The streets of London are monitored by 10,524 CCTV cameras. One camera for every 714 people may sound like a lot, and the city has spent over $400 million in an effort to cut down on crime. Only it hasn't exactly worked. Despite Big Brother watching, essentially, every street corner, the London police are still letting four out of five crimes go unsolved. And worse yet, there seems to be no correlation between the density of cameras and the crime-solving rate.

"My experience with the justice system opened my eyes to the horrific plight of wrongfully convicted prisoners, most of whom don't have the resources to regain their freedom by proving their innocence." — Frank Quattrone, former Credit Suisse First Boston investment banker, in a statement released after federal charges for obstruction of justice were dropped. [San Jose Mercury News]

Paul Addis, the man accused of setting torch to The Man, the wooden totem at the heart of the Burning Man festival, has drawn his share of fans and detractors. Chris Radcliffe, who's tangled with the organizers of Burning Man over various issues, even paid thousands of dollars in bail money to spring Addis from jail. But aside from a statement sent to blogger Scott Beale of Laughing Squid, he hasn't spoken to defend his actions. Until now. In an exclusive interview, Addis, who's been charged with the felony of arson, spoke to Valleywag as a friend drove him from Fernley, Nevada, back to his home in San Francisco. The full interview follows.

Paul Addis, the man accused of setting fire to The Man, the totemic woodenstatue at the center of Burning Man, has a history of pulling pranks in the Nevada arts festival. Insiders believe that Addis was responsible for a 1997 prank in which giant silver balls were hung — rather well, we might add — from the groin of The Man. (Photo by LadyBee)

BLACK ROCK CITY — Around the charred yet still standing remains of The Man, the giant wooden statue literally at the center of the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, workers from the organizer's Department of Public Works are cordoning off the platform and pavilion on which The Man rests, preparing to salvage what they can. The plan is to rebuild the statue in time for Saturday's planned demolition. Soft weeping can be heard in the vicinity, as well as mumbled vows for vengeance. Since the whole point of the festival is the buildup to the official burn, last night's arson attempt is more than a disappointment to most. A few are cursing for a different reason, mostly because they have fostered intricate plans to burn The Man early for years now, but just never got around to pulling it off. Reportedly, the dastardly villain who torched the man was one Paul Addis, a well-known denizen of the San Francisco art scene, longtime Burner, and one heck of a loose cannon.

"The Police Department has fired a veteran counterterrorism detective who failed a drug test, finding that his claim that his wife had served him marijuana-spiked meatballs was not credible, Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said yesterday." Dude totes should have said pesto. Duh! [AP]

A man who pleaded guilty to illegally downloading a copy of Star Wars: Episode III is being forced to use Windows as his operating system as a condition of his probation. Now that's cruel and unusual punishment. [VNUnet]

How responsible was Rudy Giuliani for the city's falling crime rates during his tenure? Ten years and one week after Abner Louima, a panel sponsored by the American Sociological Association discussed the topic. Their conclusions: Maybe a lot, except maybe he was the beneficiary of nationwide trends that saw crime drop simultaneously in other major cities where Giuliani was not, as it happens, the mayor. It's one of those topics where you can use whatever statistics you want to support your argument, so we don't suppose the question will ever be answered definitively, but say this for the former mayor: He kept Bernie Kerik off the streets for a little while. That's gotta count for something.

We were just kidding, really, when we suggested that Google had Yelp in its crosshairs. A weak metaphor, at best, that we found rifling through our closet of puns. But now we read — on Yelp, no less — that police have pulled guns in an incident on the street outside Yelp's office in downtown San Francisco. We really hope it's just, say, random street violence and not an organized mob of Googlers who can't wait to take Yelp on mano a mano. Because then we might feel just a little bit bad.

An addendum to last week's story about the robbery at Dodgeball founder Dennis Crowley's new workplace. Turns out there were actually two transvestite prostitutes who broke into the office, and he has the security camera footage to prove it. [Teen Drama]

Two thieves walk away with $12,000 after a little help from our friends in Mountain View. "A check of an office computer in the next room later showed a Google search for "how to open a safe" and "how to crack a safe." [CBS 13]

Someone broke into the offices of Area/Code, the startup where Dodgeball.com founder Dennis Crowley currently works (after bitterly leaving Google just three months ago). Taken were Crowley's laptop, a flatscreen monitor, and a digital camera. Left behind was the transvestite hooker still asleep on the office couch. [Teen Drama]

Great news for real New Yorkers! The only person gunning people down in New York today (so far!) is in New York-New York, the casino in Las Vegas. Yay us! "Investigators are still collecting bullets," said the local cops. That is sad. But don't worry, gamblers. Someday the gentrification of New York will reach all the way to Nevada.

"The short, troubled life of a drug-dealing Harlem midget came to a violent end yesterday when he was gunned down while guzzling beer and shooting dice outside a housing project." [NYP]

Visitors to the Brooklyn Museum beware! Teen girl bandits are roaming Prospect Heights, sneaking up on folks and boppin' 'em on the head. Too bad the wee gangsters are too lazy to hop around the corner to Park Slope... so far.

When we last saw Jeanine Pirro, she was in hot water over a jewelry business she had set up with taxpaying-averse husband Al. Now the former Westchester D.A. has bigger fish to fry: Turns out that while she was still in office, she secretly recorded her on-the-job conversations, one of which suggests that she "failed to disclose evidence that could have helped a man whom Ms. Pirro subsequently charged with murder." Oh, also, she asked an investigator to destroy them. And now a federal jury wants to hear more. This brings the number of investigations concerning Pirro up to seven thousand and forty-two (figure accurate as time of writing; there may be a couple more by time of publication). The more we think about it, the more we are starting to regret not electing Neaner as state district attorney. Secret taping, financial shenanigans, withholding evidence, destroying evidence... is there anything she can't do? (Maybe hard time.)

Giuliani-style American hero Dwayne Buckle, a sound engineer from Queens, has successfully made New York safer by getting four young women sent to prison yesterday. Congratulations to all of us! His initial campaign to make the streets of the West Village a better place for right-thinkers began last summer, when he spit on the girls and their friends, threw a cigarette at them, and told them he'd "fuck them straight" after they rudely rejected his sexual advances. Not only were they lesbians, they were also from New Jersey, so he did us a double solid. He's like Bernie Goetz, except more noble, less insane, and with maybe even more to gain from lying on the stand! Now, when will the police ever find the mystery man in the pink shirt, one of three men who joined the fight on behalf of the women that evening, and who is, according to that horrible down-market gang of lesbians, the person who may have actually stabbed our poor savior of civilization Dwayne Buckle?
GUILTY GAL GANG WEEPY WOMEN [NYP]
Lesbian wolf pack guilty [NYDN]
Four Women Are Convicted in Attack on Man in Village [NYT]
Dwayne Buckle [Showbiz Directory]

Take care the next time you sneak your videocamera into a movie theater to illegally bootleg a first-run feature: The City Council has passed legislation raising the fine for such behavior to $5000. In addition, Variety reports that the mayor

Our Correspondent for Chefs In Local Jails reports, "Today Chef Neroni was processed at the 76th Precinct on Union Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. His lawyer accompanied him. Can't confirm all the details." We can! We called the Deputy of Public Information who confirmed that Jason Neroni, until recently the chef at Porchetta, had indeed been arrested and charged with petit larceny, a class A misdemeanor. It seems that Marco Rivero, Neroni's ex-employer at Porchetta and the Montague to Neroni's Capulet, knew what he was talking about when he claimed there was a warrant for Neroni's arrest after all. Mr. Rivero, of late markedly unenamored of Neroni, might have something to do with the claims even! Defined as the theft of less than $1,000, the charge carries a penalty of up to a year imprisonment. As of this writing, Mr. Neroni is still in the 76th.

Tucked between the second (lust) and third (greed) circles of hell lies 21st Street, which the Post is calling the new clubland. And it's true the massive hornet's nest of clubs in the area belches out Axe-wearing alpha males and glitter-bodied sad girls like an old factory chimney. What with Prey Bar and Lounge, Snitch's, Duvet and Aspen, the FlatIron has become the lowest point in the dirty bathroom floor of New York club life. The Post notes the District's clubs now have a capacity of 10,000. To put that in perspective that's about twice the entire freshman class of NYU crammed into the space of a few blocks. (Eww!) And what, Prey tell, do you imagine might be the outcome of such a glut of revelers? Bonhomie? Fraternit ? Esprit De Corps? Nope. Murder, Mayhem, Marauding.