[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes that the Curiosity rover is detectable from Mars orbit.
• blogTO shares some of the vintage 1980s photos of gritty Toronto in a new book by Avard Woolaver.
• The Big Picture shares photos of tea from its homeland in China.
• Imageo shares stunning photos of Jupiter originally taken by the Juno probe.
• Language Hat links to the new online version of the Australian National Dictionary.
• The LRB Blog shares an appalling story of a British university that wants to hire an academic to develop a course for 10 pounds an hour.
• The NYR Daily looks at the films of Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.
• Starts with a Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines the Pillars of Creation of the Eagle Nebula. How long will they last?
• Torontoist shares photos from the Toronto Pride parade.
• John Scalzi at Whatever talks about being a late convert to the joys of Harry Potter.
• Window on Eurasia reports on Stalin’s desire to drain the Caspian Sea, the better to exploit offshore oil and irrigate Kazakhstan.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Language Hat blogs about appearances of Nahuatl in Los Angeles, in television and in education.
• Language Log talks about “Zhonghua minzu”, meaning “Chinese nation” or “Chinese race” depending on the translation.
• Marginal Revolution notes that Canada, with inelastic production, might have a marijuana shortage come legalization/
• In the NYR Daily, Christopher de Bellaigue wonders if Britain–the West, even–might be on the verge of a descent into communal violence.
• Peter Rukavina looks at the accessibility of VIA Rail’s data on trade arrivals and departures.
• Starts with a Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, in the far distant starless future, the decay of binary brown dwarf orbits can still start stars.
• Torontoist shares photos of the Dyke March.
• Window on Eurasia argues that Tatarstan’s tradition of bourgeois and intellectually critical nationalism could have wider consequences, in Russia and beyond.

[META] On the latest blogroll expansion

Consider this post a consequence of a consolidation of my blogroll, with three posts from older blogs I’ve added previously and two new posts from new blogs.

• Missing persons blog Charley Ross shares the strange story of five people who went missing in a winter wilderness in 1978.
• Roads and Kingdom shares an anecdote by Alessio Perrone about a chat over a drink with a Cornishman, in a Cornwall ever more dependent on tourism.
• Strange Company shares the story of Kiltie, a Scottish cat who immigrated to the United States in the First World War.
• Starts With a Bang, a science blog by Ethan Siegel, argues that there is in fact no evidence for periodic mass extinctions caused by bodies external to the Earth.
• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, a group blog by Canadian economists, considers the value placed on Aboriginal language television programming.

[URBAN NOTE] Four links on Toronto transit, from buses and streetcars to Union Station and Niagara

• Steve Munro reports on the many problems associated with implementing new express buses, in Toronto and elsewhere.
• Global News was one of many sources reporting on the high rate of failure of the new Bombardier streetcars.
• Ben Spurr notes the astounding failure of the City of Toronto to do basic things at Union Station, like collect rent.
• Transit Toronto notes that GO Transit’s seasonal routes to Niagara have started today and will go until 4 September.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Apostrophen’s ‘Nathan Smith talks about “cis”, “trans”, and the non-obvious meaning of this classification.
• The Big Picture shares photos of a recent sailing festival in Boston.
• blogTO reports on the trendy charcoal-black ice cream of a store across from Trinity Bellwoods.
• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of a “runaway fusion” drive.</li.
• Crooked Timber wonders how a bad Brexit agreement could possibly be worse than no Brexit agreement for the United Kingdom.
• D-Brief warns of the possibility of sustained life-threatening heat waves in the tropics with global warming.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers how sociology majors are prepared, or not, for the workforce.
• Language Hat links to a wonderful examination of the textual complexities of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
• The LRB Blog looks at how British big business is indebted to the Conservatives.
• Marginal Revolution reports on China’s emergent pop music machine.
• Steve Munro reports on the latest on noise from the 514 Cherry streetcar.
• The NYRB Daily has a fascinating exchange on consciousness and free will and where it all lies.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on a successful expedition to Argentina to examine Kuiper Belt object MU69 via occultation.
• Peter Rukavina celebrates Charlottetown school crossing guard Dana Doyle.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Crooked Timber links the near-criminal destruction of Grenfell Tower with Thatcherism’s deregulations and catastrophes.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that TRAPPIST-1e is slated to be among the first observational targets of the James Webb Space Telescope.
• Far Outliers shares Edith Durham’s account of an exciting St. John’s Day in Albania in 1908.
• Language Hat looks at a passage from Turgenev.
• What, the LRB wonders, will Emmanuel Macron do with his crushing victory after the parliamentary elections, too?
• Marginal Revolution wonders to what extent is Germany’s support for Nord Stream consistent with Germany’s concerns over NATO and Russia.
• Ed Jackson’s Spacing Toronto article about the need to preserve queer public history in Toronto is a must-read.
• Torontoist’s Alex Yerman notes the new activity of the Jewish left against a conservative establishment.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that modern Russia is repeating the Soviet Union’s overmilitarization mistakes, only this time with fewer resources.

[URBAN NOTE] Three notes on economic declines, of Sears Canada, Postmedia, and Toronto real estate

• City News shares a Canadian Press article sharing the warning issued by Sears Canada itself, another historic colossus of retail, that it may well be coming to its end.
• The Columbia Review of Journalism warns that Canada’s Postmedia chain is failing, and could take all our newspapers with it.
• Tess Kalinowski at the Toronto Star observes that the number of Greater Toronto Area home sales has continued to decline.