[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.