[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Using a timeline featuring a successful imperial North Korea, Andrew Barton makes the point, again, that if futures are to be meaningful--even in video games--they have to be at least a bit plausible.


• BagNewsNotes' Michael Shaw uses the picture of Charles and Camilla stuck in their limousine in a riot in London to suggest that anti-establishment anger in the United Kingdom might be finding precise targets.


• Behind the Numbers’ Carl Haub finds evidence of the rapid aging of the German population in his discovery of mall shopping carts with magnifying glasses and hooks for canes built in.


• Daniel Drezner isn't impressed by China's power, at least inasmuch as it didn't make countries close to China but interested in the Nobel Peace Prize or anti-government dissidents stay away from the recent ceremony.


• Everyday Sociology takes on the fine internal gradations of status and occupation within academia, concentrating on the peculiar and uncomfortable position of the adjunct.


• The Global Sociology Blog points out that dental health, or lack thereof, is a good marker of socioeconomic class.


• Halfway Down the Danube's Douglas Muir notes Israel's Military Order1650, which bars migration between (mainly from) the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on pain of deportation.


• Language Hat reports on a problematic public wiki on endangered languages that, though structurally problematic (anyone can submit anything), might be the best way to preserve information about endangered languages and their associated cultures.


• At the Invisible College, Lennert Breuker suggests that the recent investigation opened up by the International Criminal Court into allegations of North Korean war crimes re: its recent bombardment of a South Korean island might help restrain it.


• Spacing Toronto examines the storied history of downtown Toronto’s Brunswick Avenue.


• Torontoist’s Steve Kupferman takes an exhaustive look at light rail systems around the world, responding to Rob Ford’s suggestion that they’re not fighting for a northern metropolis like Canada. They are.