[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Bruce Dorminey notes that NASA plans to launch a CubeSat into lunar orbit for navigational purposes.
• Far Outliers looks at an instance of a knight seeking to avoid battle.
• io9 looks at how Boris Johnson ludicrously compared himself to the Hulk.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how climate change helped make civil war in Syria possible.
• Language Hat looks at a bad etymology for “province” published by a reputable source.
• Marginal Revolution notes that the United States has had below-average economic growth since 2005. (The new average, I suppose?)
• Drew Rowsome reviews the new Stephen King novel, The Institute.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains that, with K2-18b, we did not find water on an Earth-like exoplanet.
• Strange Company looks at a peculiar case of alleged reincarnation from mid-20th century Canada.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, although North Caucasians marry at higher rates than the Russian average, these marriages are often not reported to officialdom.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the possible meanings, salacious and otherwise, of a “Boy Party”.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the remarkably eccentric orbit of gas giant HR 5138b.
• Centauri Dreams notes the impact that large-scale collisions have on the evolution of planets.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber noted yesterday that babies born on September 11th in 2001 are now 18 years old, adults.
• The Crux notes that some of the hominins in the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain, ancestors to Neanderthals, may have been murdered.
• D-Brief reports on the cryodrakon, a pterosaur that roamed the skies above what is now Canada 77 million years ago.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the political artwork of Jan Pötter.
• Gizmodo notes a poll suggesting a majority of Britons would support actively seeking to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.
• io9 has a loving critical review of the first Star Trek movie.
• JSTOR Daily shares, from April 1939, an essay by the anonymous head of British intelligence looking at the international context on the eve of the Second World War.
• Language Log notes a recent essay on the mysterious Voynich manuscript, one concluding that it is almost certainly a hoax of some kind.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the future of the labour movement in the United States.
• Marginal Revolution considers what sort of industrial policy would work for the United States.
• Yardena Schwartz writes at NYR Daily about the potential power of Arab voters in Israel.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections explains why, despite interest, Australia did not launch a space program in the 1980s.
• Drew Rowsome provides a queer review of It: Chapter Two.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how government censorship of science doomed the Soviet Union and could hurt the United States next.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in the Volga republics, recent educational policy changes have marginalized non-Russian languages.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a glossy, fashion photography-style, reimagining of the central relationship in the James Baldwin classic Giovanni’s Room, arranged by Hilton Als.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: names, declawing, outdoors, Washington D.C., Pet Sematery

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D-Brief was the first news source I noted that explained a study demonstrating that, yes, cats did recognize their names.

Banning the declawing of cats on account of the inhumanity of that action makes perfect sense to me. CTV News reports.

CityLab is perfectly correct to note that, ferociously efficient predators they are, cats should no be let out into the wild.

This Washington Post report of a study seeking to track the location of cat populations in the wild in Washington D.C. is fascinating, and important.

Cinema Blend tells of the specialization, and sensitivity, of the eight different cats used to play the cat Church in the new movie Pet Sematery.

[URBAN NOTE] Four Toronto links: Yonge Street, Scarborough Bluffs, It, Yayoi Kusama

• I agree almost entirely with the argument of Alex Bozikovic that the time to revamp Yonge Street in North York for the future is now. The Globe and Mail has it.
• While I have never minded the fifteen minutes’ walk through Scarborough suburbia to the Scarborough Bluffs, a dedicated TTC route to the cliffs will be nice. blogTO reports.
• Torontoist does a nice job listing the various city locations where the recent It was filmed.
• blogTO makes me wonder if I will ever see the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors show at the AGO. Certainly I won’t if I don’t buy the tickets …

[URBAN NOTE] Four blogTO links: Niagara Falls, Kensington Market, 450 Pape, Toronto Book Garden

• Having visited Friday, I liked the blogTO report on the early days of Toronto’s love affair with Niagara Falls.
• blogTO shares photos of Kensington Market in the raw 1970s.
• The exterior of 450 Pape Avenue was used for the movie It, and the place is seeing Stephen King pilgrims already.
• The Toronto Book Garden, a lovely mini-park at Harbourfront keyed to literary Toronto, opened yesterday.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of uploading a digital “Golden Record” into the memory of New Horizons.
• Crooked Timber takes a look at American legal writer (and judge) Richard Posner’s embrace of pragmatism. What does it mean?
• D-Brief notes the rapid melting of the glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper considering ways to detect planets in orbit of red giants.
• The LRB Blog considers the potential for political tumult in Saudi Arabia, in the wake of arrests and rumours.
• The Map Room Blog links to a new gravity map of Mars, revealing the crust of that world to be less dense and more variable than thought.
• The NYR Daily looks at the South China Sea dispute in the wake of Indonesia’s newly restated claims.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at Philadelphia’s seasonal cookie–spiced wafer–wars.
• Drew Rowsome is a big fan of the movie adaptation of It.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that, for want of better options, the Donbas republics’ people might return to Ukraine.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper examining a potential relationship between stars’ magnetic fields and exoplanets.
• Hornet Stories links to the Instagram account of Tom Bianchi, still taking photos of Fire Island.
• Language Hat notes the death of Ognen Cemerski, a Macedonian who went to heroic lengths to translate Moby Dick into his language.
• Language Log notes an unusual hybrid Sino-Tibetan sign for a restaurant.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is appropriately savage with Hillbilly Elegy (at least of uncritical readings of said).
• Marginal Revolutions links to a paper noting French cities, unlike British ones, are much more tightly tied to old Roman settlements, away from the sea.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw calls for the return of the Australian $2 bill.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the aftermath of rampant electoral fraud in Angola. What will come next?
• Drew Rowsome takes a stand against, particularly in the context of Stephen King’s It, the now-common fear of clowns.
• Understanding Society takes a look at Erik Olin Wright’s thinking on possible utopias.
• Window on Eurasia notes potential contributions of Russophone Belarusians and Ukrainians to the Russophone world, and notes some controversy in Moscow re: widely-observed Muslim holidays at start of the school year.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Crasstalk’s MonkeyBiz wonders if Apple has jumped the shark and is just coasting on past achievements.
• Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell takes issue with Tony Judt’s dismissal of Stephen King. A good case can actually be made that King, through his fiction, is something of a public intellectual–a left-winger, at that.
• Daniel Drezner partially retracted his criticism of Mitt Romney after that man was caught on video talking about displacing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute’s resolution into the indefinite future, but also wonders whether Romney is actually seen as a credible antagonist and leader. What good is a posture based on strength if that strength is disbelieved?
• Geocurrents has a post describing the confluence of environmental catastrophe and local autonomy in the Ogoniland district of Nigeria’s polluted, unstable, Niger delta.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money’s Robert Farley took note of a proposal in the Canadian media to modernize the Avro Arrow as a new-generation warplane. Wouldn’t work, of course.
• Language Hat notes the completion of a dictionary of Demotic, the ancient Egyptian written in the time of Rome.
• Using highly-detailed poll data, Patrick Cain wonders if, suitably and plausibly redistricted, Ontario might return a Liberal majority.
• Supernova Condensate notes that the discovery of exoplanets in the young Beehive Cluster suggests planets can form and remain in orbit of their star(s) even in densely-packed star clusters.