Only in Florida

I've long contended that no state has more craziness than Florida. Whether it's tabloid queens OD'ing or diaper-clad astronauts attacking colleagues, we've got it over everyone else.

And here's more evidence:

Jennifer Smith tried to keep the peace at her hard-won state job by removing the Confederate-flag tag and a pair of stars-and-bars fuzzy dice from her SUV that she parks at the Department of Health every morning.

But when her bosses told her to get rid of a ribald warning to tailgaters, the rebel in her surfaced. If the state fired her over it, Smith said Monday, she would find a lawyer and make it a free-speech showdown.

The red-letter message in her rear window proclaims, "If you're riding my ass you'd better be pullin' my hair."

When the department realized Monday that Smith wasn't just whistling Dixie, its order to remove the sticker was gone with the wind.

"I stood up for my rights, and that's what matters to me," Smith said.

[...]

She went home to Woodville, thought about it a lot during the weekend and decided to stand like the old men, boys and soldiers at the nearby Natural Bridge battle site, who kept Tallahassee from being taken in the last weeks of the Civil War. Smith said she likes her coworkers but fears someone wanted to keep finding things to criticize.

The Confederate flag front license plate bore the touching message, "Jennifer loves Snuffy." "Which is my husband," Jennifer ungrammatically felt compelled to emphasize.

Like I said ... only in Florida.

UPDATE (7:13 pm 5/22/07): More "Only in Florida" ... this time it's a crimestoppers bulletin (PDF) for condom thieves.

Um, okay. Glad to see what the priorities are in Polk County.