FIND THE PEA: A slew of emails over the past two days have come in from activists on Maui, the Big Island and Kaua`i with a subject line of “Bad Bill Alert” regarding a hearing for HB2433, scheduled for tomorrow at 9 a.m..
Simply put, according to it’s purpose the bill, if passed, “(e)xempts from county approval state department of transportation development and construction of highways and airports”.
But while some of the emails were partially accurate, overall they were confusing and incomplete.
According to the bill itself:
Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, all structures and improvements to land to be used for state or county highway purposes:
(1) May be planned, designed, and constructed by the appropriate state or county department without the approval of county agencies;
(2) Shall be exempt from any county permitting requirements; and
(3) Shall be exempt from any county agencies' special management area permitting requirements.
It also similarly exempts airports.
Let’s start with some debunking. First of all the bill would not, as some said, exempt the Harbors Division because harbors are the one area that is already exempted from county permitting That includes exemption from the Shoreline Management Area (SMA) permits for which the counties are responsible, as PNN exclusively and extensively reported in the fall of 2007 during the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) debacle.
This bill- which is similar to ones that have been introduced every session of the legislature in recent years- would grant the same exemption to airports and this year adds on state highways, something that Kaua`i Representative Mina Morita told PNN at the time she opposed but feared would someday pass.
At the time we tried to find out why there was no SMA permit for the Superferry and our queries wound their way from the unreturned phone calls to the Kaua`i Planning Department all the way up to Mike Formby the head of the Harbors Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) who informed us of and cited the exemption.
But the problem is that the state has no right to trump the federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) which requires the states to protect the shorelines.
As we wrote in a November of 2007 investigative report:
Formby has repeatedly refused, in writing, to answer repeated requests for required documentation of compliance with the federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). Rather, has refused to answer or discuss any issues of federal law.
When asked for the documentation of state compliance with various processes required by federal law, Formby, an attorney, has refused to provide documentation for compliance. He also refused to discuss and legal issues relating to any federal regulations
He has cited a state law exempting harbors from compliance all county permits, including Shoreline Management Area (SMA) permitting which though federal law is issued at the local level- in Hawai`i at the county level.
The state is in effect playing a shell game in which they have given the responsibility for enforcing the CZMA- imposed upon it by the federal government and which they can’t legislate their way out of- to the counties under one shell and under another they have exempted harbors from county permitting which they can legislate.
Neat trick, eh?
So with all the legal actions at the time why didn’t anyone file suit in federal court based on the lack of enforcement of the CZMA in order to stop the HSf until the counties issued SMA permits?
That became PNN’s $64,000 question at the time. Turns out it would have cost even more than $64,000- and another set of attorneys- to open another suit, especially in federal court where Maui attorneys who were fighting the infamous HSf “EIS” case had already lost an earlier unrelated round.
Although a small group of concerned Kaua`i citizens contacted a prominent CZMA attorney in San Francisco and tried to secure funding for a federal challenge to the exemption, the lion’s share of the legal fund contributions for fighting the HSf were being directed toward the EIS case on Maui and the federal suit was never filed.
We’re pretty sure the legislature is counting on the fact that they’ve been exempting harbors from the SMA for years without a challenge to say they can also exempt airports and now highway projects given their Superferry-proven penchant for the Minotaur behavior of “doing what’s wrong as long as they can”.
While the Bad Bill Alert alerted us to the upcoming hearing in Morita’s EEP Committee tomorrow they failed to report the current status of the bill which has already been heard and passed unanimously out of the Joe Souki’s TRN Committee and in fact has passed second reading in the house with the referral to EEP.
Testimony for tomorrow’s EEP hearing can be entered directly at the email testimony web site. When you get there, type in HB2433 in the box and click button that says "get latest hearing" and it will auto fill-in the info for you. Then type your name, email and address and enter your testimony. Click and submit.
Showing posts with label Hawai`i Superferry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hawai`i Superferry. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
SAIL AWAY
SAIL AWAY: We couldn’t help but be amused by an article in the Maui News describing the Superferry supporters picking over the bones at the auction of the venture’s paraphernalia
Reporter Chris Hamilton described the paltry pickin’s and said
All who were interviewed said they were Superferry proponents. Although excited by an auction atmosphere, most still called it a glum day. Many people, though, expected Superferry to return in a couple years after the legal wrangling has run its course.
It’s hard to imagine upon what the wishin’ and hopin’ crowd are basing their expectations these days but Monday Dave Shapiro’s post-mortem tried to stare down reality by rehashing one of the original argument for the ferry- that car and passenger transport ferries are successful businesses on islands across the world and so we should have one here too.
In trying to make the case he quoted a couple of US professors, Dick Miller and Betty Sugarman, as saying the state should be establishing an interisland ferry just like they do on the mainland as part of their highway systems
They concluded by saying
"To serve these needs the closest equivalent to a highway system would be inexpensive, reliable, and regular ferry service. It is the state’s job to fulfill this responsibility, just as all states assume responsibility for highways."
Politics, state misdeeds and military madness issues aside, none but the Pollyannas can deny the venture was a dismal failure in a business sense. Even with far-below-cost fares they couldn’t attract enough passengers in the two years they operated to have made money even if they had been charging full fare.
Yet the quotes in Hamilton’s article and comments on Shapiro’s post indicate that people apparently ignore all that and continue to look country and world-wide and say “if it works there it will work here”.
But one fact has seemingly been overlooked since the days almost 10 years ago when this false truism reared it’s ugly head.
Every single successful ferry system in the world connects islands with a continental “mainland” of some sort. All of them have a point of connection or terminus that allows the customer base that includes “the rest of the world”.
And because that’s not possible in Hawai`i without a 2,000 mile ferry link there simply is not a sufficient customer base to make a ferry successful in a financial sense.
That is the fatal flaw in the Superferry’s business plan, one that ultimately brought down the venture and should put a nail in the coffin of any future attempts at reviving the concept of an “H-4”.
Successful ferries in places from the islands around the Seattle, Washington area to Scandinavia all connect to vast continents and customers from perhaps thousands of miles around have access to them if they desire to go to the island destinations.
The number of cars and people that can patronize those ferries in is the tens if not hundreds of millions whereas, even assuming service between all of the main Hawaiian islands, the number of vehicles and adult passengers here tops out at about a million or so.
And don’t forget- in order to forge a dependable convenient “highway” type system, ferries in most places run many times a day making “early morning in, late evening out” a possibility for passengers.
Many factors came up over the years that led to the demise of the Superferry. But those who refuse to learn from the experience would do well to look at those aspects as merely small contributory factors to a venture doomed to failure from the start due to the forced economy of scale that a handful of tiny islands thousands of miles from a land mass presents.
Reporter Chris Hamilton described the paltry pickin’s and said
All who were interviewed said they were Superferry proponents. Although excited by an auction atmosphere, most still called it a glum day. Many people, though, expected Superferry to return in a couple years after the legal wrangling has run its course.
It’s hard to imagine upon what the wishin’ and hopin’ crowd are basing their expectations these days but Monday Dave Shapiro’s post-mortem tried to stare down reality by rehashing one of the original argument for the ferry- that car and passenger transport ferries are successful businesses on islands across the world and so we should have one here too.
In trying to make the case he quoted a couple of US professors, Dick Miller and Betty Sugarman, as saying the state should be establishing an interisland ferry just like they do on the mainland as part of their highway systems
They concluded by saying
"To serve these needs the closest equivalent to a highway system would be inexpensive, reliable, and regular ferry service. It is the state’s job to fulfill this responsibility, just as all states assume responsibility for highways."
Politics, state misdeeds and military madness issues aside, none but the Pollyannas can deny the venture was a dismal failure in a business sense. Even with far-below-cost fares they couldn’t attract enough passengers in the two years they operated to have made money even if they had been charging full fare.
Yet the quotes in Hamilton’s article and comments on Shapiro’s post indicate that people apparently ignore all that and continue to look country and world-wide and say “if it works there it will work here”.
But one fact has seemingly been overlooked since the days almost 10 years ago when this false truism reared it’s ugly head.
Every single successful ferry system in the world connects islands with a continental “mainland” of some sort. All of them have a point of connection or terminus that allows the customer base that includes “the rest of the world”.
And because that’s not possible in Hawai`i without a 2,000 mile ferry link there simply is not a sufficient customer base to make a ferry successful in a financial sense.
That is the fatal flaw in the Superferry’s business plan, one that ultimately brought down the venture and should put a nail in the coffin of any future attempts at reviving the concept of an “H-4”.
Successful ferries in places from the islands around the Seattle, Washington area to Scandinavia all connect to vast continents and customers from perhaps thousands of miles around have access to them if they desire to go to the island destinations.
The number of cars and people that can patronize those ferries in is the tens if not hundreds of millions whereas, even assuming service between all of the main Hawaiian islands, the number of vehicles and adult passengers here tops out at about a million or so.
And don’t forget- in order to forge a dependable convenient “highway” type system, ferries in most places run many times a day making “early morning in, late evening out” a possibility for passengers.
Many factors came up over the years that led to the demise of the Superferry. But those who refuse to learn from the experience would do well to look at those aspects as merely small contributory factors to a venture doomed to failure from the start due to the forced economy of scale that a handful of tiny islands thousands of miles from a land mass presents.
Monday, May 11, 2009
IT MUST BE BURIED HERE SOMEWHERE
IT MUST BE BURIED HERE SOMEWHERE: It’s “read um and weep time” as the legislature finished it’s dirty work Friday.
The list of bills that passed is kind of like the most disgusting Sundae in the world with a bunch of turds on the bottom where the ice cream should be, topped with a layer of fluff instead of whipped cream and, if we’re lucky by some miracle of oversight, an eatable cherry or two on top.
The sauce? No butterscotch, no chocolate no nothing where it should. Those are the missing (due to) inaction bills- the ones that showed promise, almost made it but were killed by paid-to-play conference committees with the hope you won’t notice because there’s no list of them anywhere except in the hearts of those who wanted to see them passed.
The bigger debacles have gotten plenty of press but one we haven’t heard much of that awaits the governor’s signature is the bill that would have banned research on generically modified Hawaiian taro.
Yup- it’s dead. For a lot of the newbie activists that got involved in the anti-GM movement it’s sooo cute to see the expression on their faces the first time they open the empty box and see up-close how corruptly idiotic our Hawai`i legislative system is.
To watch them, as the session went along, go from supporting an outright ban on GM products, to a ban on all research, to a ban on taro research, to a ban on only research on the Hawaiian varieties of taro, was priceless for us grizzled vets.
But then seeing them get all excited that the watered down bill passed both houses only to see their hopes dashed at the last minute is outright hilarious.
We only wish that is had passed only to be vetoed and then left for dead with no override vote permitted by the house and/or senate leadership.
For that kind of mirth we have to wait for action on the list of some of the bills that actually sit on the governor’s desk.
We’ll go over a few today that either effect Kaua`i or that we’ve followed during the session or are otherwise particularly worthy of note
We’ll start with an absurd little ditty- HB267 HD2 SD1, Relating To The Motor Vehicle Rental Industry. This is the bill introduced to allow rental cars on the Superferry. Even though the ferry sunk, the bill still floated... all aboard for the SS Futility. Guess they were busy doing this and things like determining which is the official state butterfly that they “ran out of time” on the civil unions bill.
HB640 HD1 SD2 CD1 “Relating To Environmental Impact Statements” may be the worst bill passed this year. It takes away the protections that trigger an environmental assessment when developments abut or empty onto things like state and federally funded roads and other public facilities- such as when a hotel that empties onto a busy highway. And forget about taking into account where the cars will go once they hit that road. that’s doubly prohibited.
While developers love this one, smart growth and environmental protection activists are crushed by the law that “(e)xempts from the purview of chapter 343, HRS, the environmental review law, primary actions that require a ministerial permit, that involve secondary actions limited to infrastructure development within public right-of-ways.”
Though the greedy bosses and other union-busters at Wal-Mart and Home Depot may not think so, one of the few good bills that passed is the one known as the “card check law”. It enables unions to organize when a majority of the workers sign up rather than require elections that are subject to management manipulation intimidation tactics. HB952 HD1 SD2 CD1 is a statewide version of the law that is currently being considered by the US Congress but until then at least Hawai`i has a card check system.
The county lifeguard liability shield law for which the counties fought for many years was about to expire but is extended, although just for another four years, under HB1040 HD1 SD2 CD1. It seems absurd that we’ll have to fight for this- and pay a lobbyist- again in four years but we’re probably lucky to have gotten it renewed.
We hear nothing but bad things about the guy that slips that white “el cheapo dentistry” ad sheet in the local paper every other weekend so it’s good to hear about SB113 HD1 CD1 Relating To Dentists which “(a)uthorizes the board of dental examiners to sanction licensees for false or misleading advertising”.
And finally for today, although a slew of great bills in the cannabis/hemp package were swept into the gutter- including the one transferring control of medical cannabis from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health where it belongs and is in every other state- we did get a SB1058 SD2 HD2 CD1 Relating To Controlled Substances.
At least it “(e)stablishes a task force to examine issues relating to medical cannabis patients and current medical cannabis laws (and) (e)stablishes a task force to examine the effects of salvia divinorum”.
The list of bills that passed is kind of like the most disgusting Sundae in the world with a bunch of turds on the bottom where the ice cream should be, topped with a layer of fluff instead of whipped cream and, if we’re lucky by some miracle of oversight, an eatable cherry or two on top.
The sauce? No butterscotch, no chocolate no nothing where it should. Those are the missing (due to) inaction bills- the ones that showed promise, almost made it but were killed by paid-to-play conference committees with the hope you won’t notice because there’s no list of them anywhere except in the hearts of those who wanted to see them passed.
The bigger debacles have gotten plenty of press but one we haven’t heard much of that awaits the governor’s signature is the bill that would have banned research on generically modified Hawaiian taro.
Yup- it’s dead. For a lot of the newbie activists that got involved in the anti-GM movement it’s sooo cute to see the expression on their faces the first time they open the empty box and see up-close how corruptly idiotic our Hawai`i legislative system is.
To watch them, as the session went along, go from supporting an outright ban on GM products, to a ban on all research, to a ban on taro research, to a ban on only research on the Hawaiian varieties of taro, was priceless for us grizzled vets.
But then seeing them get all excited that the watered down bill passed both houses only to see their hopes dashed at the last minute is outright hilarious.
We only wish that is had passed only to be vetoed and then left for dead with no override vote permitted by the house and/or senate leadership.
For that kind of mirth we have to wait for action on the list of some of the bills that actually sit on the governor’s desk.
We’ll go over a few today that either effect Kaua`i or that we’ve followed during the session or are otherwise particularly worthy of note
We’ll start with an absurd little ditty- HB267 HD2 SD1, Relating To The Motor Vehicle Rental Industry. This is the bill introduced to allow rental cars on the Superferry. Even though the ferry sunk, the bill still floated... all aboard for the SS Futility. Guess they were busy doing this and things like determining which is the official state butterfly that they “ran out of time” on the civil unions bill.
HB640 HD1 SD2 CD1 “Relating To Environmental Impact Statements” may be the worst bill passed this year. It takes away the protections that trigger an environmental assessment when developments abut or empty onto things like state and federally funded roads and other public facilities- such as when a hotel that empties onto a busy highway. And forget about taking into account where the cars will go once they hit that road. that’s doubly prohibited.
While developers love this one, smart growth and environmental protection activists are crushed by the law that “(e)xempts from the purview of chapter 343, HRS, the environmental review law, primary actions that require a ministerial permit, that involve secondary actions limited to infrastructure development within public right-of-ways.”
Though the greedy bosses and other union-busters at Wal-Mart and Home Depot may not think so, one of the few good bills that passed is the one known as the “card check law”. It enables unions to organize when a majority of the workers sign up rather than require elections that are subject to management manipulation intimidation tactics. HB952 HD1 SD2 CD1 is a statewide version of the law that is currently being considered by the US Congress but until then at least Hawai`i has a card check system.
The county lifeguard liability shield law for which the counties fought for many years was about to expire but is extended, although just for another four years, under HB1040 HD1 SD2 CD1. It seems absurd that we’ll have to fight for this- and pay a lobbyist- again in four years but we’re probably lucky to have gotten it renewed.
We hear nothing but bad things about the guy that slips that white “el cheapo dentistry” ad sheet in the local paper every other weekend so it’s good to hear about SB113 HD1 CD1 Relating To Dentists which “(a)uthorizes the board of dental examiners to sanction licensees for false or misleading advertising”.
And finally for today, although a slew of great bills in the cannabis/hemp package were swept into the gutter- including the one transferring control of medical cannabis from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health where it belongs and is in every other state- we did get a SB1058 SD2 HD2 CD1 Relating To Controlled Substances.
At least it “(e)stablishes a task force to examine issues relating to medical cannabis patients and current medical cannabis laws (and) (e)stablishes a task force to examine the effects of salvia divinorum”.
Friday, March 20, 2009
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE: How could we all have been so wrong for so long?
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A GUIDE FOR THE NASALLY IMPAIRED
A GUIDE FOR THE NASALLY IMPAIRED: It was fascinating to follow the live blogging from attorney Robert Thomas today from the Hawai`i Supreme Court’s hearing on the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf), especially in light of the coincidental final report from State Auditor Marion Higa who apparently answered the central question for the court in the affirmative.
That question is whether the legislature’s Act 2 was designed to benefit a single business entity- something that all agree is illegal- or whether by referring to “large capacity ferry vessels” in general rather than the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) as the original draft read, they made it legal.
And all the lawyers- not just in the court room but the handful who commented on the proceedings- very soberly, rationally and calmly debated the issue, especially regarding the only prior case in the state where a similar convolutedly written law called Bulgo was given the OK by the high court.
All that can be said to all these lawyers, as any true New Yorker would say, is “What am I, a freakin’ idiot?”.
Choose your expression here- “Are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes” or “don’t piss on my foot and tell me it’s raining”.
Only a total fool- or perhaps an overeducated boob with a law degree-.would look at the facts and say the legislation was anything but specifically designed to enable one and only one company to operate..
Under questioning, the state’s lawyer’s only relevant response to the fact that there is and was only one company that has a ferry - and in light of the fact that there are no other large capacity ferries that are likely to operate before Act 2 expires next summer- was, essentially “well,,, it could happen.”.
Joan Conrow does an excellent job in summarizing the report from Higa, especially the part which describes the process by which the “special benefit” was bestowed on HSf, and links to all the reports on the audit and the lead-up to this morning’s court hearing.
But what remains mind-boggling is that it’s just possible that a panel of five judges- supposedly bright, rational people with a degree of common sense- could actually say no, it just a general law because that’s the way it was worded in the law itself.
Pay no attention to the facts behind the curtain- I am the great and powerful Unified Command of the Superferry.
Perhaps Conrow summed up best the attitude expressed by those who hope for some tunnel vision on the part of the court by saying:
So once again we have the Administration essentially claiming that all this circumventing and undermining was OK, because it was really in the public’s best interest, so Higa should just shut up and stop poking about in all the corners and closets.
But today it appeared the court just might open the pantry door and look in those nooks and crannies.
Chief Justice Moon actually asked if “Bulgo” was “wrongly decided” meaning that, although the plaintiff’s attorney Isaac Hall didn’t claim that in his briefs mostly because it’s not wise to rely on the overturning of prior decisions when filing a case.
But it’s hard to imagine how even the attorney’s for the state and HSf could make their arguments with a straight face that it is a generally applicable law.
The on line discussion was rather civil with only one lawyer joke but perhaps that’s why people deride lawyers and by extension the legal system. what they see is the officers of the court getting so hung up on the trees of the specific that the forest of the wider view becomes invisible in their carefully constructed house of cards.
The answer to the question “what are we freakin’ idiots?” is apparently yes in many cases.
Should the court rule that everything was hunky-dorey, reporters will go out and unquestioningly report the “facts” and the ferry will run and even the opponents in the legislature itself will all “accept the verdict”.
And we “idiots” will just sigh, sit back with a bag of Doritos and watch Oprah.
The decision, as someone said in a comment, could come either today or two years from now. Whether or not that decision leaves a wet acid odor on the feet of the Hawai`i Supreme Court it doesn’t speak well of anything or anybody whose lawyerly or political fingerprints are on this case that the matter has gotten this far.
Some people will try to convince you up is down and black is white. But don’t let ‘um fool ya. Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it? Of course it freakin’ does. Which came the chicken or the egg? It’s the freakin’ egg.
Only a lawyer can convince you that Act 2 is sitting around to benefit some freakin’ slew of high capacity ferries.
That question is whether the legislature’s Act 2 was designed to benefit a single business entity- something that all agree is illegal- or whether by referring to “large capacity ferry vessels” in general rather than the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) as the original draft read, they made it legal.
And all the lawyers- not just in the court room but the handful who commented on the proceedings- very soberly, rationally and calmly debated the issue, especially regarding the only prior case in the state where a similar convolutedly written law called Bulgo was given the OK by the high court.
All that can be said to all these lawyers, as any true New Yorker would say, is “What am I, a freakin’ idiot?”.
Choose your expression here- “Are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes” or “don’t piss on my foot and tell me it’s raining”.
Only a total fool- or perhaps an overeducated boob with a law degree-.would look at the facts and say the legislation was anything but specifically designed to enable one and only one company to operate..
Under questioning, the state’s lawyer’s only relevant response to the fact that there is and was only one company that has a ferry - and in light of the fact that there are no other large capacity ferries that are likely to operate before Act 2 expires next summer- was, essentially “well,,, it could happen.”.
Joan Conrow does an excellent job in summarizing the report from Higa, especially the part which describes the process by which the “special benefit” was bestowed on HSf, and links to all the reports on the audit and the lead-up to this morning’s court hearing.
But what remains mind-boggling is that it’s just possible that a panel of five judges- supposedly bright, rational people with a degree of common sense- could actually say no, it just a general law because that’s the way it was worded in the law itself.
Pay no attention to the facts behind the curtain- I am the great and powerful Unified Command of the Superferry.
Perhaps Conrow summed up best the attitude expressed by those who hope for some tunnel vision on the part of the court by saying:
So once again we have the Administration essentially claiming that all this circumventing and undermining was OK, because it was really in the public’s best interest, so Higa should just shut up and stop poking about in all the corners and closets.
But today it appeared the court just might open the pantry door and look in those nooks and crannies.
Chief Justice Moon actually asked if “Bulgo” was “wrongly decided” meaning that, although the plaintiff’s attorney Isaac Hall didn’t claim that in his briefs mostly because it’s not wise to rely on the overturning of prior decisions when filing a case.
But it’s hard to imagine how even the attorney’s for the state and HSf could make their arguments with a straight face that it is a generally applicable law.
The on line discussion was rather civil with only one lawyer joke but perhaps that’s why people deride lawyers and by extension the legal system. what they see is the officers of the court getting so hung up on the trees of the specific that the forest of the wider view becomes invisible in their carefully constructed house of cards.
The answer to the question “what are we freakin’ idiots?” is apparently yes in many cases.
Should the court rule that everything was hunky-dorey, reporters will go out and unquestioningly report the “facts” and the ferry will run and even the opponents in the legislature itself will all “accept the verdict”.
And we “idiots” will just sigh, sit back with a bag of Doritos and watch Oprah.
The decision, as someone said in a comment, could come either today or two years from now. Whether or not that decision leaves a wet acid odor on the feet of the Hawai`i Supreme Court it doesn’t speak well of anything or anybody whose lawyerly or political fingerprints are on this case that the matter has gotten this far.
Some people will try to convince you up is down and black is white. But don’t let ‘um fool ya. Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it? Of course it freakin’ does. Which came the chicken or the egg? It’s the freakin’ egg.
Only a lawyer can convince you that Act 2 is sitting around to benefit some freakin’ slew of high capacity ferries.
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