He bombed out

We read and hear the conventional wisdom that bigtime drug dealers (a/k/a "Kingpins" and "Czars") would be just as successful running major corporations, with their innate business acumen and learned abilities to deal with personnel, supply, and distribution issues.

To test this theory, I suggest to the television networks that they try a companion show to my beloved "Undercover Boss" called "From The Alley to the Boardroom," in which we would see a local vendor of illicit substances promoted to running a Fortune 500 corporation.  Such compelling viewing! Watch, as "Timmy Fish-Eyes" becomes known as J. Timothy O'Hoolahan, CEO, COO, HMFIC of one of America's premier distributors of sugary soft drinks and salty snack chips!

And while I'm divvying up the ideas that occur to me at 0347 hrs daily, why not team up two great spectator sports - NASCAR and the New York Stock Exchange - and have a race called the Fortune 500, in which capitalists race around in their Beamers and Land Ruiners and Buicks?  First one to the golf course gets the best tee time!

Good ideas aren't hard to find if you look in the right places. For the next few years, I wouldn't ask Mark Barnett, late of Ocala, FL, because his plan looks like it hit a few snags.

It seemed deliciously simple.  ALLEGEDLY, Barnett, 48, offered a guy $10,000 to place bombs cleverly hidden in food packages (I'm thinking Jiffy-Pop) on the shelves at 10 Target stores from New York to Florida.

"Once the boxes had detonated inside of Target stores, Barnett theorized that the company's stock value would plunge allowing him to acquire shares cheaply before an eventual rebound," is how the Federal complaint puts it.

And he would buy the stock low and sell it high!  How could that go wrong?

Well, I guess if the guy took his 10 large and went right to the federal authorities, that would be one way.  And that's what happened.

The ALLEGED perpetrator.  He'll
have his day in court. 

Barnett had to hire help for his master scheme because he's already busy being on probation for kidnapping, multiple counts of sexual battery with a weapon or force, and grand theft. The government tacked charges of possession of a firearm that has affected interstate or foreign commerce onto his lengthy rap sheet.

But don't you worry!  He'll be in stir for a while (we hope) - long enough to come up with another airtight plot!