It is not surprising that radio host Rush Limbaugh is pushing conspiracy theories over alleged mail bomber Cesar Sayoc. His insinuation seems to be that Sayoc's van is some kind of fraud, because the bumper stickers from the blurry pictures we've seen haven't faded in the south Florida sun.

Limbaugh, after all, is a Floridian. And Florida is both a place of great beauty and great absurdity.

Just as the Sunshine State has some of the nation's finest hotels and hospitals and is home to some of the country's most successful entrepreneurs and athletes, it's also a place of particular oddities: a sweltering realm of alligator-carrying liquor store customers, of drug dealers who ask police officers to test their product, of people who ride around swamps on hovercraft. The Reddit page "WTF Florida" is a testament to this predictably unpredictable side of the state.

Having lived in Florida myself, I can attest to its absurdities. While working at a bar, I frequently encountered some interesting folks. One time, I was propositioned by a married woman who was dining with her husband. Another time, I escorted an intoxicated gentleman off the premises. He turned, smiled at me, and then threw a punch. Fortunately, I dodged the punch and then tackled him. Another time, someone randomly told me that they had developed taser-attached knuckle dusters to defend themselves in their neighborhood. I did not seek this information, but the purveyor of it was proud of his apparent invention.

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While at a happy hour event at a bar, I once debated with a group of older and otherwise successful folks as to the causes of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I suggested the cause was that which all the evidence suggested it was: a catastrophic system failure. My compatriots at the bar, however, suggested that a U.S. Navy attack submarine had fired a torpedo at the rig. Their contention was that President Barack Obama had ordered the rig destroyed so as to move the public consensus against the energy extraction industry. What was striking was not simply that they suggested this was possible, but that they weren't terribly worried about it. One might think that using the U.S. military for domestic terrorism would be problematic for any patriotic mind?

Not in Florida. Because in Florida, conspiracies are as natural as alligators — something to be at once feared and loved. This is not to say that Floridians are bad. On the contrary, the vast majority are kind, outgoing, and interesting people. But Florida is certainly the world's most weird and wonderful place.