[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Andrew Barton, at Acts of Minor Treason, has a picture of a beautiful Sumatran tiger in the Phoenix zoo. Kitty!


• Over at blogTO, meanwhile, the latest TTC issue involves a TTC employees' Facebook group featuring employees who seem to have issues with not being able to chat or social-network at work. Like, on their vehicles.


• Jeff Jedras, BCer in Toronto, thinks that the federal Liberals shouldn't panic, that they're making headway against the Conservatives with their humanization of Ignatieff. Yeah, I might add, but their need to humanize him ...


• At Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster considers the scenarios explaining how different planets in the same system can have wildly differently inclined orbits around their star. Migration, not formation in situ, seems key.


• Daniel Drezner doesn't think much of the idea of China as dominant superpower given the fragmentation and diffusion of power far beyond the presidency.


• After visiting Montréal, Extraordinary Observation's Rob Pitingolo reflects on what he felt about that city's urbanism.


• GeoCurrents Events points out that some of the highest suicide rates in the world can be found in the Russian autonomous republics of Mari-El and Chuvashia, where cultural factors seem to create a predisposition. In the comments, other Russian autonomous regions are cited as having higher suicide rates.


• The Global Sociology Blog thinks it's a good thing that many sociologists are producing depressing analyses of the world situation, since there's many things which need to be wrong and not brushed under the covers.


• Language Hat considers the different names given to the Tajiks of Central Asia by their neighbours, and the names' etymologies.


• Language Log, meanwhile, takes a look at Russian loanwords in border dialects of Chinese.


• Strange Maps features maps, drawn by Americans, of Second World War invasions of the United States that wouldn't have happened on account of the Axis powers' defensive warplanning.