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Happy Birthday America

The United States turned 234 years old this week. Hawaii celebrated America's Independence Day in the usual way: shopping, picnics, beach, playgrounds, music, gatherings and of course fireworks. Here is video from Ala Moana Center's fireworks finale and pictures from the same show. Hope you all had a great holiday to help celebrate America's freedom.

Photos and video content Copyright 2010 by Melvin Ah Ching Productions

24 days on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Last Month on the Big Island of Hawaii
Sunrise in Honokaa on June 26, 2010.

I spent nearly half the month of June on the Big Island of Hawaii mainly in the town of Honokaa visiting and staying over with my parents and sister. Each trip back to my favorite neighbor island is special these days as my Dad is in declining health. It is a special time I take to visit him and Mom. I spent several days taking Dad around to places he wanted to see near Honokaa.

While they are not in most of the photos, they were indeed there during trips to Kalopa State Park, Waipio Valley lookout, Paauilo Mauka, Ookala and Laupahoehoe.

Some of the significant items of note during my stay on the Big Island:

The Kealakaha Stream Bridge: Newly opened, with construction finished on May 12. This new bridge (photo above) had been under construction along Route 19 near Ookala for at least 3 years. It seemed longer. The new 650 foot span replaces the narrow, old bridge that had been in service since about 1935. That bridge still stands to the right of this new bridge.

I like the new bridge. Most motorists will travel over the span in less than 60 seconds. It is nice, wide and feels very safe. The main reason for the bridge replacement was to have a new facility that is able to withstand the shock of a major earthquake. The Big Island is volcanic and residents there are subjected to numerous earthquakes, most of them small.

T. Kaneshiro Store (TKS) Sold: It was with some sadness when I found out that T. Kaneshiro Store (TKS), a long time grocer in Honokaa town will be sold to new owners. The store's last day of operation will be on August 31. Store owners Roland and Gary Kaneshiro are retiring after being in the family business as the town's main grocers for many years.

I worked at Kaneshiro Store for one summer in the 1970s as a stock clerk. Learned some valuable lessons from the retail trade and have applied them to my life as a good consumer. My brother worked there for about 2 years in the mid 1980s.

Kaneshiro Store started off in a small wooden building that still stands at the corner of Mamane and Plumeria streets in Honokaa. In 1976 the store was moved to the bigger, present location just across Plumeria street.

On September 1, the grocers Malama Market will take over T. Kaneshiro Store. It will certainly be the end of an era for Honokaa and Hamakua.

Honokaa's longtime grocery store, TKS will become Malama Market on Sept. 1.

The Honokaa sewer line project took to the side streets in June.

Sewer Line Project: Since my last trip to Honokaa in March, the sewer line project that snaked through most of the town is probably half over with most of the major construction nearly complete along Mamane Street. Crews were still digging on Plumeria Street next to TKS and up at the top of Pikake Street near Tex Drive-In. Motorists have had to put up with detours and metal plates through much of the construction. The traffic pattern on Mamane Street was disrupted for a while, but has since gone back to normal with two way traffic and parallel parking on both sides of the road.

Ookala is a small, former plantation village on the Big Island.

It was nice to take my Dad to visit Ookala last month. He was a bit taken back by some of the changes to the place. The home where he grew up and lived as a boy in the Chinese section of the plantation camp, are long gone. Also gone are the old general store, old post office, old theater, tennis courts and the sugar mill. There is a new post office and some small businesses located in a cluster of new plantation era-like structures. The old Ookala School is overgrown with weeds 8 feet high and the old plantation gymnasium sits abandoned, condemned and in disrepair.

Ookala is one of many former sugar plantation communities along the Hamakua Coast that are passed by motorists traveling along Highway 19. Once in a while it is good to take a detour for a drive back into a quaint, quiet, green past.

The following is a slide show of all of the photos published from my June 2010 Big Island trip. When the set is completed, the slide show will consist of photos from Honokaa, Waipio Valley lookout, Paauilo Mauka, Kalopa Park, Ookala, and Laupahoehoe in addition to shots of my sister's cat Poof, Hilo, flowers, critters and maybe Waimea.

Photos and text are copyright 2010 to Melvin Ah Ching Productions.

26 days on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Apple iPhone Bars Inaccurate
I find it rather funny that Apple iPhone users have been duped since 2007 that their hi-tech phones have been giving them strong signal strength when for many, it just was not true.
The company released a statement saying that it discovered (to its surprise) that its algorithm for calculating signal strength for display as one to five bars has been incorrect since 2007. - Tidbits, July 2, 2010
Users of the new iPhone 4 have reported significant loss of signal strength when the devices were held in a certain way. Too funny. You spend all of that money for an expensive, fancy phone and suddenly it does not perform as expected.

I am happy I never bought into the iPhone or any other cellular devices in all the years that cellular have been available to consumers. (Generally I don't like the monthly pricing of all cellular phone plans nor do I like to be bothered by ringing phones when I am away from home or the office.)

This latest technological setback for Apple comes on the heals of recent data bandwidth rollbacks imposed on the iPhone and Apple's iPad by their only cellular vendor, AT & T.
- Apple admits iPhone bars Inaccurate
26 days on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Your Own Images on Google .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Google on Chrome Full Screen, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.
Google now allows its registered users to upload their own photos for use as background images on their popular search engine page. Don't have your own photo? They also have a set of images from their own collection that you can also use.

This screenshot was captured using Google's new Chrome browser in Mac OSX. Shown in full screen mode.

~1 month on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Honolulu's All British Car Day

Dozens of cars from the Great Britain were on display over the Memorial Day weekend at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki. These photos capture some of the splendor in these classic old cars as well as the newer ones. Enjoy!

Honolulu's All British Car Day Flickr Set

~1 month on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Hot Hawaiian Surf

I made this video short over the weekend. It's a bodyboarding surf video taken from the top of the Kapahulu Groin in Waikiki.

This project began innocently enough over the weekend after I attended a car show (photos coming soon) at nearby Kapiolani Park. After taking numerous photos at the show I walked over to the beach, shot a few pictures and shot a dozen or so video clips of the kids body surfing.

Next thing I know I was at home, on my Apple MacBook Pro looking at the clips on iMovie and starting the assembly process. I was expecting to make like a clip of about 40 seconds to a minute long. After cutting the clips and assembling them, I decided I need music. So I hunted on the internet for some good instrumental tracks which I found on GarageBand.com.

Got this song called "Action Theme" by Matthew Shell. Great guitar piece of about 2:50 in length. After merging the music with the clips, I decided I needed more clips. So back to the beach I went on the next day to take more video.

Last night I was at home, and assembled the rest of the pieces together with iMovie. Cleaned up the video, tweaked the audio, trimmed a little more here and there, added titles and finally had iMovie export the clip as an m4v file and played it in Quicktime. It looked great at full screen mode on my Mac.

Shortly after the clip was uploaded to YouTube.

This whole process was a learning experience for me as I got myself more familiarized with iMovie 09. I still consider myself a novice to iMovie even though I've been using it since Augustr 2009. So far this clip has turned out to be my most polished of edited works since I started using the app. I've mostly made one shot, political oriented clips for Senator Sam Slom, the Hawaii Tea Party and a couple of campaigns. I've dabbled with other clip subjects such as recording airplane landings and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

This time I learned how to mix music with the native audio source, manipulate the transitional elements and even how to do a voice-over, which I abandoned during the final cut.

iMovie is a great little program that Apple bundles for free with all of their currently shipping Macintosh computers. It's a great little program if your video production needs are not too ambitious. It's great for cutting clips that will go to YouTube or possibly over to your local cable access channel. Depending on the camera you use, your video can either be output as a standard definition or high definition show.

Overall the process took me some time: About 4 hours for the two days at the beach actually filming the clips (I also took a lot of still pictures). Another 2 or 3 hours searching Garageband.com looking for music, downloading and auditioning a number of instrumental tracks for the clip. Finally assembly of the clip in iMove took another 4 hours or more at least. There were 26 separate clips to go through, many segments with only churning water and hardly any action (all cut), a tiny fragments of good stuff that had to be clipped and edited together.

Hardware used: Canon S5 iS Digital still camera. This is one of two low end video cameras that I own. The Canon is primarily a still camera but has a decent, standard definition video capability. Most of the videos I posted to YouTube in the last few years were made with this camera.

Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch laptop computer running Snow Leopard 10.6.3. Bought this last year and have been enjoying it since.

Software: Apple iMovie, Apple iTunes, Apple iPhoto, and Mozilla Firefox.

~1 month on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Panos Will Run For Mayor Now that Mufi Hannemann has officially announced his intention to run for Governor of Hawaii, he has to resign from his seat as Honolulu Mayor by July 20, 2010. That will allow many people to pull papers and run for the office of mayor during a special election that will be held this fall.

This will allow Dr. Panos Prevedouros to once again run for mayor of Honolulu. Like I did in 2008, I will support Dr. Prevdouros's run for Honolulu Mayor. Let the campaigns begin!

-->

FixOahuNow.com | About Panos | On the Issues | Volunteer | Contribute | Contact
-->
Aloha,

We are pleased that Mufi Hannemann has finally decided to run for Governor but we are disappointed that he did not resign from his current position as Mayor of Honolulu.

For several months now he has been campaigning for Governor and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for his run for Governor while at the same time receiving full salary from Honolulu taxpayers. This is clearly not in the best interest of Oahu.

Hannemann needs to do the right thing and resign immediately or at least commit to resign by June 30, 2010 so that the Council has adequate time to declare a Honolulu Mayor race that can take place at no extra cost during the September Primary Elections.

We look forward to the race for Honolulu mayor. We're ready to stop the rail, and ready to fix Oahu with Smart Sensible Solutions.

Mahalo,

-->Panos D. Prevedouros PhD

Connect with us:
Follow us on Twitter
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Share this email

Contact Us:
Panos For Progress
PO Box 2504
Ewa Beach, HI 96706-0504
Phone
63-Panos (637-2667)
panos.prevedouros@gmail.com

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Simply Ono Lunchwagon .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Simply Ono Lunchwagon, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.
Now located near the State Capitol and the State Library building on Punchbowl Street. Simply Ono has one of the best lunchwagon menus around. Gotta try their herbal roasted chicken, furakake fish dishes, Hawaiian plate, and chicken taco salad. Their menu is up at:

www.simplyono.com

This is the first post where selected photos from my Flickr site will just be entered here because I thought the photo and/or the subject are interesting enough to stand as a blog entry without a very long commentary. Some of these photos are also crossposted to my Flickr photo blog. Many of the photos accompanying my previous posts over the years are already pulled from my Flickr site.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Charles Djou Wins Special Congressional Election

Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou won the First District Special Congressional Election last night (May 22). In the 3-way winner-take-all election, Republican Djou beat 2 prominent Democrats, former Congressman Ed Case and State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.

The election results are posted below (from the Hawaii Elections office):

Congressman-elect Djou has his work cut out for him. He has to not only represent Hawaii in Congress for the next few months, but will also have to stage an even larger election campaign for the fall. The combined total of the two losing Democrats in this election stand at 100,193. Djou got 67,610. He still needs more than 33,000 votes to win this fall.

All numbers aside, Djou can relish in his victory tonight and possibly for the week. The work ahead will be immense if Djou is to win this fall.

Video and images by Melvin Ah Ching Productions © 2010 All rights reserved.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
SBH Foundation Holds Sucessful Awards Banquet

The Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation held its 3rd Annual Small Business Awards Banquet on Friday night, May 21 at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.

Awarded were Veronica Kaneko of McDonalds Restaurants of Hawaii as the SBH Business Person of the Year; Robin Campaniano of AIG Hawaii/Farmers Insurance Hawaii for the SBH Jean Fukuda Civic Leadership Award; Stephan Edwards of 1 Hot Garage and The Systemcenter, Inc. as the SBH Young Entrepreneur; and Brook Gramann & Glora Garvey of The Brand Strategy Group as SBH Small Business Booster.

The banquet also featured entertainment by jazz vocalist Ginai, accompanied by her partner Pierre Grill. The emcee was Joe Teipel of Auction Action.

There was a silent auction that featured a variety of merchandise and services.

The Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation is a Hawaii 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, whose mission is "to educate, support and encourage entrepreneurs in our community and the world."

More information at the SBH Foundation website.

www.sbhfoundation.org

Photos copyright 2010 Melvin Ah Ching Productions. All rights reserved.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Hawaii Five-0 Coming Back to CBS
"Hawaii Five-0" is coming back to CBS network TV in a new form. The network announced this past week that a complete reboot of "Hawaii Five-0" will air during the Fall 2010 season on Monday nights at 10 pm (9 pm Hawaii time).

The new "Hawaii Five-0" will have an all new cast, and according to many news sources, is not a sequel to the original but a total re-boot or re-imagining if you will. The young cast includes:
- Alex O'Loughlin as Detective Steve McGarrett
- Scott Caan as Detective Danny "Danno" Williams
- Daniel Dae Kim as Detective Chin Ho Kelly
- Grace Park as Detective Kona "Kono" Kalakaua
- Jean Smart as Governor Patricia "Pat" Jameson
- Taryn Manning as Mary Ann McGarrett
The new show is being produced by Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci who did a reboot of the Star Trek series with a new movie in 2009. The show is supposed to be shot in Hawaii. The pilot was done on Oahu this past spring.

The new "Hawaii Five-0" comes just in time after the long running ABC TV series "Lost" ended its run this year. That show shot mostly on Oahu and brought in more than $400 million into the state's economy over the last 6 years. Cast member Daniel Dae Kim is already a familiar face in Hawaii as he played the character Jin on "Lost" since the program's start in 2004.

I am cautiously optimistic that the new "Hawaii Five-0" can become a hit, if they keep most of the elements of the original show intact. A good start is the theme song which has already been released to the public and can be viewed and listened to by selecting the video at the very top.

The one thing that I am concerned about is that one of the producers said that comedy will be included as part of the new show. As I recall after watching the original "Five-0" for many years, that the program was just hard hitting and contained almost no comedic parts at all. I am afraid that comedy in the rebooted "Hawaii Five-0" may not work for the old time fans of the original.

Hawaii Five-0: Behind the Scenes

CBS News Online: Hawaii Five-0 interview

Additional Links
- Hawaii Five-0 (2010) - Wikipedia entry
- Hawaii Five-0 - Original series (1968-1980)
- Discussion topic @ HawaiiThreads.com
- CBS TV 2010 - Hawaii Five-0
2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
LLIFE of the Party or Is It?

Ratifying a new, one page values oriented “platform” under the banner of LLIFE (Life, Limited Government, Individual Responsibility, Fiscal Accountability and Equality of Opportunity) was the center of the 2010 Hawaii Republican Party convention. GOP delegates, supporters and the faithful attended in droves (my estimate of about 400 attendees included more than 250 delegates from 51 house districts) to discuss and ratify the LLIFE “platform”, adopt several non-binding resolutions and listen to speeches by various GOP candidates including Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona (running for Governor), First Congressional district candidate Charles Djou, State Senator Sam Slom and Rep. Lynn Finnegan who is also running for Lt. Governor.

The convention also marked the last time that Governor Linda Lingle addressed the crowd as the state’s chief executive. Her speech focused on why Republicans say “no” to new taxes and bigger government while also addressing the future, young people and the new platform.

While the LLIFE platform was the main event of the convention, supporters and other attendees were somewhat unsure of whether or not the proposed document would pass. The Hawaii Republican Assembly (HAR) had proposed an alternate platform based on a concept of a “Contract With Hawaii” to members earlier in the week. It was presented as an amendment to the LLIFE platform by HAR chair, Paul Smith. The amendment was turned down by a floor vote after which the LLIFE platform was passed with an overwhelming but not unanimous majority of the delegates.

My take on the platform? LLIFE is a good start, kind of like the opening page to a bigger opus. It is not issues focused which is what members such as myself think the platform should contain. The Republican Party will offer an ongoing, issues database that is supposed to be periodically updated over the next 2 years. The 2010 LLIFE platform was voted for in whole to include the one page LLIFE document as well as the mostly unseen database portion, which is available online for just connected members to view with computers. I voted “no” because of this.

If anyone asked or wants to see what the Hawaii Republican Party’s stand on a specific issue like rail transit or the Akaka Bill is, those items and many others are not in the platform.

The HAR “Contract With Hawaii” addresses action points based on current issues including eliminating the general excise tax from food, residential rent and medical expenses; fiscal notes for all proposed state legislation; full disclosure of all campaign contributors and donors; tax equity; school vouchers; and a constitutional amendment for initiative, referendum and recall.

The Hawaii Republican Party LLIFE platform has been adopted by some of the candidates this year. Others have decided not to use it.

LLIFE or not, the bottom line for the Hawaii Republicans is to win elections. The party may have a good start if Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou actually beats the two Democrats in the upcoming special election. If he does, the victory will hopefully translate to Republican wins in other state and county races.

About the Photos: I shot more than 500 photos at the convention. The above gallery represent 20 of the best ones. More can be viewed on my Flickr page on the convention or though the linked Flickr slide show.

This article is also published at HawaiiReporter.com.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
How Private is Your Facebook Profile? .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Facebook Privacy, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.
Have you checked to see how "secure" your Facebook information is? As many of you may know, Facebook has one of the poorest privacy policies and reputation on the internet. They share way too many items of information about you with third parties, many times without your knowledge.

You can analyze and fix most of your privacy levels by running the scanning tool from www.reclaimprivacy.org/.

A good article on Facebook privacy can also be found at Tidbits, the online Apple Macintosh resource. The Facebook privacy article there applies to users of all computer platforms - Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone, etc.

How to Protect Your Privacy from Facebook
db.tidbits.com/article/11282

In this screenshot from my Facebook page above using the reclaimprivacy.org scanner the green bars at the top indicate that my Facebook profile is in good shape because I have opted out of many sharing options, don't do third party apps and games. I basically set my privacy levels to the most secure possible setting. A red bar is generally not very good. In my case the scanner flagged the red item and gave me a link on where I can go to fix it.

If you are extremely concerned about your Facebook privacy, the best thing to do is discontinue your Facebook account and delete your profile. The Tidbits article has information on how to do that.

Just remember that anything you post on the internet is "not private" and stays on the internet practically forever.

View a larger version of the screen above

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Korean Firm to Assemble Electric Vehicles in Hawaii

Governor Linda Lingle and CT &T CEO Young Gi Lee signed a "memorandum of understanding" (MOU) in which the State of Hawaii will support the Korean firm's plans to build an electric vehicle assembly plant somewhere on Oahu. CT & T is a South Korean firm that builds several models of electric vehicles designed for personal and fleet use.

The company's proposed plant will employ up to 400 people and build about 10,000 2-seater electric vehicles per year. The location for the manufacturing facility was not disclosed at today's press conference, but will be built somewhere on Oahu.

The vehicles are all electric and are about the size of large golf carts. They are designed for light industrial, government and commercial use as well as for personal transportation. They come in two distinct model classes, the more car-like and upscale eZone and the utilitarian cZone. Each vehicle can be configured for different types of uses. The models on display at the State Capitol included a police cruiser (for use in parking patrol), a personal transport, lunch wagon, utility car, plate lunch truck and pick-up truck.

Cost range from about $8000 to $20,000 per vehicle depending on model and options. The cZone models are able to reach speeds of up to 25 mph. The eZone can reach speeds of up to 60 mph.

It remains to be seen whether or not these small electric cars will be successful in the Hawaii market. A handful of firms have sold or are selling electric cars. Most recently Nissan announced that the Nissan Leaf will be available for sale in Hawaii starting next year.

Governor Lingle talks about the CT & T assembly plant proposal.

CT & T's eZone coupe. The vehicle will be assembled in Hawaii.

Architect's rendering of proposed assembly plant.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
State Senator Sam Slom's 60 Day Legislative Update

State Senator Sam Slom's 60-day wrap up of the 2010 legislative session.

2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Bad Bills Pass on Last Day of Legislature
The Hawaii State Legislature adjourned the 2010 session on April 29 by raising more taxes and passing a very divisive civil unions bill. Opponents of HB 444 sit in the House gallery with their white shirts and red buttons on. The House sneaked HB 444 on to the agenda in the last minutes of the 2010 session and passed out the civil unions bill by a 31 to 20 margin (see Dishonor Roll of State Legislators Who Voted for HB 444).

Many photographers were in the Hosue gallery on April 29 taking photographing most of the day's proceedings.

With the damage done, House members greet Senate members on the House floor on the last day of the 2010 Legislature. What damage hath the Legislature brought on to the people?
- The passed HB 444, the civil unions bill at the last minute.
- They passed the barrel tax bill which increases the tax on a barrel of oil from 5 cents to $1.05 each. That tax increase will be passed on to all of us with higher gasoline prices and electricity costs. Remember, electricity in Hawaii is generated mostly with fossil fuel. Liberals, environmental wackos and all of the legislators who voted in favor of HB 2421 are to be blamed for this added hit to our pocketbooks.
- A $67 million raid on the Hurricane Insurance Relief Special Fund (SB 2124) to pay for HSTA union teacher for additional instructional [furlough] days. What if a hurricane hits Hawaii this year? Hurricane season starts on June 1 and ends on November 30.
- Anyone who needs a traffic abstract will have to pay $20 instead of $7 that have been charged for many years. Legislators passed SB 2159 to make that happen.
- Democrats are well known for protecting their own kind. This year they passed the "Vexatious" requester bill which disallows multiple requests for the same piece of information by the same person from government agencies. SB 2937 was passed to prevent citizens from inquiring about President Barrack Hussein Obama's alleged Hawaii birth certificate. No one has seen the birth certificate, so unless it is publicly revealed, the status of that document is "alleged".
- The multi-page State Budget (HB 2200) has many tax and fee increases buried in its pages that target specific groups and individuals.
- Do you buy dietary supplements that come in a bottle? That bottle will be subjected to the beverage container tax which is the same for soft drink and water bottles. (HB 2239).
- A solid waste tax? Yes, for items shipped out of state. (HB 1987).
- Got a tax refund coming? The legislature passed HB 1948 which will delay yours for at least 90 days.
Most of these bills and many others passed by the State Legislature this year will increase the cost of living and doing business in Hawaii. The Governor vetoed a few of the bills. The legislature has overridden most of them so far.

For the majority of bills, the Governor has a 45 day window which started on April 29 in which to make her mind up on all of the bills passed. Call, write, fax or email the Governor and tell her what you think about the bad legislation. Hopefully she will veto the worst of the worst bills.

The status and details of every bill can be found at the Hawaii State Legislature's website:
- http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov
Click here for more political photos from the State Legislature.
2 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Dishonor Roll of Legislators Who Voted for HB 444

Dishonor Roll of Legislators
Who Voted for HB 444

If you are a supporter of traditional marriage, the following legislators should be voted out of office on November 2, 2010. Those running for higher office should not get your vote. This list will be posted to this blog on a periodic basis from now to the day before the general election.

STATE SENATE
Voted on January 22, 2010.

Baker, Rosalyn (D)
Chun Oakland, Suzanne (D)
English, J. Kalani (D)
Fukunaga,Carol A. (D)
Galuteria, Brickwood (D)
Green, Josh M.D. (D)
Hanabusa, Colleen (D)
Hee, Clayton (D)
Hooser, Gary L. (D)
Ige, David (D)
Ihara, Jr. Les (D)
Kidani, Michelle (D)
Kokobun, Russell (D)
Nishihara, Clarence K. (D)
Takamine, Dwight Y. (D) *
Taniguchi, Brian (D)
Tokuda, Jill N. (D)
Tsutsui, Shan S. (D)

STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Voted on April 29, 2010

Belatti, Della Au (D)
Berg, Lyla B. (D)
Bertram, Joe III (D)
Brower, Tom (D)
Cabanilla, Rida T.R. (D)
Carroll, Mele (D)
Chong, Pono (D)
Coffman, Denny (D)
Hanohano, Faye P. (D)
Herkes, Robert (D)
Karamatsu, John Riki (D)
Keith-Agaran, Gilbert (D)
Lee, Chris (D)
Lee, Marilyn B. (D)
Luke, Sylvia J. (D)
Marumoto, Barbara C. (R)
McKelvey, Agnus L.K. (D)
Morita, Hermina (D)
Nakashima, Mark M. (D)
Nishimoto, Scott Y. (D)
Oshiro, Blake (D)
Oshiro, Marcus (D)
Rhoads, Karl (D)
Saiki, Scott (D)
Say, Calvin K.Y. (D)
Shimabukuro, Maile S. L. (D)
Takumi, Roy M. (D)
Thielen, Cynthia (R)
Wakai, Glenn (D)
Wooley, Jessica (D)
Yamashita, Kyle T. (D)

Additional Links and Information:

Status Sheet on HB 444

Call, fax or write to Governor Linda Lingle. Ask her to veto HB 444. She has 45 days to decide if this bad bill is to become law.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Time to Kill HB 444 Forever!

Gay rights activists are at the capitol again this week trying to push HB 444 (Civil Unions bill) to a floor vote in the State House of Representatives. April 29 is the last day of the legislative session. Action on HB 444 has been "indefinitely postponed" since late January 2010.

Hawaii Family Forum reports that HB 444 may be pulled out by a House of Representative member on April 29 (today). The House floor session starts at 10:00 a.m.

Now the gay activists and their sympathizers are trying to once again push Hawaii further to wrong side of this highly charged moral issue and have state law compromise on what a traditional marriage is... a union between a man and a lady and nobody else.

Hawaii Family Forum and other pro-traditional marriage organizations must show up at the State Capitol to urge all lawmakers to keep HB 444 bottled up and finally get it killed for this legislative session.

Contact your State House of Representative members by using the following link:

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/info/direct/repdir.asp

You can bulk email all State Reps at the following email: reps@capitol.hawaii.gov.

This is Hawaii's last chance to stand up for keeping traditional marriage as is within the confines of the law.

Remind your rep that YOU VOTE and if they vote to approve Civil Unions, YOU will vote them out of office.

Thousands of traditional marriage advocates rallied against HB 444 in the State Capitol earlier this year. Supporters of traditional marriage far outnumber people from the gay and lesbian community.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Boom! Welcome to Earth Day .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Eyjafjallajökull Ash Cloud, originally uploaded by nic kirschner
.

Ever noticed? One of the biggest polluters on Earth is Earth itself? This month that is most apparent with the huge volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland. A huge ash cloud has drifted over most of Europe crippling their airline industry and everything and everyone that depends on it after authorities throughout the continent banned flying for most of last week, due to safety concerns. Airlines and industries lost millions of dollars because of nature's furious pollution. The volcano was reported to spew like 7 tons of ash per second into the air.

Here in Hawaii, Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island has been erupting non-stop since 1983. The main crater, Halemaumau burst to life in 2008 creating its own ash cloud that has over time impacted Hawaii's pristine air with volcanic ash and "vog". Fact is vog has been an ongoing problem in Hawaii ever since the volcano started to erupt.

Volcanoes are not the only culprits screwing up Earth's environment. Huge environmental destruction is caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, snowstorms, rain, floods and more. Most of this phenomenon occur naturally whether or not humankind had any impact on the environment. I think humankind's impact on most of the environment is quite minimal when compared to the fury and destruction our own planet and perhaps even the universe unleashes upon the Earth.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Attorney Adrienne King Will Run For Lt. Governor

Attorney Adrienne S. King officially announced her run for Lieutenant Governor at the State Capitol yesterday during a news conference held next to the Queen Liliuokalani statue.

Adrienne announced her candidacy for Lieutenant Governor at the 2009 Republican State Convention a year ago. She is the first Republican candidate to file papers for Hawaii Lieutenant Governor in the upcoming election. Adrienne is committed to serving alongside Duke Aiona, Hawaii’s present Lieutenant Governor under Governor Linda Lingle, who is running for Governor on the Republican ticket.

Adrienne stated, “For the first time in many years, there is a growing, but tenuous opportunity, to move Hawaii beyond mere survival in exciting new directions within the global marketplace. This can only be achieved with balance in our political structure, with a governor who understands ‘pono,’ and who will usher in a new era, and a new way of thinking.”

King’s campaign manager, Brian C. Romano added, “Adrienne’s unwavering dedication to our community and her strong sense of commitment to the people of this special state will help move Hawaii in a new direction.”

Information about her campaign can be found at www.adriennesking.com.

Photo: Adrienne S. King with her supporters at the State Capitol.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
Shuttle Discovery Returns

The Space Shuttle Discovery returned to Earth this morning after a successful supply mission to the International Space Station (I.S.S.). This is the 4th to last Shuttle mission with only 3 more flights left before the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet is retired by the end of the year.

After the last Shuttle flight in September, the U.S. government will be without a manned spacecraft for several years until either a modified Orion type vehicle flies for the government or a fleet of commercial space vehicles can be established. U.S. astronauts will still have limited access to space by hitching rides aboard the Russian built Soyuz capsule for trips back to the I.S.S. Unmanned cargo missions to the space station will be handled by smaller Russian, European and commercial spacecraft.

The Space Shuttle has been a successful but expensive vehicle for the U.S. space program. And of course it has had its major setbacks with the loss of the shuttles Columbia and Challenger.

The Obama administration has drastically scaled back the U.S. manned spaceflight program, canceling the Bush administration's Constellation program that would have set a goal of landing man on the moon again by around the year 2020. The Constellation space vehicle with its Orion capsule was also to be the manned spacecraft that would ferry astronauts to and from earth orbit and the space station.

Our country will not have an official U.S. man in space program until private vehicles are tested and become readily available in a few years.

3 months on
Mel's Internet Universe Weblog

Mel

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