KIBBLES AND BITS

KIBBLES AND BITS: Larry Geller at Disappeared News has pointed to today’s reverberating rumor that the damage done to “the Alakai” Superferry during the dry-docking procedure may have been permanent and has wondered why no one in the paid media has bothered to actually investigate the matter. We wondered what would happen if someone from the MSM or even a blogger asked the witnesses if the Advertiser isn’t too busy taxing their staff with rip and read transcription of official press release duties.

As an adjunct he also has delved into what the difference between a blog and a newspaper might be these days asking if there is a difference and what it may be. He also reports the latest from anti-community radio KKCR’s reinstatement of Katy Rose and Jimmy Trujillo’s Thursday program as long as they don’t say anything about the lack of free speech on free speech radio.

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Capitol Notebook - a hidden blog of the Honolulu Advertiser and must read for Hawai`i Legislature political junkies- is reporting on the Governor’s efforts to keep early childhood education funds out of the hands of the department of Education today. Why doesn’t Lingle just put it in the Dept. of Transportation so Fukunaga and Formby can give the money to the Superferry’s Garibaldi and Lehman... then we can just exempt the kids from learning...

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The KIUC candidate forum last night reportedly separated the corporate control of our energy future from control by the people as candidate Ben Sullivan of Apollo Kaua`i lit into the way the usual good old boys have excluded the public from their decision making process.

Candidate Ken Stokes also seems to be championing the members’ right to push for renewable energy but unknown ex-Navy Commander and Alaska Co-op board member, corporate control advocate Thomas Ellis, has now apparently declared himself to be a wanna-be part of the paternalistic current regime. The article may not be fully informative but extensive written answers by most candidate are available at the local newspaper’s web site although not at the link provided on their web site.

PNN is trying to find out exactly which board members got paid what at the rate of $176 some-odd a day, but how many hours a day that means is unclear. Some board members estimate 800 hours a year is spent on KIUC business. A total figure of a S138,000 for the board has been confirmed from KIUC spokesperson Anne Barnes today and she has said she will provide a detailed breakdown of hours served, money paid and junkets/”training sessions” attended- and the cost for the directors to attend them- next week when she gets them from their accounting department. That info is purported to be public, not proprietary, information and we’ll be letting you know what those stats are next week.

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Finally the Honolulu Advertiser had a great tease of a head on their editorial today saying “Dem delegate disputes show need for reform” but an examination of the contents didn’t reveal anything substantive about the democracy of the Democrat’s process but rather complaints about the DP’s Super-delegates process.

As we opined in their comments sections “THIS is your big process-problem, Advertiser Ed Board? The Stupid-Delegates?... not the fraudulent free-for-all the Democratic Party laughingly called a democratic process?Political parties are private clubs. If you don't like one either join it and change it or start your own club. THAT is what you should have learned in civics class.”