[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton wonders why fictional names for an independent western Canada are so lame.


• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait goes over the evidence about the supposed massive distant gas giant Tyche in our system, pointing out that there are suggestive theories but no proofs, and no, this has nothing to do with the Sumerians.


• blogTO reproduces the underwhelming Toronto bikeway network.


• Daniel Drezner speculates about the possibility of a domino effect of revolutions in the Middle East.


• Eastern Approaches reports on the plight of refugees in western Ukraine, who tried to get into the European Union but failed.


• Far Outliers documents how Ethiopia's late medieval approaches to Europe were driven by deteriorating relations with Muslim polities.


• The Global Sociology Blog links to a variety of sources on survival sex, everything from the improved career prospects offered sex workers in Craiglist to survival sex in Soviet Estonia.


• Laywers, Guns and Money's Paul Campos thinks American politics is single-wing, without a strong left at all, at least in economic and foreign policy.


• Otto Pohl makes an interesting post noting the surprisingly strong relationship between Denmark and Ghana, the country where Danes once maintained a slaving outpost.


• At The Power and the Money, Noel Maurer starts off a series on Bahrain, a Persian Gulf island state with an American relationship dependent on oil and basing rights for the Fifth Fleet.


• Window on Eurasia picks up on the phenomenon of Russians moving south across the Amur River into China.