Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Drug-tracking Fat Albert blimp in the Keys will be deflated in March

Fat Albert, the familiar military blimp based on the bayside of Cudjoe Key, is set to come down permanently on March 15 after keeping watch over the Lower Keys since 1980.

Due to federal defense funding cuts, the U.S. Air Force's Tethered Aerostat Radar System, comprising Cudjoe and eight other sites along the Gulf of Mexico, Mexican border and Puerto Rico, will shut down.

The surveillance program is "capable of detecting low-altitude aircraft at the radar's maximum range by mitigating curvature of the Earth and terrain-masking limitations," according to Air Force literature from the Langley, Va.-based Air Combat Command.

The Cudjoe Key aerostat's primary mission is to support counter-drug operations. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the latter located in Key West, employ the data, among others.

"Its presence has a deterrent value to illicit trafficking here in the area," U.S. Coast Guard Sector Key West Cmdr. Al Young said on US1Radio this week. "It also allows us here at the Coast Guard to maintain real-time visibility of air and surface resources that we may have and on occasion, we have used that information to vector assistance resources to find search objects."

NAS Key West spokeswoman Trice Denny said the Navy doesn't use the system to any appreciable extent.

On Saturday, a Summerland Key man identified only as R.H. posted a petition on the White House's website asking to "keep the Tethered Aerostat Radar System operational in order to help secure the southern border of the United States.... If we truly are concerned with the war on drugs and wish to have a cost-effective sensor to fight that war, then this sensor must remain active."

By Tuesday, it had more than 300 signatures. To get a response from President Barack Obama's staff, the petition would have to get 100,000 or more signatures by Feb. 18. The petition is available through www.whitehouse.gov/petitions.

Contractor Exelis Systems Corp., based in Colorado Springs, operates the network of blimp-mounted radars. Following the March 15, shutdown, "the remainder of the fiscal year will be used to deflate aerostats, disposition equipment and prepare sites for permanent closure," according to a notice from Program Manager Tim Green.

The Cudjoe aerostat holds 275,000 cubic feet of helium and measures in at 186 feet with a 62.5-foot diameter. The normal operating altitude is around 12,000 feet and it has a radar detection range of some 230 miles.

Radar data is transmitted to a ground station, where it's digitized, then transmitted to various federal users. Up until 1992, the Air Force, U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Coast Guard operated the network. In 1992, Congress switched management over to the Department of Defense.

The average per-site annual cost for a TARS site in 2002 was $2.8 million, according to a history prepared by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Updated numbers weren't available Tuesday.

Other than off the aptly named Blimp Road on Cudjoe, there are TARS sites in Deming, N.M.; Morgan City, La.; Lajas, Puerto Rico; Fort Huachuca and Yuma in Arizona; and Eagle Pass, Marfa, Matagorda and Rio Grande City, all in Texas.

In April 2007, a 1997 Cessna 182Q crashed into the Cudjoe aerostat's tether, killing all three people aboard. The plane had violated a three-mile radius, 15,000-foot air-space restriction around the Cudjoe site.

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First “Firefox OS” Phones Previewed, to Launch in February

Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox web browser, has been promoting its Firefox OS project (once known as “Boot to Gecko”) for some time now. A hardware partnership with Telefonica, the international telecom giant, had been announced, but no phones had yet been unveiled.

But in an announcement today on its blog, Mozilla announced the impending launch of its first “developer preview” phones, the Keon and the Peak. Made in partnership with Geeksphone, a Spanish smartphone producer which used to make Android phones, these devices are meant to help app developers preview their work on the small screen. But they may also serve as a sneak preview of Mozilla’s plan to enter the smartphone market.

Introducing Firefox OS

Designed as an alternative to Google’s Android for low-powered smartphones, Firefox OS’ claim to fame is that it’s “built entirely using open web standards,” or open-source code written in the programming languages which make up the web, like JavaScript. Likewise, Firefox OS apps are websites specially formatted to look and feel like apps, and to respond to touchscreen controls and access phone features like vibration and the GPS.

A selection of Firefox apps is already available in the Mozilla Marketplace, but developers will eventually be able to take the open-source code behind it and create their own app markets like it if they so choose. These apps also run on the preview “Aurora” version of Firefox for Android, which is available for download from Mozilla’s website.

“Say ‘hola’” to the Keon and Peak

The Keon is Mozilla’s entry-level developer smartphone, while the Peak has somewhat more modern hardware specs.

The Keon has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 3.5-inch touchscreen, and 4 GB of flash memory, plus a microSD card slot to expand storage space. Its built-in camera is a basic 3-megapixel shooter, and lacks an LED flash. It’s roughly comparable to 2010′s iPhone 4 in terms of raw hardware specs, although it probably won’t be able to play the same kinds of 3D games since they’ll be written as web applications.

The Peak has a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, a 4.3-inch IPS display, and an 8-megapixel camera with a flash, plus a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It has the same amount of RAM and flash storage as the Keon does, though.

Both the Keon and the Peak are unlocked GSM smartphones, which may mean they will work on AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks in the States.

Pricing and availability

According to Peters, the “First phones will be available in February.” Prices have yet to be announced.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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SAG Awards Flashback: Alec Baldwin 2007

Alec Baldwin has been to a few awards shows in his time, so even though he was once again nominated for what might have been his first SAG Award in 2007, the 30 Rock actor was more interested in someone who was new to the awards scene, like 10-year-old first-time nominee Abigail Breslin.

Baldwin received first SAG nomination in 1996 and had accrued four other nominations over the years, so that he was nominated for two awards that year including his first for the new 30 Rock didn't beguile the longtime actor.

VIDEO: Alec Baldwin Weds Hilaria Thomas

"It's nice to come. It's a really nice, pleasant experience," Baldwin says to ET's former correspondent and current omg!Insider co-host Thea Andrews. "What's interesting is to see people like the young woman behind you who...it's a whole new experience for."

Mrs. Andrews then pulls the young Breslin, who was nominated for her first SAG Award and Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, up on ET's platform to join in the interview with Baldwin--or rather, be interviewed by him.

While the young actress didn't win her individual award for Best Supporting Actress, she nevertheless won her first SAG Award that night as part of Little Miss Sunshine, which won Best Cast.

VIDEO: Alec Baldwin Admires SAG's Nude Statuette

Little Miss Sunshine herself must have been a ray of hope for her red-carpet buddy, as Baldwin also won his first SAG Award that night, for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock.

"My goodness gracious! I can't believe; I really can't!" he says to ET's former correspondent Jann Carl after winning the award. "...You never come expecting to win--never. You'd be happy if you did, but you never have any expectations."

Baldwin's unassuming mindset has likely altered since then, as he has gone on to win a SAG for all six seasons of 30 Rock, which gives makes him the most awarded actor in a single category in SAGs history (2nd: Julianna Margulies (4), Best Actress in a Drama Series).

VIDEO: Alec Baldwin Impersonates Piers Morgan

To the surprise of none, Baldwin is nominated yet again for 30 Rock's seventh and final season.

Is there even a question as to if he'll win it?

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Charlie Brown voice actor arrested for 'stalking'

SAN DIEGO — Authorities in California say the voice actor who portrayed Charlie Brown in many "Peanuts" shows was arrested on charges that include stalking.

US Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Angelica de Cima said Peter Robbins was arrested Sunday at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. She told U-T San Diego that a background check yielded a warrant against Robbins from the San Diego County sheriff's department.

A sheriff's spokeswoman said she did not have details about the warrant.

The 56-year-old is set to be arraigned Wednesday on counts of making a threat to cause death or great bodily injury and of stalking. His manager has declined to comment.

Robbins was the voice of Charlie Brown for TV specials, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Appeals court throws out Miami judge’s controversial fingerprint ruling

An appeals court has thrown out a Miami-Dade criminal court judge’s controversial ruling restricting long-accepted fingerprint evidence.

The Third District Court of Appeals this week ruled that Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch should have removed himself from the case before issuing his ruling.

The reason: Hirsch had earlier told two prosecutors that he would remove himself from similar cases because he harbored “preconceived opinions on the subject of fingerprints.”

In October, Hirsch ruled that a police fingerprint examiner could not testify that he identified a conclusive fingerprint “match” for Miami’s Radames Borrego, who is accused of two burglaries.

The judge’s ruling raised eyebrows among legal observers because U.S. courts have long allowed experts to testify to jurors that the accused person’s fingerprint is unique to him or her.

The appeals court did not rule specifically on Hirsch’s fingerprint order, but nevertheless threw it out, saying the judge should not have presided over the case. It is unclear whether Hirsch will be able to preside over future criminal court cases involving fingerprint evidence.

Hirsch, a former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a law school professor who wrote a book on state criminal trial procedure, is well-known in South Florida’s legal community. He was elected in May 2010.

The judge — who often quotes Shakespeare in lengthy orders — often delves into polemic legal waters.

In 2010, when a Tampa federal judge ruled that Florida’s drug law was unconstitutional, Hirsch was the only local state judge to follow suit. He threw out more than two dozen cases, but the same Miami’s appeals court later reversed Hirsch.

Late last year, Hirsch from the bench criticized relatives of a murder victim after they criticized him in a Spanish-language television interview. After he declined to recuse himself from the case, the Third DCA booted him from the case.

Also last year, the same appeals court said Hirsch “did not have jurisdiction” when he filled in for a fellow judge, then reversed that judge’s decision to keep behind bars a man accused of violating a restraining order.

Hirsch will be ruling on a high-profile case next week.

Lawyers for Sergio Robaina, accused of voter fraud, have asked Hirsch to throw out two misdemeanors charged under a county ordinance prohibiting possession of more than two absentee ballots. The ordinance is unconstitutional, they claim.

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I Might Be Too Old for Facebook Graph Search

On Sunday, I turned 30.

That’s not too old, I tell myself, yet the signs of aging are creeping in. Teenagers listen to music that I either haven’t heard of or believe to be mostly terrible. They use slang I don’t recognize, and I imagine my slang would sound to them like “groovy” or “far out” sound to me.

But for the purposes of our tech blog, the most notable sign is how much more active teens are on Facebook than I am. To hear it from my wife, who works with children and teens at her job, they’re constantly signed in and active, to the point that reaching them by voice call is unreliable. Send them a Facebook message, even during school hours, and they’ll respond right away. (The reality isn’t quite that extreme; according to a Pew survey, most teens communicate through text messages and phone calls more than Facebook, but e-mail is far behind.)

So when Facebook announces a new feature, like Graph Search, I imagine those teens getting the most use out of it. Graph Search lets you look up people, places, photos and other things using natural search queries. Think of it like Google for everything that your friends know; instead of searching the Web for somewhere to eat or something to do, you could just search through the collective wisdom of your network.

Here are some of the example searches on Facebook’s Graph Search home page:

• Music my friends like


• Restaurants in London my friends have been to


• People who like cycling and are from my hometown


• Photos before 1990

Being able to find all that information–and provide your own information for friends–sounds great. But unless you and your pals are putting lots of data in, you’re probably not going to get a lot of data out. I know for sure that I haven’t put much effort into connecting my real life story to Facebook, and as I poke around my network, I see that many of my friends haven’t either. They don’t check in to places they visit. They don’t “Like” everything that they actually like. They haven’t uploaded photos from before 1990. Collectively, we haven’t invested in making Graph Search as useful as it could be.

It might be different if I was part of the generation that uses Facebook more often. Though it’s hard to find data on how Likes and check-ins vary by age, younger users tend to have more Facebook friends than older ones, according to Edison Research, so at least they have a bigger base of people to work with. And according to a 2011 study, teens spend more time on the network per day than older users. If posting on Facebook is part of your social circle’s daily life–that is, it’s not just a way to see what old high school buddies are up to–I imagine Graph Search will be a lot more useful.

That’s not to say Graph Search won’t be of any value to someone like me. It could come in handy as a way to sort through photos, for instance. There’s also a chance that Facebook will improve the ways that it picks up on our interests, and integrate frictionless sharing so there’s less work involved in becoming an information source.

But while I plan to keep up with technology for a long time, I realize it’s hard to keep using social networks like a teenager when your friends are getting older too. Facebook isn’t part of my daily life anymore, so I can’t imagine rewiring my habits and turning it into a primary information source, especially if my friends aren’t doing the same.  It’s much easier to rely on the tools I already have, such as traditional search engines and sites like Yelp–just like it’s easy to stop keeping track of popular music or to pick up on new slang.

Graph Search is in “very limited” beta now, and users who want to try it can join the waiting list. I look forward to seeing what I can do with it, even if it’s not really for me. In the meantime, here’s to growing older.

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SAG Awards Flashback: Anne Hathaway 2006

Anne Hathaway is currently one of Hollywood's top actresses, emphatically so with her latest hit film Les Miserables, so it's a bit strange to return to the beginning stages of her career. At her first major awards show, Hathaway is giddy to be there and reveals her pre-show snack.

Prior to the 2006 SAG Awards, Hathaway had walked awards show red carpets but never at a major awards show, which made her experience at that year's SAGs a thrill. The then-23-year-old actress was nominated as part of the cast of Brokeback Mountain.

VIDEO: Anne Hathaway's Short 'Do is Here to Stay

"I mean, I still can't get over that fact that I have a job, people know my name, and now Felicity Huffman likes what I did," she says after meeting the Desperate Housewives actress before the show. "It's really exciting."

Although she was ecstatic to be at her first major awards show, Hathaway wasn't expecting much but still relished the opportunity to get dolled up and enjoy an indulgent pre-show snack.

"It's a fun day; you're eating chocolate and sipping champagne. It's a wonderful experience," she says to ET's former correspondent Jann Carl. "I try to do that before these things 'cause then regardless of what happens--if you win or you don't--you're in a good mood."

VIDEO: Fashion Time Warp: Anne Hathaway

Hathaway's chocolate and champagne would have to carry her throughout the rest of the night, as she didn't win her first major award that night and her Brokeback friends didn't receive any awards on the night as well.

The now-30-year-old, short-haired Hathaway has a good chance to win her first SAG Award this year, as she is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Les Miz.

Regardless, she'll be bubbly.

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Parts of LI get over 3 inches of snow as arctic blast continues through end of week

Wayne Carrington

Parts of Long Island woke up to snow this morning.

Parts of Long Island got more than three inches of snow late Monday.

Strong winds and frigid temperatures are expected today with wind chills dipping into the single digits through tomorrow.

Meteorologists say Brookhaven and southern and eastern communities received over three inches of snow.

The city is expected to see snow by Friday with highs only in the upper 20s.

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