[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Crux considers the anthropic principle. To what degree are the natural laws of the universe naturally suited to supporting life?


• D-Brief notes the detection of an ultra-hot magnetosphere about white dwarf GALEXJ014636.8+323615, 1200 light-years away.


• Far Outliers notes how how Japan's civil wars in the 1860s were not a straightforward matter of conflicts between supporters of the shogun and supporters of the emperor.


• Amanda Woytus at JSTOR Daily notes how the ever-popular Baby-Sitters Club series of children's novels reflected a now-gone sense of an American life that could be safe.


• Language Log looks at the use of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in a Vietnamese patriotic slogan.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the manufactured scandal around the supposed idea that Hillary Clinton wants to run for the American presidency in 2020.


• Lorna Finlayson writes at the LRB Blog, using the example of her great-uncle killed at the Somme, about how representing the dead of the First World War as willing sacrificers of their lives against tyranny misrepresents them.


• Rachelle Krygier writes at Roads and Kingdoms about how finding enough food to eat can be a day-long challenge if you happen to live in Venezuela.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explores the question of who, exactly, determined that the universe was expanding.


• Window on Eurasia quotes a Russian analyst who makes the point that, given many of the other Soviet successor states are going in directions away from Russia, it makes no sense to talk about a "post-Soviet space".