Use waterboard on Bush's team

Since former Vice President Dick Cheney is convinced that waterboarding is not torture and provides valuable and useful information maybe he should volunteer to be subjected to a hundred or so repetitions of his favored “;enhanced interrogation technique”; to find out the truth of his role in the matter. If it really was done not to protect the U.S. from attack, but mainly to find “;proof”; of his paranoid fantasy of the Saddam-al-Qaida connection, we should be able to find out once and for all.

Then we can move on to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to find out the truth of the U.S. attorney firings, and Karl Rove on the Valerie Plame leaking. Gosh, it could be shown weekly on live TV and become the highest-rated reality show ever!

Tom Sheeran
Honolulu

Moving homeless lacking in aloha

As an observer, I am taken aback over the cat-and-mouse game played on the homeless, and now the tennis players during late hours at Kapiolani Park.

I watch as the homeless are now herded to bus stops, forced to stay awake between midnight and 5 a.m. so as not to be cited for sleeping in the area. HPD officers arrive blasting their lights and alarms to roust them away, all due to Mufi Hannemann's closing of the park for repairs.

Aloha is a moot subject for many, as they are lucky to have a home and a nice soft bed to sleep in.

Personally, I think it's not the homeless causing damage to Kapiolani Park, it's everyone else trashing this place. A sad fact.

Timothy A. Cook
Waikiki

Tax increase will hurt tourism

Our Legislature says that raising the tax on visitors will not stop them from coming to Hawaii. At the same time the Legislature says raising the tax on smokers will stop smokers from smoking. What kind of logic is that?

Our company's lifeguards, beach boys, pool attendants and surf instructors talk to hundreds of visitors, foreign and domestic, every day. We see their happiness and we hear their complaints. The higher cost for a “;Hawaiian vacation,”; is one of the most common complaints. We also work closely with the hotels and see how hard it is for them to cover their costs with falling room rates and fewer heads in beds. An increase in the tourist tax is going to make this situation worse.

Passing a higher tourist tax will negatively impact our visitors' decision to return to Hawaii. This increase could push room vacancy rates up, which will surely lead to more layoffs and less tax collections at the end of the day.

The governor can see that an increase in the tourist tax will slow tourism down and the visitor industry must now depend on a veto from the governor.

The Legislature should help the visitor industry get onto its feet before it clobbers the visitors with an increase in the TAT tax.

Bob Hampton
President,
Waikiki Beach Activities

Don't let drug dogs be judge

What is the reliability of these drug-sniffing dogs in schools? Are our children going to be convicted in open court based on a dog's bark? I would rather be convicted by a jury of my peers. At the very least, we adults should extend the courtesy to our children to be convicted by a jury of their peers, rather than a dog's bark.

Phil Robertson
Kailua