USDA Sensitivity Training Gets Attention

From the right, see this Daily Caller article.  It brings back memories of my past sensitivity training sessions.  As described, it sounds as if the instructor kept the session lively enough so no one went to sleep. I've mixed feelings about the worth of such session.  On the one hand I feel superior to them: of course I'm above average in sensitivity so why would I need training (a Lake Woebegone trait Mr. Keillor skipped), on the other hand occasional bits stick--I remember being told by the instructor in our ADA training that everyone was only temporarily able-bodied.

It's easy to mock this stuff, and hard to do it well.

Trade Direct Payments for Disaster and No Future Cuts?

That seems to be the deal the Senate Dems are proposing. Sen. Stabenow agrees to chop direct payments in return for funding 2012/13 disaster programs and no requirement for additional cuts in future legislation.

Factoid of the Day: DC Life Expectancy

Spurred by a Coates blog post on Chicago homicides, I found a site with lots of good data.  Perhaps the most startling:

What state has the highest life expectancy for whites?  DC 83+

What state has the lowest life expectancy for blacks?  DC 70+

USDA Is Not an Agency

My title isn't quite true, but here's my point:  Megan McArdle writes about federal regulations here.  In doing so, she mentions the "Department of Agriculture" twice, both in contexts which are vaguely adverse.  The problem I have is that USDA is a bunch of different agencies, each with their own missions and regulations, each with their own attributes.  To write of it as if it were a unitary agency is simply to misunderstand and oversimplify.

Recession, What Recession, Not for Dogs and Cats

This extension piece on careers servicing "companion animals" reports current spending of $50 billion, with an increase of $12 billion in the last 5 years.  That's roughly a 25 percent rate of increase in hard economic times.

I can believe it: we have two aging cats in the household, one of which will be amazingly costly over the rest of her life span.  I keep surprising myself that I love her that much, because she was mean (feral mother) as a youngster. 

Doesn't Anyone Know How to [Do Big Systems]?

I'm probably misremembering, but I believe Casey Stengel, when he was manager of the expansion NY Mets, asked something like: "doesn't anyone know how to play this game?" 

Anyhow, that saying, whatever its source, came to mind when I read that after 4 years of effort by DOD and VA to have one system of health records for the military and military veterans, they're giving up. Only $1 billion shot to hell.

Fenceless Cattle?

Atlantic has a post on this:

"A relatively straightforward technological innovation -- GPS-equipped free-range cows that can be nudged back within virtual bounds by ear-mounted stimulus-delivery devices -- could profoundly reshape our relationships with domesticated animals, the landscape, and each other."

 As someone who remembers his time fixing fence, a springtime routine on a dairy farm, and the occasional adrenaline-filled times when one or more cows got through a fence and started roaming the neighborhood, the idea sounds good to me.  

Now that we have electronic chips which can connect to a human nervous system, the next step will be to implant such chips into cows so you don't have to go get the cows and bring them into the barn for milking.  (Sorry--I forgot dairies are feeding operations these days)

Obama Gets Praise from GAO

The Comptroller General cited the stimulus bill as providing lessons in administration:

But the most instructive experience, he said, was implementation of the 2009 Recovery Act, doling out federal stimulus money around the country under emergency conditions while minimizing waste. “That was an example of the folks at signing ceremony walking right to the control room, with boots on the ground from the president, the vice president, the secretaries and deputy secretaries,” Werfel said. “That urgency brought out the best in accountability and opportunities for collaboration. It had us doing business differently, without cutting corners. It compressed six months down to six weeks, driving through those competing stakeholders in real time,” he said.

 I think VP Biden was in charge.  He never struck me as a good administrator, but apparently a forceful personality at the top is enough.

Direct Payments and Sequestration

The direct payment program may be axed as part of the delay or resolution of the sequestration issue--so says Politico.

The Super Bowl Ad

Has apparently been tweaked to add images of Latino farmers. (I'm not sure whether it would have been USDA-approved, given Vilsack's outreach program.)  But John Phipps thinks it should have shown some CAFO's and snow-birds.