^^^

From working wild land fires, I can offer this- large pine trees are very resilient when it comes to fire. This is especially the case when the lower story branches are absent and there is no fuel directly near the base of the trees. I have seen large Douglas fir trees that were badly scorched near the base that were still alive and well. Some pine species even need fire to help crack open their cones to disperse seeds. As long as there are no significant ladder fuels to get fire into the crown, and the fire is moving fast (as it appears to be the case in Maui) large pines can ride out fires.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
He said there is also a feeling of great anger from certain natives, they think that the fire was a tool by govt. and huge corporations to drive them out, making the area finally accessible to entities that want to turn Lahaina into Waikiki. It seems people are resigned to the fact that Lahaina of old will never return.

...and here we go, the Hawaiian Sovereignty Types are getting the rumor mill started.

While the whole setting the fire on purpose theory isn't valid, the argument that the area will be bought up by corporations, China, Japan, any mega development company world wide and turned into a mini Waikiki isn't far fetched.

Its going to take years to rebuild it as it was, supply logistics are going to be difficult, those people are going to have to relocate somewhere while waiting on insurance settlements, government assistance, not to mention labor and supplies.

The labor at the hotels, restaurants etc on that side of the island is going to suffer as well if people can't find a place to live.

I'm attaching a post by a young slack key guitar musician, Sterling Seaton, who plays with the group around George Kahumoku, Jr., who is a friend of mine. He notes that the non-governmental help from other parts of Maui and Oahu (people in private boats dropping off supplies at the beach aid depot) is enabling people to get through. He doesn't think much of the help from county, state and feds apparently, at least so far.

quote:

Aloha Kakou,

For those of you who have not seen this post on Facebook, Sterling Seaton provided this update on Sunday:

Update 8/13/2023
I was able to go to Lahaina today to check on some family. My gf and I made about 20 SPAM musubis to give away before heading the north route to Lahaina.
Currently only Emergency Personnel and Supply convoys are allowed to go into Lahaina through Maalaea. All other westside residents must travel in a one way direction. You can leave lahaina to the south, but must return to lahaina from the north. Police Checkpoints are setup on both sides and they are checking IDs to make sure non-westside residents aren't clogging up the roads and resources.
Peter DeAquino , his wife and kids are still hanging out in Kapalua.
They've been helping out at the Plantation house restaurant kitchen to send hot meals down to the Ritz Carlton for people that need them. They got power back on this morning.
Wainani Kealoha is doing well at her residence in Napili, she's well stocked with supplies from her friend up the road and she also got power back today.
Max Angel Becerra M'Chelle Aguinaldo and Max's mom are helping their community in Honokawai. When I pulled up to their place they were manning the donations desk at their apartment complex, making sure others received food, water and hygiene products. He even gave me a few cans of SPAM so I could make more musubis! They also got power back on today and limited cell service.
I was unable to see Jason Jerome and Vania Jerome in person, but I know they've been putting in 10-12hr days at Maui Prep helping people in need.
I saw JJ Jerome in Kahului yesterday. He is doing ok as he can be given the circumstances. He is still staying with friends in wailuku.
I was also able to see my neighbor with the 10 month old baby in person and give her a stroller my Aunty donated to me to replace hers that was lost in the fire.
Now for some perspective. Just because parts of west maui have power and limited cell service it does not mean communications are back to normal. Some calls can go through. Texts are having a really hard time going through. Internet is pretty much nonexistent except for the few people who have starlink that have been driving around and letting others hop on their network. Several people I talked to had no idea they could travel out of lahaina to the south and return through the north. There is no way to reliably get information to people.
Peter only knew about the workshop gofundme because of a phone call with Elliot Prestwich a few days ago.
Wainani didn't even know it existed till i told her today.
Max was also unaware that it existed until today.
I'm not sure if Jason and Vania even know about it either.
What I saw today:
The community support for the Westside has been immense. A friend of mine is volunteering at S-turns Beach Park where there is a very well organized mass of pop up tents that have food, water, clothes, hygiene products, grills and burners for hot food, even a van for medical and mental health services. Private boats from Ma'alaea, Oahu and Moloka'i have been doing beach drops of supplies for this location and others. Let me make it clear. This is not a government run distribution center. This is Hawaii people taking care of their own.
I won't pretend that I know everything or anything about disaster relief or government or the logistics of getting a major agency organized. But I can tell you what I see with my own 2 eyes. If it wasn't for the collective true spirit of Aloha I am witnessing by the people on this island we would be in a lot rougher place than we already are.
A final few words before I try to get some sleep, it is 1am for me after all.
I want to thank Uncle George Kahumoku Jr from the bottom my heart. If it wasn't for the generosity and Aloha he's displayed his entire life this Workshop Ohana wouldn't exist. I probably would have never become a musician/chef/hunter if I did not meet him. I am blown away by the amount of donations and messages and offers of a place to stay, new clothes, new cooking equipment, money, etc.
I feel really lucky to have you all as an extended family with us all being connected through Uncle G.
I'll try to update you all soon. Goodnight!
-Sterling

I've also noted that Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, my old medical group, is providing urgent care services in the Lahaina area and in the Memorial stadium shelter in Wailuku.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
He said there is also a feeling of great anger from certain natives, they think that the fire was a tool by govt. and huge corporations to drive them out, making the area finally accessible to entities that want to turn Lahaina into Waikiki. It seems people are resigned to the fact that Lahaina of old will never return.

...and here we go, the Hawaiian Sovereignty Types are getting the rumor mill started.

While the whole setting the fire on purpose theory isn't valid, the argument that the area will be bought up by corporations, China, Japan, any mega development company world wide and turned into a mini Waikiki isn't far fetched.

Its going to take years to rebuild it as it was, supply logistics are going to be difficult, those people are going to have to relocate somewhere while waiting on insurance settlements, government assistance, not to mention labor and supplies.

The labor at the hotels, restaurants etc on that side of the island is going to suffer as well if people can't find a place to live.

You're not wrong, plenty of examples of developers gone wild with endless short-term properties which crush the local economy, however I want someone to hold up some paper or, name who they were contacted by. If they're so incensed by someone offering to buy their property, call them out. While I can empathize with a local seeing their community getting changed by a big vacation project, right now, the news is just craving anything to talk about and the perpetually aggrieved are tossing out all their long-held rumors and boogeymen fears.

As for .gov and their slow, clumsy and half-hearted response...no surprise. FEMA continues to underwhelm time and again we saw them stumble through Katrina, Harvey, Sandy, Fiona, the Camp fire, etc... Every time, we see another round of ineptitude, glad-handing, press junkets and hands-on-hips. If anything, these disaster are reminders of needing to have some level of preparation, and exposing those elected officials when a crises is at their doorstep.

Sjtill, thank you for posting that. My daughter confirms exactly what Sterling Seaton is saying about private relief efforts. Last time I talked to her (a couple of days ago) she was wondering how the Maui government could be so incompetent.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Sjtill, thank you for posting that. My daughter confirms exactly what Sterling Seaton is saying about private relief efforts. Last time I talked to her (a couple of days ago) she was wondering how the Maui government could be so incompetent.

If you knew the place you’d say the Maui Government response is exactly par for the course.
Corsair keeps dropping dimes. The reality is a lot of these people are going to have to leave. Try their hand on another part of the island, leave the island for another in the state, or have to come to the mainland. The place is island time mentality slow during normal times. The Maui government is a bunch of talk, feel good, etc, nonsense. Rubber meets the road they show their true colors. Locals are entitlement demanding immediate government response when the place will take many years to rebuild.

I see that in our pursuit of the responsible parties and cause (aka clicks, soundbites and headlines) they are now onto the power company and their responsibility for igniting fires when winds toppled lines. The apparent solution was for the utility to have to just shut off the power, simple as that. Jesus.

It reminds me of that volcano in Italy where they actually arrested scientists for not predicting a volcanic eruption.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
My daughter confirms exactly what Sterling Seaton is saying about private relief efforts.

The reality is a lot of these people are going to have to leave. Try their hand on another part of the island, leave the island for another in the state, or have to come to the mainland. The place is island time mentality slow during normal times. The Maui government is a bunch of talk, feel good, etc, nonsense. Rubber meets the road they show their true colors.

I get it that people are upset about the government of Maui/State of Hawaii's failures in the response to this. They have reason to be, but it is hard to overstate the magnitude of this disaster AND EVEN HARDER to find a place in the US where getting relief to the people is going to be harder. Maybe Guam or American Samoa, but even there the number of tourists is nowhere near Maui's situation. Getting supplies to Puerto Rico is pie in comparison.

This is going to be EPIC levels of Problems (with a capital P) with people who were in place
to deal with problems like stray dogs and wild chickens and lost tourists. Imagine Mayberry in the middle of Red Dawn. The shockwaves are just not conceivable and the people in place to deal with the problem are just NOT up to it. Without VERY QUICKLY understanding and fixing this, Maui is going to be in dire straits.

And the "blame" for this is either everyone or no one (but God/Satan if so inclined). It was something that could have been conceived of I suppose but the reality of planning to stop this would require a time machine.

quote:

I get it that people are upset about the government of Maui/State of Hawaii's failures in the response to this. They have reason to be, but it is hard to overstate the magnitude of this disaster AND EVEN HARDER to find a place in the US where getting relief to the people is going to be harder. Maybe Guam or American Samoa, but even there the number of tourists is nowhere near Maui's situation. Getting supplies to Puerto Rico is pie in comparison.

Agree, the staging of relief operations from the mainland will take time, not only to coordinate but to simply ship the supplies by air or sea after you get them together, then, figure out how to transport them from the airport or, dock to a staging area.

President Potato is heading out there, probably because he is taking flack from the "no comment" issue, and the $700 relief per person package.

Now to put this in perspective we have sent billions to the Ukraine, and are sending $200 Million more....

Priorities are out of whack..

Link

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Agree, the staging of relief operations from the mainland will take time, not only to coordinate but to simply ship the supplies by air after you get them together, then, figure out how to transport them from the airport or, dock to a staging area.

President Potato is heading out there, probably because he is taking flack from the "no comment" issue, and the $700 relief per person package.

Now to put this in perspective we have sent billions to the Ukraine, and are sending $200 Million more....

Priorities are out of whack..

Link

Amen. Its shit like: This that drives me crazy. I get that government needs to have some control, but have some f*cking compassion and common sense.

After reading sjtill's post, I got curious about musubis.

They don't need refrigeration. Very good for emergency meals in this catastrophe, and already well accepted by the people who need help.
______________________________________

Home » Hawaii Recipes
SPAM MUSUBI, A HAWAII SNACK!
Published: Jul 26, 2020 · Modified: Aug 20, 2020 by Kathy ·

JUMP TO RECIPE
Spam Musubi is a famous Hawaii snack made from Spam, rice, and nori. It's portable, affordable, and tasty! It's the most popular way to eat Spam in Hawaii.
...

WHY IS SPAM MUSUBI SO POPULAR IN HAWAII?
Two key factors:

Outdoors
Hawaii is a very outdoors type of place and Spam Musubi is the ultimate portable snack. Pack it in your bag before you go hiking, bring it to the beach (toss a few musubis in your beach bag and eat after you come out of the water). Spam Musubi doesn't need to be refrigerated, it's durable, and really hits the spot after outdoors physical activity.

https://onolicioushawaii.com/spam-musubi/

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
I see that in our pursuit of the responsible parties and cause (aka clicks, soundbites and headlines) they are now onto the power company and their responsibility for igniting fires when winds toppled lines. The apparent solution was for the utility to have to just shut off the power, simple as that. Jesus.

It reminds me of that volcano in Italy where they actually arrested scientists for not predicting a volcanic eruption.

That’s exactly what they’ve done in CA the last few years. They shutoff the power when they decide weather and fire danger warrant. Millions go without power for an unknown amount of time that depends on the forecast. Maybe a few hours maybe a few days maybe a few more the following week. All because the power company ignored their responsibility to maintain lines and the growth around those lines for decades while every level of government both let the power company get away with it and failed to maintain their own land. I have to meet ever stricter setbacks while the public land a mile away remains dry, overgrown, and ripe for catastrophe. Enough houses burned as a result that they went with the easiest solution which was to just turn off the power.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
If you knew the place you’d say the Maui Government response is exactly par for the course.
Corsair keeps dropping dimes. The reality is a lot of these people are going to have to leave. Try their hand on another part of the island, leave the island for another in the state, or have to come to the mainland. The place is island time mentality slow during normal times. The Maui government is a bunch of talk, feel good, etc, nonsense. Rubber meets the road they show their true colors. Locals are entitlement demanding immediate government response when the place will take many years to rebuild.

I'm reasonably familiar with Maui, though not as "in the know" as you and many posting in this thread. Yeah, you're spot in in your assessment of the government and even more accurate on the fact that many are going to have to leave the island. There will be no alternative to that fact. It is becoming more evident day by day.

Hawaii’s governor wants to have the state take over Lahaina’s burned lands

The devastating fire in Lahaina, Hawaii, left behind a swath of horrific destruction, everything from known lives lost to as-yet-unknown lives lost to massive property damage. It is a true disaster and a serious crisis. And true to the Democrat mantra, the state’s Democrat governor, Josh Green, already has plans not to let that crisis go to waste.

I must admit that I’ve kept an emotional distance from the horror in Hawaii. When I realized this, I wondered if I had somehow wandered into sociopath territory without realizing it. How could I be unmoved? However, as the news has unfolded, I’ve understood why I was insulating myself a bit.

Moving with their usual warp speed, Democrats have been following Rahm Emanuel’s dictum that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Most obviously and inevitably, they’ve been blaming climate change for a disaster that almost certainly had its roots in an invasive grass combined with poor maintenance. (Poor maintenance was also behind the California fires that were used to push the climate change agenda.)

However, Governor Green, a northeastern Democrat, has another idea for using the disaster to further Democrat goals: He’s contemplating having the state take over the land and turn it into a worker’s paradise:

I’m already thinking about ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or to make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to people who were lost. We want this to be something that we remember after the pain passes.

And yes, I know that Green also talked about making it available to the families who lost everything, which will certainly be better than the $700 per household that the Biden administration is proposing (the dregs left over from financing Ukraine, I guess). And an “open space” is always nice, but not a lot of people can live there.

No, the real issue is that bit about “workforce housing.” I’d like you to think about a single government housing complex in America that hasn’t turned into a complete and utter disaster rife with crime. In San Francisco, my one-time hometown, some of the public housing complexes in the Bayview-Hunters Point district, which become black enclaves during WWII because the shipyards building liberty ships were located there, were so terrible that they were simply demolished. That area of the city has been the focus of government-funded “rehabilitation” forever, but it never works. The area is still crime-ridden.

Every reader has the same stories about the government housing in his or her community. Because the tenants in this housing have no buy-in, they have no incentive to maintain the community. The community degrades, and crime moves in. It’s inevitable, and that’s what Governor Green wants for Lahaina, one of Hawaii’s oldest and most charming communities.

By the way, Hawaii could use some land reform. Currently, most of the land is owned by a few owners, including super-rich people like Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, and the Obamas, and it looks as if the burned-out residents’ land is at risk. It would be a better state if these practically feudal land systems changed, but it sure won’t change if Governor Green exercises a government power grab to build a worker’s paradise.

https://www.americanthinker.co...as_burned_lands.html

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
I see that in our pursuit of the responsible parties and cause (aka clicks, soundbites and headlines) they are now onto the power company and their responsibility for igniting fires when winds toppled lines. The apparent solution was for the utility to have to just shut off the power, simple as that. Jesus.

It reminds me of that volcano in Italy where they actually arrested scientists for not predicting a volcanic eruption.

Perhaps where you're at in Mississippi, power lines are underground or, you just don't get high winds. Throughout much of the West, power lines are still strung on 'telephone poles' throughout residential areas as it's faster and cheaper option than burying underground. Trenching power lines becomes cost prohibitive as civic officials weigh budget needs vs infrastructure demands, then balance that with issues like earthquake resiliency and water intrusion.

When winds kick-up with sustained speeds, the humidity is low, the ground is dry and the temps are high, than the conditions are ripe for electrical lines to get knocked-down and ignite the surrounding vegetation. The biggest fires in California the last 10-years: Dixie Fire, Camp Fire, Atlas/Tubbs Fire, Butte Fire, etc...all started due to downed power lines. So, de-energizing the lines during high winds is not such a dumb idea. The real issue is, when are these governments going to get serious, knock-off their pet special interest budget siphons and put capitol towards local infrastructure improvements, which is the crux to many electric vehicle arguments....the current electrical grid is not robust enough nor is it durable enough for the added loads expected over the next 20-30 years.

quote:

However, Governor Green, a northeastern Democrat, has another idea for using the disaster to further Democrat goals: He’s contemplating having the state take over the land and turn it into a worker’s paradise:

I’m already thinking about ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or to make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to people who were lost. We want this to be something that we remember after the pain passes.

Idiotic ideas and open thoughts like this is how rampant speculation and wild-ass ideas gets started. This fucking idiot just couldn't help himself.

The irony to this is, Lahaina, while the long-time seat of the Hawaiian monarchs pre-Western settlers, became a whaling village in the 19th century by crews and families from New Bedford and Nantucket. They established a settlement in Lahaina, which also brought missionaries and stern Protestants looking to save the heathen natives. Part of Lahaina's charm was its 19th century buildings and stylings, the local mall at Kanapali is named, Whaler's Village. Enter Green, a Quaker educated Jewish physician from Swarthmore and Hershey Medical at Penn St.

There was a comment on powerlineblog.com with a link to this article, by someone who calls himself the anti-planner:

Link: The Anti-Planner

quote:

The land-use law divided the state into urban and rural zones and heavily restricted development of the rural areas. As the state’s population grew, Maui’s median home prices rose from about 3 times median family incomes in 1969 to 7.9 times median family incomes in 2021. Any prices above 5 times median incomes are unaffordable since banks won’t approve a mortgage for a home that costs that much more than a family’s income.

The stated goal of the land-use law was to protect Hawaii’s agricultural industry from urban sprawl. But high housing prices made it impossible for Hawaiian farmers to hire the help they needed as people earning farmworker pay couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii. As a result, most Hawaiian farms went out of business. Between 1982 and 2017, according to USDA’s 2017 Natural Resources Inventory, the number of acres in Hawaiian crop production declined by 72 percent as sugar cane, pineapple, and other crops moved to other tropical countries that didn’t have self-inflicted housing crises.

Hawaiian native vegetation is fairly fire resistant. Farm crops are also fire resistant, partly because farmers burned their fields every year or so. But when the farms were abandoned, the vegetation that replaced them wasn’t native vegetation but invasive grasses. These non-native grasses had been introduced as cattle feed when farming was still active, and when the farms went out of business, they took over the former crop and pasture lands.

The above video also blames the fire on drought and winds. But drought and winds have been a fact of life in Hawaii for centuries. What’s new is the hundreds of thousands of acres of rural lands that were once resistant to fires but now are highly flammable.

Many press reports point to the non-native grasses in ex-farms as the problem — but they don’t go the next step and ask why the farms shut down in the first place, allowing the non-native grasses to take over. This was solely because of the land-use law that was supposed to save the farms.

Once the land-use law was written, it became impossible to change it even when some people realized that it was killing, rather than saving, the agricultural industry. Too many people benefited from the law, whether it was property owners in the cities who saw the values of their land skyrocket or people who considered themselves environmentalists who were convinced that sprawl was evil and open space should be protected at any cost. Just as a U.S. Army officer supposedly once said in Viet Nam, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” many Hawaiian environmentalists still believe they had to destroy Hawaii’s farms in order to save them.

Since the media rarely, if ever, pointed out that the land-use law was the reason why farms were going out of business, people persuaded themselves that other factors were at work. If Hawaiians knew that the reason Lahaina was destroyed and at least 93 people are dead was the land-use law that backfired, would they demand changes to the law? Repealing that state law (and subsequent amendments) and repealing the federal Jones Act (that makes shipping from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii inordinately expensive) are the two most important things the state and nation can do to help Maui recover and prevent such disasters in the future.

With farm land abandoned, apparently there were no firebreaks set up, per one interview of a local I heard.

Today I saw a video of very early in the fire, it looked like HECO power lines were downed, and flames appeared along where the lines were. HECO did not shut off the power in the wind, both on the Lahaina side and the upcountry Kula/Olinda side where a downed power line may have started another fire that's still burning.

Outside of the fancy hotels, resorts, timeshares, Hawaii, well I won’t speak for Oahu, but definitely Maui, and Kauai, Big Island, are 3rd world countries. If it wasn’t for Costco being on the island it would much much worse for locals. (Costco there, the pricing is only 10% more than mainland) They never have or never will spend the money (electric co) to bury power in the ground. It’s telephone pole city. It’s the same where I bought rural land earlier this year. I will get power buried at my own expense from the street to my property but it’ll never change the fact that kwh’s distributed there will be by pole for the county. All I can do is sort my own property, the rest, is outside of my control. So wind comes in and knocks those down, I’m shit out of luck without a generator, battery backup, etc. Same thing in Maui. There are huge windmills on the West Maui mountains as an example. Distribution of said power is only going to happen with poles there. Just how it is. Say you had some wealthy individual or corporation offer to pay to put it in the ground, etc, upgrade all the infrastructure. The locals would be up in arms about the construction, the digging, the noise of the machines to do so, and so would Maui county. They’d complain of traffic disruption, tearing up “native” land, disturbing this and that, etc, etc. It’s why nothing can ever get done there. You try to make progress or forward movement on anything and it’s instantly politicized, weaponized, protests, groups stepping in, and makes the news. It’s a shit show and why this whole situation will be ugly from start to finish and it will go on for years. A good idea there to solve something, that will work, you’ll have a bunch of other people just shoot it down. It could be down to something as simple as some structure there that has to go, that’s been there for a few decades, and the locals ain’t having it for X significance reason. There is always a push to NOT change X even if it is for their own good. And nothing happens.

There is no one single cause for this. It was a mixed ingredient bag of shit that happened at once. Telephone poles, high wind (Climate folks warned of what would happen when the Tongan volcano went off, sending shit into the atmosphere world wide and creating extreme weather events), invasive grass, etc, as corsair outlined above. The poor infrastructure blame, well I wouldn’t even know where to start. The state, the Maui county government, and lots of corporations, mainly hotel chains. Maui pulls 5.5-5.6B dollars per annum in tourism. That is a got damn fuck load of money and it’s certainly not put back into their infrastructure, schools, etc. This is why the locals are so conspiracy theory orientated. They know the amount of money coming in there because they work in the industry. They deal with the traffic. They see all the Haole tourists when they go to buy their own groceries at Foodland in Lahaina (gone now), or Costco in Kahului. If the locals do have a legitimate gripe in all this, it is affordable housing. It’s almost nonexistent. And that is a real legitimate problem that the fucking county and state should have solved, many many years ago, not the feds. Yes you have the Zuckernuts who have bought WAY too much land (Kauai) on a small island, fucking the locals over. Then you have all the celebrities, and wealthy people with 2nd, 3rd homes. But that shit exists everywhere there is paradise on this green Earth. Who amongst us, if we have that kind of dough, wouldn’t have a nice crib somewhere next to an Ocean somewhere? The problem is when they buy too much land to make a compound like Zuckernuts on Kauai. It’s obscene. Celebrities and wealthy people who just buy a fancy house there, can’t blame them for that. Affordable housing is something that they have been bitching about for decades. The government there has had all the time in the world to solve it and it’s not going to get solved in a natural disaster/crisis like this. I doubt it’ll ever be solved. The powers that be, whomever they are, don’t give a shit. Maui County and the State act like they do and that’s all it is, an act. Because in the end they haven’t and won’t do shit.

This makes fixing Puerto Rico look like cupcakes as someone said above. The state of Hawaii is the most remote place on the entire Earth as it pertains to being in proximity of a continent. It’s the most remote place on Earth, so getting supplies, construction materials, etc, out there is a cluster fuck. Even if you had a multi billion dollar account just sitting there with the money available from day 1, it would take many years. If you know the place like a few of us do, anything that happens there, from the locals, to the county, the state, all the corporations, all of them fight, bicker, throw their entitlement down and nothing happens. Round and round and round to the point that it’s pointless. I don’t have a fucking clue how this situation will get fixed. There is this thing there that I cannot explain. I tried to above. You’ve got so much money generated there that just leaves the island and that has to be hotel chain stock holders making that cash, and CEO’s and executives etc. All that money they make, ain’t going into infrastructure. If anything that money would be used for more land to build yet another resort. Airline stock holders making that money too with constant planes flying in, with planes full of tourists. The locals sure aren’t getting it and neither is their infrastructure. Electricity or kwh there, look up the cost. It’s the highest of anywhere in the USA. And this will really wet your noodle if you didn’t know it. The bulk of their power is made from imported oil. So them crying climate change, is laughable. Whole place is run on oil. Those huge windmills on the South of the West Maui mountains barely make a dent. The reality is the corporations own that place but at the same time they are all the biggest employers. And that is conundrum of the entire place. Unless you get a county job, one way or the other you work in the tourism field. And if tourism didn’t exist you wouldn’t have a job. So much like the politics going round and round, so is living there, the tourism industry, infrastructure, electricity, name it. Biden going down there, the governor turning it into a circus, well they should just move there and live there for the next decade. I don’t think either of them have any clue of the shit they are about to get themselves into. And I hope I am dead wrong.

That land use law is legit. Maui is one of the ripest places you can grow fruit. Plenty of land for it too. Hell turn all that land into Marijuana export and let them charge high prices for it. Just use the land and grow something. I’ve been in and around all the past sugarcane land, pineapple land, just sitting there unused, buried in political and activist bullshit.

With no disrespect intended to our residents of Hawaii or those who have family there, I don't really understand why it's even a U.S. state. Alaska, sure, I get that, but other than Hawaii being of military strategic interest, I just don't understand why Hawaii is part of the United States. Reading the comments in this thread serves to reinforce my feeling that this should never have been.

The same goes for the efforts to make Puerto Rico a state. I don't get it.

If this angers anyone- well, you're just going to have to be angry.

quote:

The same goes for the efforts to make Puerto Rico a state. I don't get it.

Puerto Rico should never be a state.