Bits of this & that...

...from here & there, because I'm too tired to get my brain working for a rant or personal story....

According to this story in the Detroit Free Press, a lot of people better stay the hell away from Michigan, at least for now.

The story's lede tells it all: n a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."

"Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.

I know some folks whose butts would be in a sling except for the fortuitous fact that they're not in Michigan....

In the meantime, Pravda reports that Paul McCartney's settlement with his soon to be ex-wife is the equivalent of giving her $7000 for every hour they were married.

The same newspaper advises that being gay in Russia is now, in their words, "faddish." The story quotes a gay man called "Pavel" as saying “I feel sorry for you girls. There’s only 6 men for 10 women in this country. One out of those six is a gay, another one is a drug addict, two more are alcoholics, and the last but one is a waste of space, an impotent. I guess you can figure out the rest."

But how can anyone think of sex when David Beckham is coming to Los Angeles to play for the local soccer team? Some say he's reluctantly giving in to wife Victoria's desire to live here, but I find that hard to believe considering that he will get $250 million over five years.

This strikes me as excessive. I doubt that our local soccer team (whatever it's called) has grossed that much money over its entire history. But what do I know?

A sad story from Northern California: a Vallejo man was seriously burned when his cell phone caught fire in his pocket, igniting, according to the L.A. Times, "his nylon and polyester clothes." Sounds suspiciously as if the man was wearing a leisure suit to me. But then, Vallejo is somewhat behind the times from what I remember of it....

Today's saddest story, however, concerns one Ken Barnes Jnr, of Newport Beach, California. Barnes cashed out all his assets and boat a sailboat, intending to sail around the world. His dream, ten years in the planning, came to an end after two months off the coast of Chile, when a storm dismasted his boat, wiped out its electrical system and filled the cabin with water. He activated his rescue beacon and was found several days later by a Chilean fishing vessel.

It doesn't sound as if he's planning to try again.