[ISL] Four islands links: Hawaii, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Tuanaki

• Bloomberg describes the FCC report on the Hawaii missile scale earlier this month.
• The British Virgin Islands are apparently continuing to undergo their recovery from Hurricane Irma, enough to become tourist attractions again. The Guardian reports.
• Jonathan Levin and Yalixa Rivera look at Bloomberg at the astonishing lack of good data on Puerto Rico’s demographics after Hurricane Maria. How many have left? Estimates run all the way up to a half-million departures by the end of 2019.
• Reddit’s unresolvedmysteries shares the story of the supposed Polynesian island of Tuanaki, which went suddenly missing in the 1840s. What happened? Did it ever exist?

[NEWS] Five Canada politics links: John Tory, Doug Ford, Caroline Mulroney, Brian Mulroney, NAFTA

• David Rider reports on John Tory’s mockery of the Doug Ford bid for the Ontario PC leadership, noting Ford’s launch of his campaign in his mother’s basement, over at the Toronto Star.
• Edward Keenan argues that the Doug Ford bid for the Ontario PC leadership is best seen as a way by him to prepare for the Toronto mayoralty race, mobilizing his supporters even in the event that Ford loses, over at the Toronto Star.
• John Ivison suggests that Caroline Mulroney could easily be the person who could take the Progressive Conservatives to an Ontario election victory, over at the National Post.
• The testimony of Brian Mulroney before a US congressional committee arguing against wrecking NAFTA may–I find myself hoping–be something that saves this pact. The Toronto Star reports.
• Thomas Walkon argues that the negotiators of Canada are giving up far too much are NAFTA negotiations for too little from the United States, over at the Toronto Star.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Skandaraj Navaratnam, Yonge Street, K-Pop, King Street, Kazenelson

• This Fatima Syed interview with Navaseelan Navaratnam, brother of suspected McArthur victim Skandaraj Navaratnam missing since 2010, is terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
• While it may be too late for Eliot’s Bookshop, I do hope that Toronto City Council can arrange some kind of functional tax arrangement for the businesses which survive on Yonge. The Toronto Star reports.
• blogTO notes how a stray tweet from Toronto Hits 93 started an Internet flamewar between fans of two different K-Pop boy bands.
• Ben Spurr notes how some transit advocates have decided to help out King Street by eating at area restaurants, over</u at the Toronto Star.
• Global News reports on how the Ontario Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Vadim Kazenelson on charges of criminal negligence stemming from an incident where four workers he was supervising died in a scaffolding collapse.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Rex at Anthro{dendum} considers Ursula K Le Guin from as an anthropologist by background and interests, and as a denizen of a “Redwood Zone” of western North America with a particular climate.
• Centauri Dreams notes the exceptional technical progress being made towards the next generation of space telescope technology.
• Dangerous Minds shares photos of collaborations between Grace Jones and Keith Haring in 1984 and 1986, when Haring painted the star’s body.
• Gizmodo at io9 shares stunningly detailed photographs of the giant Pi1 Gruis, some 530 light-years away.
• Hornet Stories shares a letter from the mother of a girl ten years old who describes how this theatre fan was positively affected by the Manhattan production of Kinky Boots.
• Language Hat shares a Quora answer talking about the way Azerbaijani sounds to speakers of the related Turkish. Much discussion ensues.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares the disturbing report that moderate conservative Victor Cha has been rejected as a candidate for US ambassador to South Korea because he warns against war with the North.
• The Map Room Blog shares disturbing maps showing the extent to which the water reservoirs of Cape Town have been depleted.
• Non-binary writer Robin Dembroff argues at the NYR Daily that state recognition of non-binary gender identity, while well-meaning, is ultimately less good than the withdrawal of gender identity as a category of state concern.
• The Planetary Science Blog wonders if space travel and space science, of the sort favoured by Society president Bill Nye, could become a bipartisan issue uniting Americans.
• Seriously Science notes that at least some species of birds prefer to date before they pair-bond and have children.
• Towleroad reports that The Gangway, oldest surviving gay bar in San Francisco, has shut down to make way for a new laundromat/movie theatre.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little considers the factors that lead the people in charge of industries facing decline to ignore this. Could the education sector be one of these, too, depending on future change?

[PHOTO] Track level, Borough Hall, Brooklyn

The Borough Hall/Court Street station in downtown Brooklyn was my first real introduction to the borough of Brooklyn, and to the maze of subway passages in New York City. The TTC has nothing on the MTA!

[PHOTO] Alley off Church, south of Queen

[NEWS] Five culture links: animals, Ferox of Mars, Blockbuster, Please Stand By, Higher Brothers

• This argument in favour of recognizing the inherent rights of animals as moral persons, to not be property, seems compelling to me. Open Democracy has it.
• This documentary project by Nicolas Polli about Ferox, an imagined third moon of Mars, sounds amazing. Wired reports.
• Blockbuster in McAllen, Texas, is closing up shop. A once-mighty retail chain is going under. Global News reports.
• This Slate review of the new Dakota Fanning Trekkie film, Please Stand By, makes it sound amazing.
• VICE profiles Higher Brothers, a Chinese hip-hop band from Sichuan making it big in Shenzhen.

[NEWS] Five poltiics links: Doug Ford and Ontario, Tijuana-San Diego, Brexit, EU-Mercosur, Scotland

• CBC looks at how the Doug Ford bid for Ontario PC leadership is potentially transformative of the race, potentially destabilizing the party at a time when it is vulnerable.
• The tightly-integrated and hugely-profitable economy uniting San Diego with Tijuana, across the US-Mexican border, continues despite Trump. Bloomberg View reports.
• A French minister has warned a Japanese audience that the United Kingdom is not going to be part of Europe any more. (France, he notes, remains open to business.) Bloomberg has it.
• Efforts are redoubling to sign a trade deal between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur. Bloomberg reports.
• Gerry Hassan is critical of the SNP and Scottish separatism, partly because of its lack of successful radicalism in power. The essay is at Open Democracy.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Metrolinx stops, Dean Lisowick, Toronto vigil, barbering, sales tax

• Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx is actively soliciting ideas for stop names on the two light rail lines, Finch West in Toronto and Hurontario in Brampton and Missisauga.
• This look at the life of Dean Lisowick, an apparent victim whose life revolved around the Scott Mission, is terribly informative and terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
• The CBC reports on a Toronto vigil on the one-year anniversary of the Québec City mosque shooting.
• CBC reports on barber Dwight Murray’s argument that the Ontario requirement for barbers to learn hairdressing styles not directly relevant to their craft should be changed.
• At the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume makes an argument for a Toronto sales tax. (I would make it a GTA sales tax, myself.)

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bruce Dorminey notes that a Brazilian startup hopes to send a Brazilian probe to lunar orbit, for astrobiological research.
• Far Outliers notes the scale of the Western aid funneled to the Soviet Union through Murmansk in the Second World War.
• Hornet Stories notes that Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of the play adapted into the stunning Moonlight, now has a new play set to premier on Brodway for the 2018-2019 season, Choir Boy.
• JSTOR Daily notes the conspiracy behind the sabotage that led to the destruction in 1916 of a munitions stockpile on Black Tom Island, of German spies with Irish and Indian nationalists.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is critical of the false equivalence in journalism that, in 2016, placed Trump on a level with Hillary.
• The Map Room Blog notes that fitness app Strava can be used to detect the movements of soldiers (and others) around classified installations.
• Marginal Revolution links to a New York Times profile of World Bank president Jim Young Kim.
• Roads and Kingdoms talks about the joys of stuffed bread, paan, in Sri Lanka.
• Towleroad notes that a Russian gay couple whose marriage in Denmark was briefly recognized in Russia are now being persecuted.
• At Whatever, John Scalzi tells the story of his favourite teacher, Keith Johnson, and a man who happened to be gay. Would that all students could have been as lucky as Scalzi.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the pronatalist policies of the Putin regime, which have basically cash subsidies to parents, have not reversed underlying trends towards population decline.