Flash Slideshow

Fatalities Have Soared in Florida Since Repeal of Motorcycle Helmet Law

MELBOURNE, Florida — Motorcycle fatalities involving riders without helmets have soared in Florida in the nearly six years since Gov. Jeb Bush repealed the state's mandatory helmet law, a newspaper reported Sunday. A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found "unhelmeted" deaths in Florida rose from 22 in 1998 and 1999, the years before the helmet law repeal, to 250 in 2004, the most recent year of available data. Total motorcycle deaths in the state have increased 67 percent, from 259 in 2000 to 432 in 2004, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

Records, though, also show motorcycle registrations have increased 87 percent in Florida since Bush signed the helmet law repeal on July 1, 2000.

(So wait just a damn minute here. Deaths rose 67% and registrations rose 87%? Yet the headline screams that because of the law, riders are dying at a pace never seen before? Plus, the article only says "unhelmeted" deaths. Did any of those people die from injuries other than a head injury? A helmet doesn't protect your lungs, heart, bones or intestines.

If anybody stops to do the math the headline should read; "Unhelmeted Riders Are 20% safer than years before. The percentage of deaths of riders in Florida is plummeting.)

Yellowstone tourist dies in 500-foot fall

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyoming (AP) -- A woman lost her footing after stepping over a retaining wall to take a photograph and went over a cliff, falling 500 feet to her death in a canyon, Yellowstone National Park officials said.

(Retaining Wall: A wall of masonry used to keep soil or other material from in place, and from falling. A retaining wall (or bulkhead) is a structure to provide a barrier to downslope movement of soil, rock, or water. {Or humans?})

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Seethes U. Optician
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Citizenry R. Embankment
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(The spam also comes from some interesting characters. The unknown sender with no subject is a sure fire piece of mail that needs review.)

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(My spam gets better all the time.)

Police: man accidentally dies breaking into home

June 17, 2006 - Milwaukee police say a man apparently killed himself by accident as he tried to break into the home of his estranged wife early Saturday morning.

Police say the 46-year-old man punched through the woman's bedroom window and severed an artery in his upper arm. They say he collapsed in the street and bled to death about a half-block away. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

How the Chicks survived their scrap with Bush

...the group weathered the storm of outrage triggered by Maines's expression of shame that President Bush was from her home state of Texas...within days, their music vanished from the charts and the airwaves, apoplectic rednecks crushed piles of their CDs with tractors, and the FBI was feverishly monitoring death threats against the trio. "It was the bullying and the scare factor," shudders banjo and guitar player Robison. "It was like the McCarthy days, and it was almost like the country was unrecognisable." The Chicks can't hide their disgust at the lack of support they received from other country performers.

"A lot of pandering started going on, and you'd see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism."

"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."

A trifecta this month from the democrats. Hit a cop, no problem. Repeatedly get trashed on drugs and then drive into something, get a free ride home from the police. Take some bribes, get videotaped doing it, stash the cash in your home freezer (?) and get caught with that too...don't dare say anything about it or you're racist.

These are the people elected by the same voters who bring you such treats as Marion Barry and Ray Nagen. God save us.

Painkiller patch abuse blamed for deaths

ST. LOUIS - Justin Knox bit down on the bitter-tasting patch, instantly releasing three days' worth of a drug more powerful than morphine. He was dead before he even got to the hospital. At least seven deaths in Indiana and four in South Carolina since 2005 have been blamed on abuse of the fentanyl patch, along with more than 100 deaths in Florida in 2004. About a week after Knox's death in Farmington, Mo., in March, a second man in the same county was prescribed the patch legally and died after injecting himself with the gel that he had scraped from it.

House Dems Vote to Remove Jefferson from Committee Assignment

Jefferson has not been indicted and maintains his innocence. In remarks to reporters, he conceded that "serious allegations" swirl around him. The FBI claims that it videotaped the Louisiana Democrat last summer taking $100,000 in bribe money and that agents later found $90,000 of the funds stashed in a freezer in his home. Two men have pleaded guilty in the probe, including a former aid to the congressman and a businessman who admitted paying bribes to the lawmaker. Watt said that constituents of some lawmakers will adopt the view that race was a factor in the decision. "I think there are people who will say that's the basis," he said. Blacks are among the Democrats' most loyal voters.

Art gallery loses its head, displays plinth

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's most prestigious art galleries put a block of slate on display, topped by a small piece of wood, in the mistaken belief it was a work of art. But the slate was actually a plinth -- a slab on which a pedestal is placed -- and the stick was designed to prop up a sculpture. The sculpture itself -- of a human head -- was nowhere to be seen.

Cocaine killed prisoner, inquest told

A massive amount of cocaine killed a woman who was carrying concealed drugs while she was in police custody, a coroner's inquest heard Wednesday.

The inquest has heard Sanderson was carrying a bag of cocaine in her vagina the night she was arrested by Saskatoon city police and placed in cells.