Filling Out Forms: Deferred Action

Wrote recently about Cass Sunstein and the OMB form approval process.  Today is the first day people can apply for "deferred action for childhood arrivals".  From the website:

Over the past three years, this Administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to transform the immigration enforcement system into one that focuses on public safety, border security and the integrity of the immigration system. As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to focus its enforcement resources on the removal of individuals who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety, including individuals convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on violent criminals, felons, and repeat offenders, DHS will exercise prosecutorial discretion as appropriate to ensure that enforcement resources are not expended on low priority cases, such as individuals who came to the United States as children and meet other key guidelines.  Individuals who demonstrate that they meet the guidelines below may request consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals for a period of two years, subject to renewal, and may be eligible for employment authorization.

Here's the application.  Note it can be filled in online, which is good, and it has an OMB clearance.  I suspect it was put together in a hurry.  I wonder about the software backing it up.  Apparently the process means: fill out online and print the form, mail the completed forms to a "lockbox" facility with the fee.  The forms are scanned to pick up the data.

A couple of nits: some of the entry blocks are blue shaded, some aren't.  The drop-down lists of state abbreviations includes "AA" and "AE", which points up the error of not including state name.  I also question whether the language on the site is clear English, but then they're anticipating criticism.

More seriously--I see we're still imposing our name structure on the rest of the world (first, middle, last; which doesn't work well for some of the other cultures in the world).

Returning to my previous post: this example both fits and doesn't fit.  It is a case of a new program which requires a new information collection.  But since it's the President's own priority and a key to a reelection, I'm sure Prof. Sunstein cleared it personally through OMB.  And since it's still using a hybrid process to collect data (i.e. print completed form then scan) it's an example of how backward even the Obama administration's effort at egovernment are.

Post and Crop Insurance

This Post article on the drought picks up on the criticism of crop insurance from the EWG and Heritage.

Farming Is Dangerous

This post at Northview Dairy is a reminder that farming can be is dangerous.

Input and Output: the Milk-Feed Ratio

This post reports a long time low in milk-feed ratio (comparing the cost of feed and the price of milk--low is BAD). [Note: a delayed post.

"
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a preliminary milk-feed ratio of 1.29 for July. That was down significantly from June’s ratio of 1.38.
None of the milk-feed ratios on record, going back to 1985, have been this low. The lowest ratio recorded in 2009 was 1.45."

My Relative With a Gold Medal

Here's a picture of a cousin of mine with an Olympic gold medal.  It's an illustration from his father's blog on attending the Olympic games.

Cass Sunstein and Catch-22

Cass Sunstein is leaving as head of regulatory review for the Obama administration, but before he's out the door he's pushing the idea of making government forms simpler, by testing them through focus groups or similar processes.  That's fine and dandy, but...

What's my but?  

Most government information collections (forms) are well-established, but some are new. The memo which Sunstein's post links to, further links to earlier guidance, including a detailed Q&A put out by the Bush administration.  There we learn that you need to have OMB approval before using focus groups over 9 people in total.  So if I've got a new program which requires a new data collection and a new form, I've got to get OMB approval twice: first of the draft form, second, after I've run the draft through my focus groups of the final form.  It would make more sense to give blanket approval of focus groups without this Catch-22.  Matter of fact, changing the guidance for OMB approval of information collections to require focus group (or equivalent) testing in the documentation would be good.

But I've got another but.

Sunstein's initiative shows how stuck in the past OMB is.  He should have been leading a transition from paper-based collections to Web-based collections.  He didn't.

Paul Ryan and the Farm Bill

Chris Clayton at DTN is fast off the mark in evaluating the impact of the selection of Paul Ryan as VP candidate on the prospects of the 2012 farm bill.  In a sentence:

"At the same time, the selection of the Wisconsin lawmaker now makes it unlikely House leaders would consider passing a farm bill without major modifications to satisfy fiscal conservatives --- certainly not before the presidential election."

[Updated with link]

Switchblades and Crime Myths

Volokh Conspiracy had a puzzle post on switchblades, which long ago were the subject of a civic moral panic, perhaps centered around the movie Blackboard Jungle.  As teen culture rose to prominence in the 1950's, the violent teen with a blade was feared, and we passed laws banning switchblades.

Amy Wilson at the Rural Blog links to a post at Metrotrends Blog on 10 crime myths. For anyone under 40 you're safer from crime now than you've ever been.  I'd question his statement on fingerprint matching being "entirely subjective" but otherwise it seems well founded.

My point: the public can panic based on false impressions.

What's the puzzle: what category of people is excluded from a switchblade ban?  Go to VC for the answer.

[Updated to change to "moral panic".

Bureaucrat of the Month: Mr. Masao Yoshida

Who is this Yoshida and why does he matter? 

According to this NYTimes article, he was a manager at the Japanese nuclear reactor site hit by the tsunami.  The article reports on a set of videos just released which document the chaos at the site over some days.  But, if I read it correctly, Yoshida was onsite, doing his best to direct workers, getting bad advice and orders from big shots who were ignorant, and generally being a good bureaucrat by this definition: when the environment the bureaucracy was designed to handle goes berserk, a good bureaucrat does her best.  Two paragraphs:

At one point in the videos, as conditions at Reactor No. 3 are deteriorating, raising fears of an explosion, Mr. Yoshida sends a team of workers out from the bunker with this message: “I’m truly sorry. Please proceed with the utmost care.” 

He later suggests that if the situation does not improve soon, he and some older workers will consider “a suicide mission” to pump water into the reactor, a decision officials at headquarters said they would leave to him.

Six Weeks (on the Western Front of WWI)

Six Weeks is a book Tom Ricks recommended at the Best Defense blog.  The title refers to the average lifespan of a junior officer in the British Army assigned to the Western Front.  It's good, although given to the rosy.  The writer organizes his work by the phases in an officers life, education, training, etc. and uses lots of quotes from memoirs, letters, biographies.

He notes early on there was 5 inch difference in height between the (upper class) officers and the "other ranks"-enlisted men.  That's rather shocking, a dismal reflection on the British class system.  But then there's this difference in our own class system: having a college education makes a difference in lifespan of over 10 years.