Lede: Why Not James K. Polk Day?

Senate President Colleen Hanabusa wants President Obama's Aug. 4 birthday to be a state holiday, right up there with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole Day, King Kamehameha I Day and even Christmas.

State Rep. Della Au Belatti, D-25th (Tantalus, Makiki, McCully), would like the Jan. 20 date of Obama's presidential inauguration to be forever known in the Islands as Barack Obama II Ohana Day.

And even Republican state Rep. Gene Ward, R-17th, (Kalama Valley, Queen's Gate, Hawai'i Kai), hopes to turn 4,124 square feet of overgrown scrub land owned by the state Department of Transportation into President Barack Obama Birthplace State Park.

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Unknowingly "Indoctrinating" Children

A Missouri-based school supply vendor says that someone in his supplier's art department was "trying to be cutesy", but due to complaints about materials sporting what appears to be the Obama campaign logo and the phrase "change we can believe in", he is revisiting machines to pull the products from about 800 schools.

Greg Jones of Pencil Wholesalers says that he did notice the design, but "didn’t think one thing about it" and his task is being made that much harder because in a case of 72 notebooks, perhaps three are of the type which has prompted the complaints.

The manufacturer, Harcourt Pencil has agreed to give Jones a refund and he says they're working "as fast as we can", but because the materials have caused a controversy, Jones wants everyone to know that his company didn't design the products and that he's a registered Republican, who voted for John McCain.