Newest fashion on Lanai will be white lab coats

It was nice of billionaire Larry Ellison to finally let us all in on his plans for the island of Lanai, most of which he bought recently from fellow mogul David Murdock.

Too bad we — including the 3,200 residents of the island — had to learn about them from an interview the Oracle Corp. CEO gave in San Francisco to Maria Bartiromo on the financial news channel CNBC.

But overall it’s progress, and now we know that he actually does have a vision for the island — which is to turn it into "a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale," featuring electric cars, solar photovoltaic and solar thermal utility plants and drip irrigation and organic farms "all over the island" that will serve markets such as Japan and elsewhere.

So long as it’s on his dime, here’s hoping the experiment works.

Liquor companies love presidential debates

Who won last night’s presidential debate? Barack Obama? Mitt Romney? By one calculation, it would be the liquor industry, by a long shot.

There were a gazillion debate-related drinking games that were buzzing on the Twitter feed during the debate, and probably before the candidates even stepped up to the podium.

Here’s one example. Players were supposed to toss one back if Obama said "let me be clear," mentioned Bain Capital, blamed the Bush administration for something or uttered the words "millionaires or "billionaires."

Alternately, any of the following actions by Romney would merit a swig: He touted his 12-million-jobs pledge, said the words "entrepreneurs" or "small business," invoked the name of Ronald Reagan or cited the "private sector."

In the end, that was a lot of shots knocked back.