A man has been accused of attempting to pass a $360 billion check, which he claims was given to him by his girlfriend’s mother to start a record business, Fort Worth police said.
[...]
The personal check was not made out to Mr. Fuller and when the bank contacted the check owner, the woman said she did not write a check for $360 billion.
Mr. Fuller was also accused of unlawful carrying of a weapon and possession of marijuana, Lt. Henderson said. He may also face a theft charge in Crowley.

The Wire's writers on the War on Drugs:

Our leaders? There aren't any politicians — Democrat or Republican — willing to speak truth on this. Instead, politicians compete to prove themselves more draconian than thou, to embrace America's most profound and enduring policy failure.

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right," wrote Thomas Paine when he called for civil disobedience against monarchy — the flawed national policy of his day. In a similar spirit, we offer a small idea that is, perhaps, no small idea. It will not solve the drug problem, nor will it heal all civic wounds. It does not yet address questions of how the resources spent warring with our poor over drug use might be better spent on treatment or education or job training, or anything else that might begin to restore those places in America where the only economic engine remaining is the illegal drug economy. It doesn't resolve the myriad complexities that a retreat from war to sanity will require. All it does is open a range of intricate, paradoxical issues. But this is what we can do — and what we will do.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

This drug sounds both glorious and terrifying:

The monkeys were deprived of sleep for 30 to 36 hours and then given either orexin A or a saline placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. The monkeys given orexin A in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert monkeys, while the saline-control group was severely impaired.

The study, published in the Dec. 26 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, found orexin A not only restored monkeys' cognitive abilities but made their brains look "awake" in PET scans.

Siegel said that orexin A is unique in that it only had an impact on sleepy monkeys, not alert ones, and that it is "specific in reversing the effects of sleepiness" without other impacts on the brain.

A Wisconsin-based cheese maker has offered the highest bid ($285,000) for the infamous Middle Tennessee pot cave.

Proceeds from the sale of the cave will go to the 15th Judicial District Drug Task Force, which confiscated the property after Strunk's illegal enterprise was shut down.

"We'll use the money to fund our undercover work," said Mike "Sarge" Thompson of the drug- fighting unit.

*sigh*

According to some ridiculous method the government uses to calculate the value of pot plants, those 39 seized and destroyed plants are worth more than $100,000. Money doesn't grow on trees, it grows on...

Apparently you don't have to be young and stupid to push a Prius over 100mph. Turns out even a graying wacky nerd can do it:

"I pleaded guilty, with an explanation," Wozniak said in one of several e-mails exchanged the past few days. "I said that I was really scientific, and in the last year had been in Athens, Moscow, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich (twice), Zurich, Canada (three times), Columbia, Singapore, Japan, London, etc., and had gotten used to kilometer speeds."

The judge smiled. But he didn't buy it. The fine was about $700.

(If the mercurynews link leads to a registration page, try the link once or twice more and the story should show up... weird.)

I'm positive the Tour has been captivating you all, with the exclusive coverage on Versus, and some of the "best commentators known to sports broadcasting."

Anyway, recently the Tour's leader was pulled from the race, fired by his team, and the entire team went home... why... because the dumbass skipped a couple out of competition drug tests by telling officials he was in Mexico with his wife. We learn a valuable lesson in all this: If you say you are in Mexico, it's probably not a good idea to be out riding your bike training in the Italian Dolomites...

FWIW, Rasmussen had been wearing the yellow for the last 9 stages and was pretty much the favorite at this point with his time lead to win the Tour.

The city of Philadelphia really knows how to greet a visiting sports icon. You can feel the respect and admiration pour out of the stands as they, in unison, scream out "You took steroid..... you took steroids...."

Even Barry's fans felt the sportsmanship and comrade from their fellow sports fans.

Admitting to having used LSD four decades ago is apparently enough to warrant a lifetime ban from entering the US:

Before long the customs guard was engrossed in an article Feldmar had published in the spring 2001 issue of the journal Janus Head. The article concerned an acid trip Feldmar had taken in London, Ontario, and another in London, England, almost forty years ago. It also alluded to the fact that he had used hallucinogenics as a "path" to understanding self and that in certain cases, he reflected, it could "be preferable to psychiatry." Everything seemed to collapse around him, as a quiet day crossing the border began to turn into a nightmare.

To my future background checkers, I would like to note that I have never commited any acts of moral turpitude, including but not limited to LSD use.

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