[BLOG] Some Sunday links

[rfmcdonald]

• 80 Beats' Smitri Rao makes me wish that Canada, too, had a black R&D budget, since the United States Air Force came up with a very cool and equally mysterious space plane.


• Acts of Minor Treason's Andrew Barton points out that even though streetcars are an old technology, they're still a very useful technology.


• Daniel Drezner makes the point that just because the new governments in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan are friendly to Russia than their predecessors, it doesn't mean that they're hostile to the United States. (It also doesn't mean that they're not democratic, but that's a different issue.)


• Extraordinary Observations' Rob Pitingolo strongly dislikes escalators and elevators, which he sees as essentially pointless wastes of energy.


• At A Fistful of Euros, Douglas Muir writes about how Kosovo now has its own cell phone network, notwithstanding the Serbian government's unwillingness to let the UNMIK-mandated authority operate.


• Geocurrents blogs about how the devastation of the Aral Sea has devastated the environment of the aquatic Karakalpak of Uzbekistan.


• Joe. My. God reports that long-time Toronto gay bathhouse Club Toronto is about to become a straight swingers' club.


• Marginal Revolution cites a new study suggesting that increased acceptance of queer men corresponds to decreased rates of HIV infection, by encouraging low-risk men to be active and by discourage some high-risk men from taking risks.


• Michael's Bloor-Lansdowne blog reveals how the Dufferin Mall's site was occupied for fifty years by a race track.


• At Passing Strangeness, pauldrye writes about how mysterious radio signals emanating from spots within the former Soviet Union turned out to be over-the-horizon radar systems.


• Slap Upside the Head mocks Bolivian president Evo Morales for blaming homosexuality on chicken consumption.


• At Sublime Oblivion, Anatoly Karlin criticizes Vladimir Putin for not having done enough, early enough, to deal with Russia's socioeconomic problems, in addition to his unrealistic plans for expanding Russian influence and power despite a lacking infrastructure.


• Towleroad writes about the news that Archie comics now has an out gay teen character, and more, than his first storyline isn't going to be the learning-to-be-tolerant one so typical of these introductions.


• Wasatch Economics' Scott Peterson suggests that the speed of the demographic transition in Mexico will diminish the number of immigrants to the United States from that country. Perhaps; then again, natural population decrease is quite compatible with mass emigration, as much of central and eastern Europe shows.


• Window on Eurasia cites an article suggesting, on the basis of a comment by a diplomat at the Russian embassy to Estonia, that Russia may explicitly recognize the occupation of the Baltic States.