Broward County prosecutors had arranged no jail time and just 5 yrs'
probation for Aimee Weiss, 23, for drowning her newborn in a canal behind
her family home in Tamarac, but then judge Ilona M. Holmes stepped in. Not
so fast, she said. That is, Judges Holmes cut it to 3 yrs' probation, plus
she "withheld adjudication," meaning that if Weiss stays clean for that
long, the whole thing never happened. [Miami Herald]

The Southern Florida Explorers Club There was a Club banquet Thursday night in Miami for these self-described
"adventurers," and on the menu: baked worms, fried rattlesnake cakes,
scorpions on endives, roasted ant tarts, pigeon patŽ;, sautŽed
dandelion, and cricket on orange jelly. ("The scorpion's exoskeleton was
crispy, as advertised, but it stuck around hard-to-reach mouth crevices a
little longer than one would expect.") [Miami Herald]

Your Daily Loser Ryan Kelly, 19, was arrested in Melbourne early Friday morning after he,
intending to break into the EA Games store on Wickham Road to steal a
PlayStation 3, mistakenly broke into the Char'Don Jewelry store next door
(setting off the alarm). [Florida Today]

More Things To Worry About Today Polk County authorities are in a quandary about Gretchen Morales of
Davenport, who claims she woke up in south St. Petersburg on Thursday night,
and the last thing she remembered before that was a cloth dropping over her
face at home that morning. (Since the kids are OK, and nothing's missing,
police don't know what to do.) [Lakeland Ledger] . . . . . Also left
unresolved was WFTV's inquiry into teenage modeling "agent" David Hardman of
Palm Bay, who offers DVDs of dressed (but barely so) teenage girls, claiming
that their parents approve; the station seems to know this is a bad thing.
[WFTV-TV (Orlando) (no longer online)] . . . . . Two people were arrested in
St. Petersburg over last week's Internet-phenomenon, adolescent "fight club"
video, in which two kids pummel each other for almost two minutes before a
circle of cheering, photography-intensive spectators [St. Petersburg Times]
. . . . . The Florida Bar seems to believe that juvenile suspects are
shackled in court more often than adult suspects, which is bad for the
juvies' self-esteem. [Associated Press via Gainesville Sun] (But on the
other hand, aren't juvies, who are notoriously impulsive, more
likely to think they can outrun the bailiffs? [Rocky Mountain News]) . . . .
. Protesters from the "Biblical Research Center" stood outside Tampa's Mons
Venus breast emporium Saturday night and harangued everyone by megaphone,
but owner Joe Redner gave better than he got, with an air horn in their
faces (and he said he's looking for an even louder horn). [WTSP-TV (St.
Petersburg) via Fort Myers News-Press]

This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2006.