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The numbers are in: Israel is a happy place. Despite constantly facing vicious enemies and enduring a year and a half of sustained fighting and funerals, Israel ranks in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of happiness, according to the newly released 2025 World Happiness Report. At No. 8, Israel contrasts sharply with other war-torn countries that are quite reasonably miserable: Ukraine sits at 111, and Lebanon, which opened a second front against Israel in October 2023, is third from the bottom, at 145. Even advanced Western nations such as Great Britain and the United States, in 23rd...

FOR A COUNTRY known for long winters and high taxes, Finland appears remarkably chipper. On March 20th it came top of the World Happiness Report, an annual UN-backed study, notching its eighth consecutive win ahead of 146 other countries. Not far behind it were Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. What makes the Nordics so happy? The World Happiness Report is more a study of life satisfaction than smiles and laughter. It is based on a survey by Gallup, a pollster, where participants are asked to rate their lives out of ten. Finns are not known to gloat (or, for that matter,...

Happiness rankings in the Americas have seen notable shifts, with some smaller nations climbing while major economies have experienced steady declines.Despite these changes, the region maintains a relatively high overall happiness level. Across North, Central, and South America, average scores generally range from 5.7 to 7.3.This map, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, showcases the findings for countries in North, Central, and South America from the 2025 World Happiness Report, an annual publication that measures global contentment based on life evaluations, social support, freedom of choice, GDP per capita, and additional indicators of well-being. The data is drawn from the Gallup...

The secret to happiness? Doing pretty okay, I guess.For the eighth year in a row, Finland tops the “happiness” league tables — but that doesn’t mean its citizens are feeling the joy.Thursday marked 2025’s International Day of Happiness, a celebration established by the United Nations back in 2012 — which, in stark contrast with today, was a time when the organization seemingly had capacity to do stuff like inaugurate special days for “recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals.”In nearly every year since, Finland has topped the list as the happiest country in the world, and this...

The World Happiness Report 2025 ranks Finland as the happiest country globally for the eighth consecutive year. Released Thursday by the University of Oxford's Wellbeing Research Centre, the report also places Denmark, Iceland and Sweden in the top four. “Happiness isn’t just about wealth or growth – it’s about trust, connection and knowing people have your back," said Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup. "If we want stronger communities and economies, we must invest in what truly matters: each other.” While European countries dominate the top 20 in the ranking, there were some exceptions. Despite the war with Hamas, Israel...

Chic - Good Times (1978)

I think many of us come here for some fellowship with like minded conservative allies and it makes us happy to see that we are not alone. But, over the years I have noticed something that seems amiss to me, which is the lack of responses to people who have expressed their opinion. Many is the time that I see a comment to which no one has replied; a situation in which no one responds to a Freeper who has expressed an opinion. I think most, if not all of us, would likely enjoy an acknowledgement that people have read...

Suzanne Venker’s latest book, How to Build a Better Life, distills her countercultural, practical, and effective life advice for women.Everyone wants to talk about what’s wrong with men, whether it’s “toxic masculinity,” “men without work,” “the end of men,” the longhouse, or the need for men to “clean their rooms.” Not so many people, however, want to talk about what’s wrong with women. Even the longhouse complaint is that women are too successful:As of 2022, women held 52 percent of professional-managerial roles in the U.S. Women earn more than 57 percent of bachelor degrees, 61 percent of master’s degrees, and...

As Israel’s war with Hamas passes the six-month mark, here are some updates:The IDF is withdrawing troops from the southern city of Khan Younis; Hamas rejected an Israeli ceasefire proposal and Israel set a date for an offensive into Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah.Israel and the US are preparing for a significant attack by Iran in response to Israel’s strike in Damascus last week.Israel is also preparing for a second war on its northern border with Hezbollah.Iran is arming fighters in Iraq to join Hezbollah in an attack on Israel.The UN recently adopted what Israel’s envoy to the group called...

The “World Happiness Report,” compiled annually by the United Nations and Gallup, has some bad news for America’s young people: For the first time since the survey began in 2012, the United States fell out of the Top 20 and down to 23rd place—driven largely by a major decline in good feelings among those under 30.Finland remains in the top spot in the report, a feat they’ve achieved seven years in a row. The U.S. hit an all-time low ranking in the World Happiness Report, tumbling eight spots to 23rd.A steady supply of studies has found that Americans feel glum...

In 2012, the United Nations proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness or World Happiness Day, which has been held on this date every year since.The aim is to promote awareness for a "more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all people".Although happiness and satisfaction are subjective parameters, Statista's Anna Fleck notes that the team behind the World Happiness Report has once again produced a country ranking this year that reveals clear differences between Western industrialized nations and countries in Asia and Africa.You will find more infographics at StatistaIn...

For women who have observed the unhappy zero-sum battle of the sexes, many feel that the modern world, for all its promises, has failed them.. Hannah Neeleman, a Utah-based cattle farmer and mother of eight, is perhaps the most popular Instagram “tradwife” — a growing category of social media influencers who reject the not-so-traditional 9-to-5 workforce in favor of homeschooling their children, homemaking, or running a family business. Though her content is entirely wholesome, she (and other tradwife accounts) are not without controversy. In the case of Ballerina Farm, followers recently uncovered that Daniel Neeleman, Hannah’s husband, is the son...

Many parents put a lot of focus into teaching their kids about cleaning their rooms, acting responsibly and doing homework. These things are important, but there’s one thing that many of us are completely forgetting about: how to enjoy life. .... Children can easily get the wrong message about happiness In my experience, people are happiest when their life includes some type of meaningful, productive activity. Unfortunately, we are constantly being bombarded with the message that happiness comes from consumption. When advertisers tell us to “treat” ourselves to their products, they are trying to make us believe that buying things...

New research on marriage has drawn significant attention, leading to several widely read articles on the matter. Early last month, at UnHerd, in a piece entitled “The best predictor of happiness in America? Marriage” authors W. Bradford Wilcox and David Bass write:Americans who are married with children are now leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless.Is that statement surprising? In an age that prizes individualism, workism, and a host of other self-centric ‘isms’ above marriage and family, it may well be. But the reality is that nothing currently predicts happiness...

"Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness" - The Biblical Foundations "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Declaration of Independence In the crucible of history, where ideals of freedom and governance converged, stood the remarkable Founding Fathers of America. These luminaries were more than architects of a nation; they were visionaries whose convictions were deeply intertwined with their faith. The corridors of history bear witness to their profound belief in...

Happiness is not as simple as it sounds. Philosophers advise that the pursuit of happiness may be a misguided aspiration, and psychologists warn that illusory happiness achieved through denial can harm your health. The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s World Happiness Report 2023 has perplexed many people with its surprising national rankings of what it termed “happiness.” Because this significant work has spawned many commentaries and much confusion, it awaits clarification.Finns and Israelis have little in common yet are now doubly bonded: Both ranked in the top ten on “happiness” – Finland first and Israel fourth – and many...

Two hundred and forty seven years have passed, and we have mostly forgotten what these words meanThe Declaration of Independence states that every person possesses three inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Two hundred and forty-seven years have passed, and we have mostly forgotten what those words mean.Today it seems that most of us think that the pursuit of happiness means the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain and distress. This confusion can best be explained by the dumbing down of America which we covered in our last video, and the gross lack of spiritual...

Does having fun in your life protect you from becoming a sociopath? Since 2020, we have witnessed charming, well-educated, “civilized” people all around us — especially from what my husband calls (as others do) “the laptop class” — reveal, during ‘lockdowns” and medical tyranny — a side that is, bare teeth and all, nakedly sadistic. Now, as our stunned society slowly tries to set itself upright from having wallowed for nearly three years in an irrational, animalistic seizure of hatred and cruelty — as it struggles to settle its hat and to brush the dust and mire of the gutter...

A new study conducted by Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute has found that individuals who saved sex for marriage have significantly higher levels of marital satisfaction than those who had multiple sexual partners before marriage, confirming what numerous previous studies also found.“Our study confirms what other national studies have been finding the last few years, that sexually inexperienced dating couples are two to three times more likely to be in a highly stable marriage,” said Brian J. Willoughby, a Wheatley Institute fellow and co-author of the report.As Willoughby observed in an Institute for Family Studies article laying out the report’s...

(A Retrospective Playlist) Today I play the piano for my past self who was working hard in long haul trucking to earn the time and place to be musical. These songs were learned by ear and arranged for piano my myself. The truck recording is from 2015. The piano performance is from 2023 and was recorded with a '90's Korg synthesizer. Songs performed so far in this list: Mad Max - Intro The Abyss Blue Stinger - Ending Everyone Says I Love You - From Horse Feathers The Fuller Brush Man - ??? Gankutsuou - We Were Lovers The Ghost...