A More Representative Senate

Annie Lowery wrote an interesting op-ed in The Washington Post this weekend imagining worlds where senators represented income brackets or demographics rather than states:
Imagine a chamber in which senators were elected by different income brackets — with two senators representing the poorest 2 percent of the electorate, two senators representing the richest 2 percent and so on.
[...]
Or [...]

Democrats Were For The Saints, Republicans For Colts

By the time this post is published, the Superbowl will be over and either Democrats or Republicans will be happy, but not both. Here’s why:
Americans are so polarized right now, even the Super Bowl’s dividing them along party lines.
Overall 32% of voters we polled on our last national survey said they’d be rooting for [...]

Is It Better To Adopt Pets Online?

This afternoon I watched the Puppybowl had the Puppybowl on in the background while I did homework. I wasn’t giving it my total attention but I couldn’t help but notice that Petfinder.com has a lot of advertisements. If you don’t know, Petfinder.com is basically an online pound —but you can also adopt dogs, horses, birds. You can [...]

Highways Aren’t The Best Investment Anymore

I’m a little worried that too much of this upcoming Jobs bill is set on creating jobs through highway improvement. I’m all for lowering unemployment through public works projects but highways don’t provide as much bang for your buck as high speed rail or a greater emphasis on the infrastructure of cities would.
With highways you build [...]

Are Textbooks On The iPad A Good Idea?

Keyana Stevens at the excellent NYU Local notices that book publishers are getting on board the iPad:

Several textbook publishers (including heavy hitters McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin) have just announced that they will start working with developers to make textbook applications for Apple’s iPad. Because of the iPad’s touch-screen interface, the new applications could be interactive, with extra [...]

Bats Can Drink A Lot But They Never Get Drunk

Ars Technica mentioned this interesting study of drunkenness in fruit bats. The funny thing is, they don’t really get drink. The researchers found that, even after guzzling juice from fermented fruit, experimental group bats navigated an obstacle course just as well as their tea sipping control group buddies.
There are a couple explanations as to why [...]