• The Big Picture shares photos from Rio in advance of the Olympics.
• James Bow remembers Mel Hurtig, the recently dead Canadian nationalist.
• Centauri Dreams considers space-based collection of antimatter.
• Crooked Timber examines the tyranny of the ideal.
• Dangerous Minds looks at a charming early 1980s board game, Gay Monopoly.

Megan Greenwell's article in Wired makes perfect sense to me. If the Olympics are too much for any one city to handle, why force it to do this?

[O]nly two cities have ever made hosting the Olympics work for them: Los Angeles and Barcelona, both of which mostly used existing venues instead of building new ones. And that, most sports economists ( Read more... )

Wired's Sam Lubell shares the news that at least some buildings in the Rio Olympics will end up being repurposed. Here's to hoping this will actually happen!

The Olympic Games are notorious for leaving burdensome buildings in their wake. Much of the swooping Olympic Park in Athens lies rusting and underutilized. Beijing National Stadium-or the ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes the advance of Catalonian separatism, looks at the economic catastrophes hitting Mozambique, and looks at how Africa is getting more people online by devising apps for non-smartphones.
• Bloomberg View examines at length the implications of Donald Trump's not quite criminal call to have Russia hack more E-mails.
• The CBC notes young ( Read more... )

• James Bow writes about the importance to him of Toronto's Bakka-Phoenix bookstore.
• The Dragon's Gaze considers the search for the debris disk of HR 8799.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that, early in the solar system's history, Venus may have been much better for life than Earth.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map noting the names for "tea" in ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes Venezuela's hopes for an oil price at $US 50, looks at Labour keeping the current London mayor's seat, observes the vulnerability of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and warns of a possible drought in the US Corn Belt.
• Bloomberg View notes the continuing fragmentation of the Orthodox Church, and suggests Putin might accept a partial ban ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg observes Iran's boycott of the hajj and Iranian hopes for relatively strong economic growth this year, looks at the impact of Middle Eastern economic decline on Thai hospitals, and notes the absence of IKEA from Ukraine.
• CBC notes retesting has revealed eight Russian athletes who used banned substances at the London Olympics.
• Foreign Policy ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes Saudi Arabia's efforts to cut Iran off from trade with its neighoburs, looks at how population growth in London will outpace--and be different from--population change in the rest of the United Kingdom, and reports on the plight of child labourers in Indonesia's tobacco fields.
• Bloomberg View argues Uber is no match for mass transit ( Read more... )

• The Big Picture shares photos from the eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the importance of colleagues for solitary writers.
• D-Brief notes the rediscovery of the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove in Brazil, once believed extinct.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes reports of the discovery of massive planets via gaps in ( Read more... )

This is very good news.

Toronto Mayor John Tory says he's not saying no to an Olympic bid forever, but it won't happen in 2024 ( Read more... )