Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Low Hanging Fruit
But they can’t.
HECO's regulatory filing with the PUC (docket 2009-0176) for approval of their contract with First Wind Hawaii's Kahuku Power states: "From time to time, Hawaiian Electric will require Kahuku Power to temporarily curtail deliveries of energy. ... Kahuku Power will not sell energy from Kahuku Power's Wind Farm to any third party, without the prior written consent of Hawaiian Electric."
The only exception to this rule is Aina Koa Pono where the utility is asking the Public Utilities Commission to force HECO ratepayers to pay $25 million a year for 20 years to subsidize biofuel production on the Big Island to power HELCO’s Keahole Generation Station.
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New community group on Moloka`i
I Aloha Molokai (IAM) is a new community organization composed of Moloka`i residents and those who love Moloka`i.
IAM was formed “to educate about and organize opposition to the undersea energy transmission cable from Moloka'i and Lana'i to O'ahu and the development of a 200 megawatt industrial farm on Moloka'i that will serve the energy needs of O'ahu.”
IAM supports “sensible alternative energy solutions.”
P F Bentley has produced a powerful 3 minute video for IAM.
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Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Police neglect to enforce laws contributes to death by speeding
‘To see the body that way was just horrific,’ he said.
For Kahele, the accident highlights the speeding problem in the area.
‘At night you can hear cars flying up the road," he said. "People also overtake even if it's solid line.’” --'A very sweet kid' who did not like driving dies on road (Star-Advertiser, 8/30/2011)
by Larry Geller
They can get away with it, day after day after day, because Honolulu police place little or no emphasis on enforcing traffic laws. It’s the same for stopping before turning right on red, using turn signals, and so forth. Motorists don’t bother following the law because the chances of being caught are close to zero.
We should not accept this.
When pedestrians are killed in poorly defended crosswalks across major roads, the neighborhood has to plead for installation of traffic signals. There’s often a debate on exactly how many people have to be killed before the city will install one. The lack of traffic law enforcement is part of the same fabric.
But it’s deeper than that. It’s reasonable to question just how effective Honolulu policing is.
I recall attending a community meeting at Roosevelt High School many years ago. Two reports were made at the meeting. One was by the principal, who said that each Sunday the lock to the gate at the school pool was broken, and students used the pool. On Monday they repaired the lock, but the new one was broken the next Sunday. I thought that it was amazing that this could just continue without someone staking out the place on Sunday and putting a stop to it. In addition to anything else, not taking action could make the state liable for any accidents, since they obviously condoned the use of the pool on Sunday.
It was the second point, which involved the police, that really made me wonder. Motorists stopping at night at the scenic lookout points on Tantalus were being attacked and robbed in their cars. I think there were some killings. The attacks were repeated occurrences, and it was theorized that it might be the same perpetrators each time. Since police were present, I stood up and asked why they didn’t hide a cop in a tree somewhere and drop down and grab these guys next time, since the attacks were so frequent. In other words, do their jobs.
The response was that they had only so many cars to patrol the area (I think it was three), and so they couldn’t do that.
What are police for? Going back to the Farrington speeding, they could put an end to it very quickly, I think. Nab some speeders. Come back and do it again every so often.
Do we live in a banana republic or what? Stop—you don’t have to answer that.
Leaked UN document reveals plan for UN / NATO occupation of Libya, forced elections
by Larry Geller
A leaked document obtained by a UN watchdog organization, InnerCityPress.org appears to outline plans for a UN takeover of Libya with support from NATO and involvement of the World Bank.
A longer report states that it is not intended to “offer prescriptive solutions for Libya” but goes on for 44 pages of background analysis. This report details the extent of Libya’s oil wealth and its expected disposition.
The UN Secretariat is proposing up to 200 Military Observers, to begin with a Multi-National Force led by two member states, up to 190 UN Police, and additional elections and other civil staff.
The report estimates that Gross Domestic Production could decline as much as 47%. It puts frozen Libyan assets at $150 billion, and recommends that many of the assets not be sold and quickly returned to Libya (Paragraph 136).
[Inner City Press, On Libya, Leaked UN Report Sees 200 Military Observers, NATO but Not AU Role Given by Ban Ki-moon: Exclusive, 8/26/2011]
Another report on the leak refers to an internal UN dispute on which representative would be sent to Tripoli with the plan:
Inner City Press' sources describe a fight inside Ban Ki-moon team as to which official would be sent to Tripoli, Martin or Al Khatib? It's said that Martin is winning, and the Al Khatib may simply withdraw.
Like Martin, Al Khatib jumped the gun and went to Benghazi with an already made plan: a five person structure, two from the rebels, two from Gaddafi, one from neither. It was rejected.
[Inner City Press, Amid Opposition to Leaked UN Plan for Libya, UN Refuses to Answer, 8/29/2011]
Al Jazeera’s reports that elections would be imposed. Keep in mind that Libya has none of the institutions we associate with a sovereign country, democratically ruled or otherwise. Everything we would call “government” derived from the edicts of a single military ruler.
The document also outlines plans for UN-assisted elections in the next six to nine months.
"It's a very detailed plan really spelling out [roles for] military observers, UN, police; it says things like NATO has an ongoing role and there's some things the UN can do without a mandate from the Security Council," Matthew Russell Lee, who runs the Inner City Press website, told Al Jazeera.
"So that's what seemed so extraordinary about [the report].
"It doesn't set forward something like here's four different scenarios and let the Libyan people choose; it very much says lines like 'we have developed principles for the transition in Libya'. And you have to ask yourself, on behalf of whom and to benefit whom?"
…
It also calls for the deployment of 61 civilian staff who will also be stationed in Libya in the first three months, both at a headquarters in Tripoli and at an office in Benghazi.[Al Jazeera, UN 'plan for post-Gaddafi Libya' leaked, 8/29/2011]
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African nations can be expected to strongly resist the imposition of a United Nations peacekeeping regime after bitter experiences at the hands of UN troops in recent history. The UN peacekeepers have been implicated in mass rapes and sexual abuse in the countries they have been assigned to, with little or no corrective action by the UN itself.
This report is from 2004 when allegations were beginning to surface about UN abuses of the population in the Congo. UN personnel tried to suppress allegations of child prostitution and rape by U.N. peacekeepers:
The report documents 68 cases of alleged rape, prostitution and pedophilia by U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal. U.N. officials say they have uncovered more than 150 allegations of sexual misconduct throughout the country as part of a widening investigation into sexual abuse by U.N. personnel that has plagued the United Nations' largest peacekeeping mission, U.N. officials said.
[Washington Post, U.N. Sexual Abuse Alleged in Congo, 12/16/2004]
Although the crimes of UN peacekeepers are well-known in the countries where they have operated, the commercial press has not been good at reporting them, and the UN itself has not moved effectively to counter the illegal acts of what amounts to its occupying forces. This website outlines the situations that occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Haiti.
Many cases of UN Peacekeepers raping women and children, running human trafficking rings, and doing everything that they tend to accuse others of have come to light in the past, but these cases so often get swept beneath the carpet and the perpetrators are left to continue with their crimes unhindered by little considerations like the Rule of Law.
[phillipbrennan.net, UN Peacekeepers just as guilty of Child Rape as everyone else in Africa and the Caribbean, 8/27/2010]
More on the accusations against the UN in the Congo appeared on the WorldNetDaily website here. From that article:
With the United Nations already under fire for the Oil-for-Food mega-scandal and other corruption, sensational allegations of rampant sexual exploitation and rape of young girls and women by the U.N.'s so-called "peacekeepers" and civilian staffers in the Congo is dragging the global body's reputation to an all-time low.
The article lists up some specific accusations, which would, of course, represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Related articles
Human rights activist Matthew Lee claims the UN has already drafted a document that would ensure its future presence in Libya.
“In some places this ten-page plan says things like, ‘we can do this without getting a new mandate from the UN Security Council, we can move peacekeepers from missions that already exist and put them in there, we can send military advisers’,” the founder of Inner City Press reveals.
“There is one line where they just say it is not controversial at all. They say the Security Council’s protection of civilians mandate implemented by NATO does not end with the fall of the Gaddafi government and therefore NATO will continue to have some responsibilities,” Matthew Lee says.
- Why are UN Peacekeepers so badly equipped for modern conflict? (independent.co.uk)
- Never Forgive, Never Forget (dalitskerala.wordpress.com)
If it gets the go-ahead, the UN mission to Libya will be the 64th peacekeeping operation the UN has run, or the 65th if a mission to South Sudan is launched first. In fact, the first mission, the 1948 UN Truce Supervision Organisation to monitor the Arab-Israeli ceasefire, is still active more than 60 years later.
Despite the apparently unending nature of some of the missions, and allegations of corruption and even child sexual abuse that have blighted recent missions, peacekeeping has grown into an $8bn (£5bn) business worldwide, employing more than 120,000 soldiers, police and contractors mainly from developing nations such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nigeria, with just over 5 per cent from the European Union and the United States
Monday, August 29, 2011
First Circuit affirms constitutional right to video cops
by Larry Geller
Big Island blogger Damon Tucker’s recent run-in with camera-shy cops has brought the national issue of whether ordinary citizens may photograph police in action right home to Hawaii.
But shouldn’t the police be aware of and follow the law? Police, in fact, are not great law-abiders themselves, it turns out. There are numerous incidents of police misconduct, improper arrests, lying, assaults, and more that can be uncovered in a few moment’s googling. Among them are several recent high-profile cases where either journalists or ordinary citizens were nabbed for doing nothing more than taking cellphone pictures of police on the public streets.
Citizen videos have proven crucial in cases such as the San Francisco BART police shooting of Oscar Grant on a train platform.
Tucker posted pictures of injuries he said he received as a result of alleged brutality at the hands of the Big Island police. Not only was he arrested, but his equipment was confiscated.
The article is at First Circuit Panel Says There’s a Clear Constitutional Right To Openly Record Cops.(The Agitator, 8/26/2011). I’ve included the ruling below for reader convenience. Of course, Hawaii is in the 9th Circuit, but the case is still significant, if not binding.
From the ruling, the incident resembled so many others around the country:
As he was walking past the Boston Common on the evening of October 1, 2007, Simon Glik caught sight of three police officers -- the individual defendants here -- arresting a young man. Glik heard another bystander say something to the effect of, "You are hurting him, stop." Concerned that the officers were employing excessive force to effect the arrest, Glik stopped roughly ten feet away and began recording video footage of the arrest on his cell phone.
After placing the suspect in handcuffs, one of the officers turned to Glik and said, "I think you have taken enough pictures." Glik replied, "I am recording this. I saw you punch him." An officer1 then approached Glik and asked if Glik's cell phone recorded audio. When Glik affirmed that he was recording audio, the officer placed him in handcuffs, arresting him for, inter alia, unlawful audio recording in violation of Massachusetts's wiretap statute. Glik was taken to the South Boston police station. In the course of booking, the police confiscated Glik's cell phone and a computer flash drive and held them as evidence.
The First Circuit ruled that the officers are not protected by qualified immunity. That may be significant in Tucker’s case as well, depending on what kind of legal action he may choose to take.
ACLU video related to this case:
Wind turbine humor
Wind turbines on Lanai and Molokai intended to profit developers wanting to sell electricity to Oahu won’t go in without a fight.
Speaking of wind turbines…
by XKCD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
Johan Galtung’s view from Europe: We Have Been Here Before
We Have Been Here Before
by Johan Galtung, 29 Aug 2011 – TRANSCEND Media Service
At the time of writing what BBC and NATO call the Final Chapter is being written in the Libya-Gaddafi tragedy. Like the final chapter for Yugoslavia-Milosevic, for Afghanistan-Omar, for Iraq-Saddam, for War on Terror-bin Laden; get The Bad One. There will come more final chapters in this neo-crusade. Like in the 1090s crusade, orthodox christians were also target of their “mission”.
We do not know how this “final chapter” will read, but, will use past experience as a guide to the chapters beyond. This is a trivial but quite useful approach. As somebody said, who does not learn from history will relive it, first time as a tragedy, then as a farce.
After destroying Gaddafi symbols there will be a ceremony celebrating NATO victory–all know who brought down Gaddafi. So vulgar as to fill an aircraft carrier with heads of government and state–a Sarkozy, a Cameron, a Stoltenberg, a Berlusconi, key bombardiers-in-chief–declaring Mission Accomplished, and lining up for oil contracts promised, like Bankrupt Big Brother, BBB? Hardly. There will be some European style to the ceremony. They may even drop that part and go straight to the routine conference, like Petersberg I for Afghanistan–drafting a constitution, setting dates for free elections and–if captured alive, the West’s International Criminal Court routine for Gaddafi.
Before that there will be massive burning of Libyan uniforms and “loyalists” dressing up in everyday garb preparing for the long haul. After a week, a month, a year, ten years–who knows–there will come the wayside bombs; the sabotage of pipelines, of refineries; the inability of the Benghazi clan with adherents to counter the Syrte clan with its adherents. The drift toward NATO occupation with ground forces, of course to train the new Libyan army. Ever more drones and Apache helicopters. In short, everything normal.
Let two basic points emerge from the fog of history; fog, that is, only for those with fog on their eyes.
Yugoslavia-Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya are artificial constructs of global architects obsessed with world maps coloring “nation-states” with one color. The “nation”, they believe, are the citizens of states with one color. Oh, when shall they ever learn, that those nations do not exist? That the blood of clans-tribes-ethnicities-races in highly heterogeneous we-cultures is stronger than the water of party ideology in homogeneous I-cultures? That one person-one vote free and fair elections work well in homogeneous I-cultures like Norway, Germany, Italy, Japan, but in heterogeneous we-cultures people will vote their clans, tribes, ethnic groups, races into power? The rest is statistics. You want to keep that artificial state in one piece? Then pay the price: heavy repression to contain centrifugal ruptures, by a local dictator or foreign occupation.
But wasn’t Yugoslavia broken up by centrifugal forces? Yes, but leaving the heterogeneity intact except for Slovenia, and the occupation still as a lid on the cauldrons in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo/a, waiting for the next explosions.
Take a second little point.
What is imposed by violence tends to lead to violence and violent rule, not democracy. But wasn’t democracy imposed on Germany-Italy-Japan after the Second World War and worked? No, all three were homogeneous, two even I-cultures (with very minor exceptions); all three had a tradition of electoral democracy and majority rule; all three had dictatorship-militarism for other reasons than to keep disparate ethnic groups forcefully together. The violence restored what was already there.
A lost case, then, this war against atrocious Gaddafi? If the goal is “stable secular democracy”, yes; that will mobilize islamists and clans and tribes and races, for violence and endless bickering.
But if the key goals are a private, not state, central bank–already done by the Benghazi clan–then no lost case. If the goal was to kill an African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya; an African Monetary Fund in Nigeria; an African federation; and an African currency in gold dinars, there is cause for celebration. (The Obama administration has already confiscated Libya’s 30 billion dollars deposited in the USA for these purposes.) And–if the goal was to prevent that Libya should emerge as the African country able to meet the Millennium Development Goals–celebrate.
In the meantime, the Arab spring matures, and has spread to Israel with massive protests against inequality. Rockets and attacks from Gaza under de facto occupation are deplorable, but to be expected. The late summer harvest is there: a changed Egypt reacts, 30 years truce evaporating. There will be more.
But there will also be more empires succeeding USA-Israel. My book about “The European Community” from 1973 had the subtitle “A Superpower in the Making”; in my book “The Fall of the US Empire” from 2009[i], I see Europeans-NATO as the likely US successors. Even little Norway, not an EU member but with the highest surplus of all AAA countries (Der Spiegel, 15 Aug 2011 p. 65) is in it. Doing the job till the USA recovers and can be world sheriff again, capturing The Bad Ones, dead or alive? Or, reconquering Africa?
Probably none of the above. This fourth imperial scourge on the Middle East and North Africa after the Ottoman Empire, then the West (Italy-England-France), then USA-Israel, will probably be short. They now say “Libya is not Iraq” like they used to say “Iraq is not Vietnam”. Yes, there are differences, but also overwhelming similarities. They will wake up. Maybe a more decentralized Libya, and then playing up one Africa, playing down 54 states and playing up 500 sub-states is a much better solution–with rule by consensus for the many parts instead of the Western “winner take all”.
Note:
[i] Johan Galtung, The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?, TRANSCEND University Press, 2009 http://www.transcend.org/tup/.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 United States License.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Hawaii ICE agents nab people off the streets regardless of what Obama has said about changes in policy
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ICE (federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is allowed to stop anyone at the border and demand papers. The border isn’t just Honolulu Airport and the harbors—by law it is now 100 miles from the actual border. For Hawaii, that means ICE agents can stop anyone anywhere on the islands.
In ethnically diverse Hawaii, it appears that ICE agents are racially profiling Hawaii residents. Some of them, according to a front-page story in today’s Star-Advertiser, are being held in solitary confinement even though they have no criminal history.
Hawaii residents with no criminal records but relatively minor immigration infractions have been pulled from their homes and public places without warning, handcuffed and placed in federal prison cells despite a policy shift nationally focusing on prosecutions of felons and other serious offenders, immigration attorneys say.
Even after the Obama administration reaffirmed a policy shift nearly two weeks ago, local attorneys say they are aware of multiple instances in which immigrants with no criminal records have been arrested and incarcerated because of administrative infractions years ago, such as overstaying a visa or entering the country as a child without the required paperwork.
[Star-Advertiser, Illegal immigrants held on minor infractions, 8/28/2011]
If policy has changed, as Obama announced, then why are ICE agents in Hawaii and elsewhere still stopping and incarcerating these people? The explanation was available to readers in the same paper—on the comics page. Check out Sunday’s Candorville comic by Darrin Bell. I can’t reproduce it here (copyrighted material), but you can just click to see it.
My take: Obama is running for re-election. So he says nice things to gain the Latino/immigrant vote. But that has nothing to do with what he is actually doing.
Racial profiling is wrong and illegal. The President has said he will not be deporting these people. Well, he said he would close Guantanamo. He said he would tax the rich. Anyone who believes what a President running for election says—I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap (water damage).
So whose policy are we going to believe—the President or the ICE agents grabbing people off the streets and locking them away in solitary confinement?
Clearly, ICE doesn’t believe what the President says, either.
Related articles
In appearing to soften its immigration policy by agreeing to review hundreds of thousands of deportation cases in the pipeline, the Obama administration is either pulling off a big deal — or a big con.
One minute, Obama is insisting that he supports comprehensive immigration reform; the next, he is doubling down on the failed strategy of "enforcement only."
Mega Solar Project Proposed for O`ahu
In 2009 Sempra acquired the rights to the proposed Auwahi wind farm on Maui. The wind farm is proposed to be located on land owned by Ulupalakua Ranch on the slopes of Haleakala.
Sempra is one of the Top Ten Finishers in the the 2011 Clean Technology and SustainableIndustries (CTSI) Defense Energy Challenge. The winning technologies will be showcased at the second annual Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit to be held in Honolulu on September 13-15. I covered the first Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and will be returning to provide coverage of this second summit.
Sempra owns the Mexican segment of the 220-mile long bi-directional North Baja Natural Gas Pipeline which connects Mexico, California and Arizona. Sempra owns the 48 MW Copper Mountain Solar Facility (Nevada) and the neighboring 10 MW El Dorado Solar Power Plant.
The size of the proposed Pearl Harbor solar project pushes the upper boundaries on what many people thought was the limit for solar penetration on Oahu.
The University of Hawaii's Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) and the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) wrote the Oahu Wind Integration Study in February 2011 for the U.S. Department of Energy. The report analyzed five scenarios for Oahu. These options examined solar and wind possibilities ranging from 100-500 MW of wind and 0-100 MW of Solar.
Last December the Hawai`i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) held scoping meetings for the Big Wind Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. DBEDT stated that although there is no silver bullet, Big Wind was the only possible solution.
DBEDT has decided to revisit this issue. They will be holding another round of scoping meetings to allow the public to comment on two additional alternatives to Big Wind, namely Big Maui Geothermal and Big Solar.
DBEDT has yet to decide whether to include other alternatives, such as Hawai`i Island based Geothermal, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), and Distributed Generation (DG).
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Saturday, August 27, 2011
Micro Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (μ-OTEC)
ililani.media@gmail.com
A successfully demonstration of the world’s first robotic underwater vehicle to be powered entirely by ocean thermal energy occurred off Hawai`i in 2009-10.
The 183-pound unmanned prototype submarine completed 300 dives down to a depth of over 1600 feet in water about 100 miles southwest of Honolulu.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) works like an anti-refrigerator. The ocean has different temperature layers. An OTEC system uses these different temperature gradients to produce electricity.
Micro OTEC does this in different time intervals. A small unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) makes deep water dives and then rises back to the surface.
On the outside of the sub are 10 external tubes which contain waxy substances known as phase-change materials. In the cold deep ocean the material contracts. In the warm surface water the material expands which puts pressure on oil stored inside the sub. The oil periodically drives a hydraulic motor that generates electricity and recharges the vehicle's batteries.
The submarine is named the Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging (SOLO-TREC) prototype autonomous underwater vehicle and was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
For more information: Solo-Trek & JPL Press Release
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Friday, August 26, 2011
The Devil is in the Details
ililani.media@gmail.com
The Hawai`i PUC practically never allow intervenors into rate cases, while the California PUC does, and in fact will compensate intervenors who are successful in saving ratepayer money. California has several groups that regularly intervene in PUC actions including The Utility Consumer Action Network and The Utilities Reform Network
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Hawaii Reporter on autism case that ‘could cost state “millions” ’
by Larry Geller
I was glad to see the coverage of this long-running case on the Hawaii Reporter website. Investigative reporter Jim Dooley has captured the procedural roadblocks that have prevented justice from being done for the DOE’s wrongs to two girls, Natalie and Michelle.
Although the headline emphasizes the cost to the state, the real story is the loss of two wonderful lives. Autism must be treated promptly and correctly, according to an individualized program for each student. A child’s future depends almost entirely on receiving appropriate services in the school system.
I knew the two girls and hope that at least their future care can be assured through a fair settlement of this case, which, as the article points out, was filed in 2005. It’s been to the 9th Circuit twice, and has just been re-assigned to a new judge.
Long delays in the case are attributable to rulings by an octogenarian federal court judge, Manuel Real, whose erratic courtroom behavior and quixotic legal decisions have brought him repeated rebukes and reversals from his appellate court superiors.
[Hawaii Reporter, Autism Lawsuit Against DOE Could Cost State "Millions", 8/22/2011]
What Dooley can’t detail in a short article is how the Department of Education’s treatment of these and other special needs children has too often dashed their hopes for a successful future. The Felix Consent Decree brought about badly needed improvements, creating a system of care that could have achieved positive results for children on the autism spectrum. It did not, however, change the mindset within DOE that it is ok to deny services, to fight parents, and to destroy little lives.
Imagine that a child who needs special training, required by federal (and state) law, does not get it. As a result, the child cannot speak or effectively communicate. That student, instead of living independently and perhaps even attending and graduating from college, could need lifelong care.
That frames the “millions” a bit differently. The girl’s parents will not be with them forever. The girls’ care will require more money than most parents will ever have, and when the expense is a result of neglect by the school system, requiring the system to pay is only an imperfect remedy. A million dollars doesn’t go very far these days, by the way.
The damage to special needs students who were cheated of their lives by an uncaring system cannot be measured in money. Hawaii still faces a large number of due process hearings and legal actions each year simply to line up services for the children affected.
Until the DOE undergoes a very fundamental change, the neglect will continue. Only occasionally does it break out in the courts, and only in high-profile cases like this does it make the news. Underneath the silence is a system badly in need of reform for moral reasons as well as economic considerations.
Even should the parents prevail in this case, the damage to their children is still not erased.
The Faster Times: “Why the New York Times Paywall is Working”
by Larry Geller
The New York Times experiment in creating a “porous paywall,” that is, a paywall that doesn’t block readers from viewing its content, has been widely followed. It seems, by most reports, that the experiment has been successful.
Yes, the NYT paywall is porous — but that’s a feature, not a bug. It allows anybody, anywhere, to read any NYT article they like. That makes the NYT open and inviting — and means that I continue to be very happy to link to NYT stories.
[The Faster Times, Why the New York Times Paywall is Working (quoting Felix Salmon, 8/21/2011 ]
If anyone can read stories (up to a certain limit, and there’s a workaround for that, too), how can the NYT be successful with a paywall?
As the article explains, people seem to be willing to pay after the fact. That is, they read articles, see the value of access, and subscribe.
Felix explains that since turning on the “paywall” at the end of March, the New York Times has signed up almost 400,000 paying customers for its online product ...
…
These 400,000 subscribers have been obtained with seemingly no loss in visitors and traffic to the NY Times’ website since the paywall launched at the end of March this year
The Faster Times article has a graph of the increase revenue with no loss of traffic.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, on the other hand, has gone for a strict lockdown approach. This deprives everyone (inside and outside Hawaii) of information about our state, and has to be detrimental to business interests and any hope of attracting high-tech ventures to the islands. It also deprives residents of all ages (especially children) of the ability to conduct research via Google or other search engines.
I hope Star-Advertiser editors will check out the New York Times approach and, yes, relent.
Star-Advertiser erases Hawaii’s history from the web
by Larry Geller
Today’s Kokua Line had an article about the sad state of Hawaii’s vehicle registration computer system. June Watanabe helpfully included a link to two previous articles on the subject:
Question:…The online registration system is great, but it seems that a portion of the system that supports its success is broken.
Answer: The problem is a backlog in updating the city's computer files, a situation we described last September: www.staradvertiser.com/ news/20100924_Backlog_ has_police_ticket_car_ despite_its_new_safety_ sticker.html and www.staradvertiser.com/news/ 20100929_Only_authorized_ companies_city_workers_ can_collect_trash.html.
[Star-Advertiser, Online vehicle registration plagued by system backlog, 8/26/2011]
Unfortunately, neither link works any more. The newspaper has withdrawn itself from the web. In doing so, the stories that we all thought we could simply search for or may have linked to in online articles or blog posts—are gone.
Here’s what I got. It didn’t matter if I was logged on to their paywall or not.
Of course, the previously published and posted articles are the property of the newspaper and they have every right to withdraw them from view.
But it’s a shame, and their move will hurt Hawaii business in the long run. Perhaps they might keep in mind that businesses are their customers (the paper is, after all, called the Star-AD
VERTISER).
DBEDT should have a word with them. Without an on-line newspaper for both news and for research, we can’t have much of a high-tech future. People are used to finding things out on their computers, iPhones and iPads, and right now, Hawaii is no more visible on the web than, say, Yap.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
World Class Spin ?
Fact Check: Does Lanai and Moloka`i have world class winds?
Saffir-Simpson Category 5 hurricanes have wind speed exceeding 155 mph. Enhanced Fujita Scale EF5 tornadoes have wind speeds greater than 200 mph.
For the past 35 years there have been windmills in the Antarctic. Strong katabatic winds caused by the flow of cold air off the plateau make some coastal sites around Antarctica extremely windy. The Mawson Station in Antarctica may be the windiest place on the ground, with average wind speed of 23 mph and a maximum wind speed of 154 mph. (Potential for Significant Wind Power Generation at Antarctic Stations)
Wind speeds generally increase with height. The U.S. uses a wind classification system where wind is measured at 10 m (33 ft.), 30 m (98 ft.) and 50 m (164 ft.) above the ground level. The top category, Class 7, has wind speeds of 15.7 - 21.1 mph at 10 meters; 18.3 - 24.7 mph at 30 meters; and 19.7 - 26.6 mph at 50 meters.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States: “In Alaska, high wind resource occurs over the Aleutian Islands and the Alaska Peninsula, most coastal areas of northern and western Alaska, offshore islands of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, and over mountainous areas in northern, southern, and southeastern Alaska. The largest areas of class 7 wind power in the United States are located in Alaska”
The Dakotas could produce 25% of the U.S. demand for electricity. “South Dakota possesses one of the finest wind regimes in the entire United States, with over 117,000 megawatts of generation, translating into over $250 billion of wind generation investment potential.”
“The Great Lakes Region represents one of the largest offshore wind market opportunities in the world. The estimated wind resource available for electricity production is 250 gigawatts (GW) – enough power for 75 million households. “
DBEDT developed wind data maps for Hawai`i based on research by AWS Truewind and analysis by NREL.
There are two great areas of wind offshore of Hawai`i: the Moloka`i-Lanai Channel and the Pacific Ocean south of the Big Island. Each area has far greater wind potential than all of the Hawai`i land-based wind sites combined.
For land-based wind, the Kohala-Waikoloa area of the Big Island has the best on-land wind resources, followed by the Kaheawa-Ma'alaea area of Maui.
Lana`i and Moloka`i have rural, pristine, unpopulated areas that have wind. Where greed rules, development is always worth more than open “unused” areas. With a little spin like “the best wind in the world” some believe that Lana`i and Moloka`i resources should be exploited.
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Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Star-Advertiser opens leak in paywall dike to post copy of its complaint against Governor on judicial selection list
by Larry Geller
By posting today’s front-page story on the lawsuit brought by the Star-Advertiser against Governor Neil Abercrombie as “breaking news,” Google got it.
You can get it too, here. The on-line version includes a copy of the S-A’s complaint and exhibits, which is very good reading all by itself.
Don’t be put off by the silly redactions in the Scribd on-line reader. If you download your own copy, the redactions aren’t there.
Chomsky on whether or not America is in decline, via al-Akhbar English
by Larry Geller
The new English al-Akhbar website features an article by Noam Chomsky related to the Arab uprising. As usual, Chomsky’s clarity of expression stands out.
Chomsky discusses whether American influence is on the decline or not. Best to read the article to learn his conclusion.
I’d like to snip two paragraphs that I liked, among many, just as an illustration of why I value reading Chomsky’s essays. On US military force:
While longstanding US policies remain stable, with tactical adjustments, under Obama there have been some significant changes. Military analyst Yochi Dreazen observes in the Atlantic that Bush’s policy was to capture (and torture) suspects, while Obama simply assassinates them, with a rapid increase in terror weapons (drones) and the use of Special Forces, many of them assassination teams. Special Forces are scheduled to operate in 120 countries. Now as large as Canada’s entire military, these forces are, in effect, a private army of the president, a matter discussed in detail by American investigative journalist Nick Turse on the website Tomdispatch. The team that Obama dispatched to assassinate Osama bin Laden had already carried out perhaps a dozen similar missions in Pakistan.
And on America’s internal decline:
Another common theme, at least among those who are not willfully blind, is that American decline is in no small measure self-inflicted. The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country (a large majority think that Congress should just be disbanded) and bewilders the world, has few analogues in the annals of parliamentary democracy. The spectacle is even coming to frighten the sponsors of the charade. Corporate power is now concerned that the extremists they helped put in office in Congress may choose to bring down the edifice on which their own wealth and privilege relies, the powerful nanny state that caters to their interests.
There’s lots more. Check out the article.
Hawaii's Utility Advocate
ililani.media@gmail.com
Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) has asked the Hawai`i Public Utilities Commission to approve the HECO-Aina Koa Pono Biofuel Supply Contract (Docket 2011-0005). According to HECO, the technology that Aina Koa Pono will use has never been commercially proven.
On August 23, 2011 the Consumer Advocate filed their Statement of Position in the regulatory proceeding.
The Consumer Advocate asked questions: "Are there available options that can be considered as an alternative to the Supply Contract? What are the costs of those available options as compared to the Supply Contract?" (p. 23)
Considering alternatives makes sense because at this time the PUC and Consumer Advocate are reviewing a proposal by Puna Geothermal Ventures (Docket 2011-0040) to expand baseload geothermal energy using closed loop technology whereby their are no air emissions. PGV has proposed a price that is 50% of the Aina Koa Pono price. One half of the price for proven technology.
The Consumer Advocate then answered their questions by ignoring the geothermal option: "Thus, at this time, it appears that the Companies' generating units are the primary feasible alternative to providing grid services." (p. 27)
The Consumer Advocate then elaborated on what the term "reasonable" means:
"The Consumer Advocate believes that the initiation and consideration of an environmental assessment ("EA") process pursuant to HRS §343-5 and any subsequent determination of whether there may be any significant effects on the environment which may necessitate an EIS is not within the Commission's statutory authority. The Commission's authority in the instant proceeding is confined to determining the reasonableness of the terms provided within the proposed contract between the HECO Companies and Aina Koa as it relates to the determination of the utility's revenue requirement and resultant impact on applicable rates." (p. 49)
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