Problems at the USDA Blog?

Here's the August post on the USDA blog with my comment.

Here's the text of a comment I've received (similar to ones I've received sporadically over the weeks).

Ephedrine faq. wrote:

[Trackback] Ephedrine. Pseudo ephedrine. Bronch-eze ephedrine. Danger of ephedrine. Ephedrine products for asthma.

----
Respond to this comment at:
http://www.usda.gov/blog/usda/entry/h2_peoples_garden_workshop_focuses#comments

When I use the "archives" feature to scroll through the posts for a month, for both August and July a handful of posts at the end of the month are displayed, but nothing for the first part of the month nor is there a way to find older posts. 

Bottomline:  somehow USDA isn't paying a whole lot of attention to their blog.

The 11th Commandment

Republicans believe Ronald Reagan is the Alpha and Omega of their political wisdom, at least until it comes to upstate New York, where the young whippersnappers don't seem to rememberhis 11th Commandment.

World's Slowest Landslide Has a Great Name

Actually, I don't know this is the world's slowest landslide, but it sounds likely:

William H. Schulz and Jason W. Kean of the United States Geological Survey, with Gonghui Wang of Kyoto University in Japan, studied the Slumgullion slide in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. This slide is 2.5 miles long, about 350 yards wide and 65 feet thick at its lower end, and moves an average of about a half-inch a day. Because it moves so slowly, it is not hazardous (although it will wipe out a state highway in about 100 years) and is ideal for study.

Big Farms Are Better for Workers?

That's the thesis of this Slate piece, based on time spent in California fruit and vegetable farms and discussions with migrant workers.

In IT terms, it's the difference between working for Microsoft or IBM (back in the day) and a small contract programming shop.

The Ups and Downs of Farming

Farm Policy summarizes the dangers to farmers of the recent wet weather.  City folk, as mom would say, don't have a conception of how variable things can be.  An excerpt: " “Over the past two months, futures markets have added about 36% to the price of corn and 17% to the price of soybeans, in part due to the difficult harvest, said Joe Victor, vice president of marketing with Allendale Inc., a commodity-research advisory firm. Corn futures for December delivery closed Friday at $3.66 a bushel.”"

(In fairness to city folk, I'm sure there are economic niches other than farming subject to ups and downs. Which would you rather be, a corn farmer or a middle-aged newspaper person?)

Why Don't the French Have Ghosts?

That's the question Dirk Beauregarde asks here.

Blasts from the Past

Just finished the book on National Security advisers by Ivo Daalder and I.M. Destler.  Having lived through the era (from McGeorge Bundy in JFK's administration through Stephen Hadley in Bush's), there wasn't that much new for me.  But their judgments were interesting: Bundy/JFK and Scowcroft/Bush come out the best, with the latter combo no. 1).

The book moves quickly, and I'd recommend it if your taste runs to bureaucratic politics.  A few notes:

• all honor to Bromley Smith, who was an unsung bureaucrat at the beginning who established many of the essentials of the national security system
• when the right wing faults people for not reading the 1,000+ pages of various legislation, they would do well to remember that Bush's NSC adviser failed to read the 90 odd pages of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq before the Iraq War
• when the right wing faults Obama for dithering, they might reread the narrative of how Bush took us into two wars
• when the right wing faults the "czars", they might remember the national security adviser is neither statutory nor confirmed by the Senate
  

The authors' major point is that the President and his adviser are a unit, the one should compensate for the weaknesses of the other.

The Last Farm on Manhattan

From the 1930 blog:


10 years ago, 5 farms remained on Manhattan Island. Now only one does, occupying a block at Broadway and 213th St., growing vegetables and some chickens.

The Spread of GMO Seed

Treehugger has a post on Canada's problem with GMO seed in flaxseed.  Tests find 1 seed in 10,000 is a genetically modified strain which was never grown commercially, but which was approved by the Canadian agency.  It's causing big problems with exports to the EU.

Apparently some people planted it and it has spread. It seems impossible to separate out such seeds, so presumably the strain will keep being planted and replanted. I wonder: what's the eventual outcome? Is natural selection suspended in our fields of flax, so it will remain at 1 in 10,000, or will the proportion gradually increase or decrease?  I also wonder, once we decode the genome for everything, will [deluded] people somewhere start enforcing a sort of genetic purism, accepting only those strains/varieties which originated before the advent of genetic modification?

Catch-22 in the Courts

Via Volokh Conspiracy, can one file suit against people who:" ... conspired with the American government in its attempts to eliminate him and have otherwise taken various steps to interfere with his ability to establish himself and live freely as a martian."?

Answer: No. "...It follows that if the plaintiff is not a person in that he is neither a human being nor a corporation, he cannot be a plaintiff as contemplated by the Rules of Civil Procedure. The entire basis of Mr. Joly’s actions is that he is a martian, not a human being. There is certainly no suggestion that he is a corporation. I conclude therefore, that Mr. Joly, on his pleading as drafted, has no status before the Court."