Aftermath of Crackdown--Prince William County

The Washington Times has an article on the effects of Prince William County's crackdown on illegal immigrants--loss of residents, vacant dwellings, foreclosures, loss of business. Yesterday, I think it was, the Post had an article on how the local soccer leagues were bypassing the county, mainly because the players were afraid of being caught up in an arrest (a legal driver is stopped for cause, the officer might check the status of the riders). From what I can tell, the fear level seems higher than justified, but that's often true.

Is a Catfish a Vegetable?

The Washington Post has an article on an attempt (passed in the Senate) to have the USDA inspect catfish, like they do meat. There are a lot of catfish grown in the Mississippi Delta, but apparently imports are becoming a problem in the last couple years. So cynics think the inspection provision is just to put another hurdle in the way of imports. Non-cynics would look at the problems with heparin and contaminated corn gluten and say inspection is long overdue.

But House staffers tried to cover all fish, not just catfish, which seems to have been a case of overreaching, maybe fishing from a bridge too far. If the Post is right, a new farm bill, when passed, will not include an inspection provision.

The article triggered my memory, though. (Hopefully accurately--once again I'm too lazy to doublecheck my facts.) Back in the dark ages, maybe the mid 80's, cotton and rice were having their problems so producers in the Delta were looking for alternative crops. Rice fields in particular were candidates for conversion into crayfish and catfish ponds. And it seemed a propitious time to push these products. (Was it then that Rene Prudhomme was big with his Cajun cooking? Maybe so.) The problem was farm program rules--ASCS had this funny idea that land under water, if it wasn't growing rice, wasn't really "cropland". So a rice planter who wanted to switch a field to catfish pond would be reducing his cropland and likely giving up rice base (if the land was fully based--i.e., 1,000 acres of land = 1,000 acres of cropland = 1,000 acres of rice and cotton base).

So someone, probably Rep. Jamie Whitten, included a provision in the farm bill that ensured that the land retained its cropland status. And, unlike fruits and vegetables, producers could grow catfish on their base acres.

The Two Cultures?

A now mostly forgotten writer named C.P. Snow, Baron Snow to us plebes, made his name in 1959 for talking about "Two Cultures" by which, as a Brit, he meant the divide between literary types and scientists. These days we are more likely to think of red states and blue states.

Here, at the History network is a good piece reflecting on the differences between rural and urban cultures: A Historian Reflects on the Rural-Urban Divide and Election '08 By Daniel Herman

"...ruralites and urbanites have had no use for one another since at least the turn of the last century but they don't necessarily coalesce around timeless left-right oppositions. A hundred years ago, I pointed out to my wife, much of the heartland was not red but bright blue whereas much of urban America was not blue but bright red. One might go so far as to say that the modern Democratic Party that attracts so many urbanites was born in a manger, whereas the modern Republican Party that attracts so many ruralites was born in the caverns of Wall Street." It's interesting, particularly the cat who hides in the cavern.

I'm perhaps also struck because my grandfather worked the rural Presbyterian churches of the Dakotas and Nebraska, a process he alludes to.

The Return of Archy and Mehitabel?

I know I'm showing my age, but that's what I thought of when I read this post
from Ann Althouse, carrying on the cockroach viewpoint meme. See Wikipedia

Libertarians Surprise One.

From Volokh conspiracy

"And the poor and politically weak are the most important potential beneficiaries of libertarian public interest efforts in the fields of economic liberties and property rights, among others. The wealthy and powerful can usually defend their property rights and other economic interests in the political process and therefore have much less need for judicial protection."

What the Internet Is Missing

It's missing ads. No, not electronic ads, but the print ads which will be indispensable for social historians of the future. I say this because yesterday the Post ran a full page ad which I'd like to link to, but I can't.

Instead I'll link to the website--LifeLock, which is an identity protection service.

The service itself, LifeLock, appears to be consolidating a number of things you can do for yourself, requesting free credit reports, taking your name off junk mailing lists, etc. You aren't paying for a magic formula, you're paying for convenience. Is it a good deal--damn if I know, might be, particularly for someone with paranoid tendencies who simultaneously is willing to trust someone to guard their identity.

But what it does have is a great gimmick--the founder puts his social security number in the ad. It's a great example of what used to be called "eating your own dogfood" (I think that was it--anyway the idea is, when you're developing an IT system, the big test of its usefulness is whether its developers use it themselves. Sort of like Congress--if they come up with a new health care system, do they scrap their own current system and switch to the new one.

Farmer's Hard Choices

What to plant? See this NYTimes article and the related slideshow.

Particularly note two things--the slide showing the farmer's messy desk (see-my messy desk is a result of being a farmer's son) and the sidebar graphics, particularly the one showing wheat prices adjusted for inflation--in the early 70's wheat hit $25 a bushel in today's prices.

It's a Changing World--The Richest Are Indians

From the WSJ blog:

No, the biggest surprise is the rise of the Indian rich — four of the top eight billionaires in the world are from India. Topping the ranks is steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, whose worth Forbes puts at $45 billion. Next up are the Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, with $43 billion and $42 billion repsectively, largely from petrochemicals. Rounding out the list is KP Singh, the real-estate magnate, at $30 billion.

Global Warming Isn't All Bad

That's my thought, not the researchers. An academic says the longer growing season for corn over the past 30 years accounts for part of the yield increases.

More generally, there seems to be some controversy over the causes of corn yield increases--better farming, better seeds, more inputs, better weather. The yield curves should be a source of discomfort to some in the organic farming community who believe that industrial ag exhausts the soil. May do so, but it's been a while.

And back on global warming--some in the environmental community preach that it's disastrous. I'd disagree, in part. It's change that will be disastrous to many and helpful to some and disconcerting to all. If we were just worried about humans, I'd like to see increased efforts on mitigation of effects--planning now to relocate sea-level communities, etc. But since we have to worry about the whole world, we also need to worry about things like a carbon tax.

Gloom and Doom--the Obits and Lost Skills

On a gloomy Friday:

Q? how do you know you're getting old?

A When you spend more than a minute skimming the obits for your year in the college alumni magazine.


A When you can identify almost all the obsolete skills on this list (Thanks to Ari at The Edge of the American West.) (Debugging EBCDIC core dumps should be on there.) Wood burning kits!!--I remember when my sister got one. And yes, darning a sock is one.