“Kim Campbell… named by the National Geographic Society as one of history’s 50 ‘most important’ political leaders…. on a list … in a new reference book – the Almanac of World History, recently published by the society … ‘It’s ridiculous,’ says Michael Bliss… But … ‘Given that there have not been that many females who have led nations, we chose to include her,’ says Jane Sunderland, a project manager at the Washington D.C.-based society, who says she ‘stands by the choice’ of the book’s authors.… ‘I don’t think Kim Campbell should even make a list of great Canadian leaders,’ he [James Marsh, editor-in-chief of The Canadian Encyclopedia] says. ‘She was the first and only (female) prime minister of Canada – and that’s stretching her accomplishments to the limit.’… the Almanac says nothing about her legacy except that she is a woman…. The top 50 world leaders, according to the Almanac of World History, in alphabetical order: Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) Atilla the Hun (ca 406-453) Benazir Bhutto (1953 -) Bilqis, The Queen of Sheba (10th Century BC) Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) Kim Campbell (1947 -) Catherine de Medicis (1519-1589) Catherine the Great (1729-1796) Charlemagne (742-814) Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Cleopatra (69-30 BC) Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) Elizabeth I (1533-1603) Fu Hsi (2900 BC) Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) Genghis Khan (ca 1162-1227) Hannibal (247-183 BC) Emperor Hirohito (1926-1989) Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) Isabella of Castile (1451-1504) Empress Jingo (ca 169-269) Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) John Kennedy (1917-1963) William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950) Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891) Nelson Mandela (1918 -) Moctezuma I (reigned 1440-1469) Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) Nero (A.D. 37-68) Pericles (ca 495-429 BC) Eva Peron (1919-1952) Chief Pontiac (ca 1720-1769) Ramses II (reigned 1304-1237 BC) Romulus (753 BC) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) Shanakdakhete (reigned 177-155 BC) Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) Raden Suharto (1921 -) Suleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566) Margaret Thatcher (1925 -) Getulio Vargas (1883-1954) Queen Victoria (1819-1901) George Washington (1732-1799) William the Conquerer (ca 1028-1087) Mao Zedong (1893-1976)”

Ottawa Citizen April 10, 2004

“Satire depends on sanity, and on contrast with insanity; that is why there is very little satire left.”

G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly July 16, 1927 quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)

“he was using platitudes to fight stereotypes on behalf of a cliché.”

David Klinghoffer on Edward Zwick, director of The Siege, in National Review Dec. 7, 1998

“Rachel, you’re a long way from desperate.” “I may not be there but I’m on the bus.”

An exchange on a short-lived sitcom called “Flesh ‘n’ Blood” that I apparently watched on Oct. 11, 1991 for reasons I could not possibly now begin to explain.

“Ottawa goes tame”

One of mine from May 20, 2007 re the Senators reaching the Stanley Cup final.

“Monaco was, in Somerset Maugham’s unimprovable summation, ‘a sunny place for shady people’”.

The reference is to when Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier there, in Mark Steyn’s obituary of Prince Rainier in The Atlantic Monthly July-August 2005

“Maybe if we start telling people their brain is an app, they’ll want to use it.”

Comment by “mikeorclem” on the Climate Discussion Nexus “Hottest Ever Except Not” video.

“If he were a dog-catcher he’d come back with a cat.”

Tweet by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov Oct. 25, 2023 (his specific target was U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan) [https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1717261213267079412?s=20]