In 1977, the average price paid to fly one mile was 8.42 cents, according to the ATA. Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than 30 cents a mile. Last year, travelers paid an average of 13.5 cents. In 1978, airlines carried 275 million passengers. Thirty years later, they carried 741 million. Roughly speaking, it costs less than half as much to travel today and nearly three times as many people are traveling.

That’s Scott McCartney writing on the “g0lden age of flight.” He also provides an interesting chart. Notice the drop in price charged to fly one average mile:

Hire transgendered workers to shame tax delinquents. Pretty obvious solution I think.

In one of Karachi’s most posh neighborhoods, only half of the 500,000 residents paid their property, maintenance and water taxes last year.

As a result, the Clifton Cantonment board, like Pakistan itself, is in serious financial trouble.

In a bid for a solution — and some publicity — the Clifton board borrowed a creative idea that alleviated tax woes in neighboring India: It hired a team of transgendered tax collectors to go door to door to embarrass the rich until they pay.

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Though this post may appear to focus on an obscure topic, critics of Ayn Rand sometimes compare her (derogatorily) to Friedrich Nietzsche. Though there are some similarities, their philosophies actually have little in common. Nietzsche viewed the pursuit of power as a worthwhile goal, while Rand typically expressed disgust at those who sought power for its own sake. So without further ado, here is Ayn Rand on Friedrich Nietzsche:

Philosophically, Nietzsche is a mystic and an irrationalist. His metaphysics consists of a somewhat “Byronic” and mystically “malevolent” universe; his epistemology subordinates reason to “will,” or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character. But, as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man’s greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual, terms.

In her book, For the New Intellectual, Rand critiques Nietzsche further.

Nietzsche’s rebellion against altruism consisted of replacing the sacrifice of oneself to others by the sacrifice of others to oneself. He proclaimed that the ideal man is moved, not by reason, but by his “blood,” by his innate instincts, feelings and will to power—that he is predestined by birth to rule others and sacrifice them to himself, while they are predestined by birth to be his victims and slaves—that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the “superman” is “beyond good and evil,” that he is a “beast of prey” whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. Thus Nietzsche’s rejection of the Witch Doctor consisted of elevating Attila into a moral ideal—which meant: a double surrender of morality to the Witch Doctor.

Claude Fischer over at Made in America presents some data suggesting that Americans are the most patriotic citizens in the world. On a scale from 5 to 25, with 25 being the most patriotic, America ranks first. Notice the prevalence of affluent, western democracies.

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money— if a gun is held to his head.

~ P.J. O’Rourke

There are two ATM machines in Antarctica, both located at McMurdo Station and operated by Wells Fargo. Below is an excerpt from an interview with a Wells Fargo VP the challenges of operating the machines their:

You know, the other thing too that you may find interesting — I don’t know how much you know about folks that need to go down to Antarctica — it’s a huge process to do it. So when we’re preparing for the vendor visit, it’s like a ten-month process. The reason being is, they obviously go in the off-season when it’s obviously warmer because no planes fly onto the ice in their winter months. And so anybody that goes to Antarctica has to be cleared with a physical, a dental, and a psychological evaluation, because if for some reason the plane can’t get out, you’re trapped down there until the next season.

HT: Jason Kottke