Pierre Lemieux's aphorisms - Les aphorismes de Pierre Lemieux

Deciding whom to pay? With every law and regulation, government decides who will be privileged and who will be harmed. (July 31, 2011)

My prediction again: there will be a solution to lift the debt ceiling. After all, the politicians and their bureaucrats want to get paid. (July 31, 2011)

Why don’t the statists organize a flash mob to voluntary send checks to the US Treasury? (July 31, 2011)

People on the right often speak collectivist, just like people on the left. Naivety is not a good excuse. (July 30, 2011)

Private-sector trade unions are much less dangerous than the state. In fact, their danger comes only from their state-granted privileges. (July 30, 2011)

Anything is priceless if you don't pay the price yourself. - On the Marines' Wish List: A Pricey Jet Fighter http://on.wsj.com/o6EUVX (July 30, 2011)

To the dog, I give only government water – no Perrier. (July 29, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: A polar bear with mixed sexual preferences is called bipolar. (July 29, 2011)

Organizing icons on a smart phone screen is the new Rubik’s cube. (July 29, 2011)

The debt will hit the fan. (July 29, 2011)

The sky is the ceiling. (July 29, 2011)

Nihil novi sub sole: the king is begging parliament for money. (July 29, 2011)

When my doctor said that to nails grow slower than fingernails, I realized that doctors, like economists, know a lot of small useful things. (July 29, 2011)

As the taxpayers should know but NASA ignored, there is no such thing as a free launch. (July 29, 2011)

What you get is what you pay for, and information must also be paid for in order to know exactly what is obtained and what is paid. (July 29, 2011)

There are so many people who don’t know what they are talking about! It also happens to the best, but not on a continuing basis. (July 28, 2011)

There are simply too many laws, too many intrusive laws, and too many entrepreneurial and conceited “lawmakers”. (July 28, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: That haddocks have soles does not mean that they have souls. (July 26, 2011)

Une organisation ne peut avoir de porte-parole que s’il y a une parole à porter. (July 26, 2011)

Truism of the week (Montesquieu said it first): liberty is not the power to manage other people’s lives. (July 26, 2011)

“What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.” - Friedrich Hölderlin

Like tribalism, nationalism is a scourge. (July 24, 2011)

If you are a collectivist, whether socialist or fascist, the children of your enemies are your enemies. (July 23, 2011)

Twun (tweeted pun) of the week: Monotheists don’t eat pancakes. (July 23, 2011)

Many journalists have no idea of the difference between semi-automatic firearms, automatic firearms, and rocking chairs. (July 23, 2011)

Senseless authority generates senseless violence. (July 23, 2011)

Why were there few mass killings fifty years ago? The more politicized and soft-authoritarian the world is, the more violent it becomes. (July 23, 2011)

Twun of the week: Somebody who brings others to the stake is called a stakeholder. (July 20, 2011)

Caesar was certainly born in August – and his mother did not have much imagination. (July 20, 2011)

The World Health Organization is the spearhead of the global state epidemic. (July 18, 2011)

All prices are relative prices: the price of something is what it costs in terms of something else (money or another numéraire good). (July 18, 2011)

« Quand Dieu ferme une porte, il ouvre une fenêtre. » Si la maison est climatisée, ça n'améliore pas le bilan carbone. (July 18, 2011)

The world is binary, so nipples must come in pairs. -- History made as nipple is found on foot - The Sun - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3701059/History-made-as-nipple-is-found-on-foot.html (July 18, 2011)

Gold is money if, and only if, and to the extent that, people want, given the constraints they face, to use it as a medium of exchange. (July 18, 2011)

Describing GDP as wealth, a common media error, confuses the return of an asset with the value of the asset itself. (July 16, 2011)

Gold is money if, and only if, most people think it is. (July 15, 2011)

I find the term “offensive” to be very offensive. Please be sensitive and do not use it in my presence. (July 15, 2011)

We are close to the day when somebody faking to be an idiot will be attacked as insensitive and offensive by real idiots. http://j.mp/qIbL1R (July 15, 2011)

We live in a Velcro world, yet liberty doesn’t stick. (July 15, 2011)

Even with other people's money, altruism has its limits. The idea of default seems to be taking hold in Europe. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fdd18148-ad72-11e0-bc4f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1SNHEFoX5 (July 14, 2011)

The worst tax loophole is the permission given taxpayers to keep some money in their pockets. (July 14, 2011)

Money is a matter of degree. (July 13, 2011)

My prediction: this time, the debt ceiling will be increased before the federal government starts defaulting or running out of money. (July 13, 2011)

We need to do what the statists have done for decades: express our long-term radical goals, and accept half-measures until more is possible. (July 13, 2011)

Find what I think is a grammatical mistake in this sentence: "As the fiscal expert, Bruce Bartlett, has argued, the law requiring Congressional approval of extra debt might even be unconstitutional." (July 13, 2011)

Twun of the week: Volkswagen alteram partem. (July 13, 2011)

In university, you have a few minutes to understand that bond yields vary inversely with bond prices, and you remember this forever. (July 12, 2011)

Reflection from the Maine woods: in the forest, BS means "bear shit". (July 12, 2011)

Dans les forêts du Maine et du New Hampshire, on trouve beaucoup de hêtre mais pas de néant. (July 12, 2011)

Romulus and Remus founded Rome. Stimulus established Washington, DC. (July 10, 2011)

Stakeholders are simply state courtiers who want somebody else's steak. (July 8, 2011)

Discrimination in favor of “stakeholders” is the new apartheid. (July 8, 2011)

Stakeholders (ie, state courtiers): put your steak back in your steak holster. -White House Readies Gun Control Stance - http://t.co/RFA4GdS (July 8, 2011)

Outrageous. Most American are as irrational in matters of sex (and booze) as most Europeans are in matters of guns. http://t.co/L4ErSh5 (July 7, 2011)

If you are always a spokesman for somebody else, don’t pretend you have an opinion. (This could be called the weak version of Emerson.) (July 6, 2011)

I prefer tall smoke to small talk. Okay, I know, it doesn’t work perfectly, but it does with the right accent. (July 6, 2011)

On my birthday, I discovered that Dominican Republic Cohiba cigars are as good as the Cuban “originals”, at a fraction of the price. (July 5, 2011)

A troubling trend towards one- or two-sentence paragraphs, as if paragraph and sentence were the same and rhetoric always trumped logic. (July 5, 2011)

Ten 10-wheeler truckloads of fine sand contain 14 trillion grains, the amount in $ of the federal debt. Counting would take 440,000 years. (July 5, 2011)

Trains have a good track record. (July 5, 2011)

Small things are to the creator what small talk is to the created. (July 5, 2011)

Does it matter for our approach to life and knowledge that a written mention does not anymore mean what is but what will be if we click it? (July 5, 2011)

The main problem in the US is that it is a monarchy too -- albeit with many small czars. (July 4, 2011)

Creative destruction: International Talking Machine disappeared. International Business Machines is celebrating its 100th anniversary.International Talking Machine disappeared. International Business Machines is celebrating its 100th anniversary. http://j.mp/mNvXci (July 1, 2011)

Against a bartough, a bartender stands no chance. (July 1, 2011)

Hypothesis: one cannot understand language (& perhaps anything else) if one doesn't like Rimbaud's Sonnet des voyelles. (June 30, 2011)

Contrarians prefer antimatter. (June 30, 2011)

What’s difficult for a non-discriminating altruist is to consistently buy at the highest possible price. Selling at the lowest one is easy. (June 30, 2011)

In many (good) ways, a default on U.S. gov’t debt would amount to a balanced-budget amendment. (June 29, 2011)

I am too intellectual for the rednecks, and too redneck for the intellectuals. I like neither milk nor the establishment. Que faire? (June 29, 2011)

Good twitterers and facebookers (like me, to take an example at random) are private producers of public goods. (June 29, 2011)

Je ne déteste pas les litotes. (June 29, 2011)

Canada's “Competition Bureau” does not pretend to be an “agency”, a glorified bureaucratese term, but simply an assemblage of bureaucrats. (June 29, 2011)

Only one carrion luggage per passenger. (June 29, 2011)

Carry and you won’t be a carrion. (June 28, 2011)

Depending on what you have done, it is often better to be a never-was than a has-been. In my case (to take a case at random), I never was a has-been. (June 28, 2011)

Fallopian tubes: don’t tie the knot before getting married. (June 28, 2011)

Second dip of my weekly twun (tweeted pun): Buying a house brings closure. (June 27, 2011)

Twun of the week (mocking sacred things): How do you call a surgeon who specializes in vasectomies? A duct hunter. (June 27, 2011)

Advice for teachers: it’s still better to bark madly than to mark badly. (June 27, 2011)

It must be difficult today to be a defense attorney and to maintain respect for the justice system’s claim to protect the innocent. (June 27, 2011)

I thought that concealed carry with a cross-draw holster was easier if you have a beer belly, but my girlfriend says she sees no difference. (June 27, 2011)

The real purpose of things: Patdown = à bas les pattes! (June 27, 2011)

I am getting somewhere. (Some wear and tear, at least.) (June 27, 2011)

The TSA is right to be suspicious of old people and to vigorously touch their junk. After all, they have known liberty. (June 27, 2011)

Socialist motto (like for health care in Canada): I am heading for the queue. (June 27, 2011)

"A spokeswoman ... said the inspectors were just doing their jobs." Interesting argument. They tried it at Nuremberg. - http://t.co/hw4ZE94 (June 27, 2011)

Intergenerational reflection: there are two generations, the Twitter-FB generation, and the other one. (June 25, 2011)

Once you believe that there exists something like “the national interest” (a mathematical impossibility), protectionism becomes justifiable. (June 25, 2011)

Condorcet, Dodgson and Arrow demonstrated that individual preferences cannot be aggregated into social preferences. Many still ignore it. (June 25, 2011)

I wrote to Amazon and their computer utterly failed the Turing test. (June 24, 2011)

"Horny soit qui mail y pense." (June 23, 2011)

Twun of the week: For dictators, size matters. (June 23, 2011)

Anger is productive, but one should not spend too much time hating. (June 23, 2011)

Inciting hatred against people deserving it is not bad. Individuals who threaten our liberties deserve some proportionate hatred. (June 23, 2011)

Public zoning is to private development and restrictive covenants what apartheid is to discrimination. Synagoge's plight http://t.co/VTQj0kL (June 22, 2011)

Did the Romans speak Latin with a French or an English accent? (June 22, 201)

Was Mohammed a North Koran or a South Koran? (June 21, 2011)

Useless Twun™ of the day: After all, it’s called the “Bible”, not the “Homoble” nor the “Heteroble”. (June 21, 2011)

Il ne faut pas se tromper dans ses prières : une info ? ou une nympho ? (June 21, 2011)

I care less about my carbon footprint than about my car fun bootprint. (June 21, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: Whether you are eating leftovers or rightovers, you will be underfed. (June 20, 2011)

If not rapidly corrected, “unintended consequences” are in fact intended, or at least considered as necessary costs (collateral damage). (June 20, 2011)

There will soon be so many menus, add-ons, and buttons that a lifetime won’t be enough, to see, let alone click on, everything clickable. (June 20, 2011)

À défaut d'un camembert lourd, voici un calembour mère. (June 19, 2011)

Mieux vaut être cancre reposé que cancrelat. (June 19, 2011)

"Food sovereignty" if for cannibals. -- The NDP Convention: Got a resolution http://t.co/8r0qdUm (June 19, 2011)

“Intergenerational equity” means fighting for the liberty of future generations, in return of which they transfer some income to us, right? (June 19, 2011)

Je me demande pourquoi Québec Solidaire n'est pas solidaire avec moi. Discrimination. http://www.quebecsolidaire.net/ (June 18, 2011)

Hippies were terribly naive. Today's youth are as naive, but more authoritarian. - Growing up with a father on the run http://t.co/n6VwjFt (June 18, 2011)

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse" -- James Madison (June 17, 2011)

Si "le Québec est ce que l’humanité a de mieux à offrir" (Jean Charest), les pistolets à silex sont ce que la physique moderne a conçu de mieux. (June 17, 2011)

Do not measure money supply with M1 or M2 when it suits your conclusions, and by the rate of interest when it suits them better. (June 16, 2011)

It is often those most subsidized by the taxpayers who plead for social justice and weep on those they are exploiting. (June 14, 2011)

Greek roots: a pancake is a cake for everybody. (June 13, 2011)

Double-dip twun™ of the week: I never had a cat but I could CAD a hat. (June 13, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: If I had a cat, I would call it Mandu. (June 13, 2011)

I wish I could see my own typos as well as those of others. Fortunately, the same cannot be said for my errors in general! (June 13, 2011)

If 8 decades of New Deal types of program have shackled the economy and destroyed individual liberty, how could a bit more bring salvation? (June 11, 2011)

Software menus used to propose the option “Jesus save”. A conspiracy led them to replace it with the mundane SAVE. (June 11, 2011)

Power corrupts... Give arbitrary power to anybody, and "bad judgment" cases will appear. TSA Admits ‘Bad Judgment’ - http://t.co/XiAUHJO (June 11, 2011)

A criticism is credible only when the critics can demonstrate that he understands what he criticizes. (June 9, 2011)

I suspect that if politicos were found guilty to all offenses to their laws, there wouldn't be many of them around. http://t.co/DDjabtW (June 8, 2011)

When I think that my 80-year-old friend, Ralph Maddocks, discovered tinyurl before me I did (some years ago), I doubt my geek credentials. (June 8, 2011)

"Niche markets" indeed. In French, "boobs" are "nichons"! Passport to Beauty - Video Library - NYT - http://nyti.ms/er5apD (June 8, 2011)

I cannot imagine how a meeting can be held without me. Who will draw the camel? (June 7, 2011)

If one’s opportunity cost of time is low, or one’s tasks are very elementary, it may be a good idea to use Word without outlines and styles. (June 7, 2011)

“The message could not be delivered because the recipient’s mailbox is full.” Lost in the world, or amateurs of voluntary simplicity? (June 6, 2011)

Le problème n’est pas tellement que l’État est un panier de crabes, mais que c’est un panier de crabes armés. (June 6, 2011)

“Overrated” is overrated. (June 6, 2011)

Smoking is a very subversive act -- subversive of the reigning soft tyranny. Every smoker thus creates a positive externality. (June 6, 2011)

Nothing to hide? Think twice. You may have something you don't know about that you should hide. -- http://t.co/8pyvMQy (June 2, 2011)

Environmentalists should emigrate to a Commonwhale. (June 1, 2011)

In the New England Journal of Medicine, I continuously discover the infinity of diseases, and how health is an incomplete diagnosis. (June 1, 2011)

Question is, did the raccoon wait in line before getting treatment? -- Man arrested for attacking raccoons with a shovel http://t.co/FhTtFQz (June 1, 2011)

“Nanny-state overreach” is a double oxymoron. (June 1, 2011)

Twun™ for geeks only: Instead of updating one’s bio, it would often be better if one could update one’s BIOS. (June 1, 2011)

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I used to have one or two efficient friends, and I wasn’t one of them. (May 31, 2011)

NYC aiming to be a con Dom. -- Jose Andujar, vendor of Obama condoms, arrested for third time - NYPOST.com http://t.co/eQh4GuT (May 31, 2011)

No doubt about the defense of liberty: “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Mat. 9:37) (May 31, 2011)

The only public buildings in the UK where smoking is not banned are prisons. Oh, Brave New World! (May 31, 2011)

Il n'en est pas a-serbe pour autant. -- Mladic transféré au Tribunal pénal de La Haye. http://j.mp/kaU07B

Imagine how surprising would be the existence of an academic journal called “Leviathan Control”. Yet, “Tobacco Control” surprises nobody. (May 31, 2011)

As I just wrote a redneck friend, “our friends can check the dictionary for ‘Kafkaesque’ if they don’t know the word; our enemies already know it”. (May 30, 2011)

Children born during the summer must be somebody’s offsummer. (May 30, 2011)

A book is a manuscript who wanted to be laid. (May 29, 2011)

If the Bible were supposed to be read more than twice, it would be called the Multible. (May 29, 2011)

Twun™ (tweeted pun) of the week: A semi-colon is a colon that has been operated on. (May 28, 2011)

Civil servants have become civil masters. (May 28, 2011)

If creating jobs is the goal, a ban on chainsaws is long overdue. (May 27, 2011)

With multiplication of laws, accused is typically charged with several offenses, and some are bound to stick with compromise-prone jurors. (May 26, 2011)

Twun™ (tweeted pun) of the week: A Winchester in every house is a win-win solution. (May 26, 2011)

"It's not Soviet Russia here." Indeed, they could not master such technologies. http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1112.html (May 26, 2011)

France is a restaurant. America is a TV dinner. (May 26, 2011)

France is a museum. America is an experiment. (May 26, 2011)

First Commandment: Thou shall not lose thy bit locker key. (May 26, 2011)

If "we" were really the state, how could "they" own trademarks? - Walt Disney Surrenders to Navy's SEAL Team 6 http://on.wsj.com/ig3np1 (May 26, 2011)

In actual practice, states are clubs of producers, not associations of consumers. In an economic perspective, consumers are what matters. (May 25, 2011)

Large companies, including large banks, are very useful, provided they do not sleep with the state. (May 23, 2011)

Twun™ of late Sunday night: “How do you want your jets?” “Scrambled.” (May 22, 2011)

Last IMF annual report contains 104 “surveillance”. Its former Managing Director now knows what it means: he wears a surveillance bracelet. (May 21, 2011)

Don’t read anything in the fact that I make my harder jokes half an hour after the predicted event. (May 21, 2011)

Scoop: DSK was in fact attempting to rapture the maid. (May 21, 2011)

The Trojan war was caused by the rapture of Helen. (May 21, 2011)

Warning: Rapture not as fun as you thought. Before you are raptured, you have to go through a TSA junk and soul search. (May 21, 2011)

We can only hope that regulating bureaucrats, instead of being captured (by the regulated) as George Stigler thought, will be raptured. (May 21, 2011)

The rapture (at least on Eastern Daylight Time) will occur in 20 minutes. Make sure you stand outside lest your head hits the ceiling. (May 21, 2011)

If Strauss-Kahn had spent his life making hay bales, he would have been less harmful. - Ex-IMF Chief Makes Bail http://t.co/kvbTjhP (May 20, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: Minute Maid is not a Minuteman’s maid. (May 20, 2011)

Domestic outsourcing: actors will become only part-time actors. - Dropping Bodies Into Computer-Generated Films http://on.wsj.com/lBXr3M (May 19, 2011)

With his diplomatic passport, #DSK must have avoided TSA searches. Stay at Rikers Island has made up for that. TSA = the innocents’ Rikers. (May 19, 2011)

#DSK has spent his whole life exploiting the people. Now, he bugs us again by monopolizing our voyeurs’ attention. (May 19, 2011)

#DSK If guilty, his little tour at Rikers Island was an advance. If he is innocent, he has seen what is the state that he idealizes so much. (May 19, 2011)

Either DSK is found guilty, and it will cool down politicos. Or he is found innocent, and it will show the danger of prosecutorial power. (May 19, 2010)

Milk is just another body fluid. (May 18, 2011)

Libertarianism brings together the best of conservatism and the best of liberalism, and scraps the worst of both. (May 17, 2011)

French Kahn-Kahn will never be the same again. (May 17, 2011)

Cheap joke: Was DSK the head of the IMF, or the tail? (May 17, 2011)

Among Dominique Stauss-Kahn and Julian Assange, the latter, at least, did something not totally useless or harmful. (May 17, 2011)

Weekly twun™: Childless women get mammograms; mothers (especially Italian ones) get mammagrams. In America, they are all called mammoounces. (May 17, 2011)

If Dominique Strauss-Kahn is guilty, his penalty should include some lessons in civilization and commerce from Eliot Spitzer. (May 16, 2011)

Why is DSK's daughter attending a private university in the US, not a public university in France, Canada, or Venezuela? http://t.co/MihAySr (May 16, 2011)

Even old and despicable politicians and bureaucrats are entitled to to the presumption of innocence. (May 16, 2011)

Fascinating times. Perhaps we’ll soon learn that the pope has been arrested for jumping a nun in the Sistine Chapel. (May 16, 2011)

I found a Frenchman who thinks there is no presumption of innocence in the USA. Many Americans think the same for France! Tyranny is elsewhere. (May 16, 2011)

Strauss-Kahn affair: Bailout chief caught trying to bailin (May 16, 2011)

Scoop: IMF and its member states promise not to screw anybody anymore. (May 16, 2011)

After the Strauss-Kahn case, only eunuchs should be admissible as politicians and high-level bureaucrats. Many birds killed with one stone. (May 15, 2011)

We now know which is the best NYC hotel where to send politicians and bureaucrats. (May 15, 2011)

It is a very strange case. Even a dirty old man, especially a politician, does not risk everything for a maid. -- http://on.wsj.com/lgrNCb (May 15, 2011)

Conard, le barbant. (May 14, 2011)

Revolutionary lesson no. 1: A minuteman is not somebody who comes too fast. (May 14, 2011)

Inflation is a *general* increase in prices. Distinguish from a change in relative prices (some up, some down). http://on.wsj.com/kLEMmp (May 14, 2011)

If immigrants steal jobs, then any newborn is a ticking job thief. The bomb explodes when he starts to work. What about prohibiting new births or, at the very least, killing the immigrants from within before they reach 16? (May 13, 2011)

A dog can’t survive on RSS feed. (May 13, 2011)

Speculation and gouging – buying cheap votes to sell expensive policies – should be forbidden to politicians. (May 13, 2011)

Leviathan cannot survive without external or internal border controls. (May 12, 2011)

"National security letters" are George III's writs of assistance. (May 12, 2011)

Intellectual capital depreciates rapidly with time. Without new investments in learning, its net value drops. (May 11, 2011)

Only in the human species are the females nicer looking than the males (from my humble viewpoint). In fact, it's the same with angels. (May 11, 2011)

On a deserted path going through Gorham, Maine, tonight, we met two guys riding 4X4s, one of them carrying an M-16 (civilian version?) on his shoulder. I thought this was rather cool: after all, a free man travels armed, and this is America. Trisha later told me that she was a bit worried when they stopped to talk to us, and the older one stood grinning behind his openly armed companion. I must say I was not suspicious at all. Stupid me? Perhaps. But the little dirty secret is that I was also packing heat (the 9mm semi-auto pistol barely shows a bulge under my jacket), so there was no reason to panic. Indeed, the two guys were very friendly, as everybody is in New England. (May 11, 2011)

Twun™ (tweeted pun) of the week: It’s better to pack heat than to hack Pete. (May 11, 2011)

The battle against "civil" servants will be one of the main trends of the coming years. (May 10, 2011)

Timeo Danaos et dona accipientes. - Violence Mars Greek General Strike http://on.wsj.com/lFEaxR (May 10, 2011)

I am more and more persuaded that Austrian economics, in its orthodox and absolutist version, is a dead end. (May 10, 2011)

Who will save us? The Elohim or the "Hello her"? Be PC. -- Rael: 'Overpopulation is the true cause of Fukushima!' http://t.co/ktNljen (May 10, 2011)

Que diable signifie « électricité patrimoniale » dans les documents du gouvernement du Q ? Pourquoi pas « électricité matrimoniale » ou, encore mieux, « électricité sociale » ? (May 10, 2011)

Important truism: If you don’t teach anybody anything, nobody will learn from you. (May 10, 2011)

La théorie des choix publics en action: lire la section intitulée "Aide aux propriétaires d’une résidence endommagée par la pyrrhotite" dans le dernier Plan budgétaire du gouvernement du Q. (May 10, 2011)

The world would be a much better place if people read instruction manuals! (May 10, 2011)

First thing to understand: Leviathan is mainly a redistributive machine. (May 10, 2011)

« La Route verte est un itinéraire cyclable qui s’étend actuellement sur près de 4700 kilomètres et relie les régions du Québec. Cette route constitue une infrastructure majeure pour le tourisme durable et elle est reconnue, selon la société National Geographic, comme le meilleur itinéraire cyclable au monde. » (Gouvernement du Q., Plan budgétaire 2011-2012) Rigolo. Durant l’hiver, c’est-à-dire la plus grande partie de l’année, la Route verte devient la Route brune à l’usage des motoneiges. (May 10, 2011)

It is very striking to see how much the state loves us. Thank you, mom! (May 10, 2011)

Avec le Plan Nord, Hydro-Québec participera à des « plans sociaux » du gouvernement du Q, émulant la pétrolière nationale de Chavez ! (May 10, 2011)

Very weak and old argument. What if *I* don't want my daughter to be a truck driver? - The “Daughter Test” of Prohibition http://j.mp/iynAjB (May 10, 2011)

A creed claiming to be based on logic and natural law, but which is rejected by some humans proficient with logic, is not worth its salt. (May 10, 2011)

In jail because of lack of respect for a free-living non-human companion. - Animal ethicists call for new terminology http://natpo.st/mDlJ2I

Electronics has given many things a near-zero cost. For example, one can have 100 alarm clocks in one’s smart phone. (May 9, 2011)

One out 10 Americans is called “Officer”, another one “Doctor”, and most of the rest “James”. (May 9, 2011)

Should anybody on the govt's "terror watch list" be allowed to speak freely if he passes a background check? - http://on.wsj.com/lPSL3t (May 9, 2011)

Leviathan is hungry. (May 9, 2011)

After the Canadian federal gov’t, the gov’t of Québec is creating an IRS-like revenue agency. Always borrowing the worst from America. (May 9, 2011)

The gov’t creates tax incentives to make people do what it wants them to do. When people do it, they are blamed for “tax avoidance”. (May 9, 2011)

Europe will become more of a centralized Welfare State, or will crack. The latter is more feasible. Greek problems - http://on.wsj.com/lFaQ23 (May 8, 2011)

Coptics need copters. - Christians Blame Islamists for Deadly Egypt Clash http://on.wsj.com/l7VjNH (May 8, 2011)

The problem now is that more than one American cop will think he is an interior SEAL. (May 7, 2011)

“Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!” – Patrick Henry (May 6, 2011)

White trash don’t like blue cheese. (May 5, 2011)

Doctor to patient: "Do you prefer the real thing or a placebo?" Doctors prescribing placebos to unwitting patients http://natpo.st/l5ju2w (May 5, 2011)

Lesson for bin Laden: use Fedex. (May 5, 2011)

Dull joke for the night. Allah welcoming OBL in paradise: “My son, this will seal our reunion.” (May 4, 2011)

“Spokesman” means it’s a man; “spokesperson” means it’s a woman. (May 4, 2011)

Torture degrades the torturers at least as much as the tortured. - (May 4, 2011)

Scoop: OBL was unarmed because he had been turned down after asking a firearms license to Canadian & British cops. http://on.wsj.com/mvlpqE (May 4, 2011)

Bin Laden went postal, and did it on a grand scale. (May 4, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: Seals or baby seals? (May 3, 2011)

What came last, the chick or the egg? (May 3, 2011)

A Moslem must be buried 24 hours after his death. What if the corpse changes time zone? What if he travels at the speed of light? (May 3, 2011)

The rumor is that bin Laden did not personally engage in the firefight. As he was from a wealthy family, perhaps he did not like guns? (May 3, 2011)

OK, many libertarians are crazy. But still far from the despicable establishment that governs us. (May 3, 2011)

Jean Duceppe et Osama bin Laden étaient un peu dépassés par leur époque. (May 3, 2011)

If bin Laden had not been buried, he would have become a living dead. (May 3, 2011)

Too easy to make but too tempting not to: the difference between Obama and Osama is BS. (May 3, 2011)

The King of Canada (like the King of America) is only the humble servant of the 15% of the electorate that work as government bureaucrats. (May 3, 2011)

Les Canadiens français ont toujours trop facilement pris la couleur de leur environnement, un peu comme l’espion de César dans Astérix. Thoreau l’avait remarqué lors de son voyage au Canada. Un petit mouvement de foule, et tout le monde suit. Ajoutez à cela des réfugiés pas encore déçus de toutes les tyrannies du monde, et l’occasion est trop belle de passer de Charybde en Scylla. (May 2, 2011)

Quite happy to have fled Québec. (And to have purchased an Android. So if you want to see where the future is, follow me!) (May 2, 2011)

All Canadian political parties love Leviathan. Some more than others. (May 2, 2011)

Individuals vote to make moral statements or to have fun (like at hockey game). Little scope for moral stance in the Canadian election. (May 2, 2011)

Canadian election: Will the winner be the Bush-light imitator, or the two Obama imitators with a vengeance? (May 2, 2011)

Don’t weep on bin Laden. Weep on the liberties he and his accomplices stole us – the TSA, the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, etc. (May 2, 2011)

Is it the egg or the chicken that first started following me on Twitter? (May 2, 2011)

Any war fought by the gov’t should come with a compensation: “In return, this gov’t shall immediately return some of your lost liberties.” (May 2, 2011)

Whatever you think, note that it is not “the U.S.” that killed bin Laden. It’s (part of) the U.S. government, which is very different. (May 2, 2011)

There is probably no good reason to be incensed by the killing of bin Laden – if it was bin Laden. (May 2, 2011)

After the death of bin Laden, look at the state of our liberties and how the Police State has advanced everywhere. Who has really won? (May 2, 2011)

Very funny Facebook app asks whats the best price for gasoline. Any omniscient and omnipotent planner, please tell us poor mortals. (May 1, 2011)

Suppose you believe X. Is there a probability not too close to 0 that you could be proven wrong & change your mind? If not, it's a religion. (April 30, 2011)

Libertarianism is not, or should not be, a religion. (April 30, 2011)

Give a free lance to a horseman, and you have a free lancer. (April 28, 2011)

The TSA and in general border controls illustrate the difference between a transparent society and a free society. (April 28, 2011)

Have a son who gives you trouble? Read Deut. 21. (April 28, 2011)

Gaia existe et j’ai un château à vendre en Syldavie. (April 27, 2011)

Anybody can get himself self-published, but he will likely have to self-read. (April 26, 2011)

If slopes were not slippery, nobody but the blind would want to take them. (April 26, 2011)

No dog ever got a Nobel Prize, because of the anti-animal bias of the Nobel Committee. (April 26, 2011)

The problem, sometimes, is that our side is as sloppy as theirs. (April 26, 2011)

Some statements would be worth criticizing if only they had ever been made. (April 26, 2011)

The big problem with Québec is that it soooooooooooo similar to the rest of Canada. (April 25, 2011)

Threatening terrorists and international thugs must be dealt with, but not at the price of liberty and justice. Kapitch, Ivanov? (April 25, 2011)

If government spending were cut by 75%, lots of busybodies would have to get addicted to something else. -- http://on.wsj.com/e59rYg (April 25, 2011)

Keeping the Potemkin village socially hygienic. -- This Blog Post Is Not Yet Rated http://t.co/h8ciNd0 (April 25, 2011)

Liberty: Canadian politicians are so despicable that Harper (leader of the "Conservative" Party) sometimes looks merely like a monster. (April 25, 2011)

Man does not live by chocolate alone. (April 25, 2011)

Often astonished by the lack of political culture (both historical and philosophical) of Quebeckers, perhaps especially young Quebeckers. (April 25, 2011)

Song of love and ate: I think I ate too much Easter Lindt chocolate. (April 25, 2011)

Democracy is good for throwing out the rascals, not for determining common values. - Vox populi or hoi polloi? | http://t.co/hUkiJnv (April 25, 2011)

The bilingual twun™ of the week about the upcoming Canadian election: under Al Layton, everybody in Canada will get free beer and free milk. (April 25, 2011)

Selfishness = ability to sell fish. A virtue. http://www.pewenvironment.org/uploadedImages/PEG/Campaigns/eone-harbor-fish-market-585-mfk.jpg (April 25, 2011)

Twun™ of the week: In our battery-powered gadget world, even assault often comes with battery included. (April 25, 2011)

Fortunately, in general, free speech is possible. (April 24, 2011)

Ham radio is decidedly non-Islamic. It must have been invented on Easter Day. (April 24, 2011)

It's always sunny on Easter Day. (April 24, 2011)

Easter question: What came first, the egg or the chicken? (April 24, 2011)

What do you do if a FB friend of yours posts three lines with seven grammatical mistakes. If you agree with the idea -- after reading the sentence three times -- should you indicate you like it?[1] (April 24, 2011)

Happy Easter! (Go Easter, young man!) (April 24, 2011)

That Earth Day falls on Good Friday must be blasphemy. God promises eternal life; Gail, dirt and green rot. (April 22, 2011)

Canadians take their meaningless elections very seriously. New jobs created in tire manufacturing. http://natpo.st/fffQ1I (April 22, 2011)

Flagrant lack of CSR: “Today is Earth Day”, reads the e-mail message. “Go outdoors with Casio!” No, you must eat dirt too. (April 22, 2011)

J'ai parlé à mon psy et il m'a dit d'aller voir mon upsilon. (April 22, 2011)

Yes, yes, I am going to eat quiche, and I am proud of it. (April 22, 2011)

Zero tolerance: Forbidding computers to government (while letting individuals have them) would constrain Leviathan. (April 22, 2011)

At least, before the fall of the communist empire, we could argue, “It’s not Soviet Russia here.” (April 22, 2011)

Because of self-selection, there must be more homosexuals in the TSA than in the general population. A little FOI request? (April 21, 2011)

Scanophilia is a crime, and those committing it should have their names put in the scanophile registry. (April 21, 2011)

The Surveillance State: a scan of worms. (April 21, 2011)

The Surveillance State: “Yes we scan!” (April 21, 2011)

How to sext without a smart phone? Go through TSA security. (April 21, 2011)

It’s difficult to argue with somebody who does not agree that all cannot be above average. (April 21, 2011)

It’s ifficult to argue with somebody who does not agree that 1+1=2 (except for well-argued epistemological reasons). (April 21, 2011)

Few things are more difficult to do, and more easy to criticize, than translation. (April 20, 2011)

My whole life is pro bono. (April 19, 2011)

Pun tweets and tweet puns: I have invented the twun™. (April 19, 2011)

True pun of the day: the genes are in the jeans. (April 19, 2011)

Immigrants are forever young as they never become senior citizens. The more illegal, the younger. (April 19, 2011)

Pow-wow corrupts, absolute pow-wow corrupts absolutely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pow-wow (April 18, 2011)

When, several years ago, Lord Harris told me he did not remember if I was an academic or a journalist, I answered that I was too serious to be a journalist but not enough to be an academic. (April 18, 2011)

Il ne faut pas confondre le schibboleth avec la ciboulette. (April 18, 2011)

I don’t have all the answers but I have all the questions. (April 18, 2011)

Addiction is just another word for what we like to do. -- All those tweets, apps, updates may drain brain http://t.co/R2LX9La (April 17, 2011)

First military-bureaucratic principle: there is no such thing as a free bunch. (April 17, 2011)

The AT&T DNS has been down for hours. Fortunately, there is this entrepreneurial company, opendns.com, and their free DNS service! (April 17, 2011)

“The excitement of the ideas must come first.” – John Gaskin’s preface to Hobbes’s 1651 Leviathan (April 17, 2010)

A spell checker blocks spells cast at you. (April 17, 2011)

Wine is a world in itself. There are so many worlds in themselves. (April 16, 2011)

One problem with the “Québec model” (“le modèle québécois”) is that nobody talks about it except in Québec; and Leviathan is happy. (April 15, 2011)

Pre-night wisdom: Not everything is dark and disgusting in the world. (April 15, 2011)

A book is like a car or a movie: a perfect assemblage of imperfect components. (April 14, 2011)

Air France now advertizes its trans-Atlantic flights with one-way prices. Will they soon advertize them with attractive mid-Atlantic prices? (April 14, 2011)

In a capitalist economy, you order goods and services. In a socialist economy, you beg for them. (April 14, 2011)

Occupational licensure is the trade unionism of the rich, and is even more despicable than the poor's variety. -- http://t.co/cKD8k72 (April 13, 2011)

PMS is one of the grave problems that the Welfare State still has to address. (April 13, 2011)

« On ne peut travailler à un ouvrage qu’après en avoir fait le plan, et un plan ne peut être bien fait qu’après que toutes les parties de l’ouvrage sont achevées. » -- Benjamin Constant (April 13, 2011)

With some (much?) luck, we can hope that, in two centuries, most people will consider statism and nationalism on par with Lamarckism. (April 13, 2011)

Race to the bottom. America and France share one big drawback: heavy government bureaucracy and paperwork. (April 12, 2011)

We have such a statist, Rousseauvian language where “country” mean either, and simultaneously, the geography, the people, and the state. (April 12, 2011)

More and more, what taxes buy, in the best of cases, is the right to ask permits. (April 12, 1011)

Official paperwork is a sign of the rule of law, up to a certain point. This point is long past. (April 12, 2011)

By dumbing down your readers, you make yourself more difficult to understand (if there is something to understand) by the non-dumb-downable. (April 11, 2011)

Economic growth is good – for those who get it. (April 11, 2011)

“Matt 10:5” means that there 10 of you praying on 5 mats. (April 11, 2011)

Si vous ne lisez jamais en français ou ne le parlez jamais, vous ne saurez pas si, par exemple, « burqua » est masculin ou féminin. (April 11, 2011)

Secularism (“laïcité”) is meant to limit the state, constrain theocratic-thuggish majorities, chain Leviathan. May be useful in the future. (April 11, 2011)

The shoemaker’s fishy story: sole proprietorship does not mean ownership of a sole. (April 10, 2011)

*IF* true (note small sample), Republicans are as stupid as Democrats. The word "ban" should be banned in politics. - http://t.co/542g3EI (April 9, 2011)

Natural law: love of gri-gris and resort to scapegoats may be hard-wired in the human brain. Such primitive leanings should often be fought. (April 9, 2011)

Federal budget cuts of $38.5 billion are 1% of this year’s expenditures, and 10% of the increase in expenditures since last year. (April 9, 2011)

Required leather care: the instructions for the hiking boots Trisha and I bought yesterday are as complicated as for cleaning a revolver. (April 8, 2011)

Grrr… I mistakenly ordered six jars of Bonne Maman blackcurrant jelly, instead of redcurrant, and have been eating it for a month. All that time, I was wondering what was wrong with my life, what I have achieved, what I will leave after me, where's my pistol, and so forth. (April 8, 2011)

My desk: so many wires, not counting the wireless ones! (April 7, 2011) Added comment: “Well, brother, the British state is probably even worse.”

Dumbing down the reader appears to be the first principle of public relations and “communications”. Does he like that? (April 6, 2011)

Multitasking is high-class ADD. (April 6, 2011)

One good consequence of the Japanese catastrophes is that people now seem to realize that destruction does not create growth and jobs. (April 6, 2011)

If Sisyphus had been a redneck, the gods would have condemned him to clean his gun just to have it shoot a lead bullet, endlessly forever. (April 5, 2011)

Burning the Quran and killing infidels: God must be LOL, ROTF, and LHAO. (April 4, 2011)

A glass which is X% empty is (100-X)% full, and vice-versa. (April 4, 2011)

How does one say “unmanned drone aircraft” when it is unmanned by a woman? (April 2, 2011)

How does one say “poor workmanship” in politically correct language? (April 2, 2011)

In a dream, somebody asked me: “Do you live a different day?” I think it was a sort of code. (April 1, 2011)

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” (April 1, 2011)

“A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part.” – Henry David Thoreau (April 1, 2011)

“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continuing putting in their way.” – Henry David Thoreau (April 1, 2011)

I bought a lanyard for my pistol. (There are lanyard buffs.) Very useful: no risk that the pistol falls from the holster while I am writing! (March 30, 2011)

“a mere Man of Quality, who on that Account wants to live upon the Public, by some Office or Salary, will be despis’d and disregarded.” Franklin, “To Those Who Would Remove to America” (1784) (March 30, 2011)

The problem with immigrants is that they tend to be too uncritical towards their new country and its state. (March 30, 2011)

“the two chief parties of the countries, warring over details, have come so close together that it has been almost impossible to distinguish them.” - Mencken (March 30, 2011)

“What is often mistaken for an independent spirit in dealing with the national traits, is not more than a habit of crying with the pack.” – Mencken, “On Being an American” (March 30, 2011)

“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (March 30, 2011)

Wait! Perhaps it is BECAUSE OF the softness of state institutions that liberty has resisted mounting tyranny for a time. http://t.co/tQbOulg (March 30, 2011)

Wave of the future: I think I am in the process of switching from Firefox to Internet Explorer after years and years of using the former. (March 30, 2011)

Right to work means right to try and sell your services to whoever wants to buy, not the right to work in a specific firm on your own terms. (March 30, 2011)

Politicians are the worst insider traders: they hunt and use non-public information to buy votes. (March 29, 2011)

Chicken wing often tastes better than right wing or left wing. (March 29, 2011)

Il est étrange que la « Société des hygiénistes de la province de Québec », qui a existé de 1943 à 1974, n’ait aucune trace sur le web, sinon dans des mentions rapides de son successeur, l’Association pour la santé publique du Québec. Ne sont-ils fiers de leur histoire ? Pourquoi ne pas publier les déclarations de la vieille association et faire état de ses activités de l'é poque? Y a-t-il anguille sous roche ? (March 28, 2011)

“most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest … what a place to die!”– http://thoreau.eserver.org/ktaadn06.html (March 27, 2011)

“My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-reliance (March 27, 2011)

“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Emerson, Self-reliance (March 27, 2011)

I visited a strip club with Trisha yesterday. Funny: the strippers have to go outside (accompanied by a bouncer) to commit the smoking sin! (March 27, 2011)

Beethoven is addictive. (March 25, 2011)

« Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre. » (François Villon)

« Alors, ça boume? » dit un boomer à l’autre. (March 24, 2011)

On the pictures of the Libyan rebels, have you noticed how many of them smoke? Are we sure they are so pure? (March 23, 2011)

Nuclear: Promethean success or useless time bomb? Only way to know: stop protecting it against liability, and see if it can buy insurance. (March 23, 2011)

The long train of abuse is not simply an Amtrak train. (March 23, 2011)

Unconscious surrender: dark historical humor marks the 1959 creation of the TSA -- Texas Society of Anestesiologists. http://www.tsa.org (March 22, 2011)

Future generations are a big burden (http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artchildren.html) but they don’t bug us as much as the current one. (March 21, 2011)

Les générations futures ? Elles nous ont déjà assez cassé les couilles ! - http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artchildren.html

I will be having lunch. In case of social emergency [the worst of all emergencies], you will have to text me. (March 21, 2011)

Enfants, nous jouions avec des pistolets de plastique. Mon H&K USP Compact, qui est en bonne partie fait de plastique, me rappelle mes jeux d’enfant. (March 20, 2011)

Quebec has 1/5 of California’s population but its government spends 1/3 as much. Call of bankruptcy? (March 20, 2011)

Mandatory form for statocrat going to war: “In return, we will re-establish the following liberties to our subjects: [name at least three].” (March 19, 2011)

Not that I like the Gadhafi butcher, but… For his glory and the state's power, every head of state needs his own Saddam Hussein. (March 19, 2011)

The TSA already tried a no-fly zone, but the populace discovered how to evade it: strip & fly. (March 18, 2011)

Maine: "Bug free or die!" -- http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/14/title14sec6021-A.html (March 18, 2011)

Between updating his camera’s firmware and his Android’s OS, cleaning his pistol, and taking care of his woman, when can a man work? (March 18, 2011)

A strike against tyrant Gadhafi looks OK. Problem is, it will reinforce the authority and power of our own too-powerful states (and the UN). (March 18, 2011)

I wonder if, in America, bored people kill time by chatting with AT&T? In Québec, they go to the (free) hospital emergency room. (March 18, 2011)

There is no such thing as “collective wealth”, only wealth created by individuals for themselves or expropriated by others for themselves. (March 18, 2011)

Problems of life: difficult to find a place for phone holster when pistol already there. (March 17, 2011)

Black humor: Japan needs cool aid. (March 17, 2011)

As Prometheus would have said, liver and let liver. (March 16, 2011)

Home, tweet home! (March 16, 2011)

I think I prefer carrying to caring persons. (March 16, 2011)

We tend to forget friends who do not tweet or FB. (March 15, 2011)

“Trouver la mort”, quelle drôle d’expression : comme si on la cherchait ! (March 15, 2011)

“Officials Stabilize Damaged Complex” (WSJ). “Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant” (NYT). Which is the most sensationalist paper? (March 15, 2011)

The irrational fear of alcohol in America resembles the irrational gun phobia in most other countries. (March 15, 2011)

Ignorance is bliss only if you don’t know it. If you do, you know you are missing something. (March 15, 2011)

One of my childhood friends, G.H., has only four references on the web – regarding a Cub Scout pack we both belonged to. He must be a total failure! (March 13, 2011)

I met a fairy who granted me one wish. "I want to live forever," I said. "Sorry" replied the fairy, "I'm not allowed to grant wishes like that!" "Fine," I said, "I want to die when the state has become trustworthy." "You crafty bastard!" she replied. (March 11, 2011)

During a routine eye exam, I told my new ophthalmologist in Maine that his mission is to make sure I can read, write and shoot until I am 95. Instead of thinking that I am crazy, as the average doctor in Canada or France would have thought, he said that I will find “many gun enthusiasts in Maine” and that he was himself an avid skeet shooter. I mentioned that I had been skeet shooting with my sons in California during this very past weekend. He highly recommended his preferred skeet shooting club in Scarborough, Maine. I suggested he should try pistol shooting. After all, this is America. (March 10, 2011)

Geek philosophy: anything clickable must be clicked. (March 6, 2011)

With reusable grocery bags, the shit is hitting the fans of Gaia. (March 6, 2011)

After ten years of surveillance, TSA, state aggrandizement, and crushing of our liberties: by the way, where is Bin Laden? (March 6, 2011)

I think that “ammo” comes from the Latin “amo” (“I love”). (March 1, 2011)

Little children think that adults are just proportionally blown-up versions of them. (Don’t take “blown-up” in its Jihad sense.) (March 1, 2011)

A most serious world problem: E-Mail This, the Wall Street Journal e-mail utility, garbles accentuated characters. (February 28, 2011)

Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat. (February 24, 2011)

Alligators must be Arab gators. (February 24, 2011)

Abolish trade union privileges, but for the unions of the rich too, i.e., professional corporations (physicians, lawyers, etc.). (February 24, 2011)

How does one say “yes man” for a woman in PC language? A yes woman? A yes person? A yes being? (February 23, 2011)

If you have nothing to say, better not to say it. (February 23, 2011)

What if these two couples had been armed? - Somali Pirates Kill Four U.S. Hostages http://on.wsj.com/fMPoLK (February 22, 2011)

I can't understand why, despite the Green Book, trouble brews in the Green Square. - http://nyti.ms/ei0kIO (February 22, 2011)

It is not surprising that after decades of Newspeak came the TSA – Newpeep. (February 22, 2011)

It is not surprising that after decades of group-think came the TSA – grope-think. (February 22, 2011)

Stakeholders who mind their own business are found in steak houses. (February 22, 2011)

In the electronic age, secretaries are for wimps. (February 22, 2011)

The Protective Society: a warning under the trigger guard of my semi-auto pistol says, “WARNING refer to owner manual”! (February 21, 2011)

The problem with solidarity is simple: with whom and against whom? (February 21, 2011)

« Le goût de la tranquillité publique devient alors une passion aveugle, et les citoyens sont sujets à s'éprendre d'un amour très-désordonné pour l'ordre. » (Tocqueville) (February 21, 2011)

Parlé au Québec, l’« Oqlf » est une langue vernaculaire apparentée au créole, qui emprunte un peu au français ainsi que, beaucoup, à des normes arbitraires imposées d’en haut. (February 20, 2011)

Being libertarian should not mean asking only the questions that have been asked a thousand times and giving the same answers all over again. (February 15, 2011)

Au prix de leur santé, les gens (stupides individus !) s’adonnent au tabagisme, au vinisme, au gastronomisme et au sexisme. (February 15, 2011)

The ACLU (of which I am a member) seems to think that everything between the waist and the thighs should be heavily subsidized by the state. (February 14, 2011)

Dissymmetry: If you know something, you know how it felt not to know; if you don’t know something, you don’t know how it feels to know it. (February 14, 2011)

Histoire d’amour à l’âge informatique: la Belle et le Byte. (February 14, 2011)

The state must trust citizens, and the citizens must mistrust it – the exact opposite of the actual perverse situation. (February 13, 2011)

If my experience is any guide, don’t buy insurance from Allstate Canada: they will sell you insurance, then quickly cancel you policy. (February 11, 2011)

A revolution in 1789 too. The revolutionaries tried to marry fire with water, popular sovereignty with individual liberty (said Faguet). (February 11, 2011)

The Puritans came for worship, not whore ship. (Orthography is important.) (February 11, 2011)

Are the inhabitants of Qatar better at catharsis? (February 10, 2011)

UPS discretely left the package against 2 pellets guns an inch inside the garage. Gun shadow? In Canada, the SWAT team would have followed. (February 9, 2011)

Pierre-Esprit Radisson died in the Summer of 1710, but the 300^th anniversary of his death was nowhere celebrated in Québec last year. (February 8, 2011)

Reflection inspired by the flu season: Islamist terrorists should be content to blow their noses. (February 8, 2011)

Why is Mubarak’s government having more trouble than the TSA? Because people in democratic countries think they are obeying themselves? (February 7, 2011)

Don Yuan is a contemporary seducer. (February 6, 2011)

Not everybody can be above average. (February 6, 2011)

Suburban life: errander humanum est. (February 4, 2011)

Should the US gvt support the actual friendly tyrant or the future perhaps unfriendly one? Unavoidable dilemma of international interventionism. (February 4, 2011)

Epitome of civilization: in Egypt, only state thugs have guns. Do you think the competing gang would change that? (February 2, 2011)

In former communist Romania, miners traditionally played the role of state thugs. Every society, even “free”, has its Romanian miners. (February 2, 2011)

Opponents of one tyrant are often supporters of another, that is, they support the one who will favor them. (February 2, 2011)

Tyrants have supporters. They couldn’t be in power otherwise. They favor their supporters and harm the others -- the business of the state. (February 2, 2011)

The earth was cooling with the hole in the ozone layer. Remember? Then came “global warming”. Now it’s “climate change”. Hedge your bets. (January 31, 2011)

Seen on Google Alerts: “Online Guest Book for Pierre Lemieux. Sign and view the Guest Book for Pierre Lemieux, leave condolences, send flowers, or find funeral service information.” (January 30, 2011)

Game theory: an evolutionary stable strategy is to play hawk only if your adversary plays dove. But liberty is not for the doves. (January 30, 2011)

Reflection of an amateur linguist: the Arabs speaking on Egyptian TV today remind me of the accent I heard yesterday in a Québec McDonald’s. (January 30, 2011)

A bit of humor in a war among tyrants. The big question is Egypt: On which side is Rastapopulos? (January 30, 2011)

Egypt: an interesting WSJ editorial. America must remain - in fact, become again - a beacon of liberty. Tough job! http://on.wsj.com/e8W6vM (January 30, 2011)

Egypt illustrates that armed uprisings usually occur against weaker, not stronger, tyrants. When will they occur in Iran and North Korea? (January 30, 2011)

When bands of robbers & murderers are fighting for a monopoly, we don't have to take a stance - except perhaps on purely prudential grounds. (January 30, 2011)

Mancur Olson’s question illustrated by Egypt: is it better to have a sedentary looter (the state) or competing gangs of roving looters? (January 30, 2011)

History suggests that tyrants only remain in power when they are willing and able to shoot at crowds of demonstrators. (January 30, 2011)

« Tu es silicone et tu retourneras silicone. » Gen. 3, 19

My little, proletarian, brand new car needed a software upgrade. Nous sommes bien peu de chose. (January 24, 2011)

"Total screening": why not push the security perimeter up to private homes, and put a cop in each? Brave New World. http://on.wsj.com/dMfECc (January 24, 2011)

As the Surveillance State extends security perimeter out (up to our homes one day?), attacks just relocate. -- http://on.wsj.com/iknzGx (January 24, 2011)

It’s soothing in a sort of wicked way to meet people crazier than oneself (except for the fact that the crazy attract the crazy). (January 24, 2011)

Numbers are so aesthetic, and number mills even more. (Mathematics and econometrics software packages are number mills.) (January 24, 2011)

This of course does not exhaust (no pun intended) the argument, but there is something Randian about the tar sands. (January 21, 2011)

Should governments be allowed to operate computers, and under which conditions? (January 17, 2011)

The best conditions to learn something are when you feel you have to. Then, even heteroskedasticity becomes fun. (January 17, 2011)

The presumption should be that gov’t information is public, or can be made public, and that private information is, well, private. (January 17, 2011)

The principle is simple: gov’t information should, in general, be available to the public; private information should not. And the press should be free. (January 17, 2011)

If we have to “harvest” game, we can shoot vegetables. (January 16, 2011)

You start dying just after being born. So, don't have fun! -- Smoking 'causes damage in minutes' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12193602 (January 16, 2011)

In fashionable (statist) public opinion: hate = not wanting to be bossed around; love = bossing others around. (January 15, 2011)

Needed: an application that would, from camera and/or GPS input, determine the shape of the driveway, calculate its size and, given wind direction and snow blower engine power, determine the optimal snow blowing path. (January 15, 1011)

An interesting example of false quote: http://clubunite.co.uk/the_art_of_woo.pdf. What I wrote was more polite than the milder reaction implied by the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115801096324259803.html). (app. January 12, 2011)

La presse québécoise vient de découvrir que l’on peut écrire « K$ » et « M$ ». Il leur reste à découvrir que l’on n’écrit pas, dans un texte général, « 250 $ » (par exemple). Ça prendra du temps. (January 13, 2011)

Heraclitus was wrong: the snow blowing man often travels in the same snow. (January 13, 2011)

Animal rights: When rights have disappeared, rich kids create fake ones. -- Foie gras conflict in Ottawa out http://natpo.st/g4v68B

Whatever one thinks of religion, it used to provide useful moral constraints for lost people (when they did not kill in its name). (January 9, 2011)

Moreover, a gentleman who knows his grammar does not shoot a woman. (January 9, 2011)

Breast feeding in a private store: when people have lost their real liberties, they clamor for fake ones. -- http://t.co/UIEiHi0 (January 9, 2011)

Misfits become artists, entrepreneurs, geeks, criminals or Hitlers. In a free society, the last one is less likely. (January 9, 2011)

The more politicized society becomes (that is, the more individual behavior is controlled by politics), the more violent it must become. This violence can take different forms and be hidden in many ways. (January 8, 2011)

On a souvent besoin d’un plus petit que soi, mais ce n’est pas une raison pour encenser les politiciens et les bureaucrates. (January 6, 2011)

Should politicians (like Connolly) be forbidden to wear cologne as it makes them and their jihad more attractive? - http://nyti.ms/gMaaNA (January 4, 2011)

Many people would rather have straight checks than checks and balances. (January 5, 2011)

Marie de l’Incarnation about Des Groseilliers, who had moved to New England, in a letter of 1665: “A habitant of this country, but one who was not regarded well here because of his rebellious nature and bad disposition, withdrew himself to the English some two years ago…” – Quoted in Grace Lee Nute, Caesars of the Wilderness (1943), St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1978, p. 92. (January 4, 2011)

The demise of the nuclear family would have the impact of a nuclear boob. (January 3, 2010)

My resolution for the New Year is measured in pixels. (January 2, 2011)

In line with Thoreau’s voluntary simplicity, I am anxious to get out of the house and be in my new car. (January 1, 2011)

Get information on Hank Paulson at https://ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/hmpaulson.shtml. Firefox says the U.S. Treasury site is untrusted. (December 30, 2010)

Nearly everything can be learned through googling. But one needs to know where to start and what to discard. (December 29, 2010)

One choice should be forbidden: the choice to coercively meddle in somebody else’s choices. (December 28, 2010)

An alluring ad (no doubt targeted) on Facebook: "Things to do in Portland before you die. One huge coupon emailed daily." (December 28, 2010)

In intellectual discourse (as opposed perhaps to practical life), it is not sufficient to hold the correct conclusion. The reasons for it also count, for they are the criteria of truth. (December 27, 2010)

Life is so addictive that most people would like a second one. (December 27, 2010)

Second-hand smoke is so addictive that once you have had a smoking spouse, you can’t do without one. (December 27, 2010)

New England romance: Joe Blow meets Snow Blow. (December 27, 2010)

Learning has always been in large part a matter of clicking. At any rate, intellectual curiosity has always meant non-stop clicking. (December 27, 2010)

Try to pair an iPhone and an Apple-recommended Jawbone headset. After an hour, you will realize that Apple’s easiness is much overrated. (December 27, 2010)

Your chimney is part of your castle. Thanks to the Second Amendment, Santa has to explicitly ask permission to enter any American chimney. (December 24, 2010)

The smartphone is the intellectual's Xbox. (December 24, 2010)

Merry Christmas to you (and to all my other Facebook friends)! (December 23, 2010)

When I die, I’ll be able to say, “This has been a good tweeting life!” (December 22, 2010)

American consumers love to be subsidized by coercing their fellow citizens but not through coercion of the Chinese? http://on.wsj.com/ffMSTo (December 22, 2010)

A smaller population, they argue, has helped fuel China’s astounding economic growth by reducing the demands on food production, education and medical care. (December 21, 2010)

Texting and smartphones: the rule of thumb. (December 21, 2010)

If there is global warming, it is alas not to the idea of individual liberty. (December 21, 2010)

The deeper one digs into the nature of the universe, the smaller the is-ought gap becomes, as it becomes senseless to change what is. (December 21, 2010)

Serious thought of the day: Computers are like toothbrushes – not to be shared. (December 20, 2010)

Red alert for antitrust bureaucrats: with Amazon’s competition, Santa Claus is not facing a level playing sky. (December 19, 2010)

People don’t like being subsidized by private advertising to others but don’t mind being subsidized through government coercing others. (December 19, 2010)

Nothing can be cooked. If cooking time is N seconds, it won’t make a difference to do (N-1) seconds, or (N-1)-1 seconds… & so on up to zero. (December 17, 2010)

Cheap Australian wines are disgusting. Yesterday, I brought such a wine: a $3.59 Merlot. Yet, it should remain legal. Caveat emptor. (December 17, 2010)

Deep thought of the month: round laces are difficult to tie tightly. Time to go for my walk, I guess. (December 17, 2010)

“Stakeholders” are people who want to eat somebody else’s steak. (Apologies for the repeat.) (December 16, 2010)

The “digital divide” that really matters is between zero and one. (December 14, 2010)

The War on Something is the health of the state. (December 14, 2010)

What would be nice would be wikileaks from a large number of other governments in the world. Let's not discriminate. (December 10, 2010)

The guy put his hand on the girl’s thigh. “Luke 14:10”, she says. He immediately removes his hand. Question: why was he stupid? (December 9, 2010)

I suspect that God hates small talk. (December 8, 2008)

Would you say that smokers 1) die more often than non-smokers, 2) less often, 3) about the same, 4) doesn’t know or doesn’t want to answer. (December 5, 2010)

I need all my fingers to do an index. (December 4, 2010)

In this day and age, nothing much has changed. (December 4, 2010)

Remember when Americans could say that, contrary to Europeans, they did not have to pass a check-point before leaving their own country? (December 3, 2010)

Life is expensive but death is not without cost either. (December 3, 2010)

Time spent in a small nap is better than in a snap mall. (December 3, 2010)

If you are allergic to both wine and tobacco, life is not worth living. (December 2, 2010)

I have started reading Grace Lee Nute’s “Ceasars of the Wilderness”, on Radisson and Des Groseilliers, and I am totally seduced. (December 1^st, 2010)

Still some freedom left: I ordered fois gras d'oie online. No Social Security Number or ID card required. (November 22, 2010)

“A long train of abuse” has more to do with air transportation than with railroads. (November 22, 2010)

Air terminals are reduced models of police states. (November 21, 2010)

Name me one American Founder who could have thought that the 4th Amendment could be consistent with groping people without probable cause. (November 21, 2010)

TSA's rate of grope has been increasing. (November 20, 2010)

Insider trading is the "crime" of telling somebody something without simultaneously telling it to the whole world. (November 20, 2010)

They want to "grow the economy" and grope the people. The two must go together. - Obama Tries to Repair Damage http://on.wsj.com/9ij0vd (November 19, 2010)

Group think was bound to degenerate into grope think of the worst sort. (November 19, 2010_

Don’t touch my junk bond! (November 19, 2010)

Is Harry Potter a golf player? (November 19, 2010)

Fourth Amendment: the Fondling Fathers have replaced the Founding Fathers. (November 19, 2010)

Leviathan loves you so much that he wants to fondle you. (November 19, 2010)

Send the TSA to the junkyard of history – where the Soviet Union already lies. (November 19, 2010)

Ask not if you are fond of border cops, but if they may fond you. (November 19, 2010)

If you don’t profess to love Leviathan, your punishment will be to watch Janet Napolitano scanned naked. (November 19, 2010)

The feds are too well fed. (November 19, 2010)

Learning requires some humility. (November 19, 2010)

Two good lives for the price of one: if I knew that eternal life existed and that it would be fun, I would start smoking again. (November 19, 2010)

Does Leviathan love you or is he running loose? (November 19, 2010)

True, "there’s more to life than money". That’s why the state is not only after our money. -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11756049 (November 16, 2010)

There are still two sorts of people in the world: the screeners and the screened, the scanners and the scanned. (November 15, 2010)

People are proud of the border cops protecting them, and don’t think that the president is not scanned naked by his own bodyguards. (November 15, 2010)

Save your dignity and fight the Surveillance State: travel in your good, old individual car. (November 15, 2010)

Polygamy consists in living with many women, which is legal, and saying you are married to them, which is a crime. (November 14, 2010)

Forgive the most banal statement: the beginning of knowledge is to know which questions to ask. (November 14, 2010)

Power corrupts, pad down power corrupts absolutely. (November 12, 2010)

As Aquinas said, nature abhors a vacuum cleaner. (November 10, 2010)

Culture is to be elsewhere. (November 9, 2010)

Another deep reflection: the USB symbol looks like the Devil’s pitchfork. (November 9, 2010)

Yesterday, I was an airborne-again traveler. (November 5, 2010)

I would rather choose between Charybdis and Scylla than between a rock and a hard place (November 2, 2010)

There is no such thing as zero risk, and there is no such thing as zero opportunity either. (October 25, 2010)

Wonder why she did not come to deliver in Québec, under our social and collective state? - CBC Céline Dion has twin boys http://t.co/ZNvkGJ5 (October 23, 2010) CBC News - Music - Céline Dion has twin boys

Notwithstanding contemporary Newspeak, “stakeholders” are people who want other people’s steaks. (October 23, 2010)

What’s difficult in thinking out of the box is to find first where the box is. (October 14, 2010)

Linux Ubuntu is really a great operating software. Too bad they don’t have software like the real Office and Quicken. (October 14, 2010)

Call for ideas: What are the greatest economic mistakes, that is, the worst mistakes people commonly make while thinking about the economy? (October 12, 2010)

Charlie, the smoking chimpanzee dies. He looked more human than most anti-smokers. Watch video. - http://www.cyberpresse.ca/_purl/01-4330135 (October 6, 2010)

We are making our soft police states more and more powerful, attractive and potentially rewarding for all sorts of barbarians to take over. (October 6, 2010)

We will soon need travel licenses. They will be easy to get on the web: “Your ID number and departure and return dates.” The state is nice. (October 6, 2010)

The magic potion: add “social” to something and whatever it qualifies becomes good against evil. What about a social stone? (October 6, 2010)

The main problem I see with entertainment is that it is seldom entertaining. (October 6, 2010)

If you're generally late, your friends and business relations will always be. - Sick of This Text: 'Sorry I'm Late' http://on.wsj.com/crwQ7f (October 5, 2010)

Polygamy is the crime of saying that you are married with more than one of your concubines. (September 29, 2010)

Literary creation and the discovery of truth are the intellectual equivalent of an orgasm. (September 26, 2010)

Herbert Hoover (whose stimulus was as expansive as Roosevelt’s) believed that radio communications were to be regulated as a public utility. (September 25, 2010)

Hypothesis: if immigration between Europe and America were free, half the Europeans would move to America, and half the Americans to Europe. The European immigrants to America would be the productive, who are on the wrong side of the Welfare State wicket in Europe. The American immigrants to Europe would be the non-productive, who are already on the receiving side of the American Welfare State but want more of that. The result would be that European Welfare states would find themselves with recipients only, which of course cannot last long. For some to receive, others have to be taken from (by armed praetorians). Within two generations, Europe would be back to the Middle Ages. (Facebook, September 25, 2010)

The worst administrative chores have to do with satisfying Leviathan’s diktats. (September 23, 2010)

Buying a new rifle is not the way to realize economies of scope. (September 22, 2010)

Blessed be the non-geek, for they will have a simple life. (September 19, 2010)

God is too intelligent to micromanage the universe. (September 18, 2010)

A Buridan asshole is worse than an ordinary asshole. (September 16, 2010)

Useless pun: see, man, a seaman's semen. (September 15, 2010)

Save canaries in coal mines, support PETA! (September 15, 2010)

Without its liberticidal gun laws (will they be liberalized after Heller?), California would be worth moving to. (September 11, 2010)

A “public good” is a public good for the group of individuals for which it is a public good. For others, it is not a good, and may be a bad. (September 11, 2010)

At airport, epitome of the Surveillance State. Will the time ever come back when people were able to travel without interior passports? (September 9, 2010)

"Human smuggling" is to immigration what marriage agencies (call them "prostitution" in Newspeak?) are to mating. - http://tgam.ca/x3X (September 8, 2010)

Muhammad – piece be with him. (September 7, 2010)

There are always good reasons to limit individual liberty – that is, good reasons according to some people’s personal preferences. (September 3, 2010)

Reading a 19^th-century conservative, James Fitzjames Stephen – close to today’s liberals. As I would have said 40 years ago, he’s a fascist! (August 31, 2010)

I have to get ammo. Without ammo, what’s the 2^nd Amendment useful for? (August 25, 2010)

Is self-defense legitimate only once the bullet has left the crazy tyrant’s revolver and is traveling towards you? (August 22, 2010)

You can always find people who have good reasons to want a general prohibition of something. (August 22, 2010)

The state either prohibits discrimination or encourages/enforces it, depending against whom and at which epoch. Can’t we just be left alone? (August 22, 2010)

Once you have said you are a conservative, you must still say what you want to conserve. The Welfare-Regulatory-Surveillance State? (August 22, 2010)

Once you have said you are a “liberal” (in the American sense), you must still say what you want to liberalize. Only what you like? (August 22, 2010)

I wonder how many germs are left on grocery counters by reusable bags, and how many people get ill and become sacrificial lambs to Gaia. (August 21, 2010)

Life kills as many people as death does. (August 21, 2010)

I tweet, therefore I am. (August 16, 2010)

The anti-immigration craze is mainly a diversion to hide or scapegoat mounting tyranny fuelled by the locals at home. (August 16, 2010)

As papers are cited under the name of the first author alphabetically, an equal academic playing field requires the same surname for all. (August 15, 2010)

The typical statist hates all brands of statism, except his own. (August 15, 2010)

I don’t know how non-geeks survive in this world. I barely do as a half-geek. (August 13, 2010)

Decline of civilization: in Mt-Laurier, Québec, the Internet café has been replaced by a sex shop. (August 12, 2010)

My “biological” bread is turning green. Next time, I will buy mineral. (August 11, 2010)

Carrying a long gun in a forest is hard for the old. If the Canadian tyrant really loved them, he would not ban them from carrying pistols. (August 11, 2010)

It seems to have been lost on fashionable pundits that Hitler's party was called "national socialist" not "national capitalist". (August 10, 2010)

Krugman loves the state... as it should be according to his own preferences. (August 9, 2010)

"Security breach" is Newspeak for "Leviathan protecting itself". - http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/08/08/14959991.html (August 8, 2010)

The problem with the rest of the world is that it imports everything that’s bad in America and nothing of what's good here. (August 8, 2010)

Should the frocks of Orthodox priests be banned too? From the back, they look strikingly similar to a burqa -- a man's burqa. (August 8, 2010)

The first problem in politics is the Left; the second one is the Right. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. (August 7, 2010)

The problem with “the real world” is that we first need to figure out what it is. (August 7, 2010)

When Leviathan runs loose, politicians and bureaucrats should pay damages out of their own pockets. (August 6, 2010)

Antitrust theory is based on the idea that prohibiting freedom of contract helps free exchange. Bad economics. (August 4, 2010)

Washing wine glasses in the dishwasher: when there is a will, there is a way. (August 4, 2010)

Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere. (Ps. 126:2) (August 1, 2010)

Injunction to statocrats: In case of doubt, do not ban. If you have no doubt, think twice. (August 1, 2010)

There is always a good reason to ban something. National security is a nice excuse among others. (August 1, 2010)

I am more or less ahead of my non-comprehensive schedule. (August 1, 2010)

In fact, everybody boarding a plane should strip naked, so that they learn who is the master and who is the servant. (August 1, 2010)

In a free society, it’s everyone’s right to smoke, be a homosexual, carry a gun, and have a Mac. (August 1, 2020)

To realize a big, complex project, break it into small pieces, and take them one at a time. (August 1, 2010)

Beware of any quote without a book title and a page number – especially if it comforts your opinion. It is quite probably apocryphal. (July 31, 2010)

If you need an oil change, don’t have a change of mind. (July 30, 2010)

People who defend freedom only in sexual matters are due for a double dose of soma. (July 30, 2010)

Under Mussolini, economists were less biddable and statist than statisticians. Not today in Canada. - Globe and Mail at http://tgam.ca/kpD (July 30, 2010)

"Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not." (Epicurus ~ Letter to Menoceus) Excuse me, Epicurus, the problem is not death, but dying. (July 29, 2010)

A man must know when to obey and when to disobey his GPS. (July 29, 2010)

While building together the Police State, the left emphasizes the second word, the right the first. (July 28, 2010)

Creative destruction: in Mt-Laurier, Qc, the closed GM dealership now sells Kias -- cars that people want instead of cars made by the state. (July 28, 2010)

There is an alternative to the right’s Surveillance State and the left’s Regulatory State. It’s called libertarianism. (July 28, 2010)

There is an alternative besides the right’s populist obscurantism and the left’s elitist ignorance. It’s called libertarianism. (July 28, 2010)

Despite practising my signature for decades, I never got a signing bonus. (FB, July 28, 2010)

The septic tank truck just came, and I am happy to report that it did not hit the fan. (FB, July 28, 2010)

It’s not only the alleged terrorists who were waterboarded; government interventions in housing market also put many homeowners under water. (July 27, 2020)

From my upcoming book: There can be no race to the bottom excerpt if the “bottom” is what the final customer wants. (July 27, 2010)

To provide real good data to Leviathan and its courtiers, gov’t statistical bureaus should put a 24/7 surveillance bracelet on everybody. (July 24, 2010)

Science is sometimes more difficult to believe than faith! (July 23, 2010) (on http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727703.000-every-black-hole-may-hold-a-hidden-universe.html)

Raimondo underestimates Islamic danger, but brings rationality in argument by arguing for property rights vs Peikoff. (July 23, 2010)

A good case of rent-seeking. The equalizers are always less equal than the equalized. – (July 21, 2010, about WSJ story: 153 ‘VIP’ Loans to Fannie Cited http://on.wsj.com/dCYqeA

Conrad Black’s travel problems within the U.S. show how ID cards are now as required for everybody as traveling papers were for slaves. (July 21, 2010)

Isn’t it an odd theory that would justify by anarchism a further increase in the power of indecently powerful states? If we don’t live in a libertarian society, we must welcome a tyrannical state, nay, increase its power. So, if the Muslims became the majority, anarcho-capitalists would accept sharia law on the basis of their own ideals. (July 20, 2010)

Tell the rulers intent to crushing businesses that "double dip" is not a sort of coffee maker. (July 19, 2010)

Why doesn’t a consumer protection agency prohibit smoke detectors that beep in the middle of the night when their batteries get low? (July 19, 2010)

One economic fact of life: not everybody who buys insurance can get out more than he paid in. (July 18, 2010)

I am ashamed to think of how many times in my life I must have used an indicative instead of a subjunctive. But I erred only in English. (July 18, 2010)

Prohibit chocolate and you will soon see chocolate-trafficking gangs shooting men and women at parties. And the state will prosper in the meantime. (July 18, 2010)

WSJ confuses decrease in rate of growth of prices with drop in prices! Calculus or arithmetic class urgently needed. (July 18, 2010) [See “Inflation pressures remain muted”, July 18, 2010]

If you took all liberticidal policies in different Western countries and applied them in a single country, you would have hell on earth. (July 17, 2010)

One big advantage of knowledge and culture is that you are never bored. (July 8, 2010)

Walter Lippman on Calvin Coolidge: “Mr. Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point.” The ideal president! (July 8, 2010)

I discovered that there is a firmware update for my camera. I wish there were one for my toaster. (Twitter, July 8, 2010)

Social networks are lot of fun for the asocial. And they are probably fun for the others too. (Twitter, July 7, 2010)

Humbling fact for large organizations: Firefox works better than Microsoft's IE on Microsoft's own 64-bit Windows 7. No danger of monopoly! (Twitter, July 7, 2010)

Life is a big administrative matter. (Twitter, July 6, 2010)

If something is clickable, it must be clicked. What's important in life is to know when not to click. (July 5, 2010)

There are two problems in politics: the left and the right. (July 4, 2010)

Part of the pleasure of drinking Perrier is to noisily throw out the glass bottle.

Everything is a question of degree, including this very statement. (Twitter, July 4, 2010)

Do not ask what you can do against your country, but what your country can do against you. (Twitter, July 3, 2010)

To celebrate Canada day, every Canadian must shoot once in the air today. If you don't have a gun, borrow one from a politician's bodyguard. (Twitter, July 1, 2010)

Instead of the proverbial “free for all”, statists prefer a free for some. (Twitter, June 30, 2010)

Until it was too late, Jesus thought that Caesar was a salad. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

Politicians should not have armed bodyguards. They should simply have the same right and tools of self-defense as their electors. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

A licensing system for the subjects is the tyrant’s best friend. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

Toronto praetorians won’t apologize for treating peaceful individuals as their subjects and crushing the Canadian tradition of liberty. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

The Soft Police State is not soft on everybody, even if its supporters think it will always be nice to them if they keep on smiling. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

Both liberals and conservatives like the Soft Police State, provided it is for a good cause. (Twitter, June 29, 2010)

Social inequality is unavoidable, if only because the equalizers are necessarily less equal than the equalized. (Twitter, June 28, 2010)

One can always find extremes such that what he thinks is a moderate compromise. All the art of rational thought amounts to determining which moderate compromise to espouse. (FB, June 19, 2010)

What’s the difference between the Deepwater Horizon well and the federal government? Not much. The first one spits out crude oil and devastation with no obvious way to stop it alas! The second one spits out money and regulation with unfortunately no obvious way to stop it. (June 2010)

My Aphorisms (including my twuns, or tweeted puns) as Posted on Twitter (@pierre_lemieux) and Facebook (PL[at][this domain name]) Follow me there to have them in real time, plus comments on current events with hyperlinks Pierre Lemieux

My Aphorisms (including my twuns, or tweeted puns) as Posted on
Twitter (@pierre_lemieux) and Facebook (PL[at][this domain name])

Follow me there to have them in real time, plus comments on current events with hyperlinks

Pierre Lemieux