Wha-huh?

Release the pigeons, I'm back! The conference was just as much fun as you might guess, but since economists dress w-a-y better than statisticians and apparently don't command the good swag, I didn't get any good pix for you.

But today I learned a new thing.

The company I work for has an office in New Mexico. There's been a little email discussion going on about a sales tax increase that just took effect. I don't do sales so I paid no attention and happily deleted the emails as they came in. However, this note caught my eye:

If I remember correctly, we thought that there was going to be a rate increase in July 2008, but it was actually delayed until January 2009. The rate increase is related to a Spaceport tax...

Wait a minute.

Spaceport tax?

Now, as a consumer of massive amounts of science fiction, I thought that was incredibly funny. 'Spaceport', ha! Probably just a fancy new airport with a whiz-bang name. So I sent an email to one of my co-workers in NM, all, like, 'Ha, ha, ha! Spaceport! Aliens! WhoooOOOooo!'

Well, as my co-worker so politely pointed out, it's no joke, people. New Mexico is building a friggin' SPACEPORT!

Am I the only one who didn't know about this?

Am I the only one whose mind is completely blown?

Wow.