State scraps plan to have private vendors make license tags

TALLAHASSEE --
Backing away from a possible court fight, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Friday that it will halt its attempt to bid license tag services to private vendors.

Tax collectors — who distribute state tags — and two manufacturing groups tried to block the change by lobbying elected officials and filing legal action against the department.

Highway Safety Chief Julie Jones had wanted to save money by paying private companies $31.4 million over two years to make tags and distribute mail and online orders, but she abandoned the idea under pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, among others.

“We listened to what everyone had to say, considered questions that vendors posed and received information from our tax collector partners,” Jones said. “Based on the input, we have decided to withdraw [efforts to privatize].”

The decision will keep Florida out of administrative court, which is where it seemed headed Tuesday after department lawyers shut down tax collectors’ requests to retract its invitation to bidders.

Jones’ change of heart earned praise from Bondi, who said the department “did the right thing.”

Manufacturing company Avery Dennison and St. Petersburg-based PRIDE, a nonprofit organization that uses prisoners to manufacture tags, filed formal protests and met with state officials this week.

For them, the state’s decision may only be a temporary victory.

Stephen Hurm, an attorney for the state highway agency, told tax collectors Friday the department will not seek to privatize plate distribution but could reignite the push as early as January to bid out the manufacturing role.

The state may want to switch from raised tags to the more modern flat tags that are thought to be more legible for red light and toll cameras. PRIDE doesn’t have the equipment to make flat tags.

Hillsborough County Tax Collector Doug Belden says he will fight the state if it moves to exclude PRIDE.

“Why change a system that is working well and that customers enjoy? My job as an elected official is to provide the most friendly, capable customer service for the best price. We’re doing that,” said Belden, who criticized Jones for excluding tax collectors in her decisions.

Belden, along with PRIDE lobbyist Wilbur Brewton, argue that flat tags are no easier to read and are more expensive — which will result in more fees for motorists. The company may try to invest in new technology if that’s what it takes to continue working with the state, Brewton said.

“Is the equipment currently sitting in the plant to do it? No,” he said. “This could cause harm, but we would have to calculate that once we see the details.”

Jones hasn’t committed to any tag — flat or raised, she said. She just wants something legible and well-priced.

“We want to get the best product moving into the future in terms of technology, but at a cost that’s affordable,” Jones said. “This is going to be done in a cost-effective manner.”

The controversy over the tags is not expected to stall a planned redesign.

Floridians can continue to vote on four designs for a new state tag at Vote4FloridaTag.com. About 50,000 people have weighed in. The deadline is Dec. 14.

Brittany Alana Davis

can be reached at bdavis@tampabay.com .

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Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. 

RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

If we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s best day ever. There were 10 million pictures Instagrammed on Thanksgiving. So it’s not a logistical stretch to imagine the holiday season – Hanukkah starts tonight! —  will be big business for Instagram, too. Christmas day will probably be especially big since it combines dinner, like Thanksgiving, and presents. (Also: check your Instagram feed right now and you’re sure to see at least 3 Christmas trees.)

RELATED: Meet the Parade of Greedy Crybabies Who Didn’t Get iPhones for Christmas

And so comes a report from AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac saying Twitter will launch its own photo filters on time for Christmas, likely to try and capitalize on that rush of OMG I got a cool thing! photo-sharing. Instagram stopped their photos from being shown on Twitter, because they want people on their site. The move makes enough sense, because Instagram is owned by Facebook and not Twitter, but it still sucks for the rest of us. The two companies are now in a budding rivalry over photo-sharing, so this is it, it’s war, we guess. 

RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

If you’re having trouble watching these two former friends fight, please read The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield’s guide to getting over it. The holidays is no place for rivalries. Didn’t Jingle All The Way teach you people anything? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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How They Pulled Off 'The Impossible'

The true story of the devastating 2004 tsunami that consumed the coast of Phuket, Thailand -- and how one family survived it -- is reenacted by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in The Impossible. Watch the video to go behind the scenes...

Video: Tsunami Survivor Petra Nemcova Reacts to Latest Disaster in Japan

In theaters December 21, The Impossible finds Naomi as Maria and Ewan as her husband Henry, who are enjoying their winter vacation in Thailand with their three sons. On the day after Christmas, their relaxing holiday in paradise becomes an exercise in terror and survival when their beachside hotel is pummeled by an extraordinary, unexpected tsunami.

Video: Watch the Trailer for 'The Impossible'

The Impossible tracks just what happens when this close family and tens of thousands of strangers must come together to grapple with the mayhem and aftermath of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time.

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Give us a break

Antifragile

Things That Gain
From Disorder

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Random House

After “Lawrence of Arabia” swept the 1962 Academy Awards and made a mountain of money, director David Lean had a question for Sam Spiegel, the film’s producer. Before and during filming, Spiegel repeatedly told Lean the project was a disaster, suddenly ordered him to move production from Jordan to Spain to save money and terrorized Lean (who had to have surgery on an eye after suffering a sand-related injury in the desert) into a frantic seven-days-a-week editing pace by giving him only four months to finish the film in time for a royal gala by Christmas.

Getty Images

“You were absolutely horrible to me,” Lean told Spiegel, and asked him why. Spiegel’s answer: “Baby, artists work better under pressure.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanon-born NYU professor of risk engineering and former Wall Street pit trader whose book “The Black Swan,” about the potential results of extremely unlikely events, is widely credited with predicting the financial crisis, believes there is a lot of truth to clichés like “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

But until now there’s never been a word for the concept of something that actually benefits from (rather than merely resists) stress. Think of the difference between a dragon that is hard to kill and a Hydra that regrows two heads for every one you cut off.

Taleb’s new word is in the title of his new book “Antifragile.” It’s a kind of philosophical essay that reinforces and expands upon 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction. Some things need to break in order for the whole to improve, and we resist this tendency — by coddling fragile systems such as banking — at our peril. Yet at this moment, the coddlers, or “fragilistas,” as Taleb calls them, are very much in charge.

If antifragility means redundancy — when you keep extra commodities on hand in case of natural disaster, you are actually better off after a hurricane because the price of the items you hold skyrockets — then debt is a particularly dangerous kind of fragility. Debt can spiral, accelerate. At a firm, doubts about your solvency can lead to a “margin call,” which in turn means you have to raise more money.

“It is only when you don’t care about your reputation that you tend to have a good one,” Taleb writes. “Just as in matters of seduction, people lend the most to those who need them the least.”

So, where is our debt situation heading? Taleb doesn’t offer a prediction but notes dryly that “fragilista” Alan Greenspan’s response to the financial crisis was, “It never happened before.”

Taleb calls this failure of imagination “the Lucretius problem,” after the philosopher who noted that only a fool thinks that the tallest mountain in the world will be the size of the tallest one he has ever seen.

The much-vaunted Dodd-Frank law meant to prevent the next bank crisis centrally consisted of appointing future commissions of smart people whose job it will be to make sure nothing bad ever happens again. That’ll work!

Taleb, while pointing out that he is not against intervention per se, scoffs at naive interventionists and calls what they do “iatrogenics” — damage caused by the healer. George Washington, for instance, died after doctors prescribed massive bloodletting. Micromanaging small forest fires, which clear out dead wood, can lead to more catastrophic fires later.

Greenspan, with his constant small adjustments to interest rates that were meant to prevent swings in the stock market and keep the economy growing steadily, instead inflated a monster liquidity bubble that was doomed to pop, earning him the title “the top economic iatrogenist of all time” from Taleb. Greenspan’s avowed libertarianism, ironically, stamps him in many minds as someone who encouraged disaster by doing nothing when (like Herbert Hoover in an earlier age) the truth is the opposite.

Taleb can be eccentric: He says he won’t drink any liquids that are less than 1,000 years old — just coffee, wine and water. (Don’t get him started on the evils of that insufficiently tested potion you call orange juice.) And like many engineering types born without a humor nodule, he can be unintentionally funny, such as when he describes his beloved antifragility as “nonsissy.”

But the book is alive with ideas that invite closer study, and Taleb’s mathematical jargon, aggressive contrarianism and catchy new words often seem like mere common sense.

He notes that iatrogenics infects political science, urban planning, education, and other domains, and that no experts he talked to in any of those fields believed they could possibly be doing any damage. To these he cites the Koran: “Those who are wrongful while thinking of themselves that they are righteous.”

kyle.smith@nypost.com

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Preservation board to decide on Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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There’s only one way to save Medicare

Fresh off his election victory, President Obama is pushing back against GOP efforts to reform Medicare — promising that only he can save the program.

Indeed, the president’s surrogates regularly brag that the Obama health-care law “extends the program’s life by eight years.” In other words, the president will save Medicare by making sure it doesn’t go bankrupt . . . until a few years after he leaves office.

That’s not good enough.

To truly fortify Medicare and preserve it for the next generation, we need the entire program modeled on the only part that is working for both seniors and taxpayers — Part D, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.

That means an honest assessment of Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan, which would convert Medicare to a premium-support program that relies on private competition. But Obama has expressed little interest in such an effort — even though it’s the only thing that’ll work.

The Department of Health and Human Services just announced that monthly premiums in Part D will again average $30 next year. That number’s basically held steady for four years; premiums are only up 2.5 percent since 2006.

Contrast that with the typical premium of an employer-sponsored family health insurance plan, which rose 4 percent from 2011 to 2012 and 9 percent the year before, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In other words, Part D’s costs are holding steady even as health costs are growing just about everywhere else.

Critics of Part D are right to point out that it’s an unfunded liability: When Congress created the program, it included no dedicated financing or offsetting spending cuts; the entire cost was simply added to the budget deficit. That’s lamentable. Part D should’ve been paid for at its creation.

But the fact remains that, unlike so many other government programs, Part D’s price tag has proved far lower than expected. As in every other market, competition in Part D has resulted in lower prices and better service.

Since the program began, the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly lowered its cost estimates for the program. Earlier this year, the agency issued a report projecting that Part D would cost about 43 percent less next year than it had estimated back in 2004. At the same time, the CBO increased its cost projections for the other major parts of Medicare.

But these savings haven’t come at the expense of coverage or the satisfaction of beneficiaries. The existence of Part D has helped ensure that almost 90 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have stable drug coverage. And the vast majority are happy: Multiple surveys have shown satisfaction levels for Part D at near or above 90 percent.

Facts like these are proving inconvenient for many Democrats, who have long disliked Part D.

Back in 2003, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi predicted that “most seniors will be worse off,” under Part D. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) scoffed at the program’s design. “We hear the claim that private-sector competition will drive down costs and save Medicare. Nonsense!”

Fast-forward to 2012. That “nonsense” is now reality.

Indeed, contrary to Sen. Harkin’s claims, market competition is the reason Part D has cost taxpayers less than originally estimated. Beneficiaries have the power to choose drug plans that work for them — and providers have to compete for seniors’ business. There’s no one-size-fits-all drug plan — unlike the rest of Medicare.

Despite the program’s success, some Democrats are still trying to undermine its competitive design. They’ve repeatedly proposed giving federal bureaucrats the power to implement price controls within the system — and thereby undermine the private-sector competition at the heart of the program.

Some have also called for added rebates from drug makers for “dual eligible” seniors — those who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid — to try to further reduce Medicare spending. But such a policy would simply saddle seniors with additional costs. Former CBO chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin has estimated that these so-called rebates would drive Part D premiums up by 20 percent to 40 percent.

What Congress needs is a plan to preserve Medicare, not destroy it. President Obama’s agenda, by his own admission, leaves the program on the road to fiscal collapse.

Dee Stewart is president of Americans for a Balanced Budget, a national grassroots advocacy group.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Driver of fatal MIA bus crash that killed two offers his “deepest sympathy.”

The driver behind the wheel of a bus that rammed into an overpass at Miami International Airport — killing two passengers and leaving many more injured — expressed his sympathies Thursday to those affected, while a group of survivors began speaking with a lawyer.

On Thursday, a relative sent out a short statement in Spanish from driver Ramon Ferreiro. In it, Ferreiro extended his “deepest sympathy” to the families of those killed in “the terrible accident.”

“I know there are no words of comfort for what happened, but my family and I are praying for all those affected and their loved ones,” he wrote in Spanish. “I’m emotionally and physically very shocked by what happened, and for this reason I ask you to respect my family’s privacy during this difficult time.”

The crash happened a few minutes before 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The bus carried members of a Jehovah’s Witness congregation on their way to the annual general assembly meeting in West Palm Beach.

Ferreiro, 47, took a wrong turn on Le Jeune Road. He sped past multiple signs warning of the low clearance at the airport’s arrival concourse, smashing the 11-foot-tall bus into an overpass.

Two people sitting in the front were killed; the remaining 30 passengers went to hospitals for examinations and treatment.

As of Thursday, four people from the crash remained at Jackson Memorial Hospital, spokeswoman Lidia Amoretti said. Of the group, three were in good condition and one was in critical.

Another eight people admitted after the crash already had been discharged.

And some of the survivors have begun speaking with West Palm Beach lawyer Patrick Cousins.

Cousins, who also is Jehovah’s Witness, said that members of his religion tend to shy away from legal battles, and that’s why he hopes to settle the matter with the bus service’s insurance company out of court.

The goal, he said, would be to get compensation for costs such as their hospital bills.

“We are not the type of people to create problems or issues,” Cousins said. “But this is not something we really created. We just want to make sure everybody gets their compensation.”

Saturday’s accident appears to be the first blemish on the record of both the driver and the bus company, Miami Bus Service Corp., which is owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez.

Ferreiro has a valid commercial driver’s license with the proper endorsement to carry passengers, according to records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

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MS tightens broker incentives

Morgan Stanley boss James Gorman taketh and giveth as he rejiggers incentive pay packages for its more than 17,000 brokerage force.

The changes, announced during an internal call to brokers yesterday by head of brokerage operations, Doug Ketterer, better align the so-called financial advisers’ performance with Gorman’s goal of developing Morgan Stanley Wealth Management [formerly Smith Barney] into a big profit center capable of helping the investment bank sidestep choppy markets.

The new plan, which goes into effect at the start of the next year, encourages brokers to beef up their assets under management and loans to high-net-worth clientele.

The moves comes as incentive pay based on revenues for brokers is set to shrink by as much as 2 percent — a change that might irk some employees.

But top broker performers and managers will also be able to purchase shares of Morgan Stanley stock at a 20 percent-to-25 percent discount — the first time the pay package has included the ability to purchase discounted shares, one official noted.

Brokers who have served for at least five years and generate gross revenues of at least $400,000 will be able to participate in the discount-stock program but won’t be able to sell the stock for three years.

During a conference call with brokers, Ketterer described the package as one of the “richest growth incentives offered on the Street,” said one insider who had listened to the 20-minute call.

Sources say that Gorman is focused on building out the overall wealth-management platform, which is run by Greg Fleming, and is interested in retaining only the most stellar producers.

The brokerage operations, of which Morgan Stanley owns a 65 percent stake, are the result of a joint venture with Citigroup.

Fleming is tasked with helping the platform generate a return on equity in the mid-teens — a goal the firm has struggled to accomplish.

mark.decambre@nypost.com

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New equity options exchange owned by Miami company starts trading on Friday

MIAX Options Exchange, a new fully electronic, equity options trading exchange, said it will begin trading on Friday.

MIAX Options Exchange is based in Princeton, N.J., but its parent company is Miami International Holdings. While MIAX’s executive offices, technology development center and national operations center are based in Princeton, additional executive offices, and a multi-purpose training, meeting and conference center will be located in Miami, the company said.

MIAX Options Exchange’s trading platform has been developed in-house and designed for the functional and performance demands of derivatives trading, the company said.

INA PAIVA CORDLE

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To win in 2014, Florida Democrats must build on momentum

Democrats just concluded their most successful Florida election cycle in more than three decades, not just delivering the state to President Barack Obama and re-electing Sen. Bill Nelson, but also picking up state House, state Senate, and Congressional seats.

But don’t get cocky, Florida Democrats. In many respects, 2014 is more important for the vitality of the party than 2012.

As you prepare to elect a new state party chairman there’s every reason to worry heading into the new election cycle, even against vulnerable Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

You won’t have the massive Obama grassroots machine registering and turning out tens of thousands of new voters. Or a lavishly funded TV campaign like Obama’s. And if past is prologue, Florida Republicans will have far stronger turnout than Democrats.

“Democrats have a long history of not coming out to vote in the non-presidential election years. We’ve seen that four times in a row,” Alex Sink, the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor and potential 2014 candidate, said in a Political Connections interview on Bay News 9.

“The big question I believe for Democrats in the next election is how much of that energy and enthusiasm that we had during this presidential election can carry on to the 2014 races,” Sink said. “I think it’s probably going to be unfortunately very difficult.”

On Jan. 26 in Orlando, Democratic Party leaders will elect a new leader to succeed former state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, who took the helm of the state party after a GOP wave left Democrats holding just one of Florida’s six statewide offices, Nelson’s Senate seat.

Against that change of leadership, there is no more important question facing the party than whether it can take advantage of demographic changes in Florida and come even close to following the model set by the Obama campaign.

“We’re at the threshold of a new Florida, and we’ve got to seize that opportunity,” said Alan Clendenin, an air-traffic controller and union organizer in Tampa running for party chairman against Annette Taddeo-Goldstein, a Miami-Dade County businesswoman and former candidate for Congress and County Commission.

“Demographics are on our side, the issues are on our side, the wind is at our back, and we just can’t screw it up,” said Clendenin, 53, whose extensive “Rebrand, Rebuild, Recruit” plan for the state party includes decentralizing to create at least five “regional hubs,” more emphasis on low-dollar fundraising, and a “bottom-up” structure for grassroots organizing.

A key to Obama winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes was his strong performance among African-Americans, Hispanics, and voters under 30 — overwhelmingly Democratic groups that tend to show up in much lower numbers during off-year elections.

“The question is how do we take what is the Obama coalition and translate that to a Democratic coalition that outlasts Obama,” said outgoing party chairman Smith.

Consider that in 2008 the Florida electorate was 42 percent Democratic and 39 percent Republican. Two years later, when Scott narrowly beat Sink, it was 45 percent Republican and 39 percent Democratic.

In non-presidential years, the Florida electorate is invariably older, whiter, and much more Republican.

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Dancing with the Stars Partners Reunite on Big Screen

Dancing with the Stars pro Karina Smirnoff is joining her Season 12 partner Ralph Macchio in a new movie, Us Weekly reports.

RELATED: Ralph Macchio Gets 'Happily Divorced'

According to the news source, the 34-year-old dancer plays a woman who becomes the object of a 10-year-old boy's fascination when he sees her dancing in a neighboring house.

"It is a dream come true to have this opportunity in working with Ralph again," she says of her former dance partner who writes and directs the film. "He wrote such an inspiring script, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. The story is sweet but profound, and my character is very compelling. I'm loving the process!"

This is Smirnoff's first movie role but she gave her acting qualifications, saying, "I feel like I've always acted within a dance ... Now I get to just act, and I'm extremely excited for the opportunity."

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Benghazi blunder: CIA opts for CYA

Michael A. Walsh

The United States has the world’s largest and (at $80 billion a year) best-funded intelligence services in the world — some 17 of them, in fact, including such lesser-known outfits as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which helped lead Seal Team Six to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

How much bang we’re getting for our buck from the big dogs of the intelligence community, though, is another matter — as the recent Libyan fiasco so vividly demonstrates.

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were a moral and military disgrace, bespeaking a failure of nerve and judgment at the highest levels. With significant military assets just a couple of hours away, the men were left to die.

Their deaths were a tragedy, but now the ensuing blame game threatens to devolve into farce.

Ever since UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s ludicrous assertion that the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi (which now appears to have been a CIA station operating under flimsy diplomatic cover) was provoked by an amateur video that lampooned Islam, various elements of the IC have been scrambling to assign blame — and protect the White House.

At various points, the CIA, the FBI and the useless Office of the Director of National Intelligence have either shouldered the responsibility or had fingers pointed at them for editing out references to al Qaeda’s role in the deadly assault from the unclassified talking points provided to Rice and others in the aftermath of the disaster.

Most recently, the hot potato has landed back where it began — at CIA, which remains in organizational turmoil after the sudden resignation of its director, David Petraeus.

According to a detailed report in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, all references to terrorism were edited out by dozens of busy beavers in Langley:

“A detailed examination of how US assessments were turned into the talking points reveals a highly cautious, bureaucratic process that had the effect of watering down the US’s own intelligence. The same process was slow to change conclusions when evidence shifted, in particular about links to al Qaeda and whether the attack grew out of a protest.”

According to the Journal, the report was deliberately watered down to protect the agency’s sources and investigative methods — as if it were top secret that CIA or the National Security Agency is constantly monitoring al Qaeda’s internal communications, or has agents embedded within terror cells.

Yet the talking points also included this fateful line: “The demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo.” Which we now know was a flat-out lie.

We expect our intel agencies to lie to our enemies — that’s part of their brief. But we don’t expect them to lie to Congress and the White House — which in any case had its own domestic political reasons for not wanting to ascribe the attack to al Qaeda.

But even “watering down” our own intelligence for bureaucratic CYA reasons is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, it’s all too typical of the CIA — which has consistently bungled just about every major geopolitical development since it helped overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and engineered a coup against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz the next year.

Among other things, the agency failed to adequately assess the global threat posed by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and was caught by surprise when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later. And how about those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?

The Benghazi blunder illustrates why: While the Agency remains very good at collecting intelligence and providing payback against our foreign enemies, its in-house analysts are often too busy playing footsie with the Washington political and journalistic establishment to soberly and apolitically deliver the news.

So it’s no accident that another member of the IC, the Defense Intelligence Agency — which reports to the Pentagon — is beefing up its core of overseas “collection” agents as part of its new Defense Clandestine Service (announced back in April, but informally in existence for more than a decade). Essentially, the Pentagon now has a way to go around CIA if and when it feels the need for threat assessment unfiltered by a dysfunctional Langley bureaucracy.

It’s a sad commentary on a once-proud agency that it’s no longer trusted by the folks who have to put the military’s muscle behind the analysts’ mouths.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community

If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.

Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”

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State high court denies appeals by former Sweetwater cop slated for execution

The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday denied appeals by former Sweetwater cop and mass killer Manuel Pardo, who is slated to be executed next week.

Prosecutors said Pardo, 56, and cohort Rolando Garcia committed nine murders during the 1980s, ripping off drug dealers and people who could implicate them in the crimes. At a 1988 trial, he admitted the murders, saying he was ridding the streets of the “scum of the earth.”

At trial, lawyers for Pardo — a former highway patrolman, Boy Scout leader and decorated Navy veteran — argued he was insane at the time of the crimes.

After Gov. Rick Scott signed his death warrant in October, Pardo’s lawyers asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stanford Blake to stay the execution, saying Pardo had not been given all the public records associated with his case and that back in the 1980s he was incompetent to stand trial.

Pardo’s lawyers also said state’s method of lethal injection was “cruel and unusual” punishment. Blake denied the appeals.

On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Blake’s decision, saying Pardo’s claims about lethal injection were based on “pure speculation and conjecture.”

Pardo is slated to be executed Dec. 11 at the Florida State Prison in Starke.

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Toshiba’s 10-inch Excite 10 SE tablet sells for $349.99, comes with Jelly Bean

While every other company is busy chasing the 7-inch tablet market, Toshiba (TOSBF) is keeping its eye on people interested in 10-inch tablets. Its new Excite 10 SE Android tablet is fairly similar to its Excite 10 LE, sporting a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution display, NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 3-megapixel rear camera, HD front camera, microSD card slot and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It doesn’t have the iPad’s eye-popping Retina display or the Samsung (005930) Nexus 10′s crisp 2,560 x 1,600 resolution with 300 pixels per inch, but it’s more than adequate for most basic tablet tasks. And at $ 349.99, it’s not a bad deal for a 10-inch tablet. The Excite 10 SE goes on sale December 6th and will be available from ToshibaDirect.com and select retail stores. Toshiba’s press release follows below.

Toshiba expands excite family of tablets with new 10-inch model

New Excite 10 SE Tablet Powered by Android 4.1 Starting at $ 349.99 MSRP

IRVINE, Calif. — Dec. 4, 2012 — Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the availability of the Excite™ 10 SE tablet, a multimedia-rich tablet with a 10.1-inch touchscreen, powered by Android™ 4.1, Jelly Bean. The Excite 10 SE offers an affordable option for people looking for a powerful and versatile tablet for the home, starting at only $ 349.99 MSRP[i].

“Our Excite family of tablets continues to grow with options to suit a wide range of consumer needs, from portability and gaming to versatility and power,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of marketing of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “We designed the Excite 10 SE to be a full featured tablet that offers a pure Android, Jelly Bean experience, while maintaining an attractive price point.”

The Excite 10 SE features Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, which improves on the simplicity and usability of Android 4.0. Moving between customizable home screens and switching between apps is effortless, while the Chrome™ browser and new Google Now intelligent personal assistant and Voice Search apps makes surfing the web fast and fluid.

Slim and light at only 0.4 inches thick and weighing 22.6 ounces[ii], the Excite 10 SE is encased with a textured Fusion Lattice finish, making it comfortable to hold and easy to carry. The tablet offers a vibrant 10.1-inch diagonal AutoBrite™ HD touchscreen display[iii] plus the NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Super 4-PLUS-1™ quad-core processor[iv] that delivers smooth web browsing and outstanding performance for games, HD movies and more.

Stereo speakers with SRS® Premium Voice Pro create an optimized audio experience for music, video and games, while providing greater clarity for video chatting via the tablet’s HD front-facing camera. The Excite 10 SE also includes a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera with auto-focus and digital zoom for capturing HD video and photos. Featuring a wide range of connectivity, the tablet includes 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® 3.0, as well as Micro SD and Micro USB ports for expandability. The tablet also charges conveniently via the Micro USB port.

Availability

The Excite 10 SE will be available starting at $ 349.99 MSRP for the 16GB model at select retailers and direct from Toshiba at ToshibaDirect.com on December 6, 2012.

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Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Adorable Tots: Celebs and their Cute Kids!

Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon

"Monroe's in paradise," posted Mariah Carey along with an adorable snap of her daughter lounging in a room full of Hello Kitty toys as her twin brother Moroccan looks on.

"Roc doesn't share the fascination lol," she remarked.

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Netflix gets glitz

Netflix scored an exclusive deal to stream Disney movies, marking the first time a major Hollywood studio has picked a Web upstart over an established pay-TV player like HBO.

The streaming-video service paid big bucks to best Liberty Media’s Starz premium channel, which previously held the rights to show Disney movies in the US.

Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, hailed the pact as “a bold leap forward for Internet television.”

While financial terms weren’t disclosed, Netflix is ponying up an estimated $350 million a year for the rights to stream Disney’s films a few months after they first air in theaters — a distribution window typically reserved for pay-TV channels.

REUTERS

Mickey, Yoda and me: Reed Hastings of Netflix is likely to shake up the pay-TV world by signing a blockbuster exclusive multi-year deal with Disney, which recently purchased “Star Wars” maker Lucasfilm.

The move aims to distinguish Netflix from a crowded field of streaming rivals including Amazon, Hulu Plus and Verizon/Redbox, while also putting premium channels like HBO, Starz, Showtime and Epix on notice.

Netflix will gain access to new Disney, Pixar, Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm movies starting in 2016, when the studio’s current deal with Starz expires.

It will get direct-to-video releases next year, while older animated classics such as “Dumbo,” “Pocahontas” and “Alice in Wonderland” will immediately become available through Netflix.

Netflix’s stock soared 14 percent, rising $10.65 to close at $86.65, on news of the pact even as Wall Street analysts fretted about the price tag.

Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott, estimated Netflix is paying north of $350 million a year and said he wouldn’t be surprise if the company “would need to raise capital.”

Netflix, which counts activist investor Carl Icahn as a major shareholder, could also be making a bet that it will be part of a larger, deeper-pocketed entity by 2016.

Netflix is paying considerably more than Starz did for Disney’s content. Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente said Starz’s Disney deal is around $250 million a year.

Still, the move is a blow to Starz, which is being spun out of Liberty Media. Starz currently owns the rights to distribute both Disney and Sony movies in the so-called pay-TV window. The Starz-Sony deal will expire in 2016 as well.

Netflix has said it will bid on the Sony rights when they come up for grabs.

“This is a big deal for Hollywood and the premium networks,” said Dan Cryan, senior director of digital media at IHS/Electronics and Media.

Netflix lost rights to Disney and Sony movies earlier this year, when it couldn’t agree on a new deal with Starz, which wanted Netflix to create a special tier for its “premium content.”

Netflix was reportedly discussing renewing the Starz deal for between $300 million and $400 million.

Industry observers are also wondering how Disney’s Netflix pact will sit with cable and satellite-TV providers.

The industry, which pays per-subscriber fees to premium channels, leaned on Starz not to do business with Netflix on better terms than they were paying.

catkinson@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Son of slain Miami Gardens car wash owner: ‘He put his own life before someone else’

When Dameion Peart got the phone call from his uncle, he didn’t believe it. He drove to his father’s Miami Gardens car wash to see for himself. He hoped the news wouldn’t be too bad, or maybe the shooting happened someplace else.

He pulled up, saw flashing lights and police tape, and knew it was true.

His father, Errold Peart, had been trying to protect a customer Sunday afternoon from armed robbers at the car wash he ran at Northwest 191st Street and First Place.

The robbers turned their gun on Peart, killing him.

“He put his own life before someone else,” his son said.

Now, Peart’s family began the unexpected task of planning a memorial. He was five days away from his 60th birthday.

He won’t get to see his daughter, Mishka Peart, 23, graduate from the University of Miami’s medical school.

“It’s just sad,” Dameion Peart said. “It was unnecessary.”

When the community heard of the shooting, they started dropping by the scene. They were the ones who lived nearby, longtime customers and friends, each with their own tale of how his father had helped them through the years.

They talked about the times Peart, 59, didn’t charge for carwashes to people short on money. They told Dameion Peart, 32, how his father would give money to people who needed help paying for water and electricity, never asking for the money back.

They shared stories about people who couldn’t get jobs because they had convictions — until Peart gave them work.

One of the younger employees told him it was Errold Peart who convinced her to go back to school.

“He was a very good, kindhearted person and a good father at the same time,” Dameion Peart said. “The community where his business is located, he really helped them out here.”

Errold Peart hailed from Jamaica, where he played cricket and worked at one point at a school for problem children, his son said. He eventually came to the United States, where he continued to play cricket for the USA national team.

Peart represented the USA in five matches at the 1990 International Cricket Council Trophy in the Netherlands, where the batsman was the team’s leading scorer, ESPN reported. The USA made it through the first round that year before losing in the second, according to ESPN.

At first, Peart worked with an airline, his son said, but later decided to open his own business.

He started the car wash more than a decade ago, his son said. He chose the location because it was near a busy stretch of U.S. 441 and near Florida’s Turnpike, the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 95.

“It was like a landmark,” Dameion Peart said. “Everyone knew him.”

But Peart worried about safety.

“He didn’t like guns. But every year, around this time, for the past three years he got held up at gunpoint and people tried to rob him,” Dameion Peart said. “The last time they even followed him home.”

So Errold Peart got a concealed weapons permit.

On Sunday afternoon, he noticed a pair of young men trying to rob a customer. Errold Peart went out to try and stop it, his son said, only to be shot himself.

The men ran away, leaving behind the customer and a bleeding Peart.

Miami Gardens Police still were looking for the suspects on Monday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

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First Look at TLC's Neat Freaks

Think you're a neat freak? Meet Alfreta.

Video-'Crazy Obsession': The $150K Love Doll Collection

The self-confessed germophobe not only spends the majority of her day scrubbing her home with gallons of bleach (as well as public bathrooms and friend's houses when she gets the chance), she utilizes her favorite cleanser to sanitize her meals before eating.

Check out a sneak peek in the player above!

Neat Freaks premieres Wednesday, December 5th on TLC.

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UBS near Libor deal

Ubs is nearing a deal to settle claims some of its staff manipulated interest rates, and could reach agreement with US and British authorities by the end of the year, a source said yesterday.

Britain’s Barclays was fined $453 million in June for manipulating Libor benchmark interest rates, and remains the only bank to settle in the investigation, which led to the resignation of the bank’s chairman and CEO.

US and UK regulators, which released their settlements with Barclays at the same time, are working together on the UBS investigation.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Miami-Dade proposes spending $1.5 billion over 15 years to cure sewer system woes

Six months into negotiations with federal regulators over Miami-Dade’s aging sewer system, the county has come up with a $1.5 billion, 15-year plan to rebuild pipes, pumps and sewage treatment plants that in some cases are almost 100 years old.

County leaders devised the proposal in an attempt to fend off a federal lawsuit, and potentially millions of dollars in fines, for not abiding by the federal Clean Water Act. The county also has proposed replacing or repairing a good portion of the 7,500 miles of sewer lines that regularly rupture and spill millions of gallons of raw waste into local waterways and Biscayne Bay.

Before any work is to begin, the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency — which put the county on notice in May — must accept the county’s terms. The plan, referred to as a consent decree, also must be endorsed by a majority of county commissioners. That could come as soon as late January or early February.

One of the largest repair jobs would be a $555 million reconstruction of the controversial wastewater treatment plant on Virginia Key. Entire concrete structures would be rebuilt, and pump stations and electrical systems would be replaced. The plan calls for spending another $394 million on similar fixes to two other wastewater treatment facilities, in Goulds and North Miami.

Another $408 million would be spent replacing and rehabbing the county’s 1,035 pump stations, and miles of transmission lines that run to and from the plants.

The plan has already garnered some criticism.

The Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers, clean-water activists who filed to join the federal action against the county, say spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild on Virginia Key is a waste, because the spit of land is likely to be under water within 50 years.

The group points to a recent study by the journal Science that showed the polar ice caps in Greenland are melting at three times the rate originally believed. They also say a climate change compact Miami-Dade agreed to with three other counties — which accepted a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that shows sea levels will rise 3 feet by 2060 — shows the Virginia Key plant could be in peril.

“Doubling down on Virginia Key the way they’re doing it is just stupid,” said environmental attorney Albert J. Slap, representing the Waterkeepers. “There’s not a dime in it for armoring the plant, or raising it. It’s on a barrier island.”

Doug Yoder, deputy director of the county’s water and sewer department, didn’t dispute the Army Corps findings, and said the county could abandon the Virginia Key plant for a new plant on the western edge of the county if federal regulators make such a demand.

“We certainly don’t want to spend a lot of money fixing up a facility we’ll soon abandon,” he said.

Most of the costs for the overall plan will be covered through county revenue bonds, Yoder said, meaning a future increase in water rates and debt service bills. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been warning for months that rate hikes are in the offing.

To meet demands from the feds, the county also must abandon by 2027 an outflow system it now uses that dumps up to 120 million gallons of sewage each day miles offshore. The county has until July 2013 to come up with an alternate disposal method.

A project cited in the new plan that had not been publicly addressed previously is the installation of 7,660 linear feet of sewer mains in an industrial area just below State Road 112 and between Northwest 27th and 37th avenues, which now depends on septic tanks. The job of hooking up local businesses there to county sewers would cost a little over $2 million.

Federal regulators began talks with Miami-Dade in May after a series of massive raw sewage spills released more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste throughout the county. DOJ and the EPA, along with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, sketched out the 78-page consent decree.

Four times between October and December 2011, the sewage treatment plant on Virginia Key alone ruptured, spilling more than 19 million gallons.

The county also has agreed to pay a $978,000 fine for past spills within 30 days of the plan being accepted, with about half the money going to the DOJ and the other half to the state.

DOJ spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment Friday.

In October, the county denied 12 permit applications in the Coconut Grove area by businesses that wanted to install sinks, toilets or showers. The county said it was imposing a moratorium on new sewage outflow from a Coconut Grove-serving pump station.

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Nintendo president apologizes for bulky day-one Wii U firmware update

As we noted in our first impressions, Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii U is charting new ground with its wireless GamePad and touchscreen controls that engage gamers in the living room like never before. But before you can even set up the Wii U, a mandatory firmware update is required upon power up. Gamers everywhere were frustrated to learn that the firmware update, which is pegged anywhere between 1GB and 5GB, takes hours to download and could even ”brick” new consoles if the power was cut off. In an email conversation with IGN, Nintendo’s global president and CEO Satoru Iwata said was “very sorry” that Wii U owners were experiencing network issues and that other services such as Nintendo TVii weren’t available at launch. Iwata said he believes “users should be able to use all the functions of a console video game machine as soon as they open the box.” 

Gone are the days when electronics are sold as finished products with set features out of the box. It has become normal for today’s connected electronics to require frequent firmware updates and patches to fix compatibility with other gadgets and to add new features. At what point should consumers stop tolerating devices that don’t work immediately after unboxing? The way we see it, the answer might be “never,” as it’s hard to argue against the fact that new software updates breathe new life into aging consoles.

Iwata also explained that the Wii U’s “Miiverse” online service isn’t meant to replicate existing services such as Xbox LIVE.

“We have not thought that offering the same features that already exist within other online communities would be the best proposal for very experienced game players,” Iwata told IGN.

Nintendo fans can read more Nintendo nuggets over at IGN’s feature that includes mention of a new 3D Super Mario and Zelda game.

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Dennis Quaid Officially Files for Divorce From Wife Kimberly

Despite an attempt to salvage their rocky marriage in April, actor Dennis Quaid has officially filed for divorce from his wife of eight years, Kimberly Quaid. 

Related: Dennis Quaid's Wife Files for Divorce

In court filings obtained by ET dated November 30, Quaid blames "irreconcilable differences" for the pair's split, listing their date of separation as October 1, 2012. Joint legal and physical custody has been requested of the former couple's five-year-old twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace.

Last March, Kimberly filed for divorce explaining in court papers that the marriage had "become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities." A month later she withdrew the divorce papers so they could work on their marriage.

The pair married in 2004. It was the third marriage for Quaid, who was married to Meg Ryan from 1991 to 2001, and actress P.J. Soles from to 1978 to 1983.

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60 seconds with Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster

Q: How do you know that women have more problems with women than with men in the workplace?

Katherine Crowley: One study showed that women feel they have to compete 90 percent of the time with other women rather than men. There’s quite a bit of research done which shows women feel they are targeted by other women.

Q: What happening here?

Kathi Elster: It’s a socialization issue. We’re not interested in perpetuating this myth that all women are bitches. But there is a “mean girls” syndrome. We compete in a covert way because we really need one another. We’re very relationship-oriented and we care very much about other women, but when you get to the workplace and you have to compete with them, conflict arises. On the one hand, we want to be friends. On the other hand, we want to win something.

Katherine Crowley (left) and Kathi Elster

Crowley: The other thing is the workplace is fundamentally changing. Women comprise almost 50 percent of the workforce. The likelihood of a woman working for a woman is much higher than it’s ever been.

Q: What types of women typically go after other women in the workplace?

Elster: One of the worst are ice princesses. They’re equally mean to everybody. The problem is they don’t have the ability to feel for other people.

They’re kind of narcissistic. They attack by shutting out, like if you walk in the room, they just walk out. That’s how they handle another woman. They send this horrendous energy.

Q: What’s the best way to handle an ice princess?

Crowley: You have to take extreme self-care. It’s a toxic environment you’re in.

You’ve got to seek out people who really value and appreciate you. Take care of yourself until you find a way to get out of that situation.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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