Gleanings

About time to release these into the wild.

John Derbyshire reviews American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau.

Annie Dillard goes furthest into the dark territory: "Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me … we are moral creatures, then, in an amoral world. The universe that suckled us is a monster that does not care if we live or die—does not care if it itself grinds to a halt … space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death.”

[…] to the degree that ordinary folk disengage from nature, we shall be less able to evaluate what we are told by the Al Gores of the world, nature’s self-appointed custodians, and their legions of tax-eating experts.

I just love Annie Dillard's writing. I don't know if I agree with her, or even understand her, a fair amount of the time, but my word, that woman can write.

Radley Balko: Standing Near Children Now a Crime.

Rand Simberg coins a word: ambit, v., from ambition. Like "aspire," only not so nice. "Her ambition is to…" = "She ambits to…"

Generations on welfare. "Six million Britons are living in homes where no one has a job and 'benefits are a way of life', according to a report by MPs." (via)

Youth crime in Britain. Johnathan Pearce, at Samizdata, links to Clive Barker and Time magazine. It's just getting worse. Parts of Britain are losing the status of civilization, and it's not the booze, either, it's the attitudes of invulnerability and entitlement among those with a ton of self-esteem and no self-respect. (via)

Ace says Want To Be Happy All of Your Life? Make an Ugly Woman Your Wife Dude Your Husband.

Striped icebergs.

LauraW, at Ace's place, calls this a Nifty Mashup. I don't disagree. Jim Morrison meets Debbie Harry for "Riders on the Rapture."