[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton points out that biking is problematic if there's no infrastructure, like bike lockups.


• Centauri Dreams observes the exciting news that Pluto's thin atmosphere has carbon monoxide.


• Geocurrents' Martin Lewis examines the different Wikipedia encyclopedias and language use. Which is largest? Which has the most articles per capita?


• The Global Sociology Blog links to an article and a video from the Guardian examining the strains placed on family life when two young women refuse female circumcision.


• At Itching for Eestimaa, Palun doesn't think that Estonians will look back on this time period as a golden age, akin to the 1950s in the United States. But then, was that the way things were seen at the time? History patinas.


• Language Log's Mark Liberman writes about the Berbers of Libya, starting to assert their ethnic identity in following a pattern common to the wider Maghreb.


• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Charli Carpenter considers the question of who, exactly, released the Guantanamo data into the media. It wasn't Wikileaks and likely not OpenLeaks, after all.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen wonders why Russian Jews in the United States are more conservative than many of their co-religionists. It may relate to, among other things, a strong affiliation with Israel and hence the Republicans.


• At the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin responds to Cowen and argues that Russian Jews in fact are more conservative because--on many metrics--Russia is a more conservative society than the United States.