[NEWS] Five links about Canada and the future: Olympics, politics, demographics, Elizabeth II

• The Conversation suggests that blaming the 1976 Montréal Olympics for the reluctance of Canada to host an Olympics should stop.
• Is it possible that a Conservative majority government could be plausibly achieved by a breakthrough in Québec? Phiippe J. Fournier at MacLean’s considers.
• A Conservative majority government, again, is perfectly imaginable. MacLean’s reports.
• Don Pittis at CBC notes how worker shortages in Canada are leading to rising wages, in at least some areas.
• What will happen, in Canada and elsewhere, when Queen Elizabeth II dies? MacLean’s speculates.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Venice, Istanbul

• The OS/2 operating system is used in New York City to run that metropolis subway system. VICE reports.
• The problem of homelessness in Los Angeles, the Guardian reports, is shocking.
• CityLab reports on plans for new sorts of urban forests outside famous landmarks in Paris.
• DW reports on how people in Venice protest against the intrusions of huge cruise ships into their lagoon, threatening the delicate environment.
• Guardian Cities reports on how the hipster class in Istanbul has begun to migrate to the countryside, driven out of their city by real estate prices and by politics.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Guelph, Hamilton, Lethbridge, Moncton, Halifax

• blogTO suggests some things people could do on a day trip to Guelph (and commenters come up with more suggestions).
• The lack of explicitly queer spaces in Hamilton is one thing that has come up in a recent study. Global News reports.
• The Alberta city of Lethbridge, third-largest in the province, now has a population of more than one hundred thousand people. Global News reports.
• Will the city of Moncton get rainbow crosswalks? Global News reports.
• Halifax has faced complications in trying to pursue a commuter rail option. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: housing, highways, Toronto Zoo, Dufferin Grove Park, 501 Queen

• Jennifer Pagliaro and Emily Mathieu at the Toronto Star look at how 1400 subsidized housing units remain empty despite the housing crisis, and why.
• Does Toronto need another 400-series highway to handle traffic? blogTO considers.
• How can the Toronto Zoo move forward? The Toronto Star examines.
• Dufferin Grove Park is scheduled to face an interesting redevelopment. blogTO reports.
• Steve Munro looks at the factors behind longer travel times on the 501 Queen streetcar.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the extreme millisecond pulsar IGR J17062−6143.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal to intercept objects of extrasolar origin like ‘Oumuamua.
• The Crux looks at how researchers are discovering traces of lost hominid populations in the DNA of contemporary humans.
• D-Brief notes a crowdsourcing of a search for intermediate-mass black holes.
• Gizmodo notes the impending production of a new working Commodore 64 clone.
• The Island Review notes people of the Norway island of Sommarøy wish to make their island, home to the midnight sun, a #TimeFreeZone.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the art that has been produced in the era of digital addiction.
• Language Log looks at how, in Iran, the word “Eastoxification” has entered into usage alongside the older “Westoxification.”
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money looks at the many likely failings of a Corbyn foreign policy for the United Kingdom.
• The LRB Blog notes that opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu has been re-elected as mayor of Istanbul.
• The Map Room Blog links to various maps of the Moon.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper looking at markets in Lagos, suggesting they are self-regulating to some degree.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains when the earliest sunrise and latest sunset of the year is, and why.
• Towleroad shares an interview with Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, a same-sex couple married for nearly a half-century.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the open approach of the Russian Federation to Russian diasporids is not extended to diasporas of its minority groups, particularly to Muslim ones like Circassians and Tatars.
• Arnold Zwicky considers some Pride fashion, with and without rainbows.

[PHOTO] Three photos walking south past the GO Transit and VIA Rail yards, Islington Avenue

Sunday, I walked with the man I have been dating south on Islington Avenue, past first the GO Transit Willowbrook Yard then past the VIA Rail Toronto Maintenance Terminal. These are not working stations, not open to the public, but the view of these facilities looking down from the bridge under a perfect blue sky was stunning.

[AH] Seven #alternatehistory r/imaginarymaps maps: Vinland, Mali, Korea, Poland, Balkans …

• This r/imaginarymaps map traces a slow diffusion of Christianity westwards from a Vinland colony.
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a transatlantic empire based in Africa, with the late 15th century Mali Empire extending its rule to Brazil and elsewhere.
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Joseon Korea that becomes the seat of a transpacific empire.
• What if, this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, instead of turning east to Lithuania Poland turned west towards Czechia?
• What if, this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, the Balkans retained a substantially larger Muslim population?
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Greater Denmark, expanding east and south.
• Could Scotland ever have become, as this r/imaginarymaps map imagines, a maritime mercantile power?

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: politics, real estate, transit, rainbow tunnel

• John Lorinc at Spacing looks at how the idea of municipal autonomy for Toronto should not be seen as a final solution.
• blogTO notes the contracting number of neighbourhoods open for first-time buyers, here.
• Airbnb, blogTO notes, is definitely impacting the wider real estate network.
• King Street’s transit operations should be taken as a model for wider Toronto. Spacing has it.
• The story of the rainbow tunnel visible on the northbound DVP is a sad one worth knowing. Global News has it.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Anthro{dendum} features an essay examining trauma and resiliency as encountered in ethnographic fieldwork.
• Architectuul highlights a new project seeking to promote historic churches built in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait examines Ahuna Mons, a muddy and icy volcano on Ceres, and looks at the nebula Westerhout 40.
• Centauri Dreams notes the recent mass release of data from a SETI project, and notes the discovery of two vaguely Earth-like worlds orbiting the very dim Teegarden’s Star, just 12 light-years away.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes that having universities as a safe space for trans people does not infringe upon academic freedom.
• The Crux looks at the phenomenon of microsleep.
• D-Brief notes evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy was warped a billion years ago by a collision with dark matter-heavy dwarf galaxy Antlia 2, and notes a robotic fish powered by a blood analogue.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India plans on building its own space station.
• Earther notes the recording of the song of the endangered North Pacific right whale.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the role of emotional labour in leisure activities.
• Far Outliers looks at how Japan prepared for the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.
• Gizmodo looks at astronomers’ analysis of B14-65666, an ancient galactic collision thirteen billion light-years away, and notes that the European Space Agency has a planned comet interception mission.
• io9 notes how the plan for Star Trek in the near future is to not only have more Star Trek, but to have many different kinds of Star Trek for different audiences.
• Joe. My. God. notes the observation of Pete Buttigieg that the US has probably already had a gay president.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which the rhetoric of Celtic identity has been used, and notes that the archerfish uses water ejected from its eyes to hunt.
• Language Hat looks at why Chinese is such a hard language to learn for second-language learners, and looks at the Suso monastery in Spain, which played a key role in the coalescence of the Spanish language.
• Language Log looks at the complexities of katakana.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the death of deposed Egypt president Mohammed Morsi looks like a slow-motion assassination, and notes collapse of industrial jobs in the Ohio town of Lordstown, as indicative of broader trends.
• The LRB Blog looks at the death of Mohamed Morsi.
• The Map Rom Blog shares a new British Antarctic Survey map of Greenland and the European Arctic.
• Marginal Revolution notes how non-religious people are becoming much more common in the Middle East, and makes the point that the laying of cable for the transatlantic telegraph is noteworthy technologically.
• Noah Smith at Noahpionion takes the idea of the Middle East going through its own version of the Thirty Years War seriously. What does this imply?
• The NYR Daily takes a look at a Lebanon balanced somehow on the edge, and looks at the concentration camp system of the United States.
• The Planetary Society Blog explains what people should expect from LightSail 2, noting that the LightSail 2 has launched.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw points readers to his stories on Australian spy Harry Freame.
• Rocky Planet explains, in the year of the Apollo 50th anniversary, why the Moon matters.
• Drew Rowsome reviews, and praises, South African film Kanarie, a gay romp in the apartheid era.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper examining the relationship between childcare and fertility in Belgium, and looks at the nature of statistical data from Turkmenistan.
• The Strange Maps Blog shares a map highlighting different famous people in the United States.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why different galaxies have different amounts of dark matter, and shares proof that the Apollo moon landings actually did happen.
• Towleroad notes the new evidence that poppers, in fact, are not addictive.
• Window on Eurasia warns about the parlous state of the Volga River.
• Arnold Zwicky takes an extended look at the mid-20th century gay poet Frank O’Hara.

[PHOTO] Looking south down the Islington Avenue Bridge