LinkSwarm for April 4, 2013

Been a while since the last Friday LinkSwarm, so here it is!

  • The problem with Europe’s economy? It’s the spending, stupid.

    Government spending on bailouts, subsidies, grants, salaries and entitlements commands a much larger share of these economies than it did just a few years ago. European austerity has been focused on the private sector — namely, taxpayers with high incomes.

    That is the second thing the PIIGGS have in common. The highest income tax rate was recently increased in every one of the troubled PIIGGS except Italy (where it was already too high at 43%). The top tax rate was hiked from 40 to 46.5% in Portugal, from 41 to 48% in Ireland, from 40 to 45% in Greece, from 40 to 50% in Great Britain, and from 48 to 52% in Spain.

  • Immigration “reform:” Distrust and Then Verify.
  • News flash: Getting a PhD in Literature is not a surefire path to financial security. Stop the presses!
  • Female Princeton grad tells current Princeton women that maybe they should consider getting married in college. Naturally the Ivy league/feminist/MSM complex threw a fit. (Pro-tip: There are few surer signs of leftwing PC think than the word “hetronormative.”)
  • Homicide Trends in the US: 1980 to 2008.
  • Dwight brings up another case of journalistic malpractice. “Meet the Sniper Who Killed 2,200 People in Iraq.” As Dwight notes, anyone with even passing knowledge of snipers should know that this claim is ludicrous from the git go. In sports terms, it’s like someone claiming they threw 20 Major League no hitters, or ran a two minute mile. It reminds me of Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s smears about troops in Iraq in The New Republic. (If you remember the Beauchampo affair, it turns out that he was engaged to Elspeeth reeve, who just happened to be a TNR fact-checker. Somebody should make them read Stolen Valor.
  • Also from Dwight: This interesting piece about a gay man talks about coming out at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty university.
  • Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott: UN Treaties don’t trump the Bill of Rights.
  • Left-wing bigots pat themselves on the back.
  • Tags: , , , , , ,

    One Response to “LinkSwarm for April 4, 2013”

    1. James May says:

      Given the reality of emergency response teams and advances in medicine, those homicide statistics don’t mean a lot to me. Cases of attempted murder would. Shootings are more valuable than deaths in this sense of statistics. Naturally I’m suggesting murder attempts today are higher but the truth is, I don’t know.

    Leave a Reply