[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

German politics, Slovakia's geopolitics, regionalism and cities in India, racism in science, and the benefits of self-governance for islands and the Internet alike--all are linked to here.

• Daniel Drezner is very unimpressed with German chancellor Angela Merkel, whose leadership style he describes as dithering and then announcing sudden policy changes which do nothing for her politically.


• Eastern Approaches suggests that Slovakia's opposition to "easy" bailouts for indebted Eurozone countries like Greece, supported by popular opinion, is now becoming more accepted as Germany in particular hardens.


• Geocurrents takes a look at the northeastern Indian state of Tripura, after partition transformed by the mass immigration of Bengali Hindus into one conflict-ridden area on the eastern fringes of Bengal.


• The Global Sociology Blog reviews The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a book that examines how immortal cancer cells were taken from the body of a dying African-American cotton farmer in the mid-20th century and the connection between science and racism.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Dave Brockington observes the continuing travails of Puerto Rico, caught in the current ambiguous status quo.


• Marginal Revolution's Alex Tabarrok seems altogether too impressed by the Indian city of Gurgoan, built and functioning well without government involvement, as a model for urban development more generally.


• Registan takes a look at the surprising conflict of the government of Kazakhtan with Google.


• The Yorkshire Ranter observes that the only British regions with rising incomes over the past few year are self-governing London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, with self-governing Wales doing least bad of all the rest.