[PHOTO] Ward's Island, a NDP and Olivia Chow stronghold

This photo, showing far and away the dominant political signage on Ward's Island, was liked by Olivia Chow's Twitter account and on Instagram. This corner of the riding of Spadina-Fort York seems to belong to Chow and the NDP.

[LINK] "Why Vladimir Putin Won't Be Helping OPEC to Cut Oil Production"

Elena Mazneva and Dina Khrennikova write for Bloomberg about the apparent relative lack of dependency of Russia on high oil prices, at least compared to some OPEC governments.

“Russia and OPEC have talked about cooperation in cutting production many times in the past, but the results of that were always dismal and disappointing,” said Nordine Ait-Laoussine, president of Geneva-based consultant Nalcosa and former energy minister of Algeria. “Russia has assumed that when oil prices go down, OPEC countries are in a weaker position and are more likely to be the first to cut its production, and they always did.”

[. . .] Russia has good reason to want crude to rise again. Energy accounts for more than 60 percent of exports and the nation’s economy is entering a recession due in large part to the price slump. Oil and gas are contributing the lowest share of budget revenue since 2009, according to data from Russia’s treasury.

However, the nation can tolerate low prices better than many OPEC members. Russia’s budget deficit is projected to be about 3 percent of economic output this year, according to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, will have a budget gap of almost 20 percent, the International Monetary Fund forecasts.

[LINK] "In Angola we’re proud – we have the upper hand over our former coloniser"

In a Guardian opinion piece, one Lucia Kula notes the extent to which the Angolan oil boom has transformed the Portuguese-Angolan relationship, but wonders about the durability of this.

In 2011 there were 21,563 Angolans in Portugal, compared to 100,000 Portuguese living in Angola. The attraction is clear, the same reason why people have always moved: to make a better life for themselves and the families they leave behind. In this case, Portuguese escaping austerity and high unemployment have been heading to Angola, currently enjoying a boom.

Angola’s economy, tethered tightly to the oil industry, may lack diversity. But oil (which accounts for more than 70% of government revenue and over 90% of exports) and diamonds helped give Angola 15% growth at its height between 2002 and 2008. Even when the rate dropped to 8-10% in 2012, it was doing much better than Portugal, whose economy shrank by 3% in the same period. The government’s decision to invest heavily in Angola’s banking sector saw its assets grow from $3bn in 2003 to $57bn by 2011, ranking it third after South Africa and Nigeria in sub-Saharan Africa.

With growing wealth has come a flurry of foreign investment and acquisitions of Portuguese banks and media outlets. Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the Angolan president José Edudardo dos Santos and Africa’s first female billionaire, has bought up shares in several Portuguese banks, such as Banco BIC and Banco BIP, Portugal’s fourth largest bank. The infiltration is so comprehensive that in June 2015 al-Jazeera called the media buyout “reverse colonialism”.

The change in fortunes has not only been visible on a balance sheet but in the attitudes of Angolans: proud of our presence in Portugal, proud of the fact we have the upper hand over our former coloniser. Angolans are visiting Portugal more often, and are even buying second homes. Away from home, the narrative about Angola is also changing, with Angolans enjoying the praise and admiration of strangers. Whenever people learn I am Angolan, the response is almost always: “You guys are really doing well, right?”

But is this progress credible? The petrodollars have started to trickle down; entirely new towns are being built; and plans are being developed for large shopping centres. But this is as much as most Angolans have seen of this new economic growth. Angola has the world’s highest death rate for children under five; in 2013 36% of the population lived below the poverty line, and unemployment was at 26%.

[LINK] "10,000 zines and counting: a library's quest to save the history of fandom"

At The Verge, Adi Robertson describes how the University of Iowa is trying to preserve the documents of science-fiction fandom from as far back as the early 20th century.

The University of Iowa is home to almost a century of fandom history. Its library’s special collections house everything from 1920s “dime novel” reviews to T-shirts that were auctioned off in protest of the 2002 Farscape cancellation. In 2012, though, it acquired one of the most valuable resources yet: the library of James “Rusty” Hevelin, a lifelong science fiction superfan and prolific collector of books and fanzines dating back to the 1930s. Last year, the Hevelin Collection was chosen as the first target of the university’s Fan Culture Preservation Project, a massive effort to digitize some of the most vulnerable and ephemeral pieces of science fiction history. Now, that effort is starting to take shape.

In July, UI digital project librarian Laura Hampton officially began the long process of archiving the Hevelin Collection. The library is partnering with the fan-run Organization for Transformative Works to collect more zines for eventual digital archival, but Hampton is currently focused on material from the 1930s to 1950s, spanning the rise of zines and the Golden Age of science fiction. The vast majority of the images will stay offline, but an accompanying Tumblr has given outsiders a peek into the roughly 10,000 zines that Hevelin donated — and into the communities that helped create science fiction as we know it, from fandom clashes to fan fiction.

It’s impossible to talk about the history of sci-fi, or modern popular fiction more generally, without talking about fandom. H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and many other seminal authors were shaped by and participated in fandom, whether through letters, early science fiction conventions, or fanzines. Zines were home to some of these writers’ first stories; later in the 20th century, they were central to the rise of fan fiction. But for a variety of reasons, they were usually meant to circulate through a community, fade away, and fall apart.

Fanzines feel almost designed to resist archival. "Creators were working with what they had, often within pretty tight budgets, and producing fantastic images with relatively cheap materials," Hampton tells The Verge. Many of Hevelin’s zines were hectographed — copied by pressing paper to an inked gelatin pad. The medium produced brilliant purples and blues that can still be seen in some of the illustrations. But it favored cheap, highly acidic paper, and images could fade within hours under direct light. "There are rusty staples, tape — all these material things that make a fanzine a fanzine are also what make them difficult to preserve." Each zine is photographed page by page as quickly as possible, supported by a specially designed cradle, until it can go back in storage.

[LINK] "From Coalition to Catastrophe: The Electoral Meltdown of the Liberal Democrats"

Nicholas Whyte linked to this Parliamentary Affairs paper noting how, exactly, the United Kingdom's Liberal Democrats collapsed so catastrophically in 2015. The whole thing is spellbinding.

The 2010 campaign mantra, ‘I agree with Nick’, and the ensuing Cleggmania was a fading memory. The party leader's road from hero to villain was almost instantaneous. Just entering coalition government alienated most left of centre voters, but as Deputy Prime Minister, Clegg himself seemed increasingly toxic. The tuition fees issue rather than being the source of the problem became a symbol of his personal failure. It was well known that as leader he had doubted the policy in the run-up to 2010 but in that campaign the party had orchestrated public pledges signed by candidates against any increase in fees. In the coalition negotiation the party dropped the pledge, but did manage to get agreement allowing Liberal Democrats to abstain on the vote. However, with concessions for poorer students and higher education policy falling under the remit of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills—and under a Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister Vince Cable—many Liberal Democrat MPs voted for the bill which instigated a tripling of tuition fees in England and Wales. Crucially, it was not David Cameron and the Conservatives that were blamed by those who did not like the policy but Nick Clegg and his party who were castigated and held responsible. Cast as the pantomime villain, the man who had personally highlighted the ‘broken promises’ of others became just like the rest—even his apology in September 2012 was lampooned rather than accepted. It seemed the public had stopped listening.

However, tuition fees were only a partial explanation for the leader's and party's lack of popularity. In May 2011, the public, by more than two to one, voted in a referendum against replacing first-past-the-post with the Alternative Vote electoral system. Even amongst stalwarts within his own party, Clegg came under attack for his ‘complete failure to devise and lead an effective campaign … and allowing it to be positioned so that the public perception was that this was all about furthering Liberal Democrat interests.’4 In the face of poor leadership ratings and electoral setbacks, Clegg came under mounting pressure. Prior to the 2014 European Elections, Clegg's attempts to be the man to stand up for Europe in two televised debates with the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, backfired badly. The party suffered near wipe-out in the European Elections prompting activists to call for Clegg's resignation. Lord Oakeshott, a former Treasury spokesman for the party, resigned after commissioning and publicising four constituency polls, including one in Clegg's Sheffield Hallam seat, in order to suggest that the party would do better without Clegg as leader. If this was a coup designed to replace Clegg with Vince Cable it failed spectacularly but Oakeshott did not go quietly. Under Clegg, the party had become a ‘split-the-difference centre party, with no roots, no principles and no values’5 rather than a ‘radical, progressive party’, he argued, and reiterated his central claim that ‘we must change the leader to give Liberal Democrat MPs their best chance to win in 2015’. Oakeshott was ostracised within the party and Clegg continued to lead the party into the election.

Once in government, Nick Clegg's approval ratings as party leader regularly trailed his competitors. Throughout the Parliament, Clegg's standing was for the most part adrift from the other leaders (see Figure 5.1). For the Liberal Democrats this was unfamiliar territory7 and posed difficult questions. Given the party's low social and partisan base, placing itself as the party of protest and stressing the virtues of its leader when in opposition proved to be relatively effective in enhancing the party's credibility as an electoral force worth voting for. With both options largely redundant in 2015, the party turned once again to its safety net of the local, in order: to focus on the local popularity of incumbents; to work hard in constituencies with a strong local platform; and to intensify local party activism. Many in the party hoped that these local factors that would save the Liberal Democrats from disaster in 2015. In truth it was the party's only hope.

[LINK] "The Mean, Green, Tory-Killing Machine"

Wonkman has a post up noting the extent to which, in northern and interior British Columbia, the Green Party is carving vital votes away from the Conservative Party.

Wanna know why the NDP are now within 5% of winning Central Okanagan? It’s in large part because the Greens have carved 10% off the Conservatives.

Wanna know why the Liberals are now competitive in Chilliwack, which hasn’t sent a Liberal to parliament since 1949? It’s in large part because the Greens have shaved 7-8% off the Conservatives, making it more competitive than it’s been in decades.

Wanna know why Kelowna–Lake Country is now hyper-competitive, when it used to elect Conservatives and Reformers with a solid 60% of the vote? It’s in large part because the Greens are soaking up 10-15% of that Tory voting pool.

Any time you look at one of these rural-BC ridings where the Greens are supposedly “splitting” the vote, what we’re actually looking at is the opposite: a riding which has historically been untouchably Conservative, but which is now in play precisely because the Greens have come out of nowhere and helped dunk the Tories below 50% for the first time in generations.

[. . .]

The Greens have become a party who can hack rural populism, which is what allows them to cleave votes off the Conservatives.

They’ve got the superficial stuff down: the Greens are gritty, “real”, plain-spoken, and so on. But on policy, and especially on policies which distinguish the Conservatives from the Liberals and NDP, the Greens actually have a lot to offer these voters: less restrictive gun control, emphasis on rural communities and development, protections for farmland and greenbelts, and – above all – a sense that the Greens aren’t a threat to the rural way of life, a sense a lot of people will not extend to the Liberals or NDP.

[LINK] "Elon Musk suggests nuking Mars, is promptly accused of being a super villain"

CBC's Max Leighton reports on how Elon Musk's talk with Stephen Colbert of using nuclear weapons on Mars' polar icecaps, presumably with the goal of releasing their water and atmospheric gas into the thin Martian atmosphere, was received.

(At very most this would be just the start.)

[T]hings turned sinister when Colbert brought up Musk's plans for the red planet … Mars.

For the most part, Musk appeared genuinely undeterred by Mars' stark uninhabitability and suggested the "fixer upper of a planet" could be warmed, and rendered more hospitable to humans, in two ways: the "slow way," which, like Earth, involves the release of greenhouse gasses, and the "fast way" which requires the detonation of thermonuclear bombs over the planet's poles.

That's right. Musk suggested we consider, possibly, one day, nuking Mars.

"You're a super villain, that's what a super villain does," said Colbert. "Superman doesn't say we'll drop thermonuclear bombs, that's Lex Luthor, man."

Once again, Musk seemed mostly indifferent to the comparison.

[LINK] The National Post on how a Canadian couple is preserving the Kumzari language of Oman

The National Post shared Diana Mehta's Canadian Press article noting how a pair of Canadian linguists are preserving the Kumzari language of northern Oman.

Erik Anonby and Christina van der Wal have dedicated nearly a decade to comprehensively documenting the language of Kumzari in a way no one appears to have done before.

Their efforts have seen them spend nearly two years living in the remote village of Kumzar, located on the tip of the Musandam peninsula in northern Oman, immersing themselves and their three young children in the community to study the language now spoken by about 5,000 people.

They’ve since developed a script for the oral language, compiled a dictionary and written a book on the grammar of Kumzari in an effort to help the language thrive in the future.

“It’s our hope that our work will be part of Kumzari living on as a vibrant language,” said Anonby.

[. . .]

Their interaction with Kumzari began in 2006, when after hearing about the language, they made a trip to the village to see whether they’d be able to research the language in depth. On that first visit, they met with community leaders, gained the approval needed for their work, and started building the relationships which would allow them to become a part of the community.

[ISL] "Harper defends Duffy's appointment as Senator from P.E.I."

Following a widely-tweeted question, Teresa Wright of the Charlottetown Guardian had Stephen Harper clarify why Duffy was offered a position as senator from Prince Edward Island. Contradictions abound.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is defending his decision to appoint Mike Duffy as a senator for Prince Edward Island, saying it was legitimate not just because he owned property, but also because he had a residence on the Island.

This marks a change, however, to Harper’s previous stance on the issue, according to evidence entered into court in Duffy’ ongoing criminal trial, where he faces 31 charges including bribery and fraud.

During a campaign stop in P.E.I. Thursday, The Guardian questioned Harper on why he appointed Duffy to represent P.E.I. in the first place, since Islanders knew Duffy was not a resident of the province.

Harper responded that having a “residence” in the province made him eligible.

“We only appoint a person to the Senate when they have a residence - not just property - but a residence in the province in which they are representing, and that fit that case as it fits every single case of a senator that we have named.” Harper said.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about what it means to be an international migrant or refugee.


• Centauri Dreams considers ways to detect nitrogen in the atmospheres of exoplanets.


• Crooked Timber notes the importance of being a teacher.


• The Dragon's Tales observes reports that China is building a third aircraft carrier.


• Geocurrents considers the extent to which support for national self-determination is an ideological issue, looking at Kurdistan and Balochistan.


• Languages of the World criticizes the advice of the Strunk and White Style Manual.
  
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that children of union workers do well.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares images of Ceres.


• Otto Pohl shares a new article on Crimean Tatars.


• The Power and the Money hosts a post by Logan Ferree talking about the role Trump may play in the Republican primary election.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the sphere of influence of the Russian language.


• Savage Minds has an anthropological take on turmoil in Taiwan.


• Spacing Toronto discusses strollers on mass transit.


• The Volokh Conspiracy suggests Kim Davis did not have to go to jail for contempt of court.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Ukraine can play a critical role for Russian dissidents and notes why Russia cannot annex the Donbas.