…Who now thinks it is smart to bet the continent’s security on the whim of thousands of Michiganders, Pennsylvanians and Wisconsinites every fourth November?
Tag: politics
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De Gaulle was right
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Finally
Finally someone is doing something about the artificial Sykes Picot borders between Canada and America
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) January 7, 2025 -
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Prejudiced Map of Europe
Prejudiced atlas of Europe, Serbian perspective.
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Following the money at Bixi Toronto
Help me understand the Bixi Toronto service model. This isn’t meant as a criticism of bike sharing; I like the idea, and am happy to subsidize it. I’m just annoyed with what seems to be the opaque way that it’s funded. Let me see if I have this right:
- the City of Toronto, like other cities, created a for-profit company to run the service (Bixi Toronto Inc.)
- the City of Toronto then guaranteed a $4.8MM loan to that company, made by the National Bank; as of April, $3.9MM was outstanding
- Bixi presumably then paid PBSC Urban Solutions to provide the city with bikes, parking stations, etc. as well as to operate the system providing payment services and customer support
According to PBSC’s website the system should be self sustaining; I would color that slightly and say “self-sustaining with a subsidized interest rate from the municipality,” but whatever.
That said, how much is Bixi Toronto paying PBSC? In what ways? And what’s PBSC’s overhead?
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Health Care Reform Passed. Now What?
The bill just signed into law, is, at best a first step in solving the U.S. health care crisis. Rather than solving the problem of rising health care costs, it seems to commit the U.S. government to having to solve the problem without actually laying out how costs will be cut. Larry Smith does a great job of summing up why this is the case.