Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Musings: Moving On

What a sweet morning! Bird song — warbling, trilling, tweeting, soaring —woke me this mornin, and when Koko and I went outside we were greeted with pink haze as the sun peeked its head up over the horizon.

My honohono orchid is blooming, the papaya tree has flowers, the grass is growing. Spring is definitely on its way.

And so, it seems, is the Superferry, if a report on KHON is accurate:

The Hawaii Superferry has released more than 230 employees and contractors, and sources say the Alakai will likely be leaving the islands.

Several sources confirm the ship owners are looking for a new home for the first vessel, eyeing places including Guam.


Perhaps the military will be interested, since that's what the boat was all about in the first place. As a report on the Joint High Speed Vessel project in Defence Professionals notes:

The aluminum catamaran design of the JHSV will be similar to that of the Austal-built fast ferries for Hawaii Superferry, also powered by MTU Series 8000 engines.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Mark Bennett is sticking to the maxim of never give up the ship, even when it’s sunk, or sailing without him. According to The Advertiser:

It's a long decision. We want to carefully study it," Bennett said. "We want to make sure our motion is on appropriate grounds. We have one shot to do this. ... If we don't succeed, then we have to accept it and move on."

The Lege, to its credit, already has:

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha) said yesterday that, given the latest court decision that Act 2 is unconstitutional because it was designed to benefit a specific company, "I'm not sure there is anything the Legislature can do or is willing to do (to help the Superferry)."

Hanabusa said the Senate also is not interested in revamping the state's environmental review law, known as Chapter 343, to ease the rules. Although the Legislature last year allocated money for a Legislative Reference Bureau study of the law, "we are not going to do anything to it piecemeal to help Hawaii Superferry. That's not going to happen."


Well, perhaps they haven’t all moved on, if this comment from Sen. Sam Slom is any indication:

"When the governor took office six years ago, she said the open-for-business sign is on again," he said. "Unfortunately, a number of people have not recognized that.”

Yeah, I guess somebody should tell the Hawaii Supreme Court to get with the program.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Gabbard, chair of the Energy and Environment Committee, is not planning to get with the program on the House bill that prohibits the state and county from regulating GMOs. In response to an email I sent, he wrote back:

Thanks for writing me. I agree that HB 1226 is a very bad bill and don’t plan on scheduling it for a hearing.

The bill should die now. But bad legislation, like vampires, sometimes comes back to life through a technique called “gut and replace,” in which the contents of a live bill are stripped and replaced with a dead one.

As Rep. Mina Morita warned on this one, it’s not safe to pronounce it dead until 11:59 p.m. on the night the Lege closes.

Finally, if you’ve been following the Niihau fish kill story, I have posted another update on The Hawaii Independent that delves into the classified military operations under way at the time.

12 comments:

Katy said...

Joan, thank you so much for staying on top of the develping PMRF/fish kill story.

Anonymous said...

what did that CA court rule as to the sonar thing? anybody remember? ty

Anonymous said...

Moving On! All butt 5 of the legs voted for this clearly unconstitutional bill. If "moving on" means REPLACED I concur. If it means remaining in office I OBJECT

Anonymous said...

I am suggesting that all the now out of work employees come to your house to live!

Anonymous said...

the fed stim bill $$ that HI will get more than offsets fired SF people

Anonymous said...

> I am suggesting that all the now out of work employees come to your house to live! <

No, you're suggesting that it's okay to cut backroom deals, break the law, trash the environment and get the taxpayers to co-fund it, all in the name of "business."

Don't feel alone, you've got plenty of company -- from the greedmongers of Wall Street to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their lobbified pocket-pals in the Congress and State Legislatures.

Anonymous said...

just fyi - the SF man canceled his chamber of comm keynote thurs. he will be on the boat in maui or somthin

March 18, 2009 12:28 PM
March 18, 2009 8:19 PM

Anonymous said...

just fyi - the SF man canceled his chamber of comm keynote thurs. he will be on the boat in maui or somthin

March 18, 2009 12:28 PM
March 18, 2009 8:19 PM

Anonymous said...

OK, I suppose it's your due to empty your gut of partisan bile at a time like this. Because this post is the opposite of being thoughtful. Kauai's activist community has turned into knee jerk reactionaries. This was a phrase formerly reserved exclusively for the extreme right wing. Now it's you guys. You must be so proud!
Military - knee jerk - evil
Business - knee jerk - greed
Politics - knee jerk - corrupt
Construction - knee jerk - distruction
and so on.
Life is nice and probably less stressful when it's all made simple for you and you no longer have to think for yourself. Now all of you get in a nice single file line and keep marching lockstep against all those evil people who are just like you and
remember, extremists never compromise.

Anonymous said...

> OK, I suppose it's your due to empty your gut of partisan bile at a time like this. Because this post is the opposite of being thoughtful. Kauai's activist community has turned into knee jerk reactionaries. This was a phrase formerly reserved exclusively for the extreme right wing. Now it's you guys. You must be so proud!
Military - knee jerk - evil
Business - knee jerk - greed
Politics - knee jerk - corrupt
Construction - knee jerk - distruction
and so on.
Life is nice and probably less stressful when it's all made simple for you and you no longer have to think for yourself. Now all of you get in a nice single file line and keep marching lockstep against all those evil people who are just like you and remember, extremists never compromise. <


Ad-hominem political attacks as a distraction from real issues are so yesterday. You'd think with all the demonstration of their uselessness by Cheney, Rush, Palin, et al., the right would try something more effective. ;)

Anonymous said...

"Kauai's activist community has turned into knee jerk reactionaries."

--- thats old news dude

Anonymous said...

Dawson, It's not ad-hominem (you need to look that up) and it's not from the Right Wing. You just wish it was that easy to dismiss.