[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 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 Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait shares a video of the expansion of supernova remnant Cas A.
• James Bow shares an alternate history Toronto transit map from his new novel The Night Girl.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes the Boris Johnson coup.
• The Crux notes a flawed study claiming that some plants had a recognizable intelligence.
• D-Brief notes the mysterious absorbers in the clouds of Venus. Are they life?
• Dangerous Minds shares, apropos of nothing, the Jah Wabbles song “A Very British Coup.”
• Cody Delistraty looks at bullfighting.
• Dead Things notes the discovery of stone tools sixteen thousand years old in Idaho which are evidence of the first humans in the Americas.
• io9 features an interview with authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz on worldbuilding.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a bill in Thailand to establish civil unions is nearing approval.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how using plastic in road construction can reduce pollution in oceans.
• Language Log looks to see if some police in Hong Kong are speaking Cantonese or Putonghua.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the perplexing ramblings and–generously–inaccuracy of Joe Biden.
• The LRB Blog asks why the United Kingdom is involved in the Yemen war, with Saudi Arabia.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the different efforts aiming to map the fires of Amazonia.
• Marginal Revolution reports on how some southern US communities, perhaps because they lack other sources of income, depend heavily on fines.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex literary career of Louisa May Alcott, writing for all sorts of markets.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the apparently sincere belief of Stalin, based on new documents, that in 1934 he faced a threat from the Soviet army.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at fixings, or fixins, as the case may be.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the hope of the controllers of Hayabusa2 to collect samples from asteroid Ryugu.
• D-Brief takes a look at how ecologists in Hawaii are using bird song to encourage invasive species of birds to eat local plants.
• Bruce Dorminey notes preliminary findings of astronomers suggesting that stars with relatively low amounts of metals might be more likely to produce potentially habitable Earth-size worlds.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas considers what, exactly, it means for a technology to be considered “neutral”.
• At JSTOR Daily, Hope Reese interviews historian Jill Lepore about the crisis facing American institutions in the 21st century. Is there a way forward?
• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the ongoing catastrophe in Yemen, aggravated terribly by Saudi intervention and supported by the West.
• Andrew Brownie at the LRB Blog notes how soccer in Brazil, producing stars against dictatorship like Sócrates in the early 1980s, now produces pro-Bolsonario figures.
• The NYR Daily notes the resistance of the Bedouin of al-Khan al-Ahmar to resist their displacement by Israeli bulldozers.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how, among other things, extreme temperature swings make the Moon an unsuitable host for most observatories apart from radio telescopes.
• Window on Eurasia notes the sheer scale of Russian immigration to Crimea after 2014, the number of migrants amounting to a fifth of the peninsula’s population.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about eight of her favourite places, most but not all still around for others to enjoy.
• Centauri Dreams responds to the vast ancient proto-supercluster Hyperion, dating to a point in time just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.
• The Crux considers the advent of light in the very early universe, with the emergence of the first supermassive stars just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of the youngest pulsar yet found in our galaxy, Kes 75 just 19 thousand light-years away and five hundred years old.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the history of explorer James Cook’s ship, the HMS Endeavour.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution links to his latest Bloomberg View column about Saudi Arabia, about how the very weakness of the Saudi state makes Saudi Arabia appeal to the United States as a partner in a way that a solider Iran cannot.
• Matthew Phelan at the NYR Daily writes about the menace of ecofascism, of a sort of localist environmentalism that crosses over into nationalism and even militant xenophobia.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog shares images of the newly-launched BepiColombo probe to Mercury, including some selfies.
• Drew Rowsome reports on A Night at the Bronze, a live version of the fame Buffy episode “Once More With Feeling” that will be staged Hallowe’en night at Buddies in Bad Times.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious 1910 murder of actor Weldon Atherstone.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Moldova’s Orthodox Christians are torn between rival national churches based in Romania and Russia.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy shares an image of Hyperion, a proto-supercluster of galaxies literally jawdropping in scope.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly asks an interesting question: Who is your rock, your support? Who is your gravel?
• Centauri Dreams notes a new paper suggesting a way to determine the size of undetected planets from the sorts of dust that they create.
• Crooked Timber notes the obvious, that neither China nor the United States would win in a war in the South China Sea.
• D-Brief ,a href=”http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/10/16/ganymede-moon-jupiter-world-tectonic-faults/”>notes that Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter and in the solar system, has tectonic faults in its icy crust.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Russia is interested in cooperating with India in space travel.
• David Finger at The Finger Post reports on his search for a Philly cheese steak sandwich in Philadelphia.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the way in which modern social networking creates a totalitarianism, enlisting people through games into supporting its edifice.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Thailand is preparing to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.
• JSTOR Daily notes the 19th century heyday of “mummy brown”, a paint pigment used by artists made of ground-up Egyptian mummies.
• Language Log notes that the expression “add oil”, originally from Chinese slang, is now in the OED.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the lies of Facebook about the popularity on online video dealt a terrible blow to journalism.
• Lingua Franca examines how the word “smarmy” came about and spread.
• Marginal Revolution notes the exceptional generosity of actor Chow Yun Fat, who is giving away his vast estate.
• Hugh Eakin at the NYR Daily takes a look at the role of the United States in mounting repression in Saudi Arabia, symbolized by the Khashoggi killing.
• Marc Rayman at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the achievements of the Dawn probe, at Ceres and Vesta and the points in between, on this its 11th anniversary.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a photo essay looking at the difficult treks of the Rohingya as they are forced to scavenge firewood from a local forest.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the homoerotic photography of James Critchley.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at what it was likely, in the early universe, when starlight became visible for the first time.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps debunks a map purporting to show post-Fukushima contamination of the entire Pacific, and has it with false and discouraging apocalyptic maps generally.
• Window on Eurasia takes a look at the deep divide between the Russian and Ukrainian nations.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams takes a look at how new technology makes access to deep-sky astronomical images easier than ever, allowing for the recovery of more data.
• The Crux considers the factors that make humans so inclined to believe in the existence of god and the supernatural, including our pattern-recognition skills.
• D-Brief shares the latest research into the origins of the atmospheric haze of Titan.
• Todd Schoepflin at the Everyday Sociology Blog has an intriguing post performing ethnography on the fans of the Buffalo Bills.
• At A Fistful of Euros, Alexander Harrowell notes one thing to take from the elections in Bavaria is the remarkable strength of the Greens, nearing the CDU/CSU nationally.
• io9 shares the delightful Alien-themed maternity photos of a British Columbia couple.
• JSTOR Daily looks at contesting visions of motherhood among American feminists in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Language Hat reports on “The Midnight Court”, a poem written in the 19th century in a now-extinct dialect of Irish.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes one astounding possible defense of Saudi Arabia faced with Jamal Khashoggi, that his death was accidental.
• Christine Gordon Manley shares with her readers her words and her photos of Newfoundland’s dramatic Signal Hill.
• The NYR Daily shares the witness of Käthe Kollwitz to the end of the First World War and the German Empire in 1918-1919.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog criticizes First Man for not showing the excitement of Armstrong and the other Apollo astronauts.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on one woman’s search for the Korean cornbread remembered by her mother as a Korean War refugee.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shares images of some of the most distant objects in the universe images by us so far.
• Strange Company expands upon the interesting life of early modern English travel writer Thomas Coryat, who indeed does deserve more attention.
• Window on Eurasia wonders where protests in Ingushetia regarding border changes with Chechnya are going.
• Arnold Zwicky explores the fable of the forest that identified too closely with the wooden handle of an ax.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the landing of the Franco-German MASCOT probe on asteroid Ryugu from the Japanese Hayabusa-2 probe.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares a powerful New York Times article she wrote about her health status.
• Centauri Dreams notes the continued fine-tuning of the New Horizons probe as it approaches Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule.
• D-Brief notes how the Gaia satellite has detected hundreds of hypervelocity stars heading towards the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, perhaps coming from other galactic neighbours like the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer writes about the possibilities opened up by learning another language.
• JSTOR Daily notes that, once, working-class children regularly roamed the night.
• Language Hat notes how the Maori remembered in their proverbs the disappearance of the moa, long after that species’ extinction in New Zealand.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money rejoices at the despair of the alt-right on learning their favourite pop star, Taylor Swift, supports the Democratic Party.
• Lingua Franca takes a look at the past usage of the phrase “cold civil war”.
• The LRB Blog writes about the profoundly disturbing case of the apparent murder, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution has a critical take on the concept of “Airspace”, the sort of shared minimalist public spaces enabled by modern technologies.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious Napoleonic-era haunting of the Upper Silesian castle of Slawensik.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps reports on the most common last names in different European countries, finding that local variations on “Smith” are exceptionally common.

[ISL] Five islands links: Kerguelens, Faroes, Hainan, Kuril Islands, Qatar

• The albatross of France’s sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands are facing pressure, alas. CNRS reports.
• The New Yorker takes a look at Koks, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Faroes that takes rare advantage of local food.
• The Chinese island-province of Hainan might be trying to position itself as an international tourism destination, but restrictions on the Internet continue. Quartz reports.
• Is a bare majority of the Kuril Islands’ population is of Ukrainian background? Window on Eurasia suggests it may be so.
• The intensity of the desire of Saudi Arabia’s government to literally make Qatar an island through canal construction worries me, frankly. VOX reports.

[ISL] Five islands links: Qatar, Boracay, Vanuatu, Shetlands, CocoCay

• Saudi Arabia is planning to dig a canal the length of its border with Qatar, making that peninsular polity and island one. That is … intense. Gulf News reports.
• The Filipino resort island of Boracay has been declared off-limits by President Duterte, at least until its environment is rehabilitated. The National Post reports.
• The establishment of a Chinese base in Melanesian Vanuatu would upset geopolitical calculations in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
• The Map Room Blog notes that some supporters of Scotland’s Shetland Islands are opposed to the idea of putting the archipelago, so far from the mainland, in inset maps.
• Royal Caribbean is making an island in the Bahamas, CocoCay, into a custom-designed resort at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Bloomberg reports.