[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.

[NEWS] Seven links about politics in Canada and around the world

• The immigration fiasco in Québec shows the tension between different strains of local nationalism. The Conversation reports.
• The Québec labour market, Le Devoir notes, actually bears up well to a comparison with Ontario. Gaps in employment have been closed, and then some.
• Barry Saxifrage at the National Observer notes how, in terms of climate pollution, Alberta and Saskatchewan are heading in the opposite direction from the rest of Canada.
• Many Canadians, displaced by the collapse of the oil economy, have gone south to Texas. Global News reports.
• Will the divisions in the United States only get deeper? How bad will it get? MacLean’s considers.
• The chaos in Iran, and the terrible death toll, deserve to be noted. Is the Islamic Republic nearing, if not its end, some other transition? Open Democracy theorizes.
• Terry Glavin at MacLean’s notes how governments around the world are facing crises of legitimacy, here.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy notes a new detailed study suggesting that asteroid Hygeia is round. Does this mean it is a dwarf planet?
• The Buzz notes that the Toronto Public Library has a free booklet on the birds of Toronto available at its branches.
• Crooked Timber looks forward to a future, thanks to Trump, without the World Trade Organization.
• D-Brief notes how the kelp forests off California were hurt by unseasonal heat and disease.
• Bruce Dorminey notes an impending collision of supergalactic clusters.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how judgement can complicate collective action.
• Language Hat looks at the different definitions of the word “mobile”.

Language Log looks at the deep influence of the Persian language upon Marathi.

Marathi and Persian

• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how, if anything, climate scientists make conservative claims about their predictions.
• Marginal Revolution wonders if planned power outages are a good way to deal with the threat of wildfires in California.
• The NYR Daily looks at the ethnic cleansing being enabled by Turkey in Kurdish Syria.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There interviews archeologist Arthur Lin about his use of space-based technologies to discovery traces of the past.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks at the staggering inequality in Chile, driver of the recent protests.
• At Roads and Kingdoms, Anthony Elghossain reports from the scene of the mass protests in Lebanon.
• Drew Rowsome tells how his balcony garden fared this year.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at stellar generations in the universe. (Our sun is a third-generation star.)
• Strange Company looks at the murder of a girl five years old in Indiana in 1898. Was the neighbor boy twelve years old accused of the crime the culprit?
• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine takes a look at social mobility in France.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little considers economic historians and their study of capitalism.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the pro-Russian policies of the Moldova enclave of Gagauzia, and draws recommendations for Ukraine re: the Donbas.

[NEWS] Ten Window on Eurasia links

• What will become of the Azerbaijani language in education in Iran? More here.
• Is a Russia-Belarus state union feasible? More here.
• Is Estonia, as some would have it, a viable model for the Finnic Mordvin peoples of the Russian interior? More here.
• Will Russia be happy with its alliance with China if this makes it a secondary partner, a relatively weaker exporter of resources? More here.
• How many Muslims are there in Moscow, and what import does the controversy over their numbers carry? More here.
• Is the Russian fertility rate set to stagnate, leading to long-term sharp decline? More here.
• If 10% of the Russian working-age population has emigrated, this has serious consequences for the future of Russia. More here.
• Irredentism in Kazakhstan, inspired by the example of Crimea, is just starting to be a thing. More here.
• The decline of Russian populations in the north of Kazakhstan, and the growth of Uzbeks, is noteworthy. More here.
• The different Russian proposals for the future of the Donbas, an analyst notes, are built to keep Ukraine a neutral country. More here.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that mysterious Boyajian’s Star has nearly two dozen identified analogues, like HD 139139.
• James Bow reports from his con trip to Portland.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog notes the particular pleasure of having old friends, people with long baselines on us.
• Centauri Dreams describes a proposed mission to interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
• The Crux notes how feeding cows seaweed could sharply reduce their methane production.
• D-Brief notes that comet C/2019 Q4 is decidedly red.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a claim that water-rich exoplanet K2-18b might well have more water than Earth.
• Gizmodo reports on a claim that Loki, biggest volcano on Io, is set to explode in a massive eruption.
• io9 notes that Warner Brothers is planning a Funko Pop movie.
• Joe. My. God. notes the claim of Donald Trump that he is ready for war with Iran.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how people in early modern Europe thought they could treat wounds with magic.
• Language Hat considers how “I tip my hat” might, translated, sound funny to a speaker of Canadian French.
• Language Log considers how speakers of Korean, and other languages, can find word spacing a challenge.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the partisan politics of the US Supreme Court.
• At the NYR Daily, Naomi Klein makes a case for the political and environmental necessity of a Green New Deal.
• Peter Watts takes apart a recent argument proclaiming the existence of free will.
• Peter Rukavina tells how travelling by rail or air from Prince Edward Island to points of the mainland can not only be terribly inconvenient, but environmentally worse than car travel. PEI does need better rail connections.
• The Russian Demographics Blog examines how different countries in Europe will conduct their census in 2020.
• Window on Eurasia shares the arguments of a geographer who makes the point that China has a larger effective territory than Russia (or Canada).
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at a 1971 prediction by J.G. Ballard about demagoguery and guilt, something that now looks reasonably accurate.
• Arnold Zwicky considers models of segregation of cartoon characters from normal ones in comics.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the extreme millisecond pulsar IGR J17062−6143.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal to intercept objects of extrasolar origin like ‘Oumuamua.
• The Crux looks at how researchers are discovering traces of lost hominid populations in the DNA of contemporary humans.
• D-Brief notes a crowdsourcing of a search for intermediate-mass black holes.
• Gizmodo notes the impending production of a new working Commodore 64 clone.
• The Island Review notes people of the Norway island of Sommarøy wish to make their island, home to the midnight sun, a #TimeFreeZone.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the art that has been produced in the era of digital addiction.
• Language Log looks at how, in Iran, the word “Eastoxification” has entered into usage alongside the older “Westoxification.”
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money looks at the many likely failings of a Corbyn foreign policy for the United Kingdom.
• The LRB Blog notes that opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu has been re-elected as mayor of Istanbul.
• The Map Room Blog links to various maps of the Moon.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper looking at markets in Lagos, suggesting they are self-regulating to some degree.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains when the earliest sunrise and latest sunset of the year is, and why.
• Towleroad shares an interview with Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, a same-sex couple married for nearly a half-century.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the open approach of the Russian Federation to Russian diasporids is not extended to diasporas of its minority groups, particularly to Muslim ones like Circassians and Tatars.
• Arnold Zwicky considers some Pride fashion, with and without rainbows.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Québec City, San Jose, Tehran, Hong Kong

• Real estate in Hamilton, Ontario, is quite affordable by GTA standards. Global News reports.
• Québec City has a new farmer’s market to replace an old. CBC reports.
• San Jose, California, is set to embark on a grand experiment in cohousing, CityLab reports.
• These vast abandoned apartment blocks in the desert outside of Tehran speak of economic underperformance, to say the least. Messynessychic has it.
• Now that Hong Kong has not just competition from other cities in China but is finding itself outmatched by the likes of Shenzhen and Shanghai, the city-state’s bargaining power is accordingly limited. The SCMP reports.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Architectuul notes the recent death of I.M. Pei.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes what, exactly, rubble-pile asteroids are.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about definitions of home.
• Centauri Dreams considers white dwarf planets.
• The Crux notes how ultra-processed foods are liked closely to weight gain.
• D-Brief observes that a thin layer of insulating ice might be saving the subsurface oceans of Pluto from freezing out.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the critical role played by Apollo 10 in getting NASA ready for the Moon landings.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the American government’s expectation that China will seek to set up its own global network of military bases.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina reports on the Soviet Union’s Venera 5 and 6 missions to Venus.
• Far Outliers looks at the visit of U.S. Grant to Japan and China.
• Gizmodo notes a recent analysis of Neanderthal teeth suggesting that they split with Homo sapiens at a date substantially earlier than commonly believed.
• io9 notes the sheer scale of the Jonathan Hickman reboots for the X-Men comics of Marvel.
• Joe. My. God. shares the argument of Ted Cruz that people should stop making fun of his “space pirate” suggestion.I am inclined to think Cruz more right than not, actually.
• JSTOR Daily notes the wave of anti-black violence that hit the United States in 1919, often driven by returned veterans.
• Language Hat shares a recognizable complaint, written in ancient Akkadian, of bad customers.
• Language Log shares a report of a village in Brittany seeking people to decipher a mysterious etching.
• This Scott Lemieux report at Lawyers, Guns and Money about how British conservatives received Ben Shapiro is a must-read summary.
• Benjamin Markovits at the LRB Blog shares the reasons why he left his immigrant-heavy basketball team in Germany.
• Marginal Revolution looks at one effort in Brazil to separate people from their street gangs.
• The NYR Daily looks at how ISIS, deprived of its proto-state, has managed to thrive as a decentralized network.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw tells of his experiences and perceptions of his native region of New England, in southeastern Australia.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes how the Chang’e 4 rover may have found lunar mantle on the surface of the Moon.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes that while Argentine president Mauricio Macri is polling badly, his opponents are not polling well.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of things to do in see in the Peru capital of Lima.
• The Signal examines how the Library of Congress engages in photodocumentation.
• Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal explains how he is helping native insects by planting native plants in his garden.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how scientific illiteracy should never be seen as cool.
• Towleroad notes the questions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as to why Truvada costs so much in the United States.
• Window on Eurasia notes how family structures in the North Caucasus are at once modernizing and becoming more conservative.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes how the distribution of US carriers and their fleets at present does not support the idea of a planned impending war with Iran.
• Arnold Zwicky examines the tent caterpillar of California.

[AH] Five #alternatehistory maps from r/imaginarymaps: Germany, Britain, Africa, Japan, Iran

• r/imaginarymaps imagines a Germany united along religious lines, Protestant areas falling under Prussia and Catholic ones under Austria.
• Reddit’s imaginarymaps imagines a republican Great Britain. When could republicanism have taken off in the British Isles as a whole?
• Reddit’s imaginarymaps shares a map of a former Portuguese colony of Zambezia, a Lusophone nation stretching from the Atlantic at Namibia east through to Mozambique.
• This r/imaginarymaps map, imagining a Japan (and northeast Asia generally) split into sheres of influence by rival European powers, treaty ports and all, surely describes a worst-case scenario for 19th century Japan. How likely was this?
• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines an Iran that, following a 9/11-style attack by Lebanese terrorists in Moscow, ends up partitioned between Soviet and US-Arab spheres of influence.

[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.