High Prices at GPO

I've been looking at the history of Washington, DC in the 1800's for a couple different reasons.  One is a writing project I may post about later.  Anyhow, I'd like to see this book on the Army Corps of Engineer involvement with DC.  I've read a bio of Gen. Montgomery Meigs, who engineered the dC water system, bridges, etc. in the 1850's-60's, and was quartermaster general in the Civil War.  Also read Liberty's Cap (I think that's the right title), which deals with the process by which the Capitol Building was given its final dome in the same period.  So I've got some idea of what might be involved, but this would be interesting.

Look at the price, though: $61.00.  I don't understand it at all. Why doesn't the GPO use print on demand?  Looking at Amazon, it appears a number of outfits have scanned old books, and are now selling them as print on demand books for amounts in the range of $15-20.

Johanns Gets Poor Memory

Farm Policy quotes Johanns as
“I can remember during Hurricane Katrina when the price dropped. We paid out about $4 billion almost overnight. I can point to the year 2000 where that farm policy paid out about $30 billion.

but EWG shows $25 billion as the total in 2000 and $24 billion in 2004

COBOL Is Hack Proof

That's the official conclusion of a House committee, at least its head.  So old no one understands it enough to hack it.

Your Cell Phone or Your Rifle: A Choice

A mental experiment for those who believe the Second Amendment is important in protecting freedom.

Suppose, for sake of argument, a leftie President has purged the military of all right-thinking people and is obviously plotting a coup to establish a dictatorship.  It's time to take to the hills.  Now, you have a choice: you can only take one of the following with you, and your choice applies to every member of the resistance:  your cell phone or your rifle?

To me, that's a no-brainer given the scenario and reasonable assumptions for what's not described.  A cell phone would be much more useful in organizing resistance than a rifle, however large its magazine.

Livw by the Sword....

There's some sense from President Obama's speech yesterday that he may use executive authority to advance some of his goals.  That's fine, I guess, but liberals shouldn't applaud without remembering whatever one President does by way of executive orders, etc., a later President can reverse the same way.

We Once Had Self-Driving Transport

This is inspired by a post at Freakonomics, which discussed trains.

In my case, I'm referring to horse and buggy.  It's true horses don't require nearly the amount of close attention that cars do.  My mother would remember driving into Binghamton with a load of cabbage and potatoes, spending the day, and allowing the team to find their way home that night.

I'm enthusiastic about the idea of Google (and others) self-driving cars--especially important with my declining abilities as I age, but I'm not ready to go back to horses.

Combine USPS and FSA

A report on a report from the inspector general for USPS says:

The white paper -- which represents suggestions but not final policies -- pointed to USPS’ expansive brick-and-mortar operation as a valuable resource to all federal agencies

Depleting the Soil--It's Not Astrophysics

This post at Time/World beats the drum about our broken food system:

some experts fear the world, at its current pace of consumption, is running out of useable topsoil. The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with TIME, talked to University of Sydney professor John Crawford on the seismic implications soil erosion and degradation may have in the decades to come.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/#ixzz2IXgCD64m

Prof. Crawford has this background: "John Crawford was awarded the prestigious Judith and David Coffey Chair in Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Sydney in 2008. He holds a BSc in Physics from the University and Glasgow and a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics from the University of London."

I'm being a bit hard on him.  

Bureaucrats Suck at Prediction

The release of the notes from the Federal Reserve Board's deliberations in 2007 causes one blogger to conclude:

One lesson here is that our public officials, even the hard-working, highly intelligent ones, are far from demi-gods. They have the same blind spots and tendency toward analytical failures of anyone else. Secrecy allows public officials, whether in the world of monetary policy or others like national security, to create a Wizard of Oz like illusion of holding great power, of maneuvering levers with information in hand that mere mortals can only dream of. When reporters interview a high official, there is often a subtext the high official aims to convey: If you knew what I know, you would understand the supreme wisdom of my actions.
Seeing what the Fed officials were saying privately, to each other, in 2007 is a reminder that this isn’t always so, and just because a person has more information, it doesn’t mean he or she has the right answer.

Republicans Will Violate the Constitution?

J.I. Bell at Boston 1775 notes the Republicans are now proposing to violate the Constitution, specifically the 27th Amendment which prohibits varying the salary of Congress people.