From the Wikipedia: The Fermi Paradox | Tedquarters.net

Great blog post about The Fermi Paradox. Basically, this is it:

"The Fermi Paradox refers to the apparent contradiction between the high probability of other intelligent life in the universe and our wholesale lack of evidence of that intelligent life. It is named for the great physicist Enrico Fermi, who interrupted an otherwise pleasant 1950 lunch conversation with some of his physicist buddies by blurting, “Where is everybody?”"

This is probably the best piece from the post:

"Say some alien spaceship did manage to fly to Earth? What are the chances it would have happened in the course of recorded human history? The Big Bang happened about 13.75 billion years ago, the planet formed about 4.54 billion years ago and human civilization is about 10,000 years old. Dinosaurs dominated earth for 135 million years! It’s way more likely that if aliens ever landed here — multiple times even — all they saw were dinosaurs, and they were all, “oh holy s—, dude, run! They’ve got dinosaurs!”"

How car-centric is your city? Public transit ranked

No surprise to see New York at number 1 on this list. I am surprised to see San Francisco as a close second and Chicago at number 6. I would have figured they'd be the other way around.

Are liberals more pro-woman? A cool graph from a natural experiment | The Incidental Economist

Interesting how the more daughters a representative has, the more likely he/she is to support women's issues compared to the mean for his/her party.

Who Pays Taxes in America?

A Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) report details who actually does pay taxes in the United States:

"It’s often claimed that the richest Americans pay a disproportionate share of taxes while those in the bottom half pay nothing. These claims ignore the many taxes that most Americans are subject to — federal payroll taxes, federal excise taxes, state and local taxes — and focus instead on just one tax, the federal personal income tax. The other taxes are mostly regressive, meaning they take a larger share of income from a poor or middle-income family than they take from a rich family."

So basically, conservatives choose to ignore the hollow argument about how the wealthy pay a disproportionately high amount of taxes since the more regressive sales taxes hit everyone and Social Security taxes are capped so people above a certain income level (the amount of which escapes me right now) pay the same regardless of their income.


So read the whole report to figure out why this graph flattens halfway through and then starts to drop at the right.

A Subway to New Jersey? ‘Not a Chance,’ Lhota Says | WSJ.com

"A proposal send the No. 7 subway under the Hudson River into New Jersey probably won’t happen “in our lifetime,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said, despite the interest of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg."

I'd like to state my opinion on Mr. Lhota's statement but I'm trying to keep this blog clean.

Nothing to see here; keep moving...

Privately financed and built passenger rail service? Someone is going to give it a shot!

This is going to be very interesting if it proves to be profitable:

"In late March, Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) announced plans to build “All Aboard Florida,” a private passenger rail line that would connect Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa and Orlando. At least for now, FECI is planning to do this without government subsidies — which could make this the first self-funding passenger rail line in the United States in half a century."

This company has a lot of things going for it, as the post mentions, such as ownership of rights of way, faster and lighter freight service existing on those tracks (as opposed to the normally slow and heavy freight service), and real estate holdings near the proposed downtown Miami station that could see an increase in value with a new station.

And oh by the way, it could also prove to be a vital first step in catching up with the rest of the world that has left us behind in rail service. You know, because we "invest" in roads and highways but "subsidize" rail, which is essentially the same thing.

Conservatives that believe in climate change!

Tom Friedman found conservatives that believe climate change is real! Unfortunately, they live in Australia and New Zealand. Friedman makes some great points comparing Australian and Kiwi conservatives with their American counterparts:

"Indeed, to go from America — amid the G.O.P. primaries — to Down Under is to experience both jet lag and a political shock. In New Zealand and Australia, you could almost fit their entire political spectrum — from conservatives to liberals — inside the U.S. Democratic Party.

Or as Paul Quinn, a parliamentarian from New Zealand’s conservative National Party, once told a group of visiting American Fulbright scholars: “I will explain to you how our system works compared to yours: You have Democrats and Republicans. My Labor opponents would be Democrats. I am a member of the National Party, and we would be ... Democrats” as well.

For instance, there is much debate here over climate policy — Australia has a carbon tax, New Zealand has cap and trade — but there is no serious debate about climate science. Whereas in today’s G.O.P. it is political suicide to take climate change seriously, in Australia and New Zealand it is political suicide for conservatives not to."

He also touches briefly on mandatory voting in Australia and New Zealand and how it forces politicians to pander to the center rather than the extremes. It is a big reason both parties in both countries down under support climate change legislation and single-payer health care systems. Mandatory voting is a great idea that, unfortunately, will never fly in the United States.