[BLOG] Five Marginal Revolution links

• Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.
• Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.
• Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

[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 Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy looks at ALMA’s observations of the birth of binary star system, here.
• The Buzz, at the Toronto Public Library, announces the Governor-General’s Literary Awards from 2019, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes how we might be able to find a wormhole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.
• The Crux commemorates the enormously successful and long-lasting Voyager missions.
• D-Brief notes a self-tending swarm search and rescue drones.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how the first discoveries of exoplanets were a consequence of innovative technology and thinking.
• Steve Attewell at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that he is talking about the new idea in X-Men of a mutant nation-state over at Graphic Policy Radio.
• The LRB Blog notes Manif pour Tous mobilizing against new human reproduction laws in France.
• Marginal Revolution looks at how the drug war in Mexico has been getting worse.
• Neuroskeptic considers: What traits would a human population adapted to contemporary environmental pressures exhibit?
• The NYR Daily looks at a new exhibition of critical Internet-related art by Meriam Bennani.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at a remarkable double gravitational lens, and what it reveals about the universe.
• Window on Eurasia notes that although half of working-age people in Uzbekistan have been educated in the Latin script, many remain fluent in Cyrillic.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the many implications of fried pickles with ranch dressing.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the dusty spiral of galaxy M81, here.
• Crooked Timber reacts positively to the Astra Taylor short film What Is Democracy?
• D-Brief notes that, in the South Atlantic, one humpback whale population has grown from 440 individuals to 25 thousand, nearly completing its recovery from whaling-era lows.
• Dangerous Minds looks at The Iguanas, first band of Iggy Pop.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at consideration in South Korea at building an aircraft carrier.
• Todd Schoepflin at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the division of labour within his family.
• Far Outliers looks at 17th century clashes between England and Barbary Pirates.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how antibiotics are getting everywhere, contaminating food chains worldwide.
• Victor Mair at Language Log looks at the evidence not only for an ancient Greek presence in Central Asia, but for these Greeks’ contact with China.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the attempt by Trump to get Ukraine to spy on his enemies was driven by what Russia and Hungary alleged about corruption in Ukraine.
• The LRB Blog looks at the transnational criminal network of the Hernandez brothers in Honduras, a source of a refugee diaspora.
• Marginal Revolution shares an argument suggesting that marriage is useful for, among other things, encouraging integration between genders.
• Sean Marshall looks at how the death of the Shoppers World in Brampton heralds a new urbanist push in that city.
• At the NYR Daily, Helen Joyce talks of her therapeutic experiences with psychedelic drugs.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Toronto play The Particulars.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers if inflation came before, or after, the Big Bang.
• John Scalzi at Whatever has a short discussion about Marvel films that concludes they are perfectly valid.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that central Ukraine has emerged as a political force in post-1914 Ukraine.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the Indian pickle.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes the latest news on interstellar comet 2/Borisov.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly emphasizes how every writer does need an editor.
• Centauri Dreams notes how the gas giant GJ 3512 b, half the mass of Jupiter orbiting a red dwarf star closely, is an oddly massive exoplanet.
• Gina Schouten at Crooked Timber looks at inter-generational clashes on parenting styles.
• D-Brief looks at the methods of agriculture that could conceivably sustain a populous human colony on Mars.
• Bruce Dorminey argues that we on Earth need something like Starfleet Academy, to help us advance into space.
• Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how the socio-spatial perspective helps us understand the development of cities.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res listens to the Paul McCartney album Flaming Pie.
• io9 looks at Proxima, a contemporary spaceflight film starring Eva Green.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the intense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia began in, and reflected, the era of Jim Crow.
• Language Hat notes a report suggesting that multilingualism helps ward off dementia.
• Language Log takes issue with the names of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the emergence of a ninth woman complaining about being harassed by Al Franken.
• Marginal Revolution links to a new paper arguing that the Washington Consensus worked.
• The NYR Daily shares an Aubrey Nolan cartoon illustrating the evacuation of war children in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.
• At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane shares a nice collection of links for digital mapmakers.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the European Space Agency supports the cause of planetary defense.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Kenyan writer Kevin Mwachiro at length.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on how a mysterious fast radio burst helped illuminate an equally mysterious galactic halo.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious and unsolved death in 1936 of Canadian student Thomas Moss in an Oxfordshire hayrick.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how Mount Etna is a surpassingly rare decipoint.
• Understanding Society considers the thought of Kojève, after Hegel, on freedom.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the falling numbers of Russians, and of state support for Russian language and culture, in independent Central Asia.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how individual consumer responses are much less effective than concerted collective action in triggering change.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on some transgender fashion models.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at Abell 30, a star that has been reborn in the long process of dying.
• Centauri Dreams uses the impending launch of LightSail 2 to discuss solar sails in science fiction.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber, as part of a series of the fragility of globalization, considers if migration flows can be reversed. (He concludes it unlikely.)
• The Crux considers if the record rain in the Midwest (Ontario, too, I would add) is a consequence of climate change.
• D-Brief notes that the failure of people around the world to eat enough fruits and vegetables may be responsible for millions of premature dead.
• Dangerous Minds introduces readers to gender-bending Italian music superstar Renato Zero.
• Dead Things notes how genetic examinations have revealed the antiquity of many grapevines still used for wine.
• Gizmodo notes that the ocean beneath the icy crust of Europa may contain simple salt.
• io9 tries to determine the nature of the many twisted timelines of the X-Men movie universe of Fox.
• JSTOR Daily observes that the Stonewall Riots were hardly the beginning of the gay rights movement in the US.
• Language Log looks at the mixed scripts on a bookstore sign in Beijing.
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money argues that Jeremy Corbyn has a very strong hold on his loyal followers, perhaps even to the point of irrationality.
• Marginal Revolution observes that people who create public genetic profiles for themselves also undo privacy for their entire biological family.
• Sean Marshall at Marshall’s Musings shares a photo of a very high-numbered street address, 986039 Oxford-Perth Road in Punkeydoodle’s Corners.
• The NYR Daily examines the origins of the wealth of Lehman Brothers in the exploitation of slavery.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares a panorama-style photo of the Apollo 11 Little West Crater on the Moon.
• Drew Rowsome notes that classic documentary Paris Is Burning has gotten a makeover and is now playing at TIFF.
• Peter Rukavina, writing from a trip to Halifax, notes the convenience of the Eduroam procedures allowing users of one Maritime university computer network to log onto another member university’s network.
• Dylan Reid at Spacing considers how municipal self-government might be best embedded in the constitution of Canada.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle pays tribute to the wildflower Speedwell, a name he remembers from Watership Down.
• Strange Maps shares a crowdsourced map depicting which areas of Europe are best (and worst) for hitchhikers.
• Window on Eurasia notes the distribution of native speakers of Russian, with Israel emerging as more Russophone than some post-Soviet states.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the recent study of near-Earth asteroid 1999 KW4, looking at it from the perspective of defending the Earth and building a civilization in space.
• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber continues a debate on universal basic income.
• The Dragon’s Tales considers if India does need its own military space force.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how foster care in the United States (Canada, too, I’d add) was also synonymous with sending children off as unpaid farm labourers.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shares a proposal, linking immigration to high-income countries to the idea of immigration as reparation for colonialism.
• The LRB Blog considers the ever-growing presence of the dead on networks like Facebook.
• Muhammad Idrees Ahmad at the NYR Daily looks at how Bellingcat and other online agencies have transformed investigative journalism.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a speech by the head of the Bank of Japan talking about the interactions of demographic change and economic growth.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the mystery behind the great mass of early black hole J1342+0928.
• Strange Company looks at the unsolved Christmas 1928 disappearance of young Melvin Horst from Orrville, Ohio. What happened?
• Window on Eurasia notes that Uzbekistan is moving the Latin script for Uzbek into closer conformity with its Turkish model.

[DM] Ten links on migration (#demographics, #demographymatters)

• CBC Kitchener-Waterloo notes how farmers in southwestern Ontario are trying to plan the transfer of their lands to new migrants.
• HuffPost Québec notes how the labour market of Gaspésie is starting to attract workers.
• The Guardian looks at how many New Zealanders are moving away from cities to less expensive and stressed rural areas.
• The murder of an maid from Indonesia in Malaysia is straining relations between the two neighbouring countries. The National Post reports
• Ozy looks how entrepreneurs from China, moving to Africa, are transforming that continent.
• Open Democracy examines the background behind an outbreak of anti-immigrant sentiment in Yakutsk.
• Doug Bock Clark writes at GQ about the underground networks smuggling North Koreans out of their country.
• Eater reports on the early 20th century migration of Punjabis to California that ended up creating a hybrid Punjabi-Mexican cuisine.
• Open Democracy tells the story of a woman who migrated from Thailand to Denmark for a marriage partner. Why is her migration less legitimate than others’?
• The Inter Press Service warns against treating migrants as human commodities.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Oshawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montréal, Accra, Beijing

• A tiny house put on the market in Oshawa got a surprising amount of buzz before its sale. Global News reports.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle shares photos for a nearby crossing for the new Kitchener-Waterloo Ion light rail project, set to open very soon.
• MTLBlog shares a map showing the distribution of some notable immigrant communities in Montréal.
• Guardian Cities reports on how authorities in Accra are trying to deal with noise pollution produced by the city’s many churches and preachers.
• Roads and Kingdoms notes how elderly singles in Beijing use Changpu River Park as a place to meet new partners.

[NEWS] Five culture links: Orthodox, children online, Panda Express, Eminem stans, Chris Claremont

• What, exactly, happened with the establishment of Ukraine’s Orthodox church as co-equal to the other national orthodox churches united under the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople? Open Democracy explains.
• This article in The Atlantic takes a look at how children, now growing up, are responding to the fact that so much of their lives has been put out on the Internet already.
• I agree entirely with this article‘s argument about the authenticity of the Chinese-American cuisine served by Panda Express.
• It’s a bit ironic that Eminem, of all people, stans for The Punisher. VICE reports.
• Writing at The Conversation, Andrew Dewman makes an excellent argument as to the importance of Chris Claremont, not only as an author of the X-Men but as a shaper of our modern pop culture, more open (for instance) to women and minority heroes.