[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Several people on my Facebook friends list have found this 80 Beats item describing the successful American testing of a naval-based laser weapon fantastic because, well, lasers.


• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster describes how to take pictures of extrasolar planets. Looking for young red dwarfs is a good idea, it seems.


• Eastern Approaches comments on Russia's interest in selling nuclear reactors to the Czech Republic.


• The Global Sociology Blog documents two forms of misogyny, sex-selective abortion in India and femicide in Latin America.


• io9 reports on the efforts of Detroit to manage a controlled shrinkage.


• Joe. My. God. reports that Uruguay is about to become the second country in Latin America, after Argentina, to approve same-sex marriage.


• At Personal Reflections, Jim Belshaw reflects on the question of who is an Aboriginal when there has been so much intermixture.


• Slap Upside the Head notes the ridiculous Italian historian who suggested that Rome fell because of its too-numerous homosexuals. Such powers we have.


• At the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin notes how the French-language party leaders debate here in Canada may be postponed to avoid conflicts with the upcoming Canadiens-Bruins hockey game, and thinks it a good idea.


• Window on Eurasia reports that some Russians want to exploit the country's vestigial Ainu population to reinforce their control of the Kuril Islands, even attracting Ainu from Japan to an Ainu autonomous district.