[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• The Crux takes a look at how those people who actually are short sleepers work.
• D-Brief looks at a study noting how the moods of people are determined by the strengths of their phones’ batteries.
• Dan Lainer-Vos at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at statistical certainty at a time of climate change.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how, and why, the New England Puritans believed human bone might have medical power.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the press coverage that created the alleged Clinton uranium scandal.
• The Map Room Blog shares maps noting that, already, since the late 19th century much of the world has warmed more than 2 degrees Celsius.
• Strange Company shares a diverse collection of links.
• Daniel Pfau at Towleroad writes about possible deep evolutionary roots of homosexuality.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the Russian republic of Karelia, despite its border with Finland, suffers from repression.

[AH] Five r/imaginarymaps #alternatehistory maps: Polabians, Huguenots, Malays, Finland, Ireland

• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines the survival of a Slavic people of east Germany to nation-statehood, not the extant Sorbs but the more obscure Polabians.
• Was there ever a possibility, as imagined in this r/imaginarymaps map, of a Huguenot polity forming and seceding from France?

This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a decidedly different Malay world, with a fragmented Indonesia.

• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Finland that grew sharply, to include much more of Karelia and even North Ingria.
• What would have come if, as suggested here, Northern Ireland had been repartitioned in the 1920s, most of the west and south passing to independent Ireland?

[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?

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Israeli non-profit SpaceIL plans to launch a lander to the Moon in February.
• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber writes about the material power of ideas and knowledge in 2019.
• D-Brief shares the latest images from Ultima Thule.
• Earther notes that temperatures in the Arctic have been higher than they have been for more than one hundred thousand years, with moss spores hidden by ice caps for millennia sprouting for the first time.
• Far Outliers notes the economic importance, in the early 20th century, of exports of tung oil for China.
• JSTOR Daily notes the uneasy relationship of many early psychoanalysts with the occult.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes an alarming report from California showing how the police have been deeply compromised by support for the far right.
• Gillian Darley at the LRB Blog writes about a now-forgotten Tolstoyan community in Essex.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution notes a new book by Kevin Erdmann arguing that the United States has been experiencing not a housing bubble but a housing shortage.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the Boomerang Nebula, a nebula in our galaxy colder than intergalactic space.
• Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy looks at libel law as it relates to the Covington schoolboys’ confrontation.
• Window on Eurasia notes a window, in the early 1990s, when the independence of the republic of Karelia from Russia was imaginable.
• Arnold Zwicky free-associates around blue roses, homoerotic and otherwise.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait evaluates the doability of Elon Musk’s proposal for colonizing Mars.
• blogTO notes that Casa Loma will be transformed into a haunted house for the month of October.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes NASA’s belief that Europa almost certainly has watery plumes.
• False Steps shares an early American proposal for a lunar base.
• Far Outliers notes the location of multiple massacres in Chinese military history.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a far-right group is unhappy Alabama judge Roy Moore has been suspended.
• The Map Room Blog notes the acquisition of a British-era map of Detroit.
• Marginal Revolution speculates as to whether a country’s VAT promotes exports.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes the end of the Rosetta space probe.
• The Russian Demographics Blog charts increases in maximum life expectancy over time.
• Seriously Science notes a paper arguing that small talk diminishes happiness.
• Towleroad reports on a gay Cameroonian asylum seeker in the United Kingdom at risk of deportation.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes Instapundit’s departure from Twitter without noting why Reynolds is leaving.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the complexities surrounding the possibility of another Finno-Ugric festival.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• blogTO describes how Parkdale’s Harry’s diner is going to be revamped.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly describes the joys of making friends through the blogosphere.
• Centauri Dreams looks at Kuiper Belt object Niku and its strange orbit.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the controversy over Google’s map of Palestine.
• Marginal Revolution notes how Faroese women leave their home islands at a disproportionately high rate.
• Peter Rukavina describes time spent with his son kayaking Charlottetown harbour.
• Strange Maps depicts the shift of the global economic centre of the world.
• Window on Eurasia describes the decay of provincial Karelia.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• blogTO notes the expansion of condo development further east on the waterfront.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes theropod dinosaurs were also good scavengers.
• Language Hat shares translator jokes.
• The LRB Blog reports on the relocation of some refugees on Chios to a camp.
• Marginal Revolution links to a report suggesting that the misallocation of labour during the bubble is responsible for the slow recovery.
• The NYRB Daily suggests the AfD marks the reintroduction of nationalism into German politics.
• pollotenchegg maps demographic change in Ukraine in 2013.
• Torontoist examines pioneering dentist John G.C. Adams.
• Transit Toronto notes Bombardier’s delivery of the seventeenth streetcar.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi points out, looking to North Carolina, that of course boycotts are supposed to hurt.
• Window on Eurasia speculates that a Russian dissolution would not follow current political frontiers, and examines politics in the Republic of Karelia.

[OBSCURA] One scenario imagining the collapse of the Russian Federation

Earlier this month, Paul Goble at Window on Eurasia linked to “Экономические последствия распада РФ. Только факты, без эмоций”, translated by Google as “The economic consequences of the collapse of the Russian Federation. Just the facts, without emotion”. This article imagined a scenario where the Russian Federation would come apart at the seams, on ethnic and economic lines, as indicated by the map below.

In most cases, the independence of the subjects of the current Russian Federation will allow for economic growth and an increase in the standard of living of the population because they will not have to send so much of their income to Moscow whose “’elites’” care only about how to remain in power and how much wealth they can take from the population.

There are three reasons, the Ukrainian analysts say, why the regions and republics may separate from the USSR: “a desire to independently control their own natural resources, nationality concerns, and close economic ties with other countries. In many cases, these are mixed, but the analysts consider each group in turn.

The regions and republics which might separate from Russia in order to control their natural resources include Bashkortostan, the Astrakhan Republic, Buryatia, Komi, a unified Don-Kuban, Sakha, the Siberian Republic, Tatarstan, the Urals Republic, Yugra, and the Orenburg Republic, all of which would see their incomes rise with independence.

The regions and republics which might separate from Russia in order to promote the needs of their titular nationality include a united Altay, Adygeya, Kalmykia, Mari-El, Mordvinia, Tyva, Chuvashia, Daghestan, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Osetia-Alania, Karachayevo-Cherkesia, and Ingushetia.

And those who might separate because of close ties with foreign countries are the Far Eastern Republic, the Kaliningrad Republic, Karelia, and the Kurile Islands.

This scenario strikes me as unlikely, requiring a thorough collapse of the Russian Federation. What would it take for areas with Russian majorities of population to want to separate from a Russian state? There are reasons why Québec and Catalonia have stronger separatist movements than, say, Manitoba and Essex. Why would regions with non-Russian majorities necessarily want to reject links with Russia for an uncertain independence? The most likely candidates for secession from Russia are to be found in the North Caucasus, home to mostly non-Russian populations with some measure of cultural distance from Russia, but separatism is dim even in autonomist Tatarstan.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At Alpha Sources, Claus Vistesen links to his podcast wherein he argues that too much blame is being placed on the IMF.
• blogTO notes a documentary on a CBC prop warehouse.
• City of Brass celebrates the Fourth of July and the end of Ramadan.
• Crooked Timber is scathing about the IMF, the European Union, and Syriza.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper that studies Gliese 229B, one of the nearest and first-found brown dwarfs.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that half of the banded iron formations extant on Earth are products of microbes.
• Geocurrents notes how non-inevitable the Saudi state was within its current borders.
• Language Log looks at the use of Sinitic characters in modern Korea.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money tackles pea guacamole.
• Marginal Revolution shares photos of an abandoned Soviet space shuttle.
• Towleroad notes that Cuba has managed to halt mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphillis.
• Window on Eurasia notes the anti-Ukrainian slur Khokhol’s unacceptability, looks at controversy over national textbooks in Tatarstan, and examines a dying Finnish-language magazine in Karelia.
• The Financial Times‘ The World warns of radical Islam among Albanians.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Big Picture shares photos from the International Day of Yoga, on the 21st.
• blogTO notes that the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art has moved from West Queen West to the Junction.
• Centauri Dreams considers Titan.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that the Messinian salinity crisis may not have led to the end of the Mediterranean entirely, and looks at evidence for Venus’ active volcanoes.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at Rhodesia in the white supremacist imagination and considers ways to engage, or not, with white racism.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw notes the discussion on developing northern Australia.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer does not understand why the Eurozone is so reluctant to set up a more viable deal with Greece.
• Transit Toronto notes federal government support for regional mass transit in the GTA.
• Window on Eurasia notes Russian hostility towards a Karelian youth movement.