[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Bag News Notes' Michael Shaw takes a look at NSA Edward Snowden, as good as look as can be taken.


• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster reflects on Iain M. Banks as a designer of megascale structures.


• The Dragon's Tales' Will Baird reports on Chinese interest in paying for the reconstruction of a Nicaragua canal.


• Eastern Approaches notes that the iconic Gdansk shipyards, which fostered the growth of solidarity, are at risk of closing.


• Geocurrents' Asya Perelstvaig writes about the coverage of the news of the last speaker of the Baltic Finnic language of Livonian, in all of its flaws.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen likes a book describing why some East Asian economies hit the First World and others didn't, while Alex Tabarrok advocates for a new regime in the United States for the approval of medications.


• New Apps Blog's Lisa Guenther uses a documentary on the fate of the long-term incarcerated to start a discussion on what we grow to tolerate.


• Normblog's Norman Geras interviews Daniel Libeskind.


• The Signal's Bill LeFurgy writes about word processing, the killer app that jumpstarted the computer revolution.


• Window on Eurasia argues that Ukrainians generally haven't assimilated the Crimean Tatar history of deportation into their own and quotes from a Kazakhstani writer who argues that real, broad-based Russian influence is much more threatening to Kazakh identity than anything the Chinese have done or are likely to do.