“A forthcoming Italian referendum on judicial reform will test right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s political strength and could give the fragmented opposition the impetus to forge a broad alliance ahead of next year’s general election. Italians will vote on March 22-23 on a proposal to separate the careers of judges and public prosecutors, splitting the self-ruling High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) into two bodies whose members would be chosen by lot rather than elected. Though centred on the governance of the judiciary, the referendum has become a political showdown between the government-backed ‘Yes’ camp and the opposition, which supports ‘No.’ There is no turnout quorum required to validate the vote.” (03/19/26)
“One Year After is the fourth story I’ve read now where the end of the world is revealed as a primitive society with none of the modern conveniences we take for granted. We are so dependent on our electronic devices and on the electrical grid that it hard to imagine what life would be like without them. But what would cause such an event?” (03/18/26)
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins
“The defense of a free society has emerged from diverse intellectual traditions. One line of argument, associated with thinkers such as Friedrich A. Hayek, Gerald A. Gaus, Jonathan Haidt, and John Hasnas grounds liberty in cultural evolution, spontaneous order, epistemic limits, and moral psychology. From another direction, Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl have developed a neo-Aristotelian justification of natural rights rooted in individualistic perfectionism, virtue ethics, and the metanormative structure of political morality. These two traditions have often been viewed as distinct and divergent: the former emphasizing emergent social complexity, evolved rules, the limits of reason, and epistemological humility; the latter emphasizing teleological ethics, virtue, and the normative structure of human flourishing.” (03/18/26)
“The death of Paul Ehrlich, at a decidedly selfish, resource-hogging 93, has elicited a resounding consensus on his legacy. He has been roundly condemned on both right and left as one of the most malign and unrepentant doom-mongers to sway public opinion and policy since the pre-war eugenics movement. Initially an entomologist specialising in moths and butterflies, Ehrlich became famous during the late 1960s and early 1970s for trying to prevent the spread of what he saw as an altogether more troublesome species – his own, mankind.” (03/18/26)
“For much of the past decade, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has succeeded in bending the EU’s agenda to his will by forcing leaders to overcome his vetoes in one high-level gathering after another. On Thursday he’s ready to do it again — possibly for the last time as he faces a tough battle for reelection against rival Péter Magyar next month. By threatening to block, at a gathering of EU leaders in Brussels, a €90 billion loan for Ukraine that he’d approved in December, Orbán has crossed a red line when it comes to opposing Brussels. In doing so he is setting himself up for a reckoning with the bloc that could come soon after the Hungarian election, five EU diplomats and one national European government cabinet minister said.” (03/19/26)
“Discussions of the Iran War’s economic effects understandably fixate on crude oil. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about 27 percent of the world’s seaborne petroleum supplies usually transits, has been effectively closed since the war started in late February, causing global oil and gasoline prices to spike — something both American drivers and politicians have surely noticed. … Yet the strait is a lot more than an oil pipeline, and the Iran War’s economic effects are about a lot more than just oil. Roughly 11 percent of global maritime trade transits the strait each year—a lot of it crude oil and liquid natural gas, yes, but also loads of minerals and energy-intensive commodities …. The Iran conflict has also spread beyond Iran and the strait itself, in the process threatening major Middle Eastern production and shipping hubs for other important goods.” (03/18/26)
