I went for a walk in Sebastopol CA this evening and took some photos (crappy photos with my iPhone, sorry) of front yards that have gardens instead of lawns. They look much more interesting than grass, and some of them had vegetables growing among the flowers. I'm preparing to kill my own lawn and replacing it with a heavily mulched garden. I hope more people take photos of front-yard gardens and tag them on Flickr with killyourlawn. Kill Your Lawn Flickr set...

Gawker posted this photo of a dead beast of some kind. This is an actual monster, some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak. A tipster says that there is "a government animal testing facility very close by in Long Island[.]" Photoshop? Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk (Gawker)...

Harriet Burns, the first woman Imagineer, died this week at 79. She was part of the teams that built Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Matterhorn, Submarine Voyage, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean. and Great Moments with Mr Lincoln. She also occasionally filled in for Walt Disney on "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color." In 2000, the Walt Disney Co. named Burns as a Disney Legend, an honor that acknowledges people "whose imagination, talents and dreams have created the Disney magic." Walt Disney Imagineering issued a statement this week, calling her "the best-dressed employee in the department." It also released a quote from Burns in which she described her work for Disney in the 1950s: "I wore color-coordinated dresses, high heels and gloves to work. Girls didn't wear slacks back then, although I carried a pair in a little sack, just in case I had to climb into high places." Link (Thanks, Mat!) (Image: Harriet, Blaine, and some traveling companions, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Ste3ve's Flickr stream)...

A new Rand Corporation report comprehensively surveys the ways that terrorist groups have been disbanded in the past: "Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended." Instead, historic wars on terror have been won with policing and settlements. Rand's conclusion? To defeat Al Qaeda, we need to end the war on terror. A recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. Terrorism’s End: Jon Taplin, How Terrorist Groups End: Rand Corporation...

McSweeney's Short imagined monologues presents, "Mom, Dad, I'm Into Steampunk" by Marco Kaye. No, I won't take off my topcoat. And that's exactly my point. I understand your confusion. The nascent trend I have latched onto is difficult to define. Maybe I can explain it to you with the new mods I've been working on. No, Mom. Not like in Quadrophenia, although I appreciate those mods' fondness for tailor-made clothing. These mods. This looks like a late-18th-century organette, correct? Look again. It hides the Dell laptop you got me when I went to college. This bronze hand crank turns it on, and I've hidden a miniature photo printer where the tune sheet is supposed to go. I even installed Linux. I've put a lot of time into this since I quit my job at Anthropologie, which is something else I wanted to tell you about. Don't get up and go to Lowe's yet. But when you're there can you get me a two-speed fan capacitor? Mom, Dad, I'm Into Steampunk...