Multiple issues here on the farm, inclding working to get a rural water district started, speeches. field work, and the now-incredible complexity of hooking a green planter with a red tractor and third-party electronics. No excuse, but posting came in last.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Interface Problems in Farming
A reminder of how far farming has come since my dad's problem was hooking up the new tractor to the old horse-drawn mower: From John Phipps, excusing his slow blogging, emphasis added:
Friday, March 23, 2012
Unbelievable Weather
Went to Lowes for landscaping blocks today. They've got their tomatoes and peppers for sale. I want to yell: it's too damn early. Yes, the high today was 80+ (85 according to my car) and the leaves on the trees are opening. But we've had frosts in early May, a good 6 weeks from now. So there's a good probability of a frost.
Kevin Drum Is All Heart
It takes a big man to admit he's wrong, and being owned by two cats Kevin Drum is big. Today he admits to his misjudgment of Rep. Ryan's budget.
Saving on Healthcare Costs, the Stonehead Way
What we need in order to save healthcare dollars is some good old-fashioned gumption, like that of the Stonehead, who's been having a rough few weeks as he tries to raise pigs and do spring work with one good hand. But that doesn't keep a self-respecting Scot down, as you'll see in this blog post.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
James Q. Wilson and Alliance Bureaucracy
One of the good things about the late James Q. Wilson's book, Bureaucracy, was its inclusion of the military as a bureaucracy. Sometimes it gets very complicated, as in this diagram of the command and control structure for Afghanistan at Tom Ricks blog. I suspect a similar diagram for the Allies in WWII would be even worse.
Smoking and Sex
I owe a hattip to Suzy Khimm at Ezra Klein's blog; here's a post on the economist with maps showing worldwide cigarette consumption, by sex.
I wonder if the dynamics leading to male smoking in China are the same as in the U.S.
About 800m men smoke cigarettes, compared with fewer than 200m women. More than 80% of these male smokers are in low- and middle-income countries. The problem is particularly acute in China, where 50% of men smoke (compared with just 2% of women), consuming one-third of the world's cigarettes in the process.I can remember when the local radical (she was a Democrat and she wore slacks) was also a smoker, a scandal for a woman in that small community. She was one of my mother's best friends, and suffered from emphysema in her latter years.
I wonder if the dynamics leading to male smoking in China are the same as in the U.S.
Payment Limitation
One might think that with the likely demise of direct payments, the idea of payment limitations would recede into the background. But Chris Clayton at DTN reports Sen. Grassley and others are pushing revisions:
The legislation would have a $250,000 cap for married couples and maintains a hard cap on marketing-loan gains. Under a shallow-loss program, it would set a $100,000 cap for a couple under that program. It would also tighten language defining "actively engaged" to collect payments. Grassley said there are too many people claiming they are actively engaged because they participate in a phone call or two each year about the farm.Crop insurance would not be covered.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Path Dependency and the Butterfly in Politics
Chaos theory famously says that the flap of a butterfly's wing off Brazil could change the weather in the US. Path dependency says where you end up depends on where you start, that your choices are constrained by the initial conditions.
Freakonomics reports on a study which says, back when the Tea Parties first demonstrated, if the weather was good in the area the tea party grew larger and more powerful compared to the parties in areas where it rained.
Can I go from that and say if the night of the Boston Tea Party had seen a blizzard come in, we'd be celebrating our Queen's 60th year of rule?
Freakonomics reports on a study which says, back when the Tea Parties first demonstrated, if the weather was good in the area the tea party grew larger and more powerful compared to the parties in areas where it rained.
Can I go from that and say if the night of the Boston Tea Party had seen a blizzard come in, we'd be celebrating our Queen's 60th year of rule?
The Importance of Data Modeling
And thinking outside the box. The NYTimes has a piece on how American retailers are trying to open up their websites to foreign customers. Turns out it's not simply a matter of trusting shipments to UPS or FedEx. For one thing, some foreign countries have postal codes which aren't 5 digits. Imagine that!
I mock, yet the longer I live the more I see that my own data modeling efforts in the 90's were horribly limited by assumptions and chauvinism.
I mock, yet the longer I live the more I see that my own data modeling efforts in the 90's were horribly limited by assumptions and chauvinism.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Rep. Ryan and USDA
From Politico, reporting on the budget offered by the House Republicans:
"And with a new farm bill in the offing, Ryan envisions a major restructuring of food stamps together with cuts in commodity and crop insurance subsidies....
"
For the Agriculture Committee, which hopes to write a new farm bill before September, the expedited budget schedule poses both a severe challenge — and potential opportunity.
The draft numbers demand $8.2 billion over the first year, $19.7 billion over five years, and $33.2 billion over a decade. Indeed, the relatively high first-year number suggests that the budget will assume an early rollback of more generous food stamp benefits first allowed under the 2009 economic stimulus bill.
In terms of core commodity and crop insurance programs, the longer-term savings are considerably more than the draft farm bill negotiated by the House and Senate Agriculture leadership last fall. That measured saved just $23 billion over 10, compared with $33.2 billion.
But if a compromise can be found, the Agriculture Committee could find it in its interest to hitch a ride with the budget package so as to get a farm bill across the House floor with a minimum number of amendments.
Leaving himself a little room to bargain, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) gave a gentle reminder that farm policy is still his domain.
“I would caution people about reading too much into the numbers or policy proposals in either the President’s budget or the Ryan budget,” Lucas said in a statement.”They are only suggestions.”
"And with a new farm bill in the offing, Ryan envisions a major restructuring of food stamps together with cuts in commodity and crop insurance subsidies....
"
For the Agriculture Committee, which hopes to write a new farm bill before September, the expedited budget schedule poses both a severe challenge — and potential opportunity.
The draft numbers demand $8.2 billion over the first year, $19.7 billion over five years, and $33.2 billion over a decade. Indeed, the relatively high first-year number suggests that the budget will assume an early rollback of more generous food stamp benefits first allowed under the 2009 economic stimulus bill.
In terms of core commodity and crop insurance programs, the longer-term savings are considerably more than the draft farm bill negotiated by the House and Senate Agriculture leadership last fall. That measured saved just $23 billion over 10, compared with $33.2 billion.
But if a compromise can be found, the Agriculture Committee could find it in its interest to hitch a ride with the budget package so as to get a farm bill across the House floor with a minimum number of amendments.
Leaving himself a little room to bargain, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) gave a gentle reminder that farm policy is still his domain.
“I would caution people about reading too much into the numbers or policy proposals in either the President’s budget or the Ryan budget,” Lucas said in a statement.”They are only suggestions.”
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