[PHOTO] Good morning, Moon

Good morning, Moon
Originally uploaded by randyfmcdonald

Astronomical photography is a sub-genre of photography that interests me in the abstract, A minor irony: I first became aware of the charge-coupled device technology driving digital cameras through my childhood reading of Astronomy magazine. Full circle.

[META] Blogroll Expansion

Five new blogs!

New Zealand blog BlueJacket 1862 is an interesting links blog, with commentary on all manner of things. This post looking at how jockeying over Israeli-Lebanese maritime boundaries near offshore natural gas deposits is contributing (politically, of course) to electricity shortages.

Tom's to thank for pointing me to Michael in Norfolk: Coming Out in Mid Life, a blog by a Virginian gay man with the title-stated biography concerned with GLBT issues, American politics, and non-bloggish stuff. He shared the news that Christopher Lee, an American senator who resigned just the other week for his Craigslist flirtations with a woman night his wife, may have resigned to avoid getting caught for trying to pick up transgendered women.

The Ukrainian-language pollotenchegg is a great blog concerned with showing--in maps!--Ukrainian demographic trends. This most recent one, showing natural increase in Ukraine--relatively strong in parts of the west, not nearly so much in the east, particularly the northeast, is characteristic.

The biology blog Progressive Download, by one John Farrell at the Forbes blog site, is sparse but interesting. This
report on human genetic knowledge is noteworthy.

Finally, I can't say enough good things about the blog Technosociology, a blog by Zeynep Tufekci concerned with examining the interactions between Internet networks and physical social networks. Her most recent post about the inevitability of leadership's emergence in even the most decentralized groups is worth reading.

Go, read.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton supports the unions in Wisconsin on the simple ground that the mere threat of unionization forces employers to treat their workers more nicely.


• BAG News Notes is properly scathing about anti-abortion ads targeted at New York City's African-American community which manage to position African-Americans as uniquely irresponsible as per established stereotypes.


• The Burgh Diaspora notes that recession-0hit Las Vegas is trying to learn from Detroit's struggles in keeping its own fleeing skilled and its youth. Might they return?


• Centauri Dreams features a guest post from Kelvin Long, a player in the British Interplanetary Society, on the movement's history and importance.


• Crooked Timber's Chris Bertram approves of this, the "Arab 1848," calling Qatar's al-Jazeera-sponsoring emir an Enlightenment despot in the tradition of Prussia's Frederick II, and suspecting American leverage is going to be much weakened.


• Daniel Drezner points out that, from his perspective, China's purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds etc haven't led to growing Chinese influence over the United States.


• At The Dragon's Tales, Will Baird has more about the latest generation of stealth fighters. Europe apparently has none in the works, instead prioritizing drones.


• Eastern Approaches reports on the various economic and military connections remaining between the states of the former Yugoslavia and Libya.


• Extraordinary Observations' Rob Pitingolo blogs--approvingly, I think--about the ongoing disappearance of gas stations in Washington D.C., hoping their disappearance will leave more city-friendly neighbourhoods. Ah, but there's clean-up costs! a commenter notes.


• GNXP points to recent studies--possibly with questionable samples--arguing that, contrary to stereotypes, Brazil is not mostly African by ancestry but rather mostly European.


• Michael in Norfolk links to reports that one-quarter of counties in the United States are losing population.


• The normally acute Norman Geras at Normblog seems to be entering into an unpleasant sort of dialogue with a co-ethnic critical of diasporid beliefs. Unimpressed here by neither comment, actually.


• The Search's Douglas Todd notes the claims of the Canadian Cosnervative Party to have captured the Roman Catholic vote without, well, having any signs of captured it.


• Slap Upside the Head features a guest poster who points out that Dr. Phil doesn't offer good advice to parents with non-gender-stereotypical children at all.

[FORUM] How do you deal with information overload?

Two months after the appearance of its counterpart by the Economist, last night I finally found for purchase--and purchased--Le Monde's 2011 issue of its annual Bilan du monde. It's nothing that spectacular, just another thick/fine-printed magazine-size overview of the world as seen by Le Monde, but it's an interesting supplement and an interesting perspective and thus necessary. I try to keep myself as informed as possible.

Too informed? News sources, blogs, Facebook and Twitter feeds, E-mails--they all come in at great speed. To be honest, I'm not sure that I'm necessarily doing such a great job at keeping up with all of them, or of doing well by them. Competency matters. At the same time, so does breadth.

How do you deal with pressures of information? Do you fine-tune your intake? Do you redouble your speed reading? Am I making too much of this? (I think so, at least for myself. I think.)

Discuss.