Baker's Dozen!

This is such a funny way to get back to blogging after such a long time; I was reading some mail when i came across the word "Baker's dozen" - actually the lady was saying she and her husband have a "baker's dozen" of kids ... wow! cool Mashaa'Allah ;-) - so, i went on a net hunt for the origin of the word - guess i have nothing much to do these days, huh! - anyways, i found it on the first link which actually disappointed all my wild research plans and getting lost in the labyrinth of the web :-D
God! i'm so talkative today! ok .. here's wut i found, pretty interesting theories:

The first theory goes back to ancient times. Bakers were widely viewed with suspicion, since it was common (and easy) for them to short-weight customers. Many societies had severe penalties for bakers who engaged in such underhanded practices. For instance, one source says that in ancient Egypt, the baker's ear was nailed to the doorpost of his bakery if he were found selling light loaves. (I'm not sure whether the ear was still attached to the baker. Either way it was a pretty stiff punishment.)
Under the code of Hammurabi, a loaf of bread and a man's hand were interchangeable. They took their bread seriously back then.
In the mid-13th century, British law imposed strict regulations on bakers regarding the weight of bread. Bakers wanted to make sure they complied, since the penalties were severe (a fine or the pillory, although nothing involving ears, so far as I know). It was difficult to make loaves of uniform weight in those days before automation, so bakers added a 13th loaf to every shipment of 12--better to be overweight than under. Thus "a baker's dozen" meant 13.
The second theory is more complicated. A baker selling to a third party (a street vendor, say) would add a 13th loaf as the profit for the middleman. That is, the baker sells the middleman 13 loaves for the price of 12, and the middle man sells the 13 individual loaves for a 7.7% profit.
Whichever theory you accept, the evolution of the expression today has come to mean that the baker adds an extra cookie, bun, pastry or whatever to the order of 12 as a bonus.

Here's the link to the extracted article:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbakersdozen.html