Enough with this union monopoly of the public sector: Time to contract out

The headline of this blog is from the Globe and Mail Report on Business section of July 21, 2009. The article was written by Gwyn Morgan, and it gives me great hope that things like the garbage crisis in Toronto may result in a brighter future for all of us. Click on the title to view the article, it's well worth your time.

Toronto Garbage & Services Strike - Day 30

Its been a coolish summer so far in the heart of the Great White North. Not much sign of global warming here. That's the good news, the bad news is that garbage is still piling up in Toronto and if it ever warms up this summer the smell ought to be interesting. Driving through most parts of town the effect is surprisingly minor, but it could get worse quickly.
This is what its like being held hostage by a union, CUPE, while the municipal government allows the union to run roughshod over the rights of its citizens. Pickets are preventing citizens from bringing their garbage to transfer/holding stations and temporary dumps.
Rumours are that many of the non-garbage workers are returning to work. The government looks like its out to break the union, not a bad idea, but governments at at fault here. Past contracts that were poorly negotiated by civic leaders are coming back to haunt everyone. The only good coming out of this, is the discussion around private garbage collection and allowing municipalities to divest themselves of responsibilities they should not have taken on.

July 20, 1969

"Ambivalence" is the only word that comes to mind when I recall the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I'm a space junkie from the days of Sputnik 1 when I was just ten years old. By the time of the moon landings I was a young adult and I understood the global politics around the space race and the enormous costs involved. The night of the landing, those first steps, the wall-to-wall television coverage, that was amazing. But the reality was that the race was over, America had won and there was nothing more to prove. To underline the propaganda aspect of the whole thing, the US Congress began to scrutinize the expense, eventually cancelling one "science" mission and by the end of 1972 (Apollo 17) manned exploration of the moon was over never to return again.
You can imagine my delight when the X Prize was announced in 1996 inviting private enterprise to enter their own space race and even greater delight when the prize was won only 8 years later with an interesting libertarian twist. So lets hear it for to tourists in space without government subsidy!

Walter Cronkite 1916 - 2009

Growing up in the sixties, my views of religion and politics were being formed. By the end of the sixties I realized that religion was ridiculous and politics was corrupt. But there was Walter Cronkite whom I trusted and admired even as a Canadian boy. He was the journalist's journalist and maybe the last of his kind. His nightly newscasts cultivated in me a hunger for news - that I still have. His obvious delight of space exploration and science in general reinforced in me the same feelings. Very few of my actual teachers had the same influence. So I was very sad to hear this and be reminded of mortality.