[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports suggestions the bizarre happenings at Boyajian’s Star could be explained by an evaporating exomoon.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how the crowdsourced evScope telescope is being used to support the Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans.
• The Crux explains the phenomenon of misophobia.
• D-Brief shares suggestions that an asteroid collision a half-billion years ago released clouds of dust that, reaching Earth, triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.
• Dangerous Minds shares video of a perhaps underwhelming meeting of William Burroughs with Francis Bacon.
• io9 makes the case for more near-future space exploration movies like Ad Astra.
• Joe. My. God. notes a Trump retweeting of the lie that Ilham Omar celebrated on 9/11.
• JSTOR Daily notes how fire could destroy the stressed rainforest of the Amazon.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how few judges in the US have been impeached.
• The LRB Blog looks at how the already tenuous position of Haitians in the Bahamas has been worsened by Dorian.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the importance of the integrity of official maps in the era of Trump.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the political importance of marriage ceremonies in Lebanon and Gaza.
• Drew Rowsome interviews the Zakar Twins on the occasion of their new play Pray the Gay Away, playing in Toronto in October.
• The Russian Demographic Blog shares statistics on birthrates in the different provinces of the Russian Empire circa 1906.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the first experiment done on the photoelectric effect, revealing quantum mechanics.
• Window on Eurasia looks at growing anti-Chinese sentiments in Central Asia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at “The Hurtful Dog”, a Cyanide and Happiness cartoon.

[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 Monday links

• Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen argues compellingly that stories featuring queer protagonists should also have other queer characters (among other things).
• James Bow talks about the origins and the progress of his new novel, The Sun Runners.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the recent hopeful analysis of Ross 128b, still a strong candidate for a relatively Earth-like world.
• Crooked Timber starts a discussion on having elections in the European Parliament being based on transnational lists.
• D-Brief notes a hauntingly musical study of the plasma of Saturn’s ring system.
• Hornet Stories reports on N.K. Jemisin’s article that bigots are not good writers of fiction. I’m inclined to agree: People who cannot imagine the lives of others as legitimate have issues with plausible characterization.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Nicola Sturgeon opened Pride in Glasgow on the same day as Trump’s visit, saying there was where she wanted to be regardless.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the winding history of New York State’s Adirondacks, as a protected area.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the evidence for the unwitting involvement of Glenn Greenwald and Wikileaks as agents of Russia in support of Trump.
• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, considers the genesis of the phrase “Sherpas of the Beltway.” How problematic is it?
• Marginal Revolution suggests that Canadian public opinion in support of open immigration rests on borders being controlled.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that the strange behaviour of Boyajian’s Star can be explained by dust alone.
• Window on Eurasia speculates that Russia might be on the verge of another wave of regional reorganizations, amalgamating some provinces and other territories into others.
• Arnold Zwicky points out the achievements of Samantha Allen, a journalist writing for The Daily Beast.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross takes a look at the dystopian future we’ve created for ourselves with the help of Big Data.
• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology net notes the discovery of an Ancient Beringian population involved in the peopling of the Americas.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the awesome possibility of life on pulsar planets, i.e. on planets that survived or were made by a supernova.
• Centauri Dreams suggests that dust, not ET artifacts, may explain the odd light coming from KIC 8462852, aka Boyajian’s Star.
• Crooked Timber considers the surprisingly mixed emotions of unions regarding the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.
• Far Outliers takes a look at the diverse non-German soldiers serving in occupied France in the Second World War.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas considers parallels between the mentality of Silicon Valley and totalitarianism.
• Hornet Stories considers the questionable idea of a “gold star” or “platinum star” gay person. What, exactly, is being celebrated?
• JSTOR Daily notes the gendered nature of the supermarket of mid-20th century North America.
• Language Hat celebrates the establishment of Hakka as an official language in Taiwan, as does Language Log.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that the previous Oregon laws against self-service gas stations helped boost employment for the vulnerable.
• Lingua Franca considers the concept of “ghosting”, linguistically at otherwise.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining how creativity has clustered in cities in the past.
• Out There shares the arguments of Charles Miller for infrastructure to support crewed expansion and settlement in space, starting with the Moon.
• Peter Rukavina talks about his last visit, with his son, to the Sears store in Charlottetown.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that 2018 may be the year we finally take a picture of a black hole, Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy.
• To what extent is history probabilistic? Understanding Society considers.
• Window on Eurasia notes controversy in Siberia over Chinese investors who come in and disregard local sensitivities and regulations.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlyn Kelly talks about the rejuvenating effects of “forest bathing”. I quite agree, myself.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the idea of Project Blue, a dedicated astronomy satellite to look for exoplanets at Alpha Centauri.
• D-Brief notes that astrophysicists have verified an eclipse described in the Bible circa 1207 BCE.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to another KIC 8462852 study, finding its dimming is best explained by circumstellar debris.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog notes the importance of being careful with the use of numbers.
• Far Outliers explores how Singapore managed to position itself as a safe destination for tourists visiting Asia.
• Language Hat links to a beautiful passage from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora on the messiness of language.
• Language Log takes a look at the phenomenon of headlessness in the propaganda of North Korea.
• The NYR Daily looks at the sad short life of Stanwix Melville.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares multiple images, with multiple perspectives, of Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw finds the use of Section 44 of the Australian Constitution to disqualify politicians as dual nationals ridiculous.
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands shares some beautiful photos of Saint-Tropez.
• Arnold Zwicky meditates on language, moving from the strange names of the parts of flowers to the X-Men.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes that the most plausible explanation for Tabitha’s Star, KIC 8462852, exists in partial eclipses of the star by dust clouds.
• D-Brief notes that the giant stick insects of Lord Howe Island did survive in their forced diaspora.
• The Dragon’s Gaze takes a look at Kelt-9b, a planet so close to its star that it is literally melting away.
• Language Hat looks at a website set up by inhabitants of the Faroe Islands to translate Faroese.
• The LRB Blog shares some of the past appearances of Nobel-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro in the pages of the LRB.
• Neal Ascherson at the NYR Daily looks at the mechanism of the referendum, in Scotland and Catalonia and elsewhere.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the import of Mike Pence’s promise to send Americans to the Moon again.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how the cosmic phenomenon of inflation explains the entire modern universe.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov is trying to establish himself as a Russian political figure.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• blogTO reports on the history of Toronto’s Wellington Street.
• Dangerous Minds introduces me to the grim American gothic that is Wisconsin Death Trip. What happened to Black River Falls in the 1890s?
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to hypotheses about KIC 8462852, one suggesting KIC 8462852 has four exoplanets, another talking about a planet’s disintegration.
• The Dragon’s Tales links to a paper modeling the mantles of icy moons.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at small city NIMBYism in the Oregon city of Eugene.
• The LRB Blog reports on toxically racist misogyny directed towards Labour’s Diane Abbott by Tory minister David Davis, “misogynoir” as it is called.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reports on the elections in Indonesia, a country increasingly important to Australia.
• Peter Rukavina describes how the builders of his various indie phones, promising in their own rights, keep dropping them.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer is optimistic that NAFTA will survive mostly as is.
• The Volokh Conspiracy examines the ruling against Trump’s immigration order on the grounds that its planners explicitly designed it as an anti-Muslim ban.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that the treaty-based federalism of Tatarstan within Russia is increasingly unpopular with many wanting a more centralized country.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Apostrophen’s ‘Nathan Smith notes that his husky loves the winter that has descended on Ottawa.
• blogTO notes Toronto’s continuing housing price spikes.
• D-Brief notes that chimpanzees apparently are built to recognize butts.
• Dead Things reports on discoveries of the first land vertebrates.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes the weird patterns of KIC 8462852.
• Marginal Revolution considers Westworld’s analogies to the Haitian Revolution.
• Steve Munro looks at the latest on the TTC budget.
• Window on Eurasia notes the controversial nature of the new official doctrine of Russia’s nationhood.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes Niagara Falls’ new light show.
• Body Horrors reports on a 1980 epidemic of MRSA among Detroit drug users.
• Centauri Dreams describes the final orbits of Cassini around Saturn.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper suggesting Tabby’s Star is being star-mined.
• Language Log looks at an element of Chinese slang regarding telecommunications.
• The LRB Blog argues against blaming migrants for problems on the left.
• The Planetary Society Blog discusses the continued Dawn mission around Ceres.
• Savage Minds talks about the need to slow down in a time of crisis.
• Seriously Science notes research suggesting whales jump out of the water for purposes of communication.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that, in the United States, flag burners cannot be stripped of their citizenship.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russians would like the West to make up on Russia’s terms and looks at the embassies and delegations of Russia’s component regions.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• blogTO praises the food court of Village by the Grange.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks about the importance of self-care in times of stress.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that KIC 8462852 does seem to have faded throughout the Kepler mission.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Planet Nine may be especially faint in the infrared and looks at the challenges mapping polar regions on Titan.
• Imageo notes how melting of the ice cap continues in the Arctic Ocean.
• Language Hat reports on a new script for the Fulani language.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that people who blame identity politics for the victory of Trump were not exactly non-supporters of the main.
• Marginal Revolution considers the consequences of bribing the American president.
• The NYRB Daily shares Charles Simic’s deep concerns for the future of the United States.
• Jim Belshaw’s Personal Reflections discusses Australia as a target for immigration and calls for honesty in discussions on migration.
• Peter Rukavina reports on the visit of then-Princess Elizabeth and her husband 65 years ago.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi makes the fair point that he can hardly be expected to know what his Trump-era novels will be like.
• Window on Eurasia compares Russia’s happiness with Trump’s election to its elation over Obama’s in 2008, and looks at how Russia is facing decline on a lot of fronts.