Life Is Fragile

Remember our first view of the earth from the moon? See NASA's site, visible earth. The "blue marble" image stimulated the environmental movement, emphasizing the fragility of life on earth.

To compare incomparables, I had a reminder yesterday that life is fragile--screwing up my back while getting out of the car. :-) Now I'm gimping around the house, my routine disrupted, fussing at the cats, dependent on my better half. (I hate being dependent.) The good news is, behind the scenes in my lower back the damage is being repaired. Thank you, body. The bad news is, my body gets older and slower at repairs every day.

How Legislation Is (Not) Implemented

From a press conference at USDA, this exchange:

REPORTER: Thank you. Just quickly, I wanted to ask about the Lacy Act Amendments. Is USDA implementing the expansion of the Lacy Act for illegally taken plants? Or is that strictly a CBP function?

SEC. SCHAFER: Can you translate that into real language?

REPORTER: Sure. The expansion of the Lacy Act that essentially requires documentation to avoid any illegally logged tropical lumber, among other plants.

SEC. SCHAFER: And what was the other? You used an acronym.

REPORTER: Oh, the Customs and Border Protection. I wasn't sure given that APHIS inspectors had gone over there whether it's USDA that has to implement that part of the farm bill.

SEC. SCHAFER: I don't even know. Can't tell you. And you're drawing blanks from our expert team here, so you've stumped the panel.

What this mean is USDA is not likely to implement the provision. Customs may, assuming the reporter is poorly informed and it clearly fits within Customs jurisdiction. But if there's a genuine question, neither bureaucracy has an incentive to pick up the ball. If the Congressional sponsor doesn't push it, it may fall through the cracks.

Good Bureaucracy in the DC Government

I don't know who might be responsible, but I like the effort, as described in today's Post, to have one ID card that works for all functions of DC government. Apparently the ACLU doesn't have big problems with it.

Online ID and ID Cards

NYTimes has an article on an effort to simplify passwords online:

"The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver’s license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people will gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that is overseen by a third party. The user controls the information in a secure place and transmits only the data that is necessary to access a Web site."

Having recently scorned Medicare's refusal to take the SSN off their ID card, I think the government should join this effort.

Silos and the Lament of a Yellow-Dog Democrat

I'm a yellow-dog Democrat, at least since the Dems in Virginia got themselves half-way together, so I have no way of knowing the situation on the Republican side. But the situation on my side stinks.

What am I talking about? The decentralized, unbusinesslike way in which we Democrats work our campaign finances. I think Tom McAuliffe helped a little bit, but it's still bad.

Specifically, everyone and his sister solicits me because I have a long record of being a sucker, er--responding to solicitations. There's the DNC (the national committee), the DSCC (Senate campaign committee), the House committee, the individual campaigns (for some reason Clinton had my email address until she dropped her bid, but Obama didn't, but now he does), and then there's the Virginia Democrats and my various representatives and Senators.

I mentioned McAuliffe--once I used to get brochures and solicitations from the DNC every month or two. Then they made me an offer I couldn't resist--they'd drop the mail if I'd give them protection money, er--contribute on a regular basis. But, and here's my complaint, the DNC and the other Democratic units don't talk to each other. It'd be fine if they'd piggyback on the DNC's infrastructure, so they could ask me to boost my contribution and spread my money among the various units. But that's not the way the U.S. works--we believe in silos, everyone doing his or her own thing.

Delays in Program Implementation

Brownfield Network reports implementation problems for the ACRE program and permanent disaster:

"The data that is necessary to implement ACRE simply cannot be put upon the current computer system that is housed in the Farm Service Agency and there will need to be changes in that system before we can implement ACRE fully," Conner said.

Conner also emphasized the Bush administration is "working closely" with Congress to get "additional implementation resources" for the FSA. But Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom Harkin disputed that statement Thursday. And Harkin told Brownfield he has little sympathy for USDA’s computer problems. According to Harkin, the Bush administration has known about the FSA computer problems for years, has never bothered to ask Congress for funding to fix the problem and still hasn’t done so.

"If they want money they should come up here and ask us for an emergency appropriation," Harkin said. "If they do that, we'll honor that. But where are they?"

ACRE isn't the only new farm bill program to face lengthy implementation delays. Schafer explained that permanent ag disaster aid program payments to producers devastated by flooding may not come for more than a year, mainly due to the fact Congress did not authorize USDA to speed-up the rulemaking process for the program.

I'm in no position to comment on either issue, though I did previously write about FSA/USDA computer problems. But I would note that the farm programs were operated without computers for decades, so what we're seeing is the symbiosis between bureaucratic technique and legislation--the more capable the bureaucrats become (using computers, etc.) the more complex the law.

The Adaptability of People

That seems to be today's theme. Here's a NYTimes article on a weird custom in parts of Albania--a woman can choose to live as a man, and apparently it works. I've been intrigued by studies of the importance of peers versus that of parents in forming people. But here's a reminder that, provided society creates a set of roles and norms, people can be very flexible. (In the article, a 20-year old woman all of whose brothers were killed, leaving the family without male leadership, chooses the male/leader role with full acceptance from the society.) I suppose it's similar to people moving from one society to another: some are able to adapt to the new range of roles available and become successful; others drop in status to the more limited roles (taxi drivers, cooks, cleaners).

Everyone who announces a position about people should remember examples like these.

Gardens in Lesotho

Anyone who's skimmed the history of agriculture in different parts of the world won't be surprised by the gardens of Lesotho, as described here. The history is testimony to the ability of people to adapt to different environments, meaning they learn ways to make use of what's available. (Updated: see the nice piece in Slate on gardening.)

The Faceless Bureaucrat

See the picture there.

Feminism Score--Four Stars

The Post and Times have pieces on Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody, now nominated to be a four-star general, probably the first one to have graduated from Cortland State (i.e., upstate NY). And apparently a Scotch-Irish background.