The philosopher Isaiah Berlin made his name with the essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, where the hedgehog has one big idea, the fox knows several smaller ideas.
Someone has investigated sheep and goats--turns out goats are better problem solvers than sheep, possibly because goats forage for their food, exploring everything which might be edible, while sheep specialize in grass., even though they're related species and both were domesticated early.
Apparently the Biden administration is opting for slow and possibly sure over fast and challengeable. That is, rather than using the Congressional Review Act to undo last minute Trump regulations they're using the Administrative Procedure Act process--notice of proposed rulemaking, etc. The CRA could be done, but it has a kicker that when used, the agency can not later issue new regulations the same or reasonably similar to those which were killed.
In a sense, a CRA kill is a permanent veto unless a future Congress enacts a new authority.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
