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I've had a busy morning, but the grossest headline I've read today is Brad Hugs Twins to His Bare Chest, from the Not-Kansas-City Star. I'm not 100 percent sure whether they're going for swoony romance novel imagery, or if they're implying that Brad Pitt is feeding all his breast milk to his new babies, but either way, GROSS. Below the jump, a creative project I've been working on, and some unfair stereotypes about seersucker-clad Southern political bosses. Click here or on the only Pulitzer-winning news journal available in the check-out lane at Green Apple Market.

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By JEN CHEN

Last Saturday, I was out at Paddy O’Quigley’s at 119th Street and Roe for a karaoke birthday party. SoJoCo karaoke drew a preppy crowd. Guys in khaki shorts, flip-flops and T-shirts emblazoned with beer slogans or Greek letters clustered at the bar. Groups of women sported the official KC going-out look, which consists of strapless dresses, heels and shoulder-length sleek hair.

Because of her cute lacy sweater and maroon-purple belt, Lisa stood out from the rest of the crowd.

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By MATT SPENCER

Great artwork tours all over this country, but these rolling installations don't go anywhere near Nelson-Atkins.

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Each week, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

On the One Hand . . . The Economist's Joke Book.

Author: Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold
Publisher: Thredgold Economic Associates
Date: 2001
The Cover Promises: D&D-style sorcery fun with a one-eared Richard Gephardt.
Discovered at: Goodwill at 89th & Wornall
Representative Quotes:
Page 24: “An 'acceptable' level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job."
Page 26: “A recession is when your neighbor has lost her job. A depression is when you lose yours.”

All right, all right. Maybe The Economist's Joke Book makes the same joke twice within three pages. (That's economical!) And maybe that joke is a thumb gouging out the eye of funny in the first place. (That saves on R&D!) And maybe Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold's book is the self-published, sold-at-speaking-engagements, throw-awayable paperback equivalent of every forwarded e-mail your economist aunt ever passed on to everyone in her address book. Let's keep an open mind, here.

Page 57: “An economist is someone who knows 100 ways to make love ... but doesn't know any women/men.”

I don't know any women/men, either. But, really, Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold, if you do get to know some women/men, or maybe some men/women, or even any other transgendered combination you happen upon in your Economic Futuring, the odds are good that the net gain in partner parts and orifices might boost your 100 known ways of making love exponentially.

You get one more chance, The Economist's Joke Book!!

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By JEN CHEN

KC’s a pretty casual town, and we’ve all gotten used to seeing guys wearing baseball caps everywhere. That’s fine at, say, an actual baseball game or during a weekend errand run, or if you’re doing something that requires protection from the sun. But it really drives me insane when I see a guy in a baseball hat at a semi-nice restaurant (i.e. anything above the level of Applebee’s) or at a non-casual event. It’s like, come on. Try to make an effort.

So, when I saw Russell at the 119th Street Paddy O’Quigley’s on Saturday night, I appreciated the fact that he (a) sported a stylish hat, and (b) the rest of his outfit was nice and neat. And this at a sports bar’s karaoke night! His girlfriend, Lizz, was adorable, too; she wore a summery floral knee-length dress and these awesome cowboy-looking boots with a short heel.

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Giving good ideas a bad name: Over at Prime Buzz, Jeffrey Spivak breaks down Clay Chastain's shifting succession of light-rail plans with a simultaneously informative and dismissive tone that you can't just learn from the AP Stylebook. I'm not saying it's a whirlwind tour-de-force of hilarity — we're talking about The Kansas City Star, not Crazy magazine — but it hits all the points I would have hit, including a bulleted list of Chastain's idiotic light-rail propsals. Only instead of using bullets for my bulleted list, I would have used Truck Nutz. Highlights:

Spivak calls out Virginian Clay Chastain for his unhealthy interest in Kansas City, Missouri, transit issues.

He also points out that nobody in local government takes Chastain seriously anymore.

Spivak points out that Chastain's cost estimates per mile are always ridiculously low.

Spivak comes very close to calling Chastain an attention whore, right there in the lede.

After the jump, a Truck Nutzed list of snack food deformities resembling major religious figures. Click here, or on this very valuable, very sidesplitting issue #1 of Crazy:

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By DAVID MARTIN

Philanthropist Shirley Helzberg knows how to win friends and influence people. Two critics of the lavish deployment of economic incentives came to City Hall this morning to support her plan to use tax-increment financing (TIF) to fix up a new headquarters for the Kansas City Symphony.

Helzberg wants to move the symphony into the old Vitagraph Building in the Crossroads. Helzberg and architect Jay Tomlinson talked about their plans for the building and other parcels along 17th Street at the Finance and Audit Committee meeting this morning.

Some usual suspects, such as developer and Crossroads Community Association President Shaul Jolles, spoke in favor of the plan. Even more encouraging for Helzberg, people who usually criticize TIF think her proposal has merit.

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By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Click on the photo for a slideshow.

At dawn on Tuesday, July 15, more than 200 people stared down a nearly 350-mile challenge. For the next four days, as they gritted their teeth and flexed their muscle, I played the role of river rat, scurrying after them as they paddled from Kansas City to St. Charles.

For the Missouri River 340, dozens of athletic tourists traveled to the Show-Me State and scores of locals were drawn to spend four-straight days in direct contact with our most-underappreciated natural resource. And they all came and left with so many stories, I could fit only a fraction into this week's "Up Show-Me Creek."

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By DAVID MARTIN

Kansas City Councilman Russ Johnson is making an attempt to correct a significant flaw in the "starter" light-rail line he's promoting. Today's Kansas City Star reports that Johnson wants to stretch the line to 63rd Street, making it more accessible to people who live in disadvantaged areas.

The two-mile extension would increase service in the city's 5th District. In this week's column, I describe how the starter line under consideration before today barely ventured into the city's most impoverished neighborhoods. To me, this seemed like both bad policy and bad politics. (Polls indicate that support for light rail is soft among black voters.) Though its funding source remains clouded, the two-mile extension should go a long way to address concerns about the starter router's fairness and, ultimately, its fortunes at the polls.

By NADIA PFLAUM

I revisited these murals behind the Foxx Equipment building on Southwest Boulevard because the fleeting glimpses I got of them while driving by on Broadway just weren't enough.

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By Nadia Pflaum

When I walked up on Andy at the Peanut on a recent Sunday night and asked if I could take her picture for our Clothes Whores blog, I thought she'd say no. She seemed shy, despite her attention-grabbing style. But she agreed.

The tattoo on her chest reads Esto Tambien Pasara, or "This Too Shall Pass."
She says, “It’s a pretty good thing to live by.”

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By DAVID MARTIN

Please speak your political lines into the microphone, Brad.

Reason No. 17,438 why people should be judged by what they do and not what they say: political hack and possible perjurer Bradley Schlozman complained about the "partisan and shrill" atmosphere in Washington when he became the U.S. attorney for western Missouri in 2006.

In an apparent attempt to show that he was beyond politics, Schlozman suggested in an interview with The Kansas City Star that umpiring baseball games during law school steeled him for life in the nation's capital. "I've been called things that would make a sailor blush," Schlozman told reporter Mark Morris.

But Schlozman, we now know, was more Karl Rove than pre-burn-unit Harvey Dent.

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By JEN CHEN

On Wednesday night, I was in line at Murray's Ice Cream when I noticed this striking woman in a crisp outfit in front of me. As she peered into the ice cream case, I admired her black skirt with its white stitching details. I also wanted to get a better look at her cool necklace, too, so I caught up with her outside after she finished her ice cream.

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By CHRIS PACKHAM

When punctuation fails: The Kansas City Star's Yael T. Abouhalkah posts about a
"shocking" JoCo sales-tax development. When I clicked on the link, I immediately realized that Yael didn't actually mean "shocking." He meant

As in, with little air quotes. Overland Park and Olathe elected officials are hustling to put a quarter-cent sales-tax increase on the August ballot, but without telling voters how they plan to spend the money; Yael is communicating, via punctuation, his hard-bitten cynicism and directing a mildly sarcastic rejoinder to JoCo politicians. HEY, JoCo politicians: Thanks for all the transparency in governing. Oh, I mean

HAHA. You see how that works? Britney Spears making air quotes is the new Calvin pissing.

After the jump, John McCain is gonna keep pounding out the same campaign rhetoric until it starts working, damn it, plus: KMBC Channel 9 doesn't want to cite its sources. Click here, or you can click on this portrait of bewigged Sir John Baptiste de Medina, this total asshole who lived from 1657 to 1710:

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Will you be my cyberpal? Daily Briefs is looking to connect with you, the urbane and (hopefully) sexily underage reader with negligent parents, Juicy-brand shorts and a taste for Mike's Hard Lemonade. So we've established a Daily Briefs Facebook presence to connect with readers. There are many hundreds of benefits to befriendstering the Daily Briefs Facebook, some of which may be valuable prizes but most of which will consist of me writing "hay whuddup, ur sexxxy" on your Facebook wall. As an incentive to add Daily Briefs as your new internet pal, the profile contains contact information for any invective-breathing commenters who want to tell me about the unacceptable quality of my writing in person. To demonstrate my very real, very sincere sincerity about my desire for long-distance friendship with the potential for something more, I've composed the following poem about friendship:

There's been so many times where I've needed you as my friend,
No matter what the reason is, you'll be there til the end!!!!

Everytime I need to talk or when I feel so sad and blue,
you understand, your honest and you give you're point of view!!!

If you ever need any thing, any time day or nite
I promise I will be there to try and make it rite!!!

I hope I can truely do for you all the things you've done for me,
Cause a bestest Fritch is what you will forever all ways be!!!!!!!!!

After the jump, some editorial embarrassment at the Star, and Barack Obama's growing lead in the polls, despite the media's adorably childlike pretense of a horse race. Click here, or on this little token of my friendship, which I will deliver in person whenever your parents are at work:

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