(1) The Briny Breezes mobile-home community board [The F State, 12-12-2006]
accepted a bid of $510m, or $1.045 million per trailer-resident.. [South
Florida Sun-Sentinel]

(2) The Broward judge handling the Dept. of Children and Families
mentally-ill-transfer issue [The F State, 12-12-2006] had an epiphany
yesterday and decided not to pile onto the DCF executives but to assist in
the scramble for beds. The governor called it a "reality check," with
"reality" meaning, of course, that DCF's chintzy budgets during his 8 yrs in
office should be regarded as natural occurrences, like sun and rain, rather
than willful ignorance of the needs of the most vulnerable Floridians. Said
the governor yesterday, "We'll let you know when we figure it out." [Miami
Herald]

(3) The director of the state's Agency for Persons with Disabilities
announced she's not interested in reappointment by the incoming governor.
APD was the agency that fought so hard to deny little Kevin Estinfil his
special heating blankets [The F State, 12-7-2006]. [Miami Herald]

(4) The city manager in Golden Beach [The F State, 11-27-2006] resigned last
night and apologized for calling her black assistant "Mammy." However, the
city investigator agreed with her that it wasn't she that then tried to make
nice with the assistant by saying how much she liked Aunt Jemima; it was
someone else in the room who said it. [Miami Herald]

(5) The guy who smashed into Altamonte Mall on Sunday night [The F State,
12-12-2006] was Solomon Kahin, 19, and police believe he was trying to check
out of life early (based on his psychiatric file) [WTVJ-TV (Miami)].

Your Daily Loser Richard Costello, 29, of Clearwater was sentenced to 4 yrs in prison
yesterday. He's the guy who made News of the Weird in July after trying to
sell on eBay the motorcycle parts he stole. The photos he took for eBay were
not well-framed and had his bare toes in the picture, and he happened to
have toe tats that spelled w-h-i-t-e and t-r-a-s-h, and a police search
through jail records for a gentleman with such tats turned up . . Richard
Costello! [News of the Weird] [St. Petersburg Times (scroll down)]

Is There Anyone in Florida Who Doesn't Have Child Porn? Police in Flagler Beach arrested 21 people, mostly from central Florida, in
an online child-porn sting (including a cop and a couple of teachers)
arranged by the chief stingaroos, themselves, PervertedJustice.org. [WJXT-TV
(Jacksonville)]

More Things To Worry About Today The class president of Broward's Cooper City High was charged with hacking
his own grades 21 times by computer [WPLG-TV (Miami)] . . . . . Smoke it
while it's legal: The Mexican herb salvia divinorum ("Magic Mint," "Sally
D"), illegal in 5 states, pending in 5 more, but not the F State, supposedly
can cause uncontrollable laughter . . er, and violence [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] .
. . . . Two big cocaine hauls washed ashore on public beaches, in Brevard
County and in Hollywood (and the former was comical, in that the discoverer
said she was so frightened of traffickers that she called the cops
immediately, but then gave an interview to Florida Today, casually
identifying herself and where she works [Florida Today] [Miami Herald] . . .
. . Clearwater high school teacher Me-Me Panzarella . . come to think of it,
the actual story's not as good as her name, so forget it [WTSP-TV (St.
Petersburg)] . . . . . Jose Molina said, after more than 2 yrs, the bees in
his Miami Beach kitchen cabinet were starting to bother him, so beekeepers
came and removed, er, 3 million of 'em [WFTV (Orlando)] . . . . . Boynton
Beach football player (now at Eastern Illinois U.) Lucius Pusey has
officially changed his name to Lucius Seymour because, obviously, the family
name is no handle for a football stud [The Smoking Gun].

This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2006.