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My favorite image of the day: President Obama giving the Hawaiian “shaka” sign as the Punahou Marching Band passes the reviewing stand.

The new Senator from Hawaii, Brian Schatz, is promising to do something about one of America’s most intractable issues: New Hawaii Senator Pledges to Tackle Climate Change.

Sen. Schatz is about to find out how determined and irrational the climate change denial movement is in Washington DC, but he has our support. Give ‘em hell, Senator.

The replacement for the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) said Wednesday that climate change is at the top of his legislative agenda.

“For me, personally, I believe global climate change is real and it is the most urgent challenge of our generation,” Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz (D), whom Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) tapped for the seat, said in brief comments Wednesday.

Schatz is expected to be sworn in Thursday afternoon. He will serve until 2014, and plans to run for the special election to fill the remaining two years of Inouye’s term. Schatz also said he would run for a full term in 2016.

Schatz will serve with incoming Sen. Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who is replacing retiring Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii).

Hirono and Schatz likely will both champion climate change.

As someone who grew up in Hawaii, I find this video funnier den almos’ anyteeng, brah. Featuring hilarious pidgin commentary from Captain Dominick Gaballo and sidekick/fisherman Addison Toki.

“I jus’ hope everybody be safe, along da shoah, becuz, I pretty sure dis hongry bugga gon’ go close to da shoah. He’s hongry, brah! If I wasn’ tired I’d jump on da bugga’s back, but maybe nex’ time.”

My brother in law, Captain of the boat and fisherman Dominick Gaballo, and best friend Addison Toki just caught a 300 pound marlin, and swimming up right after it was a HUGE great white shark!!!! It looked pretty hungry!!! A great white in Hawaiian waters…….video taken on January 12, 2012

(h/t: BigPapa.)

Our Saturday afternoon music video is the classic “I Saw the Light” by Todd Rundgren, with Daryl Hall and a great band playing at Todd’s amazing house in Hawaii.

Los Angeles Times writer Michael Memoli has more on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie’s announced intention to debunk the Birthers:

Reporting from Honolulu — Neil Abercrombie knew Barack Obama’s parents when the future president was born here in 1961, and he has been aggravated by the so-called birther movement, which alleges Obama was not born in the United States and thus should be expelled from office.

Now Abercrombie has an office of his own — he became governor of Hawaii on Dec. 6. — and he intends to do something about it.

What, exactly, is unclear. But in an interview this week at the state Capitol, he left little doubt that torpedoing the conspiracy theorists was a priority.

“What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons,” said Abercrombie, 72. “Maybe I’m the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, ‘I was here when that baby was born.’ “

Abercrombie’s exactly right, of course. But this isn’t just a run of the mill conspiracy theory, it’s an astoundingly brain-dead conspiracy theory, driven in no small part by sheer racism. It’s doubtful that any amount of evidence or rational argument will ever “torpedo” this bad craziness, because it isn’t rational and it isn’t based on evidence. And a whole lot of people on the right believe it with all their hearts.

It should always be noted that one of the main proponents of this idiocy in the right wing blogosphere, right from the beginning, has been Pamela Geller. Who could ever forget her “technical expert” known only as “techdude,” and his hilariously bad “forensic analysis?”

EXCLUSIVE: ATLAS TECH EXPERT DECLARES OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE FORGERY - Atlas Shrugs

Hawaii’s new governor, Neil Abercrombie, says he’s going to confront the Birther delusion head-on, and good for him. It’s long past time to kill this mind-numbingly stupid right wing meme.

HONOLULU — Gov. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, who befriended President Obama’s parents when they were university students here, has been in office for less than three weeks. But he is so incensed over “birthers” — the conspiracy theorists who assert that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya and was thus not eligible to become president — that he is seeking ways to change state policy to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in Honolulu in 1961.

“It’s an insult to his mother and to his father, and I knew his mother and father; they were my friends, and I have an emotional interest in that,” Governor Abercrombie said in a telephone interview late Thursday. “It’s an emotional insult. It is disrespectful to the president; it is disrespectful to the office.”

(h/t Irenicum.)

Richard Sullivan writes:

Sixty-five years ago my Dad shot this film along Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki, capturing [the] spontaneous celebrations that broke out upon first hearing news of the Japanese surrender.

As we noted last month, the state of Hawaii has pretty much had it with Birthers demanding to see Barack Obama’s real, true, official, not fake, certified, long-form birth certificate, and yesterday the state legislature passed a bill that will allow officials to ignore these obsessive repeated requests from loons.

The measure approved by the state Legislature on Tuesday would carve an exemption in the state’s public records law and allow officials to ignore all kinds of duplicative requests, including those for Obama’s birth certificate.

Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino has issued two statements since 2008 saying she had seen vital records proving Obama is a natural-born American citizen. Obama was born in Honolulu to a Kenyan father and an American mother.

But state officials say they still get between 10 and 20 e-mails each week seeking verification of Obama’s birth.

The tsunami is expected to begin hitting the islands of Hawaii in the next 20 minutes or so; this is a live stream of the local CBS channel. (Changed from KHON because it’s better quality…)

[Video removed…]

(Note: sometimes Ustream videos cause problems with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. You may have better luck in this thread with Safari, Firefox, or Chrome.)

Here’s the live Twitter feed as well:

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UPDATE at 2/27/10 12:58:42 pm:

Here’s a webcam showing a live view of Waikoloa on the island of Hawaii:

Earthcam Video

Here’s an embedded Twitter feed for ‘#hitsunami’, for the latest news on the tsunami waves expected to hit Hawaii in about two hours…

[Twitter feed moved to newer thread…]