The Harshaw Rule Confirmed

What is the "Harshaw rule"?  Something I discovered back in my days of innocence, trying to break down silos in USDA--"you never do things right the first time". 

Where is it confirmed?  In the videos Kottke has linked to here--the Elon Musk videos on landing rockets and our early space endeavors.  It's good to see someone paying more than lip service to the idea of learning from your mistakes.

Comments on Consolidating USDA Support Services

USDA has a request for comments on the Secretary's proposal to consolidate support services across agency lines. Comments are due before October 7.

I'm very sceptical of the OFR's request for comments process, particulary on clearing forms.  We'll see in this case if people like NASCOE etc. get comments in, or prefer to work with Congress.

Cottonseed Again

Illinois extension has a piece on the cottonseed provisions of the 2018 Senate Ag appropriations bill. To my jaundiced eye, it looks as if the cotton growers are trying to get a goodie added through the backdoor--using appropriations to change policy.  If they do, we'll see what Brazil and the WTO think of it.  If they do, the professors will have another example to add to their picture of how government really works.

Seats at the Table

The Trump administration is not exactly pushing the right boundaries.  Two factoids:

• He's nominated only one woman out of 42 nominees for US attorney. 
• And in foreign affairs see this photo.

Read the Damn Manual, All 700+ Pages

As a bureaucrat who started his career editing ASCS manuals, I'm a bit more friendly to the idea of reading manuals than the average bear.  The things we use in our lives often come with manuals, manuals I don't routinely read.  Yes, when the clothes dryer goes out or doing something new with the microwave I may consult the manual, but I don't sit down to read them cover to cover.

The same rule applies for cars.  The manual's in the glove compartment, and I'll check it for problems.  But today I'm changing my rules.

The background: as I age my driving ability is declining.  I'm more easily distracted, more easily confused when driving in unfamiliar territory,  and less quick to react.  I miss pedestrians and approaching cars at intersections.  And the future looks worse, not better.  Like most people I'd hate to give up my control and freedom by abandoning the car and switching to public transportation, even the options in Reston are very good.

With safety options multiplying rapidly as we get closer to the self-driving car, what seems to make sense to me is switching to a short-term leased car.  That way I can get the advantage of the new features and still have the flexibility to upgrade to a newer car in a couple years, assuming I'm still competent as a driver when that day arrives.

So, I'm looking at a Prius with all the safety options.  But it's a big leap from 2006 to 2017, so I'm looking at the manual.  Indeed, for the first time I'm reading the Prius manual from the beginning.

But, the damn thing is 700 pages.  (As a measure of the changes, I think the manual for my current car is about 200 pages.)  700 pages.

Trump on Improper Payments

Turns out Trump on improper payments is the same as Obama--from GovExec:

All of these ideas were also proposed by the Obama administration, representing bipartisan agreement on policy reforms.
Of the twelve policies aimed at curbing improper payments in the FY 2018 budget, four use the same language found in President Obama’s FY 2017 budget. The other eight have only small differences. The amount of projected savings also mirrors the FY 2017 budget, although with some differences. For example, the FY 2017 budget estimated that authorizing the Social Security Administration (SSA) to use “all collection tools to recover funds” would save $35 million, while the FY 2018 budget estimates $41 million. The savings projected under the FY 2018 budget are also much higher for Unemployment Insurance, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. However, the reasons for the higher projected savings are not clear.

America the Isolationist?

Those of us of a certain age can remember when there was a significant faction of American politicians who were basically isolationist, who wrapped themselves in the history of "no entangling alliances" and "America goes not abroad in search of dragons.

Thus it's startling for me to read this piece including these words:

"Several permanent stations had been established after the War of 1812: the Mediterranean, Pacific, and West Indies Squadrons. But Jackson would give his imprimatur to a new one. Asia appealed to Jackson as part of his effort to expand American trade routes. Like the merchants of the northeast, Jackson understood that America’s economic future lay not only with its traditional European trading partners but also with new partners in the East. Simply having Navy ships in the eastern Pacific was insufficient. Consequently, Jackson established the East Indies Squadron."

Independent Irish Lasses

"Uniquely among European emigrants in the late-19th century, young single women emigrated from Ireland in the same numbers as men."

From this.

Irma and Andrew and FSA

Hurricane Irma is being compared with hurricane Andrew, which devastated southern Florida back in 1992 as a category 5 hurricane.  Agriculture took a big hit then, IIRC mostly vegetables and nursery crops grown by producers who'd never had contact with FSA.  The FSA disaster programs then could cover some of the damage, though I don't remember whether Congress passed new legislation or whether existing law was adequate.

Because of the new producers, FSA had a problem of getting producer name and address and farm data loaded into the System/36's.  We were still using old COBOL code written back in the mid-80's, some of the first code written for the System/36.  Back then neither the Kansas City system designers nor Washington program specialists really knew what we were doing.  (Harshaw's law: you never do it right the first time.)  There multiple screens for data loading, moving from screen to screen was slow, and updating the file was slow. 

Consequently FSA got a black eye in Dade county, IIRC.

Shouldn't happen with Irma.  For one thing it sounds as if urbanization in the last 25 years has replaced agriculture.  FSA's programs likely cover less of the agriculture remaining as crop insurance has partially replaced FSA, except for NAP.  FSA likely already has records for the producers and its software is better.

Dutch Agriculture

Recently saw an article/tweet/blogpost/something which made great claims about the productivity of Dutch agriculture.  I think maybe it was claiming they were the top exporter of agricultural products.  Immediately my contrarian nature kicked in, and I was sure someone was in error on the Internet.     My logic was that the Dutch export flowers, a high value crop, perhaps the highest value legal crop, so the claim was misleading.  Dairy products would also be big, and high value.  However I didn't challenge it on line, just in mind

Now comes FiveThirtyEight with their significant digits, and this fact: 

144,352 tons of tomatoes per square mile

The Netherlands has been investing in new and improved ways to maximize the efficiency of humane farming. Acre for acre, the Dutch are the best on earth: using greenhouses they get 144,352 tons of tomatoes out of every square mile, with the closest runner up — Spain — getting a fraction of that. Essentially, the Dutch decided to be a food R&D lab for everyone else — the secret seems to be greenhouses — and the outcome is they export more food, judging by dollar value, than every country except the U.S. [National Geographic]

So I guess I need to apologize to the Dutch--they aren't just a one-trick pony.