Aerial Photography/Satellites: Commercial and Government

I posted the other day about NRCS using aerial observation to check compliance with sod/swampbuster provisions.

There was a NY Times article today about conflict between the military and the National Reconnaissance Office.  It seems commercial satellites today are almost as good as the governments, particularly for the sort of imagery the military needs, and they're a lot cheaper.  So the issue is where to spend scarce dollars: on commercial contracts or developing the government's.

Along the same lines, I wonder if NRCS has looked at using Google Earth for a first crack at spotchecking practices.  Granted their imagery isn't updated often, certainly wouldn't be timely for FSA purposes, but it might work for some NRCS purposes.  Matter of fact, if the district conservationist "flew" the county through Google Earth once a year, couldn't she/he learn something?

Down the line, maybe APFO should tap into the commercial satellite facilities?

[Updated: added title]

Jury Duty Coming Up

From the juror instructions for Federal District Court:

What should I bring with me? What should I leave at home?

 

You should bring your juror identification badge, which appears in the middle of the left side of your summons, each day you report to the courthouse. The bar code is used to check you in at the jury office.[Barcoding jurors seems good--when I did jury duty in DC in 1970 or so we didn't have any badges.]

 

You must present a photo ID, such as a driver's license, when entering the courthouse. You and your belongings are subject to search. Please allow plenty of time to pass through security. It is very important that you arrive on time; if you are late, the entire case will be delayed. [Does this imply we're assigned to a case before we arrive? That's new to me but I see how it can work.]

 

Before they are assigned to a particular case, jurors often have to wait while important pretrial activities take place. [But this suggests we aren't assigned to a case??] You may want to bring reading material for those periods of time. You may also want to bring a sweater or jacket; the courtrooms are often quite cool.

 

For security reasons, you will not be allowed to enter the courthouse with cellular telephones, Palm Pilots, Blackberry e-mail devices, pagers, cameras, tape recorders, laptop computers or any other electronic device. [I wonder what happens to people's cell phones? Can they check them?  Pity the poor early adopters (and the mainstream these days) who use Kindle or IPad's for their reading.]

 
Potential weapons such as firearms, knives, pocket knives, scissors, letter openers, screw drivers, mace and pepper spray are also prohibited.

 This probably means little blogging next week, at least on days I have to go in.  Unfortunately getting to Alexandria from Reston is not easy.

Past Disasters

The roughly 3,000 people killed on 9/11 stand as a record.  But when you rank disasters in terms of the percent of total population killed it recedes.  For one, there's the 1,600 killed in a steamboat explosion (the Sultana carrying former prisoners of the Confederacy north).  Given US population then it would be more than 4 times worse than 9/11.

Helen Keller in China

My impression is that Helen Keller no longer plays the big role in our culture she used to.  But according to James Fallows, she's a big figure in China, being taught in the third grade.

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.