Blowhard, Esq. writes:

• Brian Eno picks 20 essential books for sustaining civilization, including James Scott’s Seeing Like a State and Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language.
• Was Nietzsche right about religion? John Gray reviews books by Peter Watson and Terry Eagleton. (H/T Spike Gomes)
• VICE interviews Gray.
• Is male domination ever OK? The L.A. Weekly visits a weekend BSDM MDHL-fs (male dominant heterosexual leather female submissive) seminar.
• Driving in L.A. anytime soon? The cops are collecting your data. (H/T Glynn Marshes)
• Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds on prosecutorial reform. Money quote: “The ‘nuclear option’ of prosecutorial accountability would involve banning plea bargains. An understanding that every criminal charge filed would have to be either backed up in open court or ignominiously dropped would significantly reduce the incentive to overcharge. It would also drastically reduce the number of criminal convictions achieved by our justice system. But given that America is a world leader in incarceration, it is fair to suggest that this might be not a bug, but a feature. Our criminal justice system, as presently practiced, is basically a plea bargain system with actual trials of guilt or innocence a bit of showy froth floating on top.“
• The “saturated fat is bad” conventional wisdom continues to crumble. More here.
• One of the reasons I stopped reading record reviews is because it was clear the writers, most of whom struck me as English majors, had no knowledge of or familiarity with how music is actually made. Matt Zoller Seitz laments that movie critics don’t write enough about form either.
• Should climate change deniers be prosecuted for criminal negligence?
• Have you checked out our mega-NSFW Tumblr yet? If you haven’t, don’t bother. It’s lewd, degrading, obscene, vulgar, and morally corrupting. I showed it to Monica Bellucci and she was rendered speechless.