“Or perhaps not only the seasons but everything else, social history included, moves in cycles. Not, however, that earlier times were better than ours in every way – our own epoch too has produced moral and intellectual achievements for our descendants to copy. And such honourable rivalry with the past is a fine thing.”
Tacitus The Annals of Imperial Rome
In my latest National Post column I say the only reason Erin O’Toole’s leadership isn’t over is that it never started.
“I am constantly asked what we are going to do with the [Nobel economics] prize money – $1.2 million before Uncle Sam takes his very large bite. The answer to that is a simple lesson in economics. Wants always expand to take advantage of new opportunities, which explains why consumers in rich countries feel no more satiated than do those in poor countries. My wife and I won’t have the slightest difficulty spending the prize money.”
Gary Becker in Business Week November 2 1992 [but if so then the marginal utility of new income is zero which surely is not true]
“Feeling badly done to is not a saleable commodity.”
Another of mine, from September 16, 2005 (these days I’m not so sure, but it still shouldn’t be)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the freedom convoy has achieved all the good it could have, and more than it could reasonably have expected, and should withdraw in triumph rather than stay until something really does go wrong.
“‘The man who talks when he should be silent deserves to lose what he has gained,’ he said as he sped away through the wood.”
A retold version of a Canterbury Tale, in which Reynard the fox is tricked by Chanticleer the cock into shouting and thus letting him go, in William Bennett The Book of Virtues
“You can pray all you want but eventually David had to pick up a stone and act against Goliath”
A sign a woman was holding at an unidentified protest in an image emailed by a friend without source.
“Homegoroshi: The Japanese technique of humiliating a person with exaggerated compliments.”
Globe & Mail September 25, 2000