Headline of the Day: Drinking and Microwaving Don't Mix?

By: E&P Staff Who could resist a story that is topped by, "Defense: Arnold too drunk to put baby in microwave."

It comes on the web site of the Dayton Daily News today, and the opening of the story (at www.daytondailynews.com) follows.
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China Arnold was so intoxicated that she could not have placed her baby into a microwave, a defense witness testified Friday.

Robert F. Belloto said the Arnold's blood-alcohol concentration would have peaked at .33, or about four times the legal limit, a number he obtained through a calculation of Arnold's height and weight.

Belloto is a staff pharmacist at Good Samaritan Hospital.

During cross examination by Assistant Montgomery County Prosecutor David Franceschelli, Belloto said his estimated was based in part on Arnold's claim to him that she drank about 40 percent of a pint off 151 Rum in about 90 minutes the night before Paris Talley died.

Arnold told him this in an interview two years after Talley's death.

Belloto could provide no other corroboration for Arnold's claim and said he assumed it was true.