[CAT] Three photos of Shakespeare, after Pavel

While away in Québec last weekend, my friend Pavel came by my place to take care of Shakespeare. He even caught some fetchin

[CAT] Shakespeare, alerted in bed

[CAT] Five #caturday links: strays, Winnipeg, scent, Instagram, paper

• This letter to the Windsor Star makes the point that city needs to tend to its stray cats. (So do all cities, I bet.)


• A cat café in Winnipeg has reopened. CBC reports.


• Phys.org reports on a paper noting that the scent of male cats is made by microbes inhabiting cat bodies.


• Apparently Instagram accounts of fat cats on diets are a thing. The Guardian reports.


• Why do cats so love cardboard and paper? MNN reports.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul shares photos from a bike tour of Berlin.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on new evidence that exocomets are raining on star Beta Pictoris.


• Larry Klaes at Centauri Dreams reviews the two late 1970s SF films Alien and Star Trek I, products of the same era.


• D-Brief reports on Hubble studies of the star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud.


• Bruce Dorminey shares Gemini telescope images of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).


• The Dragon's Tales shares video of Space X's Starhopper test flight.


• Far Outliers notes the import of the 13th century Norman king of England calling himself Edward after an Anglo-Saxon king.


• Gizmodo notes that not only can rats learn to play hide and seek, they seem to enjoy it.


• io9 notes the fantastic high camp of Mister Sinister in the new Jonathan Hickman X-Men run, borrowing a note from Kieron Gillen's portrayal of the character.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Guiliani's soon-to-be ex-wife says he has descended from 911 hero to a liar.


• Language Log looks at the recent ridiculous suggestion that English, among other languages, descends from Chinese.


• The LRB Blog looks at the brief history of commemorating the V2 attacks on London.


• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the practice in Saskatchewan of sterilizing First Nations women against their consent.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that farmers in Brazil might be getting a partly unfair treatment. (Partly.)


• The Planetary Society Blog explains why C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) matters.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, for the first time, immigrants from Turkmenistan in Belarus outnumber immigrants from Ukraine.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TIFF and transit, 311 Mildenhall Road, Galleria, 7 Labatt, NDP

• Sean Marshall takes issue with how TIFF monopolizes much of the downtown, including key arteries like King Street.


• blogTO reports on the luxurious estate of 311 Mildenhall Road, recently off the market at a price of well over $C 10 million.


• Urban Toronto shares renderings of the first phase of Galleria on the Park. Wow.


• Dozens of artists are working out of 7 Labatt Avenue, a warehouse set to be demolished. The Toronto Star reports.


• NOW Toronto reports on the mess involving the NDP in the riding of Parkdale-High Park, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Milton, Hamilton, New York City, Mexico City, Tel Aviv

• MacLean's reports from the GTA suburban city of Milton, a key battleground in the federal election.


• Hamilton police continues to be caught up in controversy over its handling of Pride. Global News reports.


• CityLab profiles new murals being created in New York City's Harlem, on 125th street, here.


• Guardian Cities considers some ambitious plans for remodeling Mexico City, with vast new neighbourhoods and airports, which never came off.


• Atlas Obscura looks at a notable library of books and other documents in the Yiddish language, housed out of a decrepit bus terminal in Tel Aviv.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: National Park, Lennox Island, traffic, Charlottetown mass transit, Cornwall

• The Prince Edward Island National Park, unsurprisingly, was devastated by Hurricane Dorian. Global News reports.


• The Mi'kmaq community of Lennox Island lost large amounts of frozen lobster after Hurricane Dorian. CBC PEI reports.


• Peter Rukavina has mapped the busiest and sleeping roads on PEI, here.


• Growth in ridership on Trius Transit in Charlottetown continues to outpace expectations, CBC PEI reports.


• The work that the Charlottetown suburb of Cornwall is doing, diverting the Trans-Canada Highway to build a Main Street, is authentically exciting urbanism. CBC PEI reports.