Thirty-one years after he was convicted of raping this thirteen-year old girl, director Roman Polanski was finally arrested last night in Switzerland, where he was to be honored at a Zurich film festival. The Daily Mail says

On arrival at Zurich Airport, police swooped on 76-year-old Polanski.

Polanski has been on the run from the U.S. since 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with teenager Samantha Geimer. Before [he could be] sentenced, he fled to Paris, where he has lived since. He has not set foot in the U.S. for 31 years.

Switzerland’s extradition treaty with the U.S., signed in 1990, means Polanski, a French citizen, may be flown to Los Angeles where he faces a long prison sentence.

For those of you who don’t know the details of his crime:

Roman Polanski was 44 when he conducted a private photo shoot with [the 13-year old girl] for the French edition of Vogue. Polanski performed various sex acts on her after giving her champagne and drugs.

Polanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy and lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14.

On February 1, 1978, while awaiting sentencing, he left the U.S. [for] France, where he held citizenship, beginning a 31-year fight by the U.S. authorities to bring the director to justice.

An extradition request filed by U.S. officials was denied by the French.

So in addition to harboring smelly cheeses and general disdain, France is also apparently a safe-haven for child rapists and therefore understandably outraged by his arrest:

French culture minister Frederic Mitterand said he was ‘dumbfounded’ by the filmmaker’s arrest.

Mr Mitterrand said he ’strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.’

And yesterday his ministry said French President Nicolas Sarkozy was ‘following the case with great attention and shares the minister’s hope that the situation can be quickly resolved.’

Yes, poor, poor, Roman Polanski. His parents were killed at Auschwitz and his wife was murdered, so that apparently gives him license to pump eighth grade girls full of barbiturates and sodomize them in a hot tub. Like that old Levitical law says, “an eye for an eye.” I’m sure “an eye for a prepubescent asshole” still falls under the umbrella of the Torah.

Dita von Teese modeling her new WonderBra line because she’s not 13:

Jessica Alba tried to sound intelligent and politically savvy during a red carpet interview by telling a Fox news reporter to “stay neutral — be Sweden.” She obviously confused Switzerland with Sweden — which is easy to do when both countries start with “sw” and you’re dumber than a bowl of mice — but she claims her choice of words was intentional. She wrote on her MySpace:

I find it depressing that in the midst of perhaps the most salient time in our country’s history, individuals are taking it upon themselves to encourage negativity and stupidity. Last week, Mr. Bill O’Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people…it’s so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II if you want to see what I was referring to. I appreciate the name calling and the accurate reporting. Keep it up!!

TMZ responded:

[Jessica] is absolutely correct. We apologize for not considering the political climate of the world in 1942 when we suggested she may have meant, “be Switzerland” — a country that is currently neutral.

Well, duh! Of course she was referencing the nation’s political standing six decades ago. Who doesn’t when mentioning neutrality? You could just as easily say “be Lichtenstein” or “be Andorra” or “be Argentina,” all of whom were neutral during World War II. Everybody knows “the more archaic and irrelevant the reference, the more smarter you sound.” I think Mike Tyson said that.

With baby Honor Marie on a playdate with Heidi Klum’s kids: