Online Service at Social Security

Social Security Administration has added the ability to establish an account and access your personal data online.  Seems to be a good site, permitting very strong passwords (upper/lower case, multiple symbols--I used LastPass capabilities), and some questions which really are personal and can't be determined from online data, at least not until the Facebook generation reaches SS eligibility.)  Even offers the tie-in with one's cellphone, which is becoming popular these days.  One problem, though: apparently it's only available through business hours, not 24/7. ??

Tradeoffs in India

"Open wifi networks are banned in India, because they make life difficult for policemen. This is a bad tradeoff : we have sacrificed the immense gains from ubiquitous open wifi networks, in return for reducing the work of policemen."

from Ajay Shah's blog.

Pigford Deadline Today

The final date for submitting papers for Pigford II is today, applicable only to those who filed late for Pigford I.

Corn Prices and the New Farm Bill

Just a note based on items in Farm Policy--apparently the warm spring has meant early corn planting on large acreages which means prospects for the crop are good, which means prospects for prices are poor (maybe as low as $4--which would have seemed great when I worked).  And the evaluation of the Senate Ag farm bill is that if there are multiple years with lower prices the program payments will decline, an idea the evaluators don't like, preferring instead the guarantee provided by target prices set in the law.

"Progressives" and "The Progressive Farmer"

Minds are funny.  I just Google+1ed a post at Casaubon's Book, something I rarely do.  (The writer Sharon Astyk is deep into the foodie movement: peak oil, locavore, sustainable, etc. but very articulate.) The post was about gay marriage, and noted the legal and property considerations involved in marriage--recommend it.  She would qualify as a political "progressive" in most people's books.

Anyway, the next post on my RSS feed was Chris Clayton's column at "The Progressive Farmer".  The conjunction of someone who's really progressive and the magazine, which isn't progressive at all, at least in the sense that some of the conservatives I follow would use it (i.e., as an epithet, a tad better than "socialist" but much worse than "liberal") struck me. 

"Progessive" as used in connection with farming used to mean the wide-awake, up-to-date farmer, someone who was on his way to being an "industrial" farmer, as the foodies would have it.  It's rather ironic to me to see the evolution of the term.

Soybeans: It Wasn't Franklin After All

Earlier I linked to a blog post at Boston 1775 describing how Ben Franklin, the great bureaucrat, was the first with soybeans in the colonies, specifically tofu. 

Turns out that was wrong.  The soybean types have got to Boston 1775 and he has corrected the account.  It was really Samuel Bowen of Georgia, who was first actually to grow soybeans here and describe their uses.  But Bowen didn't get to tofu, so Franklin can still be the patron of the foodies.

Aside: it surprises me to find the China trade existing back in 1758, but apparently it was well established.  Although my rapidly fading memory of the book 1493 says countries other than England were trading with the Chinese maybe by the end of the 16th century.

Not Another Cheerleader

Sorry, but my political prejudices are showing.  This sentence from a Post profile of the young Romney jumped out: "He was not a natural athlete, but found his place among the jocks by managing the hockey team and leading megaphone cheers for the football team."

Clay Christenson--Mormon and Incredible Person

One of my favorite books (listed way down the blog and not updated for years) is Clay Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma..  Now the New Yorker this week has a very nice profile of the guy, a professor at Harvard Business. Unfortunately only the abstract and beginning paragraphs are available online, but I recommend reading it somewhere somehow.  He sounds too good to be true, but judge for yourself.

Bowling Alone and Kids

Awhile ago Robert Putnam got lots of attention for his book "Bowling Alone", in which he argued there'd been a decrease in associations in American life over the years, with a concomitant decrease in social capital.

I wonder, whether there's not been an increase in associations centered around kids: the notorious soccer moms who spend their time chauffeuring kids from one activity to another, meaning they coordinate with other parents.  So there might be a decrease in associations like the Elks or bowling leagues which are with peers, and increase in associations with parents.  That would mean a division in society.

Bureaucrat Started as GS-5?

The article "Master of Bureaucracy" doesn't say, but it's likely Bob Gates started as either as GS-5 or 7.  Government Executive runs a long interview with him:

• when he became Sec. of Defense, he didn't bring any assistants with him.  (That's amazing for anyone who's seen a transition at the top of a cabinet department.)
• kept quiet in meetings
• gave others credit
• fired people
• says DOD plans for war, isn't good at waging war, so had to go to task forces to accomplish things.

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