Kracker pulls a deal

Uncle Kracker - Kid Rock's dj and solo artist of surprisingly little merit - has done a deal following his attack on a woman at North Carolina club. The deal keeps him out of jail, which is good news for him, if not for the rest of us.

Oddly, we're not sure how Kracker's grateful acceptance of a fine, probation and alcohol treatment squares with his squeals of innocence back when the charges were laid:

"It's regrettable that someone would make this kind of an allegation, it's not the kind of thing that I'd do, as a father of three girls ... I'm saddened that anyone might think I'm capable of this sort of thing."

Who knew that the courts no longer accepted "I am fertile" as a defence in a case?

'I'm not Uncle Disgusting'

Uncle Kracker has insisted that, despite being on a $75,000 bond for a second-degree forcible sexual offence, it was nothing to do with him:

"It's regrettable that someone would make this kind of an allegation, it's not the kind of thing that I'd do, as a father of three girls ... I'm saddened that anyone might think I'm capable of this sort of thing."

We're not quite sure why having three daughters makes you any less likely to commit a sexual offence - "congratulations, Mrs. Smith, it's a girl - now your husband will be a little less prone to being a rapist" - but obviously, he's entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Uncle Disgusting

We're not sure quite what constitutes a "second-degree forcible sex offense", but apparently that's what Matthew Shafer has been charged with. Shafer is - marginally - better known as Uncle Kracker, who had a brief chart dalliance in the first days of the century.