Later this month Brigitte and I will be in Edmonton to take part in the "Essentials of Freedom" conference organized by our friend Danny Hozack. You can find more information about the event, and the other fine speakers, here.

In my latest National Post commentary, I say New Brunswick's latest budget is dangerously ordinary.

In my latest National Post commentary, I warn that the Liberals may be creating a pipeline policy where approval is impossible.

In my latest National Post commentary, I criticize the federal Liberals’ sweet-sounding lack of stand on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. To govern is to choose, and since they did win the election they better figure it out pronto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9jZPPbP3Uo If only life’s problems had simple solutions, we sigh. But often they do. Not easy ones, but simple ones, as Ronald Reagan liked to say. And nowhere is it more true than in economics, where we really do know what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. 

There’s even a simple way to get on top of it that actually is easy: Read Henry Hazlitt’s classic, plain-language, common sense Economics in One Lesson. It’s 70 years old now but still absolutely timely because we keep making the same simple mistakes. 

Not to worry, if we give up that bad habit we’ll still have plenty to bicker about in foreign and social policy. But in economics, there are simple solutions. Read Hazlitt and you’ll know what they are.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the first installment of “Been There, Done That… Shouldn’t Have”, a print and video commentary for the Economic Education Association of Alberta’s “Freedom Talk”. One of the most frustrating things about economic policy is we’re not even making new mistakes, just repeating old ones we forgot about. Sometimes so old they were first made in Latin. That’s why the focus of the series will be stories from economic history and, sometimes, mythology as well, to remind us that on at least 90 percent of the policies labeled bold and new we’ve been there, we’ve done that and we shouldn’t have. You can find them on the Freedom Talk site, of course, and we hope you’ll want to share them with your friends and help us keep the series going.

Very interesting Washington Post piece about the security of the Internet and the "Internet of things" largely based on Linux, given the eccentricities of Linux' founder and the incentives that don't operate when people are giving stuff away rather than selling it. Read that alongside Ted Koppel's piece (in Thursday's National Post among other places) about the vulnerability of America's power infrastructure (and ours, I assure you) and you might well conclude with Woody that "This is the perfect time to panic."

But don't worry if you miss it. You'll get another chance.

Our friends at the Canadian Constitution Foundation are asking for help in the case of two Ontario farmers at odds with the Canada Food Inspection Agency. You can read their appeal here and Brigitte's post about it here. And I'm asking you to consider chipping in to the Indiegogo defence fund for Montana Jones and Michael Schmidt. I'm not familiar with the detailed facts of the case. But it certainly sounds as though they're being ground down by the bureaucratic machine in a way that undermines the rule of law. Especially as Karen Selick of the CCF inform us that there's some sort of publication ban on the whole business.

Magna Carta guarantees access for all to the justice system. But when enormous regulatory agencies with the financial resources of the state behind them go after the little guy, or gal, the latter just can't fight back unless we rally round them. This case has already dragged on for nearly three years, an eternity for defendants but just more time on the clock for the system.

If you can spare even a few bucks, please read the CCF appeal and consider helping out.