own words from yesterday's Vice Presidential debate emerge some of the reinforcing reasons why I support her and the GOP ticket.

"....we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this."

I practice living within my means on a daily basis. No long term debts or debt I cannot get out of for me. People need to practice restraint in their spending habits. Government could do the same too.

"Now you said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic. Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper."

I have long been a supporter of decreasing the tax burden for individuals, businesses and the American family. Government is the problem and the way to reign that problem in is to cut government spending, especially on pork barrel projects like rail transit. Paying higher taxes is "not patriotic".

"When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent." "It's a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land. And East Coast politicians who don't allow energy-producing states like Alaska to produce these, to tap into them, and instead we're relying on foreign countries to produce for us."

"Energy independence is the key to this nation's future, to our economic future, and to our national security."

Drill baby drill! Yes, there is oil in Alaska and elsewhere in the United States. It is high time we use our own resources instead relying on those from hostile countries such as Venezuela or places in the Middle East. Drill for American oil and move forward with energy alternatives such as solar, wind and nuclear.

On climate change, Governor Palin says:

"I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet."

She is absolutely correct. Man cannot be blamed entirely for climate change.

The source for the biggest blame is the Earth itself. Take a look at Kilauea Volcano. Two current active vents spew as much volcanic crap into the atmosphere in one or two days than all of the vehicles in Hawaii probably do in a year. In Alaska there are at least 3 active volcanoes spewing tons of soot into the atmosphere that would shame polluting, spewing Chinese factories. Variations with the sun itself are responsible for climate change on our planet. These forces of nature we cannot control. The best thing to do is adapt to the changes.

"... I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman....."

That I had no doubt. Ms. Palin is certainly a true conservative when it comes to traditional American values relating to marriage and family. I am skeptically surprised the Obama-Biden ticket are on the same page on this.

Funny thing is that the right to life issue did not come up. We all know Palin and McCain support a pro-life stance. I like that.

On to the war and foreign policy questions, I think Governor Palin held her own against Senator Biden.

" (a nuclear) ... Iran is so extremely dangerous to consider. They cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons period."

Yes. None of the U.S. hostile countries should ever be allowed to develop nuclear programs. We need to find a way to stop places like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela from developing nuclear weapons. A stable Pakistan is critical to maintain, because they already have nuclear weapons and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are in their back yard.

Senator McCain is generally on top of all of the foreign policy issues and has the experience to lead America and the free world through any possible crisis.

Back to domestic practicality, I liked this statement by Governor Palin:

"Just everyday working class Americans saying, you know, government, just get out of my way. If you're going to do any harm and mandate more things on me and take more of my money and income tax and business taxes, you're going to have a choice in just a few weeks here on either supporting a ticket that wants to create jobs and bolster our economy and win the war or you're going to be supporting a ticket that wants to increase taxes, which ultimately kills jobs, and is going to hurt our economy."

Government get out of my way. I think most people can agree with this. This election is all about the economy, national security, reducing taxes and getting government off our backs. I think with Sarah Palin as part of the John McCain presidential ticket will help the nation move along to this worthy goal. Less taxes, less spending and getting government out of our way.

I'll take Sarah Palin any day as our next Vice President along with Senator McCain for President. They will keep the United States of America on a strong and steady course through the challenges of advancing and maintaining a conservative future.