Saturday, August 14, 2010

Stimulus spending US style

Need a laugh? If you are an American this isn't really that funny - its just unbelievable. If you are Canadian you should not feel smug, it's not that much different here. This video link was brought to my attention by Cato-at-Liberty, enjoy:

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Complexity, the State and You

It was totally by accident that I discovered Freedomain Radio some years ago while "surfing-the-net". This is a libertarian site, run by a true libertarian, but not in the political sense. Stefan Molyneux is a philosopher, or more correctly a libertarian philosopher (with a degree in philosophy), a sort of male Ayn Rand who uses modern tools to publish his message. He blogs, produces podcasts, he posts to YouTube and he writes books. He has some extraordinary insights that he shares with people through all these methods of publication. Need something to think about? Just spend a few minutes watching/listening/reading his always thought provoking material.
If you are in the Toronto area he will be attending one of our libertarian "pub-night" meetings in September. If you have Facebook - check this out, if not go to the Ontario Libertarian Party site and click on the pub-night prompt. Stefan is a local, from the Greater Toronto area and I think he is getting better and better at delivering his message. Here is one of his latest YouTube postings that gets to the core of libertarianism.
 

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The best a government education system can provide

As a former public high school teacher I often feel pangs of guilt because I was part of a system in Ontario that did not have the best interests of its students as its ultimate purpose (although I did try to ignore the system). What was its ultimate purpose? Not an easy answer, but the system was primarily geared to other things like, staffing, timetabling, government "edu-babble" and maybe then to students. Of course this view was not shared by most teachers but I'm certain it was shared by many students.
Thanks to the wonders of social networking, email etc., I present to you a courageous valedictorian, Erica Goldson, of an American public high school who feels much the same as I do. If you want read along the full text of the speech is here. Erica is an anomaly, and her speech is obviously not typical but as you will hear, deeply felt.