Is the World Empty? Or Overcrowded? | Smithsonian Magazine

A very interesting piece by Smithsonian Magazine.

The world faces a potential shortage of 30-40 million college-educated workers in 2020.

"The world faces a potential shortage of 30-40 million college-educated workers in 2020."

M.I.A.'s appearance on The Colbert Report

As you already know, I'm always promoting prominent South Asians appearing in media.  Here are clips of M.I.A.'s appearance on The Colbert Report on Wednesday, November 20th.  ENJOY!

A Cartoonist's Vision of a Car-Free Future | The Atlantic Cities

Great pictures of a "Car-Free Future".

The Truly Paranoid Style in American Politics | New York Magazine

All conspiracy theories can really trace themselves back to the JFK assassination.

Population Distribution and Educational Attainment within MSAs, 1980–2010 | Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

A very interesting analysis from The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Rising Seas - Interactive: If All The Ice Melted

Rising Seas - Interactive: If All The Ice Melted

Rising Seas - Graphic: A Superstorm in 2100

Rising Seas - Graphic: A Superstorm in 2100

Rising Seas - Graphic: Rising Seas

Rising Seas - Graphic: Rising Seas

The Surprising Impact of High School Math on Job Market Outcomes | Economic Commentary - Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

"The fact that so many students take a rigorous math curriculum is not surprising given that a minimum of Algebra II is necessary for adequate college preparation. But an analysis of detailed high school transcript data and employment outcomes suggests that a more rigorous high school math curriculum benefits even those who do not go to college. While math may be difficult for many, our findings indicate that the payoffs for all students may be substantial."

Read more.

Aziz Ansari: BURIED ALIVE - "Marriage is an Insane Proposal" - Netflix (HD)

Tax purposes!!!




UPDATE: I've mentioned before that I've performed in, to my recollection, at least three shows with Aziz. I was wondering if I had any flyers lying around or e-mails that had his name in it. I found an e-mail that I sent on March 6, 2005 for a show later that week.  It's amazing how far Aziz has come since then.

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Don't Miss The

INDIAN COMEDY FEST!

 

Saturday, March 12th at 8:30pm

 

starring:

Ajay Bhai - 2005 Bass Ale Comedy Contest Winner!
Amod Vaze - from 2004's New Faces Of Comedy!
Sudha - from The Poole Party!
Aziz Ansari - from Stand-Up New York!
Nikki Chawla - from NBC'S Jane Henson's New York!
Sidney Myer - Award-Winning Musical Comedy Guest!

Hosted by Rahul Siddharth!

from Carolines, Stand-Up New York

and the film "A Close Shave"!

 

Don't Tell Mama, 343 West 46th St.
Still Only A $10 cover & 2 drink minimum.
Make Reservations at (212)757-0788

(performers subject to change)

www.donttellmama.com

ACA Doesn’t Restrict Mammograms | FactCheck.org

ACA Doesn’t Restrict Mammograms

Cruz Distorts ACA Impact on Seniors, Children | FactCheck.org

Cruz Distorts ACA Impact on Seniors, Children

Zombies vs. animals? The living dead wouldn't stand a chance | Boing Boing

The hard science on zombies, including this thought:

"California condors are endangered, so a zombie apocalypse could really give a boost to their population by providing them with an abundance of food."

Watch Manhattan Grow Over a Century Like a Massive Pile of LEGOs

The animation in this video is fascinating. Also interesting is how the construction of the original Twin Towers was left off the animation, for obvious reasons.

Russell Peters on "CBS This Morning"

Russell Peters was on the morning news show CBS This Morning last week. In case you missed it, here's the story and the interview:





I didn't realize he made $21 million in 2012. This is roughly $20,997,000 more than I made in total during my entire six-year run as a stand-up comic.

"All Aboard, (Northeastern United States of) America, All Aboard Amtrak..."

It makes me smile when I read about how Amtrak is carrying more passengers and making better financial decisions.

Although, I won't really be happy until I'm traveling inter-city on high-speed rail is connecting every major city so you don't have to worry about snow or bad weather cancelling your flight or making roads unsafe to drive. Kind of like how the Acela proves here:

Weekly Address: Let's Get Back to the Work of the American People

It's amazing how free a President is to speak when he doesn't face a re-election.

FactChecking ‘Pernicious’ Obamacare Claims | FactCheck.org

FactCheck.org wades through a number of the Obamacare Claims made by Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul, and President Barack Obama.

They also fact-checked a number of Obamacare Myths last week that are worth reading.

Become a Mentor | iMentor

This is a great program mentoring high school kids. I participate in it and have had a great experience (and I also have a great mentee too!)

iMentor is specifically looking for 300 more male mentors (mentor pairings are same gender) and they start matching their students with their new mentors in two weeks so please volunteer. As I said, I'm in the program myself and in addition to being a great program with a great mission, the support from iMentor and the school makes it very easy to focus on mentoring while iMentor handles the logistical and administrative details.

An eye-opening view into demographics and politics

Columbia University School of Journalism professor and New York Times op-ed contributor Tom Edsall has a very interesting piece citing a number of studies about the correlation between demographic changes and political ideology. Of particular note is the following passage:

"In 1988, the Democratic presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis, carried 26 percent of the nation’s counties, 819 of 3,144, on his way to losing the Electoral College 426-111 and the popular vote by seven percentage points. In 2012, President Obama won fewer counties, 690, but he won the popular vote by four points and the Electoral College in a landslide, 332-206."

While the title of the op-ed piece is misleading, the content is very interesting and worth reading.

Today is the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech

Apparently the King family owns the copyright on the text and the video of the entire speech. However, there is a PDF version available at the National Archives that you can download and read.

Why Don't More U.S. Airports Connect to Amtrak? | The Atlantic Cities

Anyone that knows me knows my infatuation with high-speed rail. However, Eric Jaffe of The Atlantic Cities asks a more basic question: Why Don't More U.S. Airports Connect to Amtrak?

This is a good question and worth answering (and I'm more optimistic of the chances of success than the writer is). The airlines' biggest gripe with intercity and high speed rail is it would take away passengers from them. However, rail is more suited for shorter distances to be traveled, which are not well served by airlines nor are they big money makers for the airlines.

However, rail working in conjunction with air travel would go a long way towards making connections easier (like when I was in college and flew from New York to Chicago to catch a mini-jet to Des Moines to take a van to Iowa City) or bringing people from nearby, but not drivable, distances to the airport (like if I had the option to take a train from Iowa City directly to O'Hare to catch a flight to LGA.)

A new American dream for a new American century | The Edgy Optimist - Reuters

This opinion piece comes from the "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee" school of thought:

"The wage stagnation for tens of millions of working Americans over the past decades combined with the financial crisis has been painful and even calamitous for millions. In truth, however, the middle class security that has now disappeared only existed for a very brief period after World War Two, when the United States accounted for half of global industrial output and achieved a level of relative prosperity and growth that was substantially higher than in any other country. Before the Great Depression and World War Two, there was no assumption in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries that the future would be inherently better for one’s children."

It goes on to say:

"...the equation of American economic success until the mid-20th century was not that if you worked hard you would have a stable material life. It was that if you worked hard, you could create such a life. The difference is not semantic; it is fundamental, and for Obama and many, many others, it has become blurred. The equation articulated by Obama and likely shared by a significant majority of Americans is that if you work hard, you should receive economic security and see the same for your children. The flip side of that theory is that if you don’t gain economic security, something is wrong with the system, and government has a responsibility to provide when that system fails.

The belief that something is a given simply by birthright is never a formula for long-term strength. Yet at some point in the last half of the 20th century, the American dream morphed from the promise that you could realize a comfortable life, to a promise that being American meant you would and should realize that. Hence the feeling, held by so many, that promises have been betrayed and the system is broken."

This Week in God | Maddow Blog

This is a beautiful thing. Makes me proud to be an American:

"Local Christians were permitted to erect a Ten Commandments monument at the Bradford County courthouse in Starke, Florida, prompting a lengthy legal dispute over the separation of church and state. Officials eventually struck a deal -- if atheists dropped the lawsuit, which they were likely to win, they could erect their own monument on the property.

And so, this week, American Atheists did exactly that, unveiling a privately-funded, 1,500-pound granite bench, honoring church-state separation, secularism, and atheism. Because of the prevalence of Ten Commandments displays at courthouses, especially throughout the South, the group says it has plans to erect 50 more monuments just like this one."

Fighting Communism, One Athlete at a Time | New York Times

A very interesting piece in The New York Times about tennis player Li Na and Chinese athletes generally.

Was first curveball thrown 2 million years ago? | Dayton Daily News

Very interesting piece about a recent study trying to figure out when ancient humans first threw (most likely spears) overhanded.

It’s Cory Booker’s race to lose | The Fix - Washington Post

"With Republicans unable to land a top-tier candidate, the real action is in the Democratic primary, and two new polls show Booker with a huge early lead.

According to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll, Booker leads Rep. Frank Pallone 55 percent to 9 percent, with Rep. Rush Holt bringing up the rear at 8 percent.

And a new Quinnipiac University poll shows very much the same picture, with Booker at 53 percent, Holt at 10 percent and Pallone at 9 percent."

Read more at The Washington Post's The Fix blog.

Behind the I.R.S. Mess: A Campaign-Finance Scandal | Steven Rattner - New York Times

Kind of really the point here:

“By way of background, the decision in 2010 to target groups with certain words in their names did not come out of nowhere. That same year, the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case substantially liberalized rules around political contributions, stimulating the formation of many activist groups.

In the year ended Sept. 30, 2010, the division received 1,741 applications from “social welfare organizations” requesting tax-exempt status. Two years later, the figure was 2,774. Meanwhile, the staff of the division tasked with reviewing these applications was reduced as part of a series of budget reductions imposed on the I.R.S. by anti-tax forces.

A far higher proportion of the new applicants wanted to pursue a conservative agenda than a liberal agenda. So without trying to defend the indefensible profiling, it wouldn’t be that shocking if low-level staff members were simply, but stupidly, trying to find an efficient way to sift through the avalanche of applications.”

How Geography Explains the United States - By Aaron David Miller | Foreign Policy

Very interesting article about how geography influences the American world view:

"Canadians, Mexicans, and fish. That trio of neighbors has given the United States an unprecedented degree of security, a huge margin for error in international affairs, and the luxury of largely unfettered development."

Obama announces Foxx pick, cheers transit supporters | Burgess Everett - POLITICO.com

Obama announces Foxx pick, cheers transit supporters - Burgess Everett - POLITICO.com

Does Light Rail Really Encourage People to Stop Driving? | The Atlantic Cities

More evidence that common sense really isn't all that common:

"...another reminder of the irrational love people have for their cars; getting city residents to give up driving often requires more than just offering them a ride."

15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget | The Hamilton Project

Interesting set of proposals:

"The Hamilton Project asked leading experts from a variety of backgrounds—the policy world, academia, and the private sector, and from both sides of the political aisle—to develop policy proposals which could form a partial menu of options to achieve responsible deficit reduction."

Suspected meth lab turns out to be sweet maple syrup | KFVS12

This is hilarious!

"The Benson's have been making their own maple syrup for the past five years. This was the first time they've been mistaken for a meth lab.

They even gave the agents a sample of their syrup to take home and enjoy."

Friedman: India vs. China vs. Egypt | NYTimes.com

Another interesting column by Tom Friedman.  Here is the premise:

"It’s hard to escape a visit to India without someone asking you to compare it to China. This visit was no exception, but I think it’s more revealing to widen the aperture and compare India, China and Egypt. India has a weak central government but a really strong civil society, bubbling with elections and associations at every level. China has a muscular central government but a weak civil society, yet one that is clearly straining to express itself more. Egypt, alas, has a weak government and a very weak civil society, one that was suppressed for 50 years, denied real elections and, therefore, is easy prey to have its revolution diverted by the one group that could organize, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the one free space, the mosque. But there is one thing all three have in common: gigantic youth bulges under the age of 30, increasingly connected by technology but very unevenly educated."

Read the rest of Friedman's column. It is worth reading and thinking about because the impact over the next 10, 20, and 30 years will be bigger than people realize.

Opinion: Restoring path of true democracy - Eric Schneiderman - POLITICO.com

Opinion: Restoring path of true democracy - Eric Schneiderman - POLITICO.com

Viral Spiral 2012 | FactCheck.org

FactCheck.org gives the lowdown on the most common viral e-mails of 2012:

"...despite all good common sense, people do pass along these malicious attempts to deceive, often in the same amount of time it would take to check their tenuous hold on veracity. Our readers — some clearly trying to beat back the onslaught from friends — constantly ask us to put these viral claims to the truth test. In 2012, we found that:

- Dueling graphics on the debt both overstated and understated President Obama’s contribution to the debt.
- No, Obama didn’t give Alaskan islands to Russia, and his early records weren’t “sealed.”
- Over-the-top “death panel” claims about the Affordable Care Act included purely invented stories about elderly Americans being denied dialysis or brain surgery.
- Vote-rigging conspiracies claimed that Tagg Romney owned voting machines in Ohio (he doesn’t) and that uncounted military ballots swung the election for Obama (from a “faux news” site).
- In the tin-foil-hat category, one conspiracy said Obama was creating martial law and a “standing army of government youth.” The adult-aged FEMA Corps members help with natural disasters and can’t carry weapons.
- General Motors is still firmly based in the U.S., despite claims that it’s becoming “China Motors.”
- Old-but-still-kicking emails percolated, claiming that Medicare premiums were about to skyrocket, everyone’s home sales would be taxed, and the Obama administration wanted to ban weapons among U.S. citizens — none of which is true."