[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Over at the Burgh Diaspora, Jim Russell takes a look at Japan's system of higher education, with a proliferating number of institutions and faculties but collapsing numbers of students, and argues that financially viable higher education systems will need students beyond their immediate catchment area.


• Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell starts a discussion about post-democratic governments such as Italy's recent Monti government and elsewhere, and wonders what response there can be apart from an inchoate populism.


• The Dragon's Tales' Will Baird links to a paper suggesting that the greenhouse effect has been mitigated in the past decade by the sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions.


• At False Steps, Paul Drye contemplates the abortive joint ESA-Russia effort at an Ariane-launched spaceplane, the Kliper.


• Geocurrents' Martin Lewis notes, with some local distinctions, the contrast between a broadly secular and liberal minded core Egypt (Cairo and the upper delta) contrasted with a more conservative rest of the country.


• At The Power and the Money, Douglas Muir expects the Syrian civil war to continue for a good while yet.


• Towleroad reports on Lech Walesa's homophobic statements, denounced even by his own son.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little sees reason for concern about the long-term effectiveness and academic credibility of the French university system.


• Window on Eurasia's Paul Goble notes, via others, the alienation of western Kazakhstan--rich in natural resources, more conservative, but subordinates--from the remainder of the country.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell reminds his readers--proponents of the Iraq war, too--of the broad consensus in the United Kingdom against the 2003 invasion and its sequelae.