Free Republic

Wanted: A Colombian woman with long hair, thick lips and honey-colored eyes, 30 years old, with surgically enhanced breasts and a redone nose. She likes Spider-Man and recites the poetry of Pablo Neruda. With this and other information, police in Argentina are looking for Angie Jeaneth Sanclemente Valencia, a dethroned Colombian beauty queen and lingerie model who, according to authorities, led a band of beautiful women who transported cocaine from Buenos Aires into several European countries. Figuring that beauty distracts from suspicion, Sanclemente recruited in Argentina "pretty and discreet young women" willing to travel with several kilos of cocaine in...

Former Miss Californias Tamiko Nash and Raquel Beezley, with former Miss USA Shanna Moakler (center). Former Miss California Raquel Beezley. Former Miss California Tamiko Nash. 1997?s Miss Hawaii-turned Miss USA-turned Miss Universe, Brook Lee, donned a white evening gown and sash that said "Miss Equality." Brook Lee had previously taken part in the anti-Prop 8 campaign. Former "Laguna Beach" star Kristin Cavallari.

The Miss Teen USA pageant contestant who became a YouTube sensation after butchering a question about why many Americans cannot find the U.S. on a world map says she was overwhelmed by her national television appearance and chalks up the experience to being “human.”

After a run of sordid beauty-queen stories, it doesn't get much more refreshing -- or inspiring -- than this. A beauty queen lays aside her crown not because of scandal but . . . to serve her country. Meet Jessica Gaulke, who has given up her crown as Minnesota's Queen of the Lakes because her National Guard unit has been activated. Jessica is scheduled for training at Fort Hood, TX and then deployment to Iraq. The story gets even more dramatic. In the course of her interview by NBC's Natalie Morales on this morning's "Today," Jessica announced that a...

FRom Saturday's Edition -- Worth a read.. Because there is a certain beauty in a good scam, the governor and legislators should be crowned beauty queens. Before you breathe a sigh of relief that a state budget fix is on the horizon, be forewarned: The creative financing scheme used to close a multibillion- dollar budget hole is impossible to understand and painful for all Californians. Until California fundamentally reforms the way tax dollars are budgeted, the state will lurch from one financial crisis to the next. The state's present sleight-of-hand budgeting steals money from local government to cover up the...