“The idea that human flourishing is the proper measure of a good society goes back to Aristotle, but modern attempts to compare flourishing internationally using subjective survey data raise difficult questions. That is illustrated in the scatter chart shown above – which compares the degree of human flourishing in different countries as measured by the new Global Flourishing Study (GFS) with average life evaluation data for those countries using the methodology of the World Happiness Report (WHR).” (07/01/26)
“The Kansas City Chiefs just released a two-page statement with numerous claims about the benefits of a new stadium, practice facility, and team headquarters in Kansas. There are reasons to be skeptical. First, the press release includes some findings from an economic impact analysis that was conducted by a consultant the team hired. We don’t have the full report itself—just these selected highlights the Chiefs chose to share.” (07/01/26)
“We’ve had a pretty good run as a country. Sure, it’s not been a millennium or anything like that, but for a republic in the modern age, the United States turning 250 years old is a pretty major accomplishment, one worth celebrating. That’s what makes it so odd that half the country not only isn’t celebrating, but they’re actively mourning our nation’s continued existence. These people are broken and deserve all the bad that comes their way. Don’t just celebrate July 4 despite them; celebrate it to spite them. Go to any antique store or mall, and you will see countless items from the bicentennial. Everything from blankets to ashtrays can be found. While it’s weird to think that just 50 years ago smoking was very common, it’s weird to think that today love of country is not. But that’s the state of Democrats today.” (07/02/26)
“President Trump has a lot of obsessions. If you had to name the ones he cares about the most, the list would probably include imposing tariffs on imports, getting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates (even if it means ousting board members who disagree), abolishing mail-in voting, ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and—last but not least—fighting personal lawsuits brought against him since his first administration. And yet on every one of these fixations, the Supreme Court in its just-completed term dealt Trump a defeat.” (07/01/26)
“Canada Day is the Dominion’s national day and a statuatory federal holiday. It celebrates, not freedom from rule by the British Crown, but the anniversary of the Confederation of Canada. (On 1 July, 1867), merging the ‘United Canadas’ (Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The Confederation remained within the British Empire. Until 1982, when Canada got its own Constitution (by the Canada Act) and severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the UK Parliament in London, it was called Dominion Day. Although it is often informally referred to as ‘Canada’s birthday’ (parroting US ideas of Independence Day), it is not: Instead of an eight-year war and a peace treaty, it took a long time to reach the country’s full sovereignty.” (07/01/26)
“Primary season is more than halfway over, after 31 states and the District of Columbia picked their nominees. There’s a three-week pause before intra-party contests start again with Arizona. That means it’s a good time to take stock of what’s happening.” (07/01/26)
“For the second week in a row—and for the fifth time since the beginning of the 119th Congress—a faction of House Republicans voted down a rule on the House floor. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was once again forced to send Congress home. It’s an embarrassing situation for Johnson. Worse, it’s coming during an election year, as Republicans try to hold on to their already slim majority. You’ve got to remember that the House suspends the rules to pass most legislation.” (07/01/26)
“Pre-liberal faiths, such as tribalism and Christianity, provided meaningful stories—sometimes for better, though often for worse. In the recent past, liberalism, too, had a story: of a grand human endeavor of progress, equality, and liberation. Yet today, the author says, mass consumerism, fragmented media, tech-driven sociopathy, and cultural nihilism have taken a wrecking ball to meaning. In its own way, careerism has been just as bad; what Avent calls the Modern Faith ‘has no guidance for people in our situation’ beyond urging that we ‘achieve professional success, make money, job done.’ If any of this sounds familiar, that might be because the charge that individualism, industrialization, and consumerization lead to anomie and nihilism has roots that go back to Plato among the ancients and Rousseau and Marx among the moderns.” (07/01/26)
“The Founding Fathers had a finely honed sense of the corroding power of corruption. They wrote prohibitions on self-enrichment and the pull of bribery directly into the Constitution on three separate occasions, banning foreign and domestic gifts, changes to presidential compensation during one’s period in office, and appointments for members of Congress that could be remunerative. They believed that someone treated well by a foreign potentate or stateside special interest would be naturally inclined to benefit them, if even unconsciously, and that a wall needed to be constructed to guard against this. That the Supreme Court has directly or indirectly nullified these one by one is a tragedy. But the court of public opinion, at least as mediated by gatekeepers of information, has also separated what counts as corruption from what counts as a political scandal.” (07/02/26)
