[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul features a photo essay made by Evan Panagopoulos in the course of a hurried three-hour visit to the Socialist Modernist and modern highlights of 20th century Kiev architecture.
• Bad Astrronomer Phil Plait notes how the latest planet found in the Kepler-47 circumbinary system evokes Tatooine.
• Centauri Dreams looks at tide and radiation, and their impacts on potential habitability, in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
• Citizen Science Salon looks at how the TV show Cyberchase can help get young people interested in science and math.
• Crooked Timber mourns historian David Brion Davis.
• The Crux looks at how the HMS Challenger pioneered the study of the deeps of the oceans, with that ship’s survey of the Mariana Trench.
• D-Brief looks at how a snowball chamber using supercooled water can be used to hunt for dark matter.
• Earther shares photos of the heartbreaking and artificial devastation of the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil.
• Gizmodo shares a beautiful Hubble photograph of the southern Crab Nebula.
• Information is Beautiful shares a reworked version of the Julia Galef illustration of the San Francisco area meme space.
• io9 notes that, fresh from being Thor, Jane Foster is set to become a Valkyrie in a new comic.
• JSTOR Daily explains the Victorian fondness for leeches, in medicine and in popular culture.
• Language Hat links to an interview with linguist Amina Mettouchi, a specialist in Berber languages.
• Language Log shares the report of a one-time Jewish refugee on changing language use in Shanghai, in the 1940s and now.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the horror of self-appointed militias capturing supposed undocumented migrants in the southwestern US.
• Marginal Revolution reports on the circumstances in which volunteer militaries can outperform conscript militaries.
• At the NYR Daily, Christopher Benfey reports on the surprisingly intense connection between bees and mourning.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw, responding to Israel Folau, considers free expression and employment.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares a guest post from Barney Magrath on the surprisingly cheap adaptations needed to make an iPhone suitable for astrophotography.
• Peter Rukavina reports on the hotly-contested PEI provincial election of 1966.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains what the discovery of helium hydride actually means.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little praises the Jill Lepore US history These Truths for its comprehensiveness.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the growing divergences in demographics between different post-Soviet countries.
• Arnold Zwicky starts with another Peeps creation and moves on from there.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes that far-orbiting body 2015 TC387 offers more indirect evidence for Planet Nine, as does D-Brief.
• Centauri Dreams notes that data from the Gaia astrometrics satellite finds traces of past collisions between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.
• The Crux takes a look at the long history of human observation of the Crab Nebula.
• Sujata Gupta at JSTOR Daily writes about the struggle of modern agriculture with the pig, balancing off concerns for animal welfare with productivity.
• Language Hat shares a defensive of an apparently legendarily awful novel, Marguerite Young’s Miss Macintosh, My Darling.
• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, takes a look at the controversy over the name of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, going up to the recent referendum on North Macedonia.
• The LRB Blog reports on the high rate of fatal car accidents in the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia.
• Reddit’s mapporn shares an interesting effort to try to determine the boundaries between different regions of Europe, stacking maps from different sources on top of each other.
• Justin Petrone at North! writes about how the northern wilderness of Estonia sits uncomfortably with his Mediterranean Catholic background.
• Peter Watts reports from a book fair he recently attended in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes the new effort being put in by NASA into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on some beer in a very obscure bar in Shanghai.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the performance artist Lukas Avendano, staging a performance in Toronto inspired by the Zapotech concept of the muxe gender.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines the ocean-centric Spielhaus map projection that has recently gone viral.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the question of whether or not the Big Rip could lead to another Big Bang.
• Window on Eurasia notes the harm that global warming will inflict on the infrastructures of northern Siberia.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell considers the ecological fallacy in connection with electoral politics. Sometimes there really are not niches for new groups.
• Arnold Zwicky takes part in the #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob meme, this time looking at images of linguists.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers Juno’s photos of Jupiter’s poles.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes the discovery of another star that behaves much like mysterious Tabby’s Star.
• Far Outliers reports on the good reputation of the Chinese forces at Shanghai in 1937.
• Joe. My. God. notes a Christian site that claims gay sex is not sex.
• Language Hat reports on the problems of translating Elena Ferrante.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money and Noel Maurer are unimpressed by Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
• The New APPS Blog writes against faculty lock-outs.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw describes the Parers, a Catalan-Australian family.
• Window on Eurasia notes Ukraine’s recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, reports on how Russians resent Ukrainian refugees, and suggests the Russian economic crisis is finally hitting Moscow and St. Petersburg.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Big Picture shares photos from the eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about the importance of colleagues for solitary writers.
• D-Brief notes the rediscovery of the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove in Brazil, once believed extinct.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes reports of the discovery of massive planets via gaps in the protoplanetary disks of HL Tauri and HD 135344B.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes a paper making specific projections about the shape of the Kuiper Belt if Planet Nine was around.
• A Fistful of Euros speculates as to the severity of the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit recession.
• Language Log considers writing Shanghainese.
• The LRB Blog remembers Madeleine Lebeau, last survivor of the cast of Casablanca.
• Marginal Revolution engages with Peter Thiel’s funding of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes sterling work reclaiming distorted images from the Voyager probes.
• pollotenchegg reports on the origins of migrants to Kyiv.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer reports on Puerto Rico.
• Seriously Science notes that wild boar apparently wash their food before eating.
• Window on Eurasia looks at Putin’s traditionalism, wonders if there might be a Russian Olympics boycott to spare the country the shame of being excluded, speculates about the North Caucasus’ future within Russia, and reports Ukrainian worries of being isolated versus Russia.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• The Big Picture shares photos of a Shanghai neighbourhood that refuses to sell out to developers.

James Bow rates California rail.

• Centauri Dreams looks at the large dwarf planet 2007 OR10.
• Dangerous Minds notes a campaign by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist to raise funds to buy an airplane and a building.
• The Dragon’s Gaze looks at the Kepler-223 system.
• Language Hat looks at an astonishingly thorough German-led effort to publish a dictionary of Latin.
• The NYRB Daily assesses the Iran nuclear deal.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer considers Brazil and argues that any treachery in Sykes-Picot was less in the deal and more in the assumptions behind it.
• Transit Toronto notes the return of GO Transit’s seasonal trains to Niagara.
• Window on Eurasia notes Moscow’s refusal to allow Circassians a memorial march.

[PHOTO] Petitioners from Shanghai in New York City outside the United Nations, 2012

I’d forgotten about these pictures.

In June of 2012 as I was walking through Manhattan on a rather rainy day, I passed by the headquarters of the United Nations. On the opposite side of the street from the headquarters of the United Nations were three Chinese protesters, petitioning for redress.

I talked with them at some length. The gist of their complaints were that the Shanghai municipal government had confiscated their property without providing appropriate compensation, and that they wanted redress. Going to New York City and setting up a permanent protest outside the United Nations’ headquarters was, I suppose, their way of getting attention for their grievances, going one level above Beijing.

I wish I hadn’t lost the pamphlet they gave out. I wish they got the justice they deserved. I wish, honestly, that I could find out who they were. (Google is not being helpful.)

[NEWS] Some Sunday links

• Al Jazeera notes the effects of population aging worldwide, observes the quarantining of four individuals possibly exposed to Ebola, comments on the huge costs associated with reconstruction in eastern Ukraine, and reports on a conference held by the Vatican on the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.
• Bloomberg notes the recovery of house prices in Hungary, notes that elderly Koreans are being warned against speculative investments, looks at Southeast Asian Muslims going off to fight in Syria, notes the resistance of farmers to Thailand’s junta, quotes Angela Merkel’s comparison of the Ukrainian crisis to the decades-long Cold War and East Germany, looks at possible Russian capital controls and growing Spanish public indebtedness, points to the aging of Sweden’s nuclear reactors, looks at Catalonia’s separatists as they prepare for a controversial independence referendum, and warns the world about Japan.
• Bloomberg View notes the profound uncertainty over Ebola, suggests Shanghai cannot replace Hong Kong as a financial centre yet, looks at skyrocketing real estate prices at the far upper end of the New York City scene, and suggests that Hong Kong’s revolt will sputter out.
• CBC notes that Makayla Sault, a First Nations child who refused treatment for her leukemia, is relapsing, notes that global warming is leading Greenlanders to hunt more orcas, observes that the Islamic State has ended the Arab spring, and wonders what China will do with Hong Kong.
• IWPR notes the odd optimism of many eastern Ukrainians, looks at the problems of Syrian Armenian refugee schoolchildren in the Armenian school system, and notes controversy over the creation of a Russian satellite university in Armenia.
• National Geographic notes the new phenomenon of sanctuaries for former pet pigs, and suggests that threats to an Ottoman tomb could bring Turkey into Syria.
• Open Democracy notes the plight of Syrian Kurds, suggests that secularism is an alternative to oppressive religious identities, and criticizes European Union migration policy.
• Wired looks at Europe’s history of trying animals for crimes and examines Andy Warhol’s sketching of Blondie’s Debbie Harry on an Amiga.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• At 3 Quarks Daily, Tamuira Reid writes about the minefields associated with Romani identity, starting with the name.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes a paper suggesting terrestrial worlds may be able to form in systems with hot Jupiters.
• The Dragon’s Tales suggests that Japan is starting to investigate the possibility of orbital solar power satellites.
• Eastern Approaches notes the political controversies in Poland associated with the canonization of native son John Paul II.
• Joe. My. God. and Towleroad both note that Japan’s first lady Akie Abe rode in a float in Tokyo’s gay pride parade.
• Geocurrents notes that long-time contributor Asya Pereltsvaig will no longer be contributing.
• The New APPS Blog continues to observe the issues surrounding the Fermi Paradox.
• Torontoist notes, with photos, a Toronto church’s annual blessing of the bikes.
• Towleroad observes that a Buffalo, New York, school refused to share news of a gay alumnus’ wedding.
• Window on Eurasia warns that Putin wants to regain Soviet levels of power and domination, also touching upon the Russian belief that Ukrainians and Belarusians don’t have separate histories.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell recounts a book, Robert Bickers’ Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai, telling the story of an English expatriate fascist turned policeman in interwar Shanghai.

[NEWS] Some Sunday links

• The Globe and Mail profiles the growing political tensions within Thailand, increasingly polarized between populist rural areas and conservative urbanites.
• io9 suggests that Russia is continuing to prepare for a long-range mission to Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, to be launched in a decade’s time.
• Open Democracy’s Jamie Mackay describes how, in Venice, racism–especially anti-Asian racism–distracts and is used to distract Venetians from their city’s decline as an actual inhabited areas.
• The photos heavy metal cowboys of Botswana must be seen.
• The Atlantic Cities has noted Facebook’s utility in tracking global migration trends.
• Shanghaist observes that the Shanghai metro system is offering announcements in Shanghainese as well as in standard Chinese.
• The conclusion of a National Post columnist that Thor bests Superman–perhaps, by extension, Marvel besting DC–by virtue of having fun relatable characters is difficult to escape.
• Also in The Globe and Mail, the evolution of a bar in Bloordale–Bloor West and Lansdowne, just to my west–from a neighbourhood joint to something ore hipsterish is interesting.
• Should the abundance of vintage cars in Cuba, a guest writer at The Guardian writes, be seen merely as cute or rather as symptom of corrosive totalitarianism? (I say yes.)

[LINK] “A view of Shanghai”

Over at his blog, Gideon Rachman starts a discussion about the health of the Chinese economy by looking at the state of things in Shanghai.

I’m sure it is all too easy to be swept up by Shanghai fever. The view from the bar on the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Centre – otherwise known as the “Mori building”, after the architect – is quite stunning. Around you are the soaring skyscrapers of the new Pudong district, which barely existed a decade ago. On the other side of the bend in the river is the Bund, the graceful stretch of buildings which defined pre-war Shanghai. The most famous landmark on the Bund is the old HQ of the HongKongShanghai Bank, with its graceful cupola. These days HSBC are in a new tower in Pudong – and they are about to move into an even bigger skyscraper later this year. Shanghai is in the midst of a building frenzy. The Mori building is currently the tallest in China, but will soon be eclipsed by a rival next door. The new airport – in which I am spending rather more time than I’d hoped – is vast. No fewer than eight subway lines are currently under construction, in preparation for next year’s Shanghai Expo. And the lines that are already running are clean, quick and efficient.

[. . .]

The new Mori building is splendid – but only about a third of it is said to be rented. The gyrations of the stock market are hardly reassuring. The run-up earlier this year may reflect all the excess cash sloshing around the system, after the government’s stimulus package. But it’s not clear that this will be enough to compensate for the hammer blows to export industries. That is why the report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, claiming 40m job losses since the onset of the recession, is a useful corrective to euphoria induced by a view of Shanghai from a great height, with a beer in your hand.

Thoughts?