[PHOTO] Onset of torrential rain in thunderstorm, Queen Street West

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at Abell 30, a star that has been reborn in the long process of dying.
• Centauri Dreams uses the impending launch of LightSail 2 to discuss solar sails in science fiction.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber, as part of a series of the fragility of globalization, considers if migration flows can be reversed. (He concludes it unlikely.)
• The Crux considers if the record rain in the Midwest (Ontario, too, I would add) is a consequence of climate change.
• D-Brief notes that the failure of people around the world to eat enough fruits and vegetables may be responsible for millions of premature dead.
• Dangerous Minds introduces readers to gender-bending Italian music superstar Renato Zero.
• Dead Things notes how genetic examinations have revealed the antiquity of many grapevines still used for wine.
• Gizmodo notes that the ocean beneath the icy crust of Europa may contain simple salt.
• io9 tries to determine the nature of the many twisted timelines of the X-Men movie universe of Fox.
• JSTOR Daily observes that the Stonewall Riots were hardly the beginning of the gay rights movement in the US.
• Language Log looks at the mixed scripts on a bookstore sign in Beijing.
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money argues that Jeremy Corbyn has a very strong hold on his loyal followers, perhaps even to the point of irrationality.
• Marginal Revolution observes that people who create public genetic profiles for themselves also undo privacy for their entire biological family.
• Sean Marshall at Marshall’s Musings shares a photo of a very high-numbered street address, 986039 Oxford-Perth Road in Punkeydoodle’s Corners.
• The NYR Daily examines the origins of the wealth of Lehman Brothers in the exploitation of slavery.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares a panorama-style photo of the Apollo 11 Little West Crater on the Moon.
• Drew Rowsome notes that classic documentary Paris Is Burning has gotten a makeover and is now playing at TIFF.
• Peter Rukavina, writing from a trip to Halifax, notes the convenience of the Eduroam procedures allowing users of one Maritime university computer network to log onto another member university’s network.
• Dylan Reid at Spacing considers how municipal self-government might be best embedded in the constitution of Canada.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle pays tribute to the wildflower Speedwell, a name he remembers from Watership Down.
• Strange Maps shares a crowdsourced map depicting which areas of Europe are best (and worst) for hitchhikers.
• Window on Eurasia notes the distribution of native speakers of Russian, with Israel emerging as more Russophone than some post-Soviet states.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: flooding, weather, towers, plants

• Rising water levels on the eastern beaches of Toronto are a growing concern. The Toronto Star reports.
• Earlier this month, a poster at r/toronto shared photos of Toronto Islands flooding, here.
• The City of Toronto is warning of flood risks near the Lake Ontario shoreline. CBC reports.
• blogTO notes the unusually cold weather this May.
• Urban Toronto looks at the Grenadier Square tower near High Park.
• Toronto Life shares photos of the Tokyo Smokes cannabis shop, in the old HMV at Yonge and Dundas.
• James Burt at Spacing identifies some invasive plants in the Toronto area.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: raccoons, High Park sakura, dog parks, marijuana, Queen Video

• Jamie Bradburn looks back at vintage coverage in the Toronto press from 1952 about some fortunate raccoons.
• blogTO notes that this weekend will seek peak bloom in the cherry blossoms of High Park.
• Edward Brown at Spacing writes about the decades-long struggle to get dog parks accepted in Toronto.
• CBC Toronto notes controversy in Etobicoke surrounding a local brewery’s decision to process medical marijuana on site.
• This National Post article by Sadaf Ahsan looks at how now-defunct Queen Video contributed hugely to pop culture in Toronto.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy identifies the most distant globular cluster known to exist around the Milky Way Galaxy, PSO J174.0675-10.8774 some 470 thousand light-years away.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the strange ring of the Kuiper Belt dwarf planet Haumea.
• Crooked Timber looks at an ill-constructed biography of Eric Hobsbawm.
• D-Brief notes an experiment that proves antimatter obeys the same laws of quantum mechanics as regular matter, at least insofar as the double-slit experiment is concerned.
• Earther notes that life in Antarctica depends critically on the presence of penguin feces.
• Imageo looks at awesome satellite imagery of spring storms in North America.
• The Island Review interviews Irene de la Torre, a translator born on the Spanish island of Mallorca, about her experiences and thoughts on her insular experiences.
• Joe. My. God. notes a new deal between Gilead Pharmaceuticals and the American government to make low-cost PrEP available to two hundred thousand people.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which The Great Gatsby reflects the norms of the Jazz Age.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money is rightly critical of the Sam Harris suggestion that white supremacism is not an ideology of special concern, being only a fringe belief.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution solicits questions for an upcoming interview with demographer of religion Eric Kaufmann.
• Russell Darnley at Maximos62 shares cute video of otters frolicking on the Singapore River.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel asks when the universe became transparent to light.
• Arnold Zwicky shares photos of his blooming flower gardens.

[PHOTO] Varsity Stadium during rain, CN Tower obscured by cloud

[PHOTO] Afternoon sky a perfect Derek Jarman blue, north up Yonge

The sky that I could see above me at Yonge and Eglinton Saturday afternoon was the most perfect blue I could imagine.