Restaurants in the Kuwaiti town of Hawally were unpleasantly surprised by a police inspection earlier this month, including a bakery with bread dough stored in the toilet and bathtub to keep it moist. This story is shocking on so many levels. First of all, who knew Kuwait had a health code? And indoor plumbing? And bread?

In addition to improper dough storage, police noted that the baker’s health card and butter had both expired some time ago, and consequently the proprietor was fined and the store shut down. A column in the Kuwait Times acknowledged the relatively light punishment:

There are some good clean restaurants, bakeries and sweet shops out there but if what we saw occurred in a European country, a case would be filed against the bakery for millions of euros. [Source]

It is of course true that standards are higher in western countries. For example, here in the United States, I know from personal experience that Toilet Bread is usually discounted and heavily perfumed.

In other bakery crime news…

Masaaki Matsubayashi, a 56-year-old employee of Japan’s Shikishima Baking Company, spent the past 16 years stealing millions of dollars from company insurance policies he was hired to manage. He will spend the next 11 years in prison, fondly recalling the luxurious lifestyle and 17 mistresses he supported with the embezzled funds. He never felt guilty, he says, because he regarded the 7,000 insurance policy-holders as “sponsors who put up allowances for my mistresses.”

Former vice-president of South Africa Jacob Zuma, kicked out of office for mass corruption, is on trial for raping an HIV-positive relative. His defense? She was totally asking for it, the dirty slut.

You see, the tramp–I mean, the alleged victim–was wearing a knee-length skirt. If that’s not asking to be raped, I don’t know what is. In addition, Zuma somehow surmised she wasn’t wearing underwear, clearly an invitation for violent assault.

The prosecution has argued that Zuma would have used a condom to have consensual sex with an HIV-positive partner. The fact that he didn’t use protection makes the rape scenario more plausible.

Zuma testified that her HIV status had indeed caused him to “hesitate.” But in the end he decided that he must have sex with her because in Zulu culture, leaving a woman horny and unsatisfied is tantamount to rape. “…In Zulu culture, you don’t just leave a woman,” he told the jury. “She will have you arrested and say you are a rapist.” You just can’t win with these lying bitches, can you?

Besides, he said, he figured he could wash the HIV off in the shower.

[tags]rape, crime, zuma, south africa[/tags]

AP: Six branch Davidians to leave custody
Janet Reno sends fruit basket

CNN: Duke suspends accused lacrosse players
Because raping strippers isn’t a family value

AP: Sex offenders fearful for safety after deaths of two convicts
Women, children fearful for safety after 500,000 sex offenders remain alive

Reuters: Ex-professor pleads guilty in Florida Jihad case

Although he was brimming with the hatred and vitriol so prized by university HR departments, it turns out that the University of South Florida has chosen to fire Professor Sami al-Arian after he plead guilty to aiding the terrorist group Islamic Jihad. It’s possible USF has a policy against employing admitted terrorists, but I think it’s more likely they wanted to avoid the payroll accounting nightmare associated with imprisoned and deported employees.

AP: Two Duke lacrosse players indicted in rape case

Sports figures using their clout to avoid prosecution for violent criminal acts? Say it ain’t so. Two hours after the alleged rape took place, one of the lacrosse players from the party sent out an email “to whom it may concern” stating his intention to have an “encore to tonights show.” He said he planned on “killing the bitches as soon as the(y) walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off.” His violent misogyny, combined with a poor command of the English language, significantly diminish this student’s chances of being selected to judge this year’s Grammar Girls Gala.

Meanwhile, logic devotee Jesse Jackson vowed that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would fund the alleged rape victim’s entire education whether or not she’s lying.

[tags]duke, rape, usf, terrorism, professor[/tags]

Robert Turner, who turned six years old last month, saw his mom collapse. He tried to call 911 for help. The operator asked to speak to his unconscious mother, but Robert told her, “She… she not… she not gonna talk.” The incredulous dispatcher said she’d send the police over, then hung up on him. The call lasted less than 30 seconds. Dispatchers are required to send police even in cases of “hang-up” calls, but no help arrived.

Three hours later, Robert tried again. A second dispatcher scolded him for playing on the phone. When the police finally arrived, Robert’s mother had already died of complications from an enlarged heart.

The family is suing the city of Detroit with the help of defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger and his hair.

The dispatchers will be disciplined, but won’t be fired because of years of loyal service… in other words, they can’t be fired because the union is too powerful. The local union president has already started rattling off excuses. Of course, they can do this, because they know you have to pay them regardless of their job performance. If the government were a private business, it would have gone broke long ago. Oh wait… it did.

As it turns out, this idiotic response by Detroit’s 911 dispatch center is not an isolated incident. Anshiree Martin’s 9-year-old son Damion died in her arms last year, suffocating from an asthma attack. The dispatcher, who knew the ambulance was busy on the other side of town and wouldn’t arrive for some time, assured Martin that medical aid would arrive in 7 or 8 minutes. The ambulance arrived 22 minutes later, and Damion was dead. His heartbroken mother said she would have driven him to the hospital if she had known medics would take that long. Detroit paid her $325k and swept her under the rug.

Last year, Lorraine Hayes called the police after her husband shot her twice in the head. The dispatcher played mind games with her, repeatedly making sarcastic remarks (download the PDF transcript here). Although Hayes said she was “getting ready to die,” help never came. Numb and bleeding, Hayes called relatives in Minnesota, who in turn called the Detroit police and demanded they send EMS. Today she is a paraplegic.

But I’m confident that Geoffrey Fieger, with the help of his hair, will turn Detroit into a shining beacon of integrity. Fieger, famous for defending suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian, has a side project suing the Michigan Supreme Court for requiring him to be polite. According to the Associated Press, “attorneys for Fieger argued before the Michigan Supreme Court that the lawyer has a First Amendment right to publicly criticize judges by using obscenities and likening them to Nazis.”

[tags]fieger, 911, crime[/tags]

Brian Doyle, a senior public information officer for the office of Homeland Security, was unpleasantly surprised to find that his online chat partner was considerably taller and hairier than the cute little 14-year-old girl he had imagined. A detective posing as a young girl began chatting with Doyle a couple of weeks ago. Doyle sent “her” a bunch of porn movie files via AOL Instant Messenger, asked her what sex acts she would or wouldn’t do with him, and tried to impress her by revealing details about his identity and his job with Homeland Security. He even gave her the number of his state-issued cell phone.

The “girl” told Doyle to be online that evening, saying she had a new webcam. Agents knew he was at home and arrested him in the act, with the chat window still open on his screen.

Here’s an idea for Doyle’s defense attorneys: He’s not attracted to kids, it’s just that his fettish is chatting with law enforcement officials pretending to be young girls. Yeah, that’s it. See, he was just testing you. (If this defense is used, I expect to receive all appropriate royalties and residuals.)

Speaking of high-ranking pervs…
On October 16 the Tampa Tribune published a glowing fluff piece on Frank Figueroa, Tampa’s new special agent-in-charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The headline read “Agent 007 is Now On Duty in Tampa,” explaining that a big shot like Figueroa was allowed to choose his own badge number. But he didn’t choose it because of the James Bond reference, he says… he chose it because it’s almost kind of similar to his old badge number, 777.

The article goes on to say that Figueroa isn’t bothered by good-natured jabs about his short stature (he’s 5′7″). However, past co-workers admit that Figueroa was always very image-conscious. He wore pastel shirts and linen jackets during the Miami Vice era, and later moved on to wearing $1,000 suits. When fellow employees convinced him to dress less formally, he started wearing the suits with a collarless shirt and a gold chain.

Come on… you know this guy is going down. He’s a little shrimp with a big ego. You don’t even know what he did, and you already want to step on him.

Ten days after the Tampa Tribune published the article, 007 was arrested for flashing his wee-wee at a 16-year-old girl in mall food court. When mall security showed up looking for him, Figueroa, father of two young girls, quickly left the mall and ran through the parking lot. In-the-know security guards stopped him and asked why he was running, he said he was trying to find his car. When asked about the incident in the food court, Figueroa pulled out his badge and said he “didn’t do anything in the food court.”

Being the stand-up guy that he is, Figueroa denied all charges, forcing the teen girl to testify in court. She said he sat about ten feet away from her in the food court and stared at her while exposing himself and masturbating. She thought it was really hot, and slipped him her phone number, explaining to the jury that there was something about short middle-aged men who like to expose themselves to young girls that really turned her on.

Just kidding. She went and found her mom.

Local Tampa blog Sticks of Fire notes that just a couple of weeks before his arrest, Figueroa shut down a store that he said marketed drugs to kids by selling cartoon character-shaped bongs, saying “….we simply will not tolerate this kind of activity in our community.” Blogger Tommy responds, “I guess pulling your junk out in front of children is a different story.”

Today, to avoid his criminal trial that was scheduled to begin tomorrow, Frank Figueroa has plead no contest to the charges filed against him.

Tip: Ladies (or gentleman, I suppose), if someone flashes you, don’t freak out, that’s what he wants. Instead, point and laugh. Then call the police and get his partially-naked ass thrown in jail.

You’re no doubt familiar with Scott Peterson (pictured at right, looking absolutely heartsick at a candlelight vigil for his missing wife), now in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn son. Despite zero evidence to the contrary, Peterson still has a few groupies convinced of his innocence. These true believers include some family members led by Scott’s self-deluded mother, as well as a motley crew of (primarily female) hangers-on. If you have information for the police that gets little Scotty out of prison, you may receive a cash prize up to and including $250,000! Of course, the money doesn’t exist, but then again, neither does the exonerating evidence.

To read all about the fabled reward, jaunt on over to www.ScottPetersonAppeal.org. Currently the family is requesting that we check our hard drives for any “real time traffic video” from the day of the crime, as well as “photos, surveillance videos or satellite photos of Modesto , the San Francisco Bay and the highways in between on December 24th, 2002.” So be sure to check your hard drive, it’s probably in your Exonerating Evidence folder.

BONUS! If your information leads to Scott’s release from prison, you’ll also receive this hilarious t-shirt, absolutely free!

[tags]scott peterson, reward, crime[/tags]

It’s like a King of the Hill episode directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Larry Mugrage, a 15-year-old Ohio kid whose pre-mortem hobbies included going to school and breathing, was murdered on March 21st by yard enthusiast Charles Martin. Larry was crossing Mr. Martin’s lawn when Martin, age 66, shot him twice in the chest. As Larry courteously staggered to his own lawn to die, his killer calmly picked up the phone and informed the police of his crime. “I’m being harassed by him and his parents for five years and today I just blew it up,” he explained.

Although neighbors don’t remember any harassment by the Mugrage family, they do recall Charles Martin spending hours working in his meticulously groomed yard. They also remember seeing Martin measuring his grass with a ruler.

The moral of the story is, never trust a guy with a ruler. Or a gun. A ruler or a gun.

[tags]Charles Martin, lawn, murder, crime[/tags]