Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Reported Whale Strike

I got an email this morning reporting that a passenger on the Superferry called federal enforcement officials to say the ferry had hit a whale at about 7:25 or 7:30 a.m. today off Penguin Bank, and the boat had come to a screeching halt before resuming travel.

I checked in with federal agent Bill Pickering, who confirmed that a call was made to the NOAA hotline. "We're looking into it to find out if it's true or not," he said, noting that the ship's passengers and crew, as well as the caller, will be interviewed when the boat docks at Kahului Harbor.

I'll keep you posted.

Update: OK, so according to The Advertiser:

Hawaii Superferry said it used standard operating procedures today to avoid humpback whales on its morning voyage from Honolulu to Kahului Harbor.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

an important story either way - if it was hit, or if the machine is fast enough to stop on time and has the right systems in place to know to stop

Anonymous said...

Joan and Brad were hopin'...

Anonymous said...

RE above - ya, but thats not new news

Joan Conrow said...

Bite your tongue. I'd never hope to see a whale harmed. Haven't you gathered by now I'm a nature lover?

Mauibrad said...

Re: Both Anon's

For the passengers, if you don't get the picture, you don't got splat, ur squat I mean.

Aloha, Brad

Anonymous said...

Oh, I think both of you would gladly rationalize a whale dying for the cause of bringing down the Great Satan of your creation.

Anonymous said...

clearly the safety of whales is an issue but it won't stop the superferry from plowing thru the channels. only poor choices by decision makers will do that. i'm glad there was no blood and gutz from whales or protesters. and i hope the ship doesn't sink either. only the economy, the HISC or mismanagement will stop the HSF

Anonymous said...

> only the economy, the HISC or mismanagement will stop the HSF <

Not a chance. It will sink beneath its own unsustainable weight of greed, hubris and lies.

Anonymous said...

It will sink beneath its own unsustainable weight of greed, hubris and lies.

Or not.

Anonymous said...

> Or not. <

That's up to HSF. They can stop getting their pals in government to bend the rules for them; they can stop leveraging the nation's military need for their own commercial greed; and they stop sneaking their hands into the taxpayer's pockets.

Or not.

They can get the new national winds of responsibility and honesty in their sails.

Or not.

Personally, I wouldn't bet on them changing. But then again, less likely things have happened.

Anonymous said...

They seem to be doing fine so far.

Anonymous said...

> They seem to be doing fine so far. <

Same words that the best and brightest in government and finance said about our economy.

Right up to the moment when it sailed over the cliff.

Anonymous said...

Same words that the best and brightest in government and finance said about our economy.

Only if you weren't listening.

Anonymous said...

ya there were plenty of (or at least some) fund and money managers that were iffy over the past few years and were keeping their cash reserves high

Anonymous said...

You gotta buy yourself a t.v. or read a newspaper. Congress held hearings where witnesses testified about the damage to the economy caused by laws requiring lenders to make credit more available for poor homebuyers.

Anonymous said...

the "poor people getting fred/fan loans they never should have had" argument only goes so far

Anonymous said...

any single component of the meltdown "only goes so far". By definition.

Anonymous said...

The financial meltdown was an unspoken collusion of business, government and consumers, all interested in getting the most for themselves at the least cost, in denial of responsibility for future consequences.

HSF is an unspoken collusion of business, government and consumers, all interested in getting the most for themselves at the least cost, in denial of responsibility for future consequences.

One is national, the other is local. One has many zeros to the left of the decimal point, the other has fewer. One is threatening people's economic survival, the other is threatening the environment -- which in the islands is intimately connected with many forms of survival, economic among them.

The core engine that drives them both is essentially identical: self-interest combined with denial of self-responsibility.

Anonymous said...

but i like go shop and no like fly:(

Anonymous said...

What a crock:

"Congress held hearings where witnesses testified about the damage to the economy caused by laws requiring lenders to make credit more available for poor homebuyers"

there was no such law. Lenders were forced to treat all borrowers equally, ie no redlining. That's about it. But the RW noise machine do love to blame all the world's ill on poor and especially poor brown people. Pretty funny when the bulk of the problem is in places like LV, the Inland Empire, Stockton etc -- lily white by and large.

Anonymous said...

well at least 2009 wont be boring :)

January 21, 2009 3:11 PM
January 21, 2009 8:15 PM
January 22, 2009 9:42 PM

Anonymous said...

there was no such law. Lenders were forced to treat all borrowers equally, ie no redlining. That's about it.

You are incredibly uninformed.