Models gone bad, a dream day for numismatists and looking a (pot-giving) gift horse in the mouth

- Beautiful people are cool. Having loads of money is cool. Running your own drug ring (allegedly) has a certain cool factor to it as well. Combine all three and…..wow. Colombian model Angie Sanclemente had the beauty and she had the successful modeling career, but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted the third part of that equation and because of that, she is now one of South America's "most wanted." Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for her and she is currently on the lam. She is believed to be in Argentina, but no ones knows for sure. What authorities suspect is that she could be the "queen pin" of an international operation that uses models as drug mules to shuffle suitcases loaded with cocaine out of Buenos Aires airport. "I am convinced Sanclemente is heavily involved in drug trafficking but I still cannot determine exactly what role she plays," one Argentine source close to the investigation said in an interview. A total of six suspected members of the ring, four men and two women, have been detained thus far. A woman identified only as "Maria" was arrested at Buenos Aires airport in December as she tried to board a flight bound for Cancun, Mexico with 120 pounds of cocaine. That haul of coke has an estimated street value of more than $3.3 million in the United States, according to estimates from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The suspected members of the ring who have been captured have named Sanclemente and her Argentine male model boyfriend, also in custody, as the leaders of the trafficking ring. What amazing is that while on the run and the target of the international manhunt, Sanclemente has continued to update her Facebook page. She has even sent Facebook messages to American media outlets to protest her innocence, a claim authorities obviously dispute. Guillermo Tiscornia, a Buenos Aires-based attorney, says he has been hired by Sanclemente's mother and that he has not yet had any contact with Sanclemente. Tiscornia also stated that he has filed an appeal with the Argentine Appeals Court asking that Sanclemente be allowed to testify without the risk of going to prison if she appears in court. Her former boyfriend, DJ Ludwing Hernandez, claims to have heard from Sanclemente through a friend since she went on the run. I have to imagine that this is not where Sanclemente saw her life heading back in 2000, when she won Colombia's Queen of Coffee beauty pageant. However, even that victory was short-lived because judges ripped her crown two days later when they found out she had been married, a violation of competition rules. Perhaps showing off her true colors, Sanclemente’s marriage was actually a three-month after in which a Barranquilla businessman paid for her to study journalism at Barranquilla's university and she dropped out of college after three semesters and spent her tuition money on silicone breast implants instead. Nothing says classy and upstanding quite like dropping out of school so you can use your tuition money to buy a bigger rack. Friends describe Sanclemente as analytical, calculated and driven, three things that would definitely be a help in running your own drug empire (or so I would guess.) Her involvement with the drug cartels came after the big Miss Coffee Queen victory, when adoring drug capos began circling her. Cartel leaders are known to frequent beauty pageants to troll for new arm candy and they clearly liked Sanclemente. She left Colombia around 2005 and headed to Mexico, where she pursued modeling and acting. From there, authorities allege that she has ventured deeper into the drug world and now has become the leader of her own operation. If nothing else, it should be a beautiful arrest if and when she is caught……….

- Numismatists, start your coin-collecting engines. All of the dorks out there who fly into a full-fledged panic every time a new coin or piece of currency is announced will be thrilled to know that the U.S. Mint has unveiled the designs for the first five coins in its America the Beautiful Quarters Program. These coins are not a part of the series of coins representing all 50 states that have been released the past few years. The new series will feature designs from 56 national parks and other sites in the 50 states, D.C. and U.S. territories. In order to prevent the appearance of any sort of bias, the coin designs will be released in the order they were first designated as national landmarks by the federal government. The first quarter in the series, Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, will be released April 19. Four additional coins from the series will be released this year, but the rest of the series will have a delayed release over the next decade. The quarter representing Alabama's Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site will complete the series in 2021, so numisma-dorks will have to channel a little Axl Rose and display some patience if they want to collect the whole series. As for me, my motto continues to be: If it’s round, shiny and a business will accept it as currency, I don’t give a crap what image is inscribed on either side of a coin……….

- Why look a freaking gift horse in the mouth? I ask this question of workers at a Marietta (Ga.) bakery who received an awesome, yet unusual shipment Friday morning. They received a large package at about 11:05 a.m. Friday and likely expected it to be the usual incoming shipment of flour, sugar and other ingredients. When they opened the package, Flowers Baking Company employees found a nice stockpile of pot - several hundred pounds, to be exact. At first, the contents of the package appeared to be parts to repair a loading dock, but there was hippie lettuce mixed in with the parts, bringing the total weight of the package to 600 lbs. At that point, these employees had a choice to make. They could be the conservative, law-abiding squares that they ultimately chose to be, or they could realize what an amazing gift they had been given, split the chronic up amongst themselves and had a nice, relaxing time smoking it, baking it into various baked goods and mellowing out. Being the great friend of stoners I am, I would obviously have preferred the latter. Heck, I would have been okay with these people giving the weed to some of their stoner friends or trying to find someone to help them sell it. But of course, these dorks had to go and call the police and Marietta police officer Michael Gardner and his cohorts showed up, seized the tree and that was that. Investigators said the package was delivered from a private carrier service from a private distribution center that is not associated with Flowers Bakery, so they are still trying to determine where the package came from and who sent it. No arrests have been made and no suspects have been identified, but in my opinion the truly suspect individuals in this situation are the fools who were handed a massive stash of free pot and turned up their noses at it in favor of being law-abiding squares…………

- Dammit, this is the kind of story that really pisses me off. People who are FAT do not need anyone giving them an excuse to be FAT or to think that they can off-put their blame for their terrible physique onto other culprits than the real one - themselves. But I am here to report the truth and as such, I must admit that scientists have confirmed that bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive. A new study headed up by Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida, indicates that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. Kenny and his team conducted their research on rats and found that when rats consume these foods in large enough quantities, they develop compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction. Both drugs and junk foods gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to the study. Once they are overloaded enough, those pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same high necessitates increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study. It’s the same principle as with vaccines and medicines used to treat illnesses and diseases, which is to say that the body builds up a tolerance and the same strength of dosage won't achieve the same effect. "People know intuitively that there's more to [overeating] than just willpower," Kenny explained. "There's a system in the brain that's been turned on or over-activated, and that's driving [overeating] at some subconscious level." For the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days (and 40 nights). The first group, the control group, was fed a normal died of whatever the heck it is that rats normally eat. The second group was fed what I like to call the Rosie O’Donnell diet - bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods-- but only for one hour each day. The third group of rats got to eat the Rosie diet for up to 23 hours a day. Obviously, the latter two groups quickly became morbidly obese, but the change that truly alarmed Kenny and his team was the shift in the rats’ brains while on the Rosie diet. By monitoring implanted brain electrodes, the researchers found that the rats in the third group gradually developed a tolerance to the pleasure the food gave them and had to eat more to experience a high. They began eating compulsively and were willing to endure severe pain just to gorge on junk food. Even when an electric shock was applied to their feet in conjunction with the delivery of the junk food, the rats in the third group was not scared off. "Their attention was solely focused on consuming food," says Kenny. The results are eerily similar to those in previous studies in which rats were given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. The neurotransmitter dopamine appears to be the cause for the behavior of the overeating rats. Dopamine is involved in the brain's pleasure centers and also is key in reinforcing behavior. "It tells the brain something has happened and you should learn from what just happened," says Kenny. What it told the brains of the rats in Kenny’s study is that the levels of a certain dopamine receptor in their brains dropped, causing their overeating ways. So what this means is that FAT people will now have another round of ammo locked and loaded the next time you try to confront them about their weight and get them to make a change. But know this, FAT people: I’m not taking this excuse from you and neither should anyone else…………

- I am picking up on an infuriating trend in the NFL this offseason and sadly, it looks a lot like a trend we’ve seen in the NFL each of the past few offseasons. That trend is players boozing it up at a bar, party or club and then getting behind the wheel only to find themselves spending the night in the drunk tank. Earlier this offseason, Miami Dolphins teammates Ronnie Brown and Will Allen posted tandem drunk-driving arrests, with Brown capping off the despicable duo’s efforts with his arrest last week for driving at twice the legal limit in Atlanta. That drunk-driving habit must have been circulating through the Dolphins’ locker room this past season because linebacker Joey Porter is no longer with the team, but that doesn’t mean he can’t follow the example that Brown and Allen set. Porter, who signed with Arizona earlier this month, has been arrested in Bakersfield on suspicion of drunken driving and accused of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. According to the California Highway Patrol, Porter was confronted by officers early Saturday in a fast-food parking lot. Yes, dude was pulled over in the parking lot at Hardee’s or Burger King. When the officer who pulled him over asked for his driver’s license, Porter made the smart move of refusing and rolling up his window. Good move, J.P. I’m sure that when a police officer asks for your license and demands that you step out of the car, he’s just going to give up and walk away because you roll up your window. But that wasn’t even Porter’s worst choice. No, that would be when an officer reached to unlock the door and Porter slapped the officer's hand. He eventually got out and complied with orders, but by that point he had dug himself a deep hole. Both he and a passenger were arrested and now he has a great offseason memory to pair with signing a three-year, $17.5 million deal with the Arizona Cardinals. You can bet that the Cardinals were thrilled to learn that their new free-agent signee is also a lush who doesn’t know the meaning of the term designated driver. The team released a statement Saturday, saying exactly what you’d expect them to say at this point: "The team is aware of the incident. We are in the process of gathering all of the facts concerning it and won't comment further until that's completed." I have statement I’d like to make as well, but I’m not sure that a) I can use that many profanities and curses in a single sentence and b) you would actually read them, so let’s just move on before I get even angrier……….