A hammered Hasselhoff = good TV, W. making threats = not much and rioting villagers = a thumbs up from me

- There’s only one way I’m watching even a half-second of NBC’s ridiculous and embarrassingly-awful returning summer series America’s Got Talent: David Hasselhoff must agree to film every single episode with a blood-alcohol content of .15 or above. That’s nearly twice the legal limit in most states, and if Hasselhoff is that hammered, the show might actually be entertaining instead of incredibly lowbrow, stupid and worthless. Normally a self-glossing poseur like “The Hoff”, a druggie, plastic-surgery-loving old British woman like Sharon Osborne and whoever the third loser judge is on this show would ensure that I would watch zero hours of it, but if Hasselhoff is fall-down drunk, I’ll reconsider. I’ll still have no desire to see losers perform karaoke, see cats work miniature parallel bars, idiots juggling fire and wannabe comedians do their shtick, but if there’s any chance D. Hasselhoff will recreate the utter hilarity we saw on that video his daughter took when he was hammered and making a total fool of himself, then it’s worth watching. All NBC needs to do is stock Hasselhoff’s green room and trailer with enough vodka, rum, tequila and gin to drown an elephant and I think they’ll have a hit on their hands………

- Not many things are as sickening as a sports fan as watching LeBron lovers in my area of Northeast Ohio fawn over No. 23 and continue to apologize for his shortcomings and lack of killer instinct 24/7. You can debate whether Bron Bron should have shot the ball or passed it to Donyell Marshall for a potential game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds of Monday night’s game, but that play is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. As talented as LeBron James is, he doesn’t inspire that same “we can’t lose, he won’t allow it” confidence that stars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird or even Dwayne Wade and Tim Duncan do. True superstars possess an infallible, unfailing will to win that will not accept failure and for that reason, they compel their teams to win games they shouldn’t win just on sheer willpower. Watching Cavs games, I don’t get the feeling that the Cavs will win games they have no business winning because James is there. He has the talent to be that player, but not the killer instinct and tenacity. He mails in games regularly and most other games, he puts it on cruise control for the first half or so and then figures he can't flip the switch and pull through in the end. In other words, he spends more time worrying about being cool and smooth than he does about going balls to the wall and ripping the other team’s heart out. The Cavaliers reflect his personality because he’s their leader, and as a result they can never drop the hammer on opponents when it’s necessary. The Cavaliers will be fortunate to win two games in this series because the Pistons do have that killer instinct and they have guys who will go with reckless abandon after the W every game.

- If you’ve read this blog for more than a few days, you know that I love riots, demonstrations and citizen vs. police clashes worldwide. I love the average man or woman giving the proverbial middle finger to The Man, so there’s no way I could not love this next story, courtesy of the town of Singur, India. About 200 villagers in Singur clashed with police on Monday for a second straight day as the citizens continued to voice their displeasure for the new factory that is to be built in their town. The villagers want more compensation from the government for land acquired to build the factory on, so they tried to break down the boundary wall around the site where Tata Motors Inc. is building a small car factory. No counts of injuries or arrests were immediately available, but this is a class struggle of the little guy versus the government and big business, and I’m rooting for the villagers in Singur to get what they deserve - better compensation for the land the government took from them.

- The Piece of Crap Club is proud to induct John Orlowski as its newest member. Orlowski was able to bypass the normal waiting period that esteemed clubs like sports halls of fame have for induction because his crime is so heinous, so deplorable and so reprehensible that he not only qualifies for immediate induction but he’s quite possibly among the worst one percent of people in the club. This scumbag attempted to hire a hit man to whack his entire family, including his 7-year-old daughter, and told the hit man that he had no qualms about having his family killed as long as the killer agreed to several stipulations as to how the murders would be done. Orlowski’s requests were as follows: his wife and mother-in-law were each to be shot twice in the head, while the 7-year-old daughter was to be shot in the chest. Now, Orlowski is facing murder-for-hire charges after the mother of the gang member who Orlowski hired to do the murders called the FBI. Personally, I don’t care if the death penalty is normally reserved for people who have actually carried out or organized murders-for-hire, but Orlowski needs to get the gas chamber even if no one has died in this plot. He’s absolutely a piece of garbage and clearly has no conscience, and our planet would be a better place without him inhabiting it.

- Talk about your hollow threats…..the W. administration has begun hinting that it will reconsider its support in Iraq if Iraqi leaders don’t make major reforms and progress by the fall. The Iraqi government in turn has allegedly begun formulating plans for dealing with a quick U.S. military withdrawal from their country. Am I the only one who laughed out loud at this news? Does anyone actually believe that W. has the brains or the balls to end this war and bring the American troops home? That would mean admitting he’s been wrong about this situation and that he actually has been wasting time, money, lives, more money and more lives on a pointless, unjustified war. This comes even as Democrats in Congress appear to be capitulating to W.’s demand for a war-funding bill without troop-withdrawal language in it. So other than vacant, meaningless words from our Tool in Chief that we might pull our troops out of Iraq if they don’t meet some vague, amorphous “progress” guidelines that probably don’t even exist. Don’t waste your time on those contingency plans, Iraqi government, I really, really doubt you’re ever going to need them.