So Many Links (06 June 2009)

The problem with the world isn't sin.  It's global warming!

Dropping like flies: Notorious atheist A.N Wilson now a believer (among others).

CCM ain't doin' so hot: "I know a few songwriters who are struggling enough that they're on the verge of calling it quits, which is tragic to me, kingdom-wise," laments veteran indie artist Andrew Peterson. "God has gifted these people to shine this light, and the state of the economy right now isn't allowing them to do that. That kills me."

I'm not sure if you've heard, but you owe $668,621.

You might not read the Twilight books, but your daughter is going to want to.

Mmmmm, calories.  

Sacrifice defined a generation:

As I began to write the wartime accounts of that generation, I realized how much they were formed by the deprivations and lessons of the Great Depression. During that period life was about common sacrifice and going without the most ordinary items, such as enough food or new clothes.

So many veterans told me they got their first new pairs of shoes and boots when they enlisted. When I recently interviewed Walt Ehlers -- a poor Kansas farm boy who received the Medal of Honor for his heroism at Normandy -- he lit up when he described the breakfasts during basic training. "Every kind of cereal you could imagine!" he said. "And pancakes and bacon and eggs."

As for basic training, he said putting up hay on his uncle's farm in August was much tougher.

If you look at the old black-and- white photographs of the physicals conducted during induction, there's no obesity in that crowd of young men. In fact, some look malnourished.

These are the same young Americans who went thousands of miles across the Atlantic and thousands of miles across the Pacific and defeated the mightiest military empires ever unleashed against us. Their sacrifices at home and on the frontlines make our current difficulties look like a walk on the beach in comparison.

But, that's not really virtuous.  Consumption is (sigh, this is also in today's WSJ):

As for the simple life, its charms wear off fast. Many tourists have tramped around Walden Pond snapping photos, but few would take seriously what Thoreau would probably advise today: to throw away our BlackBerrys and start growing real berries.

And yet there are plenty of books on happiness urging us to do something like that: to surrender our raw capitalistic drives and to leave the rat-race before the entire world turns into a Habitrail. I would argue that it is the excitement of competition -- sloppy, risky and tense -- that brings us happiness. It is the pursuit of knowledge, money and status that releases dopamine and ignites our passion. Neuroscientists report that when a person begins to take a risk, whether gambling on roulette or ginning up the nerve to ask a pretty girl to the prom, his left prefrontal cortex lights up, signaling a natural "high." Alpha waves and oxygenated blood rush to the brain. Sitting alone in a pup tent does not yield the same effects.

Classic You Tube video of the day: