FSA Office Employees Commute

I remember a state specialist in Washington (state) who refused to come to DC. He had several reasons, but as I recall one was the idea he lived close to the office. And that's the mental image I've had all these years--in the counties the employees are living nearby and there's definitely no rush hour.

I may have to try to reconsider, given this quote from a NASCOE report:

"In my county office I have 2 employees who are each traveling over 86 miles a day." (I wouldn't be surprised if one of the employees had transferred from a closed office, but I don't know. Whatever the cause, 43 miles is a long commute.)

Ag Land Prices Decrease

For a while I thought I was seeing an exact duplication of the 1970's and 80's in the boom and bust of farming, but I guess the land prices never took off quite as much. So now the value of good farmland has dropped only 6 percent, which shouldn't put too many people in trouble.

FSA and Payment Limitation

This Agweek report should, but won't, cause the greens and foodies to have a second thought about tightening payment limitation rules. Why? It shows, at least to someone who's familiar with the process, the complexities of enforcing the existing rules. I'd guess this case has probably taken several years worth of USDA employee time. Bottom line: if someone lies, how the hell does a government bureaucrat find the lie? More important, how do you get enough proof to convince a Federal prosecutor he or she can convince a jury of the farmer's peers to convict? And finally, how do you get the money back? Those difficulties can be daunting. I suspect, but don't know, the psychology is often similar to dealing with a problem employee, or a problem person; it's easier to close one's eyes, to let the possible problem pass, to let the cup pass from one.

That's why we need a certain number of classic bureaucrats, those who self-righteously want everyone to obey the rules, to the letter.

North Dakota

One of the problems of farming in the "pothole" country of the Dakotas and MN is they expand and contract. I remember in the early 80's they were contracting and the issue was whether the exposed land could quality as cropland under the farm programs. Now the same land is 6 feet under. (Nice to see Dale Ihry has survived FSA for 17 years in the state office.)

North Dakota has been locked in a wet cycle since 1992, said Dale Ihry, program specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency. Devils Lake has risen more than 20 feet in that time, he said, taking tens of thousands of farm acres as it grows.

Big Plans Sometimes End in a Little Tinkle

From Obama Foodorama, on the visit of San Fran Mayor Newsom to the White House. Newsom had a "Victory Garden" planted last July(?) but:

The SF Victory Garden was de-installed in early December, because the cost of security guards to keep it from "becoming a toilet" for the local homeless population was about $14,000 a month.

The piece has a couple photos of the White House garden.

French Dairy--A Vote for Metrics

Also from Mr. Beauregard, a post on the crisis of French dairy farmers. Makes me wish we had followed the wisdom of the Founding Father, Mr. Jefferson, and adopted the metric system totally. (I'm too lazy to convert litres into gallons and euros into dollars.)

Bad News for USDA

USDA had the second largest drop (after SEC, which is understandable given the stock market) in the rating of "Best Places to Work." And OMB director Orszag says he's looking at the poorest agencies to improve.

Ironically, given the pasting USDA's taken over discrimination (Pigford), USDA scores considerably better among black employees than among all employees. And it's fourth! on "support for diversity". Bet that doesn't make many news articles.

A Depressing Sentence, Even for a Geezer

From Dirk Beauregard's invaluable blog on French culture and society:

"Nowadays, very few French girls seem to go topless"

I think the world has grown more conservative, at least in some ways, since my youth.

Quote of the Day

“I run every year,” said Morley, “whether I need to or not.”

From the Ipswich, MA election reporting. Shows public spirit hasn't vanished in MA. (And for the historians amongst us, who woulda thought we still had "Feoffees" in these United States.)

Torture Works, Ask the Nazis

I strongly recommend the Richard Evans trilogy on the Third Reich. First saw his "Third Reich at War" on the new shelf at the Reston library, picked it up, and read it. It's a big book, focused not on the course of the war, but what was happening in Hitler-controlled Europe from the start of WWII to the end. It's well written and interesting, appearing to a non-specialist as if it's balanced in judgment. Evans follows several individuals who wrote diaries/letters which were preserved, giving another perspective on the events.

After reading the book, I got the "The Coming of the Third Reich", which covers events from the end of WWI to the Nazis assumption of power. And now I'm in the middle of "Third Reich in Power".

One of the things which struck me in this book was Evans' casual mention of torture, which the Nazis used, particularly on the Communists and Social Democrats as they were destroying the two parties. Now the book was published in 2005, so it was well before the current controversies over torture. What I took away was the Nazis assumed that torture worked, and Evans assumed it worked sometimes. I think that' right, at least in terms of a definition of "worked" as bending the subject to one's will. That's not necessarily the same as getting valuable information. (Remember, the North Vietnamese tortured their prisoners and some, including McCain, bent but it didn't do them much good.) But maybe I'm still reacting to the aftereffects of WWII, but we're the good guys, not the Nazis, and we don't torture. If holding to our principles costs lives of some good guys, that's the way it is. As John Wayne would say in some movie, "do you want to live forever".