[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdpei]

• 80 Beats lets us know that, as Iceland warms, Iceland's volcanoes may well become much more active.
• Amitai Etzioni doesn't like the United States' increasingly hard line on Israel's unconstructive role in the Middle East. I disagree.
• Will Baird at The Dragon's Tales lets us know that a recent study of the planet Gliese 436b reveals that, surprisingly, the planet's atmosphere doesn't contain any methane.
• Geocurrents writes about the internal divisions in Kyrgyzstan, between a relatively Russified north and a biethnic Kyrgyz-Uzbek south. It also examines the tensions between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
• GNXP's Razib Khan writes about how pigs, unlike people, can trace their ancestry to multiple source populations.
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns and Money is skeptical about the idea of a Liberal Democratic government in the United Kingdom, but thinks that the party's growing strength may well translate into vastly increased power.
• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw writes about how Australia's Green Party and Country Party have consciously chosen to limit their national influence by concentrating their efforts in relatively secure areas.
• After a long absence, Strange Maps reappears to discuss the "State of Jefferson," an American state that would have taken land from the Oregon-California frontier, but was ultimately pushed aside by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Towleroad reports that a vociferously anti-gay Ugandan parliamentarian may not get a visa to the United Kingdom if he doesn't withdraw his capital-punishment bill.
• Understanding Society's Daniel Little examines, after Max Weber, the uses of ideal types for studying a world that isn't ideal, since it allows for easy analysis and study.
• A commentator at Window on Eurasia is unduly surprised that the number of self-identified Orthodox Christians in Russia is considerably larger than the number of practising Orthodox Christians, noting that some regions of the former Soviet Union--western Ukraine is named--have a much more active religious culture than others.