I have more kittens in my bathroom. I had decided that I’d done my moral duty on saving cats and kittens. But after what happened in Zansville Ohio a couple nights ago, I couldn’t stand seeing those kittens go wild. Humans are very bad sometimes. This was the case here. Some redneck Sheriff decided to let his guys go on a shooting rampage and they ended killing 49 animals. And 18 of those were Bengal tigers.

I’ve looked a few places and there are somewhere between 1500 and 5000 tigers total left on this planet. And these guys just killed 18 of them. He did this in the name of human safety. Wow. This is an example of how primitive this country is in solving immediate problems intellectually. And the reason that we don’t let local sheriffs make huge decisions on our futures.

Okay, you’re going to say “What if your child got eaten by one of those ferocious cats or bears?” That would be horrible, for sure. But there were lots of better ways to control the situation than go on a wild game hunting spree throughout the night. It isn’t as if this was Jurassic Park and a bunch of Velociraptors are running around killing every moving thing in site. If the sheriff was really trying to control the situation properly, he would of made sure that every human in the surrounding area was apprised of the situation. Then he should have brought in the resources to properly contain the animals. The statement that the dead owner sabotaged the cages so they couldn’t use them to contain the animals if they were caught is a joke.

I personally don’t think a human’s life is more valuable than any one of those animals that are laid out in that compound. Especially considering how few of these tigers exist and how many of us. There are 6,000,000,000 of us humans. That is 1,200,000 people on the planet for each tiger, assuming the 5000 number is correct. 4 million people for each tiger if the 1500 number is closer.

We, as a country, as people on this planet, should have handled this situation in a much better manner. We should be ashamed.

An atrocity.

Our guys this morning at breakfast.

They don't like me much at very first.

They clean up great. These guys are so soft and lovable.

It was announced yesterday that Juan Pablo Dotti, AeroCat, was suspended for testing positive at Tulsa Tough this year. I’m getting pretty sick of all these drug positives and was kind of hoping I could avoid writing about it here so much. But, this is different. Again.

I got an email from Rick Paulos, the promoter of Rock Island, forwarding me the article from Cyclingnews.com. I emailed Rick back and told him that it didn’t surprise me. Actually, I was surprised. I was surprised that he was caught. I’ve posted here that it is pretty easy to tell when someone is super-charged racing. This guy was so obvious.

I was in the Tulsa Tough race he tested positive at. But, the race he popped on my list was the Rock Island Criterium over Memorial Day Weekend. I was in the break with him and some other guys on his team. It was a big break, around 15 and it kept splitting up. I was the only guy from TradeWind Energy there, so it was not a good situation for us. But the way that Dotti was riding that day was unreal. I was trying to mark everything, so I eventually got dropped out of the break. A pretty embarrassing day for me, but I usually race to win races and that is how I attempted to do it that day. I remember coming back into the field and saying to Josh Carter, Dotti’s team mate at the time, and a friend of mine, “your guys are on drugs, for sure.” I would not have said that if I wasn’t positive that was the case. And it was the case, obviously.

So, two of the most important Midwestern race weekends, Memorial Day in Iowa, which is 4 races, and Dotti won two (plus 3rd in Snake Alley), and Tulsa Tough, which is a NRC race and he finished 2nd the hardest day, on a pit bike, were ruined because this guy was there. You can’t redo the races and he changed them dramatically.

I’ve often wondered if someone actually makes these guys pay back their prize money like they’re supposed to. What to put bets on it? I bet not. And the money isn’t the issue really. But, these guys will never understand that, along with lots of other things. It’s so sad.

Here’s the Velonews article on it, but I wouldn’t bother. They call the guy from Georgia.

Juan off the front on Sunday in Tulsa. He kind of looks like he's hurting here. Wonder what he would have looked like if he was riding au naturel. Probably wouldn't have been in the photo.