“Dear John,/ Achieve your goals and transform your life!/ Discover the ultimate eBooks designed to foster your personal growth./ Lead yourself on an expedition to greatness, and steer your career toward success./ Overcome procrastination and eliminate unproductive habits, paving the way to the success you deserve.”

Email from “Statista Special Content” June 19, 2024 [I was equally fascinated at the thought that some ultimate eBooks could work this magical transformation, and that they were convinced I deserved it without even having met me]

“For forms of government let fools contest:/ Whate’er is best administer’d is best:/ For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;/ His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right;/ In faith and hope the world will disagree,/ But all mankind’s concern is charity:/ All must be false that thwart this one great end,/ And all of God that bless mankind or mend.”

Alexander Pope “Essay on Man”

“I smelled victory… but tasted defeat.”

Another of mine, from June 6, 2002.

“Democrats remain stuck on what Barack Obama used to call admiring the problem…”

Susan Glasser, “Staff writer, @NewYorker”, on X 10/7/24 [specifically re Biden having gone senile thus jeopardizing the election, but clearly it applies far more widely]

“I often hear that it’s hard to know the right thing to do. No, it’s not! You always know what’s right, but sometimes it’s just very hard to do it. It’s hard because you may have to admit failure. It’s hard because the right decision may affect your friends and colleagues. It’s hard because you may not personally benefit from doing what’s right. Yeah, it’s hard. That’s called leadership. Having a set of moral principles and being a person of integrity are the most important virtues for any leader. In the simplest terms it follows the West Point Honor Code: Don’t lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do. This means be honest with your work force, your customers, and the public. Be fair in your business dealings. Follow the golden rule: Treat others as you would have others treat you. If this sounds a bit Pollyannaish or like you’re in Sunday School, so be it. Being a person of high integrity is what separates the great leaders from the commonplace.”

William H. McRaven The Wisdom of the Bullfrog

In my latest National Post column I say we need a mature and courteous response to the American retreat into isolationism, not emotionally gratifying childish outbursts of petulant fantasy.

“A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense has really become very uncommon. Straightforward ideas appear strange and unfamiliar, and any thought that does not follow the conventional curve or twist, is supposed to be a sort of joke.”

G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly November 2, 1933 quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)

In my latest Epoch Times column I say that now that Trump has somehow forced our chattering classes to realize we should promote prosperity and resilience through markets not impoverish and divide ourselves with trendy schemes for yet more state intervention, the easy first steps are sweeping away interprovincial trade barriers, agricultural marketing schemes and protectionism in the banking, airline and telecommunications sector, and radically simplifying the tax code.