New Technology

The Times blog has a post about a new cellphone/credit card system--the phone has a chip that communicates to a credit card reader. I believe recently I've also read of a cellphone/ID system, with user ids and passwords securely stored in the phone. So soon all of one's identity can be stored securely in one small device.

The only thing lacking will be a mental link--i.e. for us geezers who have senior moments, we need a device smart enough to sense when we're panicking about being unable to find it.

Newspapers and Legal Notices

So, if the newspapers go under, what will be the requirement for legal notices? (For the past year, I think notices of foreclosures have been the mainstay of the Washington Post.)

Seems to me we could do a lot better with such notices, just as we could with the Federal Register, by using current technology.

Gardening Boom?

Secretary Vilsack says here (interview while helping plant) the Obama garden may have spurred seed sales and others have speculated that the recession will cause people to save money gardening.

This may be so, but I can't see it at my community garden. The rules call for visible activity by the first week of May and usually there's only a couple plots idle by then. Right now there's a number idle. It may be the spring has been cool. Or maybe just a statistical anomaly. Or maybe Obama has all my fellow gardeners working overtime so they're too tired to dig.

Schafer on FSA Computers

According to this long interview post-Jan 20 with the former Secretary of Agriculture, FSA computers are his top concern. "An ongoing effort to get funding FSA computer revamping is just one of the issues of unfinished business when Schafer cleaned out his office Jan. 16. Security for the inauguration was using USDA offices because they’re directly on the National Mall."

I think the article errs on one point--last I knew the Secret Service doesn't protect cabinet secretaries. Which isn't to say they don't have security personnel, they do and Newt Gingrich fussed about it 15 years ago.

NASCOE Update

The National Association of State and County Employees (NASCOE) is the employee organization for FSA. The President has a report of her meeting with Vilsack and various DC (temporary) bigshots. Most of it (all of it, actually) is inside baseball stuff, the general status of various programs and improvements, issues on the proper classification of different positions, etc.

One item of interest to me: " Plans for future of IT include a central application server which a county office user will access using a thin client. This will make the system easier to manage and upgrade. Data will be stored on a central database. " I guess, assuming broadband in all counties, the location of data has become irrelevant. Even today, we can move graphic information (GIS images) around the web fast enough to service people. Of course, by 2013 FSA ought to be getting its acreage data by download from the planters and combines which are guided by GPS.

Another thing I noted: absolutely no mention of any need to work with NRCS on computer implementation. (So much for Secretary Madigan's Info Share initiative, I guess. (That's geezer inside baseball.))

Change Is Hard for the Post

The Washington Post recently changed their weekend format, doing away with their separate Book World, moving some reviews into their weekend opinion Outlook, etc. This weekend they had a glitch, which I failed to notice yesterday, but which was evident today. Briefly put, they printed their Sunday editorials, letters to the editor, and op-eds on Saturday, and then again today. I assume both sets of pages were in the computer and the wrong one got included in the press run. Such is the nature of change and computers.

Our Inefficient Government

Nextgov has a post which shows the inefficiency of the Federal government:

The Obama administration directed agencies in February to solicit input from employees on improving government transparency, but some didn't receive the message until after the comment period ended in March, according to several workers and consultants who provided feedback.

What happens, is each department and most agencies within each department, has it's own communication system. So a message from Obama to the lowliest Federal worker has to work its way through several message chains. (In the old days, the Civil Service Commission would issue its regulations in the Federal Personnel Manual, USDA's Office of Personnel would issue its regulations, then ASCS would issue its regulations.)

So there's no way Obama can directly contact bureaucrats in the agencies. That makes for inefficiency, but it also makes for a peculiarly American safeguard of liberties. By making government confused and fractionated, we soothe our fears of some great tyranny; at least, most of us soothe those fears, but there's still the people whose fears are live (we mostly consider those as the wingnuts of left and right).

Social Security and Foodies

I've one caution for those foodies who seek the simple life for its rewards. I surely agree one could be happy with a patch of land, a simple house, some animals, and some organics, at least as long as there's a good library nearby and broadband Internet connection.

But, and it's a big but, emulating the Amish or reverting to the diverse farms of 100 years ago is not simple. One of the hidden prerequisites of such a way of life is a large family, or at least a close-extended family. In other words--when there's no social security, when you become a geezer you become dependent on your children for your support. That's true for the Amish, it was true in 1910 farm life. Large families seem uncommon these days. To the extent single women have taken up farming, they are particularly vulnerable.

Yes, we have social security these days. (Social security coverage was extended to farmers in the mid 1950's.) But the size of your benefit is somewhat proportional to the amount of income you report and the amount of FICA tax you pay. If a quest for simplicity leads you to minimal income, or minimize your income on the 1040, or to skip paying the full 14-15 percent FICA tax for self-employed people, then you're vulnerable in your old age. (Unless, of course, you spent years toiling at the keyboard and establishing your 40 quarters. Then you will benefit from the structure of the system, getting higher benefits.)

Carbon Offsets from a Bureaucrat's Viewpoint

Okay, I was a bureaucrat so when there's talk of paying farmers for carbon offsets, I immediately think of how it might be handled by USDA/FSA. And, because I'm stuck in a rut, I'm likely to think of structures FSA has used in the past.

Back in the 1970's there was something which strikes me as a parallel. Under the program then, ASCS (FSA's predecessor) established a "conserving base" for each farm. This was the acreage in "conserving uses" (think of it as hay fields, pastures, grassland). Under the program,as a condition of receiving benefits farmers might be required to increase the acreage in conserving uses for the year (and not break out any new cropland). That seems to me to be a valid model for any future payments for carbon offsets. FSA/NRCS looks at the farming operation, documents what's being done already which impacts carbon sequestration. Call it a "carbon offset base". Then you could pay taxpayer dollars for changes to the operation which increases sequestration. But you'd also have to assess charges if and when a farmer changes her operation and reduces the carbon offset base. Or, assess the operation yearly and make yearly payments.

No doubt I'll have more to say as the subject continues to heat up.

Maybe Dairy Isn't the Only Real Farming

I've always thought dairying was the only real farming, up at 4 am for first milking, do second milking at 4 pm, 365 days a year, plus all the chores. Hens are almost as bad, but you could feed and collect eggs starting at 8 am and finishing at 4 pm. I know that's parochial, but humans are.

But this piece on doing flood irrigation gives me a sense of some of the work other farmers do.