A Sardonic Smile for Grants.gov

Turns out the Bush Administration didn't give grants.gov enough horsepower to handle all of the Obama Administration's activity. See this NextGov article and here.

I guess the smile's actually on me--I've harbored a sneaky suspicion that many government websites, such as grants.gov, are overhyped and under-used. So the good news would be if Obama can crash a whole string of sites.

Newspapers, the End of

John Kelly has a cute piece in the Post painting the scene as the last newspaper and the last newsroom closes.

Stimulus Watch

An article in the NYTimes on the Interior IG who's moved over to oversee the stimulus mentioned this site as better than recovery.gov. I can see why. The voting pattern seems to favor big projects over small, but that's to be expected. When I checked, just before posting, the Laurel, MS doorbells were the top item. (After reconsideration,I removed "(the $155 doorbell)" from the title of this post--it's perhaps unfair. Let's see what the bid is.)

FSA and Stimulus Dollars

Here's the press release from yesterday issued by USDA on use of stimulus dollars (I used Tinyurl because I've heard a complaint about the length of the urls USDA generates). It went out yesterday. Here's the FSA reference:

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) will use immediately $145 million of the $173 million provided in the Recovery Act for its Direct Operating Farm Loan Program, which will give 2,042 farmers – almost 50% are beginning farmers and 10% are socially disadvantaged producers - direct loans from the agency. These loans will be used to purchase items such as farm equipment, feed, seed, fuel and other operating expenses and will stimulate rural economies by providing American farmers funds to operate. Currently, farmers are struggling with the high costs of running family farms, seriously affecting beginning and socially disadvantaged producers.

But there's nothing on the money for FSA computers. It's not clear from the release whether the 2,042 farmers already have approved applications with the agency, but that would be my assumption. (Otherwise, how do you know the number and the demographics?)

Taste for Porn

Marc Fisher has a post on various correlations of porn subscriptions to characteristics of states. Best I can tell, there's no "take it to the bank" correlation with anything.

First Reading

Understanding Government has a post in praise of the Sunlight Foundation's proposal that no bills should be passed before they have been available for reading for 3 days. It's the sort of good government reform I'm okay with (my lack of enthusiasm is based on cynicism).

Makes me wonder though. If I recall my days of reading the Congressional Record (back in college, when I got seriously lost in doing a term paper amidst the debates on naval building at the turn of the century), parliamentary procedure calls for three "readings" of a bill, once when it's introduced, once when referred to committee, and then upon consideration. (See this link for more precise information.) Problem is, the "readings" are pro forma and are waived. I suspect that practice evolved because people could rely on reading the printed page. And, where time became critical, people just acted on trust. I think now the pattern is--the clerk reads the title of the bill (or amendment) and it's considered read, and GPO inserts the text when the Record is printed.

My point: rules on paper can only go so far in making people use their heads. Cynically, thinking is hard work and people are often lazy. (Until their ox is the one gored [to use a good old agricultural metaphor]).

IBM, Farms, and Cities

The back page of the NYTimes has an IBM ad, which notes figures something like: in 1900 13 percent of the world's population lived in cities, now it's 70 percent. This leads to various profound thoughts supporting IBM's business strategy.

What that says to me is two things: "industrial" agriculture with its efficiencies has made the migration possible, and people prefer the opportunities in cities to the back breaking of "artisan" agriculture.

Mother Jones on Organic and Sustainable Agriculture

Via Kevin Drum, here's a long and good article in Mother Jones on the current and future state of organic and sustainable agriculture. It's challenged by some of the comments, but because it agrees with me, I think it's good. I do think he gives too much credibility to the urban agriculture possibilities and ignores the importance of market forces.

For example: "food miles". Whether or not it's more environmentally friendly to grow sheep in New Zealand and ship the resulting lamb to the UK is a question. But IMO the way to answer it is to ensure the cost of transportation includes all the externalities. In other words, a carbon tax. (I've more faith in a carbon tax than in trading carbon offsets under a "cap and trade" policy. My experience in implementing payment limitation rules suggests a tax would be better and more easily enforced.)

Car Seats Kill Innocents

Gene Weingarten has a very good article on how parents kill their children in today's Post magazine. It's called "Fatal Distraction" (through the Swiss cheese syndrome). (The rationale of my title--by moving young children from the front seat, which is where they rode (and died) in my youth, to the back seat, car seats have made children less visible and therefore more likely to be left in a closed car on warm days.)

The article introduces various parents, describes the inconsistent ways in which the legal system treats them, and notes the obsession we humans have with believing the world is understandable and operates by rules.

George Will Channels Michael Pollan

In his Sunday Post column. The "comments" are interesting, since Will ends up on the left, surprising many. As I've said before, I find Prof. Pollan to be a fine writer who's unforgivably careless with the facts. And Will's second paragraph is so sloppy as to be almost senseless. So, as usual, I find myself disagreeing with Mr. Will