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Nate keeps telling me that Hawaii sucks, but I get the feeling that he either 1) would say that about any place expensive or 2) is thinking of his mother. At any rate, I intend on visiting soon. Here’s some eye candy:
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Hawaii | 2 Comments »
I have designs on at least visiting Hawaii in the near future. The purpose of my visit will be, in part, to see how much I might enjoy living there. The rest of my purpose will be, well, look:
via Flickr
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Hawaii, Kalalau Lookout, Kauai | Leave a comment »
Take a quick look around a world map and you may just figure out the location of a magma hot spot. The island chain of Hawaii, for example, was born via this way. 
As the Pacific plate moves, hot magma beneath the Earth’s crust pushes through, forming new land over millions of years. This process has given us the 4 main Hawaiian land masses in addition to well over a hundred tiny islands. Other areas of the world where we see this include the Galapagos islands and the peaks of Kilimanjaro.
Filed under: Science | Tagged: Fun fact of the day, Hawaii, Volcanic hot spots | 1 Comment »
Hawaii is about to increase the happiness of many of its citizens. And with no ill consequences.
Hawaii lawmakers gave final approval to civil unions Wednesday and sent the legislation to Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who plans to sign it into law.
Civil unions would begin Jan. 1, 2012, making the state the seventh to grant virtually the same rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.
Now we just need these states to adhere to the Supreme Court ruling that said separate can never be equal. (Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt if same-sex marriage was federally recognized and sanctioned in every state. At least we would all be on board with the constitution at that point.)
Filed under: News, Rights, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: Civil rights, Civil Unions, Gays, Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, Same-sex marriage | 4 Comments »
The Hawaii state Senate has decided to do away with the prayer it used to open each session.
A citizen’s complaint had prompted the American Civil Liberties Union last summer to send the Senate a letter noting that its invocations often referenced Jesus Christ, contravening the separation of church and state.
That prompted the state attorney general’s office to advise the Senate that their handling of prayers – by inviting speakers from various religions to preach before every session – wouldn’t survive a likely court challenge, said Democratic Majority Leader Brickwood Galuteria.
“Above all, our responsibility is to adhere to the Constitution,” Galuteria said after Thursday’s vote to halt the daily blessings.
This is a pretty straight forward decision, one that reflects the fact that Christians don’t get to do whatever they want. But that doesn’t mean everyone has to understand it.
“They (the ACLU) continue to threaten governments with lawsuits to try to force them into capitulating to their view of society,” said Brett Harvey, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, made up of Christian lawyers to defend free faith speech. “Governments should take a stand for this cherished historical practice.”
Thank you for confirming that the prayers were all about Christians, but really? It’s an organization dedicated to defending free faith speech? Do they realize that there is no such thing? That if such a thing were to exist, that it would be a privilege, not a right? There is simply the right to free speech.
Besides, it isn’t free speech if it’s being endorsed by the government.
Filed under: News | Tagged: Alliance Defense Fund, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Brett Harvey, Free faith speech, Free Speech, Hawaii, Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church, Mitch Kahle, Prayer | 1 Comment »
Is it really that hard to understand? Is it really that hard to understand that one group does not get to impose its religious beliefs on everyone else? Church and state are separate; freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. I suspect if anti-theist atheists or Muslims or Scientologists started reciting their beliefs through a government entity, you Christians would start to actually understand all this.
The Hawaii state Senate, as Christian-dominated as anywhere in the U.S., is, however, with you in their intentional ignorance.
When Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend to say the invocation, Mitch Kahle stood from his seat in the gallery of the Senate chambers and said, “I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it’s a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object.”
Kahle’s protest lasted about seven seconds. Then he stopped talking and sat down. The Senate’s Sergeant at Arms was determined to remove Kahle. When Kahle resisted he was forcefully removed and roughed up. The incident was caught by several video cameras including a camera belonging to Hawaii News Now.
“Then what they did to add insult to injury was, they arrested him for disorderly conduct,” said William Harrison, Kahle’s attorney.
Fortunately, the courts are more and more frequently getting it.
District Court judge Leslie Hayashi needed less than an hour to find Kahle not guilty.
“Number one, there was no disorderly conduct. Number two, he has a first amendment right to speak in a public forum such as he did. And number three, the legislature was violating our U.S. Constitution as well as the Hawaii constitution by having these invocations,” [Kahle’s lawyer] Harrison said.
Fortunately, Kahle and his photographer, Kevin Hughes, are suing.
via Pharyngula
Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: Colleen Hanabusa, Hawaii, Kevin Hughes, Mitch Kahle, pharyngula, State Senate | 2 Comments »
One of the most fundamentally dishonest positions of many marriage bigots is that marriage is all about children and reproduction. ‘Oh, we don’t hate da gays! We just want to create the best environment for children!’ I’m sure they are concerned with children, but that isn’t why they’re against gay marriage. We see this every time civil unions come up and they still oppose the measure. This is about not giving rights to a group of people based on who that group inherently is. That’s bigotry.
Now Hawaii has a chance to make the lives of gay couples better. (When put this way – an honest way – it’s all so clear.) The out-going governor, Linda Lingle, had this opportunity, but she instead decided to consult some wholly unqualified men who dress in silly garb. This undue respect given to the ignorant and silly resulted in less human happiness/more human suffering. It was unjustifiable by any reasonable measure.
But now this wrong has a good chance of being righted.
Hawaii voters opened the way for same-sex civil unions to become state law next year, with an election that gave victory to a pro-gay rights gubernatorial candidate and rejected many church-backed candidates.
The state House and Senate retained the Democratic majorities that approved a civil unions bill this year before it was vetoed, and Democratic Gov.-elect Neil Abercrombie has said he will sign a similar law if passed by the Legislature.
The move would make Hawaii, long a battleground in the gay rights movement, the sixth state to grant essentially the same rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.
This doesn’t qualify as equality, but it is currently the best Hawaii can do. I hope 2011 will be the year gay Hawaiians are treated a little more like human beings.
Filed under: Same-sex marriage | Tagged: Civil Unions, Hawaii, Linda Lingle, Neil Abercrombie, Same-sex marriage | Leave a comment »
There’s a common argument that bigots will put forth in their defense of the privilege* of marriage: marriage is a sacred vow before God that is meant to better secure a happy family, complete with children. Gay people cannot naturally have children with each other, so they ought not have marriage. However, they do deserve many of the same rights. So long as they have marriage by another name, it is far less objectionable.
This argument is still bigoted, ignorant, disrespectful, and asinine, but at least it acknowledges that gay people do have rights. (It has been a struggle just to be sure employers are unable to fire people for something as irrelevant as sexual orientation in many states. Other states still refuse to accept that a gay person shouldn’t be fired from her cashiering job at Wal-Mart.)
But even this not-as-far-right-wing-as-it-could-be argument wasn’t good enough for the governor of Hawaii.
Hawaii’s governor ended months of speculation by vetoing contentious civil unions legislation that would have granted gay, lesbian and opposite-sex couples the same rights and benefits that the state provides to married couples.
Republican Gov. Linda Lingle’s action on Tuesday came on the final day she had to either sign or veto the bill, which was approved by the Legislature in late April.
This comes after Lingle sought advice from two unqualified jokes (otherwise known as rabbis). I suppose it isn’t surprising that someone who believes religion has anything to offer on this subject would also make a terrible decision with awful consequences for human beings.
Lingle said voters should decide the fate of civil unions, not politicians.
“The subject of this legislation has touched the hearts and minds of our citizens as no other social issue of our day,” she said. “It would be a mistake to allow a decision of this magnitude to be made by one individual or a small group of elected officials.”
A year after the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws, a majority of Americans still believed it was morally wrong for two people of different races to marry. The masses are not to be trusted with the rights of minorities.
*It is actively a right in 5 states and D.C.
Filed under: News, Rights | Tagged: Bigot, Civil Unions, Hawaii, Linda Lingle, Rights, Same-sex marriage | 2 Comments »
Governor Linda Lingle has a serious issue facing her. She has been given the opportunity to increase the rights of the gay citizens of Hawaii by approving civil unions. They will still be separate, which is never equal, but their lives will be improved by some degree. Unfortunately, she is seeking advice from two wholly unqualified individuals.
Rabbis Itchel Krasnjansky and Peter Schaktman hail from different branches of Judaism and hold starkly contrasting views on whether same-sex couples should be permitted to form civil unions in Hawaii.
What they have in common is the ear of Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who has until June 21 to announce whether she may veto the only pending civil unions legislation in the nation.
Neither of these rabbis deserve to be consulted on this issue. Lingle is herself Jewish, but she’s also the head of a secular state in a secular country that is premised in secular notions and secular law. But even if the U.S. government was religious, no justification has been given that shows any theologian of any flavor has done anything to address any important issues. Theology is merely for those who already agree on a given premise – if A is true, then B. But no one has given any evidence for A. We’re all still waiting.
But Schaktman, who leads the Reform Temple Emanu-El, insists Judaism teaches that all people regardless of sexual orientation are and should be treated as “children of God,” and thus should not face discrimination.
“Civil unions are a legal arrangement,” he said. “Therefore, anyone who uses religion to oppose civil unions is purely using religion to further homophobia.”
Schaktman gets this all technically right for the most part. Judaism may well teach that all people are children of God. How he concludes they ought not face discrimination is subjective (especially considering what a tribal book the Torah is), but he can make a rational argument for the position. Unfortunately, that’s still if everyone agrees that Judaism is a valid source of knowledge. Since it offers no reliable methods of inquiry or useful, defined tools for coming to consistent, objective conclusions, I have to reject it.
And Schaktman gets it right that civil unions are purely legal arrangements and anyone opposing them are bigots. But he ought to go one step further. Marriage is purely a legal arrangement in the eyes of the government. People put their own values into what marriage is, but that’s irrelevant here. If marriage was purely a religious institution, then which one? Most Americans would say Christian, but the government of Hawaii is showing she clearly disagrees when she consults two rabbis. And even if it’s possible to agree on marriage being about just one religion, the institution is still rife with inconsistency when it allows other religious members (as well as the non-religious atheists, agnostics, humanists, and deists) to marry. This makes it pretty obvious that this isn’t merely about marriage being based in religion; it’s about bigotry and homophobia and sexual immaturity (the latter being one of the biggest hallmarks of religion).
Filed under: News, Religions, Rights | Tagged: Civil Unions, Hawaii, Itchel Krasnjansky, Judaism, Linda Lingle, Peter Schaktman, Reform Temple Emanu-El | 10 Comments »
Vermont tops states in health, Louisiana ranks last.
It was the second straight year that Vermont topped the rankings. It was followed by Hawaii, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Idaho and Maine.
Louisiana fell from 49th to 50th, replacing Mississippi. Rounding out the bottom 10 were South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada and Georgia.
California, the most populous state, ranked 24th and New York 25th.
Vermont, with the second smallest population of any state, had the third-highest public health spending and an obesity rate of 22 percent, four points below the national average.
It also had low child poverty and violent crime, a large number of doctors per capita and good high school graduation rates.
Hawaii had similarly low obesity, the highest public health spending, little air pollution, low rates of uninsured people, a low rate of preventable hospitalizations and low rates of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Mississippi led the nation in obesity at 33 percent of the population, while Colorado was lowest at 19 percent.
22% is the obesity rate in the healthiest state. That’s absolutely absurd. But let’s keep outspending every nation combined on our military. Health certainly isn’t relevant or important to life.
By the way, is it any surprise the South makes up the whole of the bottom 10?
Filed under: News | Tagged: Arkansas, California, connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada and Georgia, New Hampshire, new york, Obesity, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont | Leave a comment »
For the Sake of Science 