“The headline from a new modeling experiment by Econtime Consultants claims flexible work arrangements can raise one’s ‘effective’ salary by 56 percent. That number may sound startling, even inflated, until you picture the actual worker behind it: a 39-year-old programmer with one or two children, a mortgage or other debt, a demanding job, and a calendar where every recovered hour matters. The flexible work value in an IT worker’s life does not come from abstract corporate generosity. It comes from fewer rushed mornings, fewer lost evenings, fewer unpaid hours trapped in transit, and more control over the fragile border between work and everything else. … The most important aspect of the study is conceptual: It asks leaders to stop treating salary as the only form of compensation that matters. A paycheck tells workers what they earn. It does not tell them what the job costs them.” (08/18/26)
“Hakainde Hichilema has been re-elected as Zambia’s president after defeating opposition challenger Brian Mundubile by more than one million votes, but his victory comes amid opposition concerns over the conduct of the election and questions about the country’s political direction. The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) declared Hichilema the winner on Tuesday after he secured 2,965,326 votes against Mundubile’s 1,856,217, giving him another five-year mandate after first taking office in 2021. … The European Union Election Observation Mission said candidates were able to campaign through rallies and public meetings but raised concerns over campaign-related violence, political intimidation and the media environment.” (08/18/26)
“Left and right increasingly compete over how to wield government power rather than whether to limit it. Stephanie Slade’s ‘Fusionism’ asks whether liberty and restraint still have a constituency.” (08/18/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Wanjiru Njoya
“Eighteenth century liberalism rejected the notion of ‘a select class of privileged persons’ who had special rights and freedoms. The fundamental purpose of equality under the law was to ensure that no group is granted rights solely by virtue of membership, rights that remain unavailable to those outside it. But what now passes for classical liberalism does not reflect the same principle. Much of what people now call classical liberalism comes from the progressive egalitarianism of the 1960s. A key principle in modern ‘classical liberalism’ is the notion of ‘equal opportunities’ that did not exist in the eighteenth century.” (08/18/26)
“A Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitism pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The Associated Press. The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were ‘predetermined, without regard to the evidence’ in a ‘politically mandated effort’ to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.” (08/18/26)
“Wars don’t just end. They get interpreted, reinterpreted, and turned into strategic doctrine. That is what happened after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, a conflict that saw the United States back Tehran’s Iraqi adversaries. The war taught Tehran three lessons it never unlearned: that Washington wants the Islamic Republic gone, that Iran stands essentially alone in the world, and that it cannot survive a direct, overt fight with the U.S. and Israel. In other words, it can only prevail through an indirect, ambiguous confrontation. … Now Iran has fought two more wars, in 2025 and 2026, and it is drawing new lessons on top of the old ones. Washington should pay close attention to what those lessons are, because they will shape Iranian strategy for years to come.” (08/18/26)
“The leader of Quebec’s separatist party said Tuesday he would delay any referendum on independence from Canada until Donald Trump is no longer U.S. president. Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, whose party is out of power but could win Quebec’s next election that must be held by Oct. 5, said a PQ government would still hold a referendum during its first term — but not before Jan. 20, 2029, when Trump’s term ends. He said a question as consequential as Quebec’s future requires a clear and calm debate. ‘It must not be hijacked by the upheavals of American politics, nor by the outbursts of an unpredictable president, nor by fear campaigns,’ St-Pierre Plamondon said.” (08/18/260
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s wholly reasonable to see the possibilities of technology in schools. After all, pencils, paper, calculators, whiteboards, and buses are all technologies, too. Finding a way to make sensible use of new tools is part and parcel of every profession. But every healthy impulse can easily be corrupted by schlock-peddling vendors, ed school fixations, quick-fix reformers, and assorted grifters. This is education’s evergreen problem, and we now see the result: a flood of dubious ed tech that washed over teachers ill-equipped to navigate the tide. Students were distracted, and teachers were left at sea, even as the wave of Chromebooks, tablets, and learning management systems helped normalize screens at home and in school.” (08/18/26)
