Ros-Lehtinen Swears She Won’t Hang Up On You

Congratulations to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who moved her Washington, D.C. offices this weekend, and as is her custom, she sent out a release about it, with lots and lots of exclamation marks!Starting today Monday, December 15, 2008, this will be our new home away from home. If you have recently sent…

Nothing Drives Ladies Crazier than the Smell of Burger King

It’s a little late for Thanksgiving, but Riptide would really like to express its most sincere gratitude to Burger King for being a locally headquartered corporation. It just gives us so much to blog about. Enter the company’s latest stunt: a body spray that smells like “seduction, with a hint…

One Mortgage Crisis Solution: Scrap That Condo Tower, Build a Park

They gathered in front of a rusty chainlink fence and a graffiti-covered “No Trespassing” sign: Mayor Manny Diaz, Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, and megadeveloper Tibor Hollo.Behind the fence, littered with plastic bottles and crushed Coke cans, stretched two acres of land facing an incredible view: Biscayne Bay lapping quietly against a…

It Is Truly the Future: BCS Championship to Be Shot in 3-D

We do not have jet packs yet, but we have iPhones, a black president, and now football broadcast in 3-D! Fox and Sony have announced that next month’s BCS Championship game between the Gators and the Sooners at Dolphin Stadium will be shot in 3-D.Obviously, even the most expensive flat-screen…

Ken Salazar Wants to Drill, Baby, Drill Off Florida’s Shores

President-elect Obama’s choice of Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to head the Department of the Interior was met with praise by those hoping to see another Latino in the cabinet, but is being met with concern by some environmentalists. “The Department of the Interior desperately needs a strong, forward-looking, reform-minded secretary…

RuPaul Is Your New Fauxbama

Sorry, Gerardo Puisseaux, but the Fuaxbama market continues to get more crowded. Famed drag queen RuPaul is the latest entrant, with an economical two-for-one Obama impersonation, tackling both Michelle and Barack and eerily nailing both. This pic is from Ru’s Christmas card, which doubles as an ad for an upcoming reality…

State Looking to Make Cuts in Medicaid

So the brain trust up in Tallahassee has found itself with a $2 billion hole in the budget (yeah, yeah, financial crisis; more like yeah, yeah overzealous tax cuts), and one of the areas they’re looking to make cuts in is Medicaid, which provides healthcare to the state’s poorest citizens,…

Democracy in Action

So on November 4, 281,899 Miami-Dade voters wanted Gwen Margolis as property appraiser, but that didn’t count because it was less than 50 percent of the 670,395 total ballots cast. So we had to have a runoff election, and only 96,870 voters showed up. Of those, only 39,669 voted for…

Does It Offend Rick Sanchez, Yeah?

Oh No! Someone’s mixed Catholic imagery and sex! How provocative! How controversial! How unoriginal.Rick Sanchez, everyone’s favorite former Channel Seven newsman, dedicated a good portion of his Twitter-fueled CNN show yesterday to the latest cover of Mexican Playboy that shows a model who may be channeling the Virgin Mary (though,…

Inmate Ariel Hernandez has a Bone to Pick

Riptide got a package in the mail a few days ago. At first, we thought it might be a Christmas present, or a juicy story tip, but then we recognized the handwriting. It was from an inmate we’ve gotten to know pretty well over the last couple months. A few…

News Roundup

Haha, what? That guy who was not Gwen Margolis won the property appraiser run-off election, and this was all totally worth $3 million. [Herald]Whoa, whoa, woa. Illinois. Florida would like to remind you we’re the most corrupt state in the nation. Florida has had more convicted officials in the past…

Two Dolphins Headed to Pro Bowl, but Not Pennington

So the Pro Bowl selections were announced and your Miami Dolphins snagged two spots on the AFC team. Beloved trash talker Joey Porter will be one of the starting outside linebackers, while Ronnie Brown will serve as a reserve running back. One of the biggest snubs? Chad Pennington, who has…

Will There Be Any Miamians in Obama’s Administration?

Not only did Barack Obama pass over Manny Diaz as secretary of HUD, but also he is widely expected to name Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion as head of his newly created Office of Urban Policy, another position Diaz was considered in the running for. But with the nasty habit…

Laura Bush Loves Miami Springs

Laura Bush is just about the most popular public figure connected to the current White House, probably because, unlike her predecessor, she isn’t much involved in policy and is unconnected to most of the mess her husband created. She does have one little position, though, as honorary chair of some…

They Delicately Fed Each Other Cake with Forks

The St. Pete Times’ Lucy Morgan was the only reporter invited to Charlie Crist’s fairy-tale wedding, and here she is on Sayfie Reveiw’s Power Play Internet teevee show talking about the ceremony. We get exciting new details such as the fact that Charlie did not end up with creamy white frosting on…

Fantasy 2010 Dem Lineup

The folks at Fla Politics, the site that proudly boasts it’s the only Florida blog on the Daily Kos blogroll, have come up with their dream Democratic candidates they’d like to see comically lose run for statewide office in 2010. We think if the state Democrats pull it together, they…

Dave Barry Wins Prestigious Journalism Award

The calendar year is just about up, and now is the time for media outlets of all sorts to make top 10 lists and give out various other “awards” and whatnot. Today The Huffington Post rounds up “The Year in Media Errors and Corrections 2008” and names a correction by Miami…

From Miami Journalist to White House Aide

We were so very, very angry when former Miami Herald county reporter Matt Pinzur took a $115,000-per-year job as a special assistant to county manager George Burgess. So, if only out of consistency, we should be very, very angry that former Time magazine’s Washington bureau chief Jay Carney ditched his desk…

Obama Names Latino to Cabinet. Sit Down, Manny, It’s Not You

After weeks of throwing a cabinet seat at any former Clinton administration official with a heartbeat, Prez-to-be Obama today finally got around to appointing a Hispanic to his top circle of advisers.Riptide knows a lot of you have been lying awake at night, feverishly imagining the nightmare scenario that Miami might lose…