1. Chart of the Day I (above). The median sales price of an existing home in May at $228,700 was just $1,700 (and 0.74%) below the all-time peak price of $230,400 in July 2006.
2. Chart of the Day II (above). Based on new data from the EIA, US net petroleum imports fell to 26.2% this year through May, which was the lowest dependence on foreign sources of petroleum since 1971 when the country’s net imports were 24.3%. Carpe oleum.
3. Hedge Funds vs. Blindfolded Monkeys. “The average hedge fund has produced a worse investment performance in the first half of this year than a portfolio consisting of a savings account at your local bank and a random collection of stocks picked by a blindfolded monkey,” according to Brett Arends writing for MarketWatch (“How hedge-fund geniuses got beaten by monkeys — again“).
4. Take the U.S. Citizenship Test: Get 15 or more correct answers out of 25 to pass this basic US citizen test.
5. Map of the Day (above). Including the US, there are now 23 countries in the world where gay marriage is legal nationwide.
6. History of same-sex marriage in the United States in one animated GIF map (above).
7. Landmark Win For Economic Liberty: The Texas Supreme Court struck down the state’s useless eyebrow threading licensing requirements (6-3), thanks to the Institute for Justice (the nation’s only libertarian, civil liberties, public interest law firm) which helped five eyebrow threaders successfully sue the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for violating the state constitution by attempting to lock the entrepreneurs out of their jobs with expensive and irrelevant state licensing requirements designed specifically for cosmetologists (and not eyebrow threaders). Thanks IJ for another successful victory defending the economic liberty of entrepreneurs and small businesses in America, we’ll all a little more free today thanks to your tenacious legal advocacy.
8. Another Victory for Freedom: Effective July 1, adult possession of weeds and home cultivation of weeds will be legal in the state of Oregon. The voter-approved initiative permits adults 21 and older in Oregon to grow up to four weed plants and keep up to eight ounces of weeds at home, and possess one ounce of weeds in public.
9. Quotation of the Day on the Drug War, from Don Winslow writing for CNN (“America’s war on drugs is empowering Mexico’s drug cartels“):
So we’re winning the war on marijuana along the Mexican border — costing the violent sociopaths of the cartels millions of dollars — by legalizing it. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the cartels have responded to this loss by shipping more coke, meth and especially heroin. The heroin epidemic in the Northeast is mostly supplied by the Sinaloa cartel, by far the dominant drug trafficking organization in Mexico today. Addicts who were using prescription opiates are turning to Mexican heroin because it’s cheaper.
So after four decades of the war on drugs, we’ve cut marijuana imports almost in half within the last two years by legalizing it, while the heroin, coke and meth just keep coming. In essence, when we stop fighting, we win. When we keep fighting, the cartels win.
10. Diversity at Facebook. Everybody is now reporting that Facebook’s latest employee diversity report reveals that it has made “very little, or no progress” over the last year, see a bunch of those reports here. Let me translate what I think the mainstream media means by no diversity “progress” at Facebook: The company hasn’t been engaging in the politically correct amount of discrimination against Asians, especially Asian men, in favor of giving preferential hiring treatment for blacks, Hispanics and women.
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