In today’s sports legal lesson news, the United States Olympic Committee has warned the organizers of the Redneck Olympics that they must change their event’s name or they will be subject to a lawsuit. The USOC, thanks to our friends in Congress, holds the rights to any use of the word Olympics, including variations like Olympians, Olympiad, and, presumably, Olympia Dukakis.

But the folks behind this year’s Redneck Olympics in Maine are saying, “Heck naw,” claiming that since the Olympics have been around for thousands of years, they have every right to use the term. Guess how that’s going to work out for them.

“We have no interest in being the big bad guy that comes in and ruins everyone’s fun, [but] it’s important for us to protect this intellectual property,” Mark Jones, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, told the Law Blog. “If someone calls themselves the Olympic Dry Cleaners or calls their sporting organization the Olympians – anything like that, those rights are ours.” (Via The Wall Street Journal)

OK, that’s pretty F-ed up, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the law. The WSJ also points out that in 1982 the Gay Olympics went through the same ordeal and they changed their name to the Gay Games. Even the Laff-A-Lympics went off the air in 1979, one year after the law was passed. Coincidence? Snagglepuss and Jabberjaw think not. The Special Olympics are the only exemption from this law, and there’s a big difference between differently-abled and redneck. OK, maybe it’s not that big of a difference.

Now I’m no big city slicker lawyer, I’m just a simple folk puttin’ mah overalls on one rolled up leg at a time. But iffn’ them fellas down there in East Dublin, Georgia can host their Redneck Games each summer, then I’m sure we can all help the South rise again, just under a different name, I reckon. It ain’t worth fightin’ with them Yankee white collar carpet baggers to ruin our fixins. Just think of all of the redneckitty goodness we’d be missin’ out on…

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The United States Lawn Mower Racing Association is a real thing, and the 2011 STA-BIL Lawn and Garden Mower Racing Series is set to put its lever in the upright position, prime the engine and yank the cord this Saturday with the Potomac Speedway’s Mow Down Show Down. The Show Down is the first of 21 races in the STA-BIL series, and it features people racing lawn mowers at speeds as high as 50 mph. That’s right, even lawn mowers now drive faster than your grandmother.

Founded in 1992, the USLMRA is the largest sanctioned lawn mower racing organization in the U.S., with 50 chapters in 37 states overseeing 140 races, including the U.S. Open (*revs engine*). The “sport” originated in Britain in the 1970s, but like anything that makes British people happy, we stole it and commercialized it. The Revolutionary War will never end, wankers!

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"Must... protect... my... cooler."

I don’t really have much information behind this video other than it’s a monster truck and it explodes, but for the sake of entertainment I’ll assume this took place in Kentucky every day for the last 20 years. As you’ll see in the video after the jump, the driver, Kirby, is going to show a crowd of car value depreciation enthusiasts what his specialized monster Lincoln Town Car* can do against a large pit of mud. Then he actually hits the mud and becomes instantly stuck and brilliance ensues.

Instead of accepting that he’s stuck and an embarrassment to his family of 16, Kirby is hellbent on moving forward, to the point that he almost kills himself. Instead, he comes just short of becoming a Darwin Awards finalist. Maybe next year, big fella!

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I’ll leave the puns to you guys, but I couldn’t finish the week without showing you this video of a guy firing a semi-automatic pistol, and then reloading it. Sure, he’s no Quick Draw McGraw, but that’s still awesome. He probably has a poster of Sarah Palin hanging up in his garage next to his Vaseline and Dyson vacuum cleaner. I still want to give this guy a hug, even though he can’t hug back.

Enjoy the video after the jump.

You can enjoy this video essentially without context, but here goes anyway: when a guy on Facebook offers to let “his FB friends” shoot up his TV if their team can beat the Redskins, you’d better believe that they’re gonna take you up on it. As the esteemed gentleman stepping out of his pickup says, “A bet’s a bet.” And you’ve never seen a jollier bunch of coonasses than these guys lining up to blow holes through a 60-inch flatscreen TV. Big ups to reader Andrew, who sent this in, saying, “Just when you think this video can’t get any better, it does! I’m proud to call myself a Louisianian!” So are we.

This one goes out to my buddy Brett, a Saints fan who’s a loud eater, but a tender lover.

Phillies pitcher Brett Myers (yes, that Brett Myers) didn’t really strike me as a gunrack-in-the-back-of-a-pickup-truck, Toby Keith kinda guy, but I guess Meech over at The Fightins (via Maj)knew otherwise, and makes the case accordingly:

It’s a description that would seem to fit him perfectly; a hard-working, beer rip-cording hothead who is equally capable of throwing 8 innings of shutout ball or getting yanked in the third after giving up a five-spot… Giving a memorable plate appearance vs. one of the best pitchers in baseball or getting sent to the minor leagues for no discernible reason other than a lack of focus… Losing his cool on a newspaper reporter after a tough loss or on his wife in the middle of a crowded Boston street… you get the idea.

These are all the erratic traits of a stereotypical redneck, and Brett Myers seems happy to play along.

And yes, that’s Brett above with his son, Colt. And yes, his kid is wearing a t-shirt with the old Confederate flag on it…on his way to the clubhouse. What, could you not find a bedsheet and hood that was small enough for your boy, Brett? I think I just solved the mystery of who left the burning popsicles sticks in Ryan Howard’s locker.