What Is Moore's Law for Genomes?

Recently had a DNA test run by ancestry.com for genealogical purposes, so I'm following news on the genome side a bit more closely these days. In IT there's something known as Moore's law, which talks about the rate at which technology improves (doubling every 18 months). In genome decoding, there seems to be something similar going on, according to this Technology Review article:

• first genome = $300 million
• James Watson's genome = $1-2 million
• Yoruba man's genome = $250,000
  

The 30-Year Bond

Remember when the Bush Treasury killed the 30-year bond? Those were the days when people worried about budget surpluses forever and what would happen as the debt was reduced.
Calculated Risk talks here about the problems of financing the debt in today's environment. One thing that strikes me is the supply of treasury bonds is going to expand greatly. That means the price is going to go down, meaning the effective interest rate goes up. That can put President Obama back in the vicious circle we had in the late 80's--high interest rates mean the budget cost of financing the debt rises, making it all the more difficult to balance income and outgo.

A Role for Newspapers

One problem with blogs and online journalism is, how do you preserve memories? You buy a newspaper for historic dates, like 11/4/2008. See Joel Achenbach.

Good Advice for the New President

We may have shortages of many things, but advice for the new President is not one of them. Here's a bit from a piece in Government Executive

The new president and his appointees must embrace the career executive corps and effectively engage it if they are to meet those challenges. The almost 7,000 career federal executives, with an average of 26 years of experience, competed for their jobs and were selected on merit. They are an absolutely essential link between any administration's policies and agency implementation at every stage. Perhaps most important, they are the key to mobilizing the 1.8 million federal civilian employees (and millions more contractor staff) to carry out both initiatives and reforms of existing programs.

Who wrote it? Only the most objective of people, Carol Bonosaro, who is president of the SES organization.

There's probably a law of economics: the supply of advice rises as the time available to consume it declines;

Prop 2 Passes

Proposition 2 in California, requiring more space for animals (mostly hens), passed.

Speculation Begins: Payment Limitation

The prospect of a new administration always brings a lot of spin and speculation, most of which is worth very little. Sen. Grassley speculates on one of his favorite ideas, as reported by Keith Good at Farm Policy.

Payment Limits

Chris Clayton reported yesterday at the DTN Ag Policy Blog that, “An advocate for tougher payment limits, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, looked at the glass half-full when he was asked about what he would expect to happen next year in Congress, particularly given that Democrats are expected in the elections to expand their majorities in the House and Senate.

More Democrats in Congress could likely increase the likelihood that farm payment caps could be tighter. McCain and Obama backed efforts by Grassley and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to lower payment limits to $250,000. Grassley said hopes that the payment cap would come up in the budget discussions, as it has in the last three years.

“‘If it does come up, I would think it would have a good chance of passage, considering how bad the budget situation is,’ Grassley said in a weekly conference call with reporters Tuesday. ‘They are going to look for every way they can to save money, and particularly Obama during the debates said he was going to go through a line-by-line approach. Well, this is one very obvious line where over the course of 10 years, somewhere between $600 million and $1.3 billion can be saved. I would think he would be looking at it and of course he would have bi-partisan support for it.’

Predictions Via Blogger--Followup

On May 30, 2008 I posted the following:

Blogger has a new feature, relatively new that is. The software will now honor a post-dated post. If I want to go on vacation, I could post date posts for the period of time I was away from the Internet and my dear readers would never know the difference.

That feature makes it possible for me to do some honest predictions--i.e., I put them out in a post now, and copy the post and date it for whatever date in the future.

So, what do I feel safe in predicting?

• concern about "peak oil" will fade as oil prices drop. They're now about $130 a barrel, I predict them to fall to $80 by January 1. (Of course, I would have made a similar prediction last year--a big drop in prices.)
  
• Obama will win the Presidency in a squeaker.

Markets in Everything

I'm stealing from Marginal Revolution, but from the Left Coast (SF/Berkley) comes My Farm
which will farm your backyard. No kidding--it provides a CSA type contract using your backyard. Personally, I sometimes think the health advantages of locavore/organic gardening probably accrue more to the people who grow the food, rather than those who eat it.

Organic

Cindy Skrzycki in the Washington Post has a piece on organic dairying and the USDA regulations (basically requiring "organic" dairies to put their cows to pasture 30 percent of the year. That seems an easy requirement, we went from May to October in upstate NY.)

I found this bit to be revealing:

"Barbara Robinson, who oversees the National Organic Program at USDA, said the proposal is expansive because the agency wanted to lay out as many options as possible for the organic industry.

"We have no hidden agenda," she said, adding that she hopes a final rule will be published in the spring. "It's their rule, their industry and their marketing claim."

What's happening here is true of many programs--the government runs a program for and on behalf of a small group of people, those whose life is tied up with the program. After all, how many people really care whether the pasture requirement is 30 percent or 50 percent? The dairymen and a few organic activists. The rest of us will decide whether to buy milk labeled "organic" based on our evaluations (price, perceived health benefits, perceived animal care values, etc.). This dynamic, though, works across the board in government. It accounts for "earmarks" and lots of "waste" and "fraud", much of which is in the eye of the beholder. The ordinary citizen will perceive things to be waste which would astound the person who's "into" the program.

The Amish and Voting

Slate has a piece on the Amish and their voting, or non-voting. She doesn't mention that the Amish don't vote for their bishops, they choose them by lot. (Makes sense, if you believe that God's will rules everything, let Him choose the bishop. It's also egalitarian, which is also part of their ethos.)