CHEAP SHOT; A DRUG SUBMARINE

You can call it "fair play," or you can call it "truth in advertising." In
his nine-paragraph candidate statement on the sample ballot, incumbent
Escondido treasurer Kenneth Hugins included the sentence, "Don't trust your
tax dollars to an unproven politician who will . . . take unnecessary risks
with your money." His opponent, Jim Rady, who served eight years as an
Escondido councilman and four years as mayor and recently retired as board
chairman of Palomar Community Bank, suggested Hugins get a lawyer. "I don't
mind being called a politician because I am one," Rady said. "But to say
that I'm going to take unnecessary risks with money raises the hair on the
back of my neck." Although maintaining he could successfully defend his
claim in court, Hugins agreed to delete the sentence. So now you can call
it "fixed."

Anti-narcotics police have found cocaine hidden in the center of candy
lollipops, sewn into wigs, packed under the skin of animals, even inside
breast implants. But the latest would-be smuggling tool -- a sophisticated,
100-foot narco-submarine discovered under construction in a warehouse high
in the mountains outside Bogota -- still astounds. And it clearly proves
the argument that impoverished Colombia desperately needs the $1.3 billion
aid package recently approved by Congress.