Safari hangs/crashes, but only on Drudge Report

Question

I own an iMac with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and OS X V 10.4.11. As far as I know, all software is properly updated. Until about ten days ago, Safari ran like a champ. I don't remember having done anything unusual, but suddenly Safari started "hanging" while attempting to load the Drudge Report page--and only Drudge Report. Specifically, the "spinning beach ball" appears and won't go away. The only "solution" I've found is to click on the "Finder" icon at the bottom of the screen, which then allows me to click on the blue apple at the top left corner and do a "force quit" of Safari. I've tried resetting Safari, including clearing the cache, but it hasn't helped.
Last night, the problem seemed to get worse. When I tried to load Drudge, the whole screen went dark blue and all controls went inoperative. I hit the button on the back of the machine, and after a minute or so, the machine seemed to shut down, but then re-started on its own. And when it re-started, on the screen was a fractured, fragmented version of the Drudge page. The only time I've seen anything like it was on a PC with a virus. Again, all controls went inoperative, and this time, hitting the button on the back did nothing. I left the room and did some other stuff for about ten minutes to give the machine some time to do whatever it was doing, but when I came back, nothing had changed. Not knowing what else to do, I gritted my teeth and unplugged the machine.
I re-started the machine and it started but the "guitar strum" that happens on startup was weirdly soft. I ran a software update and everything installed just fine, then I shut down the machine, and it shut down normally. This morning, the machine re-started without a problem, and Safari still seems to be working...except when I try to load Drudge, which causes the "spinning beach ball" to appear, and I'm back to clicking the "finder" icon, then clicking the blue apple and doing a "force quit."
Sorry for taking so long to describe the problem, but I'm hoping that more info will make diagnosing and fixing the problem easier. Many thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Regards,
John

Answer 1

~Bee wrote:
push --
You've got some kind of very small conflict.
Hey, that's what my psychoanalyst tells me every week.
Another thing I would try is finding the Drudge report cookies
and deleting them through Safari Preferences>Security>Show Cookies>
and then type in Drudge in the search bar. Delete all Drudge cookies
and restart Safari.
Thanks, that's a good thing to know. Didn't do the trick, but at least I'm learning more about this software.
Another thread on this problem is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10080982&#10080982
Thanks, I'd seen that and read it before I started this thread. Didn't try the fixes there because I'm running Tiger, but I went ahead and tried just now. Still no dice.
I do think it's font related with Drudge.
Have you contacted them???
No, I figured they're too busy, or would just tell me to check with Apple first.
Many thanks, ~Bee. Even though the problem continues, I'm grateful for your time and effort. Hope you have a great day tomorrow--I'm in Philly, and we're supposed to be getting some sunny weather for a change.
Like I said, I'll try to contact Apple support on Monday, see if they have any other ideas, and I'll report back either way.
Regards,
John