- Dammit. As you all know, I get extremely angry when self-righteous, overbearing government around the world do anything to interfere with or disrupt the many links in the supply chain to provide drugs to all my drug addict amigos around the world. So a big no-thanks to the U.S. military for bombing about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan. Sure, you can argue that this excessive display of force is designed to break up the Taliban's connection to heroin and I’m all for opposing terrorism, but you know who suffers here? The average drug addict, that’s right. When you stage a mid-day air strike in Helmand province, what you’re basically saying is f’you, drug addicts. We don’t care about making your life miserable by reducing supplies, driving up costs and taking money out of your pocket. No, we’re going to drop a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then follow that with strikes from helicopters. Apparently this is some sort of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs, i.e. the opium and heroin made from poppy seeds. Worse still, the U.S. Agency for International Development is attempting to coerce Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops by offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation. Wheat? Seriously? You can’t smoke, shoot or snort wheat (I don’t think) and wheat doesn’t get you high? Who exactly are you helping by trying to convince these farmers to grow wheat? I’m guessing they’ll make less money growing wheat than drugs, not more. All of this comes as observers have noticed a significant decline in the opium trade in Afghanistan, with the number of poppy-free provinces increasing from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008. In other words, there’s already a major problem here and the U.S. military is only making it worse. Opium cultivation in the country has dropped by about 20 percent in a year, which is clearly going to creat a lot of problems. Opium and heroin have long served as a major source of revenue for the Taliban movement that once ruled Afghanistan and without that revenue, who knows what they’ll do. But more importantly, what is the average drug addict going to do? Answer me that, U.S. military……..
- What a season it should be for David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy. You may recall that Becks came to Major League Soccer last season because he received an absurd 5-year, $250 million contract that was based largely on endorsement money. He and his wife have an insatiable desire to be celebrities and being in L.A. was seemingly an ideal location for that. Becks abandoned international soccer to play in a second-rate league in a country where soccer is a second-class citizen. His arrival was hailed by soccer nuts who want to believe that soccer will ever be truly relevant here and for all of one game, they were kinda, sorta right. After that first game, everyone went back to not caring about soccer and Beckham toiled in anonymity. The Galaxy missed the playoffs and he spent the offseason playing internationally for club team AC Milan. When it became clear how much he’d missed soccer at its highest level, Beckham began looking for ways to get out of his MLS deal so he didn’t have to come back to the U.S. When the league wouldn’t budge and because it had the hammer in his hand, Beckham, AC Milan and the MLS hammered out a deal under which he would play for both and be able to get out of his MLS deal sooner than originally allowed. Under that agreement, he made his way back to L.A. last week after the Galaxy were already more than a dozen games into their season. Beckham wasted no time in making an impact, assuming that by “impact” you mean he nearly got into a brawl with some of the team’s hardcore fans, the L.A. Riot Squad, who apparently aren’t down with how he’s treated their team. Stories on exactly what happen have varied, but what is clear is that Beckham engaged one or more fans in the stands and went up on a barricade surrounding the field. He claims that he was merely looking to act as a peacemaker and have a fan who had been riding him come down and shake his hand to diffuse things. What the fan in question is alleging is that Beckham challenged him to come down and fight the overpriced soccer prima donna. Either way, this was a bad move. The fans are already on edge, they’re unhappy with Beckham and see him as a spoiled a-hole who thinks he’s too good for them and their team. This was only the first game back for Beckham and if it’s already going this way and he’s getting hooked by some idiot fans, this thing is only going further off the tracks in the weeks ahead. Look for this to get worse, uglier and thus much more interesting going forward………..
- I’ve got a beef with you, USA network, and I think you know why. Previously I took time out to praise a couple of your summer shows, Burn Notice and Royal Pains, and while I still enjoy those shows, you need to help me out here. From time to time, I’m unable to get to a TV to catch the shows when they originally air. Like many networks, USA puts its shows up on its Web site so viewers can watch them in case they missed an episode the first time around. At least I think USA puts its shows up online, because the online episodes of Burn Notice have been exceptionally tardy, to say the least. See, the show airs on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and last week, I was unable to see the show. No problem, I can just track it down online and see what I missed, right? Wrong, at least so far. Four freaking days after the episode aired, USA still hasn’t gotten around to putting that episode up. Can I ask why? I mean, Fox has episodes of one of the biggest shows on TV, 24, up the next day. Same goes for ABC and its hit show Lost. Yet the mighty USA network can’t get around to throwing up an episode of one of its shows for nearly a week? Get over yourselves, USA. People may like your shows and some of them may be good, but not that good. I shouldn’t be able to see a rerun of a show the hour before a new episode airs and have that be my first chance to see said episode after its original air, not if the network goes around claiming you can watch its shows online. In other words, step your game up, USA network. Stop jerking me around, stop dicking around and just put the episodes online in a relatively timely fashion and we won't have this problem…….
- Here is lesson #761 in my ever-expanding seminar for aspiring-yet-stupid criminals: before getting a tattoo, which tends to be a fairly permanent thing, make sure that a) you are sober, b) definitely want that ink and c) your new tat isn’t in a place that will make your appearance distinct and easily identifiable for a witness in any crime you might commit. This is a lesson that Sean Roberts of Tampa, Fla. would do well to learn. Roberts and a female accomplice entered a Tampa home and threatened the residents, forcing the victims into a bathroom. They proceeded to rob the home, taking prescription drugs, a DVD player, a CD player and $120 in cash. Yet less than a week after the robbery, Roberts was in custody and charged with armed home invasion. How did the cops find him so quickly? It may have had something to do with the fact that Roberts sports an outline of the state of Florida tattooed on his face. Oh, and he also has the words "Crazy Cracker" tattooed on his head. Hmm, think that might make him easy to pick out? Bro, I know you’re not all that smart (or else you wouldn’t be robbing homes for $120 and some small-time electronics), but even you should realize that with a distinctive tat like that on your face, you need to wear a ski mask any time you’re going to commit a crime. Either don’t get the tattoo or cover it up, amigo. I do thank you for giving me more fodder for my seminar and another great how-not-to example to use in that seminar, but for your sake you need to be a little smarter when committing your crimes……..
- Tomorrow is a big day if you’re a Yahoo user, as many Internet users are. The popular site is giving users a chance to personalize their Yahoo home page beginning tomorrow. "We're pulling together everything about the user they care about, be it on Yahoo or off, to create a personally relevant experience," said Tapan Bhat, Yahoo's senior vice president for consumer experiences. "In a world like this, Yahoo needs to make the user experience come first." The resdesign will allow users to not only incorporate Yahoo tools into their homepage, but also sites like Twitter, Facebook and eBay. Yahoo clearly hopes this new-look homepage will help it close that gap with Google, which has been kicking Yahoo’s ass for the past few years with utilities like Google Earth. As you’d expect, the hopes on the business end are that advertisers will be willing to pour more dollars into Yahoo if the resdesign can increase site traffic and help the company regain market share. Personally I’ve never been one of those people who runs everything off of a Yahoo or AOL homepage; I get my email from one site and anything else I need, I simply go to those sites as needed and that’s that. However, I can see where pulling everything together under one umbrella could be helpful for users who are either a tad lazy or just not that Internet-savvy, so I’ll be interested to see how this plays out for Yahoo…….
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