WORTH NOTING: Let the Basketball Betting Begin!

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) will be bringing home the bacon – lots of it – if the 12th-seeded Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky University upset No. 5 Drake of Des Moines, Iowa, in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Friday (March 21). Beshear made a friendly wager on the game with Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D), a Drake grad, and stands to win 40 pounds of “premium Berkshire pork raised on family farms in northwest Iowa ,” according to a press release from Culver’s office . If Drake is victorious, Culver will win a windbreaker from the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green , Ky.

Abortion will be on the ballot in Idaho this fall. Quite literally. A man seeking the seat of embattled U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R) – who is stepping down after being arrested in a sex-sting operation at a Minnesota airport last June – has legally changed his name to “Pro-Life” and will appear that way on ballots, The Associated Press reports. The former “Marvin Pro-Life Richardson,” who ran unsuccessfully for Idaho governor in 2006, since has dropped his first and last names and will try his luck using only his (legal) middle name. Pro-Life, 66, is running as an independent.

A Tennessee state senator can party ’til the cows home after winning a legislative cow-milking contest during the state’s Ag Day festivities this week, The (Nashville) Tennessean notes. State Sen. Charlotte Burks, a Democrat, coaxed a liter and a half of fresh milk out of a volunteered bovine, easily upstaging Republican state Rep. Mike Harrison, who produced just half a liter. Tennessee ‘s agriculture commissioner then showed both lawmakers how it’s done by filling a bucket with more than two liters.

Among issues recently litigated in Texas courts is whether the human ankle really exists. An appeals court last week ruled that the state board in charge of licensing podiatrists, or foot specialists, overstepped its authority (so to speak) when it broadened the definition of “foot” to include the ankle as well, The Austin American-Statesman relates. That rankled medical doctors, who challenged the new definition and said the podiatrists were trying to get a leg up on traditional doctors by treating more body parts themselves.

With states struggling financially as the national economy worsens, Arizona soon may turn to an unlikely source for some much-needed cash: taxpayers who simply want to pay the state a little more. A legislative proposal in the state House of Representatives would add a check-off box on state income-tax returns allowing Arizonans to pay extra if they so choose, the Arizona Daily Star reveals. Though one lawmaker called the bill “a joke,” another assured constituents that any donations would be in good hands because the Legislature has many conservatives who “spend the money very wisely.”