Unfortunately, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has instituted a policy which he calls "Compassionate Disruption," which has resulted in little more than giving the authorities license to chase the homeless from locale to locale, particularly driving them from areas where heaven forbid, tourists might see them and start asking questions. You're right, the policy is both draconian and from my perspective, inhumane.

The problem of homelessness could be resolved relatively quickly and easily, if both the city and state officials would take proactive steps to provide for the development of thousands of affordable housing units. There's no getting around the fact that this will cost money. We're not going to solve the issue on the cheap.

Further, they should institute policies which discourage developers from developing expensive luxury condominiums in the Kakaako district for self-indulgent mainland and Asian investors. To this date, none of this appears to be forthcoming.

Hawaii taxpayers have spent several hundred million dollars over the last two decades for upgrades to that district's infrastructure, with the implicit understanding that Kakaako would be redeveloped as a livable and affordable urban design community. Instead, it's clearly turned into little more than a taxpayer-subsidized real estate venture for the very wealthy.

It's been very discouraging to watch from all this from a policy wonk's standpoint and personally, I sincerely hope that the ACLU cleans the City & County of Honolulu's clock. Oahu has endured nearly nine years of irresponsibly jackassery masquerading as political leadership, dating back to the administration of Muliufi Hannemann. This has saddled the City & County with enormous fiscal problems, not the least of which is a projected $1.1 billion cost overrun on the still-under-construction rail project.

If Oahu voters / taxpayers are stupid enough to keep returning clowns like Hannemann and Caldwell -- who was Hannemann's managing director before succeeding him -- to the mayor's office, then by all rights they should have to foot the bill covering the attendant costs to such incompetence and foolishness. And in my opinion, the ACLU lawsuit is as good a place to start the public invoicing as any.

- Joe Strummer

The CBA opposes any and all mandates that require a percentage of units in new housing projects to be discounted for low-income families. They claim that that leveraging such below-market-rate units from developers as an explicit condition of their building permits amounts to an illegal "taking" of private property by the government.

When the California Supreme Court unanimously rejected that argument last June, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye noted that the severe shortage of affordable housing across the state provides city officials with a more than sufficient rationale for enacting such laws:

"It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with California`s current housing market that the significant problems arising from a scarcity of affordable housing have not been solved over the past three decades. Rather, these problems have become more severe and have reached what might be described as epic proportions in many of the state`s localities."

Indeed, that's exactly the point California's State Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor was making, in his meticulous March 2015 report to state legislators and the general public about the impact of the state's high housing costs. To date, there are roughly 170 cities across California that have enacted inclusionary zoning policies, which allow developers to opt out by paying into a fund that would finance affordable units elsewhere.

(It should also be noted that such laws often only apply to those developers who are requesting that city officials amend or upgrade the zoning of a particular parcel under consideration, e.g., as from agricultural to residential or apartment / mixed use, so that it can be developed accordingly.)

If SCOTUS agrees to review the California case, however, it could stall the momentum around such municipal plans to provide for more affordable housing in local communities, not just in California but also in places like Honolulu and Chicago, where developers have filed a similar lawsuit challenging the latter's inclusionary housing ordinance.

And if SCOTUS should then somehow end up agreeing with these developers, it could drastically alter and curtail efforts by cities and municipalities to increase the supply of affordable housing within their communities.

Let's hope that SCOTUS decides otherwise and lets such inclusionary housing laws stand.

Reagan: "Can we abandon this country [South Africa] that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought?"

Reagan: "We are not trying to do anything to try and overthrow the Nicaraguan government."

Reagan: "You have to remember, we don't have the military industrial complex that we once had, when President Eisenhower spoke about it."

Reagan: "Those [nuclear weapons] that are carried in ships of one kind or another, or submersibles, you are dealing there with a conventional type of weapon or instrument, and those instruments can be intercepted. They can be recalled."

Reagan: "Incidentally, the first man who proposed the nuclear freeze was in February 21, 1981, in Moscow--Leonid Brezhnev."

Reagan: "The percentage of your earnings the federal government took in taxes in 1960 has almost doubled."

Reagan: "And it costs HEW three dollars in overhead to deliver one dollar to a needy person in this country."

Reagan: "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."

Reagan: "As governor of California, I took charge of passing the strictest air pollution laws in the United States..."

Reagan: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

Reagan: "There haven't been cutbacks in funding for public education."

And the above list has 1063 lies that Obama has told.

On a Sunday League team, I played shortstop and was knocked into left field trying to turn a double play, our coach asked me on the bench later was that a dirty hit (he was hinting at retaliation) , I said no, I should have just stepped off the bag and not tried to turn the double play.

As far as the catchers ruling debacle, the ballplayer barreling into the catcher trying to dislodge the ball , only because the catcher was blocking the plate (as he should). Now the catcher is prohibited from blocking the plate.
Tough hard nosed catchers would block the plate and challenge the runner , many times the ball would arrive after the runner, but the catcher successfully blocked the plate, the runner never touched home and was out.
Catchers should be allowed to block the plate, at their own risk. I wasn't fond of that rule change either.

More behavior the folks in flies-all-over country can relate to..like questioning evolution and saying "nuculer", "subliminable" and "Albert Kaymus"..

"I closed it with a cable, 'cause I didn't want to lock it to make it seem like a threat, so I just used a simple cable so it won't look that much suspiciou