Aw, Darn

They’re covering ‘em up in Daytona Beach, says the Court: No Nudes in Daytona.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Erotic dancers in adult bars in most parts of this Spring Break city are going to have to wear as much clothing as most people on the beach.

A federal appeals court upheld municipal zoning and nudity ordinances on Thursday after the city and Lollipops Gentlemen’s Club made their cases before the court on March 23.

“The bottom line is the 11th Circuit Court (of Appeals) upheld the city’s authority to enforce its zoning regulations and public nudity ordinance with regard to the adult entertainment establishments,” City Attorney Bob Brown said.

Here’s the part that made me chuckle:

In other words, dancers at adult clubs that serve liquor are required to wear conservative bikinis. G-strings and pasties won’t be enough to meet that requirement, the court said.

Har far we’ve come…

Bikinis are considered conservative dress. Who knew?

No. 750

Barry Bonds hits career homer No. 750…

Bonds hit No. 750 on Friday night to lead off the eighth inning against the Diamondbacks at AT&T Park, placing him five away from tying Hank Aaron’s magic 755 and six away from passing him for the lead on Major League Baseball’s all-time list.

…but after after a fan walks up to him at his left field position…

The blast off Arizona right-hander Livan Hernandez came only an inning after a male fan, identified by San Francisco police as Andrew B. Clapp, 24, and a tourist from Fargo, N.D., trotted out to left field and appeared to chat with Bonds while he was trying to play his position. Bonds casually put his arm on the fan’s shoulder and walked him off the field toward the left-field foul line where they were met by security. Bonds never seemed in danger and no security ventured into fair territory during the incident.

“He just wanted to shake my hand,” Bonds told MLB.com in the hallway outside the clubhouse after the Giants dropped a 4-3, 10-inning decision. “I told him to come with me so he didn’t get into any more trouble.”

When asked if he had felt threatened at any time during the episode, Bonds said, “No.”

The incident occurred with Giants starter Matt Morris nursing a one-ball count on D-backs second baseman Orlando Hudson. There was one out and a runner on first in the top of the seventh when the fan hopped over the low fence by the Giants bullpen down the left-field line and walked unencumbered over to Bonds.

…which unnerved some of his teammates.

Several of the Giants said they were a bit shaken by the incident that occurred during their third loss in a row and 14th in their last 19 games.

“When guys go out there, you never know what their intentions are,” said center fielder Dave Roberts, who dropped a fly ball later in the inning, allowing two unearned runs to score on the error. “I’m just happy Barry’s safe.”

“It’s pretty scary,” pitcher Barry Zito said. “You never know with these kinds of things. I didn’t see it. I was up here [in the clubhouse] when it happened. But I heard Barry really kept his cool and handled it very well.”

Yes, he did.

Besides the HR milestone, if Barry plays another year (and I fully expect him to do so, according to interview comments he’s made this season) he now is only 102 hits away from 3,000. Passing that mark would allow Bonds to join Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Rafael Palmeiro in a very exclusive club: players with 500 HRs and 3000 hits.

Government Mandate

Maybe London, a city that gouges car theft victims $210 per incident to investigate, should adapt the Winnipeg approach: City demands immobilizers on high-risk cars.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Drivers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, one of Canada’s worst cities for auto thefts, will have to install electronic immobilizers on new or “high-risk” cars in order to qualify for auto insurance, the province said on Wednesday.

Or maybe they can enforce the laws already on the books!

Stupid Girl(s)

The lede is the only line you need to read from this story:

Two German teenagers robbed a girl but accidentally left their own pictures behind for police on a discarded mobile phone.

Cue Garbage: “Stu-uuu-pid Girl(s)!”

And Here I Thought You Were Giving Me A Compliment

From Reason’s Brickbats:

Starting July 1, anyone wishing to buy beer in a Tennessee convenience store or supermarket will have to show photo ID. In an effort to stamp out underage drinking, lawmakers have required that everyone – no matter how gray, bald or wrinkled – must prove they are over 21. They say it will get clerks into the habit of routinely asking for ID.

I still get carded now that I’m twice the legal age, and I took it as a compliment. Now, stores are “carding everyone to offend no one,” but I’m still offended because carding is no longer a compliment.

Not an Easy Mark

Just because a man is over 70 doesn’t mean they can’t handle themselves, as one dude found out: Ex-Marine Teaches Pickpocket a Lesson.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) – Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.

He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.

“I guess he thought I was an easy mark,” Barnes, 72, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Tuesday.

First off, there is no such thing as an ex-Marine, as any retired Marine will tell you. They are former Marines. Some still consider themselves Marines, simply no longer in the Armed Forces.

Second, the former Marine was also a Golden Gloves boxer before his military service.

Third (if the first two wasn’t enough) the former Marine and Golden Gloves boxer is a retired 20-year ironworker.

Jesse Daniel Rae, the 27-year-old Newaygo County man accused of trying to pick Barnes’ pocket, was arraigned Monday in Rockford District Court on one count of unarmed robbery, a 15-year felony.

Barnes said he had just withdrawn the money from a bank machine and put it in the pocket of his shorts before driving to the Marathon service station and Next Door Food Store in Comstock Park, a Grand Rapids suburb.

He remembers noticing a patron acting suspiciously, asking the price of different brands of cigarettes and other items. While turned away, Barnes felt the hand in his pocket, so he took action.

“I guess I acted on instinct,” he said.

Kent County sheriff’s deputies said the store manager quickly came around the counter. The three of them struggled through the front door, where two witnesses said the manager slammed Rae to the ground and held him there.

“There was blood everywhere,” said another manager on duty, Abby Ostrom, 25.

I’ll bet there was.

A Lack of Critical Thinking

This is what happens when minds are not filled with the wonder of discovery paired with skepticism to keep brains from falling out: Buried ‘Aliens’ Are Really Tree Trunks.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Malaysians in a northern village were alarmed by rumors that space aliens had been laid to rest in their neighborhood cemetery, but authorities learned the graves had merely been filled with banana tree trunks for a superstitious ritual, police said Tuesday.

Residents feared a local witch doctor had instructed grave diggers to bury extraterrestrials in the rural district of Pasir Mas on Sunday, causing police to detain the man for investigation, said district police chief Haliludin Rahim.

The man was freed after he explained that banana tree trunks, not aliens, had been buried in a ceremony for “medicinal purposes,” Haliludin told The Associated Press.

Was This On A Bet?

How else could you explain this guy: Nude bather arrested at Spanish Steps.

ROME (Reuters) – A 22-year-old American man was arrested on Sunday after an early morning naked bath in the historic Barcaccia fountain at the foot of Rome’s Spanish Steps, an Italian news agency reported.The man stripped and bathed in the 17th century Baroque fountain in front of a crowd of tourists, before being led away by police, AGI news agency said.

He faces charges of committing an obscene act, it said.

Wrong counntry, wrong fountain. He should have climbed into the Place de la Concorde fountain on the Champs-Élysées in France and declared himself a performance artist.

How Come Northwest Doesn’t Do This?

If they held a Victoria’s Secret-style fashion show during a flight like Ícaro Airlines, I just might think about rescinding my self-imposed ban on airports and airplanes: Hotties in the sky.

Jun. 22 – An Ecuadorean airline has come up with a risqué way of attracting customers – they have put models in lingerie in the aisles.

Ícaro airlines is putting underwear fashion parades on several national flights for a two-week special.

All passengers on Ecuador’s most well-travelled route from the capital Quito to the port city of Guayaquil will be treated to a 10-minute sky-high show.

Mmph-mmph-mmph.

Writing Prompts, Part IV

Another book meme.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
The Bible.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
That would be Marion Warren of the Grace Livingston Hill book Crimson Roses. I formed a detailed mental depiction of what she would look and sound like as I read. The day after I finished the book, I met a young lady who looked and sounded eerily like my mental depiction; so much so that I couldn’t stop staring at her in shock and bewilderment.

The last book you bought is:
P. J. O’Roarke’s Eat the Rich, next on my reading list.

The last book you read:
Still reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World.

What are you currently reading?
Ibid.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.
Ooo, I get to chose five this time? Where There Is No Doctor, Where There Is No Dentist, Survival (the US military manual), Watership Down and The Substitute Guest.

A Matter of Priorities

Why the London police force, once the envy of the world, is rocketing toward becoming one of the worst:

The bobbies are spending $285,000 USD for plainclothes officers to find people that put their trash out too early, yet are charging car theft victims $210 per incident to investigate.

From Reason’s Brickbats.

No. 749

Barry Bonds is now only six behind Hank Aaron.

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds gave Yankees pitcher Scott Proctor ample warning.

Bonds found a bead on Proctor and fouled off three consecutive fastballs, all of which he got a big piece of, before lighting up another Proctor fastball that was served up right over the plate for home run No. 749.

After looking at the pitch location, I’m surprised Bonds didn’t hit it into McCovey Cove.

What Passes For Great Ads These Days

Meet the Mitchum Armpit Orchestra.

What kills me is that somebody spent big money on an ad concept that is so stupid and juvenile it’s funny.

Don’t Mess With A Marine

Man Kills Bear With Log at Ga. Camp Site.

HELEN, Ga. (AP) – A 300-pound black bear raided a family’s campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow.Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family’s cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it.

The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine, grabbed the closest thing he could find – a log from their stash of firewood.

“(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head,” Everhart said. “I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear.”

Update: Laura W over at Ace of Spades also noticed this story. I love this part that one of the commenters pointed out:

Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Failing to secure his campsite?!?

He wiped out the enemy, Ken! He certainly did secure his campsite!

A +5 Holy Avenger Ax

There are cool guitars…then there are seriously cool axes that every guitarist wants to own.

The A +5 Holy Avenger Ax is one of the latter.

O Lord, bless this thy Angel Sword Guitar, that with it thou mayst blow Christina Aguilera and A-HA and Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias to tiny bits, in thy mercy. If you want it, follow these steps: first shalt thou get to eBay. Then shalt thou pay $4,500, no more, no less. $4,500 shall be the number thou shalt pay, and the number of the payment shall be $4,500. Once the number $4,500 be paid, then riffed thou thy Angel Sword Guitar towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

Built for serious shredding.