Category Archives: News

Finance, News, Politics

Congress should renew the $8k cash back for home buyers program

The latest data on home sales in the US from Realtor.org show that the Stimulus money aimed at getting Americans to start buying houses again is working. Sales of existing homes nationwide rose 7.2% in July 2009, compared to July 2008. Condo sales have also increased. In the West sales rose  16.3% over last July.

The picture is Hawaii is not as rosy. The market continues to decline, despite an increase in sales pace reported by Prudential. Let’s consider Maui as an example. At the peak of the housing bubble in 2006, single family homes on Maui were some of the most expensive in the state, with a median value of $625,000. In Prudiential’s mid-2009 report, the median price is $499,053, down 14.7% and sales volume dropped 32.5% from the same period in 2008. 

However, there is a 3-month lag in reporting so any new trends in Hawaii’s housing market won’t appear until the next report due out in December 2009.

Experts credit the slight pulse in the housing market to a Stimulus package program, which gives buyers $8,000 cash back for a purchase in 2009. This program seems to be working, at least in the short term, and Congress should renew or extend it when they resume session in September. Another popular Stimulus program was Cash for Clunkers, which was extended once doubling the federal money allocated to it from $1 billion to $2 billion dollars. If a carrot works, use it.

But prices of homes are still down, a trend that likely won’t reverse until excess inventory sells. In most markets, including Hawaii, the prices appear to be either flat or inching up. James J. Cramer penned an article in September 2008 for the New York magazine predicting the bottom of the housing market as June 30, 2009. It appears that he was correct.

Culture, Environment, Lifestyle, News, Politics, Random

First of three new attack subs, the USS Hawaii, pulls into Pearl Harbor

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The Navy has been busy building the next-generation of attack submarines, called “Virginia class”, and the first of these, the USS Hawaii, built at a cost of $2.5 billion pulled into Pearl Harbor July 23rd at 9:30 am HST. It’s controlled by touch screen and joy stick, not wheel and shaft.

USS Hawaii leaving Connecticut bound for Pearl Harbor

Fanfare

The public was invited to attend the arrival ceremony, which started at 8 am HST, with a Hawaii Air National Guard F-15 jet flyover and the Pacific Fleet Band, the Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club, Halau Hula Olana Ai, Kahuna Pule Ganotise and a haka by Pa Kuci a Lua.

This morning’s arrival ceremony is a warmup for the 50th anniversary events marking Hawaii’s statehood next month. The USS Hawaii is the first commissioned submarine named for the State of Hawai‘i.

USS Hawaii being tugged into Pearl Harbor

If you visit the USS Hawaii, try to spot Governor Linda Lingle’s initials chalked on a plate on the bulkhead wall outside the crew’s mess.  She had a welder inscribe them during a keel-laying ceremony in Rhode Island back in  2004. Continue reading First of three new attack subs, the USS Hawaii, pulls into Pearl Harbor →

Culture, Environment, News, Science

Mauna Kea, Hawaii, now preferred site for the Thirty Meter Telescope

Mauna Kea was selected this week by a board of advisors in charge of deciding where to site the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), the first of the next generation of giant ground-based telescopes. After a multi-year site review process by the TMT Corporation–including detailed satellite, weather and environmental studies–Hawaii and Chile were to top  contenders for locating the TMT, which could be built and operational as soon as 2018.  Hawaii won out over Chile as the best site because of slightly better atmospheric conditions, very low humidity and lower temperatures. Existing nearby observatories, such as Keck, Subaru, Gemini and the UH, will be useful for collaborations with TMT and were also an important factor.

In the official statement released today by TMT Corporation, the board of directors who selected Mauna Kea over Chile expressed “a strong commitment to respect the long history and cultural significance of Mauna Kea to the Hawaiian people, and has committed annual funding for local community benefits and education in Hawai‘i.” There has been strong opposition among some groups to any scientific activity at the summit. Exactly how much funding, for what specifically and who will receive was not disclosed.

The Thirty Meter Telescope shown in its enclosure with all vents open. The vents are designed to optimize the air flow over the primary mirror so as to reduce mirror seeing effects. The moving mass of the telescope, optics and instruments will be 1430 metric tons.

Before construction can begin on Mauna Kea, the TMT must submit and have approved an application for a Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) to the Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources. This will be done through the community-based Office of Mauna Kea Management, which oversees the Mauna Kea summit as part of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo.

In addition to cultural and environmental concerns, weather plays a major role in the success of any observatory. Specifically, lack of it makes for better observing conditions for astronomers. Twinkling stars, a beautiful phenomenon to watch from the backyard, is a problem for astronomers because the twinkle signals humidity in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric humidity interferes with light hitting the reflecting mirrors inside telescopes, causing distortion.

The problem of light distortion gets more detrimental as a telescopes mirror get bigger, a problem that could render data utterly useless from a telescope as big as the TMT will be. Current large telescopes, such as Gemini and Keck, use a method called “adaptive optics” to adjust for twinkle. Engineers for the TMT  are developing a special distortion correction system that will cover the TMT’s 492 segmented mirrors.