i L i n d . n e t

Hawaii Pacific University issued a crime alert in advance of the protest Sunday morning by the Westboro Baptist Church, calling it “An ANTI-WAR/ANTI-AMERICAN PROTEST”. I don’t think I would be calling this group “anti-war”, despite their statement that “God hates the american military!” and slogans like “Thank God for IEDs”.

For example, here’s part of what they say about a planned appearance at the Arizona Memorial, also on Sunday morning:

Thank God for December 7, 1941! God sent the Japanese to execute a little bit of righteous Judgment upon you for your sins! We wish that 2,400,000 had died, but alas, this is what God had in store for you.

And there’s lots more where that came from. For the folks at New Hope: “Dr. Wayne Cordeiro is the lying false prophet running the show at this so-called Mega church. ” For the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, anything but: ” I am not capable of articulating just how EVIL these bastards (Hebrews 12:8- good Bible word) are,” the Baptist boys write.

Whew. How do you spell “major nut job”? HPU’s probably right to warn students to stay away.

The Star-Bulletin’s Richard Borreca follows up today on the request by the Office of Elections for an exemption from standard procurement for the purchase of the electronic voting system to be used in this year’s elections. It seems that the State Procurement Office has rejected the request. The SPO said that approving the exemption would be “an act of bad faith” because it would circumvent an agreement among all the parties signed on May 7. This implies that the request from the Office of Elections, filed just days after signing the agreement, was itself an act of bad faith. How interesting.

The vog was bad yesterday, and appears to still be hanging around this morning.

We stopped at Kualoa on the way home to take a few photos as the sun was setting over the mountains. Click on this photo so see a few more.

It’s a reminder of how quickly we could face an environmental disaster. If this vog were a bit more potent, it could become a substantial health hazard and there’s little we could do about it. Definitely unsettling.

We celebrated my mother’s 94th birthday this week with dinner and a bottle of wine at Le Bistro in Niu Valley, followed by a St. Germaine fruit tart at home, complete with candle.

I thought my meal was good, although Meda’s didn’t agree with her. The food was presented nicely, although service was so-so. The restaurant was busy, and they pack a lot of tables in a relatively small space. I would hesitate before recommending it to others, although they seem to be doing a brisk business anyway.