The bill would convert public schools to charters.

​A bizarre showdown is unfolding in Tallahassee this week. Advocates for parents -- including the Florida PTA and Parents Across America --  are lobbying vehemently against a bill that's supposed to "empower them."

The proposed legislation would let parents vote to turn a failing public school into a charter school. Opponents say SB 1718, the "Parent Empowerment in Education" bill, is a thinly veiled attempt to expand charters in a state where the for-profit charter school business is already booming.

"This bill is a hoax to further privatize our public schools," Rita Solnet, a Palm BeachMore >>

Florida is shaped like a...

​Last night, Jon Stewart focused his beloved comic lens on the Florida GOP's recent decision to move its presidential primary date up from March to January. The Daily Show host gleefully ripped the state a new one for having the audacity to seek more power over the electoral process. And yes, he brought up hanging chads.More >>

r8pl8z.com

​It's hard to keep up with all of the valuable legislation being signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, so we've got the rundown of a few you might have missed:

State Sen. Gary Siplin finally got his wish -- no more asses hanging out at public schools.

Siplin has been trying to pass his "droopy drawers" law for years, and now it's on the books that repeat offenders of derriere exposition can face suspensions.

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flixya.com

​Sad news today for all of Florida's horse-humpers and goat-gropers -- you have only four more months to have sex with animals.

Gov. Rick Scott today signed the Legislature's anti-bestiality bill -- Senate Bill 344 -- which makes it illegal for humans to get jiggy with other members of the animal kingdom beginning October 1.

This was actually the third attempt by the Legislature to ban barnyard bangin', since legislators were convinced they were wasting their time on something that never happens.

Think again.

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Jesus is big in Florida.

​At the moment, the only proper school voucher program in Florida is the McKay Scholarship Program, which caters to special-needs kids. (A proposal for a more general voucher program was struck down in the Legislature six years ago.) But if you've got a nonspecial child, no money, and a burning desire to send your kid to a private school where she'll learn that Darwinism is right next door to Nazism or that dinosaurs were killed off by the Great Flood, then you've got options. (Remember: Whenever God closes a door, He opens a window.)

These options arise primarily thanks to Step Up for Students, which allows Florida corporations to channel money that would otherwise go to taxes into scholarships that work precisely like vouchers. Last year, according to a disturbing story that appeared today at Alternet, $140 million was disbursed through Step Up for Students, along with a few smaller (but very similar) programs. Of the students who take advantage of these funds, three quarters find themselves in schools with a religious bent to their teaching.

How religious?
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​The end of the world is supposed to come today, and if it does, it's a safe bet it'll somehow involve zombies.

If so, head to Okeechobee, where the Emergency Operations Center director prepared a 75-page plan on how to respond to a "zombie apocalypse."

Mike Faulkner told the Okeechobee News that his plan, replete with organizational charts and orders for every local resident and government agency on how to react, was simply a weekend project in preparing for disasters. Faulkner has since left for greener pastures at -- where else? -- FEMA. But his plan has taken off on the net, linked from Twitter and Facebook and soon, I'm sure, the subject of late-night talk shows.

Faulkner's zombie apocalypse has some good lessons for those who might soon face the undead. Such as:

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Harvey

​I hope Denise Harvey is too preoccupied with her own ongoing legal to dramas to keep abreast of the ones unfolding back home. Remember Denise? She was the 42-year-old Vero Beach baseball mom who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sleeping with a 16-year-old. Thusly sentenced, she did what any sane person would do: She hit the road. Early this year, authorities found her hiding out in Saskatchewan, where she's now fighting extradition. She may win. Good for her! (And bad for her bail bond company. Just yesterday, Barnett Bail Bands coughed up $150,000 on Harvey's account.)

If she's keeping abreast of the goings-on in Florida, what might she make of this story, published in Tuesday's Sun-Sentinel: "Drummer gets probation for sex with teen girl from band camp"?
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St. Francis Borgia was full of it, too.

​Our benighted federal prosecutors are in for a bumpy ride.

As of yesterday, a few of these unlucky do-gooders have been charged with the task of punishing three women arrested for performing expensive fake exorcisms. The women, who hail from Broward, are 36-year-old Polly Evans; her 22-year-old daughter, Olivia Evans; and Polly's 32-year-old sister, Bridgitte Evans. The exorcisms were performed via mail order, in the style of the latter-day Peter Popoff. A prospective mark received a letter saying something to the effect of: "Beware! You are under spiritual assault! Send money immediately!" Some folks did.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Evanses' exorcisms were fake. There is also no doubt in my mind that every other exorcism ever performed in the history of the species was equally fake. It is unclear what separates the Evanses' exorcisms from those performed by, say, certain atavistic priests, except that the Evanses are a little more gauche. (According to the Washington Post, one mark was told that her demons couldn't be exorcised until she ponied up a Rolex watch.)
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Jailbait.

​You can kill animals. You can eat animals. You can even torture animals -- and press charges against anybody who photographs you while you're at it. But you can't make sweet, sweet love to animals. Not anymore.

This is a sad week for Florida's zoophiles, for as I write this, there is a bill awaiting Rick Scott's signature that will outlaw what most people call "bestiality," and what zoophiles call "sex." And it won't just outlaw full-blown sex. It'll outlaw oral sex too. (The law is necessarily more ambiguous re: heavy petting.)
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Will he smite bad bloggers with his noodly appendage?

​Could the Sun-Sentinel's corporate overlords at Tribune Co. please explain why Barbara Hijek has a job? Could they please explain why a paper at which honest-to-goodness investigative reporters and serious editorialists were not long ago pressured into accepting a series of increasingly crappy buyouts is still ceding valuable front-page real estate to Hijek's odious blog, "FloriDUH," which exists to trivialize and make unfunny punch lines about serious and/or tragic news stories?

And why the hell is Hijek making snide comments about atheists? To my knowledge, atheists haven't made any snide comments about overemployed, undertalented bloggers. It seems unfair.

Today, the title of Hijek's blog was "Atheist woman charged with simulating sex act." Its target was Lakelander Ellenbeth Wachs. Wachs is legal coordinator of Atheists of Florida, and she was arrested Sunday for, ahem, "simulating sex acts in the presence of a 10-year-old boy." Which sounds bad, right?
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