[LINK] Some Friday Links

[rfmcdonald]

• At Alpha Sources, Claus Vistesen examines immigration trends in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Noting that Spain's heavy immigration levels coincides with strong growth, he wonders what will happen to an Italy with falling levels of immigration and a Germany on the verge of becoming a country of net emigration.


• Bonoboland's Edward Hugh's points out that Brazil's relatively high rate of population growth has cancelled out recent employment growth.


• Centauri Dreams responds to Stross' critique of space expansionism (1, 2).


• Joel at Far Outliers quotes at length from the book Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, describing the general success of African-Americans in Atlanta.


• Peter at GNXP speculates about the biological origins of homosexuality.


• Joe.My.God mentions how, at Jerusalem's recent Pride march., hundreds of Haredi Jews were waiting to ambush the marchers with a variety of materials including eggs, human excrement, and at least one bomb.


• Peteris Cedrins at Marginalia marks the anniversary of the Battle of Cesis, a joint Estonian-Latvian victory over Baltic-German forces in 1919 that set the stage for the emergence of those two countries. History, as Cedrins notes, is rarely mononational.


• Normblog's Norman Geras critiques David Rieff's criticism of liberal interventionism as a mask for imperialism. Me, while I think that the right to intervene is a good idea, I also think the right can be used as an excuse for permitting mayhem and massacre in the guise of liberation, for which, see Iraq.


• Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty tackles the gay panic defense.


• J. Otto Pohl wonders whether Georgia will let the Meskhetian Turks, deported by Stalin, returns to their homeland. I suspect not: The deportation happened too long ago and not enough people in Georgia support it.