April 24, 2007
Budget Passes, TTC Worker Passes On, Toyota Surpasses GM
City budget passes: 7.9 billion smackers for the year. Noteworthy: city councillors decided that keeping their free golf passes was extremely important. I don't think most of Rob Ford's proposed budget cuts are anything but hamfisted, but come on, City Council—pay for your own goddamned golf game, willya?
TTC worker killed, causing shutdown of the city's busiest subway line for an entire day. Most interesting note: he was part of the only asbestos removal team the TTC operates. So they've got one team of guys to remove all the asbestos. Boy, that makes me feel better about subway transit.
Despite increases in provincial revenues, Ontario isn't getting rid of the health tax anytime soon. It will be interesting to see if all those people who constantly say we should put more money into our health care system actually meant it.
Toyota surpasses General Motors in global car sales for the first time ever this past quarter. You know, this is how it started for electronics some twenty years ago. I am just saying.
And finally, the Jays ended their five-game losing streak yesterday, beating the Red Sox 7-3.
Image of the Markland Wood Golf Course, from their website.
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GM is consistantly lowering its standars while Toyota is comming out with good new products. IMO, the 80's and perhaps even early 90's GMs had a lot of strong points.. but today .. Toyota puts more emphasis on precision and new ideas such as charging your battery while breaking; Not to mention longer lasting transmissions and front-end / steering. GM builds good "boats" but with rising fuel costs .. Japanese cars are the way to go.
The more I read about city councillor perks, the less hamfisted Rob Ford appears. Particularly when the city is crying poor.
I think a lot of councillors oppose even the most sensible cuts (like the golf) *because* it's Ford proposing it. I'm surprised at Gord Perks wanting to keep a golf membership, given that golf courses are frequent targets of environmentalists due to their water and pesticide demands.