Click each to enlarge.

• A new book claims New Yorkers are harming America. We're sadly sure the author means red-state America, but we'll go on and act like we're all part of a unified country. [NY Sun]
• Puppies are cute, even if they're cloned, so we're going to post this "just because." [BBC]
• Finally, your dream job awaits you! [Craigslist]
• Housing project on Sullivan Street? Not if they've got grills covering up the A/C units, obviously. That sort of detail makes it a luxury residence. [Brownstoner]

• A little eco-destruction to go with your daily dose of subway bombings and defective spaceships: Darwin's Nightmare, a documentary on how the Western world faciliated the destruction of Tanzania's Lake Victoria, screens at the IFC Center. Best leave the weed at home for this one, we thinketh. [flavorpill]
• MSNBC's Jeanette Walls and man of letters Sean Wilsey join literary band One Ring Zero at the Housing Works Used Book Cafe for a taping of Air America's "Liberal Arts" program. Songs, stories, and the requisite liberal despair to follow. [Paper]
• The Social Experiment — part variety show, part stand-up act, part improv — bring their unique brand of comedy hijinx to Sin-Sin tonight. Best bring the weed to this one, we thinketh. [The Social]

• Uzbekistan is one of two DOUBLY land-locked countries in the world (the other being Liechtenstein. We'll give you a cookie if you can point out either on a map). Impress some authentic Uzbek musicians with your new-found knowledge of their home country at Tonic tonight, where they play with downtown collective Bang on a Can All Stars. [flavorpill]
• If you're pissed about the imminent New York City housing crash (when's that supposed to happen again?), or about the fact that you work 60 hours a week and can only afford a cockroach-infested 4th floor walk-up, here's your chance to vent: Ruth Indyk Lubick, vice president of Douglas Elliman, participates in a question and answer session tonight at Makor. Befitting of the real estate industry, you're getting royally screwed before you even do anything: it'll cost you 30 bucks just to get in the door. [TONY]
• Gameshow host, author, and self-claimed CIA spook Chuck Barris appears at Coliseum Books tonight to read from his first novel You and Me, Babe. Wear a trenchcoat and see if he gets uncomfortable. [Coliseum]

Today's Newsday has the first of a two-part series on federal anti-terrorism efforts' impact on New York:

• The producers of This Isn't Working throw a benefit party to raise money for their show, which appears at the NY International Fringe Festival. Bonus: it's at Siberia, so you can become a friend of a "Siberian" and gain access to Tracy Westmoreland's "secret" bar, The Cell. If hanging out in Hell's Kitchen actually constitutes as a bonus. [flavorpill]
• Real activism is hard — icky people and ickier causes. If you participate in the latest effort to save CBGB's, you'll at least get to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists tonight. That's tolerable. [CBGB]
• Paging all lonely, early 90's indie rock nerds: Liz Phair performs at Joe's Pub tonight. Fresh masturbatory material awaits you! [Joe's Pub]

• October 2004: New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission holds an auction for taxicab medallions that may be used only on vehicles burning natural gas or on electric-gas hybrids. Eighteen such medallions are sold, at significantly below-market prices.

Sightings are sent in by readers; send yours to tips@gawker.com.

Friday:
• Comedians Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford, and Zach Galifianakis come to Irving Plaza tonight to make you laugh as part of their "Comedians of Comedy" show. If you prefer to watch comedians you've actually heard of, go see potty-humor doc The Aristocrats. [flavorpill & Fandango]
• Jonathan and Mrs. Ames (his mother, not his wife) read from their respective works (he from Wake Up, Sir!; she some poetry) at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble at 7pm. Good thing he omitted the story about masturbating in front of his mom from this book. [Paper]
Saturday:
• Free shows abound, cheapy! Punk rock progenitors MC5 headline a 3pm show at SummerStage; Oneida, Oxford Collapse, Tall Firs, and the Extra Action Marching Band (35 members plus a flag team!) follow up at the East River Amphitheater at 7:30pm. Either/or, you'll be drunk and sweaty. [flavorpill]
• Feel like you saved too much money checking out free shit today? Head on over to Caroline's on Broadway to see Pauly Shore perform. $32 plus a 2 drink minimum. Joke's on you. [Caroline's]
Sunday:
• Why do you need us to tell you what to do? Go outside, have a long drunken brunch, and fall asleep in the needle-strewn park of your choice.

• Kleinfeld opens in Chelsea today. Now if only Chelsea residents could legally get married in New York State. [BlogChelsea]
• The sadly unimaginary Young Manhattanite gets some answers, dammit, from the Imaginary Socialite. [Young Manhattanite]
• The movie projectionists' union, busy making life no fun for the new IFC Center, takes it pretty easy on the big guys, it turns out. [The Reeler]
• It a few days old, but we always love us a good anti-tourists rant. [This Place Is Dead Anyway]

Continuing with last month's experiment in highlighting the best and/or most interesting sightings, we're proud to feed your drooling mouths the best of Gawker Stalker for the month of July — because the bizarre should never be forgotten.

• Antony and his/her Johnsons play at Town Hall tonight with Cocorosie. Joint transgender/sibling fun for all parties involved. [Upcoming]
• Q-Tip and Mark Ronson devote their time and services to the opening of a tutorial center by day, DJ/performance space by night in Chinatown. Let the 826NYC vs. The Yet-to-Be-Named Chinatown do-gooder venue pissing contest begin! [flavorpill]
• Members of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre present "Found on Craiglist," a sketch comedy show based on the Rants, Raves, and Missed Connections of everyone's favorite online community. Though the amont of improvising required to make that shit humorous seems to be pretty neglible. [UCB]

So first there was a terrible, horrible new strain of HIV a few months ago that was supposed to make life seem like 1980s again for New York's gays.

• We're certainly going to regret even mentioning this, but if you're smart enough to figure out where the pasty souls of Gawker Media are convening to tackle the Midwestern twats of The Onion for tonight's Softball Match of Destruction, you're welcome to come and dump Gatorade on Denton's glistening head. First one to die of heatstroke loses! [Oddjack]

Sightings are sent in by readers who may or may not be compulsive liars; we're too hot to care. Send your exercises in honesty to tips@gawker.com.

Strange: During all of NY Governor Pataki's long-winded "I'll be gone after this term, I promise" speech, he's not announced a single contingency plan for the next year or so, especially regarding his daughter Emily's social life. 'Cause for that girl, it's all over now.

Lower Manhattan on Microsoft's Virtual Earth, which is "the best way to find what you're searching for."

The Taxi and Limousine Commission yesterday took a big step toward finally approving some fuel-efficient hybrid cars for use in New York's taxi fleet. As guilty liberals, we know we're supposed to be thrilled with the environmental benefits — 29 to 60 miles per gallon in the city, versus a Crown Vic's 18, is a good thing. Less gas, less foreign oil dependence, less pollution, all that fun stuff. In truth, though, we find it hard to get too excited about mpg. Here's what gets us hot and bothered about the new cabs: They'll be Lexuses. And it's about time we started riding in style.

• Our favorite ex-pat Greg Gutfeld dons his labcoat and, after extensive scientific research, comes up with the latest medical scare, Huff-Lag. So that's why we feel sick and depressed whenever we read the HuffPo for too long. [HuffPo]
• On the NYC singles scene: "It's a fashion-y, power, kind of who you know and what you know kind of city." Yeah? And who the fuck are you? [Forbes]
• Precious indie rocker Bright Eyes gets wasted at Glastonbury, talks shit on stage, loses respect of Number One Fan Jonathan Safran Foer. [Buddyhead via Goldenfiddle]
• We remember people hating on capri pants back in 1998. Apparently, they're still hating. Listen: If it's hot as hell outside and you don't like your upper thighs, you don't have a lot of options. Lay off, dudes. [IHateCapriPants]
• Ah, good, now we're not the only website editors with BJ victims around town. [OiNY]
• And there's only one way to end a day like today: What. The. Fuck. [Craigslist]

• Channel your inner street kid and head on over to Williamsburg's Galapagos, which screens Piece by Piece, an investigation into the San Francisco graffiti scene. Afterwards, talk disparagingly of the Time graffiti billboard and how it's the death of a medium or something. [flavorpill]
• Are you bored and/or completely ignorant as to how this whole internet-thang works? We mean, really bored and completely ignorant? Then head on over to Makor for "The Revenge of Online Media," in which Elizabeth Spiers* (Mediabistro), Anthony Perry (Blogads), Bill Grueskin (WSJ Online), and Bryan Keefer (Columbia Journalism Review Daily) talk shop. They didn't base the title of this event on Revenge of the Nerds for nothing. [92Y]
• It's hot as hell outside. It was also hot as hell outside in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which plays at Anthology Film Archives tonight at 7:30pm. Let's keep racial insults to a minimum, please. [AFA]