Over The Counter Culture

I’m surprised I didn’t catch this in the mainstream press

Stifling bureaucracy is often blamed for discouraging scientists and businesses from participating in the research programmes of the European Commission (EC). But the commission’s notoriously cumbersome procedures and rigid control mechanisms have apparently not prevented a criminal syndicate from conducting a brazen fraud that has siphoned off millions in EC grant funds.

Italian authorities and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in Brussels, Belgium, have confirmed that they are prosecuting members of a large network accused of pocketing more than €50 million (US$72 million) in EC grants for fake research projects.

Read more here: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110615/full/474265a.html

This is brilliant. Here’s the introductory section of a 9-page Attorney General’s complaint filed against an Oklahoma judge, seeking his sacking for using a penis pump, and shaving and putting lotion on his ding-a-ling, in court.

The whole complaint will leave your jaw on the floor, but the casual use of the English language by the AG who asked for the Judge to be punished will make you wince when you read what sanction he demands:

(read the whole complaint)