Farm Income Drops

From Farm Policy:

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts farm income of $49.1 billion in 2009 when adjusted for inflation. That would be a 39% drop from 2008, a record year when U.S. farmers earned $80.4 billion after expenses.

That's a bigger drop than most in this recession, though housing prices are falling further in some areas, I believe.

Greg Craig and Guantanamo

The Post has a piece saying Mr. Craig is off the Guantanamo issue.  Craig says he thought there was a consensus to close Guantanamo, instead he's run into resistance from both sides of the aisle.  Understanding Government has a post on it. I differ with their conclusion by going back to Tip O'Neill's saying: "all politics is local"--in other words, not in my backyard. The whole country could agree on putting the detainees in the Yucca Mountain repository, except for Nevada (whoops, that's nuclear waste). I don't see any of the left demonstrating in the streets in favor of any particular prison.  Hypocrites, all.

Ted Turner Is the Son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

This is from the 1930 Blog:

Largest contributors to League of Nations are Britain $559,712; US $450,000, and Germany $429,728. Of US contribution about $430,000 is private, mostly from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. US is not a member of the League.

(Ted Turner gave a billion to the UN several years ago. This JDRjr tidbit is a reminder of the internationalist outlook of some of the elites--Carnegie before WWI.)

Overconfidence Helps, But Why Underconfidence

Technology Review has a piece on why overconfidence (the idea one is an above-average driver, etc.) is evoluntarily sound.

In fact, overconfidence is actually advantageous on average, because it boosts ambition, resolve, morale, and persistence. In other words, overconfidence is the best way to maximize benefits over costs when risks are uncertain.

So why are some people lacking in confidence (as in social relations), why do that evolve?

Diversity and Races

The past was a different time. I stumbled across this in an article discussing the emigration from Ireland as a result of the Great Famine.  It's interesting to see the use of "races".  And the social analysis:

Since it must be so - since so large a part of our British fellow-subjects must join a foreign allegiance, or a colony all but independent, we rejoice to see, in this inevitable event, the providential means of a beneficial mixture of races. The history of this island shows by how many invasions, conquests, compromises, and fusions of races the British character has attained its noble though composite excellence. A walk in our villages or streets, the survey of a market, a church, or a dinner table, will bear out the truth of history that Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Dutch, Flemish, French, and even more races, go to the happy composition of an Englishman and English society. Hence the versatility, hence the enlarged sympathies of the race. It is ascribed to our position in a fluctuating climate, and temperate zone, that we are able to adapt ourselves to any region of the earth, and pass with little injury to extremes of heat and cold. To an unparalleled variety of national ingredients, and the kindred facts of our complex social state and mixed constitution, we owe it that we excel in so many departments of human ambitions, and enjoy so many internal sources of prosperity and happiness. The experience of our own good fortune makes us wish to see the Celtic race allied to more vigorous and fortunate elements. The fates, however, seem to forbid that fusion in these islands. The Celt calls Ireland his own, and is jealous of interlopers, while in England also our superior wealth and cultivation have created an Interval which can seldom be passed. Religion also stands in the way. That part, too, of our industrial system which would otherwise offer the best opening for union and improvement is too full and too fixed to admit a Celtic Immigration. A Connaughtman may bring his family into Manchester and hide them in a cellar, but he could hardly get a night's lodging in an agricultural village, except once a year, for himself and his sickle. Now America supplies the opportunities of national fusion and perfection which are impossible at home. In those vast and thinly-peopled countries labour is precious, has friends and elbow-room, finds openings and opportunities every where, and, what is more, feels itself neither intruder nor exclusive owner, but simply a free citizen on a free soil.

The Complexities of the Earth for Liberals

I consider myself a liberal, mostly, but the world is sometimes too complicated.  Consider today's NYTimes:

• liberals like historical preservation, but Greensburg, KS was leveled by a tornado.  The result, as they build from scratch, is highly environmental friendly town.  Lesson: there's trade-offs between history and efficiency. Technology in this case is a friend to the environment.
  
•  a judge rules USDA needed to do an environmental impact statement before approving GMO sugar beets.  But there's the claim: "Mr. Grant, who is also the chairman of the Snake River Sugar Company, a grower-owned cooperative, said easier weed control allowed farmers to reduce tillage, which in turn saved fuel and fertilizer and reduced erosion." People don't realize it takes significantly less energy per unit of output now than in 1970 for most major crops, precisely because of such advances in technology.
  
• the UN bought carbon offsets for the cost of its meeting on climate. "They offset those emissions by directing money to a power project in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, through which agricultural leftovers like rice husks and sunflower stalks are turned into electricity for the local grid." I always shudder when I hear such promotion of this use of biomass.  Don't people recognize that organic farming requires the return to the soil of organic matter, such as rice husks and sunflower stalks?  Otherwise you're mining the soil, to use a familiar idiom.
  
• an article describes a decade of stability in global temperatures and the problems it creates for  people pushing the fight against global warming. 
  

K Street Lobbyists and Other Trivia

Time for my dentist visit today.  His office is in DC near K St and 20th.  As usual I got downtown with time to spare, so I spent it people-watching.  My impressions:

• K street lobbyists and their support staff and the others who work in the K street area are not obese.  I may have seen more women who could put on 5 pounds than people who were obese.
• the briefcase is totally passe.  Mostly I saw canvas bags which could have been laptop carriers, sometimes carried by the handle, sometimes with a shoulder strap. That's probably mostly male.
  
• backpacks are in.  Saw a lot on both men and women.
• suits and ties are an endangered species. There were some men in the full getup, but it wasn't the majority.  Add in men with tie but no jacket and men with jacket but no tie and you'd get closer to a majority.

Other items--the Metro train was more crowded than on previous visits, there was almost universal violation of the HOT-2 rules on I-66, and there seem to be more acorns this year than last.

Most Annoying Headline Today

In Treehugger: Undisturbed, Prehistoric Sand Dune Discovered at Michigan State University.

I specifically object to "Prehistoric"--it's too broad.  I live in the watershed of the pre-historic Potomac River. I've forgotten most of my geology, but it almost sounds as if the dune might qualify for this headline: "Sand Dune at MSU Survived Last Glacier, and Man". If it really is a sand "dune", that to me implies it was created by wind. It could be a sand "bar", created by water during the ice age.

Webinar's for Government

I see FSA is sponsoring a webinar.

I've never participated in one, but I applaud the attempt to try something new (although I noted the other day NASCOE cited some problems with some new training using the web).  Anyhow, it's a learning experience.

And having mentioned NASCOE, their new website is progressing. I still wish they'd be more adventurous, but it seems as if it will be an improvement.

The Times Gets It Wrong [Or Maybe Not]

Unfortunately, urban myths circulate in many areas.  Sunday Andrew Martin of the NY Times wrote:

While the food supply grew faster than the world’s population from 1970 to 1990, as the Green Revolution’s gains took hold, the situation has now reversed itself. Productivity gains in agriculture have slowed, and since 1990, the growth rate of food production has fallen below population growth.

This, of course, is not true, even though it's a prevalent concept.  Via Wikipeda we learn that the rate of world population growth has  declined:

In 2000, the United Nations estimated that the world's population was growing at the rate of 1.14% (or about 75 million people) per year,^[27] down from a peak of 88 million per year in 1989. In the last few centuries, the number of people living on Earth has increased many times over. By the year 2000, there were 10 times as many people on Earth as there were 300 years ago. According to data from the CIA's 2005–2006 World Factbooks, the world human population increased by 203,800 every day.^[28] The CIA Factbook increased this to 211,090 people every day in 2007, and again to 220,980 people every day in 2009.

Globally, the population growth rate has been steadily declining from its peak of 2.19% in 1963, but growth remains high in Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.^[29]

Meanwhile, USDA in 2008 wrote:

The annual growth rate in the production of aggregate grains and oilseeds
has been slowing. Between 1970 and 1990, production rose an average
2.2 percent per year. Since 1990, the growth rate has declined to about 1.3
percent. USDA’s 10-year agricultural projections for U.S. and world agriculture
see the rate declining to 1.2 percent per year between 2009 and 2017.1

The ERS publication shows an increase in per-capita production in the period 1990-2007 and projects it to continue for the next 10 years, although at a much slower pace.

[Updated: I had made my point in an email to the NYTimes. Mr. Martin wrote back a response which says the wording could have been improved but the thought was correct, citing a conversation with Ron Trostle of ERS.  I'll try to research further.]