A Bit More Detail

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the discovery of rings around Kuiper belt dwarf planet Haumea, as does the Planetary Society Blog's Jason Davis.


• The Big Picture, from the Boston Globe, shares photos of the devastation of Puerto Rico by Maria.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the strong support of many--most?--on the American right for apartheid.


• The LRB Blog shares an article by Mike Davis looking at the vulnerability of California, especially Napa, to wildfires.


• The Map Room Blog links to a beautiful detailed map of the French railway network.


• The NYR Daily reports from Catalonia on the edge of a meltdown.


• North's Justin Petrone writes about going hunting for mushroooms in Estonia.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares five especially noteworthy photos provided by NASA. (What, no Pale Blue Dot?)


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russians in Tatarstan, unlike other groups, are unique in not wanting to learn Tatar.

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes that the most plausible explanation for Tabitha's Star, KIC 8462852, exists in partial eclipses of the star by dust clouds.


• D-Brief notes that the giant stick insects of Lord Howe Island did survive in their forced diaspora.


• The Dragon's Gaze takes a look at Kelt-9b, a planet so close to its star that it is literally melting away.


• Language Hat looks at a website set up by inhabitants of the Faroe Islands to translate Faroese.


• The LRB Blog shares some of the past appearances of Nobel-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro in the pages of the LRB.


• Neal Ascherson at the NYR Daily looks at the mechanism of the referendum, in Scotland and Catalonia and elsewhere.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the import of Mike Pence's promise to send Americans to the Moon again.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how the cosmic phenomenon of inflation explains the entire modern universe.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov is trying to establish himself as a Russian political figure.

• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of dispatching a fleet of sail-equipped probes to map the asteroid belt.


• Crux considers the importance of the invention of zero for mathematics.


• D-Brief notes that Scotland's oldest snow patch is set to melt imminently.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper looking at the stability of multiplanetary systems in star clusters.


• Imageo notes the modest recovery of icecaps in the Arctic this summer.


• Language Log notes the importance of Kazakhstan's shift to using the Latin script for the Kazakh language.


• The LRB Blog reports on a writer's visit to Helsinki.


• The Map Room Blog notes a giant relief map of Guatemala, built to reinforce claims to what is now Belize.


• The NYR Daily considers the continued salience of race in the fragile liberal-democratic world, in America and Europe.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer wonders if the heavy-handed Spanish government is trying to trigger Catalonian independence.


• Roads and Kingdoms considers the palm wine of Senegal, and its vendors.


• Understanding Society considers the Holocaust, as an experience sociological and otherwise.


• The Volokh Conspiracy makes a libertarian case for open borders.


• Whatever's John Scalzi celebrates his meeting mutual fan Alison Moyet.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Belarus' cautious Belarusianization is met by Russia's pro-Soviet nostalgia.

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes how the media made a simulation of a third planet at Gliese 832 a discovery of a new Earth-like world.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly calls on a consideration of why schoolchildren are labelled troublemakers.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that 51 Eridani b has been discovered to be a cloudy world, and how.


• Far Outliers notes how the decline of Temasek (the future Singapore) was followed by the rise of Melaka.


• Hornet Stories tells of an Orthodox Christian priest in Australia, who, at the funeral of a lesbian, called for gays to be shot.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Catalonia's parliament approved a referendum on secession.


• The LRB Blog considers the import of Monte Testaccio, a man-made hill of rubble and waste dating from Roman times.


• The NYR Daily considers the engaging and engaged pop art of Grayson Perry.


• Roads and Kingdoms tells of a lazy afternoon spent drinking New Zealand beer in a Moscow pub.


• Towleroad notes an upcoming revealing documentary about Grace Jones.


• Window on Eurasia notes how, in the Donbas wars, mercenaries are becoming a major, potentially destabilizing force.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the conflict between quantitative data and qualitative stories in politics.

• Centauri Dreams considers Juno's photos of Jupiter's poles.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes the discovery of another star that behaves much like mysterious Tabby's Star.


• Far Outliers reports on the good reputation of the Chinese forces at Shanghai in 1937.


• Joe. My. God. notes a Christian site that claims gay sex is not sex.


• Language Hat reports on the problems of translating Elena Ferrante.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money and Noel Maurer are unimpressed by Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.


• The New APPS Blog writes against faculty lock-outs.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw describes the Parers, a Catalan-Australian family.


• Window on Eurasia notes Ukraine's recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, reports on how Russians resent Ukrainian refugees, and suggests the Russian economic crisis is finally hitting Moscow and St. Petersburg.

• Centauri Dreams looks at odd binary AR Scorpii.


• Crooked Timber examines connections between demographic change and religiosity in the United States.


• A Fistful of Euros reports on the IMF response to the Eurozone bailouts.


• Joe. My. God. notes the outrage of families of survivors of American military dead at Trump's treatment of the Khan family.


• The LRB Blog calls for England to secede.


• Out There interviews Tabitha Boyajian about KIC 8462852.


• The Planetary Society Blog features Marc Rayman's explanation of Dawn's remaining at Ceres.


• Peter Rukavina notes a book exploring the lost Quaker settlement of New London, on the north shore of Prince Edward Island.


• Strange Maps looks at the cartographic imprint of Spain on the streets of Barcelona.


• Torontoist notes that tickets for the Toronto Islands ferry can now be bought from smartphone apps.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia is running out of money to sustain its economy, looks at the Russian propensity of emigration, and notes that rising unemployment is contributing to internal migration.

• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering rates of water loss in a moist greenhouse world's atmosphere.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that leftists in Catalonia blocked separatists from forming the government.


• Far Outliers notes Persian cultural influence in the South Caucasus, among Christian and Muslim cultures alike.


• Joe. My. God. notes that the Catholic cardinal of the Dominican Republic insulted the gay American ambassador in a manner combining homophobia with misogyny.


• Language Log notes the growing multilingualism of Hong Kong, beyond Chinese languages.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money responds to a feminist criticism of Jessica Jones, and notes it is entirely possible to respond to a feminist criticism without sending death or rape threats.


• Towleroad notes the publication, by the Russian edition of Maxim, of a list of gay respected by the magazine.


• Transit Toronto notes that you only need proof of payment to board streetcars by any door.


• Window on Eurasia notes a move in Russia to undermine that country's ethnofederalism, to the demerit of minority peoples like the Tatars.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes how the old habit of the Enlightenment to organize museums by curiosities does not work if you use artifacts from indigenous peoples in the mix.

• blogTO reports on five of the smallest libraries in Toronto. Two of them are near me.


• James Bow notes the odd recent Facebook slowdowns.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly notes there is no such thing as a low-skilled job.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes three recently-discovered hot Jupiters.


• The Dragon's Tales notes geological evidence of ancient atmospheric oxygen in rocks 3.2 billion years ago and reports on the discovery of water ice on Pluto.


• Geocurrents notes the lack of support for Catalonian separatism in Occitan-speaking Val d'Aran.


• Joe. My. God. notes that the kissing marine couple has married.


• Language Log celebrated Korea's Hangul Day yesterday.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes toxic masculinity in team sports.


• The Planetary Society Blog considers the role of telerobotics in space exploration.


• Towleroad notes the definitive arrival of marriage equality in Ireland.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia's Syria gambit is failing, with implications for tensions among Russia's Muslims, and notes Crimean Tatar institutions' issues with the Russian state.

If we return our focus to Catalonia, where on Sunday the pro-independence parties won a majority of seats in parliament. The exact levels of support for Catalan independence vary according to who you ask, with both sides in the debate naturally exaggerating their own support base. It is beyond doubt, however, that at least a sizeable minority of Catalan voters want full independence from Spain.

The Spanish government has of course secured its own democratic mandate to govern, having been chosen for office by the entire Spanish electorate. It also has its own perfectly sensible reasons for wanting Catalonia to remain part of Spain. Aside from patriotic notions of Spanish unity, it benefits Spain economically to have the relatively wealthy and productive Catalonia as part of the family.

Yet the national government in Madrid isn’t the sole legislative power in Spain, a highly de-centralised country divided into 17 autonomous communities, each with its own legislature.

Catalan elections consistently garner a lot of support for the independence cause. In refusing to allow an independence referendum to be held, the Spanish government chooses to utilise its own mandate as a democratically-elected body to overrule a subordinate yet equally legitimate body. A body that is simply seeking to serve the interests of the people that voted for it.

Nothing that has come before has mattered; it has been all talk. Up until and including the September 27, every action of every politician and of the Catalan government will be legal; no one is going to go off-script and give Madrid an excuse to intervene. But as the Romans used to say: “res, non verba” or “act, don’t talk”. Now everyone will have to declare themselves in positive action. As soon as the government is formed, it will execute what it perceives to be its electoral mandate: attain independence for Catalonia. It is likely to proceed in the following manner:

1. The Catalan government will formally request secession negotiations with the Spanish government and the Catalan representatives of this list in the national legislature will attempt to submit a bill to that affect;

2. Both efforts will be immediately and conclusively rebuffed;

3. The Catalan government will then draft (or has already drafted) a unilateral declaration of independence and will submit it to the regional legislature for a vote. If the Catalan Parlament can muster a quorum, they will undoubtedly hold an immediate vote on the measure, which will probably be passed by the same majority, or slightly greater, that the pro-independence parties enjoy in the chamber.

At this point, Mariano Rajoy will have the legal justification to intervene. The intervention include many actions, but at a minimum he will use his constitutional authority from Article 154 to declare a state of exception in Catalonia, suspend the civil institutions and attempt to reassert the national authority. And this is when the feces begin to strike the ventilation unit.