[LINK] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Broadsides' Antonia Zerbisias writes about Castor Semenya's heartbreakingly bad treatment by the media.


• Centauri Dreams talks about laser launch technology, the amazingly detailed discovery of the extrasolar planet CoRoT-7b, and the reasons for communicating with extraterrestrial civilizations.


• Far Outliers describes how the exchange of firearms for hogs on Tahiti started a series of wars.
  
• Hunting Monsters reports on the latest depressing news from Fiji.


• Joe. My. God reports that a South Carolina teen whose insurance company dropped him after he tested HIV-positive has been awarded damages of $US 10 million.


• Noel Maurer examines the massive cost overruns in the private sector, concentrating on the Albertan oil sands' development.


• Normblog considers the most commonly offered reasons for discouraging Jewish assimilation and boosting the number of Jews in the world and finds them unconvincing.


• Towleroad reports on how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church--I think the autonomous one under the Patriarch of Moscow--rejoices that Elton John can't adopt Ukrainian children. We also learn how violent Iraqi homophobes are using Internet chat room to brutally murder gays in that poor country.


• Torontoist reports that the Burj Dubai isn't going to take away the CN Tower's record as the tallest free-standing building in the world. No, I don't understand how.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Ilya Somin suggests that the strong association of American Jews with the left in the modern United States might be explained by a distaste of the Religious Right associated with conservatism.


• Window on Eurasia wonders if Turkey, home to a large Abkhaz diaspora, might be the next country to recognize Abkhazia's independence, as well as reporting on how many prominent Ukrainians want a security guarantee against Russia.