Yeah, OK, we ought to have paper-trail electronic voting (or, even better,
optical scan). Yeah, OK, Sec'y of State Harris in 2000 was an
over-the-top-partisan. Still, how many more close races will it take before
all you right-tail (of high-intelligence distribution on the Bell Curve)
Democrats consider the possibility that maybe your left-tail people (i.e.,
your really stupid voters) are stupider than Republicans' left-tail voters?
You articulate Democrats say the problem is "ballot design"! It was the
"butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County in 2000 (crowding all the
Presidential names together so that stupid Gore voters went for Pat
Buchanan). It was the exact opposite of the butterfly ballot in Duval and
central-Florida optical-scan counties in 2000 (listing all the Presidential
names over three pages and enticing stupid page-1 Gore voters to also mark
pages 2 and 3). And now it's having two races on one page in the
Buchanan-Jennings Congressional race in Sarasota in 2006 that might have
caused Jennings voters not to notice it. Oh, those poor voters were so
confused! Yr Editor's been writing News of the Weird for too long to
blame on institutional imperfection that which is easily explained by human
stupidity. [Associated Press via South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Lookee How Cool a Parent I Am! My Little Girl Doesn't Just Get Hats and
Noisemakers for Her Birthday Party!
Francisco Unanue, an executive with Goya Foods, hired Wild Animal World for
a one-hour show at his 7-yr-old's b-day last month in Coral Gables,
including a prance-around by Georgia the cougar. But a 4-yr-old startled the
cat and got chomped on, which is the third big-cat attack at a WAW show in 7
yrs. Georgia is no longer with us, in that her head had to be examined for
rabies (none), which I guess she has to be dead for. The attending trainer
at poolside was Corinne Oltz, whose resume; lists bond-brokerage and
modeling, and unless she has better liability insurance that I have on my
car, she'll be back in one of those businesses soon. [Miami Herald]
Floridians With Worse Sex Lives Than You
Christmas shopping season as prime time: Jon Fletcher, 31, was arrested at a
Kmart in Davie last week with his little minicam concealed in a baseball cap
he was dangling from his hand, doing up-skirts for his later viewing
pleasure. [Miami Herald]
Your Daily Loser
Dale Fulwood finally made bail on his child-porn charge. (Jeez, what
Floridian doesn't have child porn these days?) Fulwood is also the
guy whose 6-yr-old daughter was found dead in September after supposedly
having been kidnapped (a crime for which no one has been arrested). Police in
North Port continue to "urge" the public not to draw any connections at all
between the crimes. OK. I won't. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
More Things To Worry About Today
A U.S. House of Representatives ethics report on who knew about the
proclivities of the departed Mark Foley noted that the Speaker and other
high-ups were in the car but that no one was driving [Washington Post] . . .
. . A 5th-grader did informal classroom show-and-tell with his grandma's
Xanax [Naples Daily News] . . . . . Robert Green commandeered a garbage
truck and led police in a chase (a very, very slow chase) through Orlando,
Maitland, and Altamonte Springs, driving on rims after they flattened his
tires [WKMG-TV (Orlando)] . . . . . Fort Myers's Yonel Coulange, 17, hit the
electronic daily double: He stole a cops' bait car (equipped with GPS) while
he was wearing an ankle monitor from a previous crime [WBBM-TV (Fort Myers)]
. . . . . More electronics: It'll come down to experts' examining the audio
tape to find out if U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen actually said she would
"welcome" the assassination of Castro, or whether it was a splice job [Miami
Herald] . . . . . Newly elected Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White
has been OK'd to pack heat in his office but not in commission meetings
(notwithstanding the temptation) [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . Speaking
of guns in Hillsborough County, sheriff's deputy-recruit Steve Carmack is OK
now after somehow managing to shoot himself in the leg at the department
firing range (but since he's just a recruit, he might be joining Corinne
Oltz in the bond-brokerage business soon) [Tampa Tribune] . . . . . Mr.
Shannon Robinson, 23, is serving a 26-yr sentence for child porn, but
luckily for him, he managed to assault a 9-yr-old boy just before he got
caught, so even though he'll be in prison now for the rest of his life, the
judge still ordered him chemically castrated, meaning he won't get as
frustrated as all the other lifers [Naples Daily News].
