The Smoking Gun has the memo that speechwriter William Safire prepared for President Nixon in case the Apollo XI astronauts were trapped on the moon. It’s a rather remarkable document, and a reminder of just how risky the Apollo mission was, and how brave the men were who undertook it.
Via Metafilter

A British woman and her Chinese husband have just opened Beijing’s only fish and chips shop. Just like any chippie in London, it sells beer-battered fish alongside “tempura vegetables, shrimp and deep-fried pineapple.” No word on whether it offers deep-fried Mars bars.

Alex Epstein has posted an interview he did with me over at Complications Ensue. I am pleased to note that he made me sound much more articulate than I think I actually was.

If you want to be inspired to do great things, stop by Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age and see what great people had accomplished long before they reached your age.
And if you want to be inspired to put off doing great things, look at what people accomplished when they were older than you. Neil Armstrong didn’t even set foot on the moon until he was 39. Heimlich didn’t invent his famous maneuver until he was 54.
And did you know Michaelangelo didn’t even start working on the Sistine Chapel until he was 33? What a slacker. By the time I had turned 33, I had already visited the completely finished Sistine Chapel.

Sometimes, people recording their voices on their home computers accidentally make the recording available via Kazaa or other file-sharing network. And sometimes, a mischievous composer known as Stark Effect remixes those recordings into songs for a project called Mic In Track. The results can be incredibly catchy, surprisingly wistful, or just sweet.
Stark Effect’s work can also be found at Dictionaraoke, where remixers use online dictionaries to sing classic songs. I don’t know why it’s so funny to hear a computer sing like John Lee Hooker or Astrud Gilberto, but it just is.
In fact, the only thing that’s better is stopping by The Party Party and hearing George W. Bush singing “Imagine” or rapping like madman. (Warning: that last link is NSFW. The President is surprisingly pottymouthed.)
Parts of this post originally posted on Monkeyfilter

This Godzilla-themed wedding decoration is pretty cool, especially if they carried the theme through by poorly lip-synching their vows.

The New York Press’s helpful guide on How Not To Fake Your Own Death. Via Monkeyfilter

You may recall that, shortly before the Oscars, I feebly attempted to make a bit of comedic hay over the film names Before Sunset and After The Sunrise. I knew there was a joke in there somewhere, and I grasped for it valiantly, but, with hindsight, I clearly wasn’t able to find it.
Fortunately for the world, Chris Gaveler was.

Apparently, the US government has decided that, in addition to updating their photographs and addresses, immigrants must also update their fingerprints regularly. Um. Isn’t the whole point of fingerprints that they don’t change? Or, as Matthew puts it:
“Karl held up his hands to me and asked, ‘What expire? Fingerprints don’t expire!'”

Important news on the status of Osama Bin Laden.