Barack Obama's return to Missouri is heralded with two exclamation points on the front page. Then they all lit a cigarette:
This is why the Irish invented wakes:
A woman charged in the drunken-driving death of her son went to a bar after his funeral instead of reporting back to jail, state police said.A judge had given Erin Howard, 26, of Corry, permission to leave the Erie County Prison for 24 hours to attend her son's funeral in Ohio, with orders to return to the lockup by 3 p.m. Saturday.
Instead, Howard went to a bar in Hamilton, Ohio, about a mile from the church where the funeral for 6-year-old Samuel Carpenter was held, police said.
Calls to Howard's public defender went unanswered after business hours Monday.
Howard had been in prison in lieu of $75,000 bail on charges that she was driving drunk when she crashed into a creek bank near Corry, killing Samuel on June 14 — her 26th birthday.
Pennsylvania police found out Sunday morning that Howard had been arrested in Ohio after her son's father allegedly tipped off authorities to her whereabouts. She was being held in Ohio awaiting extradition to Erie.
Howard has now been charged with escape in addition to involuntary manslaughter, drunken driving, child endangerment and other charges related to the crash.
By the time police hauled her out of the bar, she was already nine hours past due for heading back from her furlough. I bet the sob story about the kid was getting her massive free rounds.
Via reader Owen comes a link to a story out of Central Florida about unidentified male who lost life and limb (both of his arms) in a gator's watery eating establishment, along with the question "Is this Adrian Apgar?"
I'd have to say that while Mr. Apgar is indeed well-known for his repeated attempts to feed himself to alligators in that neck of the woods, judging from the sketch and description, it's not him. Since it's not Adrian, then that only leaves the obvious: the deceased was a fellow who went and saw the "Sex and the City" movie with his girlfriend and thought wrestling naked with an alligator was the only way to get his manhood back.
I suggest the authorities take the victim's sketch around to movie theaters.
Last year Casselberry police officer Andrea Eichhorn tried to sue a family for a slip and fall on a wet floor at the scene of a drowning. She was fired for embarrassing herself. Currently a Mount Dora paramedic and her lawyer is hoping to find a treasure chest in a hole in a yard:
When firefighters rushed Steuart Baker's mother to the hospital in May 2005, he never expected anyone to sue her.Elizabeth Baker, now 84, has moved into an assisted-living facility. But her son continues trying to fend off the lawsuit filed against his mother by a firefighter-emergency medical technician with Lake County Fire Rescue.
Jennifer Roland claims she suffered back and neck injuries when the front left wheel of a fire engine broke through the lid of an old septic tank in front of Elizabeth Baker's house in Mount Dora.
The lawsuit, filed a year ago in Circuit Court, seeks unspecified damages of more than $15,000.
From the start, Steuart Baker said, he's been upset that a paramedic would sue a patient.
"Police officers, firemen, paramedics are public servants," he said.
"If I call a paramedic and they hurt themselves they'll sue me? That wasn't how public service was intended."
I predict this will all end badly for Miss Roland, but she should keep a positive attitude about her post-paramedic life and hopefully one day she'll find that severed finger in a bowl of restaurant chili she's been dreaming of.
Repost: A Layla-shirted Duane wouldn't say no to the VP slot.
Wail on, Skydog!
What a debacle of a primary this has been:
Florida Democrats' long months in the political wilderness are over: They will get a say in the history-making Democratic nominating convention after a testy daylong hearing Saturday that belied party leaders' calls for unity.The decision by a rules panel of the Democratic National Committee was a harsh setback for Hillary Clinton: Both Florida's and Michigan's delegates will be counted, but each delegate will only get a half-vote, netting Clinton far fewer delegate votes than she sought.
Both states had been punished last summer for holding unsanctioned early primaries and both appealed to the national party Saturday to bring them back into the fold.
Under the deal -- reached after hours of bickering and backroom negotiations -- every one of Florida's 211 delegates will go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August. Clinton, who won Florida's Jan. 29 primary, will net 19 more votes (38 delegates each with half a vote) than rival Barack Obama.
Clinton's campaign, which had pleaded earlier in the day with the committee to seat all of the delegates with full votes, hailed the results, calling them a ``victory for the people of Florida.''
Florida Democratic Party chief Karen Thurman said the ruling puts Florida Democrats on an ''equal footing'' with Florida Republicans, who were also penalized for holding an early primary and delighted in tormenting Florida Democrats for their voteless plight.
''Because it is an important step toward winning Florida in November, both the Clinton and Obama campaigns support this decision,'' Thurman said.
But Clinton's backers in the hotel ballroom where the rules committee met greeted the deals with howls. Another sign that scars from the feud won't fade anytime soon: U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a national co-chairman of Clinton's Florida campaign, said he would boycott the national convention. It was a dramatic commentary on the right to vote by a black congressman, who called the national party ``stupid.''
As tricky as Florida's dispute was to resolve, Michigan's conflict was even thornier. Obama took his name off the state's ballot, giving voters a choice between Clinton and ''uncommitted.'' The Clinton campaign argued that he voluntarily removed his name and shouldn't get any delegates; his campaign pushed for splitting the delegates evenly.
The committee agreed on a compromise offered by Michigan Democrats to split the difference, giving Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59, with half a vote each, netting Clinton five more votes than Obama in Michigan.
The compromise decision that essentially took delegates away from Clinton infuriated her campaign, with Harold Ickes, a top advisor who serves on the DNC rules committee, icily telling his colleagues the deal ''hijacked'' four delegates from Clinton.
''Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee,'' Ickes said, signaling the campaign may push the matter up to the nominating convention.
Clinton supporters chanted ''Denver! Denver! Denver!'' suggesting some activists are itching for a fight on the convention floor, though most Democratic leaders say such a battle would devastate the party's chances in November.
Even with the additional delegates from Florida and Michigan, the odds of Clinton overtaking Obama's lead are long and her supporters in the audience erupted into a chorus of boos and jeers when a motion to fully restore Florida's votes failed.
''This isn't unity,'' one man shouted from the floor. ''You just took away votes,'' one woman yelled.
''Please don't do what people expect us to do,'' committee member Alice Huffman said as protesters shouted and hissed, sometimes drowning out the committee members. ``We will leave here more united than when we came. . .''
''Lipstick on a pig,'' came a catcall.
The arcane debate over the party's bureaucratic nominating rules were a sharp contrast to the campaign buttons, American flags and appeals plastered on activists' T-shirts in the back of the room: ``Count Our Votes.''
The politicians invoked calls of voter disenfranchisement and recalled the 2000 presidential campaign in Florida to push for the delegations to be heard.
But for the dueling Democratic campaigns, the more important question was how the delegates would be divvied up and common ground did not come easily.
Clinton's campaign argued that she should net 39 more delegates than Obama out of Florida. But it was more than the state party requested and more than the DNC's own lawyers recommended.
Obama, emboldened by his near-grasp of the nomination, was able to abandon his previous opposition to the states' votes, and his representative, Rep. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton, made what he called an ''extraordinary concession'' -- offering Clinton the 19-vote lead to ``promote reconciliation with Florida voters.''
The co-chairs of the committee, Alexis Herman and James Roosevelt, defended the crackdown as helping to prevent other states from moving up their primaries.
Several committee members seemed to believe that last summer's decision to punish the two states was wrong and that the primary calendar needs changes. Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson has filed a bill to establish rotating regional primaries; its outlook is uncertain.
But many had shorter time periods in mind.
''If we turn our back on Michigan or Florida, we'll be flirting with a McCain victory,'' former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard said.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean anticipated the rancor in his opening statement, but tried to cast it as a sign of Democratic intensity.
''The cynics will look at today and see only conflict,'' said Dean, who has been criticized for not doing more to resolve the situation. ``They will not realize that your energy, your passion for your candidates and your enthusiasm -- demonstrate that our party is strong enough to struggle and disagree, be angry, disappointed and still come together at the end of the day and even be united.''
Well, I hope Florida voters on all sides made their half-a-vote count.
