I speculated to Ross Douthat that height was important, that Comey's 5 inch margin on Trump was significant in his firing.
Sometime later Kathleen Parker agreed with me.
(If he can select people based on looks, he can fire people who make him feel uncomfortable.)
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
The Future Is Now: Amphib Warfare
Born before US entry into WWII, I grew up with a lot of military history available. I didn't like the military when I served, but retain some interest. Here's an excerpt from a Bloomberg piece on Trump's problems with our new aircraft carrier:
How soon will we have "drone destroyers"--inquiring minds want to know?
Last week, at Camp Pendleton in California, I watched a Marine landing exercise. First, drones came in to map out what was on shore. Then an amphibious landing vehicle hits the shore, but the first thing off it was a machine-gun-armed robot, not a human. Then the human Marines arrive. But they are being resupplied by drones. One quadricopter drone comes down to drop an MRE. Then, a Marine changes that supply drone into a strike one, by now putting on board it a grenade and flying it off to hit the enemy. Sounds science fiction? Islamic State is doing similar things with jury-rigged drones in Mosul, Iraq, right now.Back in the late 19th century the new thing for navies was the torpedo. So we had torpedo boats intended to launch them. And then the navies developed "torpedo boat destroyers", to counter torpedo boats, a name then shortened to "destroyers". The article notes that our new destroyer is now comparable to a heavy cruiser of WWII.
How soon will we have "drone destroyers"--inquiring minds want to know?
Monday, May 15, 2017
Majority-Minority: Love When I'm Right
Herbert Gans has an op-ed on the prospect for a majority minority nation by 2050. He doubts it, as did I in this post.
Getting Customer/Client/Citizen Feedback
Sens. Lankford and McCaskill introduced " the bipartisan Federal Agency Customer Experience Act
(S.1088), a bill to roll back a federal requirement that makes it
difficult for agencies to get feedback from the public concerning their
satisfaction with agencies’ customer service."
That's from the press release but it seems to me the bill does something more and different. I think I've seen agency websites use a standard web feedback form (from Foresight, or some such company) and I doubt they've cleared such collection of data through OMB. No doubt the clearance requirements for public data collections are an obstacle, but the more important thing they require is annual publication of the data collected. Way back in the early days of this blog I think I recommended a similar process, though I was suggesting a running total, like the data Google Analytics gave to bloggers.
The missing piece though in the Act is something explicitly tying the data back to Congressional oversight--it's fine to collect data but if the bosses (i.e. Congress) don't use it, it's simply an exercise.
Hattip: FCW.
That's from the press release but it seems to me the bill does something more and different. I think I've seen agency websites use a standard web feedback form (from Foresight, or some such company) and I doubt they've cleared such collection of data through OMB. No doubt the clearance requirements for public data collections are an obstacle, but the more important thing they require is annual publication of the data collected. Way back in the early days of this blog I think I recommended a similar process, though I was suggesting a running total, like the data Google Analytics gave to bloggers.
The missing piece though in the Act is something explicitly tying the data back to Congressional oversight--it's fine to collect data but if the bosses (i.e. Congress) don't use it, it's simply an exercise.
Hattip: FCW.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017
USDA Reorganization
A post here on it at ThinkProgress.
The USDA report to Congress on the proposal.
Basically it would move NRCS, RMA, and FSA under one new Undersecretary, leaving FSA and FS each with their own Undersecretary.
This sentence from the USDA post perhaps hints that there will be more attention to the consolidation/cross-agency work that has been going on over the last 26 years:
We'll see.
The USDA report to Congress on the proposal.
Basically it would move NRCS, RMA, and FSA under one new Undersecretary, leaving FSA and FS each with their own Undersecretary.
This sentence from the USDA post perhaps hints that there will be more attention to the consolidation/cross-agency work that has been going on over the last 26 years:
Locating FSA, RMA, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service under this domestically-oriented undersecretary will provide a simplified one-stop shop for USDA’s primary customers, the men and women farming, ranching, and foresting across America.The proposal gives more prominence to the FAS and international trade, which is strongly supported by the ag interest groups, which may be enough to overcome concerns among the conservation types over a possible/perceived downgrading of conservation.
We'll see.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Cottonseed Again
Illinois extension has a post on the cottonseed issue. As it says, in greater detail than I have the brain cells to waste on, it's complicated, involving both the base acreage/"generic base" issue and WTO. From the conclusion:
Much depends on the final details of any Congressional response but cotton farmers are currently receiving significant assistance from the 2014 Farm Bill and adding cottonseed may provide a windfall to them, including one recoupled to cotton planting decisions. Congress, if considering adding cottonseed, may also have to consider further revisions to the 2014 Farm Bill such as precluding payments on generic base acres for any covered commodities planted on them.
Much depends on the final details of any Congressional response but cotton farmers are currently receiving significant assistance from the 2014 Farm Bill and adding cottonseed may provide a windfall to them, including one recoupled to cotton planting decisions. Congress, if considering adding cottonseed, may also have to consider further revisions to the 2014 Farm Bill such as precluding payments on generic base acres for any covered commodities planted on them.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
I May Be Wrong
On the Comey-Russia thing:
I doubt there's much going on between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Most likely the Russians wanted to undermine Clinton and Trump wanted to beat her, but I doubt any real collusion. People in Trump's campaign might have been more aware of Russian hacking than the general public, but I don't see them colluding.
As for the firing, I'd expect an investigation but the major effect will be a continuing distraction from other issues, no impeachment or anything similar. Trump had the authority to fire the FBI director, however poorly it was handled.
I doubt there's much going on between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Most likely the Russians wanted to undermine Clinton and Trump wanted to beat her, but I doubt any real collusion. People in Trump's campaign might have been more aware of Russian hacking than the general public, but I don't see them colluding.
As for the firing, I'd expect an investigation but the major effect will be a continuing distraction from other issues, no impeachment or anything similar. Trump had the authority to fire the FBI director, however poorly it was handled.
Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Habituation II
I've suggested that maybe over time we'll get bored with President Trump. In that spirit:
"From fiveThirtyEight
10 percent
During President Trump’s first 50 days in office, 62 percent of his tweets got more than 100,000 likes. In the following 51 days, just 10 percent of his tweets passed that benchmark. [Bloomberg]"
"From fiveThirtyEight
10 percent
During President Trump’s first 50 days in office, 62 percent of his tweets got more than 100,000 likes. In the following 51 days, just 10 percent of his tweets passed that benchmark. [Bloomberg]"
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