“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
John D. Rockefeller, quoted in an RBC Financial Group ad in Globe & Mail February 7, 2004
“‘All ‘progressive’ thought has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain…. Hitler, because in his joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.’”
Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Atlantic Monthly February 2002
“The post office is Canada’s most trusted institution? That’s the story reported over the weekend. It seems a poll by the Strategic Counsel puts Canada Post ahead of such revered national icons as … um, the RCMP? Er, the CBC? The (sigh) House of Commons? Tallest building in Wichita, in other words.”
Andrew Coyne in National Post May 23, 2007
“We deliberate not about ends but about means.”
Aristotle Ethics
In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask why a sudden increase in the intensity of the American debate on abortion should have any effect on Canada, let alone cause a wave of militant conformity.
“the great and awful book of human folly, which yet remains to be written, and which Porson once jestingly said he would write in five hundred volumes!”
1841 Preface to Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
“Economists... conducted an experiment at a poor, minority school district near Chicago where they randomly assigned some teachers to receive end-of-year bonuses based on student improvement, while other teachers received upfront bonuses that could be revoked at the end of the year if student improvement was below average.... the only difference was the timing of the bonus. There were ‘large and statistically significant gains’ on math test scores when bonuses were paid upfront, but not when bonuses were paid at the end of the year.... the prospect of having to give back money they had already received was more motivating for teachers than the prospect of getting money.”
The Boston Globe, reprinted in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 7, 2012
In my latest National Post column I say while politicians often hurt us by mistake, they boasted repeatedly that they would make gas unaffordable. So how’s it working for you?