i L i n d . n e t

I was blasted out of bed just before 5 a.m. by a blast of thunder and lightning. I dragged myself out into the living room worrying that some heavy weather might be on its way. First job, count cats, figure which ones are missing and presumed outside. Luckily, they all reported in within a few minutes. A quick computer check yielded this radar image just at 4:59, with the red area apparently an area of heavy rain, perhaps the source of the thunder and lightning, just slightly up the coast from Kaaawa. But that weather moved quickly towards Kahuku and off to the north. We’ll just have to wait and see what the morning brings. At least I know it won’t be the heavy snow and ice hitting California!

I did a quick end of 2007 snapshot of campaign fundraising by members of the Legislature. Here’s a rough version sorted by the candidate’s bank balance at the beginning of the 2008 campaign year. Senators are at the top, followed by members of the House, below. The column labelled “income” shows their total receipts during the period July 1-December 31, 2007. Expenses are their total expenditures during the same period. Balance is their remaining bank account balance, and the last column lists any outstanding loans.

Senators Norman Sakamoto and Donna Mercado Kim both have more than $200,000 in the bank, although neither did much significant fundraising during the second have of 2007.

Senate President Colleen Hanabusa was most active in fundraising, bringing in nearly $75,000 during the six month period. She was followed by three legislators with ambitions for higher office. Josh Green and Dwight Takamine both raised about $50,000 during the 6-month period and hoping to move from the House to the Senate, while Senator Lorraine Inouye brought in $38,409 to launch her bid for Hawaii County mayor.

The data show quite a range both in off-session fundraising and in overall balances, with half of the House having well under $20,000 in the bank at the beginning of the campaign year, and at least 15 with under $10,000 available.

Senators names that appear in bold face reelection this year.

Those with no data did not have reports posted online by Saturday morning when I downloaded the first round of data.

I finally managed to wrestle my photos back into semblence of organization and my Lightroom catalog back into working order. That allowed me to finally give January’s Kaaawa morning dogs some visibility. This is Ms. Pe’a, who is featured in several photos along with her housemate, Jack. Anyway, just click on her photo for more.