As I mentioned the other night, I have my son with me for the summer, and while it hasn’t affected much the last couple of weeks, that won’t always be the case. Over the next three remaining weeks of his time here, there may be several nights where I choose to spend time with him as opposed to spending 4 hours writing an article. Just figured I would let everyone know why some nights might end up with no article, or limited amounts of my own thoughts, such as tonight.

Photos on Movits more Movits photos … News Articles on Movits On Monday’s Talk Shows (Louisville Courier-Journal) ( courier-journal.com ) – July 27, 2009 7 a.m. (ABC) Good Morning America Scheduled: musician Pete Yorn; “GMA” Beauty Secrets on a Budget with make-up artist Maria Verel. (N) Hot Box: TV worth talking about (Toronto Star) ( thestar.com ) – July 27, 2009 Gleeful Music Lineup: Kanye West’s “Golddigger,” Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It” and Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” are featured in the second episode of Glee , unveiled at Comic-Con Saturday.

A reception for ambassadors held in the Grand Foyer of The White House Monday night saw the Obamas’ exhibiting a united front, both philosophically and sartorially, reports the Huffington Post. U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama wore a sheath with a white skirt, black bodice, and red ribbon belt. Her hair was worn down and elegantly slicked back. The president was perfectly in sync with his wife, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red tie.

E! Online Hollywood Headaches: Lily Allen, don’t quit your day job Colorado Daily Her collection includes coin-sized smiley faces, flowers, fruit and animals that appear to have been sloppily lacquered on cheap … Candy Spelling’s Open Letter to Tori: Your Kids Can’t Be “Reality … Seattle Post Intelligencer They said it: Candy Spelling The Star-Ledger – NJ.com Candy Spelling: You Will Die Alone & Unloved Unless You Apologize …

The Associated Press announcement that it would “protect” its online content by including special html code in the stories it distributes to its member papers raised hackles around the internet from bloggers and media critics who see the move as trampling on their rights to comment on stories, or as a short-sighted business move, or both. They needn’t worry since AP management does not understand what the technology actually does, and doesn’t do. The AP said it would implement hNews .

By Jim Selman | Bio I confess to be among those who have some difficulty getting my head around how much a trillion dollars is. I can remember a book I read to my daughter called How Much is a Billion that was filled with mind-boggling examples, including things like the number of seconds that have passed since Jesus was born. The Huffington Post has a fun video clip showing the same kinds of illuminating examples, such as a trillion dollars is enough to buy a Starbucks Latte every day for the next 900 million years.

I cannot decide which made me laugh harder:  Patrick’s video of the Valley Girl trying to say something about vegetable trees at a Santa Cruz town hall meeting, or this video of Republican congressmen running from Mike Stark, a reporter for The Huffington Post and Firedoglake — and in one case, looking at pens for 20 minutes — in order to avoid having to answer Mike’s question: “Do you think Pres. Obama was born in the U.S.?” Click here to view the embedded video.

Is the question, do you believe Barack Obama is a United States citizen that hard to answer? Apparently for Republican Congressmen it is…SMHLMAO @ 1:58 Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), who actually ran away from this Huffington Post reporter… Who Really Does That?My thing is, if you want to call Obama a n@gga quit screwing around and do it already.

Political activity slows down during the summer, especially in an off-year, but there’s still plenty for progressives to do. Event details are after the jump. Please post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of other events I’ve left out.
If you live near southeast Iowa, please consider volunteering for Curt Hanson , Democratic candidate for the September 1 special election in Iowa House district 90.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers during the Iowa State Fair (August 13-23):
The Iowa DNR River Programs will be at the Iowa State Fair this year and requests your help to staff our booth at the DNR building.

Apologies to a former high school student of mine for the title of this post, since it’s a takeoff on his satirical column entitled: “ My Filing System is Unstoppable “. Warning: his cartoons are replete with F-bombs and not for the sensitive or politically correct. Some of his other work routinely appears in Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, etc. But I mainly just wanted to upload a couple of photos to illustrate a reasonably low-tech, time-saving and very water-conserving system that we’ve arrived at to water our roughly 100 tomatoes, peppers, etc.