Running dry: Nearly two-thirds of the country is now officially suffering from this summer’s massive drought. In some parts of the Midwest, residential wells are drying up, making it hard for people to wash the dishes, flush the toilet, or take a shower -- which you definitely want to do when it’s this hot, dry, and dusty outside. New York Times

Pipeline pouting: So let’s say you’re this big Canadian company that operates a massive pipeline system for shipping tar sands oil to U.S. refineries and wants to build even more. Isn’t it annoying when government regulators -- in your own country no less -- are all like, hey, let’s make sure your pipelines meet basic safety standards, and then you go and ask again because you really don’t want to do what they say, and still they’re all like, no, it’s not OK for you to just go ahead and do what you want without following the rules. I mean don’t you just hate that? Life’s so unfair to giant corporations sometimes. UPI

Judge not...: On the other hand, things are going pretty well for TransCanada in Texas. A judge ruled this week that the pipeline company can seize a strip of land from a farmer for its Keystone XL pipeline, angering everyone from environmental activists who think the pipeline project is going forward without proper safeguards to Tea Party organizations that hate eminent domain. Washington Post

Can’t we all just get along?: We’re big fans of legendary biologist E.O. Wilson around here (see Elizabeth Kolbert’s interview with him in our Winter 2011 issue), and we’re also quite fond of sometime contributor Emma Marris, whose recent book The Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World argues that attempting to preserve “nature” in a pristine, pre-human state is an impossible goal that we need to let go of (see our interview with her, too). Wilson, however, is apparently not a big fan of Marris’s position, and when they shared a panel at the Aspen Environment Forum recently, he accused her of planting a white flag. Someone else we like, contributor Michelle Nijhuis, argues that Wilson gets it wrong, and Marris’s approach to conservation is actually anything but a surrender. The Last Word on Nothing

Harsh light: Scary fact: there are more tanning salons in the U.S. than McDonald’s restaurants. And now the $4.9 billion industry is fighting back against critics by trying to discredit doctors and health groups (who warn fake tanning can be dangerous) as part of a “sun scare” conspiracy. In one training video for salon employees, God condemns a dermatologist to hell (along with a bottle of sunscreen) for daring to suggest that excessive sunbed use could cause skin cancer. Fair Warning

Know your hurricane history: While we’re all thinking about where the latest tropical storm might hit (thanks, Hurricane Isaac!), here’s a fascinating way to look at historical hurricane tracks all over the globe since 1851. Ain’t data visualization cool? IDV User Experience

Oh the places you’ll … nooooo!: All you thneed here is the headline: “Before He Wrote Children’s Books, Dr. Seuss Drew Ads for Big Oil.” The Lorax could not be reached for comment. Jalopnik

Tips: @OnEarthMag (tag it #greenreads)
Image: University of California, San Diego Mandeville Special Collections Library