October 26, 2019

Canada -- Don't Ask Me to Take You Seriously Again

Growing up in Canada, one learns that an obligation of citizenship is to humor the nation’s delusions of grandeur. In schools, to the extent history is still taught, Canada’s role in world events is revised to outsized proportions. Sel...

October 6, 2018

The Democrats and Keyser Soze

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled,” advised Keyser Soze, “was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” One of the best lines in movie history, uttered by the recently unpersonned Kevin Spacey in his Oscar-winnin...

February 28, 2018

Guessing Justin's mental age

Not to brag, but I was embarrassed by Justin Trudeau before he went to India. The Good Book instructs that whoever says to his brother, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hellfire, so let me address this a gentler way. In assess...

December 25, 2017

This Christmas, Try to be More Judgmental

One of my favorite expressions, which Google finds to be of disputed provenance, is "Be hard on yourself, but easy on others." Most of us naturally tend toward the opposite. In my case, I give myself unlimited hall passes for things m...

November 9, 2017

'Tax reform' is useless to Americans abroad

As politicians make noises about tax reform, with media outlets following suit, literally millions of Americans around the world are looking for one simple change in the world's most onerous, punitive tax system.  You can read the news and l...

June 23, 2017

No Company Should Have a Human Resources Department

It is a linguistic irony of the modern corporation that those most desolate of resourcefulness and human rapport occupy its Human Resources department. Consistent with the culture of perverting language and policing words, "Human Resources...

May 18, 2017

The Tax Reform No One Talks About

"A territorial tax system – what is that?" So inquired a White House reporter of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as he outlined President Trump's tax reform proposal. The question itself, and the baffled tone in which it wa...