• blogTO looks at deserted Mirvish Village.
• Crooked Timber reenages with the Rachel Carson and DDT myth.
• The Crux looks at the Mandela Effect, exploring false memories.
• Dangerous Minds makes the case for the musical genius of Bobbie Gentry.
• From the Heart of Europe's Nicholas Whyte recounts his visit to Albania's bunker museum.

• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling is impressed by The Atlantic's prediction of disruptive change coming in consumer technology.
• Centauri Dreams highlights a recent study suggesting that, so long as they don't have too much water, super-Earths could have habitable land surfaces. (The study was promoted on social media as noting that Superman's ( Read more... )

Depressing news from Bulgaria. It turns out Garth Greenwell's Towleroad report this is one of those news stories where I'm unhappy to learn that an acquaintance was involved, happily someone who escaped without physical injury.

I was shocked to learn that in Plovdiv, the country’s second largest city, an LGBT film festival was violently disrupted ( Read more... )

• A Budding Sociologist or not, Dan Hirschman has a fascinating Q&A up with Canada-based economist Morten Jerven talking about the extent to which economic--and other--statistics in Africa are flawed.
• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes the landmark discovery of a distant supernova, a Type 1A supernova 10.5 billion light years away (and 10.5 billion ( Read more... )

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes the discovery that the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy NGC 1365 is rotating at nearly the speed of light. What does it mean?
• BlogTO features vintage photos of Queen Street East.
• Crasstalk's TS posts a followup to the spreading scandals besetting the Canadian Senate. Oh, but for a unicameral federal ( Read more... )

This unsigned piece published late last month by Bulgaria's FOCUS News Agency contrasts and compares Greece with Bulgaria, the latter country--Communist until 1989, outside of the European Union unil 2007, still outside of the Eurozone--being presented as a model.

Leaving aside the complexities of the now-stable Bulgarian-Greek relationship, and ( Read more... )

Janusz Bugajski's essay, republished at Transitions Online, analyzing the Russian-Serbian relationship in the context of Russia happily accepting a Eurosceptic Serbia's offers to transform itself into a bastion of Russian power at the Balkansoffers of friendship--whatever the cost to Serbia itself--is worth reading.

Nikolic promised during his ( Read more... )

Bulgarian television journalist Boyko Vassilev an article up at Transitions Online examining the decidedly tumultuous Bulgarian-Turkish relationship.

Yes, Bulgaria and Turkey have a long history. Its central fact is a number: 500, the years of - how to call it? Ottoman or Turkish? Presence? Domination? Rule? Or was it a yoke, as the 19th-century ( Read more... )

Boyko Vassilev's Transitions Online essay made me think about the sorts of relative rankings of countries described here.

Being somebody’s West means that you lead - and the other follows. The essence of “leading” is concentrated in the standard of living, freedom of movement, and the quality of public administration. The perception of being ( Read more... )

The reaction to Mubaraks's announcement of non-resignation has been predictably very hostile.

[Mubarak] addressed the country on television late Thursday evening. Shortly after, Suleiman addressed the country, asking protesters to go home ( Read more... )