Brickbats

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Several people swimming at Kanopolis Lake in Kansas got a bit of a surprise when a B-52 bomber dropped nine bombs into the water. Lt. Col. Jeff Jordan, commander of the Smoky Hill National Guard Range, told the Associated Press the plane dropped the bombs by mistake while on a training mission. Jordan insisted the bombs did not pose a threat to the public because they were filled with concrete, not explosives.

Police in West Midlands, England, say they received numerous complaints about anti-social behavior in one neighborhood. The behavior in question: children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk.

Fifteen-year-old Mirage Rousseau of Manchester, New Hampshire, came home one afternoon to find two police officers in her bedroom without a warrant. The cops told Rousseau they were looking for a suspect in a counterfeiting case, and the door to the house was open, so they just came on in. Rousseau, who saw them enter her family's house from a neighbor's home, says that isn't possible.

Thailand's Culture Ministry has banned a line of condoms called Tom Dundee because officials say the name could encourage children to have sex earlier. Tom Dundee is the stage name of a popular Thai country singer. Dundee is also Thai for "good penetration."

Officials in Fairfax County, Virginia, admit they issued valid building permits for new houses that exceed local height limits. They say builders nonetheless must either lower the roofs or raise the ground around many—perhaps hundreds—of those houses. Only homes that are already occupied will be exempt.

Legislation expected to pass in Scotland would require shops selling swords, machetes, and other nondomestic knives to have a special license and to record all sales. The sale of swords—except to museums, historical re-enactors, fencers, and the like—will be banned.

Police in Preston, England, are asking local officials to ban "vertical drinking" in bars. Drinking while standing, they say, contributes to violence and other anti-social behavior.

For 31 years, Jean Groves has had a sign on her fence that reads "Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses." She says even Jehovah's Witnesses got a laugh out of it. But police in Hampshire, England, weren't laughing when they told Groves to take the sign down. "The police said it was 'distressing and offensive and inappropriate,'?" she told the London Sun. Groves took the sign down but put it back up after the police left.

The Board of Commissioners in Gwinnett County, Georgia, has banned mobile taco stands. Commissioners say the move is aimed at boosting business in shopping centers. "I'm all for capitalism," Commissioner Bert Nasuti explained. "But there's a right way and a wrong way."