i L i n d . n e t

I must not have been paying attention the day that the mayor approved formation of the Department of Cruel, Unusual, and Just Plain Mean Punishment.
How else to explain the homeless policy reported in Sunday’s Advertiser?
After getting out of the housing business, the city’s homeless policy now seems to be something like this:
1- Destroy their homes.
2-Kill [...]

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Yesterday’s entry about the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands request to purchase a $75,000 painting without competitive bidding drew several pointed responses.
Perhaps the most telling point is that DHHL could draw upon the collection of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts for its new headquarters. That’s one I didn’t take into account. [...]

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The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is requesting an exemption from bidding in order to purchase an oil painting of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole to hang in the department’s new headquarters in Kapolei. The price: an eye-popping $75,000.
Perhaps its an antique painting by a local master? Perhaps even an original done during Kuhio’s life? Nope. [...]

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Former United Public Workers director Gary Rodrigues may be serving time in a federal prison in California, but the Board of Land and Natural Resources is preparing to grant him a revocable permit for 33 acres of state land adjacent to his Kauai home for a nominal $40 per month.
The permit was previously held [...]

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It’s Good Friday. Time to consider whether there’s any way that Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” could be remade in 2008. I tend to doubt it. It’s an all too irreverent look at the beliefs and rituals of Christianity that probably couldn’t survive the political correctness that seems to rule today. The movie’s final scene [...]

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A legislator who has been following my use of Hawaii’s Uniform Information Practices Act to obtain emails from the governor’s office asked nervously whether the same law could be used to seek public access to legislative emails. I answered that it probably does. But on reflection, that answer was probably wrong.
Hawaii’s law clearly applies to [...]

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Hawaii Reserves, Inc., the real estate affiliate of the Mormon Church, suddenly announced earlier this month that it has stopped development work on its proposed workforce housing project on hundreds of acres of land in Malaekahana, just outside of Laie.
According to a statement issued by Hawaii Reserves president R. Eric Beaver, a bid to add [...]

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Here are a few more files of email retrieved from the Governor’s office for browsing. It’s interesting to see what’s there, and also what is absent from the communications.
Gov Lingle - (13 MB)
Linda Smith - Senior Policy Advisor (24 MB)
Andy Smith - Kona/West Hawaii Liaison Officer (6 MB)
George Kaya - Maui Liaison Officer (24 MB)
The [...]

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