- Nice try, Rich Fraud-riguez. Trying to beat your former employer out of $2.5 million by offering to pay 37.5 percent of what you actually owe under the terms of a contract YOU AGREED TO AND SIGNED YOURSELF, A-HOLE. The former has offered to pay the school $1.5 million to buy out the final six years of his contract, according to a letter of credit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Clarksburg, W.Va. He owers $4 million under the terms of the contract that HE SIGNED WITH HIS OWN HAND, but he wants to pay $1.5 mil? Ok! Know what? I’m going to try this strategy in my life. I’ll write the IRS a letter and tell them that although I may owe $1,000 in taxes, in a spirit of good faith, I’m going to pay them $375 instead. Why stop there? I’ll go down to the local BMW dealer and in “good faith,” offer to give them $12,000 for a $40,000 car. I like this, I think it could work. But back to reality and my man R. Fraud-riguez. He has filed the letter of credit “in the spirit of compromise and as an act of good faith to assure West Virginia University that if this Honorable Court makes an award against Defendant, said monies will be paid,” according to the court filing. Not surprisingly, WVU isn’t down with Fraud-riguez’s offer. WVU “has no interest in resolving this for $1.5 million,” said Tom Flaherty, the school’s legal representation in the case. “The university has lived up to all its obligations under the contract, and the university expects him to live up to the $4 million that is owed.” Good for you, WVU. That piece of garbage signed the deal, he should honor it. And no, I don’t buy the vain, hollow threats and posturing from Fraud-riguez’s team of attorneys about what they’ll do to WVU if this thing plays out. “When I file something, I'm going to hurt them and I don't want to,” attorney Marv Robon said. “I have no ax to grind with that university, but I have to protect the interests of Rich and his wife Rita. The other side is so hell bent on what they want to do -- a burning-the-bridges kind of thing.” Oooh, Marv, stop it, you’re scaring me. You a bad man, Marv. You and your hollow threats are just soooo terrifying. You’re going to hurt them? Really? With what, your overpriced suit, horn-rimmed glasses and legal degree from the University of Phoenix Online? Your client is a fraud and a liar, so you can threaten anyone you want, but he’s going to lose and then he’s going to have to pay both your exorbitant legal fees and the $4 million he owes WVU. WVU sued Rodriguez last month to collect on a $4 million buyout clause in the contract he signed Aug. 24, but Fraud-riguez’s attorneys have disputed the coach owes his former school that much. Fraud-riguez claims he was pressured into signing a one-year extension at West Virginia and claims university president Mike Garrison promised to lower the amount of his buyout.
“We're certainly willing to pay something, but the $4 million is absolutely oppressive and unfair,” whined Ethan Davis, another one of Fraud-riguez’s attorneys. A side note: You could probably pay off your buyout in full now if you’d stop wasting so damn much money on multiple attorneys, Rich-er. But go ahead and fight this one out, then you’ll lose and you’ll have to pay in full.
- So the State of the Union speech was Monday night and it was….um….uh….. well, it was a ginormous waste of time. I didn’t actually watch any of it because 1) I was bent that it was bumping my favorite shows from their normal time slots, 2) I don’t speak Idiot, so I wouldn’t have understood W. anyhow, and 3) that ass hat hasn’t said anything worthwhile in his seven-plus years in office, so the odds were against him doing so now. The salient points from the speech included W. begging for more money as part of the economic stimulus package now before Congress, which is basically a feeble attempt to revive an economy that W. has almost single-handedly destroyed the past seven years. He also regurgitated the party line about having patience with his own personal Vietnam, the war in Iraq, seeming for forget that a) it’s an unjustified war that never should have happened, b) we’re wasting tens of billions of dollars each month this farce rages on, and c) the longer we fight a war we shouldn’t be fighting in a place our troops shouldn’t be, the more American service personnel that will die needlessly. But other than that, sure, be patient. All in all, W. looked every bit the lame-duck president who realizes he has no real clout and that people have tuned him out. Of course, people tuned this tool out long before he entered his last year in office, so he should be used to it by now. Ultimately, the one big positive is that this is absolutely, positively the last State of the Union speech this piece of garbage will ever give, so be thankful for that.
- Just over a month ago, a reformed Led Zeppelin rocked out at a special benefit show in London. The great performance featured Jason Bonham, son of late Led Zep drummer John Bonham, on drums. The buzz from that great show led many to hope that the reunited Zep would soon be going on tour, but for the time being that’s not going to happen. Asked about the possibility of a tour of any sort, American or worldwide, Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday in Tokyo that the band won’t be touring until September, at the earliest. For fans of rock and good music, that’s disappointing to hear, but on the bright side, at least the door hasn’t been closed completely at least. Here’s hoping that come September, Zep hits the road and we get one more chance to see one of the legendary bands of all time live.
- You definitely have to appreciate a professional sport making an effort to crack down on possible gambling and ethical issues from its officials, umpires and referees. After the Tim Donaghy betting scandal rocked the NBA last year, other leagues began scrutinizing their own officials more carefully. That much is good. What’s bad is that Major League Baseball it taking the Big Brother act waaaaaay too far. A dispute has broken out between Major League Baseball and its umpires over background checks turned ugly Wednesday, when a spokesman for the umpires union charged MLB's security investigators with acting like "secret police" in their efforts to dig into the personal histories of umpires. Lamell McMorris, a spokesman for the World Umpires Association, claims that baseball investigators have gone into neighborhood homes in recent weeks and asked offensive, defamatory questions about umpires. According to the WUA, neighbors of Greg Gibson and Sam Holbrook - MLB umpires who live in Northern Kentucky -- were asked if the two men are members of the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, that’s right, MLB wants to know if its umps are hood-wearing KKK whackos. Are you freaking kidding me? What does that have to do with anything? A, what evidence do you have to make that accusation, and two, it’s none of your damn business. “Major League Baseball's security staff is essentially defaming umpires in their communities by conducting, strange, surreptitious and poorly-executed investigations resembling that of secret police in some despotic nation,” McMorris said. Pretty much, yup. MLB is disputing these claims, but if they’re asking about the KKK, there is no dispute, they’re wrong and way, way out of line. MLB is claiming that allegations of the KKK line of questioning aren’t true, but it seems ridiculous that anyone would just make up a claim like that. In expanding on his accusations, McMorris said, the neighbors were asked if the umpires grow marijuana, throw wild parties, engage in spousal abuse or live beyond their means financially. “There was the 'Tiger issue' in a golf magazine, and we're in the middle of a presidential election where clearly race is a major factor. And now you're going to knock on a neighbor's door and ask if an umpire is a member of the Ku Klux Klan? That shows a tremendous amount of ignorance and insensitivity, frankly. And we take exception to it.” In addition, umpire John Hirschbeck said similar questions had been asked to neighbors of umpire Ron Kulpa, who lives in suburban St. Louis. Alison Rohan, who lives across the street from Kulpa in Maryland Heights, Mo., told The Associated Press that Christopher knocked on her door two or three weeks ago and gave her his card. “He explained they were going to be talking to neighbors and friends because of the problems with the basketball league and that Ron knew about it," she said. “He asked if Ron belonged to any groups or organizations,” she said. "Groups?" she remembered replying. “You know, like the KKK,” she said Christopher told her. “We both laughed and I said no,” Rohan said. “He belongs to a neighborhood Harley-riding group of dads.” To me, it looks like MLB is taking liberties here and using the ruse of concern over gambling and needing to investigate that aspect of umpire’s lives as an excuse to ask really intrusive, unnecessary, defamatory questions. The WUA and individual umpires have a right to be pissed and to take whatever action they need to in order to strike back at those responsible.
- You can look at the Florida presidential primaries in one of two ways. Either you can look at the Democratic Party’s decision to strip the state of its delegates to the Democratic National Convention and effectively render the state neutered in terms of choosing the Democratic candidate for president and say why bother paying attention to the primaries there, or you can be like me and seek out the positive. The positive in this case would be that this is one more state that will not be sending delegates to the DNC to vote for Hank Clinton. True, there won’t be Florida delegates voting for Barack Obama either, but I choose to look at it from the aspect of every delegate (or lack thereof) not voting for Hank Clinton as a win for America. On the Republican side of things, John McCain edged Catcher’s Mitt Romney, but I’m not so concerned as to which rich, old white dude the Republicans pick as I am making sure that Hank Clinton gets nowhere near the Oval Office. That dude scares the heck out of me and I don’t want Hank running/ruining the country where I live. Coming off the heels of the worst president in U.S. history, we need a stellar replacement and Hank is not that stellar replacement. I urge all of you whose states have yet to have their presidential primaries -Don’t vote for Hank Clinton. Vote for anyone else, write in a candidate if you don’t like any of the current ones, just please keep that angry feminist, militant psycho, angry-lesbian-haircut-sporting Hank out of the race.
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