[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares the latest images of asteroid Ryugu.


• Centauri Dreams reports on the equal-mass near-Earth asteroid binary 2017 YE5.


• Far Outliers notes how corrosive fake news and propaganda can be, by looking at Orwell's experience of the Spanish Civil War.


• The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas looks at swarms versus networks, in the light of Bauman's thinking on freedom/security.


• Joe. My. God. reports on how American pharmacy chain PVS fired a man--a Log Cabin Republican, no less--for calling the police on a black customer over a coupon.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper making the case that national service plays a useful role in modern countries.


• Language Hat quotes from a beautiful Perry Anderson essay at the LRB about Proust.


• Jeffey Herlihy-Mera writes/u> at Lingua Franca about his first-hand experiences of the multilingualism of Ecuador.


• The NYR Daily takes a look at the art created by the prominent members of the Romanov dynasty.


• The Power and Money's Noel Maurer has reposted a blog post from 2016 considering the question of just how much money the United States could extract, via military basing, from Germany and Japan and South Korea


• Window on Eurasia <>suggests a new Russian language law that would marginalize non-Russian languages is provoking a renaissance of Tatar nationalism.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: One Yonge, park budget, Berczy Park, cyclists, Soulpepper Theatre

• Urban Toronto reports on the massive towers being planned for One Yonge Street.


• The City of Toronto has massive shortfalls in its budget for park repairs. The city is unprepared for (as an example) a recurrence of 2017's flooding. CBC reports.


• If there is dead grass at Berczy Park, the dogs the park is dedicated to can be fairly blamed for this. The Toronto Star reports.


• Rehana Mushtaq, writing at The Varsity, is right in arguing for a shift in the culture of transportation, for the benefit of cyclists.


• Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre, in the wake of allegations of inappropriate behaviour, is shaking up its training program. CBC reports.

[NEWS] Five links on the Ford government in Ontario

• TVO noted how three former leaders of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, having failed to successfully challenge the Liberals, watched Doug Ford get sworn in as premier.


• Martin Regg Cohn notes that lower taxes in Ontario under Ford will come at a great cost, over at the Toronto Star.


• Andray Domise at MacLean's suggests that the Ford government will be marked by rule by antagonism, by "echthrocracy", here.


• The cancellation of wind energy projects may hit some Ontario companies hard, but it is not clear that the Ontario government can do that without compensation. The Financial Post reports.


• I agree entirely with Andrea Horvath's opinion piece on behalf of refugees coming to this province, here in the Toronto Star.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Sainte-Élisabeth, Montréal, Winnipeg, Glasgow, Bondy

• The Québec town of Sainte-Élisabeth, thanks to long cooperation with their Malian sister community of Sanankoroba, is concerned about the outcome of the Canadian peacekeeping mission there. Global News reports.


• The relatively low incomes of Montréal compared to other North American cities is one factor making it vulnerable to real estate price shifts. Global News notes.


• Winnipeg, too, is faced with the question of how to protect its citizens from excessive unexpected heat. Global News reports.


• The showpeople of the Scottish city of Glasgow are at risk of dislocation from their unique niche thanks to gentrification. The Guardian reports.


• The hometown of the French World Cup team star Kylian Mbappé, the Paris suburb of Bondy, was on tenterhooks watching the national team play against Croatia. VICE reports.

[NEWS] Links on oceans near and far: mental health, Salton Sea, Europa, Enceladus, Pluto

• There definitely is something to the idea that oceans, and other large bodies of water, can be healing. The immenseness of Lake Ontario (to name one body) is sublime. Global News reports on one study.


• The scale of the disaster in California's Salton Sea, drying up and poisoning the nearby land, is appalling. The Verge shows the scene.


• NASA notes one mechanism for the gradual recycling of the ocean of Europa, up into its outer icy crust. Universe Today reports.


• Some Earth bacteria could thrive in the predicted environment of Enceladus. Universe Today reports.


• Cold environments still watery thanks to substantial amounts of brine could support life, conceivably on worlds as distant as Pluto. Universe Today reports.