Well, that may be a little bit of hyperbole, but telling Internet retailers that they must collect Hawai’i General Excise Tax and rebate it to the state has had the predictable result: Amazon.com Inc. has informed its marketing affiliates in Hawaii that it is ending its business with them in order to avoid collecting sales …
A reminder: if you’re parking on a hill, turn your front wheels toward the curb. To the right if facing downhill, to the left if facing uphill. See diagram (scroll halfway down). Why, yes, I see this done incorrectly nearly every damned day. Now get off my lawn.
Tiring day getting the car detailed ($100 + tax) downtown, so let me point you to an interesting website. The Kingston Trio sang a lot of different folk songs back in the 1950s and 1960s. Jim Moran has taken up the task of finding YouTube performances by the Trio and then finding other versions on …
NPR has a must-listen list of summer songs which is streamable. It’s good, but I object to one thing. It has several songs named “Summertime,” but none of them are performed by Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. I can fix that! The opening notes of the guitar intro make this song …
Dear Senator Collins, Why do you and your party always look first to tax policy to achieve things? This might have some impact on health care for individual Americans, but it will have zero impact on insurance companies’ habit of denying or rescinding coverage and refusing procedures even for the customers they do deign to …
Forget the stadium messageboard method, this is the new paradigm for cyber-connected lovers.
Check out Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May series. The two gentlemen are detectives in London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, which is a dumping ground for cases which the regular Metropolitan Police don’t want to try to solve. They’ve been doing this since London was suffering under the Blitz. It’s charming. Bryant’s the eccentric, May is the …
Continue reading ‘Octogenarian detectives? Sure, why not?’ »
Jeepers. It was a cliffhanger (219-212), but the US House today voted in favor of reducing carbon gas emissions and at least making a stab at saving the planet. Now the Senate, and it’s gonna be even harder to do, since there are more climate change deniers there. Baby steps. Upon reflection, it’s a lot …
Autopsy results to determine the cause of Michael Jackson’s death won’t be quickly forthcoming. From the LA Times LA NOW blog: Results of the autopsy could take weeks and will include, as is common practice, toxicology to determine what drugs if any were in Jackson’s system. Weeks? That surprises me. Have police procedural authors been …
Former City Council member Ann Kobayashi files papers to run for the Honolulu City Council seat left vacant by the death of Duke Bainum. Kobayashi was badly beaten in the 2008 mayoral race for the city; she left her Council seat to run. Oh, goody. I think this is more “I need an income” than …