The Intelligence of Sperm Whales

Apparently sperm whales were intelligent enough to change their living patterns in response to humans hunting them in the 19th century.  Instead of gathering together, they learned to hightail out of Dodge when hunters appear.

It seems to me that one of the gradual changes in culture/science over my lifetime is the erosion of the boundaries between humans and animals.  It used to be a high wall, but these days we more often view humans as animals and animals as intelligent, whether it's sperm whales, ravens and other covids, octopus, etc.

1988 and 2016 in Broome County

 This site has maps of how each county voted in presidential elections from 1820 to 2020.  Naturally I looked at Broome County.  I was aware it was solid Republican through the years. It was back and forth for a while, but in 1856 it went Republican and continued for over a century.  In 1964 it voted for LBJ, but returned to the Republicans through 1984. Beginning in 1988 it went Democratic, with the exception of 2016. 

Trump and Goldwater are the two outliers in its history.  Interesting that Broome disdained the second and liked the first.

One Day

 Gene Weingarten, the humor columnist for the Post, wrote One Day describing events on one random day (Dec. 28, 1986 as it happened), specifically what some people did and what happened to people on that day, with the ramifications down the line.

The top two reviews on Amazon are 4 stars, which reflects the fact that in a group of stories, some will not appeal to some people, perhaps particularly the downers.

I'd give it 5 stars, just for the story telling and Weingarten's style. Because the stories are selected, they don't fit standard narratives--the wife-beating ends happily, for example.

Vertical Farming and Pot as an Example

 I think I'm now using "vertical farming" as a label for any high-tech growing system under artificial lighting.  In that regard. this Modern Farmer piece notes the environmental impact of growing pot indoors. Whether it's marijuana leaves or lettuce leaves, there's a tradeoff. 

Protecting Our IT Infrastructure--and Bureaucracy

 Fred Kaplan has a Slate article on the problem of preventing attacks on IT infrastructure.  NSA has the charter to prevent attacks from foreign countries, but is prohibited from handling attacks based in the US, which is the loophole used by the recent Tradewinds attacks

Secretaries Gates (DOD) and Napolitano (DHS) had a plan to fill the hole, but Kaplan's piece gives the sorry history of how the workings of bureaucracy, NIHism, and different policy outlooks made the plan fail. 

Working across organizational divisions is always problematic.  VA and DOD have the problem of health records between active/reserve military and veterans; the FBI and NSA have the problem in counter-intelligence operations; State and DOD have the problem of state-building (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan); SCS and ASCS had the problem in handling sodbuster/swampbuster problems. 

Silos.  You can't live without them, you can't live with them.

Clayton on Farm Loans and ARPA

 Chris Clayton who writes for Progressive Farmer has more clout than I do, or is smarter in the ways of USDA press.  He got data from USDA on the size and number of farm loans which FSA has made or guaranteed, plus the breakdown by socially disadvantaged farmers. Here's his writeup.

If you're interested, you should read it.  Things which strike me now:

• He lists the top states in socially distanced loans. As always, assumptions will mislead--Oklahoma, California, and Wisconsin are on the list, but Alabama and the Carolinas aren't, and Mississippi is the last one listed.  I've nothing better to do than speculate, but my guess is some states, like Oklahoma, jumped on the legislative changes for such loans, and promoted them (or maybe they had especially active NGO's among minority groups).  With that in mind you can guess that many loans have not gone to black farmers, but other groups.
• Much of the publicity around the debt forgiveness payments seems to have been centered around black farmers associated with the Pigford suits. I haven't seen any discussion of a seeming paradox: farmers claiming their loan applications were denied because of discrimination but now working for forgiveness of their loans.  (I wrote "seeming" because I can imagine circumstances in which it would make sense, at least for some.)
• I wonder if women's groups will push for a "correction" to the law to include them as "socially disadvantaged". 
• I hope there will be good data from the implementation of this provision. If my speculation is right will there be discontent among the black advocates for it? I remember seeing one activist commenting that the lawyers made out well from the Pigford suits, but not the farmers. He might find a similar problem now--other minorities getting more money and black farmers less than they had expected.

Freedom Versus Fairness--the Pandemic and Fischer

 Some time ago David Hackett Fischer wrote a book comparing the USA and New Zealand.

I thought of that book when I read this Post opinion piece. 

As you might understand from the title, Fischer sees the societies as different.  Although they're both "settler societies", the key to the US is "freedom", the key to New Zealand is "fairness".   I remember his argument was in part based on the histories--we fought the British to establish autonomy, freedom; New Zealand was settled later when the UK had learned better to deal with their colonies.  Also, in the years between the settling of America and the settling of New Zealand the nature of British society had changed from a hierarchical aristocratic society to one with the urban working class arising. 

While I remember Fischer dealing with the Maori influence on the overall society, I can't say he saw the same factors as in the op-ed.  But the overall effect is the same--concern about the impact of one's actions on others, particularly the fairness of the impacts.  

So, in the pandemic we have lots of resisters to the masks and lockdowns here, because people say it impairs our freedoms.  In NZ they could impose restrictions because infecting others would be unfair. 

Smaller Houses

 According to a memoir by my grandfather, his family occupied a house in frontier Illinois of about 450 square feet on the first floor, not clear whether there was a second floor, but probably.  In that house there were my great great grandmother, my great grandfather and grandmother, and 4 children.  

One of my gripes with modern times is the evergrowing size of American houses--new houses are somewhere in the 2000+ range.  Back when I was looking for a house in Reston, I was aware the developers had built some smaller houses, trying to lower the cost of entering the market.  IIRC houses in my townhouse development ranged from $45K to 55K for 1,000 to 1250 sq. ft.  The smaller separate houses were about 950 sq. ft.  and cost roughly $45K. 

Just checked prices on Zillow--now the small house is $450K or so, while in my development houses are running about $100-125K lower.

Apparently Americans put a premium on detached housing.

The Amount of Outstanding Farm Loans

 Trying to find out the total dollars of farm loans FSA/CCC has on the books, which might be subject to the provisions for debt forgiveness payments under ARPA.

There's this quote:

FSA farm loan programs provide an important safety net for producers, by providing a source of credit when they are temporarily unable to obtain credit from commercial sources. The majority of FSA’s direct and guaranteed farm ownership and operating loans are targeted to underserved populations such as beginning farmers and socially disadvantaged producers, who generally have had a more difficult time obtaining credit to maintain and expand their operations. In 2019, FSA provided 32,240 direct and guaranteed loans to farmers and ranchers, totaling more than $5.7 billion

And this chart:

Both from this 2021 Budget document. 

I'm not sure what to make of the data--it seems that the forgiveness might cover more than half the outstanding loans.

More on ARPA

 According to the Post article yesterday, the Farm Bureau estimates the cost of the 120 percent payments to indebted socially disadvantaged farmers will be $4 billion.

One of my frustrations is the difficulty of finding  current CCC financial data.  IIRC once I found it over in the Treasury website, but it's definitely not a user-friendly process. 

I would like to find the basis for the estimate--what's the total outstanding debt for all farmers in the categories eligible for the forgiveness payments?  Just sent USDA a request for the data--will see if they can respond.