What Is Good Housing?

Little house on the prairie really was little: 12' x 12'.  See Wilder's homestead claim at National Archives.

Distribution Software and the Egg Recall: Blame It on the Railroads

Here's an interesting post on the distribution process for eggs.  I got an email from the author I guess because I'd posted on eggs and the salmonella recall.   The anti-NAIS people won't like this bit:

In fact, some industry groups are advocating for recall planning guidelines, such as the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI). The PTI’s ultimate goal is supply chain-wide adoption of electronic traceability for every case of produce by the year 2012.

By contrast, see this post which questions FDA's approval of certain salmon, on the basis FDA can't track eggs.

Are Republicans Different?

I generally assume that there's a good deal of symmetry in American politics with a normal distribution curve.  In other words, both right and left have their extremes, their nuts, their excesses, and we all have our blindnesses.  I still think it's a good assumption, good to moderate my tendency to self-righteousness, the feeling I know better.  But,as Kevin Drum notes, over the past 10 years the sorting process whereby political partisans listen to their favorite cable news channel worked more strongly for Republicans than Democrats.  I don't understand why, if my operating assumption is true.

Are We a Center-Right Nation?

That's the conventional wisdom among many of the bloggers/columnists I follow. Pollsters seem to suggest the same: there are more conservatives than liberals.  But my memory says that two or three times in my lifetime one party has had 60 or more Senate seats, each time the Democrats.  Why is that, if we are center-right?

MIDAS, GAO and Enterprise Architecture

A recent GAO report on "Enterprise Architecture" shows why agencies like USDA have problems with their IT projects.  I quote one sentence from the summary:

The framework consists of three interrelated components: (1) seven hierarchical stages of management maturity; (2) four representations of management attributes that are critical to the success of any program or organizational endeavor; and (3) 59 elements, or building blocks, of EA management that are at the core of an EA program.

My point is, this sort of language quickly turns off the policy and program people, who just happen to be the ones who have to make the decisions.  What decisions might management have to make for MIDAS?

• what's the time frame, both for implementation and for use of the product?
• how secure is the funding and, if insecure, should the project be structured accordingly (i.e., incrementally rather than globally)?
• which FSA programs will continue over the time frame and which will be changed, discontinued, etc.?
• to what extent should FSA support RMA and crop insurance and what support can it expect from RMA
• to what extent should FSA support NRCS and what support can it expect from NRCS?
• to what extent should FSA support RD, Extension Service, APHIS, NASS? 
• to what extent should FSA GIS layers be pushed into public and other governmental areas
• should FSA focus on the most efficient delivery of benefits to farmers, regardless of the impact on county offices, or should it give priority to face-to-face contact with farmers at the local offices?
• should the focus be on maximum use of  Government 2.0 techniques, or is there a misfit between current personnel and work patterns and such techniques?
• how seriously should FSA take Obama administration directives (on transparency, etc.)
 

Note these and other questions can't be answered by IT types or the GS-14's and 13's who deal with them. In my experience management figures most of its job is done once they've assigned the "right" people to an IT project.  Their attention quickly turns back to the daily business of running the agencies and satisfying Congress.

Buffett and Rhee on Improving Education

Courtland Milloy passes on this bit of wisdom from Mr. Buffett via Ms. Rhee: the way immediately to improve our schools is to outlaw private schools and then use a lottery to determine which school each student attends.

Works for me, but totally impossible to adopt.  Though back in the old days of the one-room schoolhouse, that was basically what happened.  Everyone in the area got the same educational opportunity.

Is Your Work Worth $1.2 Million?

That's what law firm partners in DC bill, $600 an hour according to Orin Kerr at Volokh passing on a study.  I'm giving them a break by saying they only bill 2,000 hours a year. (Indeed, one commenter says they can bill 5,000 hours easily.)  I'm not sure what a government lawyer gets, but it can't be more than 15 percent of that.

This disparity could explain why corporations always sometimes outmaneuver the federal government. What it doesn't explain, indeed it aggravates the mystery, is why the right claims federal government employees are so vastly overpaid.

How Smart Phones Will Drive Down Healthcare Costs

I think it's reasonable to say we're only just realizing how much of a game changer the smart phone can be.  By combining computer, camera, sound, and Internet in one small package it opens up new possibilities.  One of them seems to be health care.  Federal Computer Weekly has posts on using smart phones for  general outreach, for remote dermatology and for mental health.  Now much of this is probably boys with toys seeing nails everywhere to use their new hammers on, but out of many ideas will come some worthwhile innovations.

Obviously one of the big holdbacks for this is geezerdom: us old folks who haven't bought a smart phone yet and who generally are technologically backward.  What's worse is there's probably a high correlation between lack of adoption and iffy health.  (Though maybe not, I think I remember seeing that adoption of cell phones is higher among minorities.  So maybe it's the old WASP geezers in the hills of Appalachia like those I grew up amongst who are most resistant.)

One of the big advantages would be outsourcing the emergency room.  See Megan McArdle's post I referenced here.

Sugar Alert: Cuteness Ahead

What's cuter than a red-headed kid?  How about threered-headed kids?  What's cuter than three red-headed kids? How about a kitten?  What's cuter than one kitten?  How about several kittens?  What's cuter than several kitttens?  How about several kittens and red-headed kids?

Organic Growth in Bricks and Mortar

Organic Valley, an organic cooperative, is expanding its headquarters.  Hype is easy, bricks and mortar are hard.