[PHOTO] Ethiopian coffee, Lalibela, 869 Bloor Street West

I went out last night with a friend to Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, on 869 Bloor Street West just east of Ossington station. The meal was good, but the coffee ... strong without being bitter. Superb. The accompanying popcorn was nice, too.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Antipope's Charlie Stross and Whatever's John Scalzi react to the Sad Puppies' shut-out at the Hugos.


• blogTO notes a poll suggesting that 85% of Torontonians think taxis are safer than Uber.


• Centauri Dreams considers the potential role comet impacts may have had on the development of life.


• Crooked Timber's Corey Robin engages with Ta-Nehisi Coates.


• The Dragon's Gaze considers ways to detect life on worlds inhabited by extremophiles and examines the impact of ultraviolet radiation on hypothetical Earth-like exoplanets.


• The Dragon's Tales is upset that the United States suggested Ukraine should not immediately respond to the intrusion of Little Green Men.


• Far Outliers notes the extreme casualty projections for an invasion of Japan in the Second World War.


• Language Hat notes the controversy over the question of who the Indo-Europeans were.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the life of a Brazilian leader of a famous naval rebellion.


• Marginal Revolution tries to start a debate on what the United States would look like if it had open borders.


• The Planetary Society Blog features a report by Marc Rayman noting the ongoing mapping of Ceres.


• Savage Minds carries an interview with anthropologist Christian Zloniski regarding export agriculture in Baja California.


• Torontoist describes the controversial visit of a Toronto journalist to the Soviet Union in 1932.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Crimea is removing Ukrainian from its education system and wonders if Belarus is moving away from Russia.

[LINK] "Will Icelanders one day ditch their language for English?"

Language Hat linked to this Public Radio International by one Patrick Cox noting the concern of some Icelanders that their distinctive language might disappear. The fear does not strike me as likely to be well-founded, if only because Icelandic is described in this article as surviving in core domains. English is joining it, not displacing it. Thoughts?

“I think Icelandic is not going to last,” says [Jón] Gnarr. “Probably in this century we will adopt English as our language. I think it’s unavoidable.”

This is not an outlier view. Some linguists believe it is a distinct possibility that Icelandic will lose out to English. Among them, Ari Páll Kristinsson who is in charge of language planning at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, the Icelandic government's language research agency.

“English is everywhere now, from the moment we wake up until we die,” says Kristinsson.

He means that quite literally. Births take places with the aid of medical devices whose instructions are in English, so hospital staff must be able to read English. And at funerals, Kristinsson says, friends and family often remember their loved one with songs sung in English.

It’s a big deal for any linguistic group to witness the marginalization of their mother tongue. It’s especially poignant for Icelanders.

[LINK] "Putin’s Free-Trade Bloc Frays as Ex-Soviet Satellites Spar"

Bloomberg's Nariman Gizitdinov and Anthony Halpin note that ongoing currency wars in the Eurasian Economic Union, specifically between Russia and Kazakhstan, promise to undermine the already shaken basis for post-Soviet integration.

Kazakhstan sent its currency lower last week after businesses complained that Russian companies had flooded domestic markets with cheaper goods. In Belarus, the Eurasian Economic Union’s last founding member, the nation’s trade deficit with Russia widened by a quarter last year.

Putin’s vision for his ex-Soviet trading bloc, already curtailed by the war in Ukraine, is suffering widening divisions among members as oil prices and sanctions weaken the ruble and shrink Russia’s economy. Already wary of Russia’s dominant role, the reaction to some of its companies’ actions risks damaging the union’s goal of closer integration.

“Because of the creation of a united economic zone, Kazakhstan and Russia, especially metals producers, entered into a trade war,” Vladimir Kim, majority shareholder of London-listed KAZ Minerals, said as entrepreneurs met Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev after Thursday’s devaluation.

The ruble is the past year’s worst performer against the dollar, sinking 49 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Belarus’s ruble has tumbled more than a third, losing 4.9 percent on Monday alone, while the currencies of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, the Eurasian Economic Union’s two newest members, have lost 15 percent and 16 percent.

[LINK] "Bitcoins gaining traction around the Black Sea"

I'm skeptical of this EconoTimes report, but it does not seem implausible that countries bordering the Black Sea--technologically advanced, but legally insecure--might resort to the use of bitcoins.

According to a latest report by Bravenewcoin, countries in the region, collectively known as the 'Black Sea Basin,' is experiencing rapid growth in both bitcoin adoption, and infrastructure. There are over 13,600 locations to buy bitcoin in person in the region.

It's not at all apparent when looking at an ATM placement map, such as Coin ATM Radar, how densely populated these areas are with shops and machines that will sell bitcoins for the local currency.

Such websites only list bitcoin-focused ATM machines, not multipurpose kiosks, nor shops where you can go to the counter and purchase bitcoins from the clerk. If you could include these kinds of shops and machines, which are every bit as good at selling bitcoins as a bitcoin ATM, then it's clear that countries in eastern Europe have an extraordinarily high degree of bitcoin access.

Some of the biggest payment Kiosk companies include the IBOX in the Ukraine, JSC Nova in Georgia and Zebra Pay in Romania, the report said. Striking agreements to add Bitcoin exchange applications to these kiosks, in one or both directions, has so far been an easy job for local Bitcoin entrepreneurs.

[ISL] Biman Prasad in the Fiji Times on Singapore versus Fiji

In the opinion piece "Singapore and us", one Biman Prasad notes the ways in which Fiji has fallen behind a Singapore that was once its peers. While Fiji is not as lucky as a Singapore placed in the middle of global trade routes, its ethnic conflicts definitely did hurt the island's potential.

Certain commentators in this country tend to selectively compare Fiji with Singapore. They highlight that Fiji, like Singapore, is a multi-ethnic country and they claim Fiji needs to adopt similar restrictive policies to maintain stability and achieve economic success.

On the surface, these comparisons and justifications might sound reasonable. Singapore, after all, is the third-richest country in the world, ranking behind only Qatar and Luxembourg, according to Forbes magazine 2014 top 10 richest countries in the world.

Singapore's rise to the top has been both rapid and spectacular. In the 1960s, Singapore and Fiji had a similar GDP per capita. Today Singapore is well ahead, with a GDP per capita of nearly $US55,000 ($F117,975) with Fiji's about $US4500 ($F9652). The country turned 50 just recently and it is justifiably proud of its achievements.

Some political opportunists and journalists tell us that to emulate Singapore's success, we need, among other things, a restrictive media law. This a pie in the sky theory. While there are many things that Fiji can learn from Singapore, there are some things our country does not need to emulate or adopt. This becomes clear when we look at Singapore in greater detail.

[. . .]

It was able to transform itself from a slum with a per capita income of $US500 ($F1066) in 1965 to $US55,000 ($F117,975) today. This means that if one were to divide the total value of its output with the total population, every individual in Singapore today is worth $US55,000 ($F117,975). Singapore progressed faster than many other countries at a similar level of development in 1965. It has been able to improve living standards of its people through better health, better housing, better education and employment opportunities for all its people.

[MUSIC] "Annie Lennox says her songwriting days are over"

The Scotsman's Brian Ferguson reports.

Thank you, Annie, for the music you wrote.

Annie Lennox, one of Scotland’s most ground-breaking musicians, has revealed that her songwriting days are over.

The Aberdeen-born singer, who has sold more than 80 million albums since her breakthrough with Eurythmics more than 30 years ago, has called time just months after being honoured by her industry peers.

Lennox, whose last album of original material was released eight years ago, said she now regarded her songwriting as being “in the past tense”.

She has spoken of the pressures involved in retaining a passion for the music industry, saying: “I need to feel I have a purpose in life that’s more than just having a job.”

[. . .]

She said: “Songwriting has been a deep, deep passion for me. I needed it because I was tuned into it. I was deeply committed to that whole way of life.

“But there’s a lot of sacrifice in it, as a woman specifically. It’s a hardcore lifestyle and it’s not for everybody.

[URBAN NOTE] "Holding Montreal Island seats top priority for Liberals"

The Toronto Star's Chantal Hébert notes the exceptional potential weakness of the Liberals. If they fear losing seats in their Québec heartland of the island of Montréal, what prospects does the party have?

Today, according to the latest CROP poll, the party is running a dismal third across francophone Quebec, some 38 points behind the NDP.

If the federal election had been held this week the Liberals would again have been locked out of most of the province.

[. . .]

The NDP says it has also set its sights on Trudeau’s own Papineau riding. Former CBC/Radio-Canada journalist Anne Lagacé Dawson will carry the party flag in that battle.

By talking up their prospects in Papineau, the New Democrats may be getting ahead of themselves. Trudeau has established a personal connection to the riding and he did beat poor Liberal odds twice.

Still, in the last election the Bloc Québécois won 26 per cent of the votes in Papineau. If that support collapses in favour of the New Democrats — as it has been province-wide — the Liberal leader could be in trouble.

For the many federal Liberals in Quebec who saw Trudeau as a saviour at the time of his leadership victory two years ago, the first three weeks of the election campaign have been sobering ones. The party is nowhere near where it had expected to be in Quebec.

[URBAN NOTE] "Where can you live and still say you're from Toronto?"

blogTO starts an interesting debate on the borders of Canada's largest city, in the comments and on Twitter.

While abroad, nearly everyone who lives in Southern Ontario will say they're from Toronto. I've heard individuals exclaim they're from the Six when in reality they reside in London, St. Catharines and even Niagara Falls.

Since those outside of Canada probably haven't heard of the smaller towns, suburbs and municipalities within the Golden Horseshoe, it's usually acceptable to default to Toronto. Many 416-ers, however, would disagree.

This becomes even more frustrating considering the GTA boundaries aren't exactly concrete. The area's generally defined as being comprised of Toronto, York, Durham, Peel and Halton, but like the borders of east and west in Toronto and even the location of downtown, there just isn't much consensus.

Myself, I'd opt for the City of Toronto proper. The city has well-marked boundaries, after all.

[ISL] Jason Markusoff on watching Mike Duffy in Cavendish, PEI

In a MacLean's article, Markusoff reports on how locals are reacting to the whole Duffy affair.

As a local history book—and the local Simpsons, McNeills and Clarks—will assert, the community of Cavendish was founded by three families 225 years ago. Those are still common surnames among the roughly 250 year-round residents of this northern Prince Edward Island hamlet made famous by Lucy Maud Montgomery and her visits to a McNeill-owned farm named Green Gables.

Drawn by the Anne lore and the beaches, Cavendish swells each summer by thousands of cottagers and tourists, substantially diversifying the pool of surnames. Among them are the Duffys of 10 Friendly Lane, perhaps the most prominent residential address of this campaign after 24 Sussex.

Islanders were suspicious from the start of Sen. Mike Duffy’s insistence that he could represent P.E.I. When word got around that the P.E.I.-born, Ottawa-based broadcaster had claimed Cavendish as his primary residence, George Clark-Dunning found out which house it was from one of the McNeills. One spring day, Clark-Dunning, a retired hotelier, left his family stead to walk past Memory Lane, G. Willikers Gift Shop and Green Gables to get to the Duffy cottage. Shopping bags covered the home’s light fixtures, a telltale sign of tourists at the end of the season, he said.

As controversy gathered around their occasional neighbour, Cavendish year-rounders learned that the senator and his wife had post-facto obtained provincial driver’s licences and health cards for the island of their supposed primary residence. “To us, it was just the birthday candles on the icing on the cake,” Clark-Dunning said.

The notoriety and criminal charges haven’t made the Old Duff a summertime recluse. Weeks before his trial resumed in August and pulled him back to his once-subsidized “secondary residence,” Duffy not only attended but spoke out with concern at a public meeting about the particularly raucous and boozy aftermath of this July’s Cavendish Beach Music Festival.

Some in Cavendish remain supporters or friends, and Islanders are too genteel to make Duffy feel unwelcome during his summer stay, Clark-Dunning said. “And there are people who are standing by him in this, definitely, so if you think he’s about to be dropped into the deep fat like a good doughnut, you just smile politely and keep your mouth shut. True gentlemen just don’t get into it.”