…has a sincere, heartfelt, kitsch-free memorial to Anna Nicole Smith.

If you’re expecting a comment about how rich people with media-proclaimed perfect bodies can have tragic personal lives, you won’t get one here.

…of indie espresso stands, drive-thru division, gets a little colder (this time of year, at least) as baristas don lingerie and retro-burlesque attire. This is apparently a suburban-only phenomenon, at least so far. I won’t pass judgment on them vis-a-vis “empowerment” issues. But I will note that (1) the gimmick goes back at least to the thonged hot-dog vendors of Miami (if not to the serving wenches of old English country inns), and (2) back in the ’90s, a porno mag created a fictional pictorial about nude baristas at a supposed Seattle “Big Cups Coffeehouse.”

…postulates that people just might choose their mates based partly on an unconscious to be of one mind.

…why females, including female politicians, should not be slandered with demeaning references to sex organs and sexual activity: “I don’t understand why I should regard vaginas with the negative attitude that the metaphorical use suggests…. every interaction that I have had with a vagina in my life has been a positive one.”

…promoting two days of free Howard Stern. But it turns out that most of Sirius Satellite Radio’s free online, ending today. You’ve one more day to listen to all the Sirius music channels and most of the Sirius talk channels.

These include “Playboy Radio” (sex talk shows hosted by adult-video starlets who, counter to stereotype, are indeed capable of speaking in complete sentences), and “Sirius Left,” the liberal-talk channel Sirius assembled after Air America signed an exclusive contract with rival satellite-radio giant XM.

Sirius Left mainly comprises existing syndicated broadcast shows. These include the shows of Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller, both also heard locally on KPTK-AM 1090.)

It’s good that progressive talk has grown beyond one company into a growing, competitive genre, with legs to stand on and a clear future no matter what happens to Air America on the business side.

What satellite services can’t provide is local content. KPTK isn’t providing local content at this point either, but let’s hope they will soon.

…to remind us all that the “unsavory advances of a pathetic Forida congressman” are still not nearly as important as “a cancer in the White House that is attacking the very foundations of the nation.”

CBS has signed up for promotional announcements on perishable food products.

Meanwhile, CBS’s former parent co. Viacom is allegedly in talks to buy The Onion, the satirical newspaper and Web site originally co-founded by some of the original Stranger crew.

And Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, sounding more like his onetime election opponent Mark Sidran every week, told a Seattle Channel talk-show caller that he believed strip club owners were linked to “organized crime.” He specifically cited Rick’s/Sugar’s owners Frank Colacurcio Sr. and Jr., they of the conveniently-stereotypable Italian-American surname. The Colacurcios may be sly businessmen who exploit every advantage and try to create others; but so’s Paul Allen.

“PVC may not be sexy…” Boy, the Seattle Times really needs to get out more.

…has jumped all over a mini hype-bandwagon started a week and a half ago by KOMO-TV, which apparently just discovered that you can find escort ads on the Internet. So now we get P-I scribe Robert Jamieson pleading for a populist uprising against Craigslist.com for allowing said advertisers to use its URLs, without compensation.

Of course, this is pure anti-Internet FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

(Not to mention it’s attacking a victimless act performed by consenting adults in the privacy of their own blah-blah-blah.)

And, of course, these advertisers would simply find other online fora for their messages should Craigslist ever lock ’em out. Indeed, many of these advertisers are already using several other online “spaces,” including weekly papers’ sites, their own sites, and “review” message-board sites.

So why pick on Craigslist?

Could it be because Craigslist’s other ad categories are taking a big bite outta the daily papers’ want-ad revenue?

Naah. It couldn’t be that….

…a sign that right-wingnut politicians, or some of them, are people after all. One of them apparently loves a great sex-work purchase as much as any hearty human.

…of the current Wash. Post Boeing expose story: “Jeannine Prewitt knew there was a problem when the holes wouldn’t line up.” I thought they’d gotten rid of that particular problem when Harry Stonecipher quit.

…a long New Yorker review of yet another Playboy photo-retrospective book, critic Joan Acocella stumbles upon what I’ve long said is the secret behind the current centerfold “look”: Today’s Playmate spread is an advertisement for an unavailable “product,” presented with all the slick manipulation and “reverence” given, on other pages, to images of cars and whiskey bottles.

…breast-groping, public urination, drunken strip-bar revelries, and shady business practices–suddenly, I’m seeing kitsch painter Thomas Kincade in a whole new, well, you know…

Tonight might see the final episode, after years of haggling, of Mike Hunt TV, the cable access show that dared to rebelliously run excerpts from ordinary corporate hardcore pornos.