The topsy-turvy Nuevo Herald
By Varela
A newspaper whose front page publishes the consequences of someone consuming Viagra with an abnormally rapid heartbeat, while two commissioners in the city they cover resign for problems related to extortion, is not a serious newspaper, it’s the topsy-turvy Nuevo Herald.
I still recall when two local assassins and narco-traffickers were included by the newspaper -- before they landed in jail -- as part of the city’s illustrious sons, lovers of race boats and philanthropists of the moment.
Registration of firearms
By Aurelio Pedroso
This verb is really something, because putting your name on a list can be considered an act of registration. But in Spanish it also means to search, to look into or for something. If the meaning is the latter, then thieves, the police and even jealous wives could be implicated.
And because in Cuba surprises abound, the Ministry of the Interior, specifically the Revolutionary National Police (PNR), has just released a singular warning that all who have firearms in their possession without the appropriate license should register them “with an exceptional character and one time only” at police stations located in all 169 municipalities of the island.
Jeb Bush’s real legacy: regulatory failure and fraud
By Gimleteye
From the Eye on Miami blog
Over the weekend, I received an email copy of a letter by Michael 
Lorion to Miami Herald political columnist, Beth Reinhard. With his permission, I'm reprinting his objection to her recent piece on the gradual re-emergence of Jeb Bush, former Florida governor and Coral Gables resident, back into public focus. Although I had the same visceral reaction as Mr. Lorion, on re-reading the opinion, "Jeb Bush slowly returning to the limelight", I don't find it "adoring", so much as blithely skipping over the dismal Bush legacy...
Emergency earthquake appeal: Support Cuban-trained
Haitian doctors
Why Washington cares about countries like Haiti and Honduras
By Mark Weisbrot
From The Guardian Unlimited
When I write about U.S. foreign policy in places like Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the U.S. government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. These are small, poor countries with little in the way of resources or markets. Why should Washington policy-makers care who runs them?
Time to fight
By Max Castro
Barack Obama delivered a masterful State of the Union speech. The Republicans sat on their hands. Their rejection of the bipartisanship Obama has been offering for a year could be read in the GOP body language. Later in the week, the President met with Republican members of Congress in Baltimore. It was reported that he received virtually no applause.
How long is Obama and the Democratic Party going to reach out to Republicans and receive a clenched fist for their trouble?
Enough is enough. It's time for the Democrats to throw away their copies of "Getting to Yes" and other tomes on conflict resolution and break out Lao Tzu and the "Art of War."
From now on the question is not how to convince the Republicans; the question is how to vanquish them. Let's not waste any more time bending over backwards to receive a resounding NO from the Republicans.
The Republicans have only one objective: to turn the Obama presidency into a disaster.
Later they wonder why Miami’s broke
The Miami Herald reported this week that “[City of] Miami employees spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars using city credit cards on DirecTV for a vehicle, binoculars to keep tabs on employee activities, even on a pink metallic dog collar, a new audit found.” […]
“Some of the people in the city have not figured out we're in a crisis,” said Mayor Tomás Regalado, when told of the report. The city’s Grants and Sustained Initiatives Director, Robert Ruano, reacted by stating, it was a “minor oversight,” to some of the cases involved.
Follow our progress by clicking here where we will show you the number of hits received on a monthly basis. Or, at the top, click on each of our sections and there you’ll find a week by week account of how each article was received by the number of hits it received.
Really inconvenient truth
By Saul Landau
“The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show…. 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.”
Global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, one of the world's leading climatologists, ‘we find global warming is continuing unabated.’"
Pastor who took money from his grandfather’s church appointed to replace Miami commissioner alleged to have committed grand theft
By Alvaro F. Fernandez
City of Miami voters and its elected leaders keep blowing opportunities. At this point, I don’t know who’s worse.
Just last week city commissioners had the chance to show that they are serious about changing Miami’s face -- from that of a bankrupt city mired in corruption and bad leadership, to one where forward thinking and new, capable talent will tackle the city’s many problems. Instead, they tabbed a name from the past to fill the vacancy left by a suspended commissioner, Michelle Spence-Jones, who for the second time in a space of three months was removed from her commission seat by Florida Governor Charlie Crist.
Named to replace her was the Rev. Richard P. Dunn II. The reverend is an activist who once served on the commission. He has had his own scrapes with the law, including his apparently forgiven incident where he resigned as assistant pastor of Drake Memorial Baptist Church in Miami, after admitting he used money from his grandfather’s church to pay personal bills.African-American.
Actually, the more I read about Dunn, the more the reverend sounds like he has perfect credentials to hold political office in Miami.
Bring democracy to the Senate
By Bill Press
Among other priorities in his State of the Union address, President Obama vowed to change the way Washington works.
Here's one goodplace to start: get rid of thefilibuster. It's undemocratic, andit invites gross, 
mindless partisanship --especially the way it's employed by today's SenateRepublicans to block any legislation...
