Lance completes his miracle
Lance Armstrong completed his miraculous run at the Tour de France this weekend,
winning a remarkable seventh consecutive Tour.
As much as I was hoping someone would beat him this year so that next year's winner would be thought of as a true winner and not just a "successor" who won because Lance retired, I'm truly in awe of Lance's determination and commitment to his sport. It's an inspiration that will hopefully lead me to try harder at everything I do.
Congratulations, Lance, and enjoy that beer in southern France. You've definitely earned it.
And so it begins...
Two-tier medicine is
coming to Ontario, and it's about time.
Something for McGuinty and MRI to look at
If McGuinty is serious about his new ministry of research and innovation, and about wanting to support commercialization of new technologies, he should take a look at what's happening out in BC with respect to angel investors and new start-ups. That province recently introduced tax credits aimed at encouraging private individuals to make high-risk investments in new ventures, and
it seems to be paying off, with angel investments on the rise there.
A similar scheme in Ontario would go a long way towards taking the technologies that our world-class research institutions develop and helping to move it from the bench to the market.
McGuinty resurrects Tory ministry
Dalton McGuinty
shuffled his provincial government's cabinet on Wednesday, creating a new ministry for Research and Innovation that is to "promote the commercialization of new ideas to create products, services and jobs".
This is the same McGuinty who within days of taking over power from the old Tory government, nixed their Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation that promoted...essentially the same thing. While I have no bones to pick with the name change (MEOI was ridiculously annoying to say, while MRI, despite the association with the medical diagnostic test, flows from the tongue), I take issue with the wasted time and money and the lost opportunity (double-entendre fully intended) that comes with nearly 2 years spent NOT promoting comercialization.
If it's so important to do so now, what was wrong with doing it all along? It just shows again that this government really has no idea what they're doing, never did, and their entire agenda and platform has just been to undo everything the Tories did, whether that's good or bad for the province. They only think about things after they do them.
Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle