[CAT] Shakespeare, on his side

[PHOTO] Grey skyline looking east, Thursday afternoon

[PHOTO] Onset of torrential rain in thunderstorm, Queen Street West

[PHOTO] Three photos from a point near Sherbourne and Carlton

[URBAN NOTE] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the possibility that our model for the evolution of galaxies might be partially disproven by Big Data.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly reports how she did her latest article for the New York Times.


• Centauri Dreams notes the beginning of a search for habitable-zone planets around Alpha Centauri A and B.


• The Crux looks at how the skull trophies of the ancient Maya help explain civilizational collapse.


• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting that our humble, seemingly stable Sun can produce superflares.


• Dead Things reports on the latest informed speculation about the sense of smell of Tyrannosaurus Rex.


• The Dragon's Tales shares the NASA report on its progress towards the Lunar Gateway station.


• Gizmodo looks at the growing number of China's beautiful, deadly, blooms of bioluminescent algae.


• io9 reports that Stjepan Sejic has a new series with DC, exploring the inner life of Harley Quinn.


• JSTOR Daily looks at an example of a feminist musical, the Chantal Akerman The Eighties.


• Language Hat links to a review of a dystopian novel by Yoko Tawada, The Emissary, imagining a future Japan where the learning of foreign languages is banned.


• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reiterates that history, and the writing of history, is an actual profession with skills and procedures writers in the field need to know.


• Liam Shaw writes at the LRB Blog about how people in London, late in the Second World War, coped with the terrifying attacks of V2 rockets.


• The Map Room Blog links to a new book, Wayfinding, about the neuroscience of navigation.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reviews a Robert Zubrin book advocating the colonization of space and finds himself unconvinced.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the ancient comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko explored by the ESA Rosetta probe.


• Roads and Kingdoms provides tips for visitors to the Paraguay capital of Asuncion.


• Peter Rukavina reports that, on the day the new PEI legislature came in, 105% of Island electricity came from windpower.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel argues that, in searching for life, we should not look for exoplanets very like Earth.


• Strange Company shares another weekend collection of diverse links.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little shares the views of Margaret Gilbert on social facts.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Kadyrov might dream of a broad Greater Chechnya, achieved at the expense of neighbouring republics.


• Arnold Zwicky considers some superhero identity crises, of Superman and of others.

[NEWS] Twelve LGBTQ links (#lgbtq, #queer)

• Daily Xtra looks at 50 years of fighting for LGBTQ rights in Canada, here.


• Them links to a variety of classic documentaries about LGBTQ life before Stonewall, here.


• Atlas Obscura explains why lesbians and potluck dinners are so closely associated with each other, here.


• Them looks at the controversies surrounding the construction of monuments to LGBTQ heroes of the past, here.


• VICE explains how venerable magazine Out was nearly ended by poor management, here.


• Wired looks at queer history in TV movies, here.


• Connor Garel at NOW Toronto writes, inspired by Paris Is Burning and the drag scene, about the importance of maintaining queer spaces, here.


• Enzo DiMatteo writes at NOW Toronto about the long history of homophobia of Doug Ford, here.


• Claire Provost writes at Open Democracy about the frighteningly well-coordinated global campaign by groups on the right against LGBTQ superheroes, here.


• Michael Waters at Daily Xtra explains the key role of young users of social media in keeping even obscure corners of LGBTQ history alive, here.