Amy Winehouse's bogus promises, getting back lost gold medals and Colombia-Venezuela bitterness rages on

- Having never made an album of any sort, I can't say for certain, but making one while strung out on nearly every drug a person can snort, shoot, smoke or ingest would seem to be a difficult task. Don’t believe me? Just ask noted cokehead Amy Winehouse, who this week vowed that she'll release a new album by January of next year. "The album will be six months at the most," Winehouse said while attending he London premiere of the film "Psychosis." "It's going to be very much the same as my second album, where there's a lot of jukebox stuff and songs that are… just jukebox, really. I just can't wait to have new songs on stage, really." After years of stringing her fans along as she was in and out of rehab, in and out of sobriety and the like, the drag queen-ish singer is looking to release her first album since 2006's "Back to Black," which sold 2,247,000 copies in the U.S. Her announcement came as something of a surprise to her longtime collaborator Mark Ronson, who claimed that a new album was nowhere close to completion. "Amy hasn't begun working on her next record yet," he said. "When she's got ten songs we'll go down to the studio together." Wow, if she doesn’t even have ten songs yet and to hear Ronson, she doesn’t have anywhere close to that, I would agree that it’s going to be tough to churn out an album any time in the next six months. Not that I’m expecting a quality product from this chick, but even a passable album of bad pop/R&B music seems to be more than she will be able to pump out in between now and January. But perhaps she made that promise to her fans while high on some quality Colombian nose candy and when she woke up the next morning, Winehouse didn’t even remember saying it at all……….

- How to handle the medals won by members of track and field relay teams with a member found guilty of doping is one of the sport’s tougher questions. Relay teams typically have five members (one alternate in addition to the four regulars) and if one person, unbeknownst to the rest, decides to cheat by injecting or ingesting an illegal substance to boost their performance, what’s to be done with the whole team if they win gold, silver or bronze? It’s the question that has been lingering over members of a 2000 American Olympic relay team who had the misfortune of teaming with one of the sport’s biggest cheats, disgraced sprinter Marion Jones, to win gold in the 4x400 relay and bronze in the 4x100 relay. In Sydney, Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson were part of the 4x400 team with Jones, while Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were on the 4x100 bronze medal squad. All of the women were stripped of their 2000 Olympics relay medals because Jones was doping but seven of the eight (all but Perry) undertook a lengthy appeals process that culminated Friday with a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Geneva, Switzerland ruling in their favor. The seven women appealed the International Olympic Committee's decision to disqualify them from the Sydney Games and the court said the IOC and International Association of Athletics Federations rules in 2000 did not allow entire teams to be disqualified because of doping by one athlete. In response to the decision, the bribe-takers at the IOC issued a predictable, bitter statement about how the ruling was "disappointing and especially unfortunate for the athletes of the other teams who competed according to the rules." That was not the opinion of the court, which sided with the arguments made by Jones’ former teammates. "The panel found that at the time of the Sydney Olympic Games there was no express IOC or IAAF rule in force that clearly allowed the IOC to annul the relay team results if one team member was found to have committed a doping offense," CAS said. As for Jones, she is still toiling in obscurity as a member of the Tulsa Shock of the WNBA (yes, the league still exists and they are actually playing their season right now - I think). She was asked about the ruling Friday in San Antonio, where the Shock were preparing to play the Silver Stars. "I've totally moved on," Jones, who spent about six months in a Texas prison in 2008 for lying about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam, said. "I'm moving forward." In announcing their decision, the CAS panel of three lawyers acknowledged the ruling might be unfair to relay teams that competed "with no doped athletes" but added the decision "exclusively depends on the rules enacted or not enacted by the IOC and the IAAF at the time of the Sydney Olympic Games." The CAS also slapped the IOC in the face by ordering the Olympic body to pay $9,500 toward the athletes' legal costs. In the end, I think it’s a positive that athletes who competed clean and had no knowledge of cheating by a relay teammate weren’t punished when they did nothing wrong………

- Glad to see that the bitterness and hostilities between South American neighbors Colombia and Venezuela are still going strong. The latest salvo came Friday, as Venezuela recalled its ambassador to Colombia on after it rejected Colombia's assertion that Colombian rebels are living in Venezuela. In recalling its ambassador, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement alleging the administration of outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is trying to undermine the possible normalization of relations between the two countries. Why would he be doing such a thing? "After eight years of failed diplomacy and of militarism as the only regional policy, President Uribe leaves a country at war, a government isolated in Latin America and detached from its neighbors," the statement said. Great, but that still doesn’t explain why he would make a bogus claim about Colombian rebels living in your country, Venezuela. And gee, who would ever imagine that Venezuela, a country run by an overbearing dictator hell-bent on sparking World War III and repressing the rights of his people, would allow rebels from one of his nation’s most bitter enemies to take refuge in his country? Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said Venezuela was recalling its ambassador to Colombia for consultations, which is as bold-faced a lie as there could be. Colombia is not allowing the decision to dissuade it from pursuing the matter and as the Venezuelan ambassador was exiting stage left, the Colombian government raised the prospect seeking assistance international organizations. after having "a patient dialogue" for six years about its belief that Colombian "terrorists" were in Venezuela. Colombia claims that it passed that information to Venezuelan authorities, but its overtures were "unsuccessful with relation to terrorist leaders." Convinced that high-ranking leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, live in Venezuela, the Colombian government is frustrated by the uncooperative actions of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and his crew. For the rebel-ignorant, the FARC is a Marxist rebel force that has been battling the Colombian state for decades. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva laid out the case for FARC members living in Venezuela at a Friday meeting with the media and claimed that meetings between FARC leaders and Venezuelan officials took place as recently as this week. "The continued and permanent tolerance of the presence of terrorists in that country is a threat to the security of Colombia," he said. Of course, there is also the outlandish claim on Chavez’s part that Colombian officials and paramilitary groups are busy plotting his assassination, so factor that into the mix as well. In other words, don’t expect this situation to simmer down any time soon……….

- Since when does paying a guy $300,000 to write a few articles entitle the payee to expect original works of the writer’s own hand? That’s certainly news to me just like it’s news to Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis. Seems that McInnis was paid handsomely by the Hasan Family Foundation Board to write a series of articles and he responded with heavily plagiarized works. McInnis was accused this week of plagiarizing whole sections of the pieces he was commissioned and paid handsomely to write. When his dishonest deeds came to light, he admitted "mistakes were made" and vowed to "make things right." However, “making things right” didn’t include returning the money, not in McInnis’ mind. The Hassan foundation didn’t appreciate that response and pressed the issue. It demanded full repayment and at long last, McInnis says he'll make arrangements to repay all $300,000. The foundation released a statement Friday saying that after investigating the matter, it wanted McInnis to return the $300,000 he was paid. "Of the little work that [McInnis] did, he has admitted it was neither fully completed by him, nor fully original," the statement. "In view of the public disclosure by Mr. McInnis as well as by Mr. Rolly Fischer, it is clear that Mr. McInnis has not fulfilled the terms of our agreement, and there is no need for any further investigation by the Foundation." What I find hilarious is that although McInnis has been caught red-handed, he still doesn’t seem to feel all that guilty about his actions, nor does he seem to believe that he really should return the money. "I apologized to the Hasans for this mistake, and I expressed my determination to make it right with my dear friends," McInnis stated in a news release. "I will be in contact with the Hasan family to make full payment arrangements. I agree with the foundation that this brings this matter to a close, and I look forward to continuing to speak on the campaign trail about the critical issues facing all of Colorado, including jobs and economic recovery." See, dude is already looking to spin this into a political commercial to boost his campaign. Nothing says, “I’m sorry” quite like seizing upon a blatant case of plagiarism as a chance to stump for your sure-to-lose gubernatorial campaign………

- Someone’s getting a little snippy, eh Apple CEO Steve Jobs? Having heard just about enough criticism of the reception issues with his company’s highly touted new smartphone, the iPhone 4, Jobs fired back in terse fashion Friday, saying the iPhone 4's reception problems have been "blown way out of proportion.” But should you be one of those who has suffered because of an inept iPhone, Apple is going to give you…..wait for it…..wait a little longer…..a free phone case to fix the issue! If you already purchased a case, you will receive a refund. "We're not perfect; phones aren't perfect," Jobs said. "We want to make all our users happy." Any time between now and Sept. 30, iPhone customers can visit an Apple store for a free case. Another possible solution to the phone’s reception issues, bumpers -- hard rubber bands that cover only the edges of the phone -- Jobs admitted that Apple has not made enough of them to offer them free. Overall, not what anyone expected when the iPhone 4 set Apple sales records after its release June 24 and received the requisite positive reviews from tech dorks, who lined up for hours outside those same Apple stores for the right to throw away a crapload of money on their favorite company’s latest gadget. So far, the smartphone has sold more than 3 million units and has been the most successful product launch in Apple history. Jobs blindly insists that the phone remains "our best product ever," seeming to indicate that Apple is more concerned with sales figures that quality products that function properly. "It's not like Apple has had its head in the sand on this," Jobs said. "It's only been 22 days." Yes, but it took only a few hours after the smartphone’s release for analysts to find out that holding a certain spot on the metal band around the edge of the phone leads to interference, causing weakened reception and, sometimes, dropped calls. That band houses the phone’s antenna and was part of the reason the iPhone 4 is about 25 percent thinner than its predecessors. The problems have turned the iPhone 4 into a punchline for everyone with a forum of any kind, be it Internet, television or print. Oh, and those claims that one of Apple’s engineers notified him of this problem before the phone’s release? “Total bullsh*t,” Jobs snapped at Friday’s presentation. Good to see that you are handling this so well, Steve-O………..