- By land and by sea aren’t working. Time to take to the
air, would-be Costa Rican drug smugglers. First, authorities in the Central
American nation seized 690 pounds of cocaine in a bust of a tractor-trailer
loaded with beans that was preparing to cross the northern border into
Nicaragua. Beans proved not to be an effective scent masker for the Bolivian
marching powder, as a sniffer dog was able to power its way through the beans’
pungent scene and locate the coke. The truck had Nicaraguan plates and authorities
detained the driver, who was identified as a Nicaraguan citizen. The bust was
the first in a big day that wasn’t nearly over. Later on, a second seizure of
some 910 pounds hidden in coolers on a fishing boat took place off Costa Rica's
southern Pacific coast. Police thanks a joint patrolling agreement between
Costa Rica and the U.S. for facilitating the second bust and the corresponding
arrests of three suspects. All together, some 1,600 pounds of Colombian nose
candy were stopped from making their way across the border and into the hands
of cartels. That merely means a bunch of other low-paid lackeys will have to
try again by different means and the dealers who have been counting on that
quality product will have to up their prices in order to make their current
supplies last longer. It’s a difficult situation for all involved and perhaps
one that should inspire the affected cartels to check into a time share for a
luxury jet to ferry their yayo across the necessary borders next time……….
- The Big 12 needs to cut old man Bill Snyder a break. The man
is a college football icon who took what was once the worst Division I program
in America and revived it before leaving, seeing it fall back into the abyss
and coming back to revive it a second time. He’s also about to turn 75 years
old and like many men of retirement age, his fashion sense leaves much to be
desired. Simply put, fashion has changed and he hasn’t because he’s old, out of
touch and doesn’t give a damn whether he’s in style or not. He knows he’ll soon
shuffle off this mortal coil and since he’s been around longer than most
everyone else, he figures he can say, do and wear whatever the hell he wants.
So if he wants to wear purple windbreakers on the sideline that have logos of
past bowl games on them, some of which are several years old, then it’s time
for the Big 12 and the overbearing bureaucratic tools who run the league to
take two giant steps back and leave the old man who insists that his butter be
whipped and that he ride only on the shady side of the plane alone. The league
is getting all pissy because it no longer has contracts with some of those bowl
games anymore, and others have changed names. The issue vaulted to the forefront
during last week's nationally televised game against Auburn, when Snyder rocked
a jacket pimping the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, now called the Cactus Bowl. After
getting scolded, Snyder sadly rolled over and opted for a rare white
windbreaker -- sans bowl logo -- for Saturday's 58-28 blowout of UTEP. Wrong
move, Bill, and a crotchety old man should have known better……….
- Anne Armstrong won't be the next governor of the nation’s
smallest state….but it would be awesome. She wouldn’t be the first elected official
to be a ganja fanatic, but she may be the first to base her entire campaign on
her affinity for toking it up. Armstrong is a medical marijuana advocate turned
write-in candidate for Rhode Island governor and she has garnered plenty of ink
for the savvy move of smoking what she says is pot in a campaign video. .
"I'm Anne Armstrong, and I'm going to be the next governor of Rhode
Island," she says in the minute-and-a-half-long video. "And I hope
that during my tenure, I will be able to dispel a number of misconceptions
about cannabis use." As this anachronistic hippie tells it, she smokes
herb daily for medical use and because it also helps her focus and communicate
with people around her. While doing bong rips in the video, she argues that pot
users "shouldn't be ostracized or marginalized." "It doesn't
make people crazy the way you've been told," she says. "We've been
lied to for a long time by our government, and something that's been essential
to our health has been taken away from us." After a joke about former
President Bill Clinton's famous "didn't inhale" remark during his
first run for President in 1992 and then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2006 admission
that he did inhale, Armstrong makes the case that states should be able to carry
forward with medical marijuana with no restrictions. Sadly, the squares at the the
Department of Justice say that marijuana is a schedule 1 narcotic. Pot legalization
is a big issue across the United States and the hippie lettuce is permitted in
22 states and the District of Columbia. It’s allowed for recreational use in Colorado
and Washington state and next month, voters in Oregon, Alaska and D.C. will
find the legalization question on their ballots. Unfortunately, voters in Rhode
Island aren't like to find Armstrong on theirs………
- Could Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich
be the Kofi Annan of the rock and roll world, bringing peace to war-torn
nations/bands with bitter rivals on either sides of a cavernous divide? Ulrich
may not have intended to step into such a void, but did exactly that when he
proclaimed that dissolved British rock band Oasis "has been the soundtrack to my life
for the last 20 years.” The Manchester band, which split in 2009, has
well-documented interfamily wars between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher and
the two have only intensified their back-and-forth bile since the band’s
break-up, including but not limited to allegations that the other one wants to
reunite the band because he’s failing on his own, throwing around blame for the
break-up and accusing each other of being everything short of the anti-Christ.
But maybe, just maybe, the cash-grab release of the band’s 1995 album “(What's
the Story) Morning Glory?” and the unabashed adoration of one of the greatest
metal band drummers ever can begin the healing process in earnest. "Oasis
has been the soundtrack to my life for the last 20 years on this wonderful
planet. I have stories and pictures in my mind that go along with everything,
from the first time I heard particular songs and read certain articles, to
hearing about the band's shenanigans and festivities,” Ulrich said. He recalled
a 1995 concert at a small venue in "Nowheresville, New Jersey" where
he had to step in and man the lights. "They didn't have a crew guy to run
the light board, and I was the only one in the building that knew the songs,”
Ulrich recalled. He included an inspiring anecdote about reading an interview
in which Noel Gallagher talked about quitting drugs inspiring him to kick his
cocaine habit, which is both life-affirming and somewhat sad because if a
world-famous rock drummer can't enjoy blow off the toned stomach of a model
backstage after a show, then what’s the point of rock and roll at all………..
