[PHOTO] Exuma on my screen in Toronto

[NEWS] Twenty news links

• NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.
• In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.
• Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.
• China’s investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.
• A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.
• Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean’s considers.
• Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.
• Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China’s? Bloomberg argues.
• Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.
• Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.
• Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.
• The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean’s reports.
• Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.
• US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.
• The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.
• Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.
• The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.
• Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.
• Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At anthro{dendum}, Amarilys Estrella writes about the aftermath of a car accident she experienced while doing fieldwork.
• Architectuul notes at a tour of Berlin looking at highlights from an innovative year for architecture in West Berlin back in 1987.
• Bad Astronomer notes that interstellar comet 2/Borisov is behaving surprisingly normally.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes briefly about the difficulty, and the importance, of being authentic.
• Centauri Dreams shares some of the recent findings of Voyager 2 from the edge of interstellar space.
• Crooked Timber shares a photo of a courtyard in Montpellier.
• D-Brief notes a study of the genetics of ancient Rome revealing that the city once was quite cosmopolitan, but that this cosmopolitanism passed, too.
• Dangerous Minds notes a 1972 single where Marvin Gaye played the Moog.
• Cody Delistraty looks at Degas and the opera.
• Bruce Dorminey makes a case, scientific and otherwise, against sending animals into space.
• Far Outliers looks at a 1801 clash between the American navy and Tripoli pirates.
• Gizmodo notes a theory that ancient primates learned to walk upright in trees.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Cayman Islands overturned a court ruling calling for marriage equality.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the experience of women under Reconstruction.
• Language Hat notes the exceptional multilingualism of the Qing empire.
• Language Log looks at circumstances where the Roman alphabet is used in contemporary China.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the forced resignation of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and calls for readers to take care with their readings on the crisis and the country.
• Marginal Revolution considers a new sociological theory suggesting that the medieval Christian church enacted policy which made the nuclear family, not the extended family, the main structure in Europe and its offshoots.
• Sean Marshall takes a look at GO Transit fare structures, noting how users of the Kitchener line may pay more than their share.
• Neuroskeptic takes a look at the contradictions between self-reported brain activity and what brain scanners record.
• Alex Hutchinson writes at the NYR Daily about human beings and their relationship with wilderness.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the impact of drought in Australia’s New England, and about the need for balances.
• The Planetary Society Blog offers advice for people interested in seeing today’s transit of Mercury across the Sun.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer suggests Argentines may not have cared about their national elections as much as polls suggested.
• Peter Rukavina shares an image of an ancient Charlottetown traffic light, at Prince and King.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the significant convergence, and remaining differences, between East and West Germany.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at some of the backstory to the Big Bang.
• The Volokh Conspiracy suggests the Paris Accords were never a good way to deal with climate change.
• Window on Eurasia shares someone arguing the policies of Putin are simple unoriginal Bonapartism.
• Worthwhile Canadian Economy makes the case that slow economic recoveries are deep economic recoveries.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how the failure of the media to serve as effective critics of politics has helped lead, in the UK of Brexit, to substantial political change.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the idea, first expressed in comics, of Russian sardines.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports suggestions the bizarre happenings at Boyajian’s Star could be explained by an evaporating exomoon.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how the crowdsourced evScope telescope is being used to support the Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans.
• The Crux explains the phenomenon of misophobia.
• D-Brief shares suggestions that an asteroid collision a half-billion years ago released clouds of dust that, reaching Earth, triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.
• Dangerous Minds shares video of a perhaps underwhelming meeting of William Burroughs with Francis Bacon.
• io9 makes the case for more near-future space exploration movies like Ad Astra.
• Joe. My. God. notes a Trump retweeting of the lie that Ilham Omar celebrated on 9/11.
• JSTOR Daily notes how fire could destroy the stressed rainforest of the Amazon.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how few judges in the US have been impeached.
• The LRB Blog looks at how the already tenuous position of Haitians in the Bahamas has been worsened by Dorian.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the importance of the integrity of official maps in the era of Trump.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the political importance of marriage ceremonies in Lebanon and Gaza.
• Drew Rowsome interviews the Zakar Twins on the occasion of their new play Pray the Gay Away, playing in Toronto in October.
• The Russian Demographic Blog shares statistics on birthrates in the different provinces of the Russian Empire circa 1906.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the first experiment done on the photoelectric effect, revealing quantum mechanics.
• Window on Eurasia looks at growing anti-Chinese sentiments in Central Asia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at “The Hurtful Dog”, a Cyanide and Happiness cartoon.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how variable gravity is on irregular asteroid Bennu.
• Bruce Dorminey reports on how the European Southern Observatory has charted the Magellanic Clouds in unprecedented detail.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares a collection of links looking at the Precambrian Earth.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina reports on the late 1950s race to send probes to the Moon.
• Gizmodo shares some stunning astronomy photos.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the saltwater roads, the routes that slaves in Florida used to escape to the free Bahamas.
• Language Log looks at some examples of bad English from Japan. How did they come about?
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money rejects the idea of honouring people like Condoleezza Rice.
• Marginal Revolution considers the idea of free will in light of neurology.
• Corey S Powell at Out There interviews James Lovelock on his new book Novacene, in which Lovelock imagines the future world and Gaia taken over by AI.
• Window on Eurasia notes the water shortages faced by downstream countries in Central Asia.

[MUSIC] Five music links: Lee Hazlewood, Massive Attack, Lana del Rey, One Love, Pet Shop Boys

• Dangerous Minds shares vintage demo recordings from Lee Hazlewood, here.
• NOW Toronto looks at the influence of the Massive Attack album Mezzanine on the Toronto music scene, here.
• NOW Toronto reviews the new Lana del Rey album, Norman Fucking Rockwell.
• NOW Toronto looks at the One Love Festival, expanding the connections of the Toronto scene to Caribbean music.
• Towleroad shares a lyric video for the new Pet Shop Boys single “Dreamland”, with Olly Alexander of Years and Years.

[ISL] Five #islands links: Shoal Lake 40, Martha’s Vineyard, Fogo, Ramea, Barbados

• Maclean’s reports on how, a century after Shoal Lake 40 First Nation was made an island to provide drinking water for Winnipeg, it finally was connected to the mainland by a road.
• CityLab reports on how the pressures of the tourist season make it difficult for many permanent residents of Martha’s Vineyard to maintain homes.
• Fogo Island, Newfoundland, recently celebrated its first Pride Walk. CBC reports.
• Yvette D’Entremont writes at the Toronto Star about how the diaspora of the Newfoundland fishing island of Ramea have gathered together for regular reunions.
• J.M. Opal writes at The Conversation about the origins of white Anglo-American racism in 17th century Barbados.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber takes us from her son’s accidental cut to the electronic music of Røbic.
• D-Brief explains what the exceptional unexpected brightness of the first galaxies reveals about the universe.
• Far Outliers looks at how President Grant tried to deal with the Ku Klux Klan.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the surprising influence of the Turkish harem on the fashion, at least, of Western women.
• This Kotaku essay arguing that no one should be sitting on the Iron Throne makes even better sense to me now.
• Language Hat looks at the particular forms of French spoken by the famously Francophile Russian elites of the 19th century.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how teaching people to code did not save the residents of an Appalachia community.
• Marginal Revolution notes how, in the early 19th century, the young United States trading extensively with the Caribbean, even with independent Haiti.
• At the NYR Daily, Colm Tóibín looks at the paintings of Pat Steir.
• Peter Rukavina writes about how he has been inspired by the deaths of the Underhays to become more active in local politics.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society shares his research goals from 1976.
• Window on Eurasia notes the conflicts between the Russian Orthodox Church and some Russian nationalists over the latter’s praise of Stalin.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at dragons in history, queer and otherwise.

[AH] Five #alternatehistory maps from r/imaginarymaps: Vinland, Finns, Caribbean, Bulgaria, Benelux

• This r/imaginarymaps creation maps the stages of an Norse expansion into North America, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence up the St. Lawrence River.
• A “Finnic Confederation” dominating the eastern Baltic, including not only Finland and Estonia but Ingria and even the lands of the Veps is, subject of this r/imaginarymaps map. How would you get this? Extended Swedish or Nordic hegemony, perhaps?
• This r/imaginarymaps creation is, I think, overoptimistic in depicting the ability of an independent Confederacy to expand into the Caribbean basin. It certainly would have been checked by rivals.
• Part of a larger alternate history scenario featuring a German victory in the First World War, this r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Greater Bulgaria that has taken territory from most of its neighbours.
• Though you might disagree with the details of this scenario, this map of a United Netherlands bringing together the Dutch with he Flemish is evocative. How could this have happened?

[ISL] Five #islands links: St. Vincent, Orkneys, Hong Kong, Kiribati, Manus

• The Inter Press Service reports on efforts to keep the fisheries of St. Vincent active, despite climate change.
• This Guardian report on the sheer determination of the librarians of the Orkneys to service their community, even in the face of giant waves, is inspiring.
• I am decidedly impressed by the scope of the Hong Kong plan to build a vast new artificial island. The Guardian reports.
• This Inter Press Service report about how the stigma of leprosy in Kiribati prevents treatment is sad, and recounts a familiar phenomenon.
• That Behrouz Boochani was able to write an award-winning book on Whatsapp while imprisoned in the Australian camp on Manus island is an inspiring story that should never have been. CBC’s As It Happens reports.