Gains in Afghanistan

David Ignatius has a column in the Post today on the positive side of the war in Afghanistan.  Most notably:

"Life expectancy has increased from 44 years to 60 in the past decade; the maternal mortality rate has declined 80 percent; the under-5 mortality rate has dropped 44 percent. The number of primary health-care facilities has increased nearly fourfold."

I'm amazed the gains can be so great in such a short time.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place--FSA

The good bureaucrats at FSA are between the rock of current law (the extension of the 2008 farm law) and a hard place--the certainty that direct payments aren't going to survive this Congress.

Why do I say "certainty"?  Because all parties agree there needs to be more cutting, and direct payments was already on the block last year, so it will be one of the first candidates offered up this year.  According to today's Farm Policy, cutting direct payments was already proposed in a Republican amendment to the Sandy disaster aid package: i.e., the Republican majority wanted to offset some of the disaster aid with cuts to spending and they included direct payments.

So the bottom line is that FSA has to act as if they were going to have direct payments, but we all know farmers won't see a nickel of them.

Vilsack Stays

That's probably good news, since in my experience every new leader comes in thinking he/she has better ideas than the old leader, and at least half the time they're wrong.

Ben Franklin, the Chinese and Soybeans

I understand Ben Franklin imported the soybean  because of  tofu.  Today China accounts for 60 percent of soybean imports.

Suicides and Combat Deaths

According to this military suicides exceeded the number of combat deaths in Afghanistan in 2012. We don't pay much attention to either these days but apparently suicides are up and combat deaths down.  There might even be a relationship: possibly combat creates meaning which is missing when based in the states?  I don't know.

Nevada and Voter ID

I don't have much problem with phasing in voter ID requirements, as long as it recognizes the problems of the elderly (and others).  I'm struck by this paragraph in a Politico story:

"One state, Nevada, is proposing a different kind of voter ID law — one that would cull photos from the DMV and state databases rather than making voters bring their IDs to the polls. If a voter doesn’t have a photo in the database, they would be photographed at the polling station.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/voter-id-battle-set-to-rage-again-86080.html#ixzz2Hmgw08u0

Makes sense to me.  If the bureaucracy already has a photo associated to a name, why not put the burden on the bureaucracy instead of the citizen.

The Oscars and Bureaucrats

The papers today note some of the top movies are favorable to DC figures, although the Post calls them "bureaucrats".  I don't think Lincoln qualifies as a bureaucrat, he was a politician and a good one.  The heroes of "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" could be called bureaucrats I guess, and since they'll never make a movie, good, bad or indifferent, about a USDA employee, it's about the best we can do.  (I enjoyed "Lincoln" and "Argo", haven't seen ZDT yet.)

The Past Was Long Ago--Pope Pius XII and the Nobility

Via Brad DeLong, this is the speech Pope Pius XII gave to the "nobility" (I think of the Vatican, but I'm not clear on it) in 1943.  (DeLong is blogging WWII.) What struck me was how archaic the sentiments seem: the belief in the duty of the nobility, the patriarchy, the antagonism towards both the Reformation and the Enlightenment, etc.  It's a long way from this speech to Vatican II.

Video Teleconferencing Systems

This notice announces that systems bought in 2009 for FSA state offices are no longer under warranty and may be repurposed or disposed of.  Apparently they've been replaced by Cisco systems.  That should tell me two things:

• video teleconferencing has been very productive.  I suspect, though I'm too lazy to check, I've expressed skepticism on the point in the past.  So I'm glad to hear I was wrong, because in theory I'm all for it.
• the Cisco system is a very big upgrade over the Microsoft system.  If not, what's the justification for replacement?  There may be a hint when the notice says that many of the Microsoft systems are still workable; maybe they weren't very durable.

Profiling the Customer

Had an appointment at my HMO yesterday (Kaiser).  For the first time the technician was filling out fields for my race, languages, etc.  He was apologetic, explaining it was a new requirement.  I was struck by the parallel with FSA/USDA getting similar information from its customers. 

But his explanation was a bit different than FSA's would be: because Reston has so many people from different countries, the big justification for the data was to determine whether there were language barriers and, if so, whether Kaiser could get an interpreter with the right skills.