POGO Recommendations

No, this isn't "Pogo", the Walt Kelly creation, but something not amusing at all--the Project on Government Oversight. They've issued recommendations for the new President here. They don't turn me on, but different strokes for different folks. (One comment--if the Pres could involve staffers from the hill in the review of program effectiveness, it might help.)

Shocked, Shocked I Say

That the administration is sending its appointees out to campaign under the guise of "official events". See here.

Believe me, it's what administrations do. (Though normally not State, DOD, Treasury, or Justice, the old-line posts, and that seems to be the rule this time as well.)

Government Policing Farmers

The 1985 farm bill instituted compliance with "sodbuster/swampbuster" provisions as a prerequisite for earning certain farm bill payments. This was a major wrench for the USDA agencies, particularly the Soil Conservation Service (as NRCS was then called). SCS was used to being the farmer's friend and educator, helping install farm ponds and contour cropping trips. Sod/swamp moved them more into the policeman role, determining what the farmer had to do to comply. An interesting history could be written of the next 23 years, as farm groups lobbied for changes, conservation groups fought back, SCS and FSA felt caught in the middle.

Now we can anticipate other changes. As my right-wing friends might say, an ever-encroaching government bureaucracy taking away farmers' freedoms. Here's an piece in Mulch, on the problems of controlling run-off pollution in watersheds (a problem already faced in the New York City watershed). The writer struggles to plot a course between purely "voluntary" conservation measures, which aren't that effective, and alternatives, trying to identify alternatives which aren't oppressive. For an old cynic, the struggle is most interesting.

Funniest Sentence of the Day

From Simon Winchester, who's written a book on the Oxford English Dictionary (among many others), writing in the NYTimes about the change in meaning of "subprime":

The current print edition of the O.E.D., for example, still sports this definition of the unusual word “abbreviator”: “a junior official of the Vatican, whose duties include drawing up the pope’s briefs” — which would clearly, after briefs-as-legal-documents transmuted into briefs-as-boxer-alternatives, benefit from some rewriting.

How Legislation Is Implemented III

In a word, slowly. This appeared in the Federal Register:

Implementing the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 Including How to Become a Patient Safety Organization: Interim Guidance Availability

from Regulations.gov

Implementing the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (of 2005): How to Become a Patient Safety Organization; Interim Guidance Availability

Don't Trust Mid-level Bureaucrats

The power of the bureaucrat who is politically-savvy and can forge connections to Congress is shown in Eric Lipton's story this weekend.

It's a version of the "iron triangle" (which I first heard used about a North Korean/Chinese area in the Korean War) where private interests, bureaucrats in the executive, and Congress types scratch each other's backs. What's unusual in the story is that the DOD bureaucrat was lower in the bureaucracy and more enterprising than one normally encounters. But the bureaucrat got dollars appropriated for programs that mostly weren't useful, except in keeping his bit of the bureaucracy going; the private companies got money, and the Congress types (Senators) brought home the bacon for the home folks. It's the sort of thing that McCain means in his attacks on earmarks.

Pure Sentiment--Cornell Photo

See here.

It's a nice photo.

Implementation (of FArm Bill)

I've commented on how long it takes to implement programs. Of course, USDA does much better. :-) (not really, I'm doing an oranges and apples comparison). Here's their report on implementing the 2008 farm bill. It makes a difference whether you're implementing a brand new program, or just an iteration of a program you've implemented before. It also makes a difference if the agency is used to implementing new programs.

Why the Amish Aren't a Role Model

I've done a fair amount of posting on the Amish, much of it based on Donald Kraybill's work. They seem, as a commenter on an earlier post said, to be a possible model for an alternative agriculture. Possibly, but I respectfully disagree.

There are many attractive aspects to the Amish way of life. The tight-knit community, the sharing of burdens, the evocation of a slower, more peaceful way of life, a way of life close to that which I experienced before 1951 (when we convert from horses to a tractor).

But the key to the Amish is they want to be "off-the-grid", not of "this world", outside the market economy. Their way of life is part and parcel of their religion, which ironically gives them advantages in competing with capitalistic, free market-oriented farmers. Consider:

• no health insurance. They do cooperate with modern medicine; see this article in the Smithsonian magazine about a doctor and the genetic diseases to which Amish and Mennonites are susceptible due to in-breeding. If memory serves, they paid for the treatment of the children wounded in the schoolhouse shooting.
  
• no social security. They rely on the close-knit community and the large families to take care of the children
• no college tuition. They don't go to college.
• no real estate loans. Their new settlements pay cash for land.
• no utility bills (except kerosene) No cable, no electricity. Well water and septic tanks.
  

All this is in addition to the better known self-sufficiency in food, shelter, and clothing.

So, based on these facts, the Amish can afford to farm small, farm solar (in Pollan's new phraseology.) They simply don't need the cash flow of a big, industrialized farm. I remain to be convinced there's a "middle way" (to re-use a term from the early '50's for a different purpose) between John Phipps and the Amish.

My mantra: the way you farm, the way you live, and the way you eat are all intertwined.

McCain Opposes Some Farm Programs

Dan Morgan outlines his position, not just anti-ethanol, but also "market access" (trying to find export markets).