Category Archives: Blogs

“Account suspended?” Wha’ happen?

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If you happened to check in here early this morning, you likely got the same rude surprise that I was greeted with: “Account suspended”

Meltdown

I immediately sent off an urgent message to my hosting service, Hostrocket.com.

This is part of the reply I received explaining the problem.

It looks like your service was suspended at around 10:20 am EST due to a large number of unclosed mysql connections which were causing server instability. Checking server usage, your account was found to have used 24.71% of the server’s CPU time.

Looking into the matter, it looks like the majority of the issue is being caused by spam comments on your WordPress installation. Please secure your comments by either requiring users to register before commenting, adding some form of captcha, or disabling comments altogether.

So spammers managed to essentially crash the site, despite having two different anti-spam plug-ins installed.

Obviously, shutting off comments isn’t an option. And I’m not anxious to cut off anonymous comments because they do often make very useful contributions to the discussion.

For now, I’ve switched to a different anti-spam plug-in. and will consider a captcha plug-in as well, although that will make you work a bit when submitting your comments.

And now I’ll have to spend some time going through site logs to see if I can identify where some of this spam is coming from and block those sites directly.

If any of you more tech-savvy readers have suggestions, I would certainly appreciate hearing them.

In any case, welcome to this wild ride!

Hey, Wha’ Happen?

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An astute reader asks:

no ilind entry for Feb 23. did we miss something? was it supposed to be posted but instead was sent to cyberland?

Good question, Mr. Sharp Eyes…

First, the set-up.

If you were watching closely for clues, you might have noticed that I wasn’t blogging from Kaaawa last week.

I was, instead, accompanying Dr. Meda to one of her large professional conferences of the year. The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences was meeting in Philadelphia, Tuesday thru Saturday of last week. After holding our breath the week before watching reports of the blizzard that blew through the region, we flew into Philly at the beginning of the week.

26 degreesIt got “warmer” later in the week, but there was one morning of snow, and it never got to what we would have considered “warm.”

While Meda did the conference, appearing on one panel and running to catch up with colleagues and co-authors from other campuses, as well as meetings of at least one editorial board and another ACJS division, I hunkered down and tried to keep the blog fed without interruption.

We also both managed to catch colds, and coughed and sniffled our way through the week at a somewhat reduced speed.

If you didn’t notice any of this, that’s a good thing, as other people have counseled me about disclosing when we’re out of town.

Oh–the missing Sunday post? I thought that I had successfully scheduled the post about the California political corruption indictments to be “published” on Sunday morning, Hawaii time. Apparently I blew it, but only discovered it when we were already in transit early Sunday morning (around midnight Hawaii time) and it was just too late to add another Sunday post. I just had to let it go.

So that’s the long answer to a short, pointed question.

Oh, did you recognize the “wha’ happen?” phrase in the title of this post? That’s from Fred Willard’s character in “Mighty Wind,” a great Christopher Guest mockumentary. If you’ve never seen it, it is worth tracking down.

Senator Thielen’s blog stands out as worth reading

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You don’t have to live in Sen. Laura Thielen’s district, which stretches from Kailua to Portlock, in order to find her blog interesting and sometimes provocative. The blog is part of Thielen’s official Senate website, so campaign-related topics are off limits.

Thielen started her online presence last year, and it has developed nicely. The blog addresses a variety of subjects.

In one recent post, she called attention to two bills take different approaches to restoring Hawaii’s journalists’ shield law.

Another explains how the legislative process looks from the perspective of a relative newcomer to the legislature.

“In the Legislature, you can try to amend bills,” she writes. “But in reality, very few legislators have the ability to make substantive changes to a bill.”

At the end of the day, Thielen says you have to confront that tough reality. You have to choices–vote yes, or vote no.

And that’s a hard decision when you support parts of a bill but oppose others.

So where does that leave a freshman legislator like myself? What would you do if you agree with 50% of a bill, but disagree with 50%?

Last year I tried to raise my concerns on the floor of the Senate, during the Second Reading of bills. I figured that’s the time to influence amendments. Third Reading is just up or down – no opportunity to amend.

The first time I spoke on Second Reading, Senator Hee took the mike and asked the Senate President if this was Third Reading. When she said “no,” Hee basically replied: well, this is the Senate, we reserve our remarks for Third Reading.

While Hee is more outspoken than most, I can tell that my floor remarks puzzle or annoy many Senators. While House members routinely debate issues during Second Reading, some Senators seem to take pride in the fact that we don’t.

Elected officials don’t usually take the time to explain how the process looks from the inside. That in itself makes Thielen’s blog worth a regular read.

Items of note from two other local bloggers

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I just wanted to flag a few items of interest.

Larry Geller (disappearednews.com) had an insightful take on Kakaako development yesterday (“There goes the neighborhood“).

Geller flagged a timely NY Times story about luxury hotel developments, and paired it with a description of the penthouse unit in one of the upcoming Kakaako condos featuring 21,182 square feet of living space (that’s a home of roughly half an acre) and an estimated monthly maintenance fee of $19,521.

From the NY Times, as flagged by Geller:

“The income stratification is more dramatic and that brings this [luxury hotel development] on,” he said. “That’s what we’re really talking about, highly conspicuous consumption as wealth flows from the broader population to a very small subset.” –David Loeb, a senior hotel analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company in a New York Times article on luxury hotels.”

Geller comments:

Once again, we learn of another towering condo going up in the Kakaako area through a front-page lead story in the Star-Advertiser. Isn’t there any more important news in the world today that should go on the front page? On the other hand, maybe the editors are doing us a service—chronicling the destruction of Honolulu as we know it.

Oh, Honolulu will continue to exist, but will we be here? The median cost of housing continues to rise into the stratosphere. We, the citizens and voters, do not benefit from the kind of luxury housing that profits these developers. The routine approvals for the exemptions that make their high-rise-high-cost units possible are anti-democratic. Unless we regain control of the urban planning process, we will continue to be planned out of our own city.

And he makes another excellent point: “Development that depends on exemptions does not create an environment where people want to live, work, play, and shop.”

Hmmmm. How many of the current crop of planned or proposed high rise projects could go forward without seeking exemptions? Maybe Larry can answer that one.

Add to that a shout-out to Henry Curtis, who has been doing excellent reporting on energy issues at his Ililani Media site.

This week he reported on the Public Utilities Commission’s public hearing on a proposed undersea cable to move energy between Maui and Oahu.

He reports:

The hearing lasted 53 minutes. The first half hour consisted of presentations by the PUC, DBEDT and the Consumer Advocate.

Then six members of the public spoke. These speakers were limited to three minutes each.

That’s it in a nutshell, I suppose. Although there was no need for a time limit, with only a few people seeking to speak, the PUC stuck with the arbitrary 3-minute limit. Why? I guess, like many agencies, they just ask, “Why not?” It’s certainly easier if you only let the public have a few sentences. It at least keeps up the facade.

And in a great post last week, Curtis profiled the PUC commissioners, including their official travels. Good work, Henry!