In my latest National Post column I ask what a government is even for if legal permission for  the Kinder Morgan pipeline project doesn't mean it's possible to build it.

"As one writer put it in the Wall St. Journal, when cowards ascend to positions of leadership, their character is revealed. They panic in a crisis. They don’t know what to do."

R. Cort Kirkwood in Ottawa Sun Dec. 20, 1998

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
 

"A fish stinks first from the head."

Adage about leadership, widely quoted and attributed.

"You know, there is one thing you can trust everybody to do. You can trust everybody to put his interest above yours."

Armen Alchain, quoted by Milton Friedman

“He that is not handsome at 20, nor strong at 30, nor rich at 40, nor wise at 50, will never be handsome, strong, rich or wise."

George Herbert "three centuries ago" quoted by Terry O’Neill in British Columbia Report May 18, 1998