Sometimes I Wonder

How much attention is being paid to e-government? From the FSA explanation of its on-line customer statement:

"The USDA Customer Statement is a special focus of the eGovernment initiatives that Agriculture."

That's the first sentence on the explanation, with no verb after "Agriculture". It might be a false start, because the next sentence and the rest of page reads okay. But you'd think in 3 years someone would have noticed and corrected the error.

Who Watches the Watchers? GAO Lacks Controls

One of GAO's favorite criticisms of hard-working bureaucrats is "they lack controls". Yes, GAO is the home of the original Puritans, where control is everything.

Thus I take particular pleasure from this small item in the Post: a former contract worker for GAO was able to steal 89 laptops from them over a period of 16 months! Sounds as if they need to improve their controls.

Distribution of Organic Production

The other day the NY Times had a nice set of maps showing the distribution of organic production across the country. It seemed concentrated in the blue states, NY, MI, WI, MN, and the west coast. But Michael Roberts adds his expertise to caution us about easy interpretations of pretty pictures.

Good News for Foodies

According to their trade association, sales of organic products grew by 17 percent in 2008. (Nonfood products were up 38 percent.)

What The? Locavore Defends a CAFO?

That's not really the case, but it's a headline grabber. :-) What Walt Jeffries is really doing is defending rationality--mostly notably the fact that any animal operation has to deal with death so the simple fact a CAFO might have a few dead pigs is meaningless. My parents didn't do pigs, but my memory is we'd have a few dead hens in a year from a flock of about 1,000--but when predators got in or we got hit with infectious disease, the toll went up. And we lost some cows--broken hip, milk fever, ingested metal. It happens.

Marian Robinson

Since the President's mother-in-law is just a tad older than I, I can sympathize with her resistance to change as reported in this NYTimes article. (I particularly identified with the plotting her children did to persuade her to move.) Nice to know she's happy.

Words of Wisdom

From a piece in the NY Times on how Daisuke Matsuzaka's former baseball team used the $50+ million they got from the Boston Red Sox for his rights.

“If you are comfortable in the toilets, then everything is comfortable.”

Truer words were never uttered.

Some context:

Whereas the old facilities were dingy concrete latrines, state-of-the-art urinals line the men’s rooms along with high-tech hand dryers built into the bright blue and white tile — the team colors. But the main attractions are the new toilets with TotTo’s Warmlet seats in stalls with floor-to-ceiling doors.

Each stall in the women’s bathrooms holds a Toto Washlet, a toilet and bidet in one unit. These $1,500 fixtures provide a luxurious experience for fans, who may spend their time in the restrooms contemplating the full extent of Matsuzaka’s legacy with the Lions.

And if you're interested in the subject, read The Big Necessity. (The foodies pay lots of attention to the front end, but they're mostly whippersnappers and will find the back end more interesting as they age.)

A Criticism of National Black Farmer Association

Here's a press release criticizing John Boyd and his association

Best Sentence of May 2

Today the wife is away playing so I'm getting some spring cleaning done. But this is definitely the best sentence I've read today:

"Many of us get unique subsidies for keeping our body temperature close to 98 degrees"

From John Phipps re: cap and trade/environmentalism and farming.

Engber at Slate on High Fructose Sugar

See here for what seems to be a good summary of the corn-derived, high fructose sugar issue.