When Sarah Palin's 413-page autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life, hit stands Tuesday, readers discovered the governor's most mavericky move yet: The book lacks an index. So Slate has compiled its own. Just print out this index, paste it into the back of your copy, and start skipping around! (And, yes, the page numbers are real.)

Alaska
________autumn bouquet of, 1
________robin's egg sky of, 2
________superiority to Lower 48 of, 1-413

Biden, Joe
________gaffes of, 278
________pre-debate stretching regimen of, 296
________accidental reference to as "Sen. O'Biden," 289

books and magazines, references to
________A Conflict of Vision, 385
________Animal Farm, 27
________Buck, Pearl S., 180
________Bible, the, 15
________cookbooks, 15
________Lewis, C.S., 27
________Nash, Ogden, 15
________National Geographic, 27
________Pearl, The, 27
________Ranger Rick, 27
________Reader's Digest, 15
________Seagull, Jonathan Livingston, 27
________Service, Robert, 15
________Sports Illustrated, 27
________Wonderful World of Oz, The, 16

capital letters, unorthodox use of
________"Patriots," dedication page

Couric, Katie
________"repetitive, biased questions" of, 271
________unfair editing of interview with, 273
________condescension of, 276
________things I could/should have said to, 274-5
________things I could have done instead of talking to, 279

"Democrat," usage of as adjective, 155, 227

dialogue, implausibly recreated, 2, 53, 74, 151, 161, 179, 188, 217, 235, 318, 358, 375

e-mail, hacking of, 263-65

exclamation point, usage of, 4, 26, 120, 121, 122, 138, 150, 199, 207, 222, 223, 225, 233, 239, 241, 276, 302, 307

evolution
________skeptical views of, 217
________________use of word "Neanderthal" despite, 30, 172

"experts," wrongness of, 254, 289, 336, 375, 392

Facebook
________citation of as example of laudable free-market enterprise, 400
________utility of for calling out haters, 400

media
________getting things wrong, 203, 233, 237, 238, 276, 342, 378
________getting things right, 246
________liberalness of, 270

mistakes
________betraying Todd's stepmom by not backing her for Wasilla mayor, 87
________not making a bigger issue of the Rev. Wright, 307

moose, 18, 20, 31, 113, 134, 270

"nerd," characterization of self as, 37, 149

Obama, Barack
________impressive but empty oratorical skills of, 227
________"staggering national deficit" incurred by, 388

policy, preference for over politics, 156

politics-as-usual, 3, 5, 6, 70, 72, 109, 119, 144, 156, 183
________(See also status quo, 5)

prayers
________answered
________________boyfriend, 33
________________job for Todd with British Petroleum, 50
________not answered
________________winning debate with Joe Biden, 295
________________winning 2008 election, 333

pregnancy
________descriptions of
________________"I porked up," 50
________________"ready to calve," 51
________________"more nauseated than usual," 171
________________"starving for king crab and scallops," 192
________________feeling contractions during Texas speech, 194
________reaction to own
________________"Holy geez!" 171
________reaction to Bristol's
________________"Truthfully, I was devastated," 207
________campaign's advance knowledge of, 214
________campaign's botched handling of, 234

"progress," usage of as transitive verb, 64

Reagan, Ronald, 3, 12, 45, 46, 47, 59, 124, 158, 216, 297, 384, 386, 387, 391, 394, 400
________(See: USS Ronald Reagan, 394)

resignation
________ethics complaints that led to, 352
________FOIA requests that led to, 354
________agonizing over, 375-76
________announcement of, 377
________characterization of as "not retreating" but "reloading," 377, 383

Rock, Kid
________approval of as "pro-America" with "common sense ideas," 300

running (exercise)
________Refusal of campaign to let her engage in, 285
________Injury incurred the one time she is allowed to engage in, 291

Russia, proximity of Alaska to, 275
________map proving it, pre-index page

science, inadequacy of to explain existence, 47

sentence, actual
________"As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on," 102

"you betcha"
________revelation of as not actually Alaska's state motto, 309

Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter. Follow him on Twitter.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2235917/

The Herald reports Republican Jack E. Robinson was outside Park Street last night, calling for the feds to pour enough money into the MBTA to eliminate fares and to spend $3 billion on a bullet train to Springfield.

Making mass transit free could be a great idea, and I'm impressed to see a Republican suggesting it (or any candidate for that matter, but especially someone from the "markets good! socialism bad!" party).

The economics make sense though. Most of the MBTA's budget, like the budget for most public transit agencies, comes from subsidies & advertising revenue, not fare collection. Simplifying a bit, it may be that only 25% of the revenue comes from rider fares, while the rest comes from other sources. At the same time, a similar fraction of around 25% of the budget goes to expenses related to fare collection -- toll collectors, enforcement police, etc.

Therefore, if you eliminate fares entirely, the operating budget doesn't change very much -- you reduce revenues by about the same amount that you reduce expenses, so it's a wash. Obviously there's more to it than this -- if ridership goes up because the fare goes to zero, then that would of course impact operating expenses, but then maybe this could be offset by selling more advertising on grounds that the ads are reaching a larger audience.

Similar example: it costs around, say, $5 to print a copy of a major daily newspaper like the Boston Globe, even though the cover price is just $0.50. The rest of that revenue comes from -- or at least used to come from -- advertising, especially classified ads. At the same time, most papers spent about that fraction of their budget on getting people to pay for the paper. So in theory, most papers could also go to a free model without hurting their budget.

The problem is that by collecting at least a token amount per issue, the ad department could turn around and "sell the audience" to potential advertisers at a higher rate: "we have 2 million people willing to pay for this content every day." Making the price go to zero wouldn't hurt the budget right away, but would probably cause the advertising revenue to wither away over time. (And, in fact, this is more or less what is happening for most papers now that everyone is reading it for free online rather than paying for paper copies, and no one wants to pay for classified ads in the daily paper anymore when you can take out a Craigslist ad for free.)

I'm not sure that public transit agencies have to be as concerned about this "willing to pay" metric for riders & advertisers in the same way that newspapers are though. The audience might be "just as valuable" for ads with no fares as it would be for most any other reasonable price.

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to see it happen.

But a bullet train from Boston to Springfield? Now that's just crazy talk.

I used to live in this house.

It wasn't anything special, but I tried to keep it up while I was there.

Now, thanks to the magic of Google Street View, I know what it looks like these days: a shitbox, that's what.

On the bright side, at least it's still there -- many houses in the neighborhood are just gone.

What the hell happened? Did Hurricane Katrina (or another one) ruin the neighborhood?

Dear Lazyweb: The designer that puts my face & luxurious locks on the Caprica poster will be the designer of my Twitter icon. HAVE AT YOU.

@ronaldmoore There's no way I could ever do something that horrifying. Oh wait, yes I could: http://yfrog.com/edcapricaj

Crikey.

"TURN YOUR GLITTER TO LITTER."