A friend of mine recently wrote me an email including the sentence:

"Texas tacos are better than cali’s without a doubt"

(Take note of the capitalization of Texas and subsequent non-capitalization of Cali typical of the geographic-inferiority-complex-afflicted Texan).

Like all other Californians, I’m a pretty laid back kind of guy — but this sort of blatant libel against the great state I call home (and the great tacos contained within) simply will not stand. So I present to you a simple, objective, mathematical analysis of the plausibility of the above statement:

California tacos

2008 population of the state of California[1]	36,756,666
2008 population of the state of Texas[2]	24,236,974
2006 % of California’s & Texas’ population of Mexican descent[3][4]	25%
Total legal Mexicans in California	36,756,666 * 0.25 = 9,189,167
Total legal Mexicans in Texas	24,236,974 * 0.25 = 6,059,244
Estimated illegal immigrant population of California (2006)[5]	2,830,000
Estimated illegal immigrant population of Texas (2006)[6]	1,640,000
Estimated % of illegal immigrants (in all states) from Mexico (2006)[7]	57%
Total illegal Mexicans in California	2,830,000 * 0.57 = 1,613,100
Total illegal Mexicans in Texas	1,640,000 * 0.57 = 934,800
Total Mexicans in California	9,189,167 + 1,613,100 = 10,802,267
Total Mexicans in Texas	6,059,244 + 934,800 = 6,994,044
Total Mexicans in California and Texas	10,802,267 + 6,994,044 = 17,796,311
Percentage of total Mexicans in California and Texas living in California	10,802,267 / 17,796,311 * 100 = 60.7%
Percentage of total Mexicans in California and Texas living in Texas	6,994,044 / 17,796,311 * 100 = 39.3%
Delta in percentage of total Mexicans living in California versus percentage of total Mexicans living in Texas	60.7% – 39.3% = 21.4%

The fact is: California has a 21.4% chance of having better tacos than Texas by virtue of a 21.4% greater population of people who make tacos.

In every day terms, that means that for every 5 tacos you eat in California that are fantastic, slightly less than 4 would have been fantastic were you in Texas. As someone who eats 3-6 tacos per day on average I can safely say that the above constitutes mathematical proof that California is, in fact, the best place in the world.