Why Vertical Farms Fail

Having disdained the idea of vertical farming (particularly its misbegotten sibling--vertical farming using sunlight, not electricity), I want to note this piece: Nine Reasons Why Vertical Farms Fail. 
 Hattip David Roberts at Vox.

One of the nuggets there: "avoid scissors lifts".  

Don't Tick Off the Farmers: NAFTA

Politico has an article on ag organizations concerns over the Trump's administrations NAFTA renegotiation trade strategy.  I've thought in the past that the drop in commodity prices over the last few years, a big drop from their peaks around 2012, played a role in switching votes from Obama to Trump.  If ag fears come true, will be another headwind for Republicans in 2018.

FSA SED's

At least the Trump administration is doing better with women in appointing State executive directors for FSA (I count seven out of 50 in this list) than with new US Attorneys (one of 27 in this tweet)

10 of 14 Women

Dems took 14 seats (open or held by Reps) in House of Delegates yesterday: 10 of the new delegates are women, 2 of whom are Latina.

Updating Gun Check Databases

Vox has a piece on the Air Force's failure to update the federal gun check database with the data on the domestic violence conviction of the shooter at Sutherland Springs.

Proposals to strengthen the system are welcome.  I wonder though, whether the responsibility should be on the Air Force or on ATF or FBI (whoever runs the database).  The problem with our distributed system of government is all the silos and all the interfaces we need.  My general rule is that you need to put responsibility on those motivated to do it right.  In other words, it makes no difference to some AF bureaucrat whether she gets information into a Fed database--she's not going to act on it nor will any AF person act on it.  It does make a difference to the Fed bureaucrat, so she is more motivated to get things right.

VA Election

Polls seemed busy when we voted around 3 pm, busy but no waiting line.  Fingers crossed for good result.

Lewis on USDA:

Not true, says USDA, re the Michael Lewis piece in Vanity Fair on which I commented yesterday.

Ireland's Second Language?

Is Polish, according to a recent article on the declining usage of Gaelic.

Oh, by the way that's Northern Ireland, not Eire.

USDA in Vanity Fair

Michael Lewis has an article on USDA in Vanity Fair (hattip to Marginal Revolution). He's a good writer so it's interesting, contrasting the Trump Administration's approach to USDA with interviews with the assistant secretaries from the outgoing administration.  I like it, except for this:

By the time she left the little box marked “Rural Development,” Lillian Salerno had spent the better part of five years inside it.She was a small-business person first and had no affection for the inefficiencies she found inside the federal government. “You have this big federal workforce that hasn’t been invested in forever,” she said. “They can’t be outward-facing. They don’t have any of the tools you need in a modern workplace.” She couldn’t attract young people to work there. Once, she tried to estimate how many of the U.S.D.A.’s roughly 100,000 employees had been taught how to create a spreadsheet. Fewer than 50 people, she decided. [emphasis added]“I was always very aware how we spent money. When I would use words like ‘fiduciary duties’ or say, ‘Those are not our dollars,’ they would say, ‘Are you sure you aren’t a Republican?’ But I was really sensitive to the fact that this wasn’t our money. This was taxpayer money. This was money that had come from some guy working for 15 bucks an hour.”

I'm tempted to cast aspersions on the RD community, but I doubt they're that much different than FSA.  I know by the time I retired  I knew more than 50 people in FSA who were competent with spreadsheet software, including a couple (Joe Bryan and Loren Becker) who were using Lotus (yes, that's how long ago it was--20 years ago now) for very sophisticated purposes.  It might be true that FSA, and probably USDA in general, was slow to adopt personal software.  But in the mid 80's we were using DEC's Allinone software, which included a spreadsheet application.

The one thing in the paragraph I find crdible is "She couldn't attract young people...).

The Full Employment Act

Cynics say that new tax acts are full employment acts for attorneys.  It's also true that Trump's election was a full employment act for humorists.  See Garrison Keillor's take.