[PHOTO] Peonies' decline

These flowers, like all flowers, were beautiful while they lasted.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• blogTO notes that Toronto might be getting its own Arts Biennale like Venice.


• Centauri Dreams notes the detection of pebbles in the circumstellar disk of DG Tauri.


• Crooked Timber notes Nietzche's identification of the origins of trolling.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting that inflated hot Jupiters are sufficiently hot and massive to have self-sustaining nuclear fusion.


• The Dragon's Tales looks at ways of improving photosynthesis by genetic engineering.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that a successful Donald Trump run would be as unlikely as a Ronald Reagan run.


• Marginal Revolution considers the beneficial economic effects of competition between monotheisms.


• The Planetary Society Blog notes the advent of interplanetary cubesats.


• Peter Rukavina remixes a speech on Prince Edward Island to a techno beat.


• The Search reports from a conference on archiving E-mail.


• Torontoist tours the Pan-Am Athletes Village and wonders why we can't plan better.


• Towleroad notes massive support in Northern Ireland for marriage equality.


• Window on Eurasia notes ethnic conflict in a binational republic of the North Caucasus and observes political unrest in Yakutia.

[URBAN NOTE] "Man convicted in Via Rail terror plot may have schizophrenia"

Alyshah Hasham's Toronto Star report is actually not surprising. Hasn't there been some research suggesting that terrorists, particularly but not only ones who make use of suicide in their method, have serious psychological issues? Again going by press reports, much of Esseghaier's past behaviour has certainly seemed eccentric.

The man convicted by a jury of plotting to murder dozens of people and derail a Via Rail train may be schizophrenic and unfit to stand trial, according to an assessment conducted by a forensic psychiatrist ahead of a sentencing hearing scheduled to begin Monday.

The assessment of Chiheb Esseghaier was ordered in May at the request of a lawyer, or “amicus,” appointed to advise Esseghaier who has insisted on representing himself during the court process.

Esseghaier, 32, has repeatedly refused to participate in the proceedings, including his jury trial earlier this year, because he says he will only be judged by the laws of the Holy Quran, not the man-made Criminal Code.

Court heard Friday morning that the assessment by Dr. Lisa Ramshaw found Esseghaier suffers from grandiose delusions and paranoia, and that he may have schizophrenia. Ramshaw’s report also suggested that Esseghaier may not be fit to stand trial, prompting his amicus, Ingrid Grant, to ask the court to appoint a lawyer to act for Esseghaier.

This issue raises a number of complicated questions for the court to address, including whether a full hearing should be conducted to determine Esseghaier’s mental fitness and whether a lawyer should be ordered to represent him, said Superior Court Justice Michael Code.

[LINK] "Poll shows Justin Trudeau’s Liberals slipping further behind"

Donovan Vincent in the Toronto Star reports on a Forum Research poll suggesting the Liberals will slip even further in behind. Could the party recover from a second federal defeat, especially if the NDP continues to make inroads?

The federal Liberals are now trailing in third place behind the NDP and Conservatives who are tied for the lead in voter support, according to a new Forum Research poll.

The latest results, taken from a random sampling of 1,200 Canadian voters show the Conservatives and New Democrats tied at 32 per cent support each.

About one-quarter would vote Liberal (26 per cent) if a federal election was held today, the poll suggests.

If these results are projected onto a 338-seat House of Commons, the Conservatives would seize a minority government of 155 seats, 15 short of a majority, according to Forum.

The NDP would grab 120 seats, the Liberals 59, Forum says.

In tracking the race between the three leading parties, Forum results in the past year have shown the Liberals under Justin Trudeau go from being comfortably out front, to a three-way tie, to the current third-place position.

[LINK] "Why The World Might Be Running Out Of Cocoa Farmers"

NPR's Eliza Barclay makes a report that make sense of a lot of press coverage about West African cocoa. Of course there would be heavy recourse to child and slave labour if the cocoa plantations are unrenumative.

[T]he 2015 Cocoa Barometer [is] an overview of sustainability issues in the cocoa sector, written by various European and U.S. NGOs, and was released in the U.S. this week. And what they're really worried about is the people who grow the beans that are ground up to make our beloved treat.

"The world is running out of cocoa farmers," the report states. "Younger generations no longer want to be in cocoa. Older generations are reaching their life expectancy."

It's well known that most cocoa farmers live in extreme poverty. There are about 2 million small-scale farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast, the West African countries that produce at least 70 percent of the world's cocoa beans. The average cocoa farmer in Ghana earns 84 cents a day, while the average small farmer in Ivory Coast earns just 50 cents a day, according to the Barometer.

I met two women cocoa farmers at the World Cocoa Foundation's meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. Assata Doumbia tells me (in French, through a translator) that she and her husband are both in ECAM, a cooperative of 900 farmers in Ivory Coast, and that their income is "extremely low, almost nothing." What little they do earn goes straight to her husband.

"Men have all the control and decision-making power in the cocoa sector," she says, though she and a few other women are trying to change that for the 120 women in the cooperative.blockquote>

[URBAN NOTE] Graeme Hamilton of the National Post on the Kahnawake Mohawks

Graeme Hamilton of the National Post has an extended post looking at how the Mohawks of Kahnawake, outside of Montréal, are taking use of the jursidictional powers available to them to try to prosper. Some of these methods, involving exploiting economic niches, appeal; others, such as bans on intermarriage, are abhorrent to me.

Today, Kahnawake in many ways operates as an autonomous jurisdiction. The band council discourages members from voting in provincial or federal elections. Its economy is driven by cigarette and alcohol sales, and gambling operations outside governments deem illegal but have been powerless to stop. Its membership law forces residents to leave the reserve if they marry non-natives — the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms be damned. The community runs its own schools, court and police force. Traditionalists travel the world on passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.

Asked whether the Warriors would once again take up arms to defend themselves against an outside intervention, Deer says simply, “We’re prepared for any incursion.’

On a recent weekday morning, five kilometres from the foot of Mercier Bridge, players sat around tables at Playground Poker with chips stacked high in front of them, eyeing their cards in a scene that would fit in Las Vegas.

Under Canadian law, such gambling is legal only in provincially sanctioned casinos, but Playground Poker does not have a lot of time for Canadian law. Run by a Kahnawake Mohawk and operated on Mohawk land, it and a few other poker rooms on the reserve are the most recent examples of Kahnawake flexing its jurisdictional muscle.

[ISL] Bloomberg on the archipelago of Heligoland, Germany

In "The Tiny Islands at the Heart of Germany's Offshore Wind Boom", Nicholas Brautlecht and Tino Andresen suggest that wind power has given Germany's Heligoland, located in the North Sea, a second chance after the decline of tourism.

An industrial revolution is sweeping over Heligoland, a tiny German North Sea archipelago once annexed by the British, and a haven for bird watchers until the wind farmers moved in two years ago.

Units of Blackstone Group LP, EON SE and RWE AG have opened offices and warehouses at the main island’s southern port, taking 25-year leases as they start feeding electricity from three new farms into Germany’s growing reservoir of renewable energy.

“Offshore is a blessing for our island,” said Peter Singer, the 51-year-old head of Heligoland’s port project company. “Commercial tax revenue has risen by 50 percent in the last two years.”

Singer, whose roots on the island go back to the 19th century, led a team that spent a year clearing the harbor of 1,300 bombs, grenades and bullets, remnants of two world wars. That has helped transform Heligoland, dependent on daytrippers seeking tax-free liquor and tobacco, into an offshore service hub for the wind turbines that now pepper the horizon.

About 100 wind farmers have joined the 1,400 population, recognizable in their bright red overalls. Managers in business attire, once as rare as the black-browed albatross that sporadically visits its distinctive red cliffs, have also become a regular feature.

[URBAN NOTE] "Let the Pan Am Games begin, already"

Sarah-Joyce Battersby in the Toronto Star reports on the Pan Am Games, something that has been surprisingly low-key in Toronto and associated with scandals. That its backers seem to think of it as testing Toronto's ability to host an Olympic Games terrifies me, frankly.

Though the opening ceremony, featuring a special performance from Cirque du Soleil, is one of the hot items, ticket sales for the Games have been so-so.

At last count 800,000 of the 1.4 million available for both the Pan and Parapans were sold. Organizers aren’t worried.

“This is absolutely normal. What happens in these games: the long build-up, you’re only dealing with the promises,” said organizing committee chair — and former premier — David Peterson. “The critics’ noises are loud until everybody buys into it and says, ‘Isn’t that fun.’ ”

In the six years since Toronto won the bid, critics have made noise about organizing committee executives’ spending scandals, the estimated $2.5 billion taxpayers have shelled out to fund the Games and delayed venues.

[URBAN NOTE] John Lorinc on Toronto telling its history

John Lorinc's essay at Spacing Toronto, "Telling our story", reflects on a Torontoian weakness.

It should be a red letter day for the Centre of the Known Universe: after almost two decades of trying, we will finally get a chance to strut our stuff on the world stage, or at least the hemispheric stage.

At such sought-after sports extravaganzas, it often seems that organizers and civic officials are at least as interested in the impression they convey to the international media as they are with welcoming the athletes. Consequently, the city’s well-documented self-involvement will re-surface: how do others see us, and what is the story we have to tell?

If you’re in the destination marketing business, and are pondering the question of what all those hordes of Pan Am tourists should do when they’re not taking in the events, you may find yourself thinking, with relief, about the new Ripley’s Aquarium, the upbeat reviews for Kinky Boots, or the cool cultural sophistication of the Aga Khan Museum. After a long dry spell, we’ve replenished our attraction “inventory,” as they say in the tourist business.

There are, of course, the restaurants and the museums, the waterfront parks and the cultural attractions, as well as the groovy neighbourhoods that warrant a shout out in the tourist guides — Kensington, Queen West, Leslieville perhaps.

But Toronto still does a lousy job when it comes to telling visitors about its stories, and its past. Besides Casa Loma (dubbed by the landmark’s new managers as “Canada’s majestic castle”), the Distillery District, and St. Lawrence Market, it’s as if the city — which bulldozed so much of its 19th century built form after World War II — has no history, or at least none worth sharing with guests.

He goes on to suggest ways the city can improve. Go, read.