[LINK] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

Readers might notice that instead of posting my weekly links aggregation in the morning, I chose to post in the evening. What do you think of this choice?

Anyway, let's get down to business.

• 3 Quarks Daily blogs about a worrying rumour that the founder of mercenary company Blackwater has been killing witnesses against him.


• Andrew Barton at Acts of Minor Treason questions whether or not the modern world's predilection for safety is good or paralyzing.


• Centauri Dreams reports on the search for fragments of the planetismal which hit Earth and so created the moon, a bizarrely large low-density gas giant, and evidence of a massive planetary collision a hundred light years away.


• Far Outliers comments on the extent to which Xinjiang has been only loosely held by China.


• Douglas Muir at A Fistful of Euros reports on the lawsuit lodged against a Greek journalist who documented a long history of complicity with Milosevic's Serbia and its atrocities, while Edward Lucas takes apart claims that rising HDI indices correspond to rising fertility rates.


• Hunting Monsters examines the problems facing the near-country of Kosovo.


• Joe. My. God lets us know that New York City coffeehouses are cracking down on WiFi users who just occupy space after their first cup.


• Language Log considers
  
• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley reviews book examining Italy's disastrous performance in the First World War.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that the discrepancies in life exptancies between the United States and countries with socialized medicine can be more than accounted for by better habits among non-Americans.


• Slap Upside the Head announces that an Ontario political candidate who talked about the need to kill gay people was convicted of inciting hatred, and examines the claim of a Malaysian doctor that gay sex makes one more susceptible to swine flu.


• Spacing Toronto's Shawn Micallef reminisces about the old Toronto beach area of Sunnyside.


• Strange Maps features the first road map of the United Kingdom.


• Towleroad points to the Crazy of many of the opponents to Obama's health-care plan.


• Will Baird reports on a massive tropical storm on Saturn's atmosphere-heavy moon Titan.


• Window on Eurasia reports on a children's book driven by Tatar nationalism.