Colombian military: Drug sub seized

          The Colombian military says it has seized a submarine capable of transporting more than seven tons of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. The vessel was found in a jungle area in Timbiqui in southwestern Colombia on Sunday. According to the local authorities, the submarine is 31 meters (102 feet) long and capable of submerging to a depth of 9 meters (about 30 feet) making it very difficult to locate. The vessel was set up for a crew of four but was empty. Officials estimated it would have cost $2 million to build. Mexican authorities seized a similar submarine in 2008, that experts said was made of technology of Russian origin.

       While I am very much against illegal drug trafficking, I have to give the Colombian Cartel creativity points. It probably is easier to not get caught and I doubt the Coast Guard has anti-submarine detectors. The video I got from a link in the article showed how their design has improved over time.

    

         Many of the commentators on cnn.com mentioned the Russians working with the Cartel. While I realize that most of them were joking, some of the comments seemed serious. I think that this is quite unlikely because it would not be difficult for the cartel to get a "Russian Diesel Submarine Construction for Dummies" book. Joking aside, I do not think accessing outdated submarine designs without requiring Russian assistance wold be very difficult.

Toddler disappears from a home in Texas

        In a Texas home Sabrina Benitez was watching "Toy Story" with her 18-month-old son, Joshua shortly before 8 p.m. Friday when he left the room, heading toward where six other adults and another child were. About 10 minutes later, when the boy hadn't come back, Benitez asked the others about his whereabouts. Joshua was not found and the police were called. Benitez said she believes the boy was abducted  insisting it would have been all but impossible for her boy to go outside. Even if he did, Benitez said, the toddler would have been smart enough to try to get back in or would have been spotted by now. Police Lt. Penshorn said that the police don't think anyone at the house took the child. No Amber Alert has been issued for Joshua because such an alert typically requires solid evidence that an abduction took place. "If for some reason somebody came and took that child, not only would the people inside have seen the child leave the residence, but they would have seen somebody come inside and take him," Penshorn said. "They had scent dogs out here, and (they) said there was no scent of him leaving the yard."
        I personally side with the police officer and predict that the child was not abducted. This is mainly because in a house full of adults an intruder would be hard-pressed to avoid all of them in order to kidnap the child. I also believe this because I think the mother's comments are somewhat biased. This is because most mothers fear their child getting kidnapped. It also because the mother belief that the child would have been smart enough to return is somewhat overestimating an 18-month-old child.
        This article's popularity on cnn's newspulse was expected because of the seriousness of the issue and the curiosity of how a toddler could disappear from a house full of adults, but the comments on cnn.com were not what I expected. There were more sympathetic comments on the previous article I blogged about, which was about 400 people who lost their SuperBowl seats, which I find strange considering that I think this story is far more serious. There were the usual few paranoid comments stating that the mother and the family probably somehow caused the death of the child and now is trying to cover it up by contacting the police and saying that their child disappeared. I find this highly unlikely because ,even though something like this occasionally happens, there were seven adults in the house. This means all seven would be in on it, which is very unlikely. There were also many accusatory comments directed toward the parents, which I find unfair because even in the best circumstances accidents happen. Most surprising of all the number of insensitive comments such as "He's probably off somewhere doing some e-trading."

Some 400 ticket-holding fans denied seats at Super Bowl

   

       At the Super Bowl game this Sunday 400 people were denied access because seats were not completely installed in six sections. About 850 people were moved to "similar or better seats," but the 400 were left out. Fans denied seats are expected to get a refund of triple the cost  ($800) of their ticket. They were also allowed in the stadium to watch the game on monitors or from standing platforms in each corner of the stadium. While I do sympathize with the people  affected and feel that it does deserve to reported on, I do not believe the level of attention this article received is proportionate with the importance of the issue. At the time I saw the article it was the most popular one on cnn's newspulse. I don't believe that this is not  serious enough to justify this response of the comments. Some commentators felt bad for them, but a large majority were complaining, and one even wanted them to be sued. I believe that this event was not to serious ,after all the 400 were refunded three times the cost and allowed to watch from the standing platforms. Some people even ended up with better seats than they originally had. Also it isn't like the NFL wanted to waste money and energy preventing the people from attending. They were probably the least happy about the seats not being available.