It’s raining bad business climate

So, Hawaii got another "F" for its business climate Tuesday, continuing a string of similarly bad grades dating back … well, forever, it seems.

This one came from Thumbtack.com, an online service-professional referral network, and from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit that fosters entrepreneurship. Along with Hawaii, the states earning bottom-of-the-barrel marks were California, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The states that got an "A"? Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Ironically, the grades don’t necessarily match up with high employment. Example: Vermont’s got the fourth-lowest jobless rate in the country, with 4.8, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At No. 14, with unemployment at 6.4, Hawaii’s not doing so shabby, either, relatively speaking. Texas and Idaho, those A students, come up worse on that score.

Not that Hawaii can shrug off its bad biz reputation, of course. If we fixed that issue, our recovering economy might take off, right?

Notice at Punchbowl would have helped

Though not as egregious as at other cemeteries, the neglect by the Department of Veterans Affairs in moving memorial markers at the Punchbowl cemetery without notifying families was flawed. Loved ones of deceased American military patriots deserve to be alerted about movements of markers, whether or not a grave is beneath.

Possibly several hundred markers were relocated within the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, leaving kin perplexed when they tried to pay respects. The VA has vowed to audit all cemeteries, including Arlington National Cemetery, to check all 3 million graves, after discovery that nearly 250 graves were found to be incorrectly marked or unmarked. Ideally, memorial markers should remain in place barring extraordinary circumstances.