New Finch West LRT not so rapid

The Finch West LRT (Line 6) opened a couple of weeks ago to a certain amount of fanfare. After all, it was the first rapid transit line to open in Toronto since the Sheppard subway line (aka the Sheppard Stubway, for its short and largely redundant route) over two decades ago. Line 6 began construction in 2016, nearly 10 years after it was first proposed. And it opened before the beleaguered Eglinton Line 5, which was begun 5 years earlier. Things take a long time to get built in Toronto...

The new light rail line runs 10.3 km from the Yonge subway line at Finch West station to Humber College north station in Toronto's far northwest. It was designed to link some of Toronto's more needy suburbs to the main subway system, and to improve the long commute downtown. It runs above ground on the central median of busy Finch Avenue and incorporates 18 stops.

But it also opened to a lot of criticism, mainly for its slowness. Part of the problem is that, although the line is segregated from the regular traffic, it does not take advantage of any signal priority, so it is often to be found idling at traffic lights. It also doesn't seem to go very fast even when it is able to, and is constantly overtaken by cars and even the buses it is designed to largely replace. It was theoretically supposed to complete the 10km route in about 34 minutes; in practice, it takes 55-60 minutes.

To underline this slowness, runner Mac Bauer, who blogs under the name 514runner, and has made a name for himself running - and beating - Toronto's streetcars, raced the Finch LRT on foot and beat it by a healthy 18 minutes (that day, the LRT took an hour and four minutes to complete the 10.3 km route).

Now, I'm pretty sure that Mac didn't bother waiting for the traffic lights, but his stunt certainly shone a light on the challenges of the new LRT, and Toronto's transit system in general.

Does a liberal arts education set you up for modern-day employment?

Recent US data suggests that a liberal arts education may not be such a bad thing after all as regards employment prospects, flying in the face of coventional wisdom.

For example, art history graduates are more likely to be employed than computer engineering grads (3% unemployment, compared to 7.5%). The theory is that liberal arts graduates are more adaptable and flexible, able to move between different job types and industries. They also tend to be more creative and willing to think outside the box than computer science geeks (sorry, grads).

Other research papers suggest that jobs requiring AI tools are much more likely to require social, cognitive, language and interpersonal skills, all areas in which arts graduates supposedly excel, and computing graduates most definitely do not.

It all seems a bit improbable to me, but that's what we're told. Certainly, my 30-year old daughter has many friends who are in full employment, but the only ones who are buying houses are coding and computer science specialists...

Canadian cities triumph in new sustainability index

Well, this is surprising. A new ranking of the greenest and most sustainable cities in the world has three Canadian cities in the top ten, with one Canadian city right at the top of the pile.

The Green Cities Index, by Dutch sustainability experts Reinders Corporation (whoch makes industrial climate systems, dehumidifiers, etc), takes into account accessibility of green space per capita, renewable energy usage, air quality, public transportation efficiency, bikeability, and a few other measures. It shows Vancouver at No. 1, above the likes of Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen. Montreal is at No 7, and hometown Toronto comes in at No. 9.

I don't think of our cities as being in the same league as many European cities as regards suatainability, so this comes as quite a (pleasant) surprise. Vancouver scored particularly highly on green space and renewable energy, and had the best air quality in the study (this was presumably measured outside of wildfire season).

The full top 10 is:

1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Oslo Norway
3. Stockholm, Sweden
4. Munich, Germany
5. Zurich, Switzerland
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Montreal, Canada
8. Sam Francisco, USA
9. Toronto Canada
10. London, UK

Interestingly, although the findings are reported by several media outlets, I can't find a link to the original Reinders index. Also interesting that a similar exercise by Canadian sustainability organization Corporate Knights has Vancouver down at No. 10, Toronto at No. 15, and, yes, the Scandinavian cities at the top.

What is fire?

So, here's a question: what actually is fire? Of course, everyone knows what fire is. We've known since the Stone Age, right?

Well, yes and no. We might think we know what fire is because it's so familiar. But scientifically, it's kind of hard to pin down.

Clearly, it's not a solid or a liquid. So, maybe a gas? The flames of a fire do involve hot gas products, which rise because they are less dense than the surrounding cooler air. But the flames we see are actually burning soot (burned particles of carbon) that glows yellow-orange because of the high temperatures. However, the flames only exist while the fire is burning, and don't exist in a stable state on their own. They can't be collected in a jar like CO2 or water vapour, and so they are not a gas.

How about plasma, the fourth state of matter? Plasma is like a soup of charged particles, electrons and ionized atoms. It's possible there might be enough ionized atoms in the hottest part of the most intense fires to qualify as a kind of weak plasma, but fire as a whole does not behave as a plasma.

In fact, it turns out that fire is not matter at all. Fire is a process, a kind of chemical reaction called combustion, which requires fuel (something to burn), oxygen, and an initial spark or heat source. Interestingly, it seems that fire - with visible oxygen-fuelled flames - is unique to Planet Earth (or so this Science Alert article claims, although this seems improbable to me).

Who is Kevin Hassett and why is he the front-runner for Fed Chair?

I confess I'd never even heard of Kevin Hassett until just recently, when he's suddenly the front-runner - possibly the only runner-  for the job of director the United States Federal Reserve (the Fed), one of the most powerful positions in the USA.

Well, it used to be a powerful position. Under Trump 2.0 it may well be demoted to the status of a largely ceremonial quango. Never shy of controversy, Donald Trump has publicly stated that "Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman". Chilling stuff. Of course, Hassett is on record as saying that Trump would have "no weight" in interest rate decisions, but everyone knows differently: under Trump, the Fed's sole job is to reduce interest rates.

But, even more chilling is that there was a time - a time that lasted decades - when Hassett would definitely not have fit the mould for Trump's Fed director. See, he used to be an outspoken proponent of free trade and of the economic necessity for immigration. But then, suddenly, he seems to have experienced a Paulian conversion to isolationism, tariffs and the mass deportation of immigrants, coincidentally the very same policies that Trump espouses. His ex-friends and colleagues say they don't recognize the man.

So, what happened to disabuse him of beliefs he has held most of his adult life? Hassett himself says "I signed up with Trump knowing that some in my party might never forgive me ... I did so because Trump saw truths in plain sight ignored by politicial professionals and coastal elites". Eeeuww! 

So, is Trump's economic vision so very compelling? (Most economists disagree with it.) Is Trump just really that persuasive? Does he have some sort of a hold over Hassett? Or is Hassett either so submissive or so nakedly ambitious that he is willing to sacrifice all his beliefs and principles to get to the top of the pile (or what passes for the top of the pile under Trump)?

Hassett was a Colombia University Business School professor and an advisor to George Bush John McCain and Mitt Romney before joining Trump's National Economic Council. There are those, even within the Trump administration, who maintain that Hassett does not deserve the top Fed job anyway, particularly as he has not been at all effective as head of the National Economic Council. They say that all Hassett did at the NEC was to serve as a public messenger for Trump's agenda, without personally contributing to driving policy at all.

But, wait, that's EXACTLY the brief for Trump's Chair of the Federal Reserve. Hassett will be perfect!

Disturbingly, 2026 is looking even worse than 2025

The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson has been reporting on wars around the world for some 60 years, since the 1960s. He is not a man prone to exaggeration; he is a meticulous and thoughtful journalist, and I have a great deal of respect for him and his views. So, when Mr. Simpson says he has never see a year like 2025, in terms of global conflicts, and he is worried as hell about 2026, I sit up and pay attention.

He sees 2025, and by extension, 2026, as a crucial year in world affairs. It was notable, not just because of the sheer number of major conflicts going on around the world, although that was part if it, with wars continuing in Ukraine-Russia (the total number of deaths is highly contested but it may be in the region of 400,000, with over a million in total casualties), in Palestine-Israel (over 70,000 deaths so far), in Sudan (150,000 deaths), in Cambodia-Thailand (only 50-60 killed so far but with plenty of potential for more), not to mention ongoing internal conflicts in Somalia, Myanmar, Congo, Ethiopia, and others. But what was notable to Mr. Simpson was the potential for one of those wars to bloom into a full-scale world war. (And, as I say, Simpson is a circumspect and judicious writer.)

The war in Ukraine is almost 3 years old now, and hundreds of peace initiatives have been tried and failed. With a much more pro-Russia American president in power, you can almost see Putin rubbing his hands with glee. Trump's apparent lack of interest in Europe and NATO, and America's fading influence and increasing isolationism, can only strengthen Putin's hand, as is becoming increasingly apparent. There are even references to a potential nuclear confrontation being casually dropped.

Conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars and Kosovo all had the potential to tip over into something resembling a world war, but escalation was avoided. Mr. Simpson is less confident that escalation can be avoided in the case of Ukraine. President Zelenskyy himself has warned of the possibility, and Putin and some of his more hawkish henchmen have used some alarming language.

And then, of course, there is always China, whose alarming threats about Taiwan are ever-present. It has been carrying out some large-scale military drills in the area, and generally pushing boundaries to see what response it elicits from the West. It has ramped up its war of words. China's increasing influence on world affairs and its increasing economic power might give it the confidence to make a move in 2026. And America won't take that one lying down.

So, with all that doom and gloom, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year. Oh, how I wish it!

Agave is the new plastic

I had drinks today through an agave-based straw. Who knew there was such a thing?

The Sustainable Agave Company makes all those hard-to-replace single-use-plastic items like straws, cutlery and cups out of waste agave from the tequila industry.

It felt for all the world just like plastic. Definitely not going soggy anytime soon. I was impressed.

Even better, although all the stuff on their website is priced in US dollars, it turns out the company is Canadian, based in Toronto, and had been around since 2020.

Trump's top 25 lies of 2025

Well, CNN set itself a tough task: to come up with the top 25 Trump lies of 2025.

From all the many hundreds/thousands, picking 25 is not easy. They say they chose some because of the number of times they were repeated, some because of the importance of the topic, and some just because they were so bizarre or egregious.

Anyway, what they came up with was:

• Trump secured $17 or $18 trillon in investment in 2025
• "Every price is down"
• Trump was reducing prescription drug prices by "2,000%, 3,000%"
• Foreign countries pay the US government tariffs
• Portland was "burning down"
• Washington DC had no murders for six months
• "I invaded Los Angeles and we opened up the water"
• The Democratic governor of Maryland called Trump "the greatest president of my lifetime"
• Ukraine "started" Russia's war on Ukraine
• Trump was speaking "in jest" when he promised to immediately end the Ukraine war
• The US government had planned to spend $50 million on "condoms for Hamas"
• Every drug boat in the Caribbean "kills 25,000 Americans"
• Trump "didn't say" he had no problem releasing full footage of a September boat strike
• Numerous foreign leaders emptied prisons and mental institutions to send their most undesirable people into the US
• Trump ended seven or eight wars
• "The people of Canada like" the idea of becoming the 51st US state
• Capitol rioters "didn't assault"
• Critical media coverage of Trump is "illegal"
• Trump didn't pressure the Justice Department to go after his opponents
• Obama, Biden and Comey made up the Epstein files
• The 2020 election was "rigged and stolen"
• The US is "the only country in the world" with mail-in voting
• Babies get 80-plus vaccines at once
• Trump's big domestic policy bill didn't change Medicaid
• The domestic policy bill was "the single most popular bill ever signed"

As good a list as any, I guess, and I've covered many of them in this very blog over the months. Seeing them there all together, though, makes you realize the enormity of what Trump has been feeding the American public, and just how serious a psychological problem he has.