“An old cowhand in Colorado, learning that Jean Stafford was a writer, observed, ‘That’s real nice work, Jean. It’s something you can do in the shade.’”
Clifton Fadiman The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes
In my latest Loonie Politics column I explain why the upcoming Canadian federal “growth and competition” budget will be an even worse intellectual and fiscal mess than the “austerity and investment” debacle of 2025.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison, e-mailed by a friend and confirmed by BrainyQuote [https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_a_edison_104931] [other variants are floating around, not all attributed to Edison]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say if Mark Carney cannot answer that question, and he can’t, then the alleged pivot from foolish spending to wise investment was itself folly on a massive scale.
“We decided the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.’”
Kevin Avram, founder of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, quoted in British Columbia Report Feb. 8, 1993 [specifically regarding their approach to fighting taxes but obviously it applies to life far more broadly]
“You may not be able to change the world, but you can at least embarrass the guilty.”
Jessica Mitford, whose best-selling 1963 exposé of the US funeral industry “The American Way of Death” did change the world, and got her named “Queen of the Muckrakers” by Time in 1970, quoted by Robert Bryce on Substack Jan. 29, 2026 [https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/yacht-zee].
“a high priest of the debunked Davoisie”
Conrad Black in National Post February 14, 2026 [re Mark Carney but the term applies far more widely and as far as I know originated with Black in this column].
In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask why, if things are so bad in the United States, it remains the indispensable nation and why Donald Trump, for all his glaring defects, remains better than so many of his rivals and critics, including in apparently securing the control over Greenland everyone ridiculed him for.