[REVIEW] Ben Bova, Titan

Science fiction author Ben Bova's Titan, the latest installment in his Grand Tour series, unfortunately shares in the weaknesses of too many of his other books. Are the characters cardboard creations awkwardly voicing several distinct political positions in the context of simplified and frankly unbelievable geopolitical and astronomical environments that might not even been fact-checked (Ontario Lacus appears to be the only lake-like body on Titan, for instance)? Yes, yes, yes. Oh, and isolated underpopulated space colonies can easily strike out on their own.

[DM] "How do rich Asians adapt to unbalanced sex ratios?"

I've a post up at Demography Matters that takes a look at this question. The richer countries--I considered Taiwan and South Korea--seem to respond to shortages of women of marriageable age by importing women from poorer regions of Asia. An astonishingly high percentage of marriages and births in these countries occur with at least one foreign-born partner. One only hopes that these countries will be able to embrace their new multiethnicity, if only for the sake of their futures.

[SHWI] What if the West stayed out of Yugoslavia? Define "out."

Inspired by certain web-Chomskyite critiques of Western policy in Yugoslavia, I speculated on soc.history.what-if as to the likely consequences of Western non-intervention in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Non-intervention, I defined in the broadest sense possible, i.e. no recognition of Slovenia. It turns out that this non-intervention was never very likely, not given how close Yugoslavia was to western Europe. Surprise, surprise.