Just keep telling yourself it's not happening. Yesterday, a teen who got chomped on by one of the relentless hunters was the 15th victim of a shark attack in Volusia County, Fla, this year. "The boy was still in the emergency room early Friday afternoon, undergoing significant surgery. Hospital officials called it more than the average nip on the heel. They said the teen had serious cuts to the bottom of his foot, the top of his foot and his Achilles heel area."

Our Jezebel friends found this while looking for paparazzi photos. They were kind enough to share it with us! It is from Orange Country, Florida. It was, obviously, just paid for by some crazy local businessman. We appreciate how concise and polite it is. So much political debate is so strident these days, don't you think? This is a nice corrective. [Splash]

Florida governor Charlie Crist is maybe gay, but now he's engaged to a woman, so that he can be John McCain's Vice President. Brilliant GOP political operative Roger Stone explains: "Politics runs on rumors and innuendo, and questions about bachelorhood persist. Getting engaged takes that off the table." See? Now no one will ever call him gay again. Roger Stone's record of political genius continues! [PalmBeachPost]

Looks like you won't see former Radar (v. 2.0) investor and theoretical billionaire Jeffrey Epstein at Peggy Siegal's next party. The financier who surely doesn't have much time to finance what with all the massages and alleged raping he's doing is behind bars in Florida. He pleaded guilty to hiring underaged girls for sex and he'll spend 18 months in a Palm Beach jail (followed by a year under house arrest). The plea deal means the federal investigation against Epstein will be dropped, but now he is officially a registered sex offender. So now he'll only be allowed to expose himself to women procured by his assistant who merely look 14. [TSG]

This is why Google has spent a decade collecting and preserving all the information it can gather about everyone on Earth: so it can prove in a court of law that your neighbors are perverts. There's an obscenity trial going on down in Florida, where life itself is generally obscene, against an icky hardcore pornographer (first they came for CumOnHerFace.com, and I said nothing, because I preferred alt-porn). In an obscenity trial, the prosecutors must prove that the material is in violation of "community standards." This is, obviously, a ridiculous yardstick. Everyone who watches movies knows that just below the friendly surface of American Suburbia lies violence, depravity, secret gay neighbors, and Dean Stockwell in eyeshadow. But jurors like to pretend that they've never enjoyed a little Skinimax. This is where Google—and your deepest, darkest secrets—come into play!

Teenagers have always been complete jerks, but in the YouTube age, they have an unprecedented ability to share their jerky ways with the entire world. And then to get arrested for it. When two teenage jerks in (naturally) Florida videotaped themselves pulling a "Fire in the hole" prank—tossing a huge cup of soda through the window at a drive-through worker—and put it up on YouTube, the enterprising victim did some online detective work of her own and caught them. Now, a judge has sentenced the young punks to post another video of themselves on YouTube: "an apology that shows them facedown and handcuffed on the hood of a car." That's nice and everything, but even better would be an apology that shows them facedown after being beat up by angry fast food workers. (Florida McDonald's veteran here, thank you). Sometimes, too, teenage jerks get their comeuppance right when they try their stupid soda-tossing. Like this:

"Democratic Party leaders agreed Saturday to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes at this summer's convention with a compromise that left Barack Obama on the verge of the nomination but riled Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who threatened to fight to the August convention. 'Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,' said adviser Harold Ickes. Clinton's camp maintains she was entitled to four additional Michigan delegates."

Charlie Crist is the Republican governor of the great state of Florida. He is pretty popular out there. Less polarizing than Jeb Bush, certainly. And he's been named as a possible running mate for John McCain. There is just one problem. Everyone seems to think he's gay, for some crazy reason. "Some crazy reason," by the way, means "a 21-year-old Katherine Harris staffer who claimed he fucked Crist, and who went on the say that another Harris staffer was Crist's long-term partner." Crist denies everything. And now, conveniently, the heterosexual "Charlie Crist sex tape" (ugggghhhh) has surfaced. You'll never guess who's behind it!

Jews! They hate Obama! That's according to today's Times, in which we learn that Florida's Jews are almost as misinformed as West Virginia's everyone. Anyway—old Jewish retirees all think Obama is against Israel, even though he's just as solidly pro-whatever Israel wants as every other major American politician from either side of the aisle. What can Obama do to win them over?

Recount, the HBO film about the 2000 presidential election mess in Florida, premiers on HBO soon. It looks fiendishly entertaining if you are a nerd, like some of us. Primarily because OMG Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. The make-up! They even recreated the horse photos. Some people, though, are not so excited about this movie. Because they are characters in it. Specifically Warren Christopher, a respected elder of the Democratic party, who is portrayed as a spineless pussy. He is played by John Hurt in goofy (but accurate) prosthetics. Christopher was the "public face of the Gore team" and the film basically shows how he played fair while Bush's fixer, James Baker, waged war. All of this is public record, but Christopher's pissed anyway, saying the filmmakers distort the story. Baker, on the other hand, is hosting a damn screening of the film at his think tank. He says the film makes him out to be "a little more like Don Corleone" than he really is, but that is actually a dark and depressing joke. He's worse than Don fucking Corleone, because Don Corleone was pretend. Oh hey, the trailer's after the jump.

• "Zoo managers have been forced to call in the FBI after their main switchboard was jammed with people calling asking to speak to 'Mr G Raff' and a host of other animal names." [Textually]
  

This billboard simply appeared one night last month in Orange County, Florida, and greatly upset passersby, as well as the owners of "the popular Straub's Seafood Restaurant," who feared that they could be mistaken for the billboard's owner. Straub's business was nevertheless down by two-thirds on the Sunday after the sign went up. "When you condemn all religions and say they are a fairytale, that is wrong," explained one business owner. The sign ended up being taken down—turns out "someone put it up illegally in the middle of the night." Satan? Click through for a bigger picture.

Mississippi votes tonight. They will probably go for Obama. Basically all that matters, though, is Pennsylvania, on April 22, and to a lesser extent North Carolina, in early May. Clinton will probably win Pennsylvania. Obama will probably with North Carolina. If Hillary wins North Carolina too, though, Barack is in deep shit. If she doesn't, the convention (August 25) will be 1968-style madness. If Michigan and Florida get a do-over, Obama should probably rethink his "I won't be your vice president" stance. Florida Governor Charlie Crist—a possible McCain running mate—would like a do-over, which should tell you how McCain thinks his chances are against Hillary. The Democrats will probably end up with some compromise that will upset everyone. Also, the governor of New York slept with a prostitute.

Terrible news: America's Mayor, Mr. 9/11, twice-divorced opera-loving cross-dressing gay roommate-having Manhattan dandy Rudy Giuliani has dropped out of the race for the presidency after a dismal third place finish in the Florida primary, where he campaigned more and spent more money than any other candidate. He will focus instead on increasing his terrible blood-soaked fortune with speaking gigs and his near-criminal consulting firm. He will endorse insane old man John McCain. [NYT]

The first civil suit against alleged former Radar investor and theoretical billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is underway! An anonymous 14-year-old girl is suing Epstein for $50 million for various terrible, terrible things. Epstein, you see, (allegedly!) enjoys the company of destitute young teenagers. According to Jane Doe, an Epstein associate would offer the girls $200 to $300 for performing a simple massage on a creepy billionaire. When they arrived in his bedroom, Epstein would "remove his towel, lay down naked on the massage table, and direct the girl to remove her clothes. He then would perform one or more lewd, lascivious and sexual acts, including masturbation and touching the girl's vagina with a vibrator." Then he would pay them. Don't worry, Epstein fans: Page Six has been on top of this story since well before day one and they already peremptorily attacked the credibility of any girl anywhere who might eventually come forward with similar stories. [Radar]

I'm in Miami right now! Aren't you jealous? Probably not—it's 50 degrees in New York today. Also, there has never been anything more overrated than spending Holidaytime in a sunny, palm-tree infested place. It just feels wrong.

Nothing says "good job" like a heart attack, we always say. So we were thrilled to learn that "last week, students in Seminole County, Florida apparently received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior or attendance." IS NOTHING SACRED?

Somehow, the state of Florida will have to assemble a jury of maybe-millionaire and probably-perv Jeffrey Epstein's peers—because Radar hears he's backed out of his plea deal arrangement and wants a jury trial on his prostitution charge! Oooooh doggie! The money manager has also been accused of frequent touching of teen gals as well. Not to be gleeful at other people's misfortunes—plus, how can prostitution be a crime in a whoretopia like Florida?—but this is gonna be AWESOME.

So we caught up with our old college friend Ben while we were on vacation last week, and he excitedly informed us they'd he'd recently made it onto Overheard in New York. He'd been in New York and hadn't called? No, Ben explained, it was actually Brian's story; Ben thought it would be good for Overheard and so submitted it. Brian lives in New York now? No, Ben continued, Brian lives in Florida. So how did Brian's story, not-actually-overheard in Florida by Ben, make it onto Overheard in New York. "Oh, said I heard it in Central Park." Ben smiled.

We understand that we might but not be the best arbiters of such matters, but are we the only ones sort of astonished by this tourist-bureau ad?