After decades of speculation as to which daily would survive, tomorrow the Star-Advertiser will be "it," and will inherit the circulation of both. It will be a broadsheet, and will in that way remind us of The Advertiser, rest its soul.

Most people don't treat information as news unless it's from a newspaper, the kind you can spread out under your elbows like a ritual box of chocolates with your morning coffee. Your friend and adviser, it helps you plunge into your day.

Despite the iPad and its ilk, it's not clear that people will go online for their dose of daily news. For many, the net means e-mail, research and shopping, but not necessarily news. They'll go to the Star-Advertiser, or just give up.

EARNING OUR TRUST

 The wolves of backwater are always lapping at Hawai'i's door. Crossing the Rubicon to a one-daily town brings them closer. But it's also an opportunity for the surviving paper, and us, to come together as never before in a trust relationship where readers and writers develop new levels of engagement.

Will the Star-Advertiser be worthy of that trust? Hawai'i has so much work to do, and it's hard to organize and promote important initiatives in our state without the support of the press. Put another way, the press can scuttle an initiative with one strident editorial. People trust the printed word, and that makes a newspaper powerful. The power of a single daily is greater still.

We live in interesting times, with a myriad of unresolved problems eating our prospects. As in the case of the frog, the gradual boil of this deterioration is deadly. To escape the dangers of stalemate and complacency, the public needs to have thoughtful, well-founded opinions. That's where the press comes in.

Our community lives in the pages of the press. It gives us the information and feedback by which each of us can have a kind of oversight of public affairs and a fair place where we and our leaders can meet, and they can see what we're thinking. It's hard to overestimate the power and benefit of that process.

UNSETTLING LOSS

In a two-paper town, one looks across the street to see what the other is doing, and reporting, a kind of checks and balances. That's the nature of competition and invidious comparison. It's not the same, however, in a one-paper town.

What would have happened had there been only one paper when the Advertiser declined to print Broken Trust? The revelations reported would not have come out; the abuses found might not have been addressed. But it's the way things work — the probability of publication decreases with the number of papers.

The possibilities for other transformational journalism are endless, and the levels of trust and power we repose in our newspapers are still critical to our society. That's why the loss of one of two dailies in Hawai'i is so unsettling.

With two papers, competition in the industry keeps the fire going. With one, the survivor is in charge. You want to submit a letter or op-ed piece? If the Star-Advertiser doesn't take it, you're out of luck. Who do you complain to?

A FEW SUGGESTIONS

Let's have more articles like Broken Trust. We should encourage investigative reporting and public commentaries. We should go behind press releases. We should continue to e-mail and post stories on the paper's website. We should not accept anonymous online comments — they're a license for tastelessness.

The paper doesn't have to be loaded with crime and sports and wire services. The news most people want from a local paper is local news, good and bad. Of course, we'd like to see more in-depth reporting on tech and economic issues.

If the paper finds that it's losing money, tell us. It just may be that the public would be willing to pay more for a copy or a subscription to keep our last daily running. Who knows, that approach might have saved the Advertiser.

Make old stories accessible to the public, forever and for free. This would be a great service for the public, other journalists and for the kids in school. With today's search technology it's not expensive. Leave the classifieds to Craigslist.

So here on the cusp of a one-paper town, we can be sad but perhaps also optimistic. Farewell to the Advertiser and good luck to the Star-Advertiser. This will be a new journey for all of us, and God bless us all in the transition.

Hawai'i's troubled transportation system is standing in the way of a recovery. Without good transportation, our Islands are becoming more isolated and our economy more frustrated.

We don't have the benefit of contiguous counties or states. Our island configuration is unique and remote. Years ago, this was charming. Now, it's a challenge we need to meet.

Getting around always requires energy. The governor's clean-energy initiative has lost its priority in the recession, and we're way off schedule. This loss of momentum has slowed down advances we might have made in energy for transportation.

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS

A destination resort island state needs to give good welcome to its visitors. Here, too, we're in crisis. Honolulu International, as everyone knows, is embarrassing. It's out of date and badly maintained. It needs an overhaul, but don't hold your breath.

Hawai'i is dependent on tourism. Tourism is dependent on transportation. Hawai'i therefore depends on transportation. As transportation costs increase, tourism decreases, shrinking our jobs, businesses and tax base — the price of dependency.

With oil up, it's no surprise that Japan carriers have reduced their flights to Hawai'i. Kudos to Mazie Hirono for organizing a new route to Haneda, but where are the China flights Linda Lingle promised us? The Chinese travel everywhere, but not here. Without them, our tourism economy will continue to slip.

INTERISLAND BARRIERS

Interisland air travel is more expensive than we can afford. Clearly, this is related to Aloha's demise and the fact that we now have only one major airline. Fuel surcharges keep getting tacked on to marine cargo costs, but never seem to come off.

Any increase in transportation costs makes prices and the cost of living higher everywhere in the state. Sure, a quart of milk costs more, but it's not only the milk — it's everything. The quality of our lives is affected on a daily basis by those prices. This is worse for people with low-paying jobs or with no jobs.

Medical specialists are leaving the Neighbor Islands at an alarming rate, so an aging population now has to travel to O'ahu for routine care. The formidable cost of those trips drives health costs way up. Can't we give them a break?

MEMORIES OF SUPERFERRY

The Superferry was a visionary idea calculated to bring the state together, giving us logistics we never had before. You could take your car, family, pets and plants. Everyone, especially farmers, could go to market at a fraction of the barge.

Coastal and island states everywhere have ferries. One would have expected our state officials to develop a statewide ferry system decades ago, but they could never do it. When private enterprise did it, those officials couldn't find a way to save it.

Someday, the enormity of losing the Superferry will dawn on us. We need a ferry again, but we don't have one, and we won't have one, and for the lack of it we're steadily slipping into a kind of transportation abyss. The interisland gap is widening.

ON THE GROUND

Demographics have doubled, but our roads certainly haven't. We need timed lights, traffic sensors, automated lanes and smart intersections. Rail won't do this for us. It will serve Kapolei, but most people don't live there, and rail won't help them. The billions would be better spent in traffic technology.

After they leave the airport, what will Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation heads of state think when their motorcades are engulfed in the flash jams paralyzing our roads? Will our transportation systems give them confidence in Hawai'i? Flowers on Nimitz won't help.

But the Hele-On bus system under Mayor Billy Kenoi on the Big Island is a breath of fresh air. It's free, and reflects a caring and kindness for riders, many of whom need to travel long distances to low-paying jobs. We should make it statewide.

Government has shown it is not adept at building transportation. The key is creative privatization where a right-of-way is leased to a contractor who arranges financing and recoups the cost through invisible tolls. This is happening on the Mainland, Europe and China.

A BETTER SYSTEM FOR EVERYONE

These transportation issues distance the Islands and make us less cohesive and less effective as a state. How can our people achieve their potential if getting around isn't easy and cheap?

As with other infrastructure, we have not attended to our transportation systems. The resulting crisis constrains our ability to get to work and build the state's economy. As an island state, we need to catch up if we hope to compete in a world that demands new levels of mobility and logistics.

Honolulu will spend tons of money to look good for APEC, but we need to do more than showboat Waikīkī for one event. We need a heads-up statewide transportation system that is world-class and worthy, not only for heads of state but all of us. At this point, we need to put the pedal down for transportation.

The state is our largest landholder. If land isn't owned privately, federally or by the counties, it's owned by the state, which tends to hold it forever. Most of this state land lies fallow and doesn't contribute anything to the tax base.

There are 6,400 square miles of land in Hawai'i. It's time to take stock of unused public lands, and it's probably time to start selling some. They're selling state land in states like California and island states like Singapore. Why shouldn't we?

IMPROVe ECONOMY The recession makes us ask how we can raise money to balance our tenuous budget. Given the inexorable deterioration of tourism and our tragic failure to diversify, the sale of state land could be a magic bullet and our only way out.

It's more than a fiscal matter. Hawai'i's real estate market is disconnected from its people, who can't afford to buy or even rent. They go homeless. Businesses can't afford to take space or grow. The cost of occupancy is simply too high.

On an island, land is a scarce commodity, and scarcity pushes up prices. With more land in the market, prices would be moderated.

So if the state doesn't need some of this land and its sale would improve the economy, why doesn't the state sell it?

But what land to sell? You inventory everything, then exclude private land, county land, federal land, ceded and cultural land, conservation land, agricultural land and land otherwise unmarketable. What's left is what we're talking about.

Past RESISTANCE The state has traditionally had a hard time selling land. Officials don't want to be blamed for squandering the "public trust" by those who expect them to hold on to everything. Remember the uproar about the Alexander & Baldwin Kaka'ako condo project?

Because the monarchy owned everything doesn't make it right. Government doesn't have to own the land to do good government. That might have been defensible in the 19th century, but like the gold standard it's no longer useful.

Holding all this land is neither realistic nor appropriate. This is the 21st century and it's time for government to move ahead. The state should not be sitting on unused and marketable assets that could be used to improve our economy.

NO DOWNSIDE There's no downside in selling. You can worry about losing the land bank effect of state ownership, but the state can always condemn or, for that matter, reserve rights to buy it back. It's not as if the state can't get land when it needs it.

Some people might be concerned that this land would wind up in the hands of buyers from out of state or from other countries. But such buyers have been buying Hawai'i land for decades.

There's absolutely nothing new about that.

The solution is to dispose of land in bite-sized pieces and not in big parcels. That would make it more difficult to assemble land into large holdings, which is exactly where we want to go — more land for the little guy, as in other places.

Make deals The state should not handle these deals in-house. We have well-developed real estate brokerage, property management, escrow and title companies. We have legal, accounting, insurance, banking and design professionals, and contractors and workers waiting to help. Think of all the people who would be kept busy.

First, we need a careful inventory. This could be done on contract.

The state could then decide what land to offer and list it with brokers, as you and I would. The state might also try some less conventional ideas, like Internet auctions.

Buyers could find financing, but to incentivize them the state could self-finance by taking back mortgages or other security instruments and get higher interest than it does on state bonds. That interest would be another source of revenue.

DLNR already has statutory authority to dispose of state land. The procurement code may need changes to expedite selection of brokers and escrows, but we don't need a Constitutional Convention or an act of Congress to get things going.

DLNR has been offering leases of random parcels to raise money to repair state recreational facilities. That's a good beginning, but to cover the ground we've got a long way to go, in the sale of unimproved fee-simple land and in creative long-term leasing and monetization of other marketable state properties.

IT'S TIME Sooner or later, we'll need land reform to break down larger holdings into smaller ones.

Campbell has sold its land, Brewer has sold its land and Dole is about to sell its land. We are in a transition, and the direction is to smaller, kinder landholders.

The benefits of selling unused state land are huge — the state gets the proceeds and improves its tax base. As land is added into the system, the leasing market is moderated, new properties are developed, new housing, businesses and jobs are created, and the economy is thus revitalized. So what's not to like?

This could be a great equalization, a democratization of ownership, even a new mahele. Sure it'll be an issue for those who feel the state should hold on to every inch, but at this point in our economy, what would you rather do? Gambling?

Some say aquaculture is Hawai'i's next great sector, growing fish to provide us with food security, jobs and tax revenues for the state. The market is assured because the oceans can't meet world demand. Others say aquaculture will be the next whipping boy for the activists who are determined to bring it down.

Why would activists target such a promising new industry, especially where Hawai'i has lost self-sufficiency and imports 90 percent of its seafood? Maybe it's because the activists, like everyone else, are suffering in the recession, and desperate times call for desperate causes.

Activism is an industry dedicated not to building things, but stopping them. As others, activists have to pay for office space, staff, lawyers and PR. To pay their bills, they have to identify with causes. Old causes are old hat — they need fresh controversies to raise fresh money. No cause, no protest, no money.

TARGET OF CONVENIENCE

Aquaculture seems like a good target. Startups have to run the gauntlet and bear lengthy delays in dealing with government. Activists know that this burns capital and decimates cash. They know how hard it is for startups to raise capital in Hawai'i. In desperate times, aquaculture is all the more vulnerable.

The activists don't know much about aquaculture, so they've connected with Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit in Washington and San Francisco. It's a multi-million dollar organization with 65 employees. It's big business.

FWW attacks Starbucks and water bottlers because they use water, a public resource, to make a profit. They also oppose aquaculture nationally. Hawai'i is a perfect laboratory for aquaculture and thus for FWW. If aquaculture can be stopped here, it can be stopped across the country, mission accomplished.

PITCHED BATTLE OF WEBSITES

The result is lots of protest — blogs, websites, brochures, bulk mail, fuming letters to the editor, "embargoed" reports, and over-the-top press releases. It's a full-tilt campaign to scare the public with stories of evil corporations spilling tons of GMOs, pernicious antibiotics and toxic chemicals into the ocean.

Those stories, like Avatar, are untrue.

Then add regular appearances at government meetings and moratorium bills by suggestible legislators. The activists want their new aquaculture cause to resonate with earlier ones against GMOs and Superferry, telescopes and geothermal. For 2010, aquaculture is the cause of the day.

The activists attacking aquaculture are professionals who have been involved in every cause you can think of, from Kingdom Title forward. With help from FWW, their new alliance is Pono Aquaculture, but the players are the same few people and organizations that have been protesting causes in Hawai'i for years.

MISSTATEMENTS GALORE

From a factual point of view, the FWW attack on aquaculture is unbridled. In many ways, its hostility surpasses that of the Superferry opponents. Perhaps that's because there is less to support it. Instead of a reasoned conversation, we get exaggerations, misstatements, mischaracterizations, and lots of name calling.

After working to slow down and undermine the aquaculture sector on every level, they claim "factory fish farming" is unprofitable and failing. There it is — first you create misfortune for your adversary, and then you criticize him for it.

Beyond that, they tap into our local culture to sell their cause to people who are disaffected, fabricating an array of arguments for the proposition that aquaculture, which has long been designated as a top priority in our state policy, now somehow violates exclusive native Hawaiian fishing rights.

MEDIA VULNERABILITY

We can't run a state if we take our signals from those who are opposed to virtually everything. We need to know science and do critical thinking. We need someone to regularly investigate the facts and inform an unwary public.

Unfortunately, the media does not always do this. That's not fair to the readers. Activist organizations try to foment public opposition using the media. If the media takes everything they say at face value without further inquiry, you can be sure the public will be misinformed. If the media doesn't do critical thinking to identify misinformation, who will?

HAWAII, THE CONSUMER STATE

By not developing aquaculture, we have no food security and we're spending almost as much buying foreign fish as buying foreign oil. As an island state, we should have the best ferry system in the world. We should also have the best aquaculture in the world. We don't. There's no good reason for that.

For their own agenda, the activists are ignoring state policy and creating an imbalance that is not fair or pono. The sooner our officials realize this, the sooner the imbalance can be corrected and we can catch up. Short of that, we're headed for backwater, where we really will need those ancient fishponds.

In Hawai'i, it's been politically incorrect to argue with activists. If the majority cares about our future, they'll have to speak out. Democracy is more than anti-policy imposed by a militant few. A passive majority is the ultimate complicity.

Will aquaculture be the next Superferry? You decide.

Venture capitalist Jeff Au recently did a video on ThinkTech. He recalled the sad story of 221 in the Lingle years. See ThinkTechHawaii.com for the video. From him, it sounds like we've lost our way in those years.

Calls to Action have recently been circulated reporting that SB 2401 and SB 2001 might be passed. If SB 2401 is passed, investors won't be able to claim remnant 221 credits until 2013. If SB 2001 passes, 221 will be repealed May 1 even though it doesn't expire until Dec. 31. Have we forgotten the promises that 221 would be permitted to run its course?

SCR 173 is an effort to remind the Legislature that it will have to fund the Energy Administrator office at DBEDT when the temporary federal funds being used for that purpose will expire. Have we forgotten the promise of the Clean Energy Initiative that was so important to everyone in 2008?

After the sound bites, we've had a short attention span for information technology, life sciences, innovation economy and even clean energy, losing interest in each in turn. We fail to insist on what was promised, dooming ourselves to an eternal repetition worthy of Sisyphus himself.

PETITE MADELEINE

In "Remembrance of Things Past," Marcel Proust, a French writer in the 19th century, found that certain experiences (tasting a French breakfast roll called a Petite Madeleine) let him drill down into the details of his past. We should use similar mnemonics to remember what we hoped to do before. Dopamine drugs are not necessary; common sense will do.

Working at it, perhaps we could recapture JABSOM II and Ed Cadman's medical research campus at Kaka'ako, with KS's Asia Pacific Innovation Center and the Bio-Safety Laboratory and the Cancer Research Center that were planned there. We should press for completion on every one.

The biggest lapse of all is that we forgot the need for planned economic diversification. It was visionary before the Lingle years, but has died a slow twisting death since then. We've forgotten the hope that it offered and frankly we've frittered away the first decade of the new century.

RELENTLESS CHANGE

Like it or not, our state economy is always changing. Some sectors get stronger and others get weaker, sometimes without rhyme, reason or economic benefit. An unplanned economy evolves at random and leads to risky prospects for the future. In the 21st century, we can do better.

Some say the Legislature has become a separate industry, occupying nearly everyone for five months a year. And state government is really our largest sector, with more workers than we can afford, regulating us more than any free society can endure. Adding to that a burgeoning activist industry, where a handful of people can stop nearly anything, gives us "Hawai'i, the state that says no." Wall Street is not unaware.

We've all but forgotten that a high-tech industry does R&D, creates IP, hires Ph.D.s, then licenses or exports its IP and products for big bucks. Although it requires capital, this growth can be logarithmic and return huge profits. Ignoring that, we've fixed on a tourism land-based mono-economy under the uninspiring rubric of "just do what you're best at," which roughly translated means "good citizens stick with hospitality."

Thus uninspired, Hawai'i is defining itself as a minimum-wage state with a declining tax base that still wants to be invidiously affluent but can't come close to making ends meet. It's not a pretty picture.

FIRST, A DREAM

ThinkTech will deal with these disparities in its "Recovery 101 — Serious Solutions for a Troubled Economy" panel program Aug. 25.

The lack of support the tech community has had from government has in some ways made it stronger. The bond between tech and business filled the room at Oceanit's 25th anniversary party April 2. We need more companies like Oceanit, and we need more celebrations like that one.

Jim Kelly wrote a nice piece about roadmaps in last week's paper, and yes we'll need a fresh roadmap to get where we should be going. We'll need candidates who dream in tech, and we'll need to remember their dreams and promises, especially in election years.

Let's not forget the exuberance we had about diversification before the Lingle administration threw cold water on it. Let's support today's kids and make them great entrepreneurs. Let's invest everything we have and adopt all the incentives we can to show them how essential they are.

After a walk down memory lane, let's refresh our enthusiasm for a better future, starting right now, or at least sometime before the election. Only candidates who favor tech and have good memories need apply.

School officials in Pennsylvania gave laptops to 1,800 students, then used them to remotely spy on the students at home. This resulted in a class action alleging that the officials violated the Fourth Amendment, among other things.

The "laptopgate" officials all undoubtedly swore to uphold the Constitution, then roundly violated it. What they did is outrageous, but we should also be concerned about the technology that is enabling these attacks on our privacy.

RISE OF SURVEILLANCE

The Information Age has punched holes in that privacy. Did you notice how many street cameras were in play while we waited for the elusive tsunami last month? In the end, the news was not so much the wave as the technology.

Author Shane Harris recently wrote a book called "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State." He says spying on our own citizens has become increasingly easy, legal and central in our national security strategy.

Remember the movie "Sliver," a 1993 Sharon Stone and Alex Baldwin movie about a criminal-type landlord who wires a whole building and does video eavesdropping on his tenants. That would be easier now, with wireless.

And remember "Lives of Others," a 2006 film dealing with the surveillance of a writer's apartment by the Stasi, the East German Secret Police, in the dark years before the Berlin Wall came down. Are we now returning to the future?

UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGY

 Terrorism has accelerated surveillance. If there weren't enough cameras on the streets before 9/11, there are a lot more today. Look at London, New York and so many other cities around the world. Business is booming for suppliers.

Today's cameras are high resolution. They shoot 360 degrees in color, low light and infrared. They are digital, wireless, durable and tamper-proof. They are programmable with remote pan-tilt-zoom. They lurk in opaque domes, along with speakers and microphones. They have software for data retrieval, and for tracking and facial recognition. James Bond would be impressed.

You could walk across a city of these and be followed block by block, handed off from camera to camera, always under surveillance. It's all in the software, and the software is more sophisticated and intrusive every time you look.

Hawai'i is no stranger to this. We have cameras for traffic, surf and security in Chinatown (they helped deal with the gangland violence last year). The police like them, citizens like them, and some neighborhood boards demand them.

INVASIVE MINiATURIZATION

Better surveillance cameras are being developed every day. Fear of terrorism has given government the most powerful electronics ever devised to intrude into our lives. Also troubling is that they are easily available to the public.

The Internet has revolutionized the security industry, which is expanding by leaps and bounds. These cameras are for sale at big box stores. Anyone can buy them, and given their easy availability and cost, there is no reason not to. Many Web sites candidly offer them for "spying," and that's what they do.

The resulting coverage goes beyond the streets, and also beyond sensitive facilities like government offices, bases, schools, hospitals and airports. New and more unobtrusive cameras are being installed anywhere and everywhere.

You can buy "pinhole" cameras on the Net — Google "surveillance equipment." But so can the bad guys, and there's been a rash of prosecutions against jerks who pushed them through walls to spy on people. Should sales be regulated?

PRIVACY IS GONE

 with the wind George Orwell's Big Brother has come of age since 1984, and with current high tech equipment he's been watching us as never before. What's ironic is that we are finding that Big Brother is not only government — these days, he's all of us.

How does being watched affect the quality of our lives? You can argue that only terrorists and criminals would protest, but the reality is that none of us has the same privacy we had before. This does not bode well for a free society.

The Patriot Act has again been renewed. Last month, Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit wrote a blistering dissent against the court's refusal to rehear U.S. v. Lemus, a warrantless residential search and seizure case. He lamented that "the Fourth Amendment is gone — welcome to the fish bowl."

Technology changes our world, and the effects are not always desirable. Could school officials in Hawai'i make the same mistake as those in Pennsylvania? Should we be watching our children by remote control? Or should we focus instead on teaching them about the importance of the Fourth Amendment?

After all, one day they could be school officials too.

ThinkTech Hawaii in the Honolulu Advertiser on February 21, 2010

Revamped Hawaiian Tel Betting on BAIO to survive

If you've had anything to do with the new cell phones, you know about their extraordinary functionality. No area of electronics is moving faster, and many people are using cell phones as their only phones.

Voice over IP (VOIP) on landlines has also gone on steroids. Consumers have marvelous choices, and the market is flooded with VOIP products, some better than others. Analog landlines will soon be obsolete.

Where is our local telephone company, Hawaiian Telcom, in all this? It lost customers to the point of filing Chapter 11 in 2008, and seeking special help from the Legislature in 2009. But is it keeping up with the technology?

NEW PLAN

Carlyle's equity and $500 million in bonds will be wiped out in the bankruptcy; creditors will be paid off in fractions; and secured creditors will be the new owners. This restructuring is traumatic. Telcom can't afford to fail again.

Telcom submitted a plan of reorganization to the Bankruptcy Court last fall, and in December the court confirmed the plan subject to approval by the PUC and the FCC.

On Jan. 4, 2010, Telcom asked the PUC to approve the plan, and on Jan. 22, 2010, it asked the FCC to approve the plan. These regulatory approvals may take a while.

Since the court has already vetted the plan, CEO Eric Yeaman has told Telcom employees that they should start acting as if Telcom had already emerged from bankruptcy.

"BUSINESS ALL IN ONE"

 In an effort to enter the VOIP market, Telcom has added software to a "soft switch" it had acquired earlier, and it is now rolling out a new product called Business All in One.

BAIO's base component is high speed Internet access for voice and data. This is nothing new, but Telcom says its integrated control over the network allows it to provide guaranteed priority for voice and the result is better voice quality.

BAIO provides a variety of advanced functions too numerous to mention here. A key function is "single number service" — when someone calls that number the call rings anywhere you like.

Customers can change these functions through Telcom's Web portal. Although competing VOIP providers already have these portals and many of these same functions, Telcom maintains that its product makes things easier for business.

PRICE AND SERVICE

 The price is a flat $60-$80 per month per phone. This includes a router, an Ethernet switch, the IP phone instrument itself and unlimited domestic calls. For voice and data, these prices are competitive with other local providers.

Telcom offers up to 11 megabits per second for business VOIP. It hopes to take VOIP to the residential market, but its aged network is fraught with last-mile challenges, and that aspect of the network will ultimately have to be upgraded.

Telcom has had problems with service over the years, but now promises to install BAIO within 15 days. It also promises service 24/7, and guarantees response in four hours and resolution within eight hours.

Jennifer Dotson at MADD is happy using BAIO. She pays $70 per phone, half of what she paid before. She likes the voice clarity, the free long distance, the voicemail to e-mail, the level monthly payments and the local service hotline.

ADAPTING TO SURVIVE

 BAIO can't be the end of it. Telcom will have to keep moving, and show its users it has embraced high tech and is ready to meet the competition. That includes giving great service and better back office, as well as providing a continuing stream of innovative products.

"We're like every other business trying to survive in a changing world," said Telcom's Jeff Coomans. "We've got to adapt to new markets and embrace the future. No one in this industry can afford to stand still."

A strong and healthy telephone company is important to the future of the state. We should wish Telcom well in its efforts to emerge, and survive.

ThinkTech Hawaiii in the Honolulu Advertiser on February 7, 2010
Environmental review remains a legal quagmire

The argument over environmental review is one of Hawai'i's biggest legal battlefields. The primary weapon is HRS Chapter 343, the Hawai'i Environmental Protection Act. The Lingle administration has not provided leadership or funding for the agencies involved, and the implementation of 343 has suffered in the process.

Some recent cases have changed the landscape. Ohana Pale imposed 343 on top of other state requirements. In Superferry, the Legislature sought to avoid 343. And in Koa Ridge, the state Supreme Court extended the use of government land as a 343 "trigger." The latest issue, in Turtle Bay, involves the shelf life of a 343 document.

ASSIGNMENT TO UH

These cases were catalysts for Act 1 in 2008, in which the Legislature appropriated $300,000 to the University of Hawai'i to do a comprehensive report on how to fix 343. This is the first time in 20 years that 343 will have been revised.

Karl Kim of the Urban Planning Center, Denise Antolini of the law school and Peter Rappa of the environmental center are the principal investigators. They submitted a report to the Legislature in January, along with a proposed bill. This was introduced as SB 2185 and HB 2398.

Some environmental planners are disappointed with the report and don't think it will solve the problems in 343. They also feel that the UH team didn't sufficiently reach out to developers, landowners and affected industries. The investigators disagree. They say they interviewed 170 stakeholders, including 17 consulting firms, and had focus groups, a public meeting and a blog.

SOME PROVISIONS

 Under the bills, any "discretionary" permit would trigger an environmental assessment or impact statement. Opponents are concerned that "discretionary" would cover so many permits, even building permits, that the system could collapse. The investigators say this new trigger would only apply if the project has a "probable significant and adverse effect," which is a much narrower subset.

EA/EIS documents typically include mitigation measures. The bills require that those be conditions of approval for subsequent permits. Opponents point out that EA/EIS documents are only for disclosure, and project design typically evolves afterward and should not be hampered. The investigators say follow-up is important, and the bill only requires it "where applicable." They are trying to find language to clarify the ambiguity.

The bills pass the hard issues off to a reconfigured environmental council, and empower the council to make four-year "interim" rules without public hearings or gubernatorial review. This is ironic considering 343's public comment requirements. The investigators feel that because Lingle hasn't allowed rule changes, we need new rules right away. But really, four years is too long for "interim."

The bills provide that an EA/EIS document will be stale after seven years. If you haven't gotten all discretionary permits by then, you must do a supplemental EA/EIS. But opponents say you could easily wait seven years before you get those permits. The investigators say that the applicant only has to provide a supplemental report if there have been changes and that that report would only deal with those changes.

The bills also require the council to set page limits for EA/EIS documents. Opponents say this will make it difficult for applicants to address all the required issues. The investigators say they are trying to make the system less burdensome, and that page limits have worked in other jurisdictions.

WHAT'S NEXT

The planners say the report is incomplete and that the bills should be deferred. They say the investigators didn't do what Act 1 required, and the bills would make the process slower and more costly, controversial and unpredictable.

"The development community has repeatedly offered to assist UH in completing this study, but we have been consistently rebuffed. We are still hoping to hear from them," said Lee Sichter of Belt Collins, a planning firm.

When the Senate Energy and Environment Committee heard the bill, David Arakawa of the Land Use Research Foundation and Robert Harris of the Sierra Club also asked for deferral.

The investigators recognize that there are concerns about some parts of the bill, but say other parts really can't wait, particularly those dealing with the environmental council. Perhaps the bill can be bifurcated so some parts pass now and others can be improved in the report they expect to file in June.

We can only agree that there are disagreements on how 343 should be tweaked and that there are polarized views on how it should be applied. In the words of Denise Antolini, "I wouldn't say kumbaya has happened just yet."

ThinkTech Hawaii in the Honolulu Advertiser on January 24, 2010
Google-China feud displays search engine's power

When my server was attacked last week by a faraway hacker, Google found out and promptly imposed an "attack site" pop-up on my sites, effectively shutting them down.

I didn't ask Google to do that, and I didn't agree that it could. How could one search engine company, among many, shut my site down without my agreement or permission? It was disruptive, but it was also impressive.

Google's power is undeniable. And Google is now showing us that it can publicly challenge national governments, even one of the most powerful governments on Earth, China. That's unprecedented and a game-changer.

BETTING THE FARM

China continues to pressure Google to censor Web sites and may well be blocking and hacking Google's algorithms and data on dissidents. Betting the farm, Google is threatening to pull out of China, the biggest Internet market in the world. It's a cyberwar, and Michael Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, has not held back in his reports from the front.

Stiff competition by Chinese companies must somehow also affect Google's strategy. Google has aspired to be the top search engine in China, but Baidu, with 60 percent of the market, has been a daunting competitor, just as Dangdang has been for Amazon and Taobao has been for eBay. Ironically, last week a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army hacked into and modified www.Baidu.com.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times bets on Google. He identifies a tension between "Command China" and "Network China," and writes that "if China forces out Google, I'd like to short the Chinese Communist Party." Google's pullout would benefit Baidu, but would result in a long-term loss of face for Command China.

POLITICAL POWER

Global corporations like Google are a new model in the world, and they are not to be trifled with. If more money and information pass through their hands than through the hands of some governments, why should they not be as powerful? After all, Google is a $175 billion company.

Until now, even China didn't know the power of Google. A search engine seems innocent enough, but a search engine used every day by most of the users in the world has more influence than you think. And when you add Google apps, it's not just information — it's political power.

NOT THE END OF IT

Like Friedman, we might expect Google to win this facedown, or at least to settle on terms that will reject censorship and protect users. But whatever happens, that won't be the end of it. Google will suffer the same pressures, and we will all suffer the same risks, going forward.

We have little choice but to entrust our data to Google, and perhaps we don't appreciate the risks of allowing prying or repressive governments to meddle with it, even in our own country.

Despite Google's herculean efforts at data security, the data it collects will always be a magnet to government, and the more that government wants Google to suppress or surrender it, the more threatened we should feel.

ALWAYS CHANGING

The free flow of information is an essential element of the Internet, and the right of privacy is a cornerstone of a free society. When Google challenges China on these issues, it speaks not only to China, but to all governments everywhere. What we are seeing in Google is not only the new power of the Internet, but a new profile in courage and leadership.

So we should be appreciative to Google for taking its stand, whether just for ethics or economics or both. We should support Google when these issues come up, we should encourage it to stand firm as to justify our continuing trust, and we should commend it when it does.

The Internet is always changing, however, and we need to be just a little concerned that one day Google, if there is then still a Google, might not be able to say no.

ThinkTech Hawaii in the Honolulu Advertiser on January 10, 2010
Let's start doing more to develop local agriculture

 Fifty years after statehood, most of the plantations have gone fallow or become "gentleman's estates." There are 6,500 "farmers" in Hawai'i, but only half are full time. The average farmer is 59, with an annual income of $10,000.

Ignoring the need for food security, we import at least 85 percent of our food and send billions to faraway agribusinesses when we could keep the money here to strengthen our self-sufficiency, enrich our economy and employ our jobless.

We were once a world leader in agricultural production. Now farmers have overwhelming challenges in land, water, infrastructure, pests, NIMBY, encroachment, transportation costs and burdensome bureaucracy, not to mention cheap foreign competition.

Can agriculture survive in Hawai'i?

FARMS NEED LAND You can't farm without land, and land in Hawai'i is too expensive. Eighty percent of Kona coffee is grown on Bishop Estate land, and lease rents are formidable.

Some landowners won't give long-term leases to farmers, making financing for infrastructure, equipment and crop expenses impossible. To keep land in farming, farming must be profitable.

The state's "Important Agricultural Lands" program, still in its infancy, needs improved incentives and county support to work. So far, Alexander & Baldwin is the only landowner that has dedicated land as such.

Kauai Coffee Co. farms 3,400 acres, but Kaua'i County wants to uproot the coffee trees and plant a landfill in the middle of the farm. That would be wrong — we should not be taking productive land out of agriculture.

POLITICAL WILL Hawai'i's Constitution supports agriculture, but the state could do much more to advocate for the industry. The Department of Agriculture is charged with both regulating and advocating for the industry, but it doesn't have the funding to do both.

The plantations built great irrigation infrastructure, but as they crumbled the infrastructure did, too. Agriculture requires water, but the activists on Maui insist that the water remain in the stream and flow to the sea.

The Water Commission should reject that demand. Maui and the Big Island have been declared drought disaster areas, and the farmers there are already suffering from the lack of water.

LET'S MAKE MONEY The University of Hawai'i College of Tropical Agriculture teaches students how to grow crops but not necessarily companies. CTAHR should join forces with the Shidler Business College to train farmers as entrepreneurs.

You would expect environmentalists to support farming, but the activists haven't helped. Superferry was great for the farmers, replacing costly two-week barge shipments with same-day service. That benefit is gone.

The activist campaigns against genetically engineered crops also undermine our farmers. The state must reject any opposition not based on science. Genetically engineered crops are already feeding the world. The ancient Hawaiians themselves engineered kalo to where they could feed a million people.

NAMES TO WATCH • The Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, with 1,600 member families, provides support to farmers throughout the state.

• The Hawaii Agricultural Research Center, which supported the sugar industry as the Sugar Planters Association, now conducts research on a wide range of crops.

• Haliimaile Pineapple, which recently rose from the ashes of Maui Land and Pineapple Co., will sell the fruit to local hotels, restaurants and markets.

• Darren Demaya at Kai Market in the Sheraton Waikiki and other prominent local chefs are preparing sumptuous dishes with local produce, and raising awareness and support for our farmers.

• The Hawaii Crop Improvement Association is the trade association for the seed industry, which has become a new leader in Hawai'i agriculture.

THE LOOKING GLASS Even if produce from far away is cheaper, it's not as fresh, and it takes tons of fossil fuel to bring it here. As fuel costs escalate, the price of imported produce will increase. We'll be even more dangerously dependent on it, and we'll wish we'd done more to develop local agriculture.

Let's do more now. We could exclude food from the general excise tax — taxing food is so regressive. We could also lease or sell state land to farmers — after all, the state has lots of land, much of it suited for agriculture, and is already selling land to raise money for the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

We could better organize and fund the Department of Agriculture. And we could pass the barrel tax to provide funds for irrigation infrastructure. We could also revise the State Water Code to raise the priority for agricultural water.

Or we could do nothing and wait for fossil fuel, and the creek, to rise.