Government: Cycles of Reform and Relapse

The uproar over GSA's conference in Las Vegas reminds me that FSA had some problem in the 1990's. My memory is dim, but for a while meetings/conferences requiring travel required much more documentation and approval at a higher level than before.  I suspect after years went by such requirements gradually eased, at least until the next scandal.  Such is the way of government.

Great Bureaucrats: Willie Cooper

The USDA blog has a post on the career of Lousiana SED Willie Cooper,  who celebrated 40 years on the job yesterday.  That's 40 years as state executive director, a job which is usually a political appointment, and 55 years as an FSA employee.

To be blunt, the fact that Willie survived both Republican and Democratic administrations is a measure of how capable he is, not that the blog could say so, but I can.

Are Teens More Moral, or Just More Knowledgable?

Report on Ezra Klein that the teen birthrate continues to drop.  Not sure whether our teens are more moral, indulging in less vaginal sex and more oral sex, or using contraceptives more.  Or is there a national crisis because of a loss of testosterone?

Dueling Aerial Compliance: NRCS and FSA

ASCS/FSA has long used aerial photography to validate acreage reports.  It was a big deal in the 70's when we moved to aerial compliance using 35mm slides matched against the base photography.  Samuel T. Brown, Jr. and his shop got an award because they saved so much energy

Now it seems NRCS is into aerial compliance(for conservation compliance reviews):

Instead of staff taking photographs [as they did in last year's pilot], this year NRCS will contract to use special planes equipped with GPS-synched, high-resolution cameras attached to the belly of the craft.
“We feel this will be much more efficient,” said Adkins. “We went through several teams of volunteers to complete last year’s pilot project. All the banking and tight turning required to get good photographs took a lot of time.”

I wonder if there's been any coordination among the agencies.  Faint hope. (Though I suspect the parameters for NRCS are enough different than FSA to make coordination hard. I am a little concerned about the idea of notifying landowners of the flights--does that set a precedent for FSA, or is what I would guess to be a big different in altitude enough of a distinguishing feature?)

Life Mysteries: Procrastination

Why do we wait until almost the last moment to pay taxes.

Homogenous Countries: Not

Robert Samuelson repeats a mistake in yesterday's Post column, on measuring happiness in countries:

On the most comprehensive list, the United States ranks 11th out of 156 countries. Here are the top 10 and their populations: Denmark, 5.6 million; Finland, 5.4 million; Norway, 5 million; Netherlands, 16.7 million; Canada, 34.8 million; Switzerland, 7.9 million; Sweden, 9.5 million; New Zealand, 4.4 million; Australia, 22.9 million; and Ireland, 4.6 million.
All these countries share one common characteristic: They’re small in population and, except Canada and Australia, land mass. Small countries enjoy an advantage in the happiness derby. They’re more likely to have homogeneous populations with fewer ethnic, religious and geographic conflicts.

The fact is that at least six of the ten "homogenous" countries have multiple official languages according to the CIA world factbook  (Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand,  Ireland, Finland and Switzerland).

The mistake, which I think is common, is a reminder it's easier to think you are complex while others are simpl.

USDA Should Go on Telework?

USDA offices were closed because of a small fire and the resulting cutoff of power, says this Government Executive piece.  I wonder what sort of fallback plans they had in place?  Any?  Or just take leave?

War Averted?

Apparently so, according to this post. 
See after the jump.

Implementing Payment Limitation on Crop Insurance

I blogged about the GAO report on the impact of instituting a payment limitation on crop insurance. If adopted, FSA should send flowers to Sen. Coburn because I can't see any way for RMA/crop insurance companies to implement the limitation without FSA.

I'm not sure how it would work in practice--FSA has some experience with this sort of thing--I'm thinking of trying to apply payment eligibility and limitation rules on members of cotton and rice co-ops.  I suspect there'd be the same sort of problems with crop insurance.

Guerrilla Gardening and Life

The Post has an article on the new popularity of "guerrilla gardening", including throwing bombs:

They rush toward a drab vacant lot in Shaw. Some climb up onto the back of a truck to get better aim at their target. But these bombers aren’t likely to appear on any terrorist list or even get arrested. They’re throwing “seed bombs,” golf-ball-size lumps of mud packed with wildflower seeds, clay and a little bit of compost and water, which they just learned to make at a free seed-bombing workshop for Washington’s guerrilla gardeners.

 It goes on:

The bombs will — in theory — bloom into bachelor’s buttons and baby’s breath, forget-me-nots and marigolds when the truffle-size balls hit, then expand. It also helps if there’s a healthy spring rain, said Scott Aker, head of horticulture for the U.S. National Arboretum. If the bombs are launched into a sunny space where there’s not too much other vegetation present, then he gives the seeds a 70 percent chance of blooming. “But either way, it sounds like great fun,” Aker says. “On your commute, you can toss one out the window.”

I hate to be a party-pooper (I lie, actually; I love to poop on other people's ideas) but Mr. Aker has carefully chosen his qualifiers.  The likelihood of finding a bare sunny spot which gets rain is pretty damn small due a to 5-letter word: weeds. Weeds survive by colonizing any such spots.  And usually flowers which humans have cultivated over the centuries don't have the oomph to out-compete the weeds, as real gardeners know to their cost (of sweat and toil). 

But it's a fun idea, and in some ways a metaphor for life: we go through life tossing seed bombs, most of which fail to thrive but occasionally one will produce a short-lived bloom.