Service in the Military

1 year 11 months and 11 days was enough to convince me I was a natural-born civilian (despite being descended from folks Sen. Webb says were "born fighting"). So I've always been ambivalent about the military. Freakonomics has an interesting post on a Heritage study of the nature of today's military, specifically who serves. (Every candidate with kids old enough has a child who served/is serving in Iraq. That seems a long ways away from the 1980's and 90's.)

There's suspicion over the figures voiced both in the post and the comments. I suspect myself that you have to get into the boondocks of the data to really understand.

Unthinkable Thoughts, a 269 Tie?

As if the bailout weren't enough bad news to obsess over, now comes a Washington Times story on the elections--the possibility of Obama and McCain tying. The FDA should have banned the story from distribution as dangerous to one's health and peace of mind.

10-Acres, Again [Updated]

Forgive my interest in this minutiae (to all except bureaucrats and small farmers), House Ag committee has voted to suspend the 10-acre rule (only farmers with over 10 acres in base are eligible for certain programs) for 2 years to: Give us time to decide how to correct the problem for later years.”

By delaying, they're probably complicating the problem, given there's some one-time decisions (as on ACRE) that farmers need to make.

[Updated--cattlenetwork has some more.

"Decision Dominance"

Is threatened by e-mail. Bureaucrats like "decision dominance", just as parents do: "Do what I tell you". Here's the article, via Next Gov.

[Actually, once you read the article, the colonel is mostly concerning about poorly structured emails, too many emails, personal use of emails, etc.)

The Conservatism of Liberals

From Treehugger, a post on genetically modified sorghum in Africa. I can sort of understand opposition to GM that adds resistance to Roundup, or an insecticide, to a plant. Don't agree with it, but can understand it. I've big problems with opposition to modifying sorghum to have more nutrients or to make protein more digestible. Even if such traits do migrate to wild varieties of sorghum, I don't see the downside. Perhaps it would make wild sorghum better able to compete with other plants, because it's more valuable to animals?

A New Definition for "Overseas"

From a NYTimes piece on a newly assertive Indian military, which has its first "overseas" military base (in Tajikistan). I can barely recall the death of Gandhi, certainly remember Nehru. While this evolution doesn't match China's, it's certainly amazing.

A Question I Never Thought to See

"is $7 wheat a crop that will provide positive revenue" [for you, the farmer]--from a farmgate discussion of the outlook for wheat.

Achenbach Visits Manassas Park

Joel Achenbach finds resentment in Manassas Park over bailing out mortgage lenders. I think he missed the immigrant thread, or anti-immigration thread, about which I've blogged earlier.

Ex-Bureaucrat Views the Paulson Bailout

Can't resist commenting on features of the Paulson/Bernanke plan (the text was in both the Post and Times today):

• they were too rushed to think of a snappy title for the legislation, preferably one that forms a snappy acronym. (Gretchen Morgenson uses "TARP"--troubled asset relief program.) That means things were really hectic.
  
• one problem they'll have is in normal times we have a million or two foreclosures a year (too lazy to check the rate, but the point is there's some level of foreclosures that's "normal".) So, do they just take over all securities regardless, knowing they're going to eat the normal stuff, or do they have some way to weed it out. (New bureaucratic programs usually have this sort of problem--it's like paying kids to study, do you stiff the kids who don't need the incentive?)
• the draft legislation makes it not reviewable in court (as has been noted by other bloggers)
• there's no exemption from the Administrative Procedure Act, though I guess the preceding bullet makes this unnecessary. But what it says is there's no legal requirement for transparency (not that Administrative Procedure Act provisions provide that much transparency).
  
• Paulson apparently plans to use Treasury Department to run the program, rather than establishing a special corporation/agency. Might be wise, because it avoids a bit of administrative overhead. But regardless, I hope his administrative people right now are working on outfitting offices, etc. One of the biggest obstacles to doing things quickly in government is the housekeeping functions (where do people work, on what, and how do they get paid).

Read the Morgenson piece for more understanding.

A Bureaucrat and SCS

Many of the former county ASCS employees who came to work for me were a bit disdainful of the Soil Conservation Service--I remember one acid remark about SCS employees spending all their time riding around the county in their trucks, leaving the ASCS employee(s) to handle the people who showed up at the office.

But, time mellows even old loyalties, so here's an article on the founding father of SCS, an example of the difference the right person in the right place can make.