Paris Hilton embraces her true calling, one angry billionaire and no more subsidized cancer sticks in Cuba

- Welcome back, Paris Hilton, welcome back. You tried to deny your true self and stay out of trouble for a while, but there will always be that part of you that enjoys making sex tapes, saying moronic things and getting arrested and there’s no denying it. Glimpses of that old self flared up in June, when you were briefly detained in South Africa for allegedly smoking marijuana at the World Cup. Predictably, Hilton’s mouthpiece called the July 2 incident "a complete misunderstanding," which is accurate as long as “complete misunderstanding” means that she thought she could get away with getting baked and that no one was watching her, both of which were wrong. Well, the hippie lettuce must truly be that gateway drug that all of the uptight squares and conservative thinkers in this country believe it to be, because Hilton has gone from toking up in South Africa to getting arrested late Friday night in Las Vegas on suspicion of cocaine that was pulled over in front of the Wynn Hotel on the Vegas strip at about 11:30 p.m. after police detected the smell of marijuana coming from the SUV. Now I’m not a police officer and while I know what the chronic smells like, I have to say that sniffing out that odor from a moving vehicle seems extremely unlikely. There would have to be a whole lot of the ganja smoked in a vehicle in a very short amount of time to have that much of an odor wafting out its windows. Besides that, who drives around any city other than Amsterdam (where not a lot of people drive as is, preferring bikes, on foot or by canal) while smoking pot and leaves their windows rolled down or their sun roof open? Hilton was not the only person in the vehicle arrested, as the driver, who police did not identify, was arrested for driving under the influence. Hilton got the opportunity to spend some quality time the Clark County jail before being released once authorities determined she was not a flight risk. Regardless of how this case turns out, I have to say that it’s nice to have you back in your truest form, Paris………

- A bad day for Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo became much worse when he and a clubhouse attendant were robbed at gunpoint early Friday, hours after Gallardo pitched poorly in a loss to the Dodgers. The team confirmed the incident, but neither victim wanted to discuss it and all that is known at this point comes from the police report. Gallardo gave up six runs in 6^1/3 innings against the Dodgers, but something tells me the robber wasn’t looking for revenge over Gallardo failing to live up to his status as the ace of the Milwaukee rotation. The Brewers haven’t been in the playoff race for a while now, so losses aren’t a big deal at this point in the season. Unless this thief was bent over Gallardo wrecking the week for his fantasy baseball team, I doubt the heist had anything to do with baseball. The gun-toting felon approached Gallardo and Alex Sanchez in a supermarket parking lot demanding money and jewelry. According to Milwaukee police, Sanchez was hit in the head, but not seriously injured. No suspect has been identified and police aren’t saying if they have any significant leads at this point. Thankfully, this all ended with no one seriously hurt, but I’m guessing that not many All-Star pitchers are getting held up at gunpoint in supermarket parking lots, so Gallardo can't be in the greatest of moods right now. He’s been having a tough run on the mound of late, giving up at least four runs in each of his last four starts. Maybe it’s time to start using some of that All-Star salary to hire a bodyguard to go with him to dangerous, seedy places like the grocery store in a tough, shady town full of gangstas like Milwaukee………

- It’s about freaking time, Cuba. I know that being an isolated island dictatorship means you often lag behind the rest of the world, but thanks for finally joining the rest of us in the 21^st century…..sort of. See, for decades now, the Cuban government has adhered to the tradition of providing cancer sticks, i.e. cigarettes, to citizens on a subsidized basis. That’s right, the government was basically handing out free lung cancer to many of its constituents. While the number of those receiving subsidized, tobacco-fueled death had declined over the years - currently some 2.5 million Cubans over the age of 54 are the primary recipients - the fact is that even one is too many and starting next month, that number will drop to zero as new dictator Raul Castro works to jump-start the island's faltering economy with one of those measures being the phasing out of longstanding monthly allotments of subsidized cigarettes. Come next month, aspiring lung cancer patients will have to look elsewhere for help in reaching their goals as they will no longer get their four packs of cigarettes as part of the country's ration program. "The Council of Ministers has resolved to eliminate cigarettes from the rationed family basket as of September as part of the measures gradually being adopted to limit state subsidies," an official statement said. The cigarettes "are not a primary necessity," the statement said. Cigarettes aren’t the only rationed items citizens receive, but Castro eventually intends to get rid of them all as he works to modernize the economy. In addition to cigarettes, monthly allotments of chickpeas, potatoes and a pound of sugar were removed from the system this year, although none of them are known to cause lung cancer, emphysema and other major illnesses. The Cuban economy has been sucking major wind ever since the 1990s following the demise of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union. Somehow, allotments of inexpensive cigarettes for Cubans born before 1956 were kept in place. Yeah, because you can cut truly essential items but one thing you don’t want to do away with its free death sticks. I’m no economist, but my focus would be on boosting the rations of rice, beans and other staples, which most experts estimate provide enough food for less than two weeks, forcing many Cubans to turn to state-run stores and markets. Restructuring the economy has been a chief priority for puppet dictator Castro, who “took over” for his brother Fidel in 2008, although everyone figures Fidel is still the one calling the shots anyhow. Also out the door in Raul Castro’s watch have been state-sponsored honeymoons and vacations already have been cut. Free health care, education and social security remain for now, but with the bleak economic forecast ahead, nothing appears beyond Raul’s ax…….

- Everyone makes a mistake from time to time. However, when that mistake is releasing the wrong man from prison, you probably shouldn’t make that mistake once, let alone twice. Someone needs to pass that info along to officials at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, R.I. Not just twice, but twice in a matter of weeks, they have wrongly released inmates, the latest being a felon named Leonard Martin. Martin had a larceny charge against him dropped. Still the judge in his case judge ordered him held on a possession, but a clerical error when someone misinterpreted the court documents led to an officially provided jailbreak. "Our records and ID staff has to interpret paperwork from a dozen courts which can be very complicated. While the investigation is ongoing, this appears to be staff misinterpretation of paperwork," Corrections Director A.T. Wall said. Once the mistake was discovered, the ACI's Special Investigation Unit began looking for Martin. He actually helped end the search by turning himself in to Providence police without incident Thursday afternoon. To Martin’s credit, he didn’t do anything wrong and simply accepted a release he didn’t deserve. He isn’t on the same level as inmate Nayquan Gadson, who Jedi mind-tricked prison officials last month by posing as another inmate. Gadson was later caught in Brooklyn, N.Y and has since been returned to the ACI. "This is a very different set of circumstances from the Nayquan Gadson escape," Wall said in a statement Friday afternoon. "We have had approximately 180,000 releases over the course of the last 10 years. The situation with Nayquan Gadson was the only one of its kind in all that time." Great, but one is still one too many. But rest assured, the Department of Corrections claims to have taken steps to improve procedures since Gadson's release, including the testing of I.R.I.S scanning technology , which identifies inmates by scanning their eyes. "After this investigation we will know whether other changes need to be made," Wall said. Here’s hoping the third time truly is a charm for you all…….

- Beware, tech companies of the world: Paul Allen is on the warpath. The Microsoft co-founder has filed suit against eleven tech companies for patent infringement, including some of the biggest names in the industry: Apple and Google, plus nine other companies AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google-owned YouTube. That’s pretty much every major Web site or office supply store around, all of which are allegedly using technology for which Allen owns patents, according to court documents filed in a Seattle. At the core of Allen’s suit is the claim that he owns the patents to four technologies those companies are allegedly using. A press release explains the four technologies as "key patents [that] are fundamental to ... leading e-commerce and search companies." What a lovely world we live in when you need not invent the technologies to file suit for patent infringement, but merely be developed at a lab you co-founded and helped finance. That would be Interval Research, the lab where the four technologies were created in the 1990s. "This lawsuit is necessary to protect our investment in innovation," Allen's spokesman said in the press release. "These are patents developed by and for Interval." What wasn’t in the release was the amount Allen is seeking in damages. One would imagine that the amount is substantial simply because of the power players involved, even though Allen is one of the world’s wealthiest men and doesn’t need a dime of any amount he might win. Hard to know who to root for in this one because it’s billionaire companies fighting a billionaire businessman, so perhaps this is the one where you root for the earth to open up and swallow the entire courthouse whole mid-trial……..