“I could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact… because my principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee…. a traveller’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.”
Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels
On Wednesday I discussed my National Post column on even conservative politicians thinking government is the answer to every problem with Scott Radley on 900 CHML Global News Radio.
In my latest National Post column I say this apparently ridiculous question needs serious attention because no politician anywhere seems to be able to think of anything the state cannot or should not do.
“Jack Cohen (a science writer and reproductive biologist), defined mankind not so much as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but as Pan Narrans – the story-telling ape.”
John Thompson and Joe Turlej Other People’s Wars
“Asked what the key thing is that poor countries should do, Cowperthwaite once remarked: ‘They should abolish the Office of National Statistics.’”
Alex Singleton’s obituary of former Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite in Fraser Forum October 2006
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that the Liberals are taking appalling risks in charging forward with hugely ambitious new projects from a crumbling economic and fiscal position.
“Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. There are some mistakes that just can’t be corrected.”
A retired high school teacher quoted by Dave Brown in the Ottawa Citizen September 12, 1998