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.

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.

Boom! Welcome to Earth Day

Eyjafjallajökull Ash Cloud, originally uploaded by nic kirschner

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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.

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.

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.

Thoughts on Taxes After the TEA Party

The Second Annual Hawaii Tax Day TEA Party proved to be a success once again as it rallied the people at the Hawaii State Capitol and various locations throughout the islands. The Honolulu TEA Party was the largest with an estimated 1,000+ people showing up to demonstrate against high taxes, more taxes, bad public policy, the Obama administration and saving the United States of America from socialism.

People walked, drove or took the bus to the capitol to attend the rally. A number of them spoke at the 3-hour long rally on the bad deal we are getting from our government as taxpayers.

This year the Hawaii State Legislature which is almost wholly controlled by the Democrat Party of Hawaii have passed a series of bad bills that will increase taxes on barrels of oil, rental vehicles, income, the internet and plenty more. The majority Democrats believe that tax increases will save the state from its current budget crisis. Maybe so, but figures have shown that tax collections are down because people are cutting back.

The reality of tax increases punishes good taxpaying citiznes like you and I from contributing to our economy by allowing us to spend more on things we need and want. With more taxes being collected by the government, most people have chosen to cut back on their purchases because the cost of all goods and services sold continue to creep up because of ever increasing taxes.

Why can't government cut back or privatize certain programs. We certainly don't need departments such as The Hawaii Foundation on Culture and Arts. Art is not an essential service. The state could easily get rid of that and re-allocate the funds to education and reducing the number of school furlough days.

Speaking of education, I understand that there are a lot of non-teaching, administrative positions within the State Dept. of Education (DOE). The DOE needs to eliminate those non-teaching positions and concentrate on funding the teachers who are on the front line.

I am sure other programs can also still be cut within the state. The Dept. of Human Services has moved in the right direction by trying to cut 200 personnel and automating the welfare process to a computer and phone bank system for their "clients".

Able bodied people should be forced to work instead of relying on welfare bailouts from the taxpayers.

If we are really in a budget crunch then perhaps some state lands could be sold to private entities.

On the county level, the City of Honolulu still has a chance to cut a huge budget draining item from its capitol improvement fund. Yes, the Mufi Train can be cut to the savings of at least $5 billion. The State could help in this by cutting the GE tax subsidy the city is getting by eliminating that tax. This will almost certainly end the train to nowhere.

A constitutional amendment is probably needed to change the requirement that state and county civil service workers be members of unions. State and county labor unions such as the HSTA, UPW and HGEA need to be phased out or their influence greatly reduced. It is because of unions that much of our costs are spiraling out of control. All of the public labor unions support raising more taxes in order to keep their power and status-quo in their workforce. This is wrong, expensive and punitive to the taxpayers.

Lastly any political candidate or office holder that has either voted for a tax increase or proposes to support tax increases should never be re-elected or voted into office. We need leaders to be fiscal conservatives and mindful of what taxes do to impact the public, business and the cost of living.


NO NEW TAXES!

• Tea Partyers Rally at the State Capitol
• Mel's 2010 TEA Party Photos
• Scenes From the Hawaii Tea Party
• Many Tax Bills on Fast Track to Passage
• Taxes, Government Take a Beating
• April 15 No New Tax Rallies
  
• Tea Party Tour Ends With Washington on US Tax Deadline
  

Photos above were taken at the Honolulu Tax Day TEA Party held at the State Capitol.

TAX DAY TEA PARTIES AROUND THE U.S.A.

First Impressions of Apple's iPad

The following is based on a very few minutes of hands on tryout of an iPad at the Honolulu Apple Store.



Got my first look and try on the Apple iPad at the Ala Moana Apple Store. It's a nice device that can do a lot of things like web browsing, book reading and purchasing, music playing, some movie viewing, youtube, word processing and office tasks with iWorks, photos and a more. It's bigger than an iPod Touch and Nintendo DSi, but smaller than most Netbook computers. It is not a full on computer as it cannot do things like flash or be connected to a wired network. It is a nice device that I may reconsider purchasing in the not so distant future.



The big problem I have with books and other content that is available for sale through the iTunes books, app and movie store is DRM. I was not given a very clear explanation as to whether or not the purchased, proprietory content can be easily transferred at no extra cost to another iPad or iPod Touch or iPhone that the end user may own. I was clearly told that book content from the iTunes store cannot be viewed on your regular Macintosh computer.

The nice thing that I found about book reading on this device is that you can turn the book in either the horizontal or vertical mode and that the fonts and type size can be adjusted to whatever you like. Pages turn seamlessly with a move of a finger.

There is a kindle app available for the iPad as well as other Apple hardware such as the Macintosh. Books bought from Amazon.com to play on the Kindle are not compatible with the book viewer that comes standard with the iPad. Again, DRM getting in the way.

While I did not try it, I was told by the salesperson at Apple that the iPad can also read PDF. There are a lot of public domain books as well as millions of other types of documents available online as PDF files, usually for free. But then again most every other computing device can read a PDF which means you don't need an iPad to view them.



The onscreen keyboard is nice and easier to type with than the ones on the iPod Touch or iPhone. A better choice would be an external keyboard which is available for the device.

One thing about the all touch interface... it leaves the glass surface of the iPad full of fingerprints and grease streaks from hands. A daily cleaning of the touch surfaces will be the order of the day.



There is a YouTube app that specifically plays any and all YouTube videos. Shown above is my video of a Hawaiian Airlines Being 717 landing in Honolulu Hawaii.

While the iPad does not do flash, it seems this app and a few others have managed to get around this limitation. There was an ABC app on the iPad I tried out that also lets you view video content from the ABC TV network.



iPad does iTunes, which means that it can play music, podcasts and other audio content as well as purchased video content from the iTunes music store. Funny how all the main features of the iPad is connected to you purchasing something from the iTunes store. I hope the music I already own and have on my Mac is transferable to the iPad.

Shown above is iTunes playing a track from a Rolling Stones album

Will I buy it? Probably will at some point. The iPad comes in two basic models of varying storage/memory sizes. All models are equipped with built in WiFi access. So if you have a home wifi network you're online. There are wifi hotspots in many places around major cities in the U.S.

The more expensive models have 3G wireles networking that you have to subscribe to from AT&T. The subscriptions are month to month and there is no long term contract. That is good. However the 3G prices are fairly high.

More Information About the iPad

• Apple iPad pages
• Meet the new Apple iPad
• iBooks for iPad
• YouTube on iPad
  
• Extended Video Review
• Steve Jobs Introduces iPad
• iPad Launch in Hawaii
• Dumb Ass Destroys an iPad
• 
  

Photos taken with Sony Cybershot U30 at the Apple Store Ala Moana, 4-12-10.

2010 TEA Party on April 15

• Thursday,
  
• April 15, 2010.
• Hawaii State Capitol
• Rally 4 to 7 pm

• OvertaxedHawaii.com