[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• BagNewsNotes' Michael Shaw wonders whether the assassination attempt in Arizona on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an attractive, kind, broadly centrist woman married to an astronaut, could shift people from the extremes.


• blogTO's Derek Flack wonders when the necessary infrastructure for electric cars in Toronto will be installed.


• Daniel Drezner wonders if the current standoff in Cöte d'Ivoire between illegal incumbent Gbagbo and, well, everyone else might be one of those rare cases where unilateral American military intervention might be justified.


• The Discoblog notes that toilet-trained pigs in Taiwan have dramatically reduced the volume of waste in Taiwanese rivers.


• Extraordinary Observation's Rob Pitingolo makes the point that the tendency to judge cyclists or drivers by the behaviour of the worst isn't good, and that cyclists need to be responsible, too. Hear hear.


• Far Outliers traces the origins of the Indonesian national army--the one that drove out the Dutch--in the Japanese transfer of matériel to local nationalists after the Japanese surrender in 1945.


• Jonathan Crowe, at the Map Room, links to a collection of maps showing Asian mass transit network routes, up to the year 2020.


• Slap Upside the Head takes note that the immigration rules for international same-sex marriages in Canada are being tightened, to reduce the risk of fraud. Is the same being done--has the same been done--for opposite-sex marriages? I hope.


• Torontoist's Steve Kupferman gets a tour of the surprisingly attractive R.C. Harris water treatment plant in east-end Toronto.


• Andy Towle at Towleroad noted the creation of a GLBT museum in San Francisco.


• Une heure de peine's Denis Colombi writes about the fundamental tensions in the positions of Banksy and other renegade artists, who pose themselves as countercultural while needing to participate in the web of established artistic networks.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that Moscow is encouraging the growth of Ruthenian--Rusyn--nationalism in far western Ukraine.