[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• In a guest post at Charlie Stross' blog, Kari Sperring takes issue with the idea of of a primeval Celtic paradise for women, based purely on myth and imaginings


• blogTO's Chris Bateman explains how different Toronto neighbourhoods--Parkdale, Rosedale, and so on--got their names.


• Eastern Approaches notes the ongoing scandal in Poland over that country's grant of permission to the United States to operate secure prisons on its territory.


• Reflecting on the death of Neil Armstrong, GNXP's Razib Khan wonders if the failure to return to the Moon demonstrates the end of the Whig ideal of inevitable progress.


• Language Hat takes note of research into scribblings of nonsense words on Greek pottery. Might these words be actual words from the languages of the Caucasus? It's a provocative idea.


• Language Log's Victor Mair reports on a Chinese artist's proposal to create new characters. Mair is against the idea entirely, instead favouring a shift to a simpler script.


• Marginal Revolution links to economics research suggesting that, whether in independent countries or American states, capital cities isolated from the populations they govern support high levels of corruption.


• Registan's Casey Michel expects the first-ever state visit of Kazakhstani president Nursultan Nazarbayev to his country's much poorer and smaller southern neighbour of Kyrgyzstan to result in the second country being pressured to adopt the ways of the first.


• Supernova Condensate wants the death of Neil Armstrong to mark the beginning of a second era of ambitious manned space travel and exploration.