Watch out Rams, apparently you can get fined now for stinking.

A state court jury in Jackson County, Mo., returned an $11 million verdict Thursday against industrial hog producers Premium Standard Farms Inc., a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, and the privately held ContiGroup Cos. (previously Continental Grain) in favor of residents living near the defendants’ 4,300-acre factory hog farm in northern Missouri.

The verdict, covering 11 years of damages, is the largest monetary award against a hog farm in an odor nuisance case.

Damn dude.  A Million a year for stink.

In addition to the Rams, the following other people or organizations should really watch out because the precedent is now set.

• 1380AM’s Kevin Slaten.
• Anyone by the name of Bruce.
• People with bluetooth ear pieces.
• You, if you made more than 3 tweets about the Oscars last night.
• The Schnucks on South Grand
• Guys that bring air horns to every event.
• Dudes with leather jackets and really nice tennis shoes that come ask you for a dollar.
• The owner of Papa John’s. (No one cares that  you can throw a football.)
• People that say “Fixin’”

via St. Louis Business Journal

[Editor's Note: The picture of the Gorilla might be the coolest photo ever featured in a Punching Kitty post.  That is all.]

Maybe you haven’t heard because you only use your computer for Facebook and sending people eCards and viruses, but Google threw it out there a few weeks ago that they are trying to get in to the crazy-fast internet service game and basically said “Hey, United States cities?  You want it?  Show me what you got.” Which prompted just about every city in the union to lose their shit trying to convince Google to go to the internet prom with them.  Hell, Topeka, Kansas basically became that first groupie to go down on Google, not because they are slutty, they just want to show Google how much they mean to them, by “changing” their city’s name to Google, Kansas.  Whore.

St. Louis, under the leadership of Mayor Slay, are taking the coy approach.  They know we want them, but we aren’t coming over.  We are just going to stay on the other side of the bar, bat our eyelashes and keep sipping on our pink drink that tastes like bubblegum or something.

Its not like we don’t want to gossip about Google though…so His Mayorness set up a poll about the situation.  Two things jumped out:

#1. There’s a question about your internet usage which just goes ahead and asks if you use it for porn.

14% stood up proudly behind the anonymity of the internet and said, “Yeah dude, porn is awesome.”   Seems low.  Also note below that only one more percentage of people use the internet for work email than watching porn. Love it. Look, when you’re football team sucks, you gotta do something on those cold winter Sundays.

The thing is though, is that you couldn’t choose more than one option, so if you wanted to choose porn, you were going all in.

#2. There’s a total shot at Charter in this poll.

In a reference to that slut Topeka’s name change to catch the eye of Google, the poll included a question about what we would think about St. Louis changing it’s name.  Check out option number five below.

Bam! Nothing worse than slow porn and Mayor Slay knows it.

Our best hope to get asked out by Google is if we make him feel sorry and get the pity invite, like the high school quarterback asking out the girl with Downs Syndrome.  Its not going to go anywhere, but we are just happy he knows our name.

via MayorSlay.com

Breaking news!  One Starbucks location out of the thousands worldwide have closed!  Its the one in Ladue. Haaaaaaaa!  I’m freeeeeeaaaking out!

No, in all seriousness, this is not even remotely news.  Oh wait yes it is.  No, its still not, its just that St. Louis Business Journal has completely run out of ideas.

The Starbucks at 9820 Clayton Rd. in Ladue has closed.
No one answered the phone at the store Thursday.

That’s some investigative journalism there!  Really hard hitting stuff getting the info that we need.  I mean how else would I know it closed?  I mean, I guess if I walked up to it tomorrow morning an the door was locked and no one was in it…that might be a sign.  But did you know that when store closes that no one answers the phone anymore?  See I thought when you close a store you have to make one of your former employees live in the store for six weeks to answer the phone and say “We’re closed.”

How did they even get this breaking story when all the other outlets have totally missed it?  Was it pure luck?  Did one of their reporters get in line, order his tall no-foam whateverchino and say “I’ll see you tomorrow!” “No, you won’t we are closing…” replied the barista. “What!? Get out of my way!  Where’s a pay phone!  Hold the presses!”  Or was this more of a “deep throat” situation [Editor's Note: That's what she said.] where a spooky meeting took place on the top level of a parking garage in the middle of the night.

We’ll likely never know.  The only thing I know for sure is that we have at least one publication out there, working hard, digging deep, for the story that no one knows they needed to hear.

Thank you St. Louis Business Journal.  Thank you.

President Obama will be making a trip to St. Louis next week to attend a fundraiser for fellow Democrat and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.   But we here at Punching Kitty are sure he will make time for a quick drive down Barack Obama Blvd to have a slice of Pi Pizza.

In a completely unrelated story, outspoken conservative mouth-piece and general easy-going #1 fan of Punching Kitty.com [Editor's Note: *cough*] Dana Loesch recently won a week-long all-expenses paid trip to “anywhere but here” by a little known company named Flowers By Irene.  A mysterious black van will be picking her up when she least expects it later this week.

What. Are. The. Odds?!  Have fun Dana, and enjoy your stay Mr. President!

[Editor's Note: Call me...let's do lunch Mr. President!]

On Saturday, a 11-year old boy was visiting someone when he wandered across a loaded shotgun.  You know how this goes…he started playing with it and some how managed to shoot himself in the butt.

He is in critical but stable condition.

From the Globe Democrat:

Authorities said the gun belonged to a 52-year old man who lives at the home on Dick Gregory Place. So far no charges have been filed against the owner of the gun.

Authorities plan to file those charges once they start giggling about the street name.

There are no details as to how the kid shot himself in the butt, which is too bad because I’m really not sure how that would go down.  Its pretty clear to us that there was a second shooter.  Here is our artist’s rendering:

…or he just turned it around or sat on it or something.  Who knows.

The Globe-Democrat has a message for all you little rich kids that have plenty of money but not enough to buy yourself big enough rocks to buy actual pot:

A local doctor says young adults who smoke K2 or “fake weed” to achieve a similar high as received from smoking marijuana, may suffer serious reactions instead.

K2 is a dried herb legally sold in at least four shops in the St. Louis area in three gram packages for $30 to anyone over the age of 18.

The herb comes in multiple flavors including green apple, summit, pineapple express and strawberry.

Employees who work at shops that carry K2 said it is intended to be burned as incense–but some are smoking the substance to get high.

Well, gosh.  Who would smoke this?  Clearly no one is trying to get little wanna-be pot-heads to smoke this with perfectly benign names like Pineapple Express.  What?  Oh.  I’ve just been told Pineapple Express is a movie about pot.  I stand corrected.

What do the kids think?

One girl from Fort Zumwalt South High School said a lot of students at her school smoke K2 because they are on probation and can’t smoke marijuana.

“It does say not for consumption on the package and that makes me kind of wonder what’s in it,” she said. “But if you don’t smoke more than what’s in the bag you’re fine.”

She added K2 is popular among teens because it is legal and doesn’t show up in drug tests.

Her friend laughed and agreed.

“I can pass a drug test now for once in my life,” he said.

Awesome.  We look forward to being mugged by him in a few years.

Take that every other United States city list that always has St. Louis at either the bottom or at the top when the list starts with “Worst…”!  Someone just got named to the “Distinctive Distination” list!

St. Louis was named among the 2010 Dozen Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) and could be named a “favorite” if the city garners enough online votes.

The NTHP has recognized, since 2000, cities and towns that offer “an authentic visitor experience,” according to the organization.

The NTHP refers to St. Louis as “one of America’s great cities,” pointing out that looking beyond the city’s hallmark offerings shows “a vibrant, ethnically diverse city full of unexpected treasures and one-of-a-kind attractions.”

Ya hear that?!  One of “America’s great cities” with “unexpected treasures and one-of-a-kind attractions” besides thats the city-version of how I would describe the hot girl’s fat friend to my buddy, thats pretty high praise!

What other major metropolitan cities are we next to in the list?  New York?  Chicago?  San Francisco? Pffft.  They wish. Baller cities like us roll with The Crooked Road, Va….and Chestnut Hill, Pa….or uh…Sitka, Alaska. God damnit!  What kind of crap list is this?!

We get the distinct feeling that Mayor Slay got us on this list along with a free tote bag after donating $500 to PBS.

via St. Louis Business Journal

And the kid went to a city school!

Nah, I’m just kidding.

“I thought I did well, but I didn’t think I could do that,”

Lafayette High School Senior Zach Frazer scored a perfect 36 on his ACT an achievement equaled by only 28 other students.  …28 lonely lonely other students.

Frazer offered the following advice to students preparing for an upcoming test. “Stay focused, relax and don’t worry while taking the test.”

Though Frazer aced all of the those book-worm questions, I have one for you smart guy:  Describe third base.

Thought so.

Also, you could at least dress up a little for your school photo.

via Globe-Democrat

270 ranked 45th in the nation’s worst commutes according to The Daily Beast.  Totaling 89 hours of congestion, and 1.26 miles long at its worst, earned 270 the spot.

On a comment attached to our snippet, they have a quote via the Post Dispatch from Maryland Heights Councilwoman Mary Nichols:

Replacement of the current design with the diverging diamond interchange will not only improve the flow of traffic along the 270-70 corridor, but it will also be a national example of innovation in highway safety and design.

“…but…” Nichols followed, “to do that, we’ll have to close the whole thing down for 2 years and then when its done it really won’t be much better, but it will look like it should be.”

via The Daily Beast

St. Louis’ first elephant family is pregnant again.

As the Post Dispatch reported:

The St. Louis Zoo is expecting a 300-pound bundle of joy next summer. Asian elephant Rani is almost five months into her 22-month pregnancy. Raja, the first elephant ever born at the St. Louis Zoo, is the father.

Rani is eating her regular diet of grain and hay and has stepped up her exercise routine, said Martha Fischer, the zoo’s mammal curator. She will gain some 500 pounds during her pregnancy.

Zoo officials hope that his birth goes a little better than Rain’s last baby Jade three years ago.   After initially nursing Jade, Rain rejected her.  The rumor around the zoo was always that Jade looked a little different and thus probably wasn’t Raja’s child.  A quick trip to the Maury show confirmed, that Raja was not the father…though one look could tell the child (left) looked a little different than dad.

Despite many a man’s claim that St. Louis has its fair share of girl elephants walking around, Raja, citing lacking of options, went back to Rain.

Good luck you two!

via STLToday