Governor falls for mayor. Governor gets mayor. Governor and mayor get a little fun poked at them as we "flASHback" on the week’s news that amused and confused:

» Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Mayor Kirk Caldwell are trumpeting their amicable working relations after decades of intense rivalry between the governor and the Honolulu mayor. This could turn out to be the biggest political man crush since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

» The governor and mayor say the relative harmony is possible because of the complementary energies they each bring to the job. Abercrombie brings the wind and Caldwell supplies the gas.

» Less amicably, Caldwell called the City Council’s proposed $2 billion budget for 2014 "fiscally irresponsible," while Council members accused the mayor of basing his spending plan on "phantom money." Don’t you hate those arguments when both sides have a point?

» The mayor said he won’t release some $10 million in grants-in-aid the Council has earmarked for unvetted nonprofits and other special interests with political pull. It looks like the Council’s VIP luau will be missing the pork.

» Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui announced he’ll run for re-election next year, saying he thinks there is still work to be done. As Leslie Nielsen once said, the problem with a do-nothing job is that you never know when you’re finished.

» State Rep. Calvin Say, rendered impotent in the Legislature when he was deposed as House speaker this year, said he, too, is considering a run for lieutenant governor. If you’re going to be powerless, you may as well get paid more for it.

» Local Republicans filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Donna Mercado Kim for meddling in her son’s University of Hawaii law school application, only to be reproached by the only GOP senator, Sam Slom, who backed Kim. Just when you think Hawaii Republicans can’t possibly take their comedy to a new level, they do.

» A splinter group called the Hawaii Republican Assembly broke off from the local GOP to bring a more conservative voice to Hawaii politics. They’re kind of the minority of the minority, or in this case, the futless of the futless.

» Astronomers studying one of our sun’s "solar twins" fromatop Mauna Kea said the sun might emit so much radiation in 2 billion years that all water on Earth will evaporate. That’ll make us nostalgic for the days when global warming caused flooding.

And a double quote of the week:

From Abercrombie on the authenticity of his close political friendship with Caldwell: "You can’t fake sincerity."

From French dramatist Jean Giraudoux: "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made."

I guess it all depends on which dramatist you believe.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.