[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reports on the black hole collisions recently identified in a retrospective analysis of data from gravitational-wave detector LIGO, while Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel also writes about the LIGO black hole collision discoveries.
• Centauri Dreams suggests that a slowing rate of star formation might be necessary for a galaxy to support life like ours.
• Crooked Timber reports on the outcome of a sort of live-action philosophy experiment, recruiting people to decide on what would be a utopia.
• The Crux reports on the challenges facing developers of a HIV vaccine.
• D-Brief notes the circumstances in which men can pass on mitochondrial DNA to their children.
• Far Outliers notes the fates of some well-placed Korean-Japanese POWs in India.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing wonders if the existential questions about human life raised by genetic engineering can even be addressed by the liberal-democratic order.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the worrying possibility of a Bernie Sanders presidential run in 2020.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the art and the politics of Chinese provocateur Ai Weiwei.
• Language Hat looks at the smart ways in which the film adaptation of My Brilliant Friend has made use of Neapolitan dialect, as a marker of identity and more.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at what a new Chinese blockbuster film, Operation Red Sea, does and does not say about how Chinese think they could manage the international order.
• Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca considers the logical paradox behind the idea of a webpage that has links to all other webpages which do not link to themselves.
• Anna Badhken at the NYR Daily uses Olga Tokarczuk’s new novel Flights and her own experience as an airline passenger to consider the perspectives offered and lost by lofty flight.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis notes the successful launch of a Soyuz spacecraft two months after October’s abort, carrying with it (among others) Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques.
• Strange Company notes the 1736 Porteous riot in Edinburgh, an event that began with a hanging of a smuggler and ended with a lynching.
• Towleroad notes that André Aciman is working on a sequel to his novel Call Me By Your Name.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society takes a look at the organizational issues involved with governments exercising their will.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy makes a good case as to why a second referendum on Brexit would be perfectly legitimate.
• Window on Eurasia suggests expanding Russian-language instruction in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has more to deal with the needs of labour migrants.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell responds to Feng Jicai’s book on the Cultural Revolution, Ten Years of Madness.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on Swiss food, starting with the McRaclette.