My Rule 1, Only for Americans, Not Germans [Rev]

My wife and I were listening to the commentary on"Independence Day" by the special effects guys, one of them a German. The special effects involved blowing up the icons of American civic architecture, the White House, Capitol, etc. One of the themes of the commentary was the movie tried to cut corners, doing lots of stuff "in camera" (whatever that means--I think faking it with models and photos and stuff) and not with high-powered computers (back then he'd mean a 486 :-)). Anyhow, the blowing up was done using models, which of course would be expensive to make and you ideally would want to get the pictures in one take, so you didn't need multiple models.

The German commented that the German crews he had worked with expected less "leeway" compared to the Americans, that is, the Germans expected to get it right on the first take. The Americans, by implication, believed in my first rule: "You never do it right the first time."

[Added] Cultures differ. Perhaps it relates to the idea that the U.S. has always had plentiful natural resources, so we could afford a fast and sloppy effort, refined by trial and error, whereas in Germany the emphasis has been on precision, following rules and not wasting resources. (I believe Germany is maybe the second or third leading exporter in the world, much of it based on its machine tools and similar products.

Geezers Don't Give a ....

One sentence extracted from a quote in a long post on conformity by Robin Hanson, which I very quickly skimmed:

The association with age confirms other research suggesting that older people are less susceptible to social pressure.

I think it's true, for me, as I grow more and more conscious of my waning days, I sometimes feel freer to say "what the hell" and venture where I wouldn't have gone before ("venture" that is, in a very safe and intellectual, not physical, way).

Supermarket Pharmacy and Farmers Markets

The other day I passed by the pharmacy in my local Safeway. (The Safeway is the second store on the site--the original shopping center was too arty for commercial tastes, because it didn't open up to the road, so about 15-20 years ago so it got redeveloped into a more "traditional" strip-mall format with a much bigger Safeway. But the pharmacy was an issue, because there's also a drug stair in the center, which obviously didn't want the competition from a supermarket pharmacy. Resolving it delayed the redevelopment for a good while.)

Why have a pharmacy in a supermarket? Come to think of it, why have a bakery, a delicatessen, and a bank in the supermarket? Why have a meat counter and a fish counter? After all, in many European countries you have (or had) separate butcher shops and patisseries, etc.

The answer, in my mind, augurs ill for any idea of vastly expanding farmers markets. Americans, mostly, seem to have voted for convenience, for saving time, and we see the results of that election in the design of our supermarkets. I'd guess that going to any farmers market is going to cost the consumer 40 minutes of driving time and shopping time. Add that to higher prices and it's going to limit your sales potential, even if the produce is healthier and tastier.

Another Web Site for Agriculture

The NAL Blog references a new site, called the Agriculture and Public Health Gateway, sponsored by Johns Hopkins U. I've a couple reservations: some of the documents are from journals, meaning all a layman can get for free is an introduction or summary; and, at least for the farm bill area, the only documents are dated 2007 or before.

Government Management

Government Executive assesses the prospects for Obama to continue Bush management initiatives and thinks the financial reporting, e-government, and integrating performance ones will survive. The managing people and competitive outsourcing are more controversial and more likely to change greatly.

The Four Thousand Dollar Cellphone

DOD/NSA is praising its new cellphone, which costs a mere four thousand dollars. Actually, allowing for price drops for quantity purchases, it may be a bargain (it handles both secure and non-secure internet sites, etc. etc.). Now if the FBI and Census would adopt it and get some competition going, we might have something. But I'm waiting for a populist to complain about the cost.

Handling Comments

Kevin Drum is the latest to pick on the Bush administration for their procedures in handling comments on the regulations they want issued before January 20.

I never had to deal with anything like 200,000 comments, but I would give the EPA a break. 200,000 of anything can be sorted into categories. So reviewing the comments would be a relatively simple process:

1. take a random sample of comments, say 500 or so, and develop a set of categories, including a "further review" category
   
2. have your "reviewers" sort the remaining 199,500 comments into the categories
3. analyze each category and develop a response
   
4. analyze each "further review" comment and handle appropriately.

Simple, but it's a process I'd be comfortable defending against challenges.

I might challenge the Obama administration: what are you going to do with the input to your website? How will the process be better than what the EPA is doing?

[Note to self: Obama's been elected 3 days and I'm already challenging him?]

Dissing Bush

David Katz at Treehuggers.com suggests that President Obama should reinstall the solar panels on the White House roof. That's well and good, but a Google search would have revealed they were reinstalled, not under the Clinton/Gore administration, but under GW.

One propensity of political partisans is to refuse to believe the good about their opponents. (I earlier blogged about the comparison between Bush's house at Crawford and Gore's place in Tennessee.) It means humans are hypocrites.

Bob Bergland Advises

Quotes from the Chair of House Agriculture Committee, Agricnews Online via Farm Policy:

“He also wants to turn his attention to re-organizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said former agriculture secretary Bob Bergland told him ‘good luck.’ An audience member asked Peterson about the National Animal Identification System. Peterson said he’s not sure it’s the No. 1 fight he wants to take on at this time.

“The United States will probably have to have NAIS if it wants to be in export markets, he said, and if a terrorist introduces Foot and Mouth Disease in this country, the U.S. will wish it had NAIS.

This I want to watch. It's going to be a fight within the agricultural community--Obama doesn't/shouldn't have a dog in the fight.

Obama's Rural Change Page

From change.gov, Obama's new web site, here's the link for rural issues.

(Don't get all excited, I think they just copied the rural page from their campaign website, not that there's anything wrong with that.)