Weekend random roundup

• An exploration of Tokyo ramen noodleshops from the January 31, 2010 New York Times.
  

  Courtesy WF3's Flicker page

• Analysis of population collapse in old East Germany foretells doom of Europe, says the UK Guardian.  The article doesn’t pay enough attention to longterm immigration trends and declines to assess the speculative impact of the U.S. health care refugees.  Anyway, it is a boon to the wolf population.

• The World Database of Protected Areas has some nice maps, generally showing that less is protected than you think it is.   Why no protected river ecosystem from the mountain to the sea?  I nominate the Savannah. Too late?

• South Carolina’ founding The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina : March 1, of 1669, an enlightened yet feudal document allegedly ghostwritten by John Locke.

• Like it says: “This is an interactive, visual application of the data provided by statepolicyindex.com on the relative freedom enjoyed by residents in the various States.”  Freedom means different things to different people.  The app in the first link lets you weigh the different factors, of which there are quite a few,  mostly to do with taxation.  There is no accounting for the lack of freedom you experience from lacking health insurance, for example, or other factors constraining social mobility.  So the data is warped, but interesting.

• Getting away from it all.  J. D. Salinger’s house: http://gawker.com/5459891/this-is-jd-salingers-house. Lots of woods behind the house.  But is that a dirt bike track a few hundred yards to the north?
• A large PDF of Spartanburg’s 2009 Housing Plan: http://www.shasc.org/SHA_Annual_Plan2009.pdf

• Happiness comes from reasonable expectations: