Would You Pick up THIS MAN???????

Picture this: You're driving down a rural highway when you pass this man, who appears to be hitch-hiking. Do you A) pull over and offer him a ride, or B) speed up and hope he doesn't recognize you as the guy who didn't offer him a lift.

One man in Scott's Bar, Cali inexplicably picked 'A'. Presumably because he's on a first-name basis with the above wild-eyed dude. Or at least he knew his first name was Aron, but not much else. What ensued was... well... look at the guy. He started going on about Delta Force, whom he expected to pick him up at any minute and then helpfully offered to kill the driver and his entire family and take out a few cops in the melee. The driver pulled over, wisely we believe, and offered the passenger use of his car. Mr. Aron Johnson was later arrested at a nearby trailer where he'd been staying. This heartwarming tale put us in mind of a fun little video:

Meth is More than a Crime

This is not recreation.

Too Ugly for Crime? This Guy Is.

Imagine being told you are simply too ugly to have a career in crime. This bloke, one David Holyoak, 33, nicknamed 'Shrek' by cops has been put on notice of exactly that. He is currently serving three and a half years for robbery. The fact that he and his mates are tossers didn't serve them well either. You see, after committing one robbery at a bank while armed with a sledge hammer the dimwits went on to steal a cash box from a post office in Bury, Manchester England, and while fleeing in their getaway car they smashed into a tree. IDing him from previous crimes was a cinch. Wanna guess why?

Updated with Pictures: Night of the Nacho Knife Fight

top: Esckilsen, bottom: Henke

Don't mess with Texas. Don't mess with a Texan's nachos, either. If you don't believe me just ask one Marty Henke, 35, of San Antonio, or perhaps you could check with Randy Scott

Esckilsen. They're both sitting in the Bexar county jail today as the result of a disagreement over nachos that turned violent.

Apparently a friend dropped in on the two n'er do wells mentioned above at their shared abode, and this friend arrived bearing a gift of delicious nachos for Mr. Esckilsen. Esckilsen, however, declined the tasty snack, so Henke saw his opportunity and he appropriated the nachos. Apparently seeing how much Henke was enjoying his treat, Esckilsen had a change of heart and requested a return of the nachos, but Henke refused, prompting Esckilsen to attack. A fight ensued and Henke was stabbed on the chin.

Police came, and after Henke was treated he was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Esckilsen was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. In the unlikely case that Mr. Esckilsen spends any time reflecting on his actions, he may come to realize that it would have been a whole lot easier to have gone out for another order of nachos.

Added deliciousness: this news story was a veritable pun magnet. Some tasty ones:

"Nacho Nacho Man, they want to be the Nacho Man"

"Nacho smartest roommates."

"Sounds like someone had a chip on their shoulder"

"Story proves a point...in Queso emergency, dial 911"

"What do you call cheese that's not yours? Nacho cheese"

"Who made the snack? Nacho mama."

"Nacho nachos."

And finally:

"These are some cheesy comments."

Fail: Guys Rob Gaming Room While Cops Serve Warrent

Two dumbasses are off the streets of Austin, TX today, having decided to rob an illegal gaming establishment at a particularly unfortunate moment: when police officers were arriving to serve a search warrant as part of an investigation into the activities at the establishment.

Dennis Desdunes, 25, and Terry Shaw, 32, are charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and bail is set at $35,000 each. Apparently they walked in, pointed a bb gun at an employee, and took money from her just moments before police walked in the door and arrested everyone present. Other people then informed the cops that two of the arresties were actually robbers who had just knocked over the joint. Nice. Remember: timing is everything, in crime and in life, or in a life of crime.

Columbia SC is Missing a Dumbass

But it's a good miss. Like when the trash stinks and someone gets around to taking it out. The criminally retarded Kayson Helms made a classic criminal blunder when he walked into the Columbia downtown Alcoholics Anonymous center, pulled out a gun and demanded, "Gimme what you got." His mistake: he clearly underestimated his targets. One of the robbery victims who has a permit to carry, pulled out a gun and killed the little cockroach dead, relieving humanity of one more piece of worthless shit. The above photo with its illiterate captions provides a glimpse into the IQ-free zone that the dummy inhabited, as does this lovely bit from his myspace profile:

Aight Da name 6ones aint shit realli new 6ut Dis rap Shit Dat im doin iz of da F**kin walls Im spittin acid threw these niggas Clothes out here Ima C.$.G^ 6RICK CITY 6OY AS U ALREADII KNOW i HAD TO PUT DAT IN caps so u niggas don't snooze on me. So wake da Fuck UP & open ya Eyes It aint realli no surprise. An I fuckS with da 6addest 6itch no disrespesct 6ut da finest if u wanna put like dat yeah im IN A RELATIONSHIP i FOUND da perfect one So my life iz basically gravy baBY IM done. ANd so now I AM settled down forreal Im lookin at time prolly but my shawty by my side so im good. i AINT WORRIED

Here's hoping Kayson Helms would also qualify for Darwin, ie, that he made off this planet without reproducing, thereby not passing on the ganster gene mentioned below. The good citizen who took out the trash was 61-year-old James Corley. The South Carolina prosecutor says the shooting was justified as Mr. Corley acted in self defense and in defense of the other people present, so no charges will be filed. Corley deserves an award for seeing to it that nobody was hurt in this incident. Thanks, Mr. Corley. You did good. Oh, and without even realizing it you also made Newark, New Jersey a little safer for humanity.

Gangster Gene? It Appears So

This is a very interesting finding:

'Gangsta gene' identified in US teens

* 10:35 19 June 2009 by Ewen Callaway

It's not nearly as overt as a hand sign or a coloured bandana, but DNA may offer one clue as to whether someone belongs to a gang or not.

Males with a particular form of gene called MAOA are twice as likely to join a gang, compared to those with other forms, finds a new study of more than 2000 US teens. What's more, gang members with these mutations are far more likely to use a weapon than other members.

"For the most part, people haven't really thought of the biological or genetic underpinnings to gang membership, says Kevin Beaver, a biosocial criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, who led the study.

The relatively common mutations result in reduced levels of a protein, called monoamine oxidase A, which recycles several of the chemicals that foster neuron connections.

Low MAOA activity has been linked previously to antisocial behaviour in people who experienced child abuse. While two brain regions involved in perceiving and controlling emotions are shrunken in people with no history of criminality or abuse who have the mutation.
Predicting violence

To determine whether an environment besides an abusive childhood could elicit MAOA's connection to violence, Beaver's team looked at the genotypes of 1155 females and 1041 males who participated in a long-term study of adolescent health that covered the period 1994 to 2002.

During two rounds of interviews, participants indicated whether they had been in a gang in the past year and whether they had ever used a weapon in a fight.

Overall, 42 per cent of males possessed the low activity form of MAOA, and about 5 per cent of all males said they had joined a gang. However males with the low activity form were twice as likely to join a gang as those with the high activity form.

Similarly, males with the low activity form were about twice as likely to have used a weapon as other teens. While male gang members with the same mutations were four times as likely as other members to wield a weapon.

"This gene is predicting gang membership, but it's really predicting it for the very violent gang members," Beaver says.
Caution needed

Nonetheless, he cautions against over-interpreting his team's results. "It doesn't mean that everyone with this particular allele is going to be violent and is going to become a gang member – or vice versa," he says.

Rather, in communities where gangs are common, people with low MAOA activity could be slightly more likely to join a gang than others, Beaver says.

However, given the high prevalence of these mutations and low rates of gang membership, genetic counselling to identify youth at an increased risk of joining gangs would be unfeasible.

"We're not going to change someone's DNA, but we can alter the environment which would, in turn, blunt that genetic effect," Beaver adds.