Online readers are able to respond immediately to Star-Bulletin stories through our Web forum, which can be accessed at the end of stories, editorials and columns at starbulletin.com. Below is a selection of forum comments that appeared last week. Most forum contributors use pseudonyms; their “;names”; have been omitted here.

  ”;Stop Rail Now brakes legal fight,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 8: I sure would like to know why rail opponents Cliff Slater, Ann Kobayashi, Barbara Marshall and the rest of them want us to remain dependent on foreign oil and why they want to bleed more money away from the aina to the oil-producing states and countries. How will you feel when gasoline hits $5 and $6 a gallon? How will people get to work then?

  Regardless of what the mayor says, property taxes will increase in the future. He won't be around to control the property taxes years from now. It's guaranteed taxes will increase. For every dollar we make, a very high percentage of our money is hijacked by our government.

I'm still voting for Mufi because he is a better candidate than Kobayashi. He lies, but not as much as his opponent.

  ”;New agency to try 4-day work week,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 8: It sure looks like the rush to the four-day work week is beginning, to the loss of the public that these public workers supposedly serve. It looks like government is becoming self-serving. Let's face it, a four-day work week is something everybody would like, but up until now haven't been able to justify. And I'm not sure a 2.3 savings justifies a reduction in service to the public.

  Of course they are going to call the pilot program a success, but what does that really mean in quantitive terms? The department should mandate and organize carpooling if they really want to put some teeth into this policy.

  The Hawaii Government Employees Association needs to expand it's TV commercials to cover this time-off expansion program. At present the HGEA has to advertise that there are 25,000 government workers because if you look at what they do it could be done by fewer than 1,000. Did you hear about the Mafia Mobster who was put in the witness protection program and given a state of Hawaii job? Now nobody can find him.

  They are still working 40 hours per week. The difference is they work 10 hours for four days rather than 8 hours for 5 days. Both equate to 40 hours in the week.

  The last company I was with worked a four-day, 10-hours a day work week. In theory, it was a very good idea. In practice, people took advantage of it. It takes a very strong manager to make it work.

  ”;Isle tourism chief resigns,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 9: Good riddance. OK, let's move on and get down to real business. The world is falling apart!

  This guy was clinging like an opihi to that government paycheck. Sort of like the Bishop Estate trustees, who were just about as useful a bunch of parasites. Does the HTA actually do anything besides provide a nicely paid sinecure for political hacks? I surmise that a cost-benefit analysis of that expensive self-governing “;authority”; would show that it could be replaced by an outsourced contract to an ad agency. Or maybe the tourism industry could do its own advertising. Novel idea , that.

  Supporters of Rex Johnson came from multiple races - black, Hispanic, oriental, whites. If that wasn't enough to prove he is not a racist then it proves his detractors were. Primarily it was politically motivated, and the racists jumped on the bandwagon and shouted “;racist!”; to support their own racial discrimination.

  ”;Life term for cop-killer reviewed,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 9: Shane Mark, 32, was charged with first-degree murder for Officer Gaspar's death, but the jury found that the prosecution did not prove that Mark knew Gaspar was a police officer. What does it matter? He killed someone PERIOD! He should be locked up for life! No wonder we have so many criminals in Hawaii, we have stupidity in our justice system.

  Career criminals like Shane Mark can tell who is a plainclothes police officer from a mile away. Give me a break, who did he think Officer Gaspar was? He deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.

  Our lawmakers and local judges had no choice in what they did. The U.S Supreme Court made the determination that letting judges decide extended sentencing violated the rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.