Random links

Public opinion polls and perceptions of US human spaceflight
"A belief exists in the United States about public support for NASA’s human spaceflight activities. Many hold that NASA and the cause of the human exploration of space enjoyed outstanding public support and confidence in the 1960s during the era of Apollo and that public support waned in the post-Apollo era, only to sink to quite low depths in the decade of the 1990s. These beliefs are predicated on anecdotal evidence that should not be discounted, but empirical evidence gleaned from public opinion polling data suggests that some of these conceptions are totally incorrect and others are either incomplete or more nuanced than previously believed. "
China’s Marxist Tyranny Shouldn’t Be Ignored
A quote to ponder: "Because totalitarianism is often imagined as a decidedly 20th-century phenomenon, the notion that it can exist in a place as outwardly modern as China — with its skyscrapers and flat-screen TVs and high-speed rail lines — is sometimes hard to process. Yet the great totalitarian regimes of the past existed in what once seemed impressively futuristic societies, too. Indeed, this was a key element of their appeal."
Fantastic arctic fox: animal walks 3,500km from Norway to Canada
Technically from the Svalbard islands rather than continental Europe but still crazy!