New Europe's Andy King reports on how iconic British insurance firm Lloyd's of London, in an effort to ensure that it can offer continuity of services to its European Union clients post-Brexit, has begun to shift jobs out of London to EU destinations. Ireland and Malta are apparently fronrunners.

After three centuries, the Lloyds of London will no ( Read more... )

• The Big Picture shares photos from ruined Aleppo.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the new explanation for the ASASSN-15h, of a Sun-mass star torn apart by a fast-rotating black hole.
• The Crux looks at the condition of hyperemesis gravidarum.
• Dangerous Minds shares the dark and Satanic art of an Argentine artist.
• Joe. My. God. reports on one man's displeasure ( Read more... )

The Irish Examiner's John Whelan argues that, in coping with Brexit, Ireland has much to learn from Malta.

Malta is positioning itself as an alternative for companies willing to enter the EU market, and plans to use the EU Presidency, which passes to Malta for the first time in January 2017, to promote itself to UK-based international banks ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling mourns the death of Alvin Toffler.
• The Big Picture shares images of the Istanbul airport attack.
• blogTO notes Toronto's recent Trans March was the largest in world history.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly interviews memoirist Plum Johnson.
• Centauri Dreams considers the determination of distances to dim stars and ( Read more... )

Joe O'Connor had a nice post about a Maltese-Canadian couple who are set to move from their old home in The Junction. O'Connor describes their changing lives and neighbourhoods quite nicely.

Joe Scerri used to tease Mary Borg about her boyfriend, a handsome young buck with a motorcycle. But what, Joe would ask, was a motorcycle in comparison to ( Read more... )

• blogTO lists ten signs that you grew up in the Toronto neighbourhood of The Annex.
• The Dragon's Tales links to Alva Noe's essay arguing that artificial intelligences are so far less capable than amoebas.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the sociology of being a houseguest.
• Geocurrents' Martin Lewis notes that, while Scandinavian-Americans don't ( Read more... )

• James Bow celebrates his fourth published novel.
• blogTO celebrates WiFi in Bay station and shares old pictures of the Junction.
• Speed River Journal's Van Waffle examines the question of what caused new pollution in Lake Erie.
• Spacing Toronto examines again the controversy over a billboard apparently unauthorized at Bathuest and Davenport.
• Torontoist ( Read more... )

I've a post up at History and Futility that riffs on Malta's different locations in different imagined worlds--southern bulwark of Europe against a menacing Africa, or a bastion of Western expansion into the Maghreb--to make points about how meaning in maps is derived from interpretations of different relationships at least as much as simple ( Read more... )

I've a post up at Demography Matters that makes the point that, while Malta now might be imagined as islands pressured by illegal migrants, this time last century large numbers of Maltese were actively settling French-colonized North Africa. History has reversed itself, no?

Go, read.