Pensacola's Kent Hovind, who was convicted in November of tax evasion associated with his certainty that all of his income and possessions belonged not to him but to the Lord [The F State, 11-3-2006], got 10 yrs on Friday, and was described as somewhat contrite in court (though he still prefers his interpretation of the tax laws to that of the IRS). According to a recent (recorded) telephone call, though, Hovind had promised to make the lives of the judge and prosecutor "miserable." "As long as I have some teeth, I'm going to fight. The lion's [meaning "the law"] going to know he's been in a fight." According to Hovind, this is all a misunderstanding, i.e., the federal gov't has misunderstood what God wants, and it needs to get its act together pronto. (Dr. Dino is so named because he built the Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, celebrating the early days of the Earth's several-thousand-year existence, when men and dinosaurs frolicked together.) [Pensacola News Journal]
State Legislators to Let Homeowners Choose to Lose A big part of the proposed casualty insurance reform package announced this morning in Tallahassee relies on consumer choice to bring rates down, i.e., people can opt out of windstorm coverage. I think we all know how that's going to work out: just like optional flood insurance. If just a few people suffer, the optional part will work, as there will be no mass sympathy to help the poor people who get wiped out. If another Katrina hits, we will, as President Bush said, spend whatever we must in order to put things back together (either through honor-system federal handouts or finding creative ways to sue the insurance companies). Just as business executives are all for capitalism but beg constantly for gov't to insulate them from competition, consumers love freedom of choice until such time as their choice turns out bad. (The legislators' weak attempt at addressing this issue: The windstorm opt-out would include making the homeowner write a letter crossing his heart and hoping to die that he understands the risk. And so far unmentioned is the idea of allowing any opt-outs of sinkhole coverage.) [Miami Herald]
Floridians With Worse Sex Lives Than You Robert Whitehead, 32, was arrested in Jacksonville for allegedly flashing teenage girls at a bus stop. And this is another instance in which you might find his mugshot useful in evaluating whether he's guilty. [WKMG-TV (Orlando)]
More Things To Worry About Today The amazing Florida duck, shot twice, dead, stored in the freezer for two days, but then when the shooter went to take it out, it lifted its head up and looked at the shooter [the thoughts of the bird at that point were not reported] and now is expected to survive [Tallahassee Democrat] . . . . . Yet another case of a down-market guy using railroad tracks to sleep off a bender, and he's no longer with us [Ocala Star-Banner] . . . . . A resilient 4-yr-old fell out of a 4th-floor window at Jacksonville's Wingate Inn, but, hey, no problem [Florida Times-Union] . . . . . A touching weekend funeral of a tow-truck driver in New Port Richey, with all his competitors' trucks lined up in tribute (One competitor: "I didn't know him, but I consider this a brotherhood") [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . Florida will have many more "gifted" students in school next yr, thanks to, well, smarter parents? No, the Dept. of Education lowered the IQ threshold from 130 to 120 [Gainesville Sun] . . . . . A Groveland dad, keen on discipline, shot his 4-yr-old with a BB gun (y'see, "I didn't want to whoop him") [WESH-TV (Orlando)] . . . . . The retired pro wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow, 45, was found dead in Pasco, probably of a series of bad health choices [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . The Seminole County school board decided they really, really need two new schools, and besides, maybe all that arsenic that used to be buried on that site (and still shows up above state EPA levels) won't be a problem [Orlando Sentinel] . . . . . The police dept. in Palm Bay introduced the state's first unmanned surveillance aircraft, to help fight all that crime and mayhem that Palm Bay is known for [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] . . . . . The preliminary report is that Widmarc Saintard and Roxanne Pesyna had a fight, and both just up and walked out and didn't come back for a whole month, even though their 3-yr-old kid stayed behind (He's OK, though) [Palm Beach Post].
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2007.