• Gay flavored-dip bans
• Urban chickens
• Cursing edited from “live” broadcasts before they reach your time zone

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Let’s get this straight.  I am in the tank for Sport.  Season ticket holder to the Blackhawks, constant attendee at Wrigley (and in the minority of fans who actually watch the damn game), etc.  Further, I really dig the Olympics; notwithstanding American teevee’s obsession with gymnastics, beach volleyball, and figure skating for no legitimate reason, I am a devoted viewer.  But: actually having the Olympics handed to us on Friday afternoon?  Do me a favor.

Two reasons.  One: The Bid Committee and other boosters are claiming the price tag will hit $4.8bn.  Anyone who buys that is stoned. Try twelve double-extra-large for 2016.  At least.  London 2012 is at £9.35bn ($14.8bn-ish) right now.  And this is Chicago.  Five guys, two shovels, and a smiling alderman.  Come the hell on. 

Two: we got other problems.  Last week, a kid on the South Side got beat up by a bunch of other guys, right in the street.  Reportedly, he was just an innocent bystander.  The fatal blow apparently came from a railroad tie.  Novel.  Usually, it’s a second-hand gun. 

Look: one or two kids a week are getting shot.  There are square miles that are totally blighted out.  The CTA is perpetually within a few months of meltdown, or catastrophic failure, or both.  And so on.  Having the Olympics over will paper over these festering problems, and many others, while spending desperately needed money on… a real estate development.

COME ON, RIO.  BAIL US OUT.  PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Sarah Palin’s new book, Going Rogue, will be published ahead of schedule — 1.5 million copies hitting the streets November 17:

Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham says the former Alaska governor invested herself deeply and passionately in the project.

Ah. File under “Fiction,” then. Or will her Facebook ghostwriter finally be revealed?

Palin finishes memoir, ‘Going Rogue,’ out Nov. 17 [AP]

Of course the billboard was vandalized. By a terrorist who hates our freedom, no doubt.

‘Coming Out’ Billboard Featuring Gay Soldier Destroyed in Memphis [Towleroad, via Sully]

Orly Taitz, last seen being repeatedly whacked by the judge in a birther case where she wouldn’t shut the fuck up, is not done mooning Your Honor. She’s asking to “withdraw as counsel” for her client — who already fired her — in order to rat out said client:

In order to defend herself, the undersigned counsel will have to contest and potentially appeal any sanctions order in her own name alone, separately from the Plaintiff, by offering and divulging what would normally constitute inadmissible and privileged attorney-client communications…

Future Orly clients, consider this your only warning: You’re on notice.

New Filing From Birther Taitz: Case Is Now A ‘Quasi-Criminal Prosecution’ Of Me! [TPM]

Update: Orly severed from Plaintiff; neither severed from responsibility; finking not authorized.

Our nation’s preachers are fed up with our nation’s gag orders:

“Pastors have a right to speak about biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights.”

That would be Erik Stanley of something called the Alliance Defense Fund, which sponsored Pulpit Freedom Sunday yesterday. And who could disagree with him? No reason preachers shouldn’t enjoy the same free-speech rights as the rest of us.

For that matter, no reason preachers shouldn’t also enjoy the same taxation rights. You give up your tax exemptions and render unto Caesar, and we’ll fully support your judgment about how best to render unto God.

And there’s the rub. They want it both ways.

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Saw a preview, and this looks gorgeous:

8 pm EST here in NYC … check your local listings.