[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

It's that time of the week again.

• Bad Astronomy observes that there seems to be evidence that there can be liquid water on the Martian surface for at least a few minutes, as has long been suspected, and observes that recent observations suggesting that many hot Jupiter planets--massive but closely-orbiting planets--orbit their sun in the direction opposite to their star's rotation have surprised a lot of people.


• Centauri Dreams suggests that the above-cited observations of hot Jupiters makes it unlikely that planetary systems with close-orbiting gas giants have worlds as potentially Earth-like as even Mars, never mind Earth.


• Crooked Timber is one blog among many reacting to a misbegotten libertarian's assertion that American women were freer in 1880 than now, reacting again to a reply by the libertarian that begins by discounting the concept of martial rape.


• What makes a country? Edward Lucas writes about the difficulties facing polities that don't quite enjoy general recognition as independent states.


• Far Outliers makes the point that the emergent middle classes of the Muslim world aren't starting their rise through the socioeconomic ranks by becoming more secular, if anything the contrary.


• Geocurrents' Martin Lewis blogs about the Kerguelens, a desolate French-owned archipelago in the Southern Ocean.


• Lawyers, Guns, and Money's Robert Farley doesn't think it at all likely that the United Kingdom and France will set up a joint submarine nuclear deterrent, for reasons of national prestige as much for logistics.


• Marginal Revolution suggests on the basis of a new study that Internet users aren't nearly as divided into rival political camps as some fear.


• Torontoist reveals that the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team had branded products in many Toronto-area stores a couple of decades ago.


• The Volokh Conspiracy takes a look at the problems posed by the adoption of UAV technology--unmanned, but armed, aerial probes--outside of the United States for the law of war.