Meat Eating Plants and other news stories

A team of Brits who like plants have discovered a very large meat-eating one in the Philippines (no verification if one of them tried to put his junk into it). They say it can eat a rat, but do they know that? And did they find out by dropping rats into it? And did they say how big a rat it would eat? Like maybe one as big as a small cat? Maybe that's this guys next step. A man in New York has been arrested for killing four (possibly five) of his girlfriend's cats and maiming a sixth. Two at a time over a three month period. Let's be clear that I am not condoning his behavior which is certainly extreme. However, how stupid is that woman? You have two cats die in October. You get two more in November and one dies and the other becomes seriously damaged. At this point, even if you aren't smart enough to suspect someone is trying to intentionally kill the kitties, don't you think God is trying to tell you that you shouldn't have cats? Nope. She goes to get two more.

It's times like these that I find it hard to fathom that anyone would consider making the District of Columbia a state. And it doesn't even involve the continuing electoral career of serial criminal Marion Barry. Washington consistently has one of the highest poverty and murder rates in the country. Want to know who a DC councilman is blaming for it? Single slice pizza stands. Now when I lived in Maryland, big greasy pizza slices did have a drug connection. Namely, the guy who owned Frank's Pizza trafficked cocaine out of his. In this case, it appears that drunks from the local bars stop for a slice of pizza and get into fights. So, wouldn't closing the bars seem the more appropriate way to stop drunken violence? It would unless you're an elected official in Washington DC.

After all, Washington is where they've begun ticketing people who are parked in their own driveway. Not people who are letting part of their car hang over the sidewalk or even street. It's people whose cars aren't completely passed the front of the house. How can they do that? The law is that the property between the sidewalk and front of the house is public property. Although the "owner" still must maintain it. Does this mean that homeowners are going to have to begin repaving the street in front of their house? Does this mean I can have a picnic on someone's front lawn? After all, it's public space.

Major college basketball coaches in Kentucky aren't having a good time of it lately. Rick Pitino's problems come from off the court while John Calipari's are on it. As a Louisville fan, does the allegations about his one night stand/alleged rape/abortion connection change my opinion about him? Not really. On a personal level, I've never liked him much anyway. His "I meant it at the time I said it" pattern means I never believe a lot of what comes out of his mouth. I don't believe him when he says this was a one time thing. There were rumors about him philandering when he was at UK. Why would I think it suddenly stopped. However, I don't believe he raped her. And I only need one reason to figure that out. Why would she marry the guy who worked for her rapist and at whose home the second alleged rape occurred? That means in six months, she decided to marry a man who didn't stop her from being raped and whose job would make her have to spend time around that rapist? Sorry, not buying it. And while I assume Pitino knew it was possible that she might get an abortion, I actually believe him when he says the money wasn't for that. He did give her a lot more money than what it would cost. Of course, I doubt the baby was even his. She told him 2 weeks after which is about as early as it would show on a test. Was she checking every day? Plus, if it was his and she wants money, why kill the golden goose? Not that she's shown herself to be really bright. She could have nickle and dimed him for years or asked for a few hundred thousand at once and probably got it. Instead, she asks for $10 million to keep her mouth shut. Well, he makes about $2.5 million a year which means his take home pay is less than half of that. That means she was asking him for eight years of take home pay which means he's no longer worried about losing his job over any embarrassment because it'd be a lot cheaper to quit than pay $10M. Oh, and she's also probably going to jail over it.

Now, I don't think my coaches need to be saints so since I don't think he broke the law, I wouldn't fire him over one count of adultery that happened several years ago. However, if I thought the potential distraction outweighed keeping him, I'd want him gone. However, I don't want Ralph Willard as the interim coach (fine at WKU & Holy Cross, just plain bad at Pitt) so for this year, I don't see any choice other than keeping Pitino. And I'm not sure the conditions at road games will be that terrible. UK is already wanting blood so who cares about there. I laugh whenever I see "pundits" point out all the Catholic schools on UL's schedule and their reaction to the abortion claim. Yeah, right. Catholic schools are being criticized a lot lately for honoring pro choice politicians and allowing pro choice (and gay) groups and activities be sponsored on campus. It's pretty clear that most of their students aren't going to get bent out of shape over things opposite of church teaching. And the other claim that it will hurt recruiting is pretty silly too. How many college basketball players do you think are that concerned with a coach messing around like that? Probably a lot want to pick up some pointers on picking up chicks willing to not just sleep with you, but put out at the bar itself.

Now Calipari has a different problem. His best season ever was a 38 win runner up in 2007. Well, it's gone. Vacated because star player/imbecile Derrick Rose cheated to pass the SAT to be eligible. My favorite part of the whole thing is watching the feuding columnists at the Herald-Leader. You have Mark Story who has been against Calipari's hiring from the get-go due to his sketchy rep. Then you have John Clay who is so embarrassingly fawning over Calipari that he should be paid for his PR work. Come on. A headline that says "Calipari Guilty of Trusting NCAA"? Please. I freely admit there isn't any way to connect Calipari directly to Rose's cheating, but to pretend he's some kind of victim is laughable. I initially thought he was a good hire even with the Umass problem. Then I thought it was nuts that UK hired him when I found out that Memphis was being investigated and UK knew it. UK is not a program that can get away with hiring a cheater. It would be like Alabama hiring someone with probation in his background.

Do I think you can prove that Calipari knew Rose cheated? Nope. Do I think he did know? Hell yeah. Top athletes who have committed to a program don't send their transcripts to the NCAA clearinghouse. The school handles it. The school and staff are well aware what's going on with their academic life if they aren't qualified. Does anyone think Calipari wasn't aware that Rose had failed a standardized test three times and suddenly passed one in another state? I don't and I'm not alone. Georgia refused to admit Robert Dozier because of a very sketchy test score. Calipari was okay with it and Dozier did graduate with degree in interdisciplinary studies. Wait, did he get a degree in Undecided? A degree. I'll take that with a grain of salt. James Brooks graduated with a degree from Auburn and couldn't read. Calipari also got a bunch of other geniuses from a really suspect prep school that Dozier attended. Add that to his Umass problem and it's hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. Does that mean he'll get a Final Four vacated at UK? Don't know. I do know that a friend at work was completely correct about one thing. If Calipari stayed at Memphis and this came up, all the UK fans would insist he was a cheater. I also think that if UK does get a Final Four invalidated because of Calipari, they'll still hang a banner at Rupp Arena for it.

Here's a teacher with a degree who is stupider than James Brooks. An idiot fourth grade teacher thought it would be okay to have fake wedding ceremony with a student. One of his students. A fourth grader. Which we know is bad because fourth graders are such jealous, harpie bitches towards each other and will hold the favortism against her. Oh, and fourth graders are like ten years old. WTF could he have been thinking? Really. WTF. How could that turn out anything but bad?

This teacher knew that certain things should not be known. She got it on with a 15 year old student (of the male gender). And gave him $1500. I really hope that the money was to pay for his silence. She's not a great beauty but she could easily get one night stands by offering herself. I can't believe she'd find sex with a teenager good enough to pay for. $1500? That's what....$1500 per minute?

Then we get this one. A teacher in California decides to make a home DVD of class activities for her elementary school kids. And somehow includes a clip of her fingerbanging herself for a handful of seconds. But fear not. She's probably not going to be fired. I guess I could look for a follow up story but I don't feel like it. But it's nice that everyone is convinced that it was just an accident. Who knows what kind of freak she really is? And the father who wants counseling for his kids is classic. He also wants someone to answer his kids' questions. I can do that. Just tell them that she's looking for her keys.