At the end of last week, the ABA picked up a story about an Indiana courthouse using cats to control their pigeon problem.

Boone County, Indiana is about a half hour northwest of Indianapolis. The Boone County Courthouse (photo here) is in Lebanon, population just under 16,000. And evidently has a problem with pigeons. Since at least 2010, local news has reported on the issue and county officials have attempted several pigeon deterrents, including a plastic owl, to little avail. They’ve used a cat at least once before, which was apparently successful enough to merit a second attempt.

While the birds aren’t actually in the courthouse, the cats are. The cats, Boone, a male, and Panda, a female, have a litter box in the dome of the courthouse and a kitty door allowing them to leave whenever they wish. Guess no one is worried about them having a kitty house party, Tidy Cats litter commercial style. Or about this door letting in other animals. Like pigeons.

Cat owners might be wondering how this deterrent effect works, since cats are more or less the only creatures lazier than law students on winter break, and not much bigger than your typical well-fed courthouse pigeon. The deterrent plan plays to that strength: the cats essentially function as scarecrows, or, TRIGGER WARNING – bad pun ahead, “scaredycats”. They don’t chase or hunt or eat pigeons; they merely sit in the windows of the courthouse, and that’s frightening enough to keep the pigeons away. Guess there’s a reason it’s called “bird brained.” (Okay, we’ll stop with the puns.)

According to the courthouse maintenance staff, the cats have scared the pigeons away from the courthouse and most of downtown Lebanon. The city must’ve been a popular avian destination, as the courthouse maintenance director claims the cats have saved the county thousands of dollars in cleanup costs and man hours, spent mostly cleaning up bird crap.

Maintenance says cleaning out a litter box is highly preferable to cleaning up the pigeon droppings that fell in front of the entrance door on a daily basis, and no we are not making any of this up.

No word on whether there are any issues with litigants or litigators with cat allergies; or what, if anything the cats are sharpening their claws on; or what Boone County will do if the pigeons return (add more cats?). We do know, however, that Panda is spayed, so she and Boone won’t be having any pigeon-repelling kittens, at least not together. The article doesn’t say anything about Boone’s reproductive status, but we do know that this is just another instance of the judicial system trampling all over a woman’s right to choose. KIDDING.

We wish the best of luck to Boone County in keeping the shit off their courthouse, but we want to warn anyone who might try to play with the kitties. They’re not de-clawed, and unlike most government workers, it doesn’t take much to get them to go on strike.

If you’re wondering if law school is right for you and have $4,500 to spend and 2 weeks to spare, Vanderbilt Law wants you! Vanderbilt Law is pleased to announce its “JD PreVU” program, aimed at undergraduates or recent graduates who aren’t sure if law school is right for them. In this two week full time course, Vanderbilt Law faculty, staff, alumni, and students will have candid conversations with you about the legal market and the law school admissions process. If you’re interested, stop reading and apply now – space is limited.

For those of you who are interested in attending but also cost conscious, you can save $500 by not “lodging” with Vanderbilt for the duration of the course, but you’re still stuck with a bill for $400 a day. If you’re an undergrad in Tennessee working part time (20 hours per week) at minimum wage ($7.25, or $6.70 after payroll taxes), then you only need to work for *click*click*click* …3 weeks to afford 1 day of JD PreVU. The whole program will only take you 30 weeks, a period of time better known as: an entire academic year.

Just to put that cost into perspective, you could take a 6 day mediation CLE for $225 a day. Or if you count each 4-hour day of BarBri’s 6 week program as a half day, they only charge $200 a day.

Vanderbilt should be able to provide a cheaper program than BarBri or a CLE. They don’t need to rent space since they already own the school and they don’t need to pay most of their presenters because they’re already on salary (maybe tack this on as a requirement for getting a summer research stipend?). Odds are the lights are going to be on anyways, the AC will be running, and someone will already be paid to mop up the floors, so the only real expense for this program ought to be some snacks and a few glossy pamphlets. That leaves a lot of room for profit margin, but when you only charge just a little more than $46,000 a year in tuition, you needs the money.

We don’t know what they’re going to teach you at this thing, but we do know one thing: JD PreVU is the probably the best introduction to the law school racket money can buy. And if you put it on your credit card, law schools won’t even have to report it as additional debt incurred as a law student.

Or if you’ve got $4,500 to burn and 2 weeks to spend on deciding whether or not law school is right for you, skip JD PreVU, and instead, contact our staff. In about 2 hours we can tell you everything you need to know, and you can spend the remaining 13.75 days exploring our nation’s capital. Your $4,500 gets you lodging (you can have BL1Y’s bed; he’ll sleep on the couch in the living room), airfare to DC, metro card costs, 3 meals a day, and a happy hour each day, and a fourth meal each day. And a bottle of Johnnie Blue every …what? four days sound good?

Let’s say $6 per breakfast, $15 per lunch, $25 per dinner, $25 per happy hour, and another $6 for a fourth meal, and that’s $77 for food each day, doubled because BL1Y is chowing down also, and that’s $2,156. Plus another $1000 for five bottles of Johnnie Blue, let’s say $500 for airfare and travel (tossing in a few cab rides), and we’ve still got $800 to burn.

We’ll pay you minimum wage, 7 hours a day to work as a consultant, in return for which you’ll be in charge of figuring out where to eat and drink each day. That leaves BL1Y with a little under $100 as profits, and at the end of the two weeks, BL1Y will advise you on whether law school is right for you.

And no, he’s not just going to give a jaded “don’t go” answer no matter what your situation or career goals are. Instead, he’ll spend the two weeks studying you, and create a refined, personalized piece of advice based on what he thinks you want to hear, because screw it, you’ve probably already made up your mind anyways, and nothing BL1Y or Vandy Law has to say is going to change anything, so let’s just gorge on food and booze.

After Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend fiasco/unceremonious smackdown in the BCS title game, Katie Couric asked him point blank if he was gay:

Te'o: No, far from it, far from it.

Couric: You are not, yourself, a homosexual?

Te'o: I said no. I ain't no fairy. I've had some experiences ...but I'm out of it now.

Couric: Out of it?

Te'o: Yes, ma'am.

Couric: Would you explain to the viewers at home what you mean by that?

Te'o: It's wrong. The Bible says so.

Couric: The Bible also says it's wrong to lie. How long have you been out of it?

Te'o: Almost 2 weeks.

Couric: Good for you, Manti. Good for you.

So... maybe part of that interview came from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil... Anyways, now NFL teams are allegedly interested in Te'o's sexual orientation, though there are not yet any reports that a team has directly asked him the question. And they're not likely to ask him the question because we have laws in this country protecting homosexuals from employment discrimination, not to mention there would be all sorts of PR fallout for that team. Despite the people directly involved in the sport not being particularly progressive, the sport is still beholden to the mainstream political correctness machine. Just look at all that pink they have to wear for an entire month.

Te'o's situation presents an interesting legal conundrum though. While it's illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of his sexuality, would it be illegal to discriminate against someone for being the first openly gay man in the NFL? Probably. Almost certainly, yes.

Yet, if what the team is only concerned with is the media hype surrounding Te'o's sexuality and how that might disrupt the team, and that concern is not a pretext being used as a cover for actual homophobia, and if we put evidence issues aside, would it really be wrong for a team to say that didn't want to deal with that?

Someone more familiar with discrimination law could probably clear this up (and we know about 95% of you went to law school wanting to do this kind of thing, and only like 2 people in the world actually do it, so here's your chance). Is it legal to discriminate against someone not for their sexual orientation, but because of the way other people respond to their sexual orientation?

In other words, would it be legal for a team to fire Wilt Chamberlain because his media presence was a detriment to the team?

One time I watched 4 seasons of Breaking Bad in 4 days. That time was about 2 weeks ago. I guess CNN wanted to keep meth on my mind, because they came out with this handy interactive map asking, “Do you live near a meth lab?” Turns out I don’t. But thanks for the inquiry.

The map shows the total number of meth labs found in every county in every state, from 2004-2012. When they say “found,” they mean, “discovered in some capacity by local law enforcement and then reported to the DEA.” So, while Jesse’s mom found the lab in the basement of his aunt’s house, the police never did, so it wouldn’t be included on this map. And technically, CNN should be asking "Did you used to live near a meth lab?" It's not like they're listing operational facilities.

CNN’s map also has a complementary DEA map titled “National Clandestine Laboratory Register” that lists the address for every single one of those labs since 2004. You have to pick your state first, and the results are sorted by county, but you can see the exact address and date of bust for each lab ever found.

“Clandestine” seems sort of redundant at first. Who wants their meth lab discovered by law enforcement? But, Desoxyn is the prescription form of meth, used to treat ADHD and obesity, although rarely.  So, because some pharmaceutical company somewhere can legally make meth, everyone else has to call their lab clandestine. “Illegal” would be too harsh. After all, these are just drug manufacturers, not immigrants.

“Clandestine laboratories” are not to be confused with “laboratory incidents.” There are other DEA maps, this time broken down by year, providing the total number of meth lab incidents for each state. “Incidents” include labs, "dumpsites" or "chemical and glassware" seizure. The other two maps only include labs. Who knew the DEA had such an active graphics department?

Looking at the lab incidents for the last year, it appears that D.C. and Hawaii had 0; Alaska, Maryland, and Rhode Island each had only one; Utah, New Jersey, and Connecticut only had 2; and Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Massachusetts only had 3. Either these states have virtually no meth labs or meth users, or their labs aren’t getting busted by law enforcement.

I’m inclined to believe the latter. The states with the highest population density are, in this order: D.C., New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland.  So, 0, 2, 1, 3, 1. Given the national prevalence of methamphetamine, it seems a little unlikely that there are so few people invested in it in such a high population.

So what explains the states with a very high population and a very low meth lab incident record? Do they have smarter meth makers? More discreet meth makers? Are they importing meth from other places? Is there less meth demand? Less reporting? Maybe urban police feel like they have bigger issues to worry about. Certainly there’s more access to “better” and less visually-scarring drugs. Although it seems unlikely that the answer is that they simply don’t have any meth labs. No matter how many cocaine snorting businessmen you cram into a city, there’s still going to be a sizable number of meth smoking hicks, and meth snorting hicks, and meth booty bumping hicks.

Seriously, if you’re on meth, you’re a hick, and the lab map seems to support that. Discovered labs seem to be primarily located in the Midwest, with a sliver of the West Coast and the Gulf trying to catch up.

For the most part, large numbers of meth labs don’t seem to be concentrated around big cities, with St. Louis and Tulsa being the notable exceptions. This coincides with the primarily Midwest thing and the rural white trash thing. Additionally, making meth is a smelly process, something that probably gets noticed more in high density populations with more people with olfactory senses (doesn’t explain the lack in NYC though, where people smoke just to kill their sense of smell).

Maybe rural police, comparatively, are more zealous in the pursuit of meth lab discovery (see: police mistakenly bust homemade maple syrup operation thinking it’s a meth lab). Maybe rural police just have fuckall else to do. Maybe rural police are smoking their evidence. Or maybe, just maybe, rural police have figured out the ultimate way to track down meth cooks: looking out for an inexplicable fondness for green beans with slivered almonds:

It's not just pot that can give you the munchies.