[BLOG] Some Friday links (1)

[rfmcdonald]

• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster describes, after Timothy Ferris and Greg Egan, the idea of a "galactic Internet" that we just have to find a way to plug into.


• Will Baird at The Dragon's Tales describes one theory for identifying life-supporting worlds on super-Earths orbiting red dwarfs from their spectrographic signatures, and another suggesting that gravitational resonances from Jupiter and Saturn prevented the formation of more, and more massive, planets in the area of Mars.


• Daniel Drezner notes that austerity is controversial in Poland.


• Eastern Approaches touches upon illegal--that is to say, unregulated--adoption in Poland.


• Language Log considers the phonemic--vowel-like, even--qualities of the "Mc" in McDonald's. I'm amused.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that the United States is no longer supporting Argentina's international legal issues with the foreigners claiming its debt.


• Is Towleroad essayist RJ Aguiar correct in claiming that the gay rights movement has neglected sexual freedom for more conservative marriage-type issues?


• A couple of posts at the Volokh Conspiracy suggest that the fall of Detroit can be connected to the use of eminent domain to confiscate property for development. (I suspect causality is reversed.)


• Window on Eurasia points to some interesting articles: one claims that Ukraine for all of its issues is more pluralistic and thus more hopeful than Russia; another talking about the unlikelihood that South Ossetia, once Georgian, will be reunited with North Ossetia inside Russia; and, a final one suggesting that anti-GLBT attitudes are rife throughout the South Caucasus.