[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Big Picture shares photos of young Russian military cadets training.


• blogTO has a transcript of one of Ford's most recent reported rants.


• Centauri Dreams and D-Brief both note that the giant exoplanet Beta Pictoris b apparently has an eight-hour day.


• Crooked Timber's John Quiggin, focusing on Australia, discusses right-wing tribalism.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper examining various possibilities for orbits of planets in the Gliese 581 system.
  
• The Dragon's Tales links to a proposal (with pictures) for a Io volcano observer space probe.


• Eastern Approaches notes the continuing deterioration of eastern Ukraine.


• Geocurrents' Martin Lewis comments on the geographical illiteracy of the United States and of a very bad Pakistani school atlas.


• Joe. My. God. notes that, today, Brunei is implementing full sharia law.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes an Australian proposal to outlaw civil society-led boycotts.
  
• Marginal Revolution links to a poll suggesting Americans don't care about income inequality.


• The Planetary Society Weblog's Emily Lakdawalla notes that we're getting closer to figuring out which Kuiper belt dwarf planet is larger, Pluto or Eris.


• The Tin Man explains why he prefers Twitter to Facebook. (The former feels more free-form, less of a gated community.)


• Window on Eurasia notes that responsibility for recent increases in birth rates in Russia can't be assigned entirely, or even mostly, to the Russian government.