[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: High Park, rent, Sri Lanka, vertical farm, Zizek vs Peterson

• The cherry blossoms of High Park are expected to start blooming earlier than expected, perhaps reaching peak bloom in a week’s time. blogTO reports.
• blogTO notes that someone was trying to rent out a bed in an occupied apartment for a rent of $C 600 a month.
• A Toronto Star investigation reveals the prominence of ghost hotels, enabled by Airbnb, in making the rental housing market that much more difficult.
• At NOW Toronto, Liam Barrington-Bush considers what renters in Toronto can learn from their activist counterparts in Berlin and Barcelona.
• Aparita Bhandari wrote at The Discourse about how Sri Lankans living in Scarborough responded to the recent terrible bombings.
• blogTO writes about the new vertical farm set to be built at University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.
• The VICE account of the debate between Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson reveals much.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo taken by the Lunar Reconnaissane Observer looking straight down on Chang’e-4.
• The Crux shares an argument for preserving the Apollo landing areas as part of the common heritage of humanity.
• D-Brief, looking at ancient evidence from Sri Lanka, suggests human beings evolved as hunters of smaller primates like monkeys.
• JSTOR Daily notes the evidence suggesting the limited potential of wildlife to adapt to heat waves.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the racial tonedeafness of Bernie Sanders.
• The LRB Blog takes a look at qanats, the ingenious Persian underground irritation system that has spread worldwide.
• Marginal Revolution considers what Singapore will do with its sovereign investment fund, estimated to be worth at least a half-trillion US dollars.
• Window on Eurasia considers the effects that a merger of Belarus with Russia might have on Russia’s own federal units.
• Arnold Zwicky notes the fun that others have had with puns on Vladimir and Estragon.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Cleveland, Osaka and San Francisco, Port City, Sihanoukville

• CityLab wonders how the new CAQ government of Québec will come into conflict with Valérie Laplante in Montréal, a city that wants mass transit not highways and that voted against the CAQ.
• CityLab considers what could become of The Mall, the neglected central park of Cleveland.
• Osaka just cut its ties with San Francisco over that city’s erection of a monument honouring the comfort women of Second World War Japan. VICE reports.
• This article in Guardian Cities examining the Chinese creation of a virtually new and highly autonomous city, Port City, on Sri Lanka to support China’s aspirations in the Indian Ocean is revealing.
• Kris Janssens at the Inter Press Service looks at how the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville is being transformed by Chinese investment and trade into a regional metropolis.

[NEWS] Five science links: BC fires, urban animal intelligence, Oort clouds, stars, dark energy

• The fires of British Columbia are so vast that their smoke is reaching the west of France. Ici Radio-Canada reports.
• Are the unique challenges posed by modern cities making the animals who live in them smarter? The Atlantic examines the issue.
• Universe Today notes that the Oort clouds of other stars may well be visible on microwave frequencies.
• Universe Today reports on the very recent finding that star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy shut down for billions of years, that we are in the middle of a second wave of star formation.
• Do not fear: There is at least one hypothetical strategy that an arbitrarily advanced future civilization could adopt to minimize the effect of dark energy on its exploration of the universe. Universe Today reports.

[NEWS] Five links on China’s economic rise: Belt and Road, insecurity, Sri Lanka, Montenegro

• This explainer from The Guardian explaining what, exactly, is the famed Belt and Road policy of China is informative.
• This article at The Conversation considers whether or not China actually has the edge needed to lead the world. More likely, perhaps, is fragmentation in the face of the different weaknesses of China and the United States.
• This article in The Atlantic by David Frum suggesting that the huge surge of Chinese investment overseas is driven not so much by strength as insecurity–why so many second homes away from China?–makes a compelling argument.
• This Maria Abi-Habib article from The New York Times takes a look at how China was able to secure the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka. Critically, the fecklessness of the Sri Lankan goverment, dominated by Sinhalese nationalists, was key.
• This Reuters article looks at how the government of Montenegro has gone badly into debt to finance a Chinese-planned highway of dubious economic sense.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Markham, Hamilton, Rotterdam, Hambantota, Warsaw

• In response to a desire to remove an almost bizarre controversial statue of a cow from its location in a neighbourhood in Markham, the owner has sued the city for $C 4 million. The Toronto Star reports.
• The mayor of Hamilton, Ontario, would like housing incorporated into shopping malls, to deal with issues of housing and retail in one go. Global News reports.
• Brexit threatens to decidedly destabilize the picture for the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. The Independent reports.
• Bloomberg notes that the controversial Chinese-owned port of Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, is doing terrible business.
• Newly-discovered documents provide confirmation of the belief that the Nazis planned to utterly destroy Warsaw. The National Post reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Kanagaratnam, Bloordale, Bloor and Dundas, Etobicoke, Bloor West

• Fatima Syed and Wendy Gillis tell the story of Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, a Sri Lankan Tamil whose failed application for refugee status in Canada after travelling on the MV Sun Sea led directly to his death at the hands of McArthur. The Toronto Star has it.
• The developer hoping to transform the southwest corner of Bloor and Dufferin has opted to redesign the development following community criticism. CBC reports.
• The sheer scale of the planned development on the southeast corner of Bloor Street West and Dundas Street West is such that a new neighbourhood would come into being. Wow. The Toronto Star has it.
• The plan for SmartTrack would leave the residents of an Etobicoke development next to a GO rail yard subject to terrible levels of noise and air pollution. The Toronto Star reports.
• Is Bloor Street West going to become the next Yonge Street, an uninterrupted string of high-density development? Not without differences, at least. The Toronto Star looks at the issue.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Skandaraj Navaratnam, Yonge Street, K-Pop, King Street, Kazenelson

• This Fatima Syed interview with Navaseelan Navaratnam, brother of suspected McArthur victim Skandaraj Navaratnam missing since 2010, is terribly sad. The Toronto Star has it.
• While it may be too late for Eliot’s Bookshop, I do hope that Toronto City Council can arrange some kind of functional tax arrangement for the businesses which survive on Yonge. The Toronto Star reports.
• blogTO notes how a stray tweet from Toronto Hits 93 started an Internet flamewar between fans of two different K-Pop boy bands.
• Ben Spurr notes how some transit advocates have decided to help out King Street by eating at area restaurants, over</u at the Toronto Star.
• Global News reports on how the Ontario Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Vadim Kazenelson on charges of criminal negligence stemming from an incident where four workers he was supervising died in a scaffolding collapse.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bruce Dorminey notes that a Brazilian startup hopes to send a Brazilian probe to lunar orbit, for astrobiological research.
• Far Outliers notes the scale of the Western aid funneled to the Soviet Union through Murmansk in the Second World War.
• Hornet Stories notes that Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of the play adapted into the stunning Moonlight, now has a new play set to premier on Brodway for the 2018-2019 season, Choir Boy.
• JSTOR Daily notes the conspiracy behind the sabotage that led to the destruction in 1916 of a munitions stockpile on Black Tom Island, of German spies with Irish and Indian nationalists.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is critical of the false equivalence in journalism that, in 2016, placed Trump on a level with Hillary.
• The Map Room Blog notes that fitness app Strava can be used to detect the movements of soldiers (and others) around classified installations.
• Marginal Revolution links to a New York Times profile of World Bank president Jim Young Kim.
• Roads and Kingdoms talks about the joys of stuffed bread, paan, in Sri Lanka.
• Towleroad notes that a Russian gay couple whose marriage in Denmark was briefly recognized in Russia are now being persecuted.
• At Whatever, John Scalzi tells the story of his favourite teacher, Keith Johnson, and a man who happened to be gay. Would that all students could have been as lucky as Scalzi.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the pronatalist policies of the Putin regime, which have basically cash subsidies to parents, have not reversed underlying trends towards population decline.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes concerns over Northern Ireland’s frontiers, looks at how Japanese retailers are hoping to take advantage of Vietnam’s young consumers, examines the desperation of Venezuelans shopping in Colombia, looks at Sri Lankan interest in Chinese investment, suggests oil prices need to stay below 40 dollars US a barrel for Russia to reform, observes that Chinese companies are increasingly reluctant to invest, and suggests Frankfurt will gain after Brexit.
• Bloomberg View gives advice for the post-Brexit British economy, looks at how Chinese patterns in migration are harming young Chinese, suggests Hillary should follow Russian-Americans in not making much of Putin’s interference, and looks at the Israeli culture wars.
• CBC considers the decolonization of placenames in the Northwest Territories, notes Canada’s deployment to Latvia was prompted by French domestic security concerns, and looks at an ad promoting the Albertan oil sands that went badly wrong in trying to be anti-homophobic.
• The Inter Press Service considers the future of Turkey and looks at domestic slavery in Oman.
• MacLean’s looks at China’s nail house owners, resisting development.
• The National Post reports from the Colombia-Venezuela border.
• Open Democracy considers the nature of work culture in the austerity-era United Kingdom, looks at traditions of migration and slavery in northern Ghana, examines European bigotry against eastern Europeans, and examines the plight of sub-Saharan migrants stuck in Morocco.
• Universe Today notes two nearby potentially habitable rocky worlds, reports that the Moon’s Mare Imbrium may have been result of a hit by a dwarf planet, and reports on Ceres’ lack of large craters.