More Rock, Paper, Scissors trashtalkin'

In RPS circles, rock is seen as aggressive. "When people get backed into a corner, they throw rock because they want to come out strong," Walker said. It's popular with the intoxicated - RPS has no banned substances - and the college-age male set.
Scissors is considered a more devious move, mechanical and cold.
Paper is passive-aggressive - seemingly flimsy but able to defeat the mighty rock. A lot of women - and journalists - seem to throw paper, the experts say.

Backyard Monorail

I can't think of anything to write thats remotely descriptive of this

Ted Knight's "Hi Guys" LP, downloadable in mp3 format.

Theshadowlands.net, the web's largest and oldest ghost story repository just passed the 10,000 submission mark. The hosts run South Jersey Ghost Research, where they capture some spooky audio during investigations.

Bookcase with integrated chair and stool (via Boing Boing)

A guide to even more Chinese character tattoo mistakes

Another 50 free mp3s from amazon.com (or, you could always join the Army and get 3 free mp3s).

Concreteships.org: A sign by the edge of the road says that it is the remains of the S.S. Atlantus, one of twelve experimental ships built of concrete during the First World War, but "proven impractical because of weight."

Hearse cufflinks? No problem. Coffin Luggage? Check.
Pushin' Daisies: The Mortuary Novelty Shop

There's selling out, and there's the Paul McCartney Signature Lexus (R)

The Bubble Project
A good anti-ad art project: A guy printed 15000 blank speech bubbles, and puts them on street ads. People fill them in, photograph them, and send it all back to the site where you can read them.

Ginsburg's 'Howl' turns 50.
Read it here.

The world's last working steam engines will stop running this month in China (NYTImes)

The hurricane season is proving to be a windfall for GOP-connected companies such as Halliburton, which are being rewarded with lucrative contracts despite their shoddy performance in Iraq. In the vocabulary of crony capitalism, the word "shame" does not exist.

When Connected Turns into Corrupted

Excellent Mother Jones interview with Chris Mooney on how Republican politics undermines science

We have to ask ourselves whether we can really rely on the federal government to use science to protect us anymore. When science isn't being used properly to protect us on something like global warming or other environmental risks, those are just obvious risks to the public. And we have to wonder whether the people making decisions are incompetent, or whether they are going to twist the information around, or ignore it completely. And that goes to the very core of the government's function.

Holy shit. Nobody would put it past him.

Stick Figure Warning Sign Gallery

The effect of the OJ Verdict on America, 10 years later (Guardian UK)

Complete texts of unpublished and hard-to-find JD Salinger stories.