[LINK] Some Friday links

First off, I'd like to welcome pauldrye's blog Passing Strangeness to my blogroll. This blog takes a look at some of the more unexpected events and facts in human history.

• Centauri Dreams examines recent research suggesting that, with sufficiently high-resolution telescopes, it might be possible for astronomers to observe the large-scale features of ecologies and biomes of distant Earth-like worlds.


• Edward Hugh at A Fistful of Euros reports on the ongoing Russian economic slump.


• Far Outliers touches briefly upon the interesting question of the existence of African slave diasporas within Africa as well as without, as well as upon the plight of Japan's burakumin, a traditionally discriminated-against caste.


• Gideon Rachman's speaks for me when he concludes that, at least in the short term, no one won from the Gaza unpleasantness.


• Joe. My. God reports that the New York Post is calling for a war on Canada geese in response to their apparent involvement in the recent Hudson River plane crash.


• Marginal Revolution quotes Kevin Drum's analysis of Sweden's response to its own early 1990s banking crisis.


• Passing Strangeness discusses the implications, including nearly-averted wars, surrounding an intermittantly present island in the central Mediterranean--the Two Sicilies, Britain, even France all cared about it.


• Slap Upside the Head lets us know that Google has come out squarely in favour of marriage equality in California.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer makes the point that high crimes rates don't mean that the Mexican state will collapse and that Brazil's recent good fortune reflects a recovery from bad conditions as much as anything else.


• Torontoist confirms that the number of new students at York University can be expected to collapse, with "a 10.8% drop in overall student applications to York, and a 15% drop in the number of students who ranked York as their first choice for schools they wanted to apply to."


• Windows on Eurasia discusses the importance of Abkhazia's recent decision to produce its own stamps on its relations with Georgia and the wider world. Stamp collectors can expect to profit, at least.

[LINK] "Iceland hunts the euro"

The subtitle of this article in the most recent Economist, "Why a crisis-hit Iceland may apply to join the European Union as soon as March," says it all.

The European commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, is a strong ally. A Finn, Mr Rehn says that Iceland “would complement the EU, both philosophically and economically”. Its strict fish-management policies have been praised by the fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg (who is from Malta, a small island that has no selfish interests in cod). But there will be a new European Commission in the autumn. To catch both Mr Borg and Mr Rehn in their current jobs, an application must go in by April at the latest. The commission could rush through a formal positive opinion in six months (Iceland already applies two-thirds of EU laws). Iceland could then become a formal candidate in late 2009, when Sweden (another ally) holds the rotating EU presidency, and a full EU member by 2011. Membership of the single currency would take a bit longer, but pro-EU politicians say the simple act of applying and working towards euro convergence would reassure the markets.

The article makes the point that with the Icelandic krona lacking any credibility and the Icelandic economy risking isolation, adopting the euro may be the only way out for Iceland and in order to do that without wrecking relations with Brussels Iceland will have to join the European Union. The country will likely have to compromise on its exclusive control over its fisheries, but the anonymous author suggests that the country may be able to obtain temporary opt-outs.

In the past, I've blogged about "West Norden", the Nordic North Atlantic island societies of the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. In the past, I've suggested that the Icelandic precedent of political independence from the metropole may be catching. With Iceland's sharp move towards the European Union, I can't help but wonder whether Greenland and the Faroes--both polities which have formally opted out from the European Union--may end up paradoxically reinforcing their political independence by joining the EU as member-states in their own right.

[LINK] "Opposition leaders chastise PM Harper over budget deficit leak"

Opposition leaders are unhappy that the first they learned of the Canadian federal government's impending budget deficit was not in Parliament, but through leaks to the Canadian press (the conservative National Post, to be specific).

TORONTO — It was "irresponsible" and "absolutely inappropriate" for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to allow the release of details on the size of the federal deficit that will be contained in Tuesday's budget, the Liberal and New Democrat leaders charged Friday.

A senior Conservative official said Thursday the Harper government will run a deficit of $34 billion this year and $30 billion next year.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said the government obviously wanted to get the bad news out of the way before the budget.

"I asked Mr. Harper not to play games like that," Ignatieff told a Toronto business audience.

"He just can't help himself. He thinks it is all just some kind of game."

NDP Leader Jack Layton suggested the leak of the deficit figure was a sign Harper is worried about being defeated by a coalition of Liberals and New Democrats supported by the Bloc Quebecois.

"It's the sort of manoeuvre one does when you're afraid of losing your job. It's absolutely inappropriate," Layton told a Toronto audience.

"I can remember when Mr. Harper himself would attack any government that allowed any leak of budget information ahead of a budget. So he's once again doing something that he himself has opposed in the past."

Ignatieff agreed leaking the deficit figures was political positioning by the prime minister, and said it was "at the edge of violating" budget secrecy.

"It could have market impact, and I'm a traditionalist about these things," he said. "I don't think you let the numbers out before you've read the budget in the House of Commons.

"(Harper) is still playing games and those games have got to stop."

By way of comparison, Canada's GDP--measured in Canadian dollars--is some 1.64 trillion dollars measured at current prices.

So far, Ignatieff has been trying to place the Conservative minority government on a tight leash by keeping active the possibility of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, fitting his stated preference that there not necessarily be a coalition, but that there could be a coalition if necessary. Conservative Party stunts like this could make the coalition government necessary in his eyes.