[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Fresh from a redesign of his blog, Andrew Barton's Acts of Minor Treason features an icestorm photo, of a tree encased in ice.


• BlogTO observes that a plan to tear down the Hotel Waverly and the Silver Dollar nightclub, located at Spadina and College, and to replace it with a 22-story building including student housing, has been turned down.


• Far Outliers notes the German role in fomenting jihadist sentiments against the British and French in the early 20th century and the multiple irreconcilable political goals of the Young Turks.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Italian Olympics committeeman Mario Pescante has criticized the US for sending out non-heterosexuals to Sochi.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen considers (1, 2) which countries will be experiencing recessions, as opposed to financial crises. (Canada features, as do the Nordic countries and Singapore.)


• Registan's Reid Standish notes that fish are returning to the northern Aral Sea, an area that has seen extensive rehabilitation under Kazakhstan as a new small self-enclosed sea.


• Torontoist traces the history of the large retail space at the north end of the Eaton Centre, once Eaton's flagship store, then a major Sears location, now set to become a Nordstrom's.


• Towleroad notes that Nigeria is already seeking out gays for persecution and observes that Russia is upset with the European Union's inclusion of gay rights in its human rights platforms.


• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that an ingenious effort to find evidence of time travel from the future through social networking posts has found nothing.


• Window on Eurasia notes the arguments of many that a Russia that established a Eurasian union without Ukraine would become much less Slavic and Orthodox.