[LINK] Links Roundup

[rfmcdonald]

It's been rather too long since I've visited my corner of the blogosphere, and so, a perhaps inexhaustive survey.

• Edward Hugh writes at Bonoboland that Japan's economic recovery might be endangered by its very tight labour market, itself the product of what is now a negative rate of population growth. China's booming in the meantime, not least because of outsourcing from Japan.


• Centauri Dreams suggests, based on the latest astronomical surveys, that planetary systems in multiple star systems may be much more common than once was thought.


• autopope examines
the mechanics of the United Kingdom's new national identity card system. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they're completely unworkable.

• City of Brass points to the fallout of Fukuyama's defection from the neocon camp to, well, the reality-based community, and Charles Krauthammer's continued issues with reality.


• Francis Strand meditates on the sadness of funerals without mourners.


• At The Glory of Carniola, Michael M. highlights the kerfuffle over the Wikipedia versus Brittanica encyclopedia comparison recently published in Nature. Among other things, he notes that one edition of Britannica--spectacularly incorrectly--claims that Slovenia's war of independence lasted several years.


• Opinionated Lesbian's Eleanor Brown judges the theory that Einstein actually stole the theory of relativity from his wife to be false, then wonders why people would like this to be true.


• Pearsall's Books is now inactive, but the owner has been kind enough to assemble a collection of his best posts for ease of reading.


• Geitner Simmons' Regions of Mind features an in-depth survey of the United States' religious geography. It makes for good reading. Nice county-level maps, too.

Ryan Pollard reports tyhat the Encounters with Canada program is about to be axed. Say it ain't so! Perhaps more usefully, sign the petition.