Two Good Sentences From History

With apologies for the attitudes implicit here:

War aims, like a cat held up by the tail, have a way of clawing back at those who propose them....Women and war aims must be understood before they can be handled.

Via Brad DeLong's blog, the Harvard Crimson of Nov. 10, 1941 wrote on war aims (think Atlantic Charter and the Versailles peace conference).

One can only think of the long and extensive discussion of our war aims which occurred before the second Iraq war.

World Food Crisis?

So say some foodies.  But I see thisand I wonder:

Corn production outside the US in the 2011-12 marketing year is projected to be 6.6 percent larger than production of a year ago. Argentina, Brazil, China, and the Ukraine are all expected to have larger crops than those of last year. Of the larger producers, only Mexico is expected to have a smaller crop. Foreign wheat production is expected to be up 6.8 percent, led by a 39 percent increase in production in the countries that make up the former Soviet Union as that area recovers from the drought of 2010. Foreign soybean production is expected to increase by 1.4 percent

CFTC and MF Global

Chris Clayton has an outstanding post on the House Agriculture Committee's oversight hearings--two paragraphs:

"By my own count, the House Agriculture Committee has held six hearings on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's implementation of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. More than 30 witnesses appeared before the committee, which has issued 13 news releases on its work from Jan. 27 to date.

But in the entirety of the House Agriculture Committee's work, no one, as far as I can tell from news releases and hearing transcripts, asked anything along the lines of "Are there any loopholes that need to be closed, or rules that need to be implemented to protect client accounts from being raided?" Or, "Is there a loophole big enough to drive a massive bankruptcy through?" "Is there anything we're missing?"

Veteran's Day and Calvin Gibbs

Today's Veteran's Day, a day on which many good words will be said and many good people honored.  But as a veteran myself, I want to remind us that Lt. Calley and Calvin Gibbs were also veterans. Good men and women can do great things; they also can do terrible things; they can also fail to act when terrible things are done (see Paterno, Joe).  The presence or absence of a uniform, the taking of an oath to serve the country, none of that affects the human capacity for good or evil. Veterans are human, just like the rest of us.

Some People Never Learn: Erin Is Back

Erin of Raising Country Kids is back, a good photographer (how can you fail with cute kids and a puppy), very good writer, and not having learned how to simplify her life at all.

US as a Christian Nation: an Omission

Much debate over whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. (Some of my forebears knew it wasn't a Christian nation because it refused to acknowledge God in the Constitution, and therefore until 1830's refused to perform civic duties which would require oaths.) 

The National Archives has a daily "Today's Document".  Today's  is the "Secrecy Agreement"--after the Continental Congress had declared independence of George III, they started to get scared.  So they all signed an agreement in the fall of 1776 to keep their discussions secret.  Interestingly, although it's a solemn agreement, it doesn't include any swearing.  The fearsome consequence of leaking was to be treated as an enemy to American liberty.

Oops: Typos in Opera

From the Wolf Trap Opera blog:

"Watch out for those typos, some of which are inadvertently helped along by word processing… My recent favorite was Romeo’s aria “Slut, demeure chaste et pure.”  (In case you’re wondering, it’s “Salut, demeure chaste et pure”:

The Christmas Tree "Tax"

Ann Althouse is only one of the people highlighting the new "tax" on Christmas trees. Unfortunately USDA has a tin ear for political impact.  In the old days when the Directives Branch processed a Federal Register document for ASCS there'd sometimes be a press release included in the clearance package, particularly for CCC board decisions. These days they probably should do a blog post in anticipation of an FR document publication; just try to get their side of the story out.

I'm playing catchup today but this sounds like a new research and promotion program, voted on by the Christmas tree growers and with the fees to be used for promotion.  For some background on the research and promotion programs, here's the national ag law center's summary.

Election Report

We voted today.  Elections for the state legislature, Fairfax county board, school board, bond issue, soil and water conservation district. Lots of choices, so being lazy and too cynical for high school idealism basically used the Democrats' sample ballot.

The paper said there was a problem getting volunteers to man the polls, but there was the usual complement at our polling place. 

Because control of the state Senate hangs in the balance (the Reps are favored to take over, ensuring a lot of conservative social legislation will get enacted) we've gotten lots of calls.  Today we had 3 calls to be sure we voted since the Dems have us recorded as "sure" votes they're desperate to be sure we did.

After voting we went off to the theater to see "The Ides of March", which I'd describe as a mashup of Clinton/Edwards/Obama (played by Clooney, who was co-writer and director) as a candidate for the Dem nomination versus Ryan Gosling as an idealist whose illusions are shattered.  Good acting talent, well done, but no chance to feel good about either the country or the Democrats.  (That's unlike Primary Colors, which could break your heart.)

Farm Policy Versus EWG

Keith Good at FarmPolicy critiques the EWG assault on crop insurance in today's post.  In other news the AG committees haven't been able to agree on something to send to the supercommittee (last I saw rice and peanuts might keep direct payments) and Vilsack says USDA might cut 10,000 employees.