I was reading an article on the Star's website talking about traffic fines.

http://www.wheels.ca/article/795209

There's a link to an Ontario government website where you can look up the particulars of the offenses.

http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/

Of course, that's not what I found there.

Instead, I found this:

Glad to know our gov't websites are in good hands!  

The alarmist headlines now are that 300 city jobs are going to be lost because our new mayor is considering privatizing garbage collection in some sections of the city.

I say… GREAT!

The message the left-leaning press seems to be pushing is that we're going to have 300 families put out on the street because their incomes have been cut off and they've been cast to the wolves.

The fact is, the less people we have making wages far beyond their job values at the tax payers expense, the better off we will be as a population. If there are 300 people who cannot find jobs making equal or better pay than they were getting, then that means there were 300 people that my tax dollars were over-paying because nobody is held accountable for how public money is handed out.

It's not as though nobody is going to pick up garbage anymore. Does anyone care about all the people that will be lining up for the jobs offered by the private companies that will now be doing garbage collection?

As I'm reading about Liz May's whining about not being included in the televised debates, I am filled with a tiny bit of shame.

One of the Green Party's arguments for inclusion involves the tiny but measurable amount of votes they've got over the past few years.

I am ashamed to say that one of those votes was mine, and I'm wondering how many more of them came from people who had no desire to see the Green Party have any representation whatsoever in our government.

It was a few elections ago and, so far as I could tell, there were no viable options in any of the three parties that sometimes manage to get people elected. I could have decided it wasn't worth bothering, but I'm happy to live in a free and democratic society and I think it's my duty to get out and vote, even if the available candidates are all idiots.

So I did, and in a sort of protest against the established parties I cast my lot in with the Green Party, knowing full well they wouldn't be elected. I didn't want to add to the embarassing statistics showing how much apathy there is, and I didn't want to support anyone likely to be elected.

In retrospect, what I should have done was spoil my ballot.

In several elections since then I've had good reason to vote for electable parties, and I've done so. It seems largely irrelevant in my irrationally-voting riding, but I went and did my part.

If you'd like to debate the issues, I'd be happy to, but this post is to encourage everyone who doesn't like any of the options to still get out and vote… but don't vote for someone in protest. Simply spoil your ballot. Draw a happy face and drop it in the box. Write in a vote for Batman if you'd like. Just don't accidentally contribute to someone's crackpot agenda just because you don't want to be counted as apathetic.

I can't be the only one who's done it. I can't help but wonder whether many thousands have done just a bit too much to piss away taxpayer money into the coffers of yet another political party we aren't benefitting from.

I apologize for my transgression. Hopefully others can now learn from it.