Tire Gauges and Sweaters

The Republicans are mocking Obama with tire gauges, every since he observed that increases in energy efficiency could save more energy than drilling for oil (was it off-shore, or ANWAR--I haven't really followed).

Recalls when Jimmy Carter was mocked for wearing sweaters in the White House, turning down the heat in winter, and engaging in energy saving measures generally. Then, of course, there's that President who put solar panels on the White House and went with geothermal heat pumps for his summer house. (Oops, that's GWB, but both sides want to forget about him.)

Bottom line--it's easy to mock, but efficiency is the way to go.

The Curmudgeon Raises His Voice

The Post has an article on the debate whether kids should enjoy their summer vacation or work. It quotes both sides, including this:

"I think the pendulum has shifted," said Gail Hubbard, supervisor of gifted education and special programs in Prince William County, where summer homework policies are under review. "I think we went for several years requiring more and more and more." Now, she said, the goal is "to make sure it benefits the learner instead of burdens the learner."

As an old curmudgeon, in my day, the idea was the burden was the benefit. And that's being proved by modern science, and Dr. Hubbard is out-of-date. An athlete has to train hard, a scholar has to study hard. No pain, no gain. While the brain may not exactly be a muscle, we now know that experience causes physical changes in the brain; the more experience, the more training, the more reading and thinking, the more the brain is able to handle (at least in scholarship). So, make those whippersnappers sweat, say I.

Philip Kennicott and China

Kennicott is not one of my favorite Post writers (writes mostly on architecture and more generally on arts in general. ) Today he reports on a visit to Shanghai, a mega-city (defined as 10 million plus). An excerpt:

In China you also have to remember the larger statistic: the total population of more than 1.3 billion people. In the shadow of that number, statistics about private space in Shanghai -- since 1990, the average amount of living space, per person, has increased from 8 to 15 square meters (86 to 161 square feet) -- become rather ominous.

Personally, I'm more inclined to marvel--doubling living space in the Chinese context, even if limited to the east coast, is amazing when I remember the Korean war propaganda (human wave attacks of subhuman type soldiers). Rising standards of living are a cause for satisfaction, not discontent. Yes, there's misery in cities but on average people migrate to urban areas because they can improve their circumstances. More people living better is good.

EU Dairy Policy Kills

I blogged earlier about the change in US eating patterns--dairy is down over the last 35 years. But, if this post on the CAP (EU farm program) Health blog is correct, EU dairy subsidies have kept their consumption high, with adverse impacts. The idea is that the EU has kept dairy supports high, by buying surpluses, which are eventually consumed somewhere (in school lunch programs, etc.) The resulting increase in saturated fat consumption causes higher rates of cardio-vascular disease and deaths.

I'm not sure of the logic here, or with those who attack US subsidies for corn. I think economists would agree, no subsidies would mean only the most efficient farmers would survive, meaning the price level would drop and, presumably, consumption would go up. Maybe I'm wrong, but you might be able to make a case that subsidies help health, not hurt it.

Congress and the Budget

Washington Watch has a post on Congress, as in: the failure of.

Once upon a time, the fiscal year for the government ran from July 1 to June 30. Over the years (late 60's or so), Congress began to have problems passing appropriations bills by July 1. So some bright sprig came up with a solution: we'll give ourselves 3 more months. We'll change the fiscal year to Oct 1 to Sept 30 and that surely will be enough time. Alas and alack, Congress proved once again that politicians are only too human. For the last many years they've been incapable of passing most appropriations bills timely. Eventually they toss up their hands and stuff everything that's unresolved in a big omnibus bill and push it through.

It's no way to manage the government. Unfortunately, there's no constituency for good governmental management, so we get what we deserve.

Globalizing Education

The Post Magazine section does their education issue, including a very good article on how the DC area is importing elementary teachers from the Philippines. The teachers have to learn to say: "shut up" and be more assertive to control their classrooms. They also have to get used to our society. As I say, very interesting.

I'd known that we were importing nurses from the Philippines and elsewhere, but this was the first I'd heard about teachers.

Changes in Eating Patterns

The NY Times does a graphic article on changes in food consumption patterns between 1970 and now, based on ERS figures. Click on the multimedia link to get the graphics.

We've increased food consumption by about 10 percent, with a big drop in dairy and big increases in fats, grains, and fruit. (Pardon my pointing out that's not quite the picture painted by people like Professor Pollan--at least not the areas of increase. To be fair, I expect the oils and grains are consumed mostly as baked or deep fat fried foods, but the article doesn't specify our menu.)

The Power of Neighborhood

The NY Times has an article on the impact of high fuel costs on globalization. Manufacturing and not agriculture is the focus, there's only a couple paragraphs on food) but the same economics are at play. (There is a reference to the end of avocado salad in Minnesota in the winter--apparently a doomed species.)

I think I'd take it with a pinch of salt--transportation costs probably aren't the most important cost factor in most productive activities--but as we're reminded, evolution works using marginal differences. There may be more prestige and class differences. After all, the spice trade from the East Indies encountered high transportation costs but still found markets in Europe.

Beware the Deadly Vog, My Son

Not so deadly, to humans at least, but to Hawaiian vegetation, volcanic smog is. But your faithful FSA springs to the rescue.






[Sorry to all those growers affected by the disaster, I really shouldn't make fun of misfortunes.]

Yale and Public Information-Sshhh

Colin McKay at SoSaidThe Organization secretly tells us of a document we are commanded not to cite from Yale Law. It's well worth reading. It proposes [emphasis removed]:

In order for public data to benefit from the same innovation and dynamism that characterize private parties’ use of the Internet, the federal government must reimagine its role as an information provider. Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design sites that meet each end-user need, it should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that “exposes” the underlying data. Private actors, either nonprofit or commercial, are better suited to deliver government information to citizens and can constantly create and reshape the tools individuals use to find and leverage public data. The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.

Some comments:

• the authors could productively cite the GPO's "reengineering" initiative--as GPO is officially responsible for all government documents (repository libraries) it particularly aggravates me that their effort seems to be a solo silo, (see this link) particularly as their aim is to please their library stakeholders, not the public.
  
• the authors do not deal with the problem of private data, that is, data that can't be made public. Their examples include FCC dockets, regulations, Congressional actions (bills, votes, etc.), SEC filings--all things that are supposed to be public. In other words, they're viewing government as lawyers, and the data they want is lawyers' data. They might profitably look at the EWG's database of federal payments to farmers--a long-existing example of the problems (and gains) in providing government data on-line.
  
• I doubt the practicality of the suggestion (that is, considered as a government-wide, top down initiative). They note the number of constraints agencies have to deal with in handling data. Each of the constraints was the result of some interest group and/or Congressional members putting their oar in. That's the way our government works. Perhaps in a parliamentary system the proposal is feasible, but not here. Appropriations committees will not give dollars to such good government suggestions. And a President Obama or McCain is unlikely to use political capital to take real action.
• I think the most likely outcome is a gradual, evolutionary, scattershot approach which, after 20-30 years or so, ends up maybe close to what the authors want.

(I'm struck by this language: "The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large." 10 years ago I was proposing the same thing to FSA, NRCS, and RD--an Internet-based front end to access documents and data with a gradual back end migration from the legacy databases and indexed files to modern web-servers. Even had a working mockup website to this effect. Alas, I'm no salesman. As far as I can see, the key technical constraint was the need to provide security at the data element level--i.e., maybe you want to show to everyone that John Doe owns a section of land in Mills County, Iowa, but you don't want to show his SSN to anyone except him and one or two people who serve him. That's tough to get the "business rules" decided on. The political constraint was the necessary impact on the organizations involved. Agencies whose raison d'etre was to serve local farmers would have to consider whether and how to change. And the politicians whose livelihood depends on customer service, meaning being able to see that the local office works for their farmers, would have to cede influence.)