American Newsreel

Reports The Associated Press:

Having decided on a ballerina theme for her daughter’s sixth birthday party, Michelle West drove all over to find little dancers for the cake. Then she put 50 little beefeater guards around the edges. And she gave it beautiful white icing with peppermint trim.

And what happened? The kids wouldn’t eat it.

It wasn’t long afterward that she joined a group of St. Paul parents determined to end the birthday party arms race.

Birthdays Without Pressure is taking aim at the oneupsmanship that drives moms and dads to throw parties that will really, really impress the kids and the other parents, too.

“We feel there’s a kind of cultural runaway going on right now around the birthday parties of kids,” said William Doherty, a University of Minnesota professor of family social science who had a hand in organizing the group, launched publicly earlier this month.

Birthdays Without Pressure has started a Web site and launched a media campaign.

Seems Americans like to do just about anything while behind the wheel of a car.

Except drive.

Reports Reuters:

Talk on the phone while you’re driving? Fix your makeup? Check e-mail? You’re not alone.

A survey released on Monday shows 81 percent of Americans do more than drive when they’re behind the wheel.

More than eight of 10 people surveyed by Nationwide Mutual Insurance said they adjust the radio or music while they drive, while 73 percent talk on the phone, 68 percent eat, 19 percent send text messages and 5 percent checked their e-mail.

Personal hygiene was also a big driver distraction, with 19 percent fixing their hair, 12 percent putting on makeup and 2 percent shaving while at the controls of a car.

“Clearly Americans have much to do and little time to do it, so to cope with that we’ve become multi-taskers,” said Bill Windsor, associate vice president of Safety at Nationwide.

“The problem with that is driving requires focus, and multi-tasking while driving puts you and your fellow drivers at risk.”

Drivers in the survey also admitted to changing seats with passengers, watching a movie, painting their toenails, nursing a baby and putting in contact lenses while driving.

Younger drivers multi-task the most, the survey found, with 35 percent of 18-to-27 year olds saying they always multi-task in the car, compared to 21 percent of baby boomers.

Windsor said the consequences for young drivers are severe, with car accidents being the number one cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 27.

“The bottom line is if it can be done in the kitchen, bathroom, office or bedroom, it should not be done in the car,” Windsor said.

Like many car nuts, we have long lusted after an original 427 Cobra, the hybrid sports car that racing legend Carroll Shelby built in the 60s.

Looks like our lust is too big for most people’s pocketbook.

A rare, 800-hp “Super Snake” Cobra that Shelby drove as his personal transportation for years went on the auction block — and sold for $5.5 million.

More proof that morons run the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.

Reports The Associated Press:

Troy Smith’s Heisman Trophy was shipped home Tuesday to keep it safe and avoid the type of mishap that happened the last time an Ohio State player won the award.

Smith wore a black leather jacket with the Heisman insignia on back when he arrived at the airport from New York, where he was presented college football’s most coveted trophy.

Eddie George, the last Buckeye to win the Heisman in 1995, had his trophy get stuck in an airport X-ray machine, losing the tip of its right index finger and bending the middle finger.

“We decided to have it shipped. That’s much easier. How times have changed. Eddie carried it on the plane and put it in the seat next to him,” sports information director Steve Snapp said.

Smith didn’t mind.

“No, because Eddie’s finger got bent,” he said. “I don’t want that to happen to mine.”

First it was the Jews, not the Mayans are pissed off at actor-director Mel Gibson. They claim his latest film, Apocalypto, is a “demeaning and untrue” portrayal of thei Mayan culture. Time for Lethal Weapon 5?

A woman on an American Airlights flight en route to Dallas farted. So she did what some people do with they fart. She lit a match to cover the…er…fragrence of flatulence.

Other passengers smelled the burning sulphur of the match and thought someone was trying to light a bomb. So the plane made an emergency landing in Nashville and the FBI questioned everyone before discovering the farting terrorist.

The plane was allowed to continue without the human gas bomb.

Well this ought to give the homophobes in the White House and Congress heartburn this morning.

Brokebrack Mountain, director Ang Lee’s story about two gay cowboys, leads the Oscar nominations.

This will, no doubt, result in the American Family Association and other gay-bashing conservative organizations calling for a boycott of the Oscar telecast.

Jim Garrison, a Colorado computer engineer, won a free cruise, but he had to get fired to win the prize.

Garrison, fired from his job for eating two pieces of pizza left over from a company meeting, won a contest sponsored by Simplyfired.com, which solicited the “most outrageous” stories about how people lost their jobs.

Garrison, who won a free cruise that will include semi-celebrities fired from Donald Trump’s show The Apprentice.

The runners-up included these bizarre stories: a furniture mover who got fired after he and a co-worker were caught fencing with some adult sex toys that they found in a customer’s bedroom; a worker who misunderstood a manager’s instructions to send some sensitive data to microfilm and e-mailed it to a “Michael Finn” instead; and a warehouse worker found doing perverse things with the prosthetics made by his employer.

We learned long ago that PETA (People For the Ethicial Treatment of Animals) will do just about anything for publicity, even using a semi-nude model to draw attention to one of its campaigns.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Katy Robertson, an actress from South Africa, posed topless in front of a sign decrying cruelty to circus animals. With chains on her legs and arms and fake stripes placed on her bare back to simulate the whip marks trainers inflict on their animals Robertson says she “exposed a little skin to expose the cruelty to circus animals.” She says, “I’m proud of doing this, and it’s the most worthwhile thing I could be doing.”

What she failed to mention that when you’re an aspiring actress, getting a little publicity for a charitible cause doesn’t hurt even if it means flashing your tits to do it.

While the photo of Robertson isn’t going to be one that young boys take into the john to whack off it does show that PETA is not above titilation to bring out the cameras. And it’s not the first time. The organization has used a nude Cindy Crawford in previous campaigns, although PETA then denounced Crawford after she signed on to model fur. Other prominent actresses and models, have also been all-to-willing to show a little T&A in the name of PR.

An English professor who lives somewhere up north (New Hampshire I think) keeps sending emails complaining about my grammar.

“Your improper use of the English language is a disservice to your readers,” he says. “Bad grammar is the mark of an uneducated mind.”

You got that right professor. I ain’t all that well educated. Might say my graduate and post-graduate work came at the school of real life instead of the ivory tower fantasy worlds where you live and work.

My first newspaper editor used to say “write like people talk. Don’t try to impress me with big words and long, hard-to-understand sentences.”

People don’t talk like Shakespeare. They talk like people. And we the people don’t say “he’s a prevaricator.” We say “he’s a lying S.O.B.”

And politicians don’t talk like people neither. They use big words to hide the fact that, in most cases, they don’t have the slightest damn idea what they’re talking about (yeah, I know. Shouldn’t end a sentence with “about.” That’s why I stuck this in here).

When a politician says “I’m re-evaluating my position,” it really means “damn, you caught me in a lie and now I’ve got to come up with a new one.” When the President of the United States says “we’re making progress in Iraq” he really means “thank God, not as many Americans died there this week.”

Professor, what you call “bad grammar” is what others call “colorful language.”

Call it what you will. I call it the truth and that’s the only language spoken here.