Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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Well, perhaps calling them scam artists might be going a tad too far. Front page of today’s Las Cruces Sun-News¹ reads:

Pizza scam partners: D’ough!
Duo used bad checks to buy pies, then resold by the slice, police say

Las Cruces, NM- Two men have been indicted for allegedly using forged checks to buy Domino’s pizza and the using a Pizza Hut Uniform to resell the pizzas - still in Domino’s boxes - for $5 [a slice].

Adolfo Martinez, 33, and Mark Anderson, 26, both of Las Cruces, were indicted Thursday each on 11 counts of forgery and one count of conspiracy.

According to a criminal complaint, from March 26 through April 2, the men wrote a total of 11 checks to an unspecified Las Cruces location of Domino’s

That is just absolutely brilliant. Let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing strange at all about a couple of guys going door to door, in a Pizza Hut uniform, selling Domino’s Pizza. Nope, nuh-uh, nothing strange there. Hand me a box will you?

Granted, I have seen pizza places have workers, usually equipped with pepperoni pizza, set up a van somewhere and sell pizzas cheap there. At $5 a box though, not $5 dollars a slice! It attracts consumers who normally wouldn’t travel to where their store is located and can drum up new customers as well. But really, someone going door to door to local businesses in uniform and selling a competitor’s product? Did no one’s warning bells go off? Apparently not, because the article goes on to say that these two did make a bit of a profit, though it doesn’t specify how much.

From the sound of it, the only clue that something was up came in when every check bounced and the same two men, with the same number, kept calling in to have the pizza delivered to them. Eventually Domino’s employees caught on that something was amiss.

Martinez and Anderson, both of whom list a lengthy arrest record in their indictments, remain jailed at the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $60,000 bond each. If convicted, they each face a maximum of 34 and a half years in prison.

The “profit” they made could not have been worth this. Although, you have got to love how their maximum sentence each is twice as long then the sentence men serve for killing their spouses. Oh the irony.

1. I found this in the copy of the Sun-News I picked up today. I haven’t found an online link to the article on their website though. If you have access to print media, you can read this article in it’s entirety on the front page of the Las Cruces Sun-News, Tuesday edition, dated April 29th, 2008. 128th year, No.29 [↩]

I’m pretty sure you’ve been seeing headlines similar to the one posted above for a couple of days now. Right? Well, in case you hadn’t heard, the inventor of the egg McMuffin passed away on Tuesday.

But can he really be considered the inventor? Are you an “inventor” because you added a dish to a franchise’s menu and slapped a brand name on an already existing dish? If that’s the case, then I hear by create SmezzaPizza. It looks just like a “pepperoni pizza” but it’s not. Why? Because I put a name to it. BUWAHAHAHA!!

So now when I die, the headlines have to read “Inventor of SmezzaPizza” dies at ##”. Isn’t that how it works?

Seriously, how can this guy be the “inventor” when breakfast sandwiches had been around since he was a kid? Hell, the man might have eaten them as a kid as well. Grab a biscuit, throw some egg, sausage (or ham), and cheese on it and you’re good to go. I have family members older than he is that ate those before he “invented” them. In the article that I linked to, two people noted that McDonald’s was already serving these “egg McMuffins” before he could have possibly “invented” them.

You see and hear of so many instances where those who make and implement the laws get around them. Hell even celebrities have a habit of getting charges for the most serious of offesnes thrown out the window or doing a small petty amount of community service in compensation for their crimes.

So when someone who is supposed to be enforcing and upholding the laws screws up it’s nice to see thembe held accountable. Even if one would really hope they wouldn’t be breaking the laws to begin with.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The executive director of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control faces a drunken driving charge after he was arrested during a traffic stop.

Chris Lilly was pulled over Saturday on U.S. 27 outside Nicholasville because his Ford Explorer was missing a headlight, and because he was weaving and driving slowly, police said.

Police said Lilly smelled of alcohol, lost his balance during a sobriety test and recorded a Breathalyzer reading of 0.181. The legal limit is 0.08.

(full story)

Now where have I heard this before:

SAN FRANCISCO - A package of Dole salad mix that tested positive for E. coli has triggered a recall in at least nine states, prompting new produce fears almost exactly a year after a nationwide spinach scare.

The tainted bag of Dole’s Hearts Delight salad mix was sold at a store in Canada, officials said. Neither Canadian health officials nor Dole Food Co. have received reports of anyone getting sick from the product.

The voluntary recall, issued Monday, affects all packages of Hearts Delight sold in the United States and Canada with a “best if used by” date of September 19, 2007, and a production code of “A24924A” or “A24924B,” the company said.

Last year, an E. coli outbreak traced to bagged baby spinach sold under the Dole brand was blamed for the deaths of three people and for sickening hundreds more across the U.S. Authorities eventually identified a central California cattle ranch next to spinach fields belonging to one of Dole’s suppliers as being the source of the bacteria.

A recent Associated Press investigation found that government regulators never acted on calls for stepped-up inspections of leafy greens after that outbreak, and regulations governing farms in the fertile central California region known as the nation’s “Salad Bowl” remain much as they were.

The latest recall affects packages sold in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada and in Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee starting around Sept. 8, said Marty Ordman, a Dole spokesman.

Eighty-eight cases — or 528 bags — were distributed in Canada, and 755 cases containing 4,530 bags were distributed in the U.S., he said. FDA spokesman Michael Herndon said the agency was talking with Westlake Village, Calif.-based Dole about the situation.

(Full Article)

Those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Perhaps Dole just hasn’t learned yet or maybe even doesn’t care? Whatever the case may be it doesn’t change the fact that there is some contaminated salad out there. Personally I don’t buy bagged lettuce, but obviously others out there do. So be sure to check your merchandise.

Bagged salad affected by the recall are Dole’s Hearts Delight with the best if used by date of September 19,2007 and have either A24924A or A24924B product codes.

TrustedPlaces.com is an easy to use, and easy on the eyes, website whose aim is to provide feedback and ratings on different spots to hang out, eat and drink in cities from around the world. Users leave feedback on places they’ve been, telling others what the service was like and the overall experiance. From this you can better decide which places warrant a visit and which should be avoided at all costs.

Just because London restaurants and clubs happen to be the most popular sections of the site doesn’t mean that the website is geared exclusively to the European crowd.