ON THE LOCAL SCENE

Big city crime worms its insidious way onto Mau'i. We've had two home invasions in the past week. Both occured near Kamaole Beach Park #1, a well known hangout for druggies and homeless riff-raff. These are the "night crawlers" that I have referenced before. The police are now advising folks to keep their doors locked. Something that never use to be a worry or concern.

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MPD has initiated a crack down on speeders. Wrote 65 citations in one 4 hour period this past week. The department's policy that frowns on pursuits allowed one speeder, who was clocked at 101 mph (166 kph), to escape.

About the only problem I have with MPD is that they seem to operate in "knee-jerk" fashion. You very seldom see them on pro-active patrol. On most incidents they respond from the station. Maybe they spend a lot of time there doing paperwork or in-service training. Who knows? What they don't do is patrol. Looking to stop problems before they start. This could also be a budgetary concern. The brass wanting to save money on fuel costs, strongly suggesting the officers stay "in-house" until they are needed. That happened back on the mainland in the 70's during the Arab oil embargo.

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A little bird told me that The Grand Wailea is going to start requiring drug testing of their service vendors, especially contract taxi drivers. Makes sense to me. Seems my post the day I was terminated has worked its way through their upper management. I hope they use the hair test, rather than the urine test, like the casinos in Nevada do. There are many ways to beat the urine test. I think the County should make it mandatory for taxi driver's license renewal.

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

TERRORISM IN HAWAI'I

Today a group of native Hawai'ians have taken over the grounds of the Iolani Palace. They have locked all the gates to the palace and are allowing only persons of Hawai'ian descent in. State workers within the palace itself closed and locked the doors, preventing occupation of the building. There are about 60 people involved in this act. No weapons have been seen. Police are getting warrants for their arrest and hope to bring this incident to a peaceful end.

For updates, please use the following links. This is a breaking news story and not all may have updated their sites.

KHON (FOX) ch2

KITV (ABC) ch4

KHNL (NBC) ch8

KGMB (CBS) ch9

Honolulu Advertiser

Honolulu Star Bulletin

Pacific Business News

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

GOOD MORNING

MR. & MRS. AMERICA
And all the ships at sea.

Look out "Snake" Plissken. NYC is gearing up for a new hi-tech security fence around Manhattan. The outer boroughs can kiss their ass goodbye. This is designed to protect the "money" of our nation and the world. Commoners need not apply.
It will be sort of what London has now but in real time with interactive face recognition algorithms. Designed to look for wanted faces and to note repeated questionable activity by persons unknown in sensitive areas of the Financial District.

Its an interesting read.

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Have you ever watched the game show CONCENTRATION? Maybe you've played the board game. What you are doing in that game is exercising what is known as fluid intelligence. It has always been thought that a person's level of fluid intelligence was fixed at birth. Unable to be increased. New studies seem to indicate that this isn't so. With a little training, everyone can raise their intelligence levels. Too late to help us now but maybe Dubya can finally grasp why he went wrong in so many ways.

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Box Score - World-Wide Terrorist attacks:

Killed or wounded:

2005 - 39,469
2006 - 59,327
2007 - 66,995

No, I am not making this up. The facts are part of a new report issued by our very own State Department.

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The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) had its ass handed to it in a recent court decision regarding the sharing of music files on the web. The Federal judge didn't throw out the case but the road block he presented to RIAA is going to force a change in their overly aggressive approach to file sharing.

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Is Disney being 2-faced in its feigned concern about the timid Miley Cyrus photo? Seems that their concerns don't apply to their marketing strategy in China for its brand name childrens clothing line.

***

Thanks for coming over. I always love the company. I'll be back later with more.

Mahalo

Aloha

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THE PICTURE GALLERY

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

THE END OF THE DAY

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

AIRLINE PILOTS

HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

What little most of us know about airline pilots is that disembodied voice over the PA that welcomes us aboard, and then tells us the weather at our destination, on arrival. There have been anecdotes about pilots forgetting to shut off the PA and then making statements to the first officer that are broadcast plane-wide. Here are some pilots being interviewed while undergoing flight simulator training.


Mahalo to Happy Thoughts for discovering more flight humor.

***

In other, Hawai'i related, airline news. Aloha Airlines cargo division abruptly ceased all operations. It appears that their ground services operation has also gone under.

Since the cargo division handled 85% of all air cargo traffic in the State, things are expected to get a bit dicey for the perishable goods market. Milk, produce, bakery items, prescription drugs and the US Mail all relied on Aloha to transport their products to the neighbor islands from O'ahu (Honolulu). Also affected are UPS, FedEx and DHL ground transport companies. The general consensus is that we can expect perishables to double or triple in price at the local retail level. Mau'i may fare a bit lighter, since we do have the Hawai'i Superferry making daily trips between Honolulu Harbor and Kahului Harbor. Service by the ferry to the Big Island and Kaua'i are still in limbo. While there are barges shipped every day to all the islands, these are via containers and most of the perishables would not fill a container. Thus using such an option would be not cost effective.

Quite a few of the major mainland airlines used Aloha's ground services division for baggage handling, maintenance and ticketing services. That also appears to be gone. Which means the majors are scambling to find a way to service their customers at the various airports in the state.

The rough edges of paradise are beginning to unravel.

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"

265 DAYS

AND COUNTING

Dubya is going to hold a rare press conference today. I plan to wait until his spin doctors have a chance to re-write all his misstatements, so I can actually understand what the hell he is talking about.

Oh, shit. I just did the time conversion. He's talking right now as I type. A 10:30 AM news conference in DC translates to 4:30 AM here.

***

I see that North Carolina's Governor Mike Easley has endorsed Clinton today. Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. The number of delegates up for grab via the primary process is not enough to push either Clinton nor Obama over the top. The decision making will be done by the "super delegates". What is a "super delegate"? Hell, I don't know. All I know is that the Democrats were a "shoe-in" to take the White House, just 6 months ago. Now I am not so sure. The only misstep that McCain could make would be choosing Huckabee as his running mate. Lets face it. Intelligence is no longer a prerequisite to being President.

***

Summer vacation time is just around the corner. Where do you plan on going? The normal run up of gas prices during vacation season will probably put us in the $5 a gallon range. Looking a little further into the future, you might want to reconsider. Think how much it is going to cost to heat your home this winter. Will this cause a mass migration to the warmer southern & southwestern states?
I am going to prognosticate here. I think that we will be looking at $200 a barrel crude oil and $10 a gallon gas by the end of 2010. Your conjectures on this would be appreciated.

***

As always, thank you for stopping in. I appreciate each and every one of your visits.

I'll probably be back later with more.

Have a great day.

Mahalo

Aloha

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THE PICTURE GALLERY

Over The Limit?
UNDER ARREST!
Please don't drink and drive

"Let's all be careful out there!"