[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how a photo of the Large Magellanic Cloud makes him recognize it as an irregular spiral, not a blob.
• Centauri Dreams celebrates the life of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with one particular claim about the benefits of war and empire.
• The Crux looks at fatal familial insomnia, a genetic disease that kills through inflicting sleeplessness on its victims.
• D-Brief looks at suggestions that magnetars are formed by the collisions of stars.
• Dangerous Minds introduces readers to the fantasy art of Arthur Rackham.
• Cody Delistraty considers some evidence suggesting that plants have a particular kind of intelligence.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the expansion by Russia of its airbase in Hneymim, Syria.
• Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about the critical and changing position of libraries as public spaces in our cities.
• Gizmodo looks at one marvelous way scientists have found to cheat quantum mechanics.
• Information is Beautiful outlines a sensible proposal to state to cultivate seaweed a as source of food and fuel.
• io9 notes that, in the exciting new X-Men relaunch, immortal Moira MacTaggart is getting her own solo book.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the now-defunct Thomas Cook travel agency played a role in supporting British imperialism, back in the day.
• Language Log notes that the Oxford English Dictionary is citing the blog on the use of “their” as a singular.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the grounds for impeaching Donald Trump.
• The LRB Blog looks at the politics of Mozambique at the country approaches dangerous times.
• Sean Marshall notes the southern Ontario roads that run to Paris and to London.
• Neuroskeptic notes a problematic scientific study that tried to use rabbits to study the female human orgasm.
• Steve Baker at The Numerati looks at a new book on journalism by veteran Peter Copeland.
• The NYR Daily makes the point that depending on biomass as a green energy solution is foolish.
• The Planetary Science Blog notes a 1983 letter by then-president Carl Sagan calling for a NASA mission to Saturn and Titan.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews photojournalist Eduardo Leal on his home city of Porto, particularly as transformed by tourism.
• Drew Rowsome notes the book Dreamland, an examination of the early amusement park.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper considering, in broad detail, how the consequence of population aging could be mitigated in the labour market of the European Union.
• Strange Company reports on a bizarre poltergeist in a British garden shed.
• Window on Eurasia notes the new strength of a civic national identity in Kazakhstan, based on extensive polling.
• Arnold Zwicky, surely as qualified a linguist as any, examines current verb of the American moment, “depose”.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how TESS detected a star being torn apart by a distant black hole.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster looks at the past and future of the blog.
• Crooked Timber takes on the sensitive issue of private schools in the United Kingdom.
• The Crux considers the question of why women suffer from Alzheimer’s at a higher frequency than men.
• D-Brief notes a study suggesting that saving the oceans of the Earth could reduce the effects of global warming by 20%.
• Bruce Dorminey considers a paper suggesting that, if not for its volcanic resurfacing, Venus could have remained an Earth-like world to this day.
• The Dragon’s Tale notes that NASA will deploy a cubesat in the proposed orbit of the Lunar Gateway station to make sure it is a workable orbit.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at Soyuz T-10a, the first crewed mission to abort on the launch pad.
• Gizmodo reports on a paper arguing that we should intentionally contaminate Mars (and other bodies?) with our world’s microbes.
• io9 looks at how Warner Brothers is trying to control, belatedly, the discourse around the new Joker movie.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how, in industrializing London, women kidnapped children off the streets.
• Language Hat links to a page examining the Arabic and Islamic elements in Dune.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a new documentary examining the life of Trump mentor Roy Cohn.
• The LRB Blog looks at how BBC protocols are preventing full discussion of public racism.
• The Map Room Blog looks at different efforts to reimagining the subway map of New York City.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper claiming that increased pressure on immigrants to assimilate in Italy had positive results.
• The NYR Daily looks at the background to George Washington’s statements about the rightful place of Jews in the United States.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the political explanation of the massive increase in the planetary defense budget of NASA.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the Rocky Horror Show, with its celebration of sexuality (among other things).
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers why there are so many unexpected black holes in the universe.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines why Google Street View is not present in Germany (and Austria).
• The Volokh Conspiracy reports on a ruling in a UK court that lying about a vasectomy negates a partner’s consent to sex.
• Window on Eurasia notes the controversy about some Buryat intellectuals about giving the different dialects of their language too much importance.

[NEWS] Eleven politics links

• The amount of money that has gone into the Doug Ford Ontario News Now propaganda videos–more than one hundred!–is shocking. Global News reports.
• That Maxime Bernier is finding himself challenged, in his home region of the Beauce, by another Maxine Bernier is charming. Le Devoir has it.
• The Times of London interview with David Cameron, three years after the Brexit referendum and with his new biography, is enlightening. (And shocking.)
• There may well be, finally, a popular groundswell among Europeans to make the European Union more of a classical superpower. Bloomberg has it.
• Shannon Gormley at MacLean’s looks at how, come 2047, Hong Kong is bound to see radical change.
• At Bloomberg, David Fickling notes how populism plays a huge role in the economic divergence of Argentina from Australia, here.
• India would lose out, it is argued, if it does not sign onto the China-led RCEP economic grouping. Bloomberg has it.
• Did economic nationalism in central Europe make the region more resistant to the slowdown in Germany? Bloomberg considers.
• VICE reports on how Trump supporters in the US Midwest are unhappy with continued globalization, here.
• Global News reports on new interest in Ontario in diffusing immigration beyond the Greater Toronto Area, here.
• Philippe J. Fournier reports at MacLean’s about the latest polling, suggesting the Liberals are on the edge of a majority.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy reports on the possibility of a relatively nearby kilonova that seeded the solar nebula with heavy elements, including gold, as does Centauri Dreams.
• The Buzz at the Toronto Public Library takes a look at books which later received video game adaptations.
• D-Brief notes the happy news that, despite having relatively little genetic diversity, narwhals are doing well enough.
• Imageo notes a recent shift in the centuries-long patterns of El Nino that might hint at some climate change disturbance.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the New York Times has retrieved Trump’s tax records for 1985-1994, and notes that he lost more than a billion dollars in that time frame.
• JSTOR considers the question of why holography and holograms have not become accepted as high art.
• Language Log shares, from Hong Kong, an advertisement with phonetic annotation of Cantonese.
• Daniel Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers if, as a Charlie Stross novel from 2008 imagined, we are now in a “post-attribution” era in which motives are effectively unfindable.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog considers the sheer scale of the defeat of not just the Conservatives but Labour in British local government elections.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting that cooperativeness is more closely linked to intelligence than to conscientiousness.
• The NYR Daily looks at the particular plight of women in the American prison system.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw takes a look at egging as an act of political protest.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the mysteries surrounding the early atmosphere of Mars. What was it made of that it retained enough heat to keep water liquid during the faint young Sun period?
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the strength of the models of contemporary cosmology, despite occasional challenges.
• Window on Eurasia considers the extent to which pan-Turkic sentiment is relevant to the Turkic nations of Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky considers arches, in his life and in language.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the possible discovery of Proxima Centauri c.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of a second circumbinary planet in the Kepler-47 system.
• Far Outliers notes the Union reaction to the civil war battle of Shiloh.
• Mark Graham shares a link to an article abstract examining the impact of call centres on social upgrading in South Africa.
• io9 notes plans for closer integration between the movie and television properties of the MCU.
• JSTOR Daily explains how Florida got its name.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the similarities between the Notre Dame fire and the destruction of the National Museum of Brazil last year.
• The LRB Blog notes the appeal of Gothic architecture.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that, in the United States, negative effects of the China Shock had concluded a decade ago.
• The NYR Daily looks at Trump’s agitprop.
• Drew Rowsome interviews actor Nathaniel Bacon on the occasion of his appearance in a new Sky Gilbert show.
• Peter Rukavina shares a map of light pollution on PEI.
• Starts With A Bang shares a plan for reducing light pollution in a n urbanizing world.
• Window on Eurasia complains of a creeping annexation of Belarus by Russia.

[NEWS] Five links on politics: 2020 US, Middle East, Spain, Turkey, Latin America

• New York Magazine is quite right to note that a 2020 reelection of Donald Trump would be a catastrophe for, among others, Democrats.
• Iran and Turkey are the obvious winners from the disarray in Iraq, among other Middle Eastern countries. Open Democracy reports.
• The Spanish situation is deteriorating, between the growth of separatism in Catalonia and far-right populism elsewhere. Open Democracy reports.
• Is Latin America a region adrift in the world? Open Democracy reports.
• Ozy notes the rapid growth of the influence of Turkey, culturally and politically, in Latin America.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams considers what would be needed, and what would be the use, of a SETI search of Earth’s co-orbitals.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber considers the idea of nature potentially having legal rights in the context of corporations, likewise, actually having such.
• D-Brief reports that the Mars 2020 probe will bring with it a mini-probe built around a helicopter.
• io9 notes that writer Jonathan Hickman will be coming back to Marvel to write two new X-Men books this summer.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a Trump supporter recently arrested for a Mafia slaying had earlier tried to conduct citizen’s arrests of prominent Democrats.
• Language Hat takes a look at obscenities in Russian that do not quite make it over to English.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reacts to the massive anti-Brexit protests in the United Kingdom this past weekend.
• Marginal Revolution discusses just how bad a Brexit is likely to be, or not.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why LIGO and like instruments have not detected gravitational wave sources within our galaxy. (Briefly, they aren’t good enough yet to pick up faint sources.)
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that not much new has come from the release of the Mueller investigation summary.
• Arnold Zwicky builds from a report of a new LGBTQ consumer advocate from Florida, Nik Harris.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Montréal, Atlantic City, Dieppe, Bangalore

• Rick Zamperin at Global News makes the case for Hamilton to at least investigate the idea of bidding for the 2030 Commonwealth Games.
• HuffPostQuébec hosts the argument for bringing back to the surface, in Montréal on the McGill campus, a stream running down Mount Royal that has been canalized for nearly two centuries.
• Wired highlights the photos of Atlantic City taken by photographer Brian Rose, a city that stands as testimony to the failed promises of Trump.
• DW notes how the French port of Dieppe stands unprepared and vulnerable in the face of Brexit.
• Guardian Cities notes how activists and historians in the Indian city of Bangalore, or Bengaluru, are trying to preserve the ancient stone markets from development.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Ryan Anderson writes at anthro{dendum} about how the counterhistory of Vine Deloria transformed his thinking.
• Architectuul notes some interesting architectural experiments from the post-WW2 United Kingdom.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes the distinctive dustiness of Large Magellanic Cloud globular cluster NGC 1898.
• The Big Picture shares photos from the worldwide student walkout on climate change.
• Corey Robin writes at Crooked Timber about ethics in economics.
• The Crux points its readers to the space art of Chesley Bonestell.
• D-Brief considers the possibility that the distinction between the sounds “f” and “v” might be a product of the soft food produced by the agricultural revolution.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a new study suggesting there might be fifty billion free-floating planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.
• Gizmodo considers the self-appointed archivists of obscure information on the Internet.
• Information is Beautiful shares an informative infographic analyzing the factors that go into extending one’s life expectancy.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the American system simply cannot be expected to contain the fascist impulses of Donald Trump indefinitely.
• Marginal Revolution considers the future evolution of a more privacy-conscious Facebook.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the nature of the skies of mini-Neptunes.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Kirsten McKenzie horror novel Painted.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the possibility that the Milky Way Galaxy, despite having fewer stars than Andromeda, might be more massive.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the newly-named Neptune moon of Hippocamp, and how it came about as product of a massive collision with the larger moon of Proteus.
• Centauri Dreams also reports on the discovery of the Neptune moon of Hippocamp.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes how the attempt to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum sets a terribly dangerous precedent for the United Kingdom.
• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting the role of the Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions in triggering the Cretaceous extinction event, alongside the Chixculub asteroid impact.
• Far Outliers notes the problems of Lawrence of Arabia with Indian soldiers and with Turks.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the state of philosophical contemplation about technology, at least in part a structural consequence of society.
• Hornet Stories shares this feature examining the future of gay porn, in an environment where amateur porn undermines the existing studios.
• JSTOR Daily considers the spotty history of casting African-American dancers in ballet.
• Language Hat suggests that the Académie française will soon accept for French feminized nouns of nouns links to professionals (“écrivaine” for a female writer, for instance).
• The LRB Blog considers the implications of the stripping of citizenship from Shamima Begum. Who is next? How badly is citizenship weakened in the United Kingdom?
• Marginal Revolution notes the upset of Haiti over its banning by Expedia.
• The NYR Daily notes the tension in Turkey between the country’s liberal laws on divorce and marriage and rising Islamization.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the moment, in the history of the universe, when dark energy became the dominant factors in the universe’s evolution.
• Towleroad remembers Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the collaborator of Trump up to the moment of Cohn’s death from AIDS.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little takes a look at Marx’s theories of how governments worked.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the existential pressures facing many minority languages in Russia.