[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at the German city of Nordlingen, formed in a crater created by the impact of a binary asteroid with Earth.
• Centauri Dreams reports on the possibility that the farside of the Moon might bear the imprint of an ancient collision with a dwarf planet the size of Ceres.
• D-Brief notes that dredging for the expansion of the port of Miami has caused terrible damage to corals there.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the last appearances of David Bowie and Iggy Pop together on stage.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that China is on track to launch an ambitious robotic mission to Mars in 2020.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog talks about what sociological research actually is.
• Gizmodo reports on the discovery of a torus of cool gas circling Sagittarius A* at a distance of a hundredth of a light-year.
• io9 reports about Angola Janga, an independent graphic novel by Marcelo D’Salete showing how slaves from Africa in Brazil fought for their freedom and independence.
• The Island Review shares some poems of Matthew Landrum, inspired by the Faroe Islands.
• Joe. My. God. looks at how creationists are mocking flat-earthers for their lack of scientific knowledge.
• Language Hat looks at the observations of Mary Beard that full fluency in ancient Latin is rare even for experts, for reasons I think understandable.
• Melissa Byrnes wrote at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the meaning of 4 June 1989 in the political transitions of China and Poland.
• Marginal Revolution notes how the New York Times has become much more aware of cutting-edge social justice in recent years.
• The NYR Daily looks at how the memories and relics of the Sugar Land prison complex outside of Houston, Texas, are being preserved.
• Jason C Davis at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the differences between LightSail 1 and the soon-to-be-launched LightSail 2.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks in detail at the high electricity prices in Argentina.
• Peter Rukavina looks at the problems with electric vehicle promotion on PEI.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at when the universe will have its first black dwarf. (Not in a while.)
• Window on Eurasia suggests that Belarusians are not as interested in becoming citizens of Russia as an Internet poll suggests.
• Arnold Zwicky highlights a Pride Month cartoon set in Antarctica featuring the same-sex marriage of two penguins.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Wasaga Beach, Montréal, Barcelona, Narva, Luanda

• The question of how to develop, or redevelop, the Georgian Bay resort town of Wasaga Beach is ever-pressing. Global News reports.
• Le Devoir enters the discussion over the Royalmount development, arguing that the city of Montréal needs to fight urban sprawl.
• Guardian Cities reports on the efforts of Barcelona to keep its street kiosks, home to a thriving culture, alive in the digital age.
• The New York Times reports on how the government of Estonia is trying to use pop culture to help bind the Russophone-majority city of Narva into the country.
• This Guardian Cities photo essay takes a look at how the Angolan capital of Luanda, after a long economic boom driven by oil, is rich but terribly unequal.

[NEWS] Five politics links: Québec and Brexit, EU and Brexit, Macedonia, Angola, China

• Chantal Hébert at the Toronto Star notes how the chaos and uncertainty around Brexit is doing much to deter support for (what I think is a better-planned) separatism in Québec.
• Ronan McCrea at Euronews suggests that, without a shift in British public opinion on Europe, there might well be many in the EU who would not welcome an end to Brexit.
• This Ekathimeri opinion piece makes the point that a final settlement of the Macedonia name dispute will allow people in Greece, North Macedonia, and elsewhere to enjoy normality across borders, hopefully within the EU.
• Atlas Obscura notes the case for making a new national park in the interior of eastern Angola, and the background of human suffering that made the park possible.
• David Fickling writing at Bloomberg suggests that some of the autarkic policies favoured for China by Xi Jinping might keep China from escaping the feared middle-income trap.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthropology.net’s Kambiz Kamrani looks at the classical Mayan trade in pets, dogs and cats particularly.
• Dangerous Minds shares some vintage cheesecake ads for video and arcade games from 1980s Japan.
• Dead Things considers an examination of the thesis that the fabulous horns of some dinosaurs were used as sexual signals.
• Hornet Stories nominates some queer people to get stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• JSTOR Daily tells the story of Bobbi Gibb, the woman who in 1966 crashed the Boston Marathon.
• Language Hattells of Toty Samed, an Angolan musician who writes songs not in the now-dominant Portuguese but in his ancestral Kimbundu.
• Steven Attewell at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the ways in which the metaphor of mutants has been used by Marvel Comics to explore themes of racism and marginalization.
• At the LRB Blog, Matthew Porges notes how European Union opposition to the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco is counterbalanced by the need to keep Morocco as a partner.
• r/mapporn shared a beautiful map of the Great Lakes, Nayanno-Nibiimaang Gichigamiin or “The Five Freshwater Seas”, from the Ojibwe perspective.
• The Map Room Blog shares Christian Tate’s transit-style map of Middle Earth.
• Marginal Revolution links to an essay arguing against the United States’ dropping the penny and the nickel, on the grounds that these expensive coins are loss-leaders for currency generally.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at early 20th century Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyan, a man whose influence is visible in the Putin era.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the eye-catching male photography of Ekaterina Zakharova.
• David Post’s analysis at the Volokh Conspiracy of the contract between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump is a must-read.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the Russian government has failed to cultivate soft power, or wider influence, in the West.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper examining a potential relationship between stars’ magnetic fields and exoplanets.
• Hornet Stories links to the Instagram account of Tom Bianchi, still taking photos of Fire Island.
• Language Hat notes the death of Ognen Cemerski, a Macedonian who went to heroic lengths to translate Moby Dick into his language.
• Language Log notes an unusual hybrid Sino-Tibetan sign for a restaurant.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is appropriately savage with Hillbilly Elegy (at least of uncritical readings of said).
• Marginal Revolutions links to a paper noting French cities, unlike British ones, are much more tightly tied to old Roman settlements, away from the sea.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw calls for the return of the Australian $2 bill.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the aftermath of rampant electoral fraud in Angola. What will come next?
• Drew Rowsome takes a stand against, particularly in the context of Stephen King’s It, the now-common fear of clowns.
• Understanding Society takes a look at Erik Olin Wright’s thinking on possible utopias.
• Window on Eurasia notes potential contributions of Russophone Belarusians and Ukrainians to the Russophone world, and notes some controversy in Moscow re: widely-observed Muslim holidays at start of the school year.

[NEWS] Four science links, from water on the frontier to climate change to Tau Ceti exoplanets

• At Wired, Matt Simon explores the remarkably wrong-headed theory of the 19th century US that “rain follows the plough.”
• These National Geographic photos of the unexplored lakes in Angola that feed the Okavango are remarkable.
• Rachel Brown examines billy burr, the Colorado hermit whose collection of decades of climate data is invaluable.
• Universe Today notes a new study confirming the existence of Tau Ceti e and f, potentially habitable rocky exoplanets just 12 light years away.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the discovery of massive ice deposits underneath Mars’ Utopia Planitia.
• blogTO shares photos of what the new TTC buses will look like.
• Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly describes a lovely exhibition of the artifacts of the life of Charlotte Brontë in New York City.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to two papers on the detection of exomoons.
• Itching for Eestimaa notes how Estonia, despite wanting solitude and independence, keeps getting dragged into global geopolitics.
• Joe. My. God. notes Mike Pence’s improbable arguments that he did not, in fact, support ex-gay conversion “therapy”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes Castro’s positive contributions to the fight against apartheid, and looks at the colonial booze trade.
• The LRB Blog looks at the economic incentives for prostitution in a time of austerity.
• The Map Room Blog maps the shifting and shrinking ice of the Arctic.
• Marginal Revolution links to an interview with an anthropologist who wonders about the knowledge of others that ubiquitous AI would allow. (The example given is of cows who can adjust their milking schedules.)
• THe NYRB Daily reflects on Cuba after Castro.
• Otto Pohl talks about the fate of Soviet Kurds under Stalin.
• Window on Eurasia argues the Soviet Union was falling apart and is skeptical of a Russian plan to create a hierarchy for Russia’s Muslim populations.

[NEWS] Some Friday links

• Bloomberg notes growth in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry and looks about Huawei’s plans to compete with Apple.
• Bloomberg View looks at India’s advantages over China and considers narrow European definitions of religious liberty.
• CBC reports that a Japanese boy abandoned in the forests of the north by his parents has been found, and describes plans to restore Kingston’s prison farm.
• CNBC notes economic desperation among oil-exporting states like Venezuela and Angola.
• The Inter Press Service looks at the exclusion of LGBT communities from HIV reduction efforts and considers Sri Lankan efforts at food security.
• The National Post reports on Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s enlistment as conductor of the Metropolitan Opera.
• Open Democracy considers prospects for a coup in Saudi Arabia.
• The Toronto Star notes the durability of Kathleen Wynne.
• Universe Today looks at Tutankhamen’s blade of meteoritic iron.

[NEWS] Some Tuesday links

• The Inter Press Service suggests climate change is contributing to a severe drought in Nicaragua.
• Reuters notes China’s plan to implement sanctions against North Korea.
• Atlas Obscura explores the now-defunct medium of vinyl movies.
• Science goes into detail about the findings that many pre-contact American populations did not survive conquest at all.
• CBC notes evidence that salmon prefer dark-walled tanks.
• Universe Today notes the discovery of a spinning neutron star in the Andromeda Galaxy.
• Vice’s Motherboard notes how Angolan users of free limited-access internet sites are sharing files through Wikipedia.
• MacLean’s notes how an ordinary British Columbia man’s boudoir photos for his wife have led to a modelling gig.

[LINK] NPR on the anti-Muslim policies of Angola

At NPR’s Goats and Soda blog, Anders Kelto writes about Angola’s suppression of Islam. This seems to be a consequence of a repression of civil society generally.

The oil-rich, southern African nation of 21 million is thousands of miles away, but looks a lot like the U.S. when it comes to religion. Both countries are roughly three-fourths Christian (Roman Catholicism dominates in Angola) and less than 1 percent Muslim.

But in contrast with the U.S., the Angolan government has made it extremely difficult for non-Christian religious groups to practice their faith.

“The problem is that the men in government believe that Angola is a Catholic country,” says Elias Isaac, program director for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.

He says freedom of religion is protected in the Angolan constitution but is restricted by many laws. For example, the Angolan government only grants legal standing to religious groups that have at least 100,000 members. There are roughly 90,000 Muslims in the country, the vast majority of whom are immigrants from West Africa. Without legal religious standing, Isaac says, Muslims face many challenges.

“They don’t have permission to build mosques, to open schools, to build clinics, to do outreach,” he says.