[LINK] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

First off, I'd like to welcome pauldrye's blog Passing Strangeness to my blogroll. This blog takes a look at some of the more unexpected events and facts in human history.

• Centauri Dreams examines recent research suggesting that, with sufficiently high-resolution telescopes, it might be possible for astronomers to observe the large-scale features of ecologies and biomes of distant Earth-like worlds.


• Edward Hugh at A Fistful of Euros reports on the ongoing Russian economic slump.


• Far Outliers touches briefly upon the interesting question of the existence of African slave diasporas within Africa as well as without, as well as upon the plight of Japan's burakumin, a traditionally discriminated-against caste.


• Gideon Rachman's speaks for me when he concludes that, at least in the short term, no one won from the Gaza unpleasantness.


• Joe. My. God reports that the New York Post is calling for a war on Canada geese in response to their apparent involvement in the recent Hudson River plane crash.


• Marginal Revolution quotes Kevin Drum's analysis of Sweden's response to its own early 1990s banking crisis.


• Passing Strangeness discusses the implications, including nearly-averted wars, surrounding an intermittantly present island in the central Mediterranean--the Two Sicilies, Britain, even France all cared about it.


• Slap Upside the Head lets us know that Google has come out squarely in favour of marriage equality in California.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer makes the point that high crimes rates don't mean that the Mexican state will collapse and that Brazil's recent good fortune reflects a recovery from bad conditions as much as anything else.


• Torontoist confirms that the number of new students at York University can be expected to collapse, with "a 10.8% drop in overall student applications to York, and a 15% drop in the number of students who ranked York as their first choice for schools they wanted to apply to."


• Windows on Eurasia discusses the importance of Abkhazia's recent decision to produce its own stamps on its relations with Georgia and the wider world. Stamp collectors can expect to profit, at least.