A Bit More Detail

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that mysterious Boyajian's Star has nearly two dozen identified analogues, like HD 139139.


• James Bow reports from his con trip to Portland.


• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog notes the particular pleasure of having old friends, people with long baselines on us.


• Centauri Dreams describes a proposed mission to interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).


• The Crux notes how feeding cows seaweed could sharply reduce their methane production.


• D-Brief notes that comet C/2019 Q4 is decidedly red.


• Bruce Dorminey notes a claim that water-rich exoplanet K2-18b might well have more water than Earth.


• Gizmodo reports on a claim that Loki, biggest volcano on Io, is set to explode in a massive eruption.


• io9 notes that Warner Brothers is planning a Funko Pop movie.


• Joe. My. God. notes the claim of Donald Trump that he is ready for war with Iran.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how people in early modern Europe thought they could treat wounds with magic.


• Language Hat considers how "I tip my hat" might, translated, sound funny to a speaker of Canadian French.


• Language Log considers how speakers of Korean, and other languages, can find word spacing a challenge.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the partisan politics of the US Supreme Court.


• At the NYR Daily, Naomi Klein makes a case for the political and environmental necessity of a Green New Deal.


• Peter Watts takes apart a recent argument proclaiming the existence of free will.


• Peter Rukavina tells how travelling by rail or air from Prince Edward Island to points of the mainland can not only be terribly inconvenient, but environmentally worse than car travel. PEI does need better rail connections.


• The Russian Demographics Blog examines how different countries in Europe will conduct their census in 2020.


• Window on Eurasia shares the arguments of a geographer who makes the point that China has a larger effective territory than Russia (or Canada).


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at a 1971 prediction by J.G. Ballard about demagoguery and guilt, something that now looks reasonably accurate.


• Arnold Zwicky considers models of segregation of cartoon characters from normal ones in comics.

• La Presse notes that the bilingual greeting "Bonjour-Hi" is becoming more common in Montréal.


• This Ottawa Citizen opinion-writer was entirely right in noting that the Ontario government should not try to eliminate minority language rights and institutions for budgetary reasons.


• This TVO article about the forces facing the École secondaire Confédération in Welland is a fascinating study of minority dynamics.


• This brief article touches on efforts in the Franco-Manitoban community of Winnipeg to provide temporary shelter for new Francophone immigrants.


• Francophones in New Brunswick continue to face pressure, with their numbers despite overall population growth and with Francophones being much more likely to be bilingual than Anglophones. CBC reports.

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the newly-named Neptune moon of Hippocamp, and how it came about as product of a massive collision with the larger moon of Proteus.


• Centauri Dreams also reports on the discovery of the Neptune moon of Hippocamp.


• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes how the attempt to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum sets a terribly dangerous precedent for the United Kingdom.


• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting the role of the Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions in triggering the Cretaceous extinction event, alongside the Chixculub asteroid impact.


• Far Outliers notes the problems of Lawrence of Arabia with Indian soldiers and with Turks.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the state of philosophical contemplation about technology, at least in part a structural consequence of society.


• Hornet Stories shares this feature examining the future of gay porn, in an environment where amateur porn undermines the existing studios.


• JSTOR Daily considers the spotty history of casting African-American dancers in ballet.


• Language Hat suggests that the Académie française will soon accept for French feminized nouns of nouns links to professionals ("écrivaine" for a female writer, for instance).


• The LRB Blog considers the implications of the stripping of citizenship from Shamima Begum. Who is next? How badly is citizenship weakened in the United Kingdom?


• Marginal Revolution notes the upset of Haiti over its banning by Expedia.


• The NYR Daily notes the tension in Turkey between the country's liberal laws on divorce and marriage and rising Islamization.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at the moment, in the history of the universe, when dark energy became the dominant factors in the universe's evolution.


• Towleroad remembers Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the collaborator of Trump up to the moment of Cohn's death from AIDS.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little takes a look at Marx's theories of how governments worked.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the existential pressures facing many minority languages in Russia.

• Luke Ottenhof writes at MacLean's about how English Canadians miss out on the thriving Québécois popular music scene, one enormously successful and engaging with the world nicely.


• This article at Noisey looks at how global pop music is becoming increasingly multilingual, Spanish and Korean being specifically noted here.


• Daniel Drake wrote a touching essay last month about Paul Simon and his father over at the NYR Daily.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reports on how streaming as a technology for music distribution altered the nature of songcraft.


• This NOW Toronto review by Natalia Manzocco of the performance by Troye Sivan at the local stop of his Bloom tour, backed by Kim Petras, still startles me. That this is mainstream pop is amazing.

• The Crux compares the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the stories that they hold, to the sorts of oral histories that historians have traditionally been skeptical of. What, after all, is the difference?


• D-Brief notes a proposal by scientists to reengineer the world's food system to support a larger population in a time of environmental stresses.


• Earther notes that Gallifrey, the homeworld of Doctor Who, would be a pretty uninviting Earth-like world.


• Peter Kaufman at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes a powerful sociological treatment of his impending death.


• Far Outliers considers the relative firepower of the Hatfields and the McCoys.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper considering how, and why, different epidemics can be suitable (or not) for entertainment purposes.


• Language Hat looks at a remarkable new book, Robert Macfarlane's Lost Words, drawing from the nature-related words dropped by the Oxford Junior Dictionary.


• Lingua Franca at the Chronicle notes how "du coup" has ascended to become a newly prominent expression in French.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining mechanisms explaining how Communism had a lasting negative effect towards immigration.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, poor and insecure, need Russian military bases in their countries more than Russia does.

• Ostensibly bilingual New Brunswick is not having a French-language leaders' debate this election because of the weak language skills of the PC leader. Global News reports.


• A man from Québec was able to hitchhike across Canada, as far as Alberta even, using only his French. The Toronto Star ,a href="https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2018/08/22/quebec-man-hitchhikes-across-canada-speaking-only-french.html">reports.
  
• Québec Solidaire created a minor political storm over a tweet regarding the official languages of the province. The Montreal Gazette reports.


• Québec Solidaire also wants to give Quebec Sign Language official status. The Huffington Post reports.


• Amazon is working hard to give its Alexa Canadian French language support, making the device fluent in the local dialect. IT World Canada reports.

• Despite Brexit, the English language is continuing to make inroads against French in the halls of the European Union. Politico Europe reports.


• The State of Louisiana has made a formal application to join the Organisation international de la francophonie.


• This article in The Scotsman noting how some African slaves taken to plantations in the Carolinas came to use Gaelic, not English, as their common language is fascinating. What other influences came unexpectedly from Gaelic Scotland to African America?


• Can Hong Kong use the Cantonese language to extend its influence deeper into China and elsewhere? The SCMP considers.


• This article/a> in New Eastern Europe makes interesting arguments about how, in the post-Soviet world, the Russian language now has multiple centres and multiple standards. I'm unconvinced about the political arguments, though.

• CBC notes that major First Nations languages in Canada like Cree and Ojibwe may soon be supported by translators in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.


• Julian Brave NoiseCat at VICE argues against an imagining of wilderness that imagines territories without indigenous peoples. Such too readily can enable abuse of the natural world.


• Bloomberg notes how the Spanish authorities in Catalonia have overriden local governments and populations by transferring dispute art objects to a different Spanish region. This won't end well.


• Transitions Online notes how traditionally strong Czech support for Tibet and Tibetan exiles has been fading in recent years, with China becoming a bigger player.li
  
• Paul Wells at MacLean's takes a look at what might be the latest round of the language debate in Montréal. How important are greetings? (I think, for the record, they might be more important than Wells argues.)

• blogTO lists some interesting things to do and see in Toronto's American neighbour, Buffalo.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly strongly defends contemporary journalism as essential for understanding the world.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money rightly takes issue with the claim identity politics hinders the US left. Remember New Deal coalitions?


• Marginal Revolution notes just how expensive it is to run Harvard.


• Otto Pohl notes the upcoming 76th anniversary of the Soviet deportation of the Volga Germans.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer reports on the remarkably fluent code-switching between English and French of some Washington D.C. subway riders.


• Strange Maps notes rival food and fabric maps of India and Pakistan.


• Tricia Wood at Torontoist argues that, for environmental and economic reasons, Ontario needs high-speed rail.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Tatarstan has done a poor job of defending its sovereignty from the Russian government.

Kevin O’Leary has no time for accusations he held off on launching his bid for the federal Conservative party leadership until after Tuesday’s French language debate.

The unapologetic O’Leary says his fluency in Canada’s third “official” language outshines all others — the language of jobs.

“There’s three official languages in Canada: There’s English, there’s French, and there’s the language of jobs,” O’Leary told Global News Wednesday.

“Now I’m sure I’m going to get better at French in the next two years, but I guarantee you when I do my first debate with Trudeau, he will remain illiterate in the language of jobs.”
O’Leary has no experience in politics, however, he is a self-made multi-millionaire businessman.

Some believe federal politicians should be able to speak both official languages; a Nielsen survey conducted last year for the Official Languages Commissioner found 86 per cent of Canadians agree the prime minister should be bilingual.

Although O’Leary was born in Montreal, he is not fluent in French. His lack of French skills didn’t stop O’Leary from stepping into the Tory leadership race on Wednesday, his sights set on being Canada’s next prime minister.