Got a fleet of Hummers the size of Desert Storm?  You’re still in little league until you upgrade to a submarine. 

Think your stockpile of AK-47s and grenade launchers is the pinnacle of drug lordship? 

The guys with anti-tank and Soviet surface-to-air missiles are laughing at you in their palatial estates in the jungle while tending to their pet hippopotami and the rest of their personal zoo.

Now you can add stolen oil refineries to the bling list of the deadly Mexican drug cartels. 

On Monday, the head of a Houston oil company plead guilty to illegally buying millions of dollars worth of black market oil from a drug cartel and smuggling it across the border.  The drug gangs–which now seem more like small armies–tapped remote pipelines to divert insane amounts of oil into their own stockpiles for resale.  Oil is Mexico’s chief source of foreign income and brings in about 40% of the GDP each year.

Authorities have not yet commented on what the street name for oil might be, though a popular drug known as “gasoline” is claimed by some to have similar effects.

Community Connection:

Read “The Trouble with Black Gold: 7 Sins of Oil Production,” a related article from our archives.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Fiordland a week ago apparently twisted the southern island so far out of shape that it actually moved about one foot closer to Australia, says a New Zealand news source. Every year, the island drifts about one-third of an inch westward, but this is giving it about a thirty-six year boost. The earthquake was the biggest in New Zealand after eighty years.

No, it probably won’t make your inter-island travels any cheaper, but at least the South Pacific just got a foot cozier.

Here’s the video from the quake:

Feature photo: Stormy Dog