[PHOTO] Video game machines at the Galleria Mall, Toronto

The vintage Neo Geo game machines of the Galleria are to die for.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes that ferry tickets for the Toronto Islands can now be bought online.


• Discover's Crux considers SETI.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering habitable exoplanets around nearby red dwarf stars, defends the potential existence of exoplanets at Kapteyn's Star, and looks at the Epsilon Eridani system.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that a second Scottish referendum on independence is possible, according to Alex Salmond.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Mormons are unhappy with the Scouts' gay-friendly shift.


• Language Hat considers the history of family name usage in Russia.


• Languages of the World examines in two posts the argument that primitive peoples have simple languages.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the strategies of Spanish populist group Podemos.


• Peter Watts considers the peculiar thing of people lacking large chunks of the brain who nonetheless seem normal.


• Diane Duane, at Out of Ambit, is quite unhappy with an impending forced upgrade to Windows 10.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw notes how labour-saving technologies improved the lives of women.


• The Planetary Society Blog considers proposals to explore small solar system bodies.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers what would happen if Bernie Sanders won the nomination of the Democratic Party.


• The Russian Demographics Blog links to statistics on the population of Abu Dhabi.


• Window on Eurasia notes the depopulation of South Ossetia and looks at the Russian Orthodox Church's hostility to Ukraine's Uniate Catholics.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes that although Labour apparently did a good job of convincing potential voters it was right, it did a worse job of getting them to vote.

[URBAN NOTE] "Olivia Chow launches federal run for NDP in Spadina-Fort York"

The Toronto Star's David Rider and Jennifer Pagliaro report on Chow's return to federal politics.

“I have worked so hard for 30 years, for children, for a nation child-care program,” Chow told reporters Tuesday in a downtown condo filled for the occasion with parents and kids. “We’re at a historic moment. We’re at the edge of forming a (NDP) government that can finally delivery affordable child care to a million kids across Canada.”

Chow confirmed she will seek the NDP nomination in the new downtown riding of Spadina-Fort York that spans most of the south end of downtown, including a growing cluster of condos.

The former NDP transportation critic said, if voters elect her to the House of Commons, she will also fight for a national transit strategy, affordable housing and against the “reckless, dangerous and ineffective spy bill” C-51 passed by the Stephen Harper Conservative government with votes from Liberals –– including her federal opponent, MP Adam Vaughan.

But she returned again and again to Canada’s child-care “crisis” to explain why she is attempting a political comeback after she resigned her Trinity-Spadina seat last year to run for mayor of Toronto, a decision that triggered a $1-million federal byelection. Just five months ago, Chow accepted a three-year visiting professorship at Ryerson University, which has now granted her a leave to run in the Oct. 19 election.

“I have seen the desperation in the eyes of a lot of parents waiting for child care,” Chow said, with NDP Leader Tom Mulcair at her side and children playing at her feet. “I refuse to stand on the sideline while we can deliver change.”

[URBAN NOTE] "Anger grows at NY archdiocese for closing dozens of churches"

Debora Fougere writes for Al Jazeera America in describing the conflict in New York City in the Roman Catholic Church, as parishoners--often of immigrant background and belonging to tight-knit communities--are trying to keep their parishes intact.

On a warm and sultry summer night, a couple dozen worshippers gathered recently at the Church of the Nativity in New York City’s East Village for a mass celebrating the life of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement dedicated to helping the poor.

The church, housed in a simple, cinder block and brick building, has none of the usual gleaming gold and majesty one would often expect from a Catholic house of worship.

But the celebration was bittersweet. On Aug. 1, Nativity will be “merged” with another parish, Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, effectively shutting it down for good, leaving the immigrants, working families, young professionals, poor and homeless who pray there without their spiritual home.

Mildred Guy has lived in the neighborhood for 45 years, and worshipped at Nativity for 35. Her son was an altar server there, and graduated from the now closed Nativity Mission School. She lost her home in March when a deadly gas explosion levelled four East Village buildings, and now she’s losing her church. “It’s not the prettiest church. But it’s very comforting, it’s very homely”, she said. “When you come here you feel like you’re in a second home, at least for me. So to lose this church, it’s a big hurt.”

The church has built a reputation for embracing everyone. Claudia Marte, one of the parishioners fighting to keep the parish open, said the neighborhood needs Nativity. “We have a very diverse community,” she said. “We have a lot of homeless in the community, and we get together after mass sometimes and we invite them to join us. Some of them actually sleep in front of the church and we have become friends with some of them and we ask them to join us. They’re part of our community.”

Nor is Nativity alone. A reorganization plan dubbed “Making All Things New” is being rolled out that will merge 112 parishes in the Archdiocese of New York, the second largest in the country, which covers Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City, as well as seven upstate counties. Around 55 of those churches will effectively close.

[LINK] "Ceres Resembles Saturn’s Icy Moons"

Universe Today's Jason Major reports on how dwarf planet Ceres is starting to look like an outer-system ice world. More, including a map, at the site.

With craters 3.7 miles (6 km) deep and mountains rising about the same distance from its surface, Ceres bears a resemblance to some of Saturn’s frozen moons.

“The craters we find on Ceres, in terms of their depth and diameter, are very similar to what we see on Dione and Tethys, two icy satellites of Saturn that are about the same size and density as Ceres,” said Paul Schenk, Dawn science team member and a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, TX. “The features are pretty consistent with an ice-rich crust.”

In addition to elevation mapping Ceres has also had some of its more prominent craters named. No longer just “bright spot crater” and “Spot 1,” these ancient impact scars now have official IAU monikers… from the Roman Occator to the Hawaiian Haulani to the Hopi Kerwan, craters on Ceres are named after agriculture-related gods and goddesses of mythologies from around the world.

Dawn is currently moving closer toward Ceres into its third mapping orbit. By mid-August it will be 900 miles (1448 km) above Ceres’ surface and will proceed with acquiring data from this lower altitude, three times closer than it has been previously.

At 584 miles (940 km) in diameter Ceres is about 40 percent the size of Pluto.

[LINK] "Catalans Spur the Remaking of Spain With Battle for Independence"

Esteban Duarte's Bloomberg report keeps me up to date about the events in Spain. This could be big, bigger than Scotland.

Catalonia’s bid for independence has opened the floodgates: Now all Spain’s major parties are looking to remake the way the state’s power is carved up.

Catalan President Artur Mas plans to use voting for the region’s parliament on Sept. 27 -- weeks before national elections are due -- as a de-facto referendum on leaving Spain. Just as the Scottish independence movement has prompted a rethink of how the U.K. is governed, Spain’s national parties are responding with plans to prevent the disintegration of a country whose mainland borders are unchanged since the 17th century.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s People’s Party is seeking to give the regions much more say in the Senate in Madrid. The main opposition Socialists are proposing a looser federal state, while the insurgent Podemos and Ciudadanos parties are floating their own ideas.

“Mas has contributed to reopening the debate about how Spain should be governed and taxes should be distributed,” said Antonio Barroso, a London-based analyst at Teneo Intelligence. “With Mas or without him, that’s going to be an issue that Spaniards will face over the course of the next legislative term.”

Spain’s 1978 constitution set up regional administrations with varying degrees of autonomy. But over the past three years, Mas has moved from seeking more control over taxes to demanding the right for Catalans to break away completely.

He’s already campaigning for September’s regional election. If separatist groups win a majority in the legislature in Barcelona and the central government refuses to negotiate, he says he’ll make a unilateral declaration of independence.

[LINK] "Alarm Bell Rings in Tokyo at Rapid Rise in German Exports to China"

Bloomberg's Yoshiaki Nohara reports on Germany's advantage over Japan in China.

As if Japan didn't have enough economic problems to overcome, officials in Tokyo have identified another worrying trend: lagging export growth to China.

Rapid gains in German shipments to China have caught their attention, with exports from the European powerhouse doubling in value since 2008 and reaching 74.5 billion euros ($82.5 billion) last year.

Japanese sales to China, the nation's biggest trading partner, crept up by just 3.3 percent over the same period. Japan still holds a solid lead though, with to 13.4 trillion yen ($109 billion) worth of shipments to China in 2014.

To be sure, part of the weakness in these Japanese export figures is because companies from Toyota Motor Corp to air-conditioner maker Daikin Industries Ltd. have been building factories in growing markets like China. While the profits from these plants are brought home, it means less industrial production in Japan.

[. . . T]otal exports account for about 15 percent of Japan's gross domestic product, compared with around 40 percent for Germany, according to a report by the statistics bureau in Tokyo.

[URBAN NOTE] "Falling apart: a glimpse of life in Cairo"

Open Democracy's Maged Mandour writes about the quiet immiseration of urban Egypt.

It has been almost seven years since I decided to leave my home, the once great city of Cairo. Since I moved to Europe I have been noticing changes in the city and its inhabitants, changes both subtle and sinister. This is, of course, to be expected, considering that the country went through the 'Arab Spring'. On my visit this time around, however, I found the change a lot more profound, and it struck me deeper than ever before.

Everything familiar is now gone; I feel like a stranger in my own city and neighbourhood. Four years after the start of the Egyptian revolt, and two years after the success of the counter-revolution, the city is lost to me.

This is a personal account of my experience on my last visit to my old home, and what it felt like to be in a country with the overbearing presence of a military dictatorship.

I had coffee with a friend and she asked me, “what is the most noticeable change you can see in the country?” I answered without hesitation, “poverty”. By this I do not mean poverty in the sense of a statistic, rather in sense of an increased level of social poverty among those considered economically comfortable.

Among the Egyptian middle class—the class I belong to—I noticed many indifferent and extremely demotivated faces. There is definitely a general deterioration in living standards. Traditional Egyptian middle class lifestyles, which were relatively comfortable, seem to have all but evaporated, especially for the younger generation, who are, due to economic hardship, being subsidised by their parents—often even if they are married with children.

The poor man in Egypt has become a two dimensional, almost fictional character.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the Anonymous threat to reveal the secrets of John Baird

Earlier this year, Conservative MP and cabinet minister John Baird resigned from politics. This news came as a surprise to everyone, though in retrospect it may have marked the beginning of the trend of prominent Conservatives leaving before the election. As reported by the National Post's Adrian Humphreys, Anonymous is threatening to reveal the secret reasons for Baird's departure.

Hackers with Anonymous — who last week leaked a seemingly legitimate secret document on cyber-security at Canada’s spy agency — threatened Wednesday to release decrypted text messages from former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird allegedly showing the “real reason” why he abruptly left politics.

The warning was made in social media from an account the National Post confirms is one that has been operated by activists responsible for the CSIS leak.

No evidence was presented by the hacktivists to support the claim.

[. . .]

The month after leaving he was hired as an international advisor to Barrick Gold Corp and nominated to the board of directors of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. In May he joined law firm Bennett Jones LLP as a senior adviser. At the time, when opposition critics questioned his quick moves, he said he consulted the Ethics Commissioner before accepting his new roles and “got the green light.”

The Twitter account @OpAnonDown — named in honour of its claimed mission of seeking justice for an Anonymous protester shot and killed by the RCMP during a confrontation in Dawson Creek, B.C. — said text messages and a video are pending for release on this subject.

There was speculation at the time. See Enzo DiMatteo in NOW Toronto, for instance. The only secret about Baird that I myself am familiar with is the fact that he is gay. This has been public record at least since 2010, openly discussed in the LGBT press if only alluded to in the mainstream media.

(There has been some loose speculation that it is not so much his orientation as his choice of partners and what he does with them that might be a problem. See the comments of that DiMatteo article. I'm not aware of any rumours in this regard.)

Will we actually find out something? Is this just fuss? I wonder.