Sunday, January 13, 2008

Pesky facts

Tyler Cowen calls attention to some data that challenge various conventional wisdoms ("So We Thought, But Then Again ...") in today's NY Times. Cold weather killls many more people than hot weather each year and some warming is not soo bad. Read the article for the details and for some other data-based findings that too many love to overlook.

On a similar expedition, colleagues Jim Moore and Tom Rubin write about "Train wreck" in today's LA Times. They write about rail transit in Los Angeles and find that since 1986, adding rail to the bus system has cost about $11 billion but has reduced transit used by about 3 billion boardings over the years. (Yes, almost every local politico from the Mayor on down wants to do more of this.)