Paul Albers
Modern management
Among the conscientious objectors to last Sunday’s column, were several readers who noted that if we invert the system of business regulation, so that it is done mostly at the municipal level, and only...
All in the Royal Family
Oh no! ... Oh please, anything but that! ... Good Lord, we beseech Thee! ... Not another Royal Wedding! ... It’s only three decades since the last one.
Well, that was my initial reaction, to...
Capitalism is local
In my recent Sunday natterings on “what is to be done”—my attempt to think positively, about the direction we should take as the bankrupt Nanny State collapses over us—I have stressed the need to...
Interesting monetary times
We are pleased to see less and less journalistic attention being given to meetings of the G20. There is only so much of world leaders that anyone wants to see, and if they persist...
Stand with our soldiers
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month—tomorrow is Remembrance Day, and let us once again stop to think about this important commemoration.
Canadians of long standing all carry family memories of...
Drifting toward tyrannical shoals
The expression “church and state” still carries a vague echo, from some bygone era; a slight reverberation in our large vacuous public spaces.
We hear the tinkle of some distant temple bell. To the graduates...
The swinging pendulum
No comfort should be taken from the results of the U.S. midterm election by the winners. (Well, they’re allowed to celebrate for a week). The pendulum that swung across the street at the last...
Pessimists and predictions
Let me make clear: this column was filed before any polls closed in the U.S. midterm election. It would be, therefore, exceptionally obtuse for a pundit to predict the result. Some idea could anyway...
Case of political madness
Let me ask my reader some personal questions. Do you hear voices? Have you ever experienced hallucinations? A mutter that becomes audible with no cause? Lights with no source forming patterns in the darkness?...
The truth leaks out
In an exemplary show of responsible journalism, the New York Times last week began running articles that analyze the latest trove of WikiLeaks documents, from Iraq.
No, I am not being sarcastic. The Times’ series...
The people rise up
We will see what we will see. This time next week, we will be poring over results from the U.S. midterm election. It will be one of those surprising elections: surprising whether the polls...
Power to the politicians
One of the most unpleasant words in the English language is, “amalgamation.” It is a bureaucracy’s way of creating growth, by taking discrete things, such as municipalities—with their particular histories and political cultures—and putting...
Always beware of the utopians
Among the yellowed, mouldering paperbacks I recently fetched up from the storage locker of my past life was a small, especially crumbly edition of a work by Karl Marx.
It is titled The Communist Manifesto,...