- So that awesome fixed-rate loan you just got from your bank, it may or may not have been financed by laundered Mexican drug money. Mexico’s federal attorney general, Eduardo Medina, appeared before Congress this week and as part of his testimony told the body that Mexican banks receive about $1 billion annually from American banks and send approximately $16 billion back to their U.S. counterparts each year. According to Medina, at least $10 billion of that amount “does not have an explanation…..and could be attributed to the flow of drug trafficking money.” Y’know, everyone always quotes statistics about how you can find traces of cocaine or other drugs on nearly every piece of paper money currently in circulation, but wow…..$10 billion? Yeah, looking at that amount, I’d say it’s fair to assume that some of that money financed a home or car loan for someone reading this sentence. Hey Fred Thompson, think that $10 billion in drug profits crossing the border is more important than your little crusade against those few thousand illegal immigrants you want to waste copious amounts of federal jack prosecuting and persecuting?
- You always like to see great athletes end their career with a flourish, one last blaze of glory before calling it quits….not engulfed in a giant white cloud of Colombian nose candy. Former world No. 1 tennis player Martina Hingis finds herself smack in the middle of just such a situation, announcing that she will retire from tennis for a second time after reportedly testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon earlier this year. “I believe I am absolutely, 100 percent innocent,” Hingis declared. However, she has chosen to retire rather than fight what she terms “a horrendous accusation.” Yeah, because that’s what truly innocent people do, they give up and walk away rather than fight wrongful accusations that could ruin their life. Also, what do you mean you “believe” that you’re innocent? You shouldn’t “believe” that you’re innocent; when it comes to things you have done or not done, you know that either you have or haven’t. Saying you believe that you’re innocent sounds like you’re trying to sell yourself on your innocence, which doesn’t bode well when you have to convice others as well. Next time, simply say, “I am 100 percent innocent.” See how much better that sounds? Look, M., I know your best days in tennis are clearly behind you, so it’s not like you’re throwing everything away in your prime, but quitting tennis to do blow (allegedly)? You may have lots of money saved from tournament winnings and endorsement deals, but a nice coke addiction will blow (pun intended) through that money quickly. I look forward to your six-month to one-year “retirement” and subsequent un-retirement once you think this situation has blown over and everyone has forgotten about it, Martina.
- For most athletes, the most dangerous place to be is on the field. It’s the place where they’re most likely to be injured due to the physical contact, fast movements and strain on their body. For Detroit Tigers pitcher Joel Zumaya, hwoever, life is obviously much more dangerous off the field. Last season, Zumaya got an arm injury from playing too much of the Guitar Hero video game and refused to stop playing the game despite the injury. Now, even when trying to do a good deed by helping his parents salvage belongings from their home in southern California as wildfires approached, he can’t avoid getting injured. A heavy box fell on Zumaya’s pitching shoulder while he was moving things from the house, damaging the shoulder severely enough that he will need major reconstructive surgery on it. His surgeon has already told him that he’ll need to rest the shoulder for six weeks following the surgery, not begin any throwing program until March and that he will likely be out until mid-season. If I may, I feel compelled to give a piece of advice to my friend Joel Zumaya: Joel, you need to avoid video games and helping people move, as well as most everything else outside of baseball. Don’t do laundry, don’t cook, don’t do chores around the house, don’t do any landscaping or work on your car. It’s the only way to prevent your promising baseball career from ending prematurely, because you may be able to throw a 100+ m.p.h. fastball, but if you can’t stay healthy, it doesn’t matter.
- I didn’t even know that a “drug emporium” could exist for illegal narcotics, but clearly it can because that’s what a municipal judge in Pennsylvania labeled the home of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid at a sentencing hearings for Reid’s two sons, Britt and Garrett. Judge Steven O’Neill of the Montgomery County, Penn. Court, likened Reid’s home to a drug emporium and questioned whether his two sons should even be living there, given their prolonged drug problems. Britt Reid, the younger of the two Reid children, was sentenced to 23 months in prison and probation upon his release after a conviction on drug charges. Older brother Garrett also received 23 months in the slammer for being a drug addict and dealer who got a thrill from “selling drugs ‘in the hood’” and crashing his vehicle into another car while high on heroin. Now personally I always thought of an emporium as the local drug store you go to in order to buy cough medicine, stuffed animals, candy and magazines and to get prescriptions filled. To have your home called a drug emporium, that’s not something you hope for. A search of the Reid home and vehicles provides ample evidence for that characterization, with a litany of drugs, guns and ammunition being found. Dude, who are these people, sons of an NFL head coach or heads of a Colombian drug cartel? Memo to Britt and Garrett: You are two upper-class white guys living in suburban Pennsylvania, not a pair of hardcore gangstas living in Compton or Watts. Go to prison, get clean while you’re there are be thankful that your parents will still be willing to have anything to do with you once you’re released.
- Bar-roid, say it’s so. Bar-roid Bonds, baseball’s leader in both career home runs and steroids injected/rubbed in, has vowed that he will completely boycott baseball’s hall of fame if the museum displays his record-breaking home run ball No. 756 with the asterisk on it that fashion designer Marc Ecko put on the ball. The boycott would include Bar-roid’s own induction ceremony, which will almost certainly take place five years after he retires, as the hall’s rules dictate. “I wont go. I won’t be a part of it,” Bonds told MSNBC. “You can call me, but I won’t be there.” Way to go, Bar-roid, making yet another entire statement without using a single multi-syllabic word. That really shows that just because you have a ginormous, size-8 head with the gravitational pull of most planets, it doesn’t mean that there’s a lot of intelligence and brain power filling up the acres of space inside of that melon. Along with the “idiot” blast you dropped on Ecko for asterisking your home run ball, you’re clearly displaying second-grade language and maturity skills at best. I sincerely hope that Bonds does boycott the hall, because it will be a much better place without his surly, pompous, me-first, self-important, cheating a** there. We may not be able to avoid his enshrinement because he’s the sport’s all-time home run leader, but if we don’t have to listen to his induction speech or ever see him at a single event in Cooperstown, 99.9 percent of baseball fans will be much happier because of it.
- Has Pierce Brosnan been hanging out with Russell Crowe lately? In a very Crowe-like move, Brosnan is under investigation for an alleged assault outside a Mexican restaurant in Malibu a few days ago. The victim is some random dude named Robert Rosen, whose mistake seems to be that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pierce, I hate to be dishing out advice to someone who’s an accomplished actor, but here goes. You may be pissed because you got too old to play James Bond and that Daniel Craig has replaced you and is now the one chasing jewel-thieving, nuclear-warhead-possessing terrorists around the world and sleeping with über-hot Bond girls, but my man, you need to chill out. You’re still rich, you’re still (semi) famous and you’re hanging out in Hawaii, so how can you be angry enough to assault anyone. Just take a deep breath, overlook whatever perceived sleight that sparked this incident and take a look around at the palm trees, sandy beaches, hot chicks and 85-degree weather. Stop assaulting people unless the director yells “Action!” and a camera is filming.
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