Miami Herald

And you are not making any money because…?

You know a newspaper is on its way down the drain of irrelevancy when uses Wikipedia for source material.

This was just posted at the Miami Herald Website.

PS: Kudos to Colombia for forcefully retiring the head of FARC and one of the greatest terrorist in South America. They used over 500 soldiers and some 60 aircraft to make sure the sucker did not make it out of his camp. Overkill works.

McDonald: Tired Old Arguments from the Miami Herald.

My dear local rag never fails to give me material when I need it.

OUR OPINION: High court’s latest gun ruling hurts communities

And the community organize in D.C. is doing such a great work. Just ask Louisiana, Texas and Florida.

Monday was a very good day for the National Rifle Association and a very bad day for the sensible state and local officials in this country who want to curb the level of gun violence in their communities.

The good folks who elated the NRA are the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who ruled that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a person’s right to bear arms applies to state and local gun-control regulations….

You guys live in Florida, right? Not sending editorials via email from New York or something. Maybe you did not get the memo, but since 1987 no “local Official” is allowed to create gun control laws out of thin air. Only the Legislature is allowed to create or modify gun laws. And the same goes for many states with the terrible consequence that….nothing bad has happened.

This is the first time the high court has found that the U.S. Constitution restricts state and municipal gun-control powers, and it is a hard blow to communities struggling to eradicate gun violence.

Communities like Chicago where His Excellence Daley had absolute control and Law Abiding Citizens were unable to buy a handgun to defend themselves have not been having any luck curbing the gun violence. In fact, the criminals are happy as kids in a three-day pass to DisneyWorld because they have this vast pool of victims to choose, rob and murder. But why let the facts get stubbornly in the way?

Many local and state gun regulations will be fair game to legal challenges because the court majority was vague about how far the Second Amendment should be extended on gun ownership. Just as there are limits on citizens’ free speech there should also be limits on gun ownership — but what those limits can be is now pretty murky.

Please notice the sentence in italics: Limits on Citizens! The Miami Herald has no shame in telling you that it is OK to restrict your right to Free Speech yet there is no mention of them willing to abide by the same “principle.” This is a prime example of the elitism in the Media where you, the common folk is nothing more than an uncultivated common folks.

Can states still require background checks for weapons purchases? Can states outlaw sales of assault weapons while allowing pistols and rifles to be sold? Can cities or states put limits on transactions at gun shows? Where is the line to be drawn between the right to own a gun and the public’s right to feel safe?

At the Chicago City Limits?

… as Justice Steven Breyer pointed out in his dissent. He argued — correctly — that Chicago’s handgun ban had saved many hundreds of lives since its enactment in 1983, which pointed in favor of deferring to local elected officials in deciding how to control guns.

And how does Justice Breyer know this? Did the city of Chicago presented affidavits from potential murderers saying “I wuz gonna kill me some bitches, but since there ain’t no gun stores in Chicago, I decided that was not cool.”? Just plain unadulterated bovine post-digestive by-product.

In his opinion for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that, “individual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment right.” That is one view, to be sure. But by tying the hands of state and local governments in regulating firearms, who will be left defend and protect gun-toters’ potential victims?

As usual the Miami Herald mixes criminals with Law Abiding citizens. If we own guns, we are as bad as your local ganbanger. It would be too much of a stretch for the Herald bullshit slingers editors to actually check the darn numbers issued by Florida Division of Licensing Statistical Reports on Concealed Carry individuals and their crimes. The numbers are so damn low they are almost statistically irrelevant. But again, why bother with the facts. Facts make you think, facts make you challenge your standard narrative, facts are scary because they shake your little ivory tower built on the sand of Liberal politics.

It is more comforting having them uncultivated common folks die without the chance to defend themselves.

How the mighty have fallen.

I have not subscribed or picked up a copy of the Miami Herald for over a year. Right after the election I decided that while it is always good to know what the “enemy” was thinking”, it was time for me to stop subsidizing their proselytizing ways besides I could catch them online for free. During that time I caught news from other sources talking about the harsh times and cuts that the Herald was forced to implement to survive but I really didn’t give it too much of a thought till this last couple of mornings where I was given what passes for the Miami Herald nowadays.

WHOA! The paper has dwindle to almost nothing. You can actually get more paper in the almost daily sales pamphlets that come with the junk mail. But the collapse goes beyond amount of pages, even the quality of the printing and design has taken a vacation (or maybe it was downsized along with many staff) and has the quality of a high school paper that was printed in a rush and with other things in mind.

One thing it has not changed has been the quality of the news and articles printed. They still reek of left wing political machine without a care for the people in Miami Dade County. If you happen to bump into a supposedly “caring” article, be sure you would end up reading about how the plight of that person was the fault of the Republicans/Bush/Chenney/Gun Nuts/Cuban Embargo/etc. The editorial page is still plagued with the same old “vote democrat” and “give our corrupts left wing politicians a chance…again,” and the columnists have not changed their tune: Leonard Pitts, the Herald’s version of both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, can’t wait to blame everything on the non-black people. Andre Oppenheimer still lives with the contradiction of his socialist dream and having to comment on the piss poor job of Fidel, Hugo and the rest of the new Latin American Socialism. And Carl Hiaassen is still having involuntary ejaculations every time he sees or hears Obama mentioned somehow.

The sad part is that the Herald blames everybody but themselves for their collapse. The economy (Bush’s fault of course), the internet (they should blame Gore but you don’t mess with the Pope of Global Warming), Republicans in general, bloggers, Climate Change, lack of hurricanes and even the guy that sells churros in the corner of W. 49th street and Palm Avenue. They never figured that as a paper, they must report the news without bias (or at least not so blatant) and properly reflect the community they serve. And here is the missing key and magic word: serve. The Miami Herald long ago forgot that they were a part of a community which wants information and turned into a medium that told the community what to think and how to act. Their attitude and message reeked with snobbish attitude which did not settle well with us, it never admitted wrongdoing (other than a few misprints) and strutted like a proud peacock announcing to its local world that they were better than anybody else. Now they are paying the price.

The Miami Herald has been up for sale for a while now and cannot find a buyer even for the land! And we are talking juicy real state right on the water a spit away from Miami Beach and the tourist zone which every single tourist tour and cruise ship stops to unload cash money. Even if the real state market is crappy right now, anybody with some business sense knows that the land will be worth untold millions whenever we get out of the benefits of the Obama economic plans.

I do have to make a correction. There is one issue in which the Miami Herald does provide a benefit for the community: The coupons in the Sunday Edition. The rest of the week you can pretty much use the newspaper to wrap avocados in need of ripening.

Fearmongering & the Art of Stupidity

Myriam Marquez is a columnist for the Miami Herald which is my local rag. She published her column today regarding those evil assault weapons that are murdering tons of people in the Miami Dade County area.  How Ms. Marquez ever got a job at the Miami Herald as a writer is amazing and indicative of the level of desperation that the editorial board must be feeling although it is more likely a case of political correctness run amok because they needed a woman in the column section.

Ms. Marquez starts her rubbish by painting a horrifying picture of a “massacre” that happened recently in Liberty City. Apparently an AK 47 all on its own sprayed a group of people playing craps outside some apartment complex and it is suspected that the same or similar AK 47 (again on its own) was involved in a shooting in Brownsville. These Zombies AK 47 have become a curse because they don’t need human intervention to do their mayhem.

She tries to make up after that Horror Movie introduction with the snappy comment :

Oh, excuse me. Weapons don’t kill people. People do. Except the weapon that criminals use can make the difference between death and survival.

OK, we are doing better now. It seems that after all, there was somebody actually behind the AK 47s. For a second I was actually worried that we were being invaded by possessed rifles. But then she makes the first of her really incendiary comments, an insult to millions os law abiding Gun Owners:

Assault weapons are meant to do the dirty on cops.

All of the sudden, we are nothing more that potential cop killers. We are beasts ready to pounce on the Thin Blue Line. We are scum. How sad for Ms. Marquez to think that the actual group of people that supports your average Law Enforcement Officer is nothing more than Mass Murderers.

She goes on to spew the standard lies and fabrications probably fed by the Brady Campaign without double checking the sources. The best is how murders by those Evil Zombie Assault Weapons now are responsible for 20% of the murders in Miami during 2007. Now that is funny because according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Miami Dade county had 240 murders during that period and if the stat she mention is right, 60 of those murders were committed by those Evil Zombie Assault Weapons. Funny thing is that in any Newspaper in this country, 60 murders by “Assault Weapon” would make a huge front page splash… except the Miami Herald who it seems it was not newsworthy or cooler heads thought they can only push a lie so far.  But pushing lies seems to be the norm for Ms. Marquez. her column states that machine guns have been banned for decades although I just had an enjoyable night of shooting with the owner of a suppressed machine gun in one of our public ranges. You see, machine guns are not banned, they are restricted, they are expensive but if you have the money and the patience, you can own one and legally shoot it. I guess Ms. Marquez chose to ignore such little tidbit in her “fifth column.”

And here we have another jewel:

I grew up with guns, have owned and shot them at target practice. So I get it. But there’s no valid reason for hunters to have assault weapons or for city folks to own them unless they plan to kill en masse.

Ms. Marquez clearly belongs to that group that has a serious visual impairment: In the infrequent case that when they read the Bill Of Rights, a congenital optical defects makes the Second Amendment disappear or transforms itself to read something about the right of hunters to carry arms whenever the Government says so. It seems that Ms. Marquez reading is limited to The Motorcycle Diaries and never heard of the Federalist Papers or the Anti Federalist Papers or she would never said such left wing baloney. And let’s not skip on the insult once again: You have an Evil Black Rifle, you are nothing more than a mass murderer.

She goes on to quote Mayor Manny Diaz and Police Chief John “I drive a free SUV” Timoney crying about the increase of murders and how easy is now for the gangs to obtain the Evil Black Rifles. However crime numbers from the FDLE website reveal that after Chief John Timoney took office in January of 2003, crime shot up in Miami Dade but the Assault Weapons Ban did not expire until September of 2004. So it seems more a question of ineffective Police leadership than guns after all. Maybe the true mass murderers are not those of us with Evil Black Rifles but the Mayor and the Police Chief with the tactical support of Journalistic Whores.

To Be Continued…

Wipe off the tears and raise the Jolly Roger.

Are you done crying and slobbering? Need a hanky?

The die was cast and we lost. Obama is here for Four Years whether we like it or not. John McCain fought like a Gentleman and lost like a Loser. He imposed on himself and his followers asinine Rules of Engagement while the opposition did not bother with such niceties. It is the same stupid concept that hogties our troops in the battlefield and puts them at deadly risk. Make no mistake that McCain rules will end up costing our way of life if we don’t correct the damage inflicted during this campaign.

About The Only Good News, they did not get super majority in Congress. Still they do have the majority and they will try to ramrod as much legislation as they can down our throats without regards for the Constitution. With that in mind let’s put aside briefly what happened and concentrate what we must do for the Congressional elections in 2010.

1) We get rid of the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and bring out true conservatives to fill the seats in Congress. NOT ONE PENNY TO ANY POLITICIAN WHO CRAPS OVER THE CONSTITUTION. And no more “terse” letters which make us sound like beggars. We demand that our rights are to be respected and untouched or they will find themselves without jobs and under lots of scorn.  We must get involved in the process! Emails and phone calls are always good, but presence always beats everything else. Drop by your local representative’s office and ask to speak to him or her to voice your opinion. Yes, more likely you will not get him or her, but an aide will meet you and believe me, it will make an impression when they get 10 or 20 personal visits about the same subject. And no “We need contributions to accept your point” but “You make the point and we MAY support you with contributions…if you behave correctly & constantly or we will only not contribute, we will actively make sure you do not get any money for your campaign.” We do not need to make big or impressive speeches, just be direct, polite and stubborn about your cause and hurt them in the pocket when needed it.

2) And then we have the Media.  Newspapers are right now in a very precarious situation. Most of all the big names are hurting bad and cutting jobs to save pennies due to poor circulation. Any rag that promotes and celebrates the restrictions to our freedoms must suffer. If you have a subscription to a paper like that, cancel it. By the same token, if a paper is in favor of all constitutional rights, specially a new struggling one, get not one but two subscriptions, help them out. The Miami Herald lost a customer this morning I am proud to say. I am waiting for them to call me so they can have an idea why I am canceling and I promise you, they won’t like them.

Broadcast News Media (TV) are Right now they are where papers were 10 years ago, starting to slide down but still ignoring the danger. It seems their ratings somehow suffered during the coverage of the campaign contrary to what they expected and it is not news (pardon the pun) that they are losing viewers to the new Cable Media outlets like FoxNews. How do we get them? Ratings of course. If you are a Nielsen family, switch your TV to any other station but broadcast news when they come on. DirecTV and DISH Networks are much easier because your box keeps track of what you watch and provides ratings. Just program your set to jump to another channel (FoxNews if you really want to rub it) at the time of Broadcast news or turn the thing off. If you go to bed or out and do not turn off the box, make sure it is not tuned to a channel that carries ABC, CBS or NBC. Again leave it tuned to FoxNews, Home and Garden TV your favorite outdoor channel.

Our pal Schummer is already having orgasmic fits thinking he will be able to re instate the Fairness Doctrine and he does indeed have a good chance to do so. If he has his druthers, the Fairness Doctrine will be applied to all media possible not in control of the liberals and that includes the Internet. Here I am thinking we simply inundate all media outlets before the Fairness Doctrine gets approved, that we will demand every day equal time or that we will demand that the proper authorities take action on such blatant violation of the law. Perhaps the Big Media honchos will put enough pressure on Schummer and Co. as to drop the idea altogether. And it goes without saying that we lean heavy on our Senators and Congrespeople until they develop the backbone to stand up against it.

These are just some thing from the top of my head. Add what you think is necessary, but for the Love of God, STOP WHINING!