What I can teach aspiring criminals, why you shouldn't defend wife-beating baseball players and what the worst people in America have been up to

- Earlier this week, I wrote that no one cares about cycling now that Lance Armstrong is retired and that Floyd Landis should stop prolonging the fight to clear his name of steroid-usage allegations and just fade gracefully into, as Mike Tyson would say, Bolivian. Well, I have to man up and admit I was wrong, because if Landis was going to force the issue and continue the battle, he may as well go big and that’s just what happened on Thursday. Landis’ manager, well his former manager now, William Geoghegan decided that former Tour de France winner and American cycling legend Greg LeMond testifying at Landis’ hearing before officials from anti-doping agencies would be a bad thing. Based on this belief, Geoghegan, formulated a plan - more precisely, he formulated the worst plan in the history of criminal-activity planning. Geoghegan decided that in order to prevent LeMond from testifying, he would call LeMond and pretend to be an uncle of LeMond’s who had sexually abused him when LeMond was eight years old, after which he would threaten to reveal the details of their sexual interactions to the public if LeMond testified. The problem with this plan other than it being despicable, slimy, disgusting and revolting on a colossal level? Geoghegan made the call from his own freaking cell phone, meaning it took about five minutes for the police to trace the call. Well done, Mensa, you always want to use one of the most easily traced methods of communication when phoning in a sexual assault revelation threat to a witness in a case against your friend. Mix in a pay phone and something over the receiver to distort your voice, Willy, at least then the police won't have hard proof that you made the call even though all circumstantial evidence would point in your direction. How scary is it that I (a person who has never committed a crime in his life) could give a seminar on how to formulate a successful criminal plot and it would actually be informative and beneficial to the overwhelming majority of the losers who actually do commit criminal acts in this country? Along with the gaggle of goons Tonya Harding employed to whack Nancy Kerrigan at the Olympic Trials a few years ago, Geoghegan has to be considered one of the biggest morons to hatch a criminal plot anywhere, ever.

- I’m as excited as any American to see the rebuilding and reconstruction going on at the site of the World Trade Center project in downtown Manhattan, but is it too much to ask that the process occur without dropping 15-foot pipes through the roofs of firehouses in the area? Thanks, I and the firemen who were injured by the falling pipe appreciate your consideration. Demolition work was being done on the former Deutsche Bank building this week when the renegade piece of metal sprinkler pipe fell from the building’s 35th floor through the roof of Engine 10/Ladder 10. The firehouse, coincidentally, was almost destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Nice to know the building survived the worst terrorist attack in the history of our nation but some lackluster demolition crew can nearly take it out. Neither of the firefighters injured in the incident are seriously harmed and both should recover fully, but I for one believe firefighters and people of all professions should be able to go about their daily business in their workplace without fear of huge pieces of pipe crashing through the roof and crushing them. Let’s go ahead and make that a rule we all live and abide by, k?

- Time to enter the name of another finalist into the contest for the worst parent in America for 2007! Rosie Costello of Tacoma, Wash., come on down! Rosie, it seems, decided that the best way to support her two children wasn’t getting a job and earning the money, but rather to coach her children to fake mental retardation so she could collect disability benefits for them. Costello was convicted in U.S. District Court of conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud and will now serve three years in prison. Her son Pete Costello, 28, was sentenced last week to 13 months in prison for his role in the scam. Investigators have not been able to locate Rosie Costello’s daughter Marie, but when they find her, she’ll face similar charges. Hope you’re very proud of yourselves, Costello family, taking money that’s intended for mentally retarded people who really are handicapped and can’t care for themselves. I’m sure they appreciate able-bodied people faking retardation and making a mockery of their condition. The Costellos would be the most despicable, deceitful and duplicitous pieces of crap in today’s post if not for……….

- On the surface, it might appear wrong and insensitive to protest the suspension of two major leaguers from their respective teams after being charged with assault on their wife or girlfriend…..and it would appear that way once you considered the matter further. Still, the Major League Baseball Players Association filed grievances Thursday to protest the suspensions of Seattle Mariners pitcher Julio Mateo and Arizona Diamondbacks infielder Alberto Callaspo. Mateo was arrested in New York when the Mariners were in town to play the Yankees and police responded to a call from a Manhattan hotel where Mateo and his wife were staying. The cops found a woman, revealed to be Mrs. Mateo, in need of five stitches to close a wound to her mouth and they booked good ol’ Julio on a charge of third-degree assault. He posted bond and was released, but the team optioned him to the minor leagues and suspended him for 10 days without pay for missing that day’s game. Callaspo was placed on the restricted list without pay (i.e. suspended without pay) by his team, the D-Backs, after he was taken into custody on suspicion of misdemeanor assault against his wife and felony criminal damage. He too was released from jail following a hearing, but like Mateo he stands to lose a decent chunk of change if the suspension from his team holds up. You can make the case that a person’s conduct outside of work shouldn’t subject them to punishment at work, and partially that’s true. However, the NFL has already made a point of saying that guys who get into trouble off the field and drag the league down in the mud with them will face ramiprecussions from the league. Also, Mateo and Callaspo were both unavailable to their teams because of their legal troubles, so that colors the situation as well. Lastly, you’re going to have a hard time cultivating any sympathy at all for a guy who is accused of physically assaulting his wife, fiancée, girlfriend, etc. Take your punishment like men, Julio and Alberto, and then start acting like men by stopping your abuse of your wives.

- Working at a funeral home has to be one of the more difficult, challenging jobs around. Working with dead bodies, grieving families and being surrounded by death all day, every day absolutely would take a toll on you. That being said, if you are going to work at a funeral home, you need to conduct yourself with a modicum of dignity and honor. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I do because of three funeral home directors in Rochester, N.Y. who, along with four former employees of a biomedical supply company, have been indicted on charges of body stealing, unlawful dissection and related counts after removing skin, bones and other body parts from dozens of corpses awaiting cremation. Seems clever, right, because if the body is being cremated, who’s going to know anyhow? So maybe there are a few less ashes in the urn, who cares, right, because you’ve got most of your loved one in there. Either that or you’re a despicable, loathsome piece of garbage who can't give the most basic, fundamental respect to the remains of a dearly departed loved one as their final request for cremation is being carried out. You can't conspire with some biomedical supply employees to give them body parts off corpses to line your pockets at the expense of those you’re supposed to be serving. Here’s hoping that when all of seven of you body-part-snatching scumbags die (sooner rather than later if you live the rest of your lives with the same lack of character and integrity you’ve shown here) that those dealing with your remains show more class and respect than you were able to muster.