I love this story because there’s so much wrong with it! I’m waiting for the Lifetime Movie: “My Dead Husband’s Canoe Amnesia”? “Canoe to the Panama Canal”? And his name? Darwin!

Family of missing canoeist go into hiding

The family of the “back-from-the-dead” canoeist John Darwin were in hiding as the mystery into his disappearance deepened. The 57-year-old former prison officer walked into a police station in London on Saturday, five years after he was presumed dead at sea in a canoeing accident in Hartlepool, and claimed he knew nothing of what had happened to him.

Mr Darwin’s wife, Anne, who sold the family home and emigrated to Panama in September, is being traced by authorities but removed her details from websites. She is known to have an active internet connection in Panama City. Their two sons, Mark, 31, and Anthony, 29, are believed to be with their father at a house in Basingstoke.

They have declined offers from police to stage a press conference or release a statement.

Meanwhile Mr Darwin’s brother and father said they have still not heard from him - more than 48 hours since he went to police and told them: “I think I am a missing person”.

Speculation grew in the neighbourhood of Mr and Mrs Darwin’s last home, in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.

Councillor David Young said: “It’s very strange.”

Cleveland Police have been drawing up a list of key questions they want to put to Mr Darwin to piece together the past five years before they question him.

It is not known if Mr Darwin’s life had been insured or if any money was claimed.

Police will check any life insurance policies and examine financial, phone and email records as part of their investigation.

Details of Mrs Darwin’s known address in Panama have also been passed to police and it is understood that Foreign Office officials are trying to contact her.

She sold two properties this year, the first for £160,000 and the second ? the family home ? for £295,000.

Mr Darwin’s aunt Margaret Burns, 80, revealed how he boasted he owned 17 houses and “would be a millionaire by the time he was 50″.

Mr Darwin, a science teacher (!) for 18 years who went on to work for a bank and as a prison officer, had gone canoeing in high winds when he was reported missing. His disappearance sparked a huge search.

DALLAS (Reuters Life!) - More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday. It is the latest survey to highlight America’s deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world.

It also helps explain many of its political battles which Europeans find bewildering, such as efforts to have “Intelligent Design” theory — which holds life is too complex to have evolved by chance — taught in schools alongside evolution.

The poll of 2,455 U.S. adults from Nov 7 to 13 found that 82 percent of those surveyed believed in God, a figure unchanged since the question was asked in 2005.

It further found that 79 percent believed in miracles, 75 percent in heaven, while 72 percent believed that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Belief in hell and the devil was expressed by 62 percent.

Read more of the bad news here.

Patterico pees himself, a la Roger Simon, after John Cole mocks Patty’s stupid post on the hypothetical morality of waterboarding with a hypothetical kick in the balls.

Cole points out that both posts involved hypothetical, not real, physical confrontation:

Patterico- it was just a hypothetical, boss. And just like your hypothetical, neither is rooted in reality (not to mention the hypothetical never even mentioned you).

To which Pattycakes responds by making the stupidest blogging comment evar:

But there?s nothing irresponsible about talking to that crowd about committing violent acts on conservatives. I?m sure if Michelle Malkin ever did the reverse ? ?mocking? a liberal by talking about kicking him, while addressing an audience predisposed to think liberals are less than human ? John Cole would take it in stride as just joshin?.

Of course, that would never happen. Because Michelle Malkin has far more class than John Cole ever will.

We are speechless. “Class” doesn’t even begin to describe Malkin. Calling Malkin “classy” is like calling Shaq O’Neal “bulemic” or Michael Ledeen “peacenik.”

Father of the Week:

Michigan boy, 13, charged with drunken driving
Police say dad, too drunk to drive, gave keys of truck to his son

CLIO, Michigan - A police officer checking on a truck that got stuck in the mud at a city park was startled to find a 13-year-old boy behind the wheel. The boy’s father, who was sitting in the passenger seat, told police he had had too much to drink and let his son drive. The boy had been drinking, too, police said. “(The boy) even said he didn’t want to drive because he was too drunk,” McLellan told The Flint Journal for a story published Thursday.

President of the Week:

Mugabe paid witch doctor in
‘gas from rocks’ scam

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — President Robert Mugabe has said ministers at a Cabinet meeting he agreed to pay two head of cattle and three buffaloes to a woman who claimed she could produce gasoline out of rocks, the official media reported Friday. Mugabe later ordered the woman’s arrest on fraud charges.

The Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, reported the woman claiming to be a tribal healer, known in the West as a witch doctor, also took large sums of money, a car and a piece of land from the nation’s highest ranking politicians, promising in return to use spells to produce diesel fuel from rocks in the bush outside the provincial town of Chinhoyi, 70 miles northwest of Harare.

Instead of invoking spirits, the woman bought diesel and piped it into the rocks, the newspaper reported.

Well, it’s really the same as this, isn’t it?

Governor of the Week:

Ga. Governor Prays for Rain at Capitol
ATLANTA - Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue stepped up to a podium outside the state Capitol on Tuesday and led a solemn crowd of several hundred people in a prayer for rain on his drought-stricken state.

“We’ve come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm,” Perdue said after a choir provided a hymn.

Perdue also let us know just why Georgia is having this problem: it’s the damned shellfish. That’s right:

Gov. Sonny Perdue says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been allowing Georgia’s water to flow to endangered mussels and other species in Florida and thereby preventing state residents from sprinkling their yards and hosing down their cars.

“I’m telling you, when it comes to choosing between mussels and drinking water for children, I’m about fed up with this mess,” Perdue said after declaring an emergency this month as Atlanta’s main source of water dropped to what the state said was a 90-day supply.

Bitchfight of the Week, cont’d:

In his final assessment, Fabio told OK! ?You have to be a low-class, scumbag to start calling a woman a name. If you?re a man, you should never. You should be a gentleman. These women were with me and as a man I defend them. He [Clooney] was lucky he ran out of the restaurant. He?s not even half a man.?

Cult of the Week:

And if a Doomsday cult threatens suicide, doesn’t everyone win?

President Bush, November 8, 2007:

“If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you’d be saying, god, I love freedom — because that’s what’s happened. “

Except if you lived in Iraq, you might not be living in Iraq, because you were one of the hundred(s) of thousands of people killed by the violence there, or one of the 1.2 million Iraqis who have fled the country.

Or you might be one of the 2.3 million internally displaced Iraqis, who have been chased from their homes by ethnic cleansing. In which case, you might be saying, “I wish I still had a home.”

Or you might be a newly orphaned child saying, “I miss my Mommy and Daddy!”:

My guess: whatever she is saying, it’s not “God, I love freedom!”

I guess if you work for the DHS, a black man in prison stripes not in jail is original:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The employee who wore what some said was a racially insensitive Halloween costume to a party hosted by a top immigration official is being directed by the Homeland Security Department Secretary to take administrative leave.

Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called the man’s costume “offensive.” The employee’s leave will continue while a Department inquiry is conducted, according to Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The employee wore a striped prison outfit, dreadlocks and darkened skin make-up to the party hosted by Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Myers was on a three-judge panel that originally praised the prisoner costume for “originality.”

After some employees complained, Myers apologized for “a few of the costumes,” calling them “inappropriate and offensive.” She said she and other senior managers “deeply regret that this happened.” A department photographer took a picture of Myers with the man, but the photograph or photographs, originally posted online, were deleted after it was determined the costume was offensive, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said.

How long before those photos get circulated?

Nantel said one employee, whom she declined to identify, was wearing a black-and-white striped prison outfit, dreadlocks and a skin “bronzer” intended “to make him look African-American.” But, she said, it was not immediately apparent that he was wearing the make-up.

“Most people in the room didn’t realize he was wearing make-up at all,” she said.

In a November 2 email to ICE employees, Myers said, “It is now clear that, however unintended, a few of the costumes were inappropriate and offensive. While we were all thrilled to be a part of the CFC fund-raising effort, I and the senior management at ICE deeply regret that this happened.”

She reminded all employees to be compliant with the department’s diversity training requirement.

… so next time, add some diversity to your prisoner outfits.

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