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.

Orly, to TPM — who, apparently, is taking her calls so we don’t have to:

This threat of sanctions gives me an opportunity to demand rule 11 discovery and get all of Obama’ records through the back door.

(Shitty grammar in original.)  All this in the context of her client dumping her like a cold fish and going off to Iraq anyway, and Orly claiming that the client’s letter to the Judge was (yes!) forged, and blah blah blah.

This is what interested me, though: Rule 11 discovery?  Good Lord.  I mean: forget the fact that Rule 11 has no provision for discovery.  None.  This woman is thinking about asking the Judge to allow her to get evidence in order to show that her filing wasn’t totally full of shit?  You’re kinda sorta obligated to do that before you file something.

All of this is further proof, of course, that one would be better off getting a law degree from a Cracker Jack box than Taft Law School.  But we knew this.

Oh, one more last hit from Orly [sic, natch]:

The most important question is still on the table: why would the judge levy $10,000 in sanctions instead of instructing Obama to produce a real Hospital birth certificate with a name of the hospital name of the doctor and signatures, so we can locate this birthing file?

Why?  Because you are an idiot.  That’s why.

OK, everybody.  Stop dying.  Now.

Fred Cusick, voice of the Bruins — dead from cancer, age 90.  When I was a mere cubicle, me and Pa Bureau gathered around the set and watched hockey.  And Fred was there with us.  For those behind the Chowdah Curtain, he was hockey’s version of Walter Cronkite — no joke.

I learned a while back that a paralegal (since departed to greener pastures) was from New Hampshaah.  He had a Bruins tattoo on his arm.  So I played a little word association.  I said, “Fred Cusick.”  And he said instantaneously — “SCORE!!”  (Examples in Youtube clip below.)  Everybody in New England would have that come to mind just as quickly.

News, per the Chicago Tribune:

Christopher Kelly, a key figure in the federal corruption probe into former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is dead.  The Cook County medical examiner’s office today confirmed that Christopher Kelly of Burr Ridge was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital at 10:46 a.m. The office said Kelly died of salicylate intoxication.  [That would be “pills.”  — Ed.] ….

Kelly, who was indicted alongside Blagojevich in April, pleaded guilty this week in a separate federal case.  On Tuesday, in a surprise move just a day before his scheduled trial, Kelly, owner of a roofing business, pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud as part of a kickback scheme to illegally obtain $8.5 million in work at O’Hare International Airport…. Kelly faced a sentence of almost 5 years in prison on top of the roughly 3 years in prison he got in June for his guilty plea to tax offenses. Kelly was ordered to report to federal authorities for incarceration by Sept. 18.

Hi, Barry.  Look: we need to talk.

You remember November 4 of last year, right?  While you were polishing up your Grant Park speech, what was running through your mind?  Was your main thought, “hey, now I get to do everything I dreamed of as a little boy — but only if the Republicans think it’s OK?”

Come on, young man.  The leadership of the GOP, and opponents who were bringing a serious level of crazy, were publicly calling you every name in the book (save one).  They were accusing you of being a terrorist-loving, anti-American Marxist, bent on destroying the United States.  And how did the people respond?  Dude — you won in North Carolina.  Jesse Helms’s old stomping grounds was won by you.  And Indiana.  For Christ’s sake — you won a beet-red state like Indiana.  Gore and Kerry won Wisconsin by a few thousand votes.  You took it by 14 points.  (Trust me — I was there.)  You even nabbed an electoral vote in (excuse me) Nebraska.

And now you’re staking your presidency on a cave-in to Olympia Snowe?  Shoot — I like her, too.  But I don’t like her enough to turn a grand health care plan into a watered down fiasco… which (wait for it) the GOP will still take a dump on.

Enough.  You got an hour on Wednesday.  Prepare to sack up.  Show ’em who’s the boss.  (If memory serves, it’s not Tony Danza.  It would be you.) 

Public option or bust — now, or never.  Those who are in the tank for you will have your back.  Trust.

Lord, give me strength —

Add another name to the growing list of pols and would-be pols eyeing a run for Edward M. Kennedy’s Senate seat: former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling.  That’s right, Mr. Bloody Sock himself [said] that he has been “contacted” about a possible Senate run and has not ruled it out.

“I’m not going to divulge the discussions, but I’ve been contacted by people whose opinion I give credence to and listen to, and I listened,” Schilling said.  Asked whether he would run, Schilling said, “As of today, probably not. […] That’s a pretty big deal, from a commitment standpoint, not just for me but for my family.”

…Schilling added to his comments with a statement he posted on his blog.  “I do have some interest in the possibility… That being said to get to there, from where I am today, many many things would have to align themselves for that to truly happen. I am not going to comment further on the matter since at this point it would be speculation on top of speculation….

“I don’t have a really good filter…. Actually my first press conference could probably be my last as someone on the political scene, which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Immunizing himself from a public image meltdown, a la Sarah Plain and Dumb, or (it must be said) Caroline Kennedy.  I see what he did there.

Two bits of news.

First: you remember that guy who threw his shoes at Dubya?  He’s out of the clink.  No word on whether he was picked up by his brother, driving a used police car.

Second: you know that other party in Japan that got beat more than the Washington Generals?  Looks like they — the Democratic Party of Japan — have laid an ass-whuppin’ on the Liberal Democrats.  And now, let’s meet our next contestant, and Johnny will tell us about him!  [“He’s a industrial efficiency expert who loves to watch baseball!  Meet Yukio Hatoyama!” (Applause.)]