R.I.P. van Winkle

CATSKILL MOUNTAINS (Roto Reuters) Rip Van Winkle died last night of heart failure in a hospice in the Catskill mountains due to severe dehydration. Mr. Van Winkle had been in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) for close to twenty years with no chance of recovery. He was discovered by Mrs. Van Winkle in a green knoll with the smell of alcohol on his body and has been sleeping ever since. Mrs. Van Winkle petitioned the courts to stop caring for him since it was extremely unlikely that he would wake up after twenty years.

Pro-life groups have called into contention Mrs. Van Winkle motives who has been described as having a "tart temper." Her story that her husband stumbled upon a group of short men who were partying and wearing old fashioned dutch clothing they contend does not bear up up to close scrutiny. Mrs. Van Winkle told the courts that once while watching a fairy tale on television that her husband had said that if he was “ever enticed to drink extraordinarily strong drink by a group of dutch midgets which puts him to sleep for years on end” that he didn’t want to live that way. [Full Story]