Often I like my pencil sketches better than the final inks.

On the subject of providing raw materials for other countries to add value to, many free-marketeers are now warning that we're in danger of becoming merely hewers of wood. Of course, we've always been sort of a banana republic -- with very big bananas. It's amusing to hear CEOs warning about the dangers of unfettered capitalism. Many of them pushed for free trade and no protectionism. Now they're seeing our big fish swallowed by even bigger fish, and they don't like it.

I'm not one to cry for endangered Canadian corporations, but I'd say we're better with the evil we own than the evil we don't. ("We" only includes those of us lucky enough to have a cushy RRSP or stocks, of course.) I don't usually dwell in the business section, but David Olive is a good writer and his article, Canada beating industrial retreat, in last Sunday's Toronto Star is a sobering read. A nation should be able to control its own economic future. In this light, Canada's future doesn't look bright.

10 Years Ago This Week: May 15, 1997
Horst's first job was working in a polling firm. In this cartoon, Horst vents on having to process consumer research on Jiffy-Kwik fat-free, egg-free scrambled egg powder. Also starring the researcher behind Deep Blue, the computer that beat Kasparov at chess and will go on to make elections obsolete.