Hello and welcome to Wednesday.
You've made it this far, which we commend you for. But you must never look back. NEVER.
Oh, except for right now at these little bits of news we made for you.
We lead with something shitty, regretfully.
Those terrible butchers known as ISIS or ISIL or whatever the fuck you want to call them carried out their latest execution Tuesday. In this one, they burned alive the Jordanian pilot who had been their captive, and captured it all on video. The group was allegedly trying to negotiate a swap with Jordan for the return of a suicide bomber whom Jordan had detained, but the group stopped communicating with the country before the swap could take place.
In a somewhat predictable move, the Florida Sheriffs Association announced it will oppose a measure filed last week in the Florida Senate that would legalize medical marijuana under certain circumstances. Their reasoning, as told by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, was that "you don't smoke medicine," and if it were available in a balm or topical oil, people would be less likely to consume it ecreationally... Wait a second, weren't the kids all putting lip balm on their eyelids because they thought it would get them high a while back? I believe it was called "beezin'," sir. In what was surely just a coincidence, sheriffs in Georgia assembled on Monday to do pretty much the same thing. Almost like ALEC in reverse, huh?
The State House Finance and Tax Committee, which is usually against imposing burdens on small business owners, is advancing a bill that, according to the News Service of Florida, "would impose entry requirements on adult establishments, including a $10 fee on top of any other existing admission charges." Applying largely to strip clubs and adult theaters, it would require these places to keep records of everyone who enters. Another measure would bar establishments from operating as "roll your own" clubs to avoid charging taxes for tobacco. Because Jesus. And the Bible.
As he makes his rounds across the state, Governor Rick Scott and his little band of merrymakers are touting the $77 billion budget they just made for us, the News Service of Florida reports. Tuesday his budget director presented it to the House Appropriations Committee. But like we said last week, at least two billion of that might not even be there. That $2 billion was federal money earmarked in previous years for hospitals to help them care for low-income people. But that money is likely to go away next year. Democrats said it was a bad idea to include money that might not be there. "My concern is, are we being iscally irresponsible by including those dollars in this proposed budget when there is a very real chance and likelihood that those dollars will go away?" said Rep. Janet Cruz of Tampa, the top Democrat on the committee. The governor will tout his budget before a State Senate panel later today.
And finally, we have to give Reddit's Florida Man page credit for this one. Unlike most news sites, we'll say that up front. Technically this happened on Super Bowl Sunday, but news really got around on Tuesday of a guy in DeBary, which is near Deltona and of course Sanford, who was busted for capturing five small alligators with the intent of cooking them as part of a big game spread.
