Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

The latest news is that Interpol has added WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange to its wanted list. Right wing talk show noisemakers want him dead. Since a coming data dump is supposed to contain bank data, Wall Street banksters may also want him dead.

If the US government is smart, though, they’ll make sure that no harm comes to him. Why? Those insurance files.

Wikileaks insurance files have been downloaded all over the world. If anything happens to Assange, that could trigger a release of the encryption password. No doubt he has made arrangements to have the password released by multiple third parties.

And no doubt whatever is in those files is far worse than what we have seen so far, and it wouldn’t be redacted.

That’s just an assumption, but the downside risk is there, and so if someone is successful in doing Assange in, they may not only regret it, but they may learn that Wikileaks is probably more than just one man.

by Larry Geller

Julian Assange on the question of whether Hillary should resign:

"I don't think it would make much of a difference either way," he said. "But she should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that."   [Time, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Tells TIME: Hillary Clinton "Should Resign" , 11/30/2010]

I imagine governments have often been at odds with their people, kept secrets from them and spied on them. That doesn’t mean we have to like it.

The State Department destroyed its own mission by turning itself into a spy agency. Clearly, it can’t conduct diplomacy if it is an agency of spies rather than diplomats.

Can she imagine that spying on foreign diplomats or the UN, which is illegal several which ways, and even ordering the collection of DNA and biometric data, credit card numbers, passwords and encryption keys, etc., facilitates her ability to conduct diplomacy?

Just because of that, if she doesn’t resign, she should be fired. The problem is, the White House received copies of the cables, so it is complicit.

Don’t hold your breath, I guess.

P.S. Good discussion on today’s Democracy Now. Don’t miss Part II of the conversation with Noam Chomsky, linked on that page.

by Larry Geller

A Frequently Asked Question in Honolulu is: “How many pedestrian deaths does it take to get a traffic light installed?”  There is no clear answer. Presumably fewer if the deaths occur in Kahala or Hawaii Kai and more if they occur in Kalihi. The city Dept. of Transportation should post the answer on a FAQ page to end the controversy.

What ought to be controversial is whether the City can be held responsible for deaths due to its lack of enforcement of traffic rules.

I’ve asked before: How many pedestrians in crosswalks have to be hit or killed before the Honolulu police begin systematic and adequate enforcement of traffic laws? The number may be four, judging from this article in today’s paper.

Today’s Star-Advertiser story,

Oahu’s traffic death toll for 2010 already tops 2009 total (11/30/2010) is very troubling.

If stepped-up enforcement is the answer to bringing down the numbers, then why does HPD only increase enforcement when deaths increase, and then slack off later? What about more police, at more intersections, on a regular basis?

I live very near one of the intersections that the AARP considers to be one of the most dangerous. I have NEVER (shouting in caps) seen police stationed there giving out tickets to the numerous drivers who speed through a right turn without stopping or signaling. The police are not there during morning or evening rush hours when the intersection is jam-packed with stopped cars, forcing pedestrians to weave their way around the vehicles in the crosswalk and making it impossible for those with walkers, wheelchairs or scooters to cross at all.

There are no cops there today, and there have never been any when I have crossed that street.

In fact, anyone contemplating sailing through a right-turn-on-red without signaling or stopping and while yakking on their cellphone has nothing to fear in Honolulu. The traffic laws are so seldom enforced that they might as well not exist.

The newspaper, for its part, could do a far better job at covering what happens to drivers who hit pedestrians. Are there any consequences for murder-by-vehicle? Either way, it ought to be news.

Police Chief Louis Kealoha advised:

“Our pedestrians should walk with a purpose in the crosswalks,” he said. “Sometimes you see them with the iPods, taking their time, but you need to be vigilant.”

Good advice perhaps, but there’s nothing illegal or wrong with a pedestrian crossing the street with an iPod. Some older folks need to take their time. Let me make this clear:

Crossing the street with an iPod is not a capital offense

Crossing the street slowly does not merit the death penalty.

I’ve seen cars cutting in front of a pedestrian on a scooter in a crosswalk like she didn’t exist. That’s an offense, but the police are nowhere to protect us. And drivers know it.

The City bears some responsibility for not researching and installing the best technology to bring drivers to a stop at crosswalks. This is not rocket science. And it seems no number of deaths will get us improvements.

We have a new administration in City Hall, a former prosecutor. I hope the Mayor will take a new tack and put his police to work all year round, not just when the newspapers report an increase in the death statistics.

If the City is motivated to act only by a high death count, the City is responsible for avoidable deaths in my book. I wish some judge would agree with me one day.

 

by Larry Geller

While Americans struggled without jobs and the economy teetered deeper into recession, the Obama administration worked with singular zeal on health care reform. Whether Obama is a one-term or a two-term president, the Affordable Care Act would be the crown jewel in his legacy, flawed though it may be.

But what if the courts strike it down?

If Virginia district court judge Henry Hudson rules that Congress had no business compelling people to buy insurance, then he'll also have to determine which of the law's other provisions must also be stripped. That could easily include popular measures like the one banning discrimination against people with pre-existing medical conditions.    [Talking Points Memo, An Error By Dems May Allow The Lawsuit Against Health Care Reform To Succeed, 11/30/2010]

It seems that the law was passed without a “severability clause.” That would have protected the rest of the law even if part is struck down, as could happen in this or other legal challenges.

Talking Points Memo argues that the entire law would not likely be struck down. But some of its better parts, such as the ban on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, could be axed. Of course, that would make the law even more of a windfall for insurance companies and leave more people without affordable health care.

Adverse rulings would be appealed. But whoa, we have a Supreme Court which could very well be salivating at the chance to take apart this “Socialist” bit of legislation.

The Obama administration has done nothing to forestall the foreclosure tsunami. Guantanamo is still open, Obama has not prosecuted torturers, we are fighting endless wars on at least three fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan, and thanks to Wikileaks, we know about Yemen). Without health care reform, what will Obama have to show for two years?

A current joke is that Democrats are promoting Palin for a run at the presidency in 2012 so Obama will be sure to win. If healthcare reform bites the dust, that joke may no longer be funny.

by Larry Geller

I like Old Diver’s comment posted to my article "Did Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller “wear a wire” when she dined with the Duke of York?":

Next time an American Ambassador has lunch with a foreign diplomat they will be required to go through a TSA screening. Never know where you might find a wire.

Apparently the Wikileaks revelations are to be stretched out over time, which will keep American diplomats and anyone who speaks with them on edge for the duration. See: "We Have Not Seen Anything Yet": Guardian Editor Says Most Startling WikiLeaks Cables Still To Be Released (Democracy Now, 11/30/2010).

The leaked cable written by an American ambassador contained amazing detail of a luncheon meeting attended by the Duke of York, who must be steamed by its revelations. The detail suggests that the luncheon may have been secretly recorded by the Ambassador.

This and other leaked cables demonstrate that the line between diplomacy and spying has disappeared. What else has been reported that foreign dignitaries assumed would be secret? How many reports, as detailed as that one, are routinely sent, and are conversations routinely and secretly recorded?

Perhaps it’s assumed that each country is spying on the others, but what is new is that the results can be laid out for anyone to read. That wasn’t anticipated.

by Larry Geller

Most newspaper accounts of last week’s “Opt-Out Wednesday” reported that it was a failure. The measure was that lines proceeded smoothly through security screenings at airports around the country.

Of course, all TSA had to do was not ask very many people to pass through the full-body scanners and not subject passengers to the invasive pat-down feel-ups.

Whether they did that or not is something we can’t tell.

I was at the airport last week as a volunteer passing out ACLU flyers on passenger’s rights, but since that was on the upper level, there was no chance to ask arriving passengers (at the lower level) about their experience.

Checking local TV and press coverage, it’s also hard to say whether TSA backed off on scanning for that one day. There just isn’t evidence.

Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight is checking further:

I have e-mailed the T.S.A. and asked them what, if any, additional statistics they are willing to provide. While they undoubtedly did a good job in keeping traffic moving over the holiday weekend — and certainly did a good job in managing public relations over the new procedures — it would mean something much different if this was accomplished because new scanners were turned off, or if overall passenger volume was down from a typical Thanksgiving weekend. We simply don’t have any good way to assess this based on the numbers they have provided thus far.  [Five Thirty Eight, What The T.S.A. Hasn’t Told Us, 11/29/2010]

Getting the numbers will take time. Meanwhile, occasional new stories of airport atrocities still pop up. I’ll skip listing them up, they are there for the Googling.

Bottom line: if there was a TSA strategy not to scan last Wednesday, it was very successful.

 

by Larry Geller

According to a dispatch in the Wikileaks treasure trove, American Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller attended a two-hour brunch to brief the Duke of York ahead of his meetings with the Kyrgyz Prime Minister. Much of the banter is actually quite amusing and a rare peek into the attitudes of the British royal family.

The meeting took place on October 28, 2008, according to this leaked diplomatic cable. She was, by her own report, the only American there:

The Ambassador was the only participant who was not a British subject or linked to the Commonwealth.

Yet she reported in minute detail who said what. Presumably she didn’t sit there taking notes in Gregg Shorthand.

Here’s a snip, by way of example:

In an astonishing display of candor in a public hotel where the brunch was taking place, all of the businessmen then chorused that nothing gets done in Kyrgyzstan if President Bakiyev’s son Maxim does not get “his cut.” Prince Andrew took up the topic with gusto, saying that he keeps hearing Maxim’s name “over and over again” whenever he discusses doing business in this country. Emboldened, one businessman said that doing business here is “like doing business in the Yukon” in the nineteenth century, i.e. only those willing to participate in local corrupt practices are able to make any money. His colleagues all heartily agreed, with one pointing out that “nothing ever changes here. Before all you heard was Akayev’s son’s name. Now it’s Bakiyev’s son’s name.” At this point the Duke of York laughed uproariously, saying that: “All of this sounds exactly like France.”

Aside from whether the French or the Kyrgyz will get a kick out of this depiction of their character, just how did Amb. Gfoeller manage to make this long and detailed report, which was sent out a mere day later?

It could have been done if she were “wearing a wire,” that is, secretly recording the conversation around the table.  I doubt, if she put a recorder out in plain view, that the remarks she reports would have been uttered at all.

If the conversations were indeed surreptitiously recorded, that could be the end of confidential discussions with American diplomats.

And it would be their own fault.

by Larry Geller

Ryan Ozawa has posted “the rest of the story” on how he and Civil Beat obtained the city salary data which they both posted today. It’s interesting reading, and could have implications for the release of future data.

Check out City Salaries and Civil Beat (Hawaiiweblog.com, 11/29/2010). There’s also a link to the data itself. The free data, that is.

It’s an important article so I won’t snip from it. Just go there if you are interested in open records or the public’s right to know.

by Larry Geller

Civil Beat has done it again: they’ve obtained public data, which is free (we taxpayers already paid for it), posted it to their website in obscured form, and are asking for payment for more access.

No problem. Anyone can do that. If you want to pay me for access to free data, that might be ok.

But if you want to see the whole list, with no obscuring watermark, and free for you to read, use, manipulate, analyze, or to cry over (if you are one of the lower paid employees), it’s also been posted on the Web by the Hawaii Open Data Project. A direct link to the spreadsheet is here. Free and clear. No payment required. More than 7800 records are there for you to view or download.

The Hawaii Open Data project is a growing resource promoting transparency by making public data more readily available. Check out also HawaiiBase.com “The Hawaii Wiki.”

by Larry Geller

My thanks to Tara Calishain of Research Buzz for posting Bishop Museum Putting Hawaii Archaeological Site Information Online (11/29/2010). I have subscribed to the email version of Research Buzz for exactly 12 years. November 1998 is the earliest email I can find. Each email brings one or more new resources and reminds me that there are people out there who truly understand research as a science, not just something you do with Google. And that there is no replacement on the Web for access to a flesh-and-blood research librarian.

The database mention  reminds me that it’s important to recognize when anything serious is done to preserve Hawaiian culture. There’s nothing Hawaiian in our news unless there’s a parade, it’s not in our language except for a couple of words like aloha, mahalo and pau.  Hawaiian is the second official language of the state but there isn’t even voting information distributed in Hawaiian while it is for a number of Asian languages.

And while we recognize something called the “aloha spirit”or “indigenous culture,” we seem to practice just the opposite. Except in hotels, and that’s problematic.

The Bishop Museum Hawaiian Archaeological Survey (HAS) online database will be a contribution to the scientific community, and that’s a good thing.

By “preserve Hawaiian culture” I don’t mean in a pickle jar, however. The Bishop Museum is preserving artifacts that would be lost without their efforts. That’s not enough. The culture is not dead, it is very much alive. Preserving has a different meaning when something is endangered. It means you stop endangering it.

I’m troubled with archeology practiced on a living people. Am I alone in this? I’m bothered, I think, because of the systematic annihilation of the Hawaiian language and culture and then we study it like a dead civilization. We need to do more than preserve, we have a responsibility to quit the damage we are doing at least for a start.

So while this database is certainly a valuable undertaking, what would be even more valuable would be to get busy with the real work of respecting and restoring the ability of a people to choose their own culture and yes, their country, again. Apologizing for the illegal overthrow was step zero, we need to move to step one.

by Larry Geller

When the words “Hawaii” and “hub” occur together in a sentence, I get a Google Laugh Alert. Other words often found in the same sentence are “Pacific” as in “hub of the Pacific region” or “high-tech” as in “high-tech hub of the Pacific region.”

Most often it means another amusing high-tech claim appears in our daily paper. And so it was this morning.

Today’s Star-Advertiser article Nuclear option advances energy independence (11/29/2010) triggered a Laugh Alert.

If nuclear reactors are to be designed or built anywhere, it will not be in Hawaii. And if we are sensible, they probably won’t be used here, either.

Why we should be using nuclear energy on islands surrounded by continuously available and unlimited wave energy is a question not asked in the article. Ocean thermal and wave power are continuous. Conveniently to the author’s argument, only wind and solar power were mentioned.

Wave power doesn’t leak radioactive liquids or have waste disposal problems. It has no reactors to melt down. The author omitted mentioning leaky radioactive piping and is silent on the death and destruction caused by Chernobyl.

The technologies we can work on here do not include nuclear or even wind. We do have expertise in micro-CSP technology, the use of shiny curved solar reflectors to heat tubes of liquid passing through their focal points, and that heat can easily be stored.

Should these systems move to commodity manufacturing, it won’t be in Hawaii, though. Take as an example the newspaper high-tech solar energy darling of the recent past, Hoku Scientific, the Hawaii-based company that generated its jobs in Idaho and is now majority owned by a Chinese company.

Using technology is very different from building technology. We are paying high prices for our electricity because we lag, not lead, other areas of the world in making use of available technology. As to making the equipment, generally Hawaii is not a place to manufacture. Period. The raw materials have to be brought in, then the finished goods shipped out. The market is far away.

As an illustration, when Disappeared News revealed that the first off-shore wind/wave power installation was to be installed in Hawaiian waters it was to be maintained by a Mainland firm using Chinese-made turbines (see: Company applies to place Chinese-made wind turbines offshore in Hawaii (12/5/2008) and more here).  That should have deflated the concept that we can be technology leaders. We’d do well to get off the dime and become technology users first.

Next in line to power up Hawaii could be geothermal, also, as I understand it, a continuous energy source.

Nuclear is not needed here.

The challenge to Hawaii will be to unplug itself from HECO’s coal-and-oil generators in an orderly and sensible fashion. Since they operate the power grid and wield political power, that’s been hard to do.

By Henry Curtis


Initially HECO wanted to race into building a costly SMART GRID, but has since backed off. The rumor is that they laid-off or relocated much of their smart grid staff after buying a costly piece of software that failed to work properly. Life of the Land intervened in the SMART GRID regulatory proceeding before the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission. HECO and Hawaii State Government signed an Energy Agreement (Oct 2008) which heralds a transformation of energy generation from fossil fuels to renewables but requires first to streamline regulatory processes, gutting some oversight, and to build billions of dollars worth of grid infrastructure. Then, if it is to be believed, then a transformation to very large central station power plants (such as Neighbor Island wind farms) will power the grid. One reason HECO needed to delay the development of a SMART GRID is the vulnerability of a new system to cyber exploitation. The alternative future relies on distributed solar and wind systems located at or near where the demand is. The question is: what road or path leads to a SMART FUTURE?

HECO controls the generation and transmission infrastructure using a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

Wikipedia:
Stuxnet is a worm specifically written to attack Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used to control and monitor industrial processes.

Russian digital security company Kaspersky Labs released a statement that described Stuxnet as "a working and fearsome prototype of a cyber-weapon that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world."

Stuxnet is a Windows-specific computer worm first discovered in June 2010. It is the first discovered worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems, the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit, and the first to target critical industrial infrastructure. Stuxnet includes the capability to reprogram the PLCs and hide its changes.

Country Infected computers: China 6,000,000; Iran 62,867; Indonesia 13,336; India 6,552; United States 2,913

It is initially spread using infected USB flash drives and then uses other exploits to infect other computers in the network. Once inside the system it uses the default passwords to command the software.

It only attacks systems with variable-frequency drives from two specific vendors: Vacon based in Finland and Fararo Payabased in Iran. It monitors the frequency and only attacks systems that run between 807Hz and 1210Hz which is very high and only used in particular industrial applications. Stuxnet then modifies the output frequency for a short interval of time to 1410Hz and then to 2Hz and then to 1064Hz and thus affects the operation of the connected motors.

The complexity of the software is very unusual for malware. The attack requires knowledge of industrial processes and an interest in attacking industrial infrastructure. Stuxnet is unusually large at half a megabyte in size, and written in different programming languages which is also irregular for malware. It is digitally signed with two authentic certificates which were stolen from two certification authorities which helped it remain undetected for a relatively long period of time. It also has the capability to upgrade via peer to peer, allowing it to be updated after the initial command and control server was disabled.

These capabilities would have required a team of people to program, as well as check that the malware would not crash the PLCs. Writing the code would have taken many man-months, if not years.

The worm's ability to reprogram external programmable logic controllers (PLCs) may complicate the removal procedure. In addition, it has been speculated that incorrect removal of the worm could cause a significant amount of damage.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Cyber Security Division's operates the Control System Security Program (CSSP). The program operates a specialized Computer Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT)

Automation, SCADA and Control System developers often use off-the-shelf equipment, software and protocols, integrating and configuring these in different ways for a variety of applications. This 'common' approach can make it easier for malware to bring down some vulnerable systems.

Alan Bentley of security firm Lumension has said that Stuxnet is "the most refined piece of malware ever discovered ... mischief or financial reward wasn't its purpose, it was aimed right at the heart of a critical infrastructure". Symantec estimates that the group developing Stuxnet would have been well-funded, consisting of five to ten people, and would have taken six months to prepare. The Guardian, the BBC and The New York Times all reported that experts studying Stuxnet considered that the complexity of the code indicates that only a nation state would have the capabilities to produce it.

There are reports that Iran's uranium enrichment facility at the Natanz facility was the target of Stuxnet and the site sustained damage because of it causing a sudden 15% reduction in its production capabilities. There was also a previous report by wikileaks disclosing a "serious nuclear accident" at the site in 2009. According to statistics published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) the number of enriched centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 beginning around the time the nuclear incident WikiLeaks mentioned would have occurred. On November 23 it was announced that due to a series of major technical problems in Natanz Iran had to temporarily cease its uranium production altogether.

The whole Stuxnet code has not yet been decrypted, but among its peculiar capabilities is a fingerprinting technology which allows it to precisely identify the systems it infects. It appears to be looking for a particular system to destroy at a specific time and place. Once it has infected a system it performs a check every 5 seconds to determine if its parameters for launching an attack are met.

The worm appears programmed to cause a catastrophic physical failure; early speculation on methods had included overriding turbine RPM limits, shutting down lubrication or cooling systems, or sabotaging the high-speed spinning process of centrifuge arrays at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility; in November 2010, according to The New York Times, experts at Symantec found that the worm speeds up rotation rates for the accelerators to the point where they break.[68] The complex code of Stuxnet looks for a very particular type of system and controller, namely frequency converters made by the Iranian company Fararo Paya and the Finnish company Vacon.

It is believed that infection had originated from Russian laptops belonging to Russian contractors at the site of Bushehr power plant and spreading from there with the aim of targeting the power plant control systems.

Henry Curtis

ililani.media@gmail.com

# # #

by Larry Geller

“Watergate” was the name given to the scandal which brought down President Nixon after his team of “Plumbers” broke into the office of  Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Shouldn’t “Cablegate” bring down Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now that it is revealed that she ordered the collection of private information, including passwords and credit card numbers, of UN officials including UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon?

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.
…
Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives".

The secret "national human intelligence collection directive" was sent to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome; 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow.   [Guardian (UK), US diplomats spied on UN leadership, 11/28/2010]

The Guardian article details US espionage activities directed against government and business leaders in several countries.

Will Hillary Clinton be removed as a result of these revelations? Will US citizens even demand her removal? Watergate was then, Cablegate is now, and American citizens seem willing to let their government get away with anything.

by Larry Geller

A sensible editorial in the NY Times (snip):

Lame duck lawmakers will have only one day when they return to work on Monday to renew the expiring benefits. If they don’t, two million people will be cut off in December alone. This lack of regard for working Americans is shocking.
…
Ignoring facts and logic, several Republicans have said that any benefit extension must be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere. That would, in effect, be giving with one hand while taking away with the other. It is not only cruel, but foolish, because it would reduce the economic boost that benefits would provide.

President Obama should pound the table for a clean, yearlong extension of unemployment benefits, and should excoriate phony deficit hawks — in both parties — who say that jobless benefits are too costly, even as they pass vastly more expensive tax cuts for the rich.    [NYTimes, The Unemployed Held Hostage, Again, 11/28/2010]

Check out the entire article at the link above.

While reading, keep in mind that Wall Street executives will be taking home record bonuses this year. They sure need those tax cuts, don’t they.

 

Check it out here.

See also:  In Wake of WikiLeaks Cable Release, JFK, Ellsberg's Remarks on 'Secrecy', 'Covert Ops' Worth Noting (Bradblog, 11/28/2010).

by Larry Geller

The Wikileaks dump has already yielded some interesting reading. This cable shows that the White House knew that the coup in Honduras was illegal. Of course, Obama supported the coup.

Did we expect Obama to act differently from his predecessors? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Summary: Post has attempted to clarify some of the legal and constitutional issues surrounding the June 28 forced removal of President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya. The Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch, while accepting that there may be a prima facie case that Zelaya may have committed illegalities and may have even violated the constitution. There is equally no doubt from our perspective that Roberto Micheletti's assumption of power was illegitimate. Nevertheless, it is also evident that the constitution itself may be deficient in terms of providing clear procedures for dealing with alleged illegal acts by the President and resolving conflicts between the branches of government. End summary.

by Larry Geller

US Claims Next WikiLeaks Release Will ‘Put Lives in Danger’

James Jeffrey, the current US Ambassador to Iraq, angrily condemned WikiLeaks today, insisting that the upcoming release would do damage to his ability to have discussions in confidence. Other US officials have been covering the globe, apologizing in advance for what are said to be a large number of embarrassing revelations to come.  [antiwar.com, 11/26/20100]

Come again? Information that may help end the US government’s endless wars “will put lives in danger?” Think of all the lives that will be saved, maybe hundreds of thousands or millions of innocent civilian lives.

Imagine the lives that could have been saved if Kissinger had been stopped by a Wikileaks revelation of the secret US carpet bombing of civilians in Cambodia.

But some people will believe that Wikileaks endangers lives simply because it is the voice of Authority speaking.

Why are we so gullible? Blame our parents. They set us up. And parents today are doing the same.

With apologies for condensing the theory of child development into two paragraphs, it began when mommy left the baby alone for the first time, but came back later. Baby was anxious (separation anxiety, I think they call it), but it was ok in the end, mommy came back. After a few reinforcing repetitions, baby learned to “trust.”

Which brings us to Santa Claus. Having firmly established that little kids must trust their parents, the next step is to introduce Santa Claus. Santa is some big fat guy in a padded red-and-white suit and full white beard who can nevertheless fit down that narrow filthy chimney, deliver toys, wriggle back up, and fly away in a sleigh powered not by renewable biofuel but by a bunch of reindeer. And the process is repeated for each household everywhere in the world. At least, the goodies are delivered into reusable stockings hung near the fireplace and not into plastic bags. But I digress.

So children learn to either be good or to be good at pretending to be good. They tell the mall Santa that they’ve been good. When they get their toys on Christmas day, they’ve learned that it’s possible to cheat and win, and to beat authority. All valuable lessons to navigate the adult world.

Generation after generation still believes in Santa Claus and the whole shtick. Their kids will be taken to Waikiki to see Santa arriving by canoe. They’ll text Santa with their gift list.

Of course, some day they learn that there is no Santa Claus. It was all one long-running lie.

Nevertheless, they’ll repeat the process for their own children, having learned that it’s not so bad to lie, in fact, it can be a profitable skill the kids should develop.

The truth has the potential to short-circuit this whole enterprise. If Wikileaks ever tweeted “there is no Santa Clause” to children across the country, it could be disruptive indeed.

Next, Wikileaks could tweet to adults proof that the US isn’t going to leave Afghanistan, that there is no plan to do so, and certainly we wouldn’t leave before we get the oil wells and pipelines installed. If there had been a Wikileaks in 2003, perhaps they could have texted the truth that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Perhaps the US government’s endless wars would end.

Support Wikileaks.

by Larry Geller

Thirty-seven members of the Road to Hope convoy that left London in October have been allowed to enter Gaza through Egypt with humanitarian aid.

The convoy brought a consignment of some 30 vehicles and £500,000 ($788,750) in humanitarian aid. The activists and their cargo arrived in the port city of El-Arish on Thursday after Egypt refused to allow the group to enter the country overland from Libya.

The Road to Hope mission also earned notoriety three weeks ago when a Greek ship's captain held 10 members of the convoy captive after an apparent dispute over payment. Greek commandos boarded the ship after the captain brought the group against their will to the port of Piraeus.   [Ma’an News Agency, British aid convoy enters Gaza, 11/26/2010]

One survivor of the Mavi Marmara massacre by Israeli commandos was included in the group allowed to cross into Gaza, but others were turned away. He is Ken O'Keefe, who was involved in disarming two Israeli commandos. O’Keefe made the YouTube video below. There are also related videos that tell more of the story of this convoy.

From the video, it appears that there is more to come.

 

by Larry Geller

Don’t blame me for asking this question just now, when you’ve not only purchased your turkey, but it is baking away in the oven already.

Blame NPR, which just posted the story yesterday.

Certain forms of arsenic are linked with cancer. Are they in your turkey?

If your turkey is organic, you’re ok. If not… better read No Arsenic In Pardoned Turkeys, But It Might Be In Yours (NPR, 11/24/2010).

Recent studies have shown that 65 percent of arsenic in poultry is the inorganic form – the bad one.

Sorry about that.

Gary Hooser - A New Day In Hawaii  –  Expectations, Possibilities And Reality

 

What can the public really expect from the Abercrombie administration during the upcoming 2011 legislative session?

 

To claim success, the new administration must achieve tangible "trumpet-able" results during the upcoming 60-day legislative session, while simultaneously laying a solid foundation for the future.   It absolutely has to be both – the public will not be satisfied with non-specific, complex and esoteric accomplishments that simply lay the groundwork for the future. 

 

No, the public and the media want to see and touch and feel the change, and they want that change now.

 

Governor-elect Abercrombie has only weeks to assemble a cabinet; there is a huge learning curve at many levels; there is the unavoidable and practical reality of being required to adopt the Lingle administration's budget assumptions.  Add to these factors the expectations of our 76 Senators and Representatives, all of whom have their own ideas, goals and aspirations which must be taken into account, and a complex picture emerges.

 

Taken as a whole, it's a formidable challenge.

 

Given the extraordinary campaign momentum, the pent-up energy, high expectations, and the still untapped and chafing-at-the-bit talent of the Abercrombie team, you can be sure there will be a tremendous effort to light the world on fire during this important first year.

 

Job # 1 will be balancing the budget without raising taxes, without additional furloughs, and without further reduction in services.   And while it is a given the process will involve significant drama and much gnashing of teeth, at the end of the day we also know that the budget will be balanced on these terms. 

 

Though every issue seems to demand simultaneous and immediate attention, four stand out as being the most pressing – education, energy, agriculture/sustainability, and the economy.  And of course, there is that little matter of civil unions.

 

I suspect that civil unions will be taken up early in the upcoming session so that it will not hang again like the Sword of Damocles, over the entire legislative session.

 

The focus for education will doubtless revolve around finances, including the ever-present issue of charter schools and funding equity.

 

The legislature will assuredly pass "enabling legislation" to support the voter-approved constitutional amendment calling for an appointed school board.  The issue here will boil down to a question of power:  Should the governor have full license to appoint whomever he wants, or should this power be attenuated by a separate "candidate evaluation and selection process" in addition to Senate approval through that body's 'advice and consent' responsibilities?

 

The safest and surest course for the 2011 energy agenda would appear to be an acceleration of the existing Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.  Significant and very promising new "game changing" proposals floated by the incoming administration have yet to be vetted by the legislature, so it remains to be seen whether these new initiatives become bogged down in legislative committees and die of their own weight, or succeed and launch us even further down the path toward energy independence.

 

Most likely, strengthening the economy will initially involve accelerating CIP funding, awarding of contracts, and completion of numerous backlogged infrastructure projects.  The challenge here will be speeding up an often-times cumbersome process while maintaining the integrity of open bidding.  The upcoming APEC ("Asia-Pacific Economic Conference") meeting in November 2011, as well as a renewed and sustained effort aimed at maximizing the effective use of dwindling federal funds – particularly in the areas of health care and human services – are two additional opportunities sure to get a lot of attention.

 

Perhaps the most important accomplishment the new administration can achieve is to give form, substance and meaning to sustainability, a concept that resonates deeply with so many of our citizens. 

 

Achieving tangible, measurable progress toward food self-sufficiency is absolutely crucial, so much so that it has the potential to become the Abercrombie administration's most important and lasting legacy, one that exceeds all others.  Achieving meaningful progress toward both food and energy self-sufficiency would truly pave the way to a bright and hopeful new day in Hawaii.

 

As fresh initiatives and new personalities are introduced and begin to mix and mingle, it will be most interesting to see the dynamics evolve.  Sadly, the Lingle administration will be long remembered for not just the Furlough Friday debacle – but also the constant bickering and discord that seemed to permeate every one of the past eight legislative sessions.

 

It will be a refreshing change to watch an experienced Democratic Governor working with an experienced Democratic House and Senate - with everyone knowing that the public is watching and expecting far more and far better.

 

Gary Hooser

truth-teller without portfolio

http://www.garyhooser.com

"A New Day In Hawaii  –  Expectations, Possibilities And Reality"  Copyright 2010, Permission to print/publish in entirety is hereby granted.  First published by The Hawaii Independent

“It can help us to do what in decades we have not been able to do, which is to convince people from around the world that this is a place where serious business is conducted while still enjoying yourself,” said Lingle.

---

by Larry Geller

Umm… What serious business exactly is conducted here? List it up please.

Let’s quit the hype.

APEC 2011 will be costly, perhaps risky, and in the end, whatever benefit it may bring us has yet to be defined.

The most likely outcome is that delegates will conduct their meeting and leave. Just like everyone else who attends a conference here. HPD will get to show off some spiffy new riot gear.

Hawaii’s economy really needs an alternative to tourism/hospitality and servicing the military, but so far no one has come up with one. APEC delegates will not provide us with a magic answer. It’s just the other way around. We have to show them.

So the question is: show them what?

The snip above is from

Security preps already underway for APEC 2011 (KHON, 11/23/2010)

 

By Henry Curtis
.
Hawaii’s Thousand Friends will be 30 on January 7, 2011.

Hawaii’s Thousand Friends is based on the 1000 Friends of Oregon. Oregon Governor Tom McCall (1967-75) and Henry Richmond founded 1000 Friends of Oregon in 1975. Their goal was to protect Oregon’s quality of life from the effects of uncontrolled growth. JoAnn Yukimura and Marilyn Bornhorst attended a land use conference in Washington State (c1979) and brought back the concept to Hawai`i. Thousand Friends currently exist in several places including Hawai`i, Kaua`i, Iowa, Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon, Connecticut and Minnesota.


1000 Friends of Kaua`i


JoAnn Yukimura was a founder of the 1000 Friends of Kaua`i. She has a B.A. in psychology (Stanford University) and was Kaua`i Chair for the 1970 U.S. Senate campaign of Tony Hodges -- that experience motivated her to go to law school. She graduated from the University of Washington Law School. Yukimura served on the Kaua‘i County Council (1976-80; 1984-88) and was Kaua`i Mayor (1988-94) becoming the first woman of Japanese-American ancestry to be elected mayor in the United States.

1000 Friends of Kaua`i dates from at least January-February 1980. In 1979 Grove Farm Company applied for a Boundary Amendment with the Land Use Commission (Docket A79-467). 1000 Friends of Kaua`i filed a Motion to Intervene and then withdrew during the January-February 1980 timeframe. Their attorney was Stephen A Levine.

On April 10, 1980 the “1000 Friends of Kaua`i” was registered with the State. Its mission is to “promote sound social economic land use planning and decision making on the island of Kaua`i.”


Hawaii’s Thousand Friends


Marilyn Bornhorst encoraged the formation of Hawaii’s Thousand Friends. She served as Honolulu Councilwomen (1975-88) and as Chairwoman of the Democratic Party (1996-98). The first official meeting was held on January 7, 1981. On May 28, 1981 Hawaii’s Thousand Friends was registered with the State. Its mission is “to monitor and evaluate environmental, land & water use proposals and decisions.”

Clarence Ku Ching was a founding member of the organization, remaining until elected as an OHA Trustee in 1986. He told me that other people heavily involved in the beginning were Mike Wilson, Cynthia Thielen, Cobey Black, Susan Heftel, Howard Criss, Connie Sofio, Ricke Weiss, Duane Preble, William Dendle, Helen Cole, Agnes Conrad, Guy Nakamoto, Astrid Monson, Kem Lowry, Gard Kealoha, Karen Holt, Lyle Webster and Betty Gordon.

Cynthia Thielen convinced the owner of a hotel on Fort Street Mall to give HTF a rent free office. This first office for HTF became headquarters for Executive Director Barbara Beck.

The organization has had 5 Executive Directors: Barbara Beck (1982), Kathryn Momi Albu (1983-84), Muriel Seto (1984-88), Steve Holmes (1988-89) and Donna Wong (1990-).



Muriel Seto

Muriel Seto fought tirelessly to protect Hawai`i from overdevelopment. Starting in the 1960s, she championed the protection of Kawai Nui Marsh. She co-founded the Kawai’nui Heritage Foundation, co-founded Waihona 'Aina (1995) and was a long-time member of the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle. HTF focused on Kawai Nui Marsh in 1982, taking it on as one of their core values.



In 1972 large landowners sought to build a shopping center to rival Ala Moana in Kawai Nui Marsh. This action would have destroyed the wetlands. Over a period of three decades, activists sought to protect the marsh.

In 2005 Kawai Nui/Hamakua Marshland Complex became the 22nd U.S. Wetland of International Importance The United States is one of 144 signers of the Ramsar Convention (1971), the only international agreement solely dedicated to worldwide protection of wetland ecosystems.

Muriel Seto received several award including from an Alu Like Award (1986) and the National Environmental Woman of Action Award (1993), was appointed by Governor Cayetano to the State Environmental Quality Control Commission (1994), was named Hawaii’s Thousand Friends Unsung Hero of 2005, and received a Certificate of Recognition from the Kailua Neighborhood Board (2006).


Mike Wilson, a co-founder and former HTF President, was named State Director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources (1992) by Governor Cayetano.

Donna Wong has come to symbolize Hawaii’s Thousand Friends. Active in the PTA and the Olomana Community Association, she ran for and was elected to the Kailua Neighborhood Board in 1980. In the mid 1980s she co-founded Hands Around O‘ahu to work on protecting agricultural land from golf courses.

She became the Executive Director of HTF in 1990. The State House of Representatives recognized Donna Wong and HTF "protecting and advocating for responsible land use, planning and management of Hawai'i's 'aina" (1998).

Donna Wong received the 2009 Women's History Month Award from the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women. I attended the reception held in her honor at Washington Place. Commission Chairwoman Carol Philips stated: "Donna Wong has been and remains one of the most knowledgeable and staunchest defenders of Hawai'i's fragile environment in modern history."

Issues


HTF worked on land use issues throughout the State including Camp Kailua (HTF attorneys Cynthia Thielen and Tom Grande), Nukoli'i, Kawela Bay, Oceanside 1250, Pua'ena Eco-Camp, Waimea Valley and Irwin Memorial Park - Aloha Tower Development Corporation.

People

Many who served on the HTF Board of Directors also served at various times on other Boards, for example, Clarence Ching, Dennis Callan, Guy Nakamoto, Fred Madlener and retired Hawai`i Supreme Court Justice H. Baird Kidwell also served on Life of the Land’s Board of Directors.

The Public Trust Doctrine

In 1993 O`ahu Sugar announced it would cease operations in 1995 setting off an intense fight over water. The Hawai`i Supreme Court noted that the monumental case (Waiahole Water) was of "unprecedented size, duration, and complexity."  HTF stressed that water is protected as a public trust resource. HTF attorney Jim Paul convinced the Water Commission and the Hawaii Supreme Court that stream water and the flora and fauna it sustains are public trust resources that the state has a trust responsibility to protect. HTF has co-sponsored at least eight Peoples Water Conferences.


Cultural Impacts

HTF works on cultural issues. In 1985 “HTF received the first of four $125,000 grants from the U.S. Library Services through Alu Like to begin 5-year Hawaiian Cultural Sites Database Project, a bibliographical inventory of cultural places” and also “received grants from Office of Hawaiian Affairs to do archeological survey of Kaniakapupu and complimentary map survey of O'ahu sites of significance.”

HTF opposed Puna geothermal development because of the “impact on cultural integrity of the area and impacts on human health and the environment” (1985).

HTF initiated “cultural exchanges to the Windward and Leeward farms, fishponds and taro lo`i offered keiki the opportunity to learn about other places and ecosystems” through the HTF Kalihi Stream Project (1998-2009), and “cultural exchanges [also occurred] between Hoa Aina o Makaha in Waianae, a rural educational organization, and students from Kalihi.” The project was sustained “with funding from DOH Section 319 DOH grants, the National Fish and Wildlife Service, the Cooke Foundation, and the Hawai`i Community Foundation.”

HTF supported including Cultural Impact Statements as part of Environmental Impact Statement process which was finally accomplished in 2000.

Photo from `Ahahui Mālama I Ka Lōkahi Kawai Nui Heritage Foundation. (http://www.ahahui.net/)



Henry Curtis
ililani.media@gmail.com

# # #

by Larry Geller

Reapportionment can have incalculable repercussions in how a state is governed. As it is often carried out, it is a profoundly anti-democratic process in which representatives choose their constituents rather than the other way around.

In Hawaii, Democrats are firmly in the driver’s seat, and so in charge of reapportionment, and thus assured of retaining that driver’s seat for the next decade.

They don’t need to Gerrymander to lock out Republicans, that’s already been accomplished. We have little danger of experiencing anything like the Republican obstructionism that has paralyzed our national government. This is a great oversimplification, but politics here really is different.

The Republicans still left in the Hawaii state House are often significant contributors to the lawmaking process rather than obstructionists. In the Senate, there is only one obstructionist left. Yes, out-of-state readers, we have only one Republican senator left out of 25. Of course, there are those Democrats who espouse values that might make them Republicans elsewhere, but still, Hawaii’s legislature is a different form of politics.

It’s also one that can produce some quality legislation. I’m thinking of our Prepaid Healthcare Act, which could have been a national model, had there not been so many obstructionists (of both parties) running Congress.

Back to reapportionment.

California is also a strange place where experimentation may be the rule rather than the exception. The people have the power of the ballot initiative, so it may happen that legislators find they are in that driver’s seat but don’t control the steering wheel.

Here is how California will do reapportionment:

A majority of voters approved a proposition denying the right of the state legislature to draw the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts. From now on, the districts will be drawn by 14 ordinary citizens, men and women whose names have been drawn from a hat -- not exactly a hat, just one of those spinning cages full of pingpong balls they use in lotteries.
…
…Proposition 20 in this month's election won the approval of 50.9 percent of voters. The proposition completed a series of ballot measures mandating that election districts -- from school boards to Congress -- will be redrawn by 14 randomly selected citizens. There were 30,000 applicants for these $300-a-day jobs, and the lottery wheel spun for the first time last Thursday and the first balls that popped out named eight of the 14: a bookstore owner, an attorney, a retired engineer, a marketing consultant, a caregiver, an insurance executive, a guy who tracks consumer trends and an activist who represents low-income tenants. They will select the other six members of the Citizens Redistricting Commission.   [Yahoo News,While you were sleeping, California made new election laws, 11/23/2010]

We’re not exactly sleeping here in Hawaii. Common Cause Hawaii is closely following reapportionment issues. CCHI has an active local chapter and a strong executive director. Nikki Love is also a super-tweeter. So if you’d like to follow the reapportionment issue, transparency in government, election issues and a lot more, follow @CommonCauseHI on Twitter.

Or just check into that link every so often if you’re not on Twitter. Good government info 140 characters at a time.

When it comes to government, it’s nice to know that someone is watching. And tweeting.

by Larry Geller

I attended this evening’s interfaith Thanksgiving celebration at Harris Methodist Church just as a participant. No notebook, no tape recorder. Oh, how I wish I had brought something just to record governor-elect Neil Abercrombie’s keynote address. I have not heard anything like it in Hawaii.

The service was truly inclusive, with about a dozen different faiths represented in a procession bringing symbols of their tradition to the front.

The theme “Many Voices, One World” was reiterated in song and readings throughout. It went smoothly. The music and voices perfectly reflected the interfaith nature of the gathering.

I can’t do Abercrombie’s speech justice from memory. Imagine something the opposite of Lingle/Palin. I learned that he reads Thomas Merton in some spare moments at his office. He name-dropped theologian Paul Tillich and spoke at length about the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Each of these men were more than theologians, check the links.

At the start of his speech, Abercrombie was vulnerable and humble in describing his new position and the challenges of leadership ahead. By the end of the speech, he was inspired, inspiring and formidable. I have not heard a better crafted speech in some time. Certainly, none of the noise that emanates from Washington DC these days is a match for Neil Abercrombie when he is in top form, as he was this evening.

This will have to do for now, with apologies to readers for the lack of quotations.

by Larry Geller

I was glad to email my views on the Civil Beat venture to Rick Edmonds of Poynter Online. And I thank him for the link back to Disappeared News.

He did quote me briefly, but more important, he summarized Civil Beat’s progress during its first six months.

I would like to address the misunderstanding that I believe all news should be free in the sense that no one has to pay for it. In an earlier article today I described agonizing a bit over whether to renew my subscription to the Star-Advertiser, which would seem to validate John Temple’s response to my criticism—that

If Larry wants to read the Star-Advertiser newspaper, he has to pay for it.

That’s not true. I can read it for free on-line. I choose to subscribe, but I don’t have to. It’s similar to public radio—listeners can subscribe or not. Most, I have heard, do not. Yet the stations grow and prosper (Hawaii Public Radio will be heard free from even more places around the state thanks to new repeaters on the Neighbor Islands).

This is key. Whatever Civil Beat is doing inside their gated community, no matter how fine their work no matter how erudite the discussion, it means nothing to me or to most of the rest of the state or planet that cannot read it. It’s the antithesis of public radio or of traditional journalism.

Before the Internet, one could read newspapers at a library, or borrow one, or even stand there in Borders and read a little. Coffee shops, restaurants and doctors offices leave newspapers around. Local content is on the web, since we do have the Internet now.

Google finds and indexes most websites and makes the work available to anyone. A journalist can be read by tens of thousands of readers or many times more.

Unless that journalist works for Civil Beat.

Good luck to them, may they prosper and employ many more journalists and editors. I do wish them well, but mostly, they have nothing to do with me, or most people in Hawaii.

Maybe I’ve ranted enough about this, but I feel a strong sense of loss. I genuinely hoped that CB would in some way represent a rebirth of sorts in Hawaii, a reversal of the dismal national trend. It still could. So I write, urging them to try something different.

by Larry Geller

Did you just pay full price to renew your Star-Advertiser subscription? Sorry about that.

Update:  Best deal reported so far: 6 months for $50. See comments.

I knew that one day my sub would be up for renewal. What to do?

There’s a lot to like in the S-A and a lot I think is problematic. On balance, in many ways, I think they may be doing better than the late lamented Honolulu Advertiser just before it got gobbled up.

My dilemma was—should I renew? To set down what I like and dislike about the paper would take some time and a bit more thought than I’ve given it till now. Suffice it to say that frequent breakfast table debate hadn’t settled whether we should re-up when the time came.

Last week they called. Our subscription had expired in October. Yes, I got a bill just a few days earlier, but I didn’t really read it, expecting it would be for a future expiration date and I could deal with it shortly.

I refused to commit. They said they would call back.

One of my bitches is that they offer a steeply discounted rate for new subscribers. Another: if the paper is inferior in some ways, should I be paying more than the Advertiser cost, anyway? I could read the local news on-line at the S-A and other websites. I know how to find the comics on-line. I can do without the stupid ads that seem to drive how they lay out the front page of the paper, though if that’s keeping the business afloat, ok.

Today they called back. I refused to decide (they will keep your sub going for quite a while even if you don’t renew). Then the caller offered the discount rate.  Quick conference over the table and we decided to renew.

I’ve had a morning newspaper my whole life. I picketed along with others to save the Star-Bulletin. The newspaper means a lot to me. I’ll decide again in a year.

But if you get your bill, you might want to demand the $180 annual rate. They also offered me partial year discounted rates. If you’ve just renewed, you might try to get some back, though it probably won’t work.

I wish they had been up-front with the discount offer. But I also wish they had kept Helen Altonn on staff and I wish they did many other things better. They are doing so much right, however, IMHO, that I hope they succeed.  And I hope they do even better, of course.