None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

The GOP wants to repeal ObamaCare because it's a Big Government takeover and a horrible intrusion on your personal freedom of choice. At the same time, they intend to use the machinery of that same govenment to control marriage between consenting adults, and to prevent some women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies. Incredibly, they see no contradiction in this whatsoever. They really just don't see it.

The moment President Obama is sworn in, the GOP says their only goal is his defeat in 2012. They stall, obstruct and dissemble at every turn. They engage in a birth certificate witch hunt, launch a state-by-state gerrymandering push, and pass voter suppression laws to limit turnout by the old, the young, and minorities. At the same time, they accuse the President of being "divisive". Again, they see no contradiction and they see no racism. Just don't see it.

Don't want to.

"There are none so blind . . . "

Browns Win It All!

What does a Cleveland Browns fan do when his team finally wins a Super Bowl?







He turns off the PlayStation and goes to bed.

(I'm a Browns fan. Sad but true.)

#cleverclay

During the Republican convention, singer Clay Aiken tweeted:

"Playing drinking game with my brother now. We drink every time we see a black person on screen at the RNC convention. #soberasamormon."

Which I think is pretty damn funny. But some conservatives in the Twitter-verse slammed his tweet as "rascist" and called his hashtag Mormon-bashing.

I still say it was funny, and those who don't see it that way need a sense-of-humor transplant (a condition common among Republicans).

"Pre-Existing Decisions"

No surprise. Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted followed the advice of a Kasich-appointed hearing officer and fired the two renegade Democrats on the Montgomery County Elections Board. (They had the unmitigated gall to object to Husted's decree to reduce in-person early voting hours.)

Blogger bud and stand-up guy Dave Girves testified at Monday's meeting and said that if Husted really believed that election boards could only "afford" to be open 45 hours a week, they could offer early voting Wednesday through Sunday 11 to 8.

No soap, of course. Girves summed it up thusly: "Those Republicans walked into that meeting with pre-existing decisions."

Pre-existing decisions. A well-turned phrase, David, I must say!

The Man From Bloomfield Hills

The "rough-and-tumble golf courses"? Outstanding!!

Ann Romney On The Republican View Of Women's Issues

Oh, goody, the Republican Convention has begun in Tampa. NJ Gov. Chris Christie gave the keynote speech. Also speaking today were Rick Santorum, OH Gov. John Kasich, VA Gov. Bob McDonnell, and SC Gov. Nicki Haley. There's a regular hard-right rogues gallery for ya. Wouldn't give two cents to listen to any of 'em.

The prime-time spot is reserved for Mrs. Mittens, Queen Ann the Common Woman. Won't be listening to her either.

But I did watch a snippet of her tonight in a CBS interview. She was asked if her husband's well-known anti-abortion positions and the official GOP platform opposing abortion for any and all reasons might just possibly piss off untold millions of sensible American women.

After some artful, empathetic tap-dancing, Queen Ann explained, essentially, that after her husband's administration had forced all unhappily pregnant women to deliver those unwanted babies, those mothers would eventually rejoice because Mitt's policies would assure their kids of good jobs. (Like saddle polishing in the dressage horse stables.) And it's jobs -- that's the real issue, that's what's really important, said Ann. Republican policies will take those unwanted children and put 'em to work. It's a win-win.

So go ahead, girls -- throw caution to the wind! Drop those babies. Spit 'em out like seeds. Uncle Mitt's got your back.

The Late, Great George Carlin On Abortion, The Church And The Sanctity Of Life

Buster has always been a big George Carlin fan, so when a faithful reader sent this today, I had to put it up. (Thank you, faithful reader!)

This clip is several years old, so maybe you've seen it before, but it certainly resonates in today's fractious world, and it's worth another look-see. Nobody could cut through the crap like George -- profane, hilarious, the best!

Mitt: "Drill, Baby, Drill"; Mandel: "I Can't Count"

Mitt Romney wants to turn over management of all federal lands to the states -- John Kasich is salivating right now -- and begin drilling and mining absolutely everywhere. The Glove figures if we punch enough holes in the ground, sooner of later we'll hit enough stuff right here in the good ol' U. S. of A. so as to be completely "energy independent". Then we can flip a coal-dusted, gas-soaked finger at the rest of the world. What a plan, Mitt.

Josh Mandel is equally gung-ho to bang the drum for the hydrocarbon extraction industry. Mandel breezily calls environmental regulation a jobs-killer, and he recently said, "Sherrod Brown thinks 'coal' is a four-letter word."

To his credit, Brown refrained from replying, "Coal IS a four-letter word, you moron! Can't you fucking count??" Instead, Brown correctly said that Mandel's jobs-versus-clean air ploy is a false choice.

The Republican "energy policy" is to have no policy at all. The GOP platform would let the states and the oil/gas/coal industry do whatever they wanted. Nothing about alternative sources or renewables. Just pandering to stupid people -- selling an energy "vision" straight out of the 1950's.

We all know we're not going to rid ourselves of our reliance on petrochemicals anytime real soon. But we must start trying.

"One Term More!" Video

A video parody of the song "One Day More", from the Broadway musical "Les Miserables". It's both funny and right on the mark.
(Sent by a faithful reader. Thank you, faithful reader!)

Brown Is "Un-American"? Mandel Is Unbelievable

Yesterday, our sandbox senatorial candidate, Josh Mandel, called incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown "un-American" for supporting the successful auto industry loan "bailout" program. Asked for his alternative idea, Mandel said he would have "let private sector management go down whatever road they thought was feasible." (Yo Joshie, those were the same geniuses that managed them into bankruptcy!)

Listen to his spineless non-answer in this brief TV interview:



"Pipes and tubes"? "Great seeing you"? C'mon, man! The boy is clueless.

Nothing Wrong With "Career Politicians"

I didn't mention in yesterday's "Liar, Liar" post that at the very end of Mandel's TV ad, we're switched from a smiling, full-color Joshie Boy to an unsmiling, rumpled, black-and-white Sherrod Brown. (Bad guys are always in black-and-white.) Brown is slammed as a "career politician". Oh, how awful!

It seems to me that those who whine loudest about career politicians are those who are themselves desperate to become one.

So I'll take rumpled old Sherrod Brown with his intelligence, knowledge and experience (not to mention his point of view) over the fresh-faced emptiness of the Manchurian Candidate, Josh Mandel.

The Buster Gammons Doctrine: There's nothing wrong with career politicians, as long as I agree with them. ;)

Now Mitch McConnell, that SOB's gotta go!

Major League Math

When it comes to hidebound dogma, it's hard to top the jock-ocracy of professional sports management. Right now, a great baseball example of this stubborn adherence to the accepted wisdom is pitcher Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals and the decision by Nats' GM Mike Rizzo to keep Strasburg on a strict "innings-pitched" limit.

Strasburg is a recent #1 overall draft pick and a great young power pitcher. He throws serious gas. He also missed all of 2011 with Tommy John elbow surgery. The Washington brain trust decreed an iron-clad limit of 160 innings pitched for Strasburg this season.

And what a season it's been for the Nationals, who right now have the best record in all of baseball and will almost certainly win the NL East. Strasburg has been an important part of it, picking up 15 wins while pitching like a stud. He's logged 145 innings to this point, and Rizzo remains adamant that, no matter what, Strasburg will be shut down after two or three more starts. For his own long-term good, and that of the team. Which is understandable, except . . .

You're really gonna bench your best pitcher for the post-season? Rizzo, dude, are you serious? Don't you think you oughta dance with the one what brung ya? You wouldn't be here without Strasburg. You believe you're gonna go far without him?

Which brings me, at last, to the point of the title of this post. If you're really going to limit a pitcher's work over a season, an innings-pitched limit is fuzzy and unreliable math. That's because not all innings are created equal. A perfectly efficient inning from a pitcher is just three pitches. On the other hand, a struggling pitcher may get cuffed around and labor through 50 pitches in an inning.

A better measure is pitches thrown -- basic pitch count, which most teams use to limit certain starting pitchers on a single-game basis. But even that can be deceptive. There's a Stephen Strasburg/Aroldis Chapman pitch, and there's an R.A. Dickey/Jamie Moyer pitch.

OK, Strasburg throws hard as hell and puts a lot of torque on his arm. But shouldn't someone ask him how he feels about his own arm? That's probably the best measure of all. If he says he can go, you gotta let him go.

And besides, I really want to watch him pitch in the playoffs!

Liar, Liar

For the past year and a half, Josh Mandel has been Ohio's titular "Treasurer". In that time, all he's actually done is run his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sherrod Brown. Mandel has no particular qualifications to be our treasurer, and even less to be a senator. What he has is a shitload of money from conservative power-brokers like Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These guys and their slimy brethren have already spent $15 million on anti-Brown attack ads, none of which mention Mandel's record -- because he really doesn't have one.

So in his own ads he always reminds us he was a Marine, but otherwise just pretty much makes up stuff. In his latest (below, called "Results"), he brags about his "accomplishments" as treasurer:



But . . .

The clip of Joshie Boy "getting results" with his adding machine is three years old, well before he was treasurer. (Happy to know he doesn't use an abacus!)

Josh didn't "earn Ohio the highest investment rating in the nation." We already had it. The ad's fine print refers to the STAR Ohio Investment Fund, which has maintained its AAA rating from Standard & Poor's since 1995. All Josh did was stay out of the way and not fuck it up.

Josh was indeed named "Watchdog of the Treasury", but this occurred while he was a state rep, before he was treasurer. This fabulous award came from the little-known UCO -- United Conservatives of Ohio. The honor is meaningless. The UCO bestows this same honor on scores of Ohio Republicans each year. It's the equivalent of getting a gold star next to your name in GOP kindergarten class.

The announcer ends by asking us to, "Imagine these kinds of results in Washington." To which I say, "What results?"

I think I smell smoke. Yep, it's Josh's pants -- they're on fire again.

Just When You Think They Can't Get Any Crazier . . .

A county judge in Texas named Tom Head appeared on a local TV new broadcast (Fox News, of course) to voice his opinion that if Barack Obama is re-elected, civil war will result.

"He's going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?," Head asked.

"I'm thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.

"Now what's going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He's going to send in U.N. troops. I don't want 'em in Lubbock County. OK. So I'm going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say 'you're not coming in here'.

"And the sheriff, I've already asked him, I said 'you gonna back me' he said, 'yeah, I'll back you'. Well, I don't want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me."

The sheriff said he and Judge Head had never had any such discussion.

It's incredible that such a bigoted imbecile -- Judge Hole-In-The-Head -- is allowed to serve as a judge. The Lone Star State is one crazy-ass place!

The "Legitimate Rape" Song

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) is the idiot Congressman with the curious biological opinions whose chance of becoming a U.S. Senator is now less than zero. Akin's weird science aside, he's got company in his opposition to contraception, abortion in all circumstances, and any federal funding for Planned Parenthood (even thought such funding does not pay for abortions). He's joined in these troglodyte positions by Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and, for the past forty years, the official platform of the Republican party.

So, to dishonor all these unenlightened assholes, Buster proudly shares the "Legitimate Rape" song:

Ryan-Omics

(As nicely explained by two worthies far more capable than I, Joe Klein and Paul Krugman.)
_____________________________________________________________

Excerpted from Paul Ryan's Grand Vision, by Joe Klein, 8/27/12, Time magazine:


The trouble with Ryan's deep thinking on issues is that it's not very deep at all. He lives in a libertarian Disneyland where freedom is never abused, where government is an alien entity whose only function is to flummox the creative intelligence of ubermensches like Ayn Rand's hero character Howard Roark. It is a bit terrifying that this puerile vision has become the operating philosophy of the Republican party.

Ryan has produced various plans, proposals, and two actual federal budgets, and they all cut taxes drastically. This is supply-side economics, the utterly uncorroborated Jack Kemp/Ronald Reagan theory that the less people pay in taxes, they more they'll produce.

In Ryan's 2010 budget, all taxes on capital gains were lifted. By this standard, Mitt Romney would have paid a tax rate of less than 1%. Ryan's proposals replace capital gains tax with a sales tax, or VAT (value added tax), which would have the perverse effect of raising taxes on the middle class and poor while lowering them for the rich.

In Ryan's world -- in Rand's fantasy -- average folks are taxed because they have not had the good sense to become wealthy.
______________________________________________________________

Excerpted from An Un-Serious Man, by Paul Krugman, 8/20/12, NY Times:


Ryan-omics is and always has been a con game.

On the tax side, Ryan proposes big cuts in tax rates on top income brackets and corporations. The revenue loss from these cuts comes to $4.3 trillion in the next decade.

On the spending side, he proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and aid to college students. Let's be generous and say that all these cuts would save $1 trillion.

On top of this, Ryan includes $716 billion in Medicare savings that are a part of Obamacare, even though he wants to scrap everything else in the act.

Adding up his specifics, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by $1.7 trillion in spending cuts. Overall, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around $2.5 trillion.

Yet Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk? Well, he'd offset his tax cuts by eliminating tax deductions. Which ones? He refuses to say. Realistically, his offset claim would be virtually impossible.

If this sounds like a joke, it's because it is. It's a triumph of style over substance.

Paul Ryan isn't a serious man -- he just plays one on TV.

Tuesday With Barack

I went to Capital University today to hear President Obama speak. It was a classic collegiate atmosphere, befitting his main theme of the importance of higher education, and of keeping college costs affordable. In one of his better zingers, contrasting his priorities with Romney/Ryan, my cuz the Prez said something like, "They won't do anything to protect higher education and give our kids a shot at becoming successful. All they wanna do is protect those who already are."

For a few hours, I hung out with over 3000 good people of every flavor. Obama spoke eloquently and powerfully, as he always does. It was a nice day, and being there made me feel good. Not bad for a Tuesday.

Dispatch Headline: "Fight Over Poll Hours Isn't Just Political"

And if they were telling the truth (not their strong suit), our local red rag would have gone on to say, "It's racial, too."

Tomorrow morning, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) will probably fire two Democrats on the Montgomery County Elections Board for trying to maintain weekend hours for early voting in the Dayton area. Husted had officially eliminated weekend hours as part of an overall cutback in early voting.

Despite some apparent decency (uniform voting hours, absentee ballots mailed to all), Husted is still just another wrench in the vast GOP toolbox, and they're using their tools to suppress voter turnout. Early in-person voting has been curtailed, and black Ohioans who vote early overwhelmingly prefer to do so in person.

This edict will clearly reduce black Democratic votes, but Ohio GOP officials call it "fair and reasonable". Just can't let those brothers and sisters cast their votes in a way that some old, white Republicans might find inconvenient or distasteful. "Separate standards", they call it.

Husted claims his decision to cut voting hours was also a matter of cost-cutting. He said local election boards just can't afford any "extended" voting.

Puh-leeze! Big double-bullshit call!! Weekend hours for early voting (for everyone) can in no way be construed as unfair and are hardly a separate standard. And such voting hours have been perfectly affordable in the very recent past. Now we're suddenly out of money? One of our most important and cherished rights has become conditional and subject to "affordability"?

I don't think so. Let's stick it to the bastards! Vote. And help others to register and vote.

Whose Property Is It, Really?

Just watched a short CBS News piece on New York's decision to finally allow some limited oil and gas "fracking" in the Empire State, although with the nation's toughest regulations. After resisting for years, the state legislature finally acquiesced to demands from property "owners" that they be allowed to cash in by leasing the mineral "rights" on "their" land.

An environmental scientist explained that even with NY's strict rules and regs, there's really no way to safely fracture the bedrock (the cracking of the rock itself releases toxic chemicals and gases into the ground and groundwater, and the fracking fluid is a noxious soup), and there's really no such thing as a safe containment well for the waste water.

Nevertheless, the lure of the windfall is hard to resist. Pennsylvania was among the first to permit fracking. A New York farmer on the NY-PA border was interviewed. He can look across his land and see producing fracking wells on Pennsylvania farms. He's anxious to sign a lease and get frackin' on his own farm. Of his PA neighbors, he said, "There's no problem I can see -- their crops and animals look as good as ever. The only difference is those guys have new tractors and new buildings."

I understand the importance of property rights in our society and the desire to benefit from those rights. It's part of our history and, to some extent, our success. But in the long view, the big picture, we're all renters just passin' through. I mean, whose property is it, really?

The NY farmer sees no problems. He wants his chance to cash in, like many others have, and it's hard to fault his point of view. But fracking is so new, so extreme, and so unproven, it's damn hard to believe it's just a bowl of cherries. We never see the problems at first -- it's only decades later that we get the Dust Bowl, and Love Canal, and the Cuyahoga River explodes.

Eventually, the farmer will be gone, as will we all. The new tractor will be gone. The land will remain for future generations. We may want to think twice before we smash it into pieces.

In the words of an old, old TV commercial: It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!

Plight Of The Job Creators

Trying To Hold Back The Tide With Bad Law And Big Money

Today, Ohio Secretary of State John Husted (R) reversed himself and declared that all election boards across the state must have identical hours for early voting this November. Husted had previously OK'd a ridiculously biased arrangement where Republican-dominated areas were granted extended early voting hours while Democratic-leaning precincts were given reduced hours. He and Guv Kay-suck caught some well-deserved shit for such blatant favoritism, and decided on a do-over.

So the early voting hours are even-steven, the same for everyone. That's good. Of course those hours are fewer than they were four years ago. That's bad.

It's all part of the brazen current Republican strategy, playing out here and across the country: enact modern-day Jim Crow laws, and try to just flat-out buy the White House and the Congress.


In a recent interview, the Ragin' Cajun, James Carville, put it like this:

"The reason you see Citizens United and all these voter-restricting ID laws is simple: This is the Republicans' last shot. Look at every part of the electorate that's growing: non-whites, unmarried people, college-educated women -- you name it, they're all part of the Democratic coalition. It's a coming demographic disaster for Republicans. That's why they're so determined to change who votes and the way you raise money. It's like [GOP strategist] Ed Rollins said, 'The problem with our party is it's too old, too white and too fat.'"

Romney-Ryan

Ryan? Who's Ryan?


Nah, that's Robert Ryan. A fine actor, but dead.











Nope, that's Rex Ryan. He's the head coach of the NY Jets and a noted foot fetishist.






Whoa! Not her either. That's Meg Ryan, former cutey-pie actress. What the hell happened, Meg?







Oh, you must mean U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis), recently picked to be The Glove's running mate. He's an ambitious far-right budget wonk, a hatchet-faced hatchet man (Paulie Smallnuts?), and a dangerous little fuck. At a young age, Ryan somehow turned into an acolyte of the "selfishness is a virtue", Libertarian greed-head author/bitch Ayn Rand, and he hasn't looked back.

He's best known for his draconian "Path To Prosperity" budget proposal, which Mittens endorses, and which would, among other things:
1. Cut taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, while raising taxes on middle and low income people.
2. Slash all manner of expenditures, including spending on social programs and education, while increasing defense spending.
3. Kill Medicare, replacing it with vouchers run by the private insurance industry.
4. Privatize Social Security. (Interestingly, Ryan himself has received Social Security survivor benefits and cashed those checks promptly.)

Ryan is deeply anti-choice and anti-gay, and is a darling of the NRA. On social issues, his voting record soul mate appears to be Michelle Bachmann.

Some conservatives applaud his selection as VP candidate, saying Ryan will fire up the Republican base. But he's also firing up the Democratic base at the same time, motivating folks to show up to specifically vote against his Tea-soaked agenda.

Given that, I think his net benefit to the Republican campaign is zero, at best. Already, the Romney-Ryan ticket has cancelled appearances in Florida, a blue-haired haven for frequent users of Medicare and Social Security. The campaign cited "exhaustion". For an exercise freak, that Paul Ryan sure gets tired quick.

In an economic side note, the Romney-Ryan pairing caused an immediate uptick in one Wall Street sector: stock prices for hair gel companies have shot through the roof!

"The Tea Party Song" by Nona Hendryx

Nona Hendryx first drew notice in the mid-1970's as a member of vocal group Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. Since then, she has continued to record, albeit sporadically. I heard her do this one on the radio the other day and wanted to share it. It's a little long, but you'll get the idea.

Mitt's Tax Returns

As everyone knows, Mitt and Ann Romney have thus far released only their 2010 tax returns and an estimate for 2011. The Glove is adamantly refusing to release any returns from earlier years. Gosh, I wonder why?

(Click on the image to enlarge it. Pretty funny!)

Oops, They Did It Again!

Forgive me for hitting this topic again, but the Romney campaign just did it again. Yesterday, they launched a new ad claiming that Obama has secretly "gutted" welfare and removed its' work requirement.

Just one problem with this ad -- it's not true. Not even close. Even the Columbus Dispatch labels the ad "extremely inaccurate and misleading."

When the Douchepatch calls a Republican campaign ad "extremely inaccurate", you know it's what the rest of us would call a big, fat, filthy LIE!

Scum-Bucket Ads

In this mean season, I know I can't get cranky about every single shitty campaign ad, but when it comes to base pandering, blatant dishonesty, and out-of-context manipulations, the GOP's political spots are without equal. From Willie Horton to the Swiftboaters to the little old lady in Ohio's SB 5 ads, the Republicans are masters of the shameless scum-bucket strategy. It's their brand: "Oh gosh, did we tell another intentional lie? We're sorry, but we don't care. It's out there, and we know it's already done its job."

A current example is the heavy-rotation ad ripping Obama for his "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" comment. Except that's not really what he said. The ad (screen shot at right) is a cut-and-paste gross distortion.

Obama spoke the "didn't build that" line in a Virginia speech where he was describing a classic Blue/Red divide regarding business. Democrats remind us that all businesses benefit from things like public utilities, railways, roads, interstates, and bridges; airports and sea ports; postal delivery and the internet; public education. They point out that these things were created, funded, built and maintained by government with our tax dollars, not by private business. And all that helpful infrastructure allows private business to do it's thing.

On the other side of the divide, Republicans prefer to ignore all that. They believe they are brilliant job/business "creators", alchemists who turn lumps of clay into economic miracles, and do it all by themselves, despite all those impossibly unfair governmental roadblocks like taxes, fair labor laws, work safety laws, and environmental regulations. (For Obama's full comments on the topic, click the video below.)

In the ad, the business owner guy in the green shirt rhetorically asks Obama, "Why are you demonizing us?" I missed it. What demonizing? The out-of-context video snippets slapped together in the attack ad? Mr. Green Shirt ought to watch the full video.

Green Shirt ends by telling us that "Success should be rewarded, not punished." What the hell does that mean? No one begrudges a business its success. But isn't success its own reward? Apparently not to Mr. Green Shirt. He says he built his successful company and implies he now wants to be rewarded even further. Probably with zero taxes and the ability to pollute with impunity. Anything other than that he regards as a punishment.

The ad is a crock, and Green Shirt is a selfish ass. He wants it all his way -- all revenues, no expenses; all peaches, no pits. But it just doesn't work that way, does it?

Olympic Athletes, Don't Drink This Beer!

Brewdog is a Scottish punkster craft brewery with a wicked sense of humor. They're known for expensive, high-alcohol beers and ales with smart-alecky names. (See Buster's archives for the Brewdog post of 8/3/10, "Does PETA Know About This?")

Their latest offering is a good-natured tweak of the Olympic Games strict drug-screening protocols, conducted while simultaneously sucking up to corporate sponsors like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Coca Cola. They call their new beer "Never Mind The Anabolics", and it's made with small portions of the following, any of which could cause an athlete to fail a drug test:

Creatine
Guarana
Lycii Berries
Kola Nut
Gingko
Matcha Tea
Maca Powder
Steroids

Yup, genuine good old-fashioned, muscle-building, rage-inducing, testicle-shrinking steroids. Dee-licious! Now you can drink a beer, then lift the truck that delivered it.

Our Modern World

From a recent NY Times Sunday magazine article:

"A water park is to water scarcity as a hot-dog eating contest is to world hunger."

The Plastic Glove: Mitt's "Heh-Heh-Heh" Laughter Fail

Buster has previously commented on the inauthenticity of Mitt Romney wearing jeans and a checked shirt. It's akin to Larry the Cable Guy in a tuxedo.

Lately, I've noticed his attempts at "laughter" are stiff, insincere, and about as far from spontaneous as one can get. And it seems I'm not alone in this observation.

Old-School Buster: The Sports Report

It's rootsy, it's retro, it's Buster talkin' a little sports!


In major league baseball, the Cincinnati Reds are ascendent, while the Cleveland Indians head in the opposite direction. The Reds are, at the moment, owners of the best record in either league. They've been hotter than habaneros since the All Star break, in one stretch winning 10 games in a row. Much of this hot streak has been without the services of their best player, Joey Votto. A big series against the Pirates starts tonight. Go Reds!

The Tribe, on the other hand, peaked early, shot their wad, and will now limp to the finish line. They're banged up, their pitching has gone in the toilet, they've fallen well under .500, just got swept by the lowly Royals, and can't buy a break. Next year. Yeah, that's it! Next year.








Like most people, I've been watching my share of the London Olympic Games. And, like always, the competitions offer brilliant performances and inspiring stories. So naturally, I've been more interested in some of the less-than-heroic stuff; the Olympic low-lights:

In a cash-for-medals scheme, a boxing referee gave an outrageous decision to an Azerbaijani boxer who'd just been whipped like a rented mule for 3 rounds by his Japanese opponent. Officials promptly overturned the decision and banned the referee from the sport.


Eight bad girls of badminton were disqualified for obviously tanking matches and trying to lose, so as to set up more favorable matches in the next round. That's badminton for you.


An ex-cop German rower was sent home after she acknowledged having connections to neo-Nazis. Dummkopf!


And in a secret survey, nearly 100% of the world-class swimmers at the Games admitted to peeing in the Olympic pools. Yuck!










The Cleveland Browns were sold for $1 billion to Jimmy Haslam, a truckstop tycoon from Tennessee. (Who knew truckstops were so lucrative? Who believes the Browns are worth a billion dollars?) Haslam is, of all things, a Steelers fan and minority owner of that team. He says he's hiring a former Eagles executive to run the team, and he will of course divest himself of his interest in the Steelers. He says he'll do his best to become a Browns fan, but will consider renaming them the Flying J's.


Right now, Paul Brown is spinning in his grave.