Interesting Links for 29-01-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Edinburgh cross-city cycle scheme CCWEL proving successful

(tags:edinburgh cycling GoodNews )

2. Congressional Republicans' coming war on poor people

(tags:politics usa republicans tax poverty viaDanielDWilliam )

3. Microplastics block blood flow in the brain (in mice)

(tags:plastic blood brain mice )

4. US civil servants are being asked who they voted for in 2024 election

(tags:usa CivilService fascism )

5. Both men and women are slightly attracted to younger partners

(tags:relationships gender age )

6. A proposal for reopening Edinburgh's South Suburban Railway line as a tram-train. Looks great - not sure how many stations will be viable to reopen.

(tags:edinburgh transport trams )

7. Petition · Reopen Edinburgh's South Sub using Tram-Trains

(tags:edinburgh trams petition )

Comments

[dewline]

2. "Coming war on poor people"? It's been underway for decades. Since at least Nixon. Eisenhower wouldn't have gone along with it, and would have been damned as a RINO in modern times.

4. Not surprised. Angered, of course.

[juan_gandhi]

#4 - do they really have to answer? (Or maybe that's why I can never even try to work for the government.)

As to #2, this is mostly about the Medicaid spending. It's complicated, but competing for the doctor's time is impossible if you can't pay as much as others. No clue what can be done here.

[channelpenguin]

"competing for the doctor's time is impossible if you can't pay as much as others."

This is also true here in Germany, you often can't get appointments if you are insured through a public insurer, but you can if you are with a private one. I'm not sure how to just say "I'll pay privately" except through one particular booking app/site (not all doctors are on it). You have to book all your own appointments with any specialists. The "GP" provides a referral, but you have to find a specialist and book it yourself. Often they just won't do what the doctor refers you for. I had a referral for 3 MRIs, but nowhere would do more than one in any one year. It truly sucks. Especially combined with many specialist simply unable or unwilling to take on more patients.

[juan_gandhi]

Aha. It's complicated. In France, my experience is that I just call. Not telling them that I pay cash (but I do, and they are surprised: everybody else is with a carte vitale).

And in the US it seems like they don't care how you pay, that is, a private insurance or Medicare. Medicare is ridiculously cheap, I feel ashamed for paying these pennies.

[channelpenguin]

Between us, my employer and I are paying over €800 per month for my insurance. Not exactly pfennings!

(It's based purely on your income. Private is cheaper... until you get old! And after a certain point, you cannot change back to public insurance. Also only employed people can join public - but once joined, you can stay even if you then go freelance or retire. The rates for freelancer used to be a criminally high standard rate regardless of actual income, but I think that was lessened a few years ago)

I don't mind the costs (services are space age compared with the UK), but having to find your own specialist and book it yourself annoys the hell out of me. Also inconvenient is that since doctors are independent businesses, often they have part time hours and long holidays - but I can't blame them for that! I'd do the same.

[juan_gandhi]

How the system you have is so different from what we have in the US! So, we can't compare your apples to our oranges.

[channelpenguin]

Indeed!

6

[danieldwilliam]

Thinking about the stations - if it's a tram train then probably the stations don't have to be as big as they need to be for a full on railway.

Re: 6

[andrewducker]

I agree. Although, as someone pointed out elsewhere, you still have to manage the goods trains going past.

Hopefully the council will hand some experts a chunk of money to investigate feasibility!

Re: 6

[danieldwilliam]

Thinking a bit more about I think that it's a fiddly project that is only worth doing once it benefits from the network effects of having the North-South Line 2 in place, an extension to the East-West Line 1 and probably Line 3 too. The line basically cuts the corner between Line 1 and Line 2. Until Line 2 exists you don't have the potential interchanges and you are reliant on the likes of me wanting to get to Murrayfield and you trying to get the beach.

So no rush on the feasibility study I think.

Re: 6

[andrewducker]

I can also use it to get to the airport and Gogarburn.

So if it's worth having a line from Morningside, Craigmillar, and Cameron Toll to the airport and Gogarburn then that's a possible driver.

Edit: But I do agree that it may not be worth doing without the interconnect. Worth investigating, but I've not been convinced that it'll be that easy to reopen all of the stations in the first place.

Re: 6

[danieldwilliam]

Indeed, it's a useful line but I think will only be provably useful enough to get the go ahead once the tram network is a bit more built out and linking to some to the train network in other places too.