The end of the year is approaching and the news columns and web sites of a hungry nation are filling up with weird Florida stories, each supposedly an illustration of the character, lifestyle and unholy preoccupations of our strange, strange state.
Florida's war on so-called "pill mill" pain clinics appears to be pushing the problem into Georgia.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2010, there were just 10 pain clinics in the state of Georgia. Today, there are more than 125 clinics and the state's per capita prescriptions of oxycodone has tripled in the last decade.
2012 may be remembered in Latin American for what didn't happen more than for what actually did, especially in Venezuela and Cuba.
VENEZUELA
The year began ominously for Venezuelan nationals living in South Florida. The U.S. State Department expelled the country's consul-general, alleging she was involved in a cyber-terrorism plot. In January, Venezuela's Miami consulate was shut down by President Hugo Chavez, who was facing a tough reelection campaign.
Of the eight new seats that Democrats picked up in the House of Representatives in November, four of them come from Florida.
Democrats were aided by a big turnout for President Obama, plus new rules that helped erase a Republican advantage in how districts are drawn in the Sunshine State.
But Florida led the nation with new death sentences for the year: 21, more than twice as many as Texas. California, with 14 death sentences, was the only other state to achieve a double-digit performance.
His big campaign pledge was 700-thousand jobs in seven years.
So, halfway through his term, how is Gov. Rick Scott doing with that?
The answer...it's complicated.
Unemployment has dropped from 11.4 percent in January, 2011, to 8.1 percent in November of this year. But almost half of the improvement is attributed to discouraged workers leaving the workforce.
GIMME SIX: Friendly kitten is part of the contingent of six-toed cats that live at the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West. They are now under federal protection.
The multitoed cats that have lived for decades in comfort and ease at Key West's Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum may continue to do so, a court has ruled.
But those cats will be protected and regulated by the U. S Department of Agriculture from here on out, just like any animals that are exhibited for a profit.
That's the puzzling upshot of a decision that has the famously independent city in an uproar and wondering if the decision can be appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Bill McBride, a lawyer and affable family man who succeeded almost everywhere but politics, died suddenly Saturday during a family Christmas gathering in Mount Airy, N. C.
McBride ran for governor against Republican Jeb Bush in 2002 and lost by 14 points.
Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has been all over the news this week. On Monday, responding to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, he said all remedies must be "on the table" legislatively, including allowing teachers and principals to arm themselves on school grounds.
On Tuesday, after his comments had been reported widely, Baxley issued a statement that this is a time to respect the victims. "Contrary to media reports, no specific proposals have been advanced or filed by me," he wrote.
Rufus, 46, now lives on an island in a Florida sanctuary run by Save the Chimps. Before his rescue, Rufus lived in a facility Save the Chimps calls "the dungeon."
