30 Pounds Heavier

 Actually 31, according to a NYTimes article on the redoing of seats for orchestra halls--average US male has gone from 168 in the 60's to 199 now. 

Getting Old: What I've Lost

As I age, there are things I have lost/am losing.  Some are big and obvious; I won't mention those.  Less obvious is this: loss of finger function, manual dexterity. Specifically the ability easily to pick up small things or, something I notice every morning, to separate the pages of the newspaper.

One thing I haven't lost is a tendency to hypochondria, but I'll use will power and ignore the possibility that this indicates an underlying problem as described here and just assume it's age. 

American Citizens Left Behind?

 Prediction:  One thing which will happen: regardless of the efficiency of the airlift from Kabul, there will be American citizens left behind, likely mostly they have dual citizenship. Some will remain by choice, some will be forbidden to leave because they are Afghans, in the eyes of the Taliban.

10 Percent of Rental Aid--the Last Mile Problem

I've blogged before about the "last mile" problem in government: the fact the structure of government in the US means a gap between government and the citizen. Here's another example, as reported by Politico: 

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that state and local governments had disbursed just over 10 percent of federal rental assistance funds as of the end of July, indicating that millions could be at risk of losing their homes once eviction protections end.

No Appeal for American Rescue Plan Debt Payments

 While farmers.gov today just describes the preliminary injunctions, Politico reports that the administration let the deadline for appealing the (earliest?) injunction run out.  Apparently USDA will continue to participate in hearings on whether or not there should be a final injunction.  

Without absolutely no knowledge of such proceedings, I'd guess the judge(s) would be unlikely to change his mind. 

Apparently the concern was there was a weak case which, if lost on appeal, would set a bad precedent for future court proceedings.

I repeat, no knowledge, but it did seem to me that the rationale for the program was weak--in its essentials it was paying off loans for people based on a history of not giving loans to people.  The people with outstanding loans which would be forgiven were able to get past any past discriminatory hurdles in getting loans.

[Update--to give the rationale for the program, see this piece.]

[Second update--USDA's argument in court]

And Now for Something Entirely Different: Nigeria

 Over at the Atlantic, an interview by Conor Friedersdorf  with a Nigerian writer.  From it I learned  learned about the Nigerian caliphate, and its involvement in slavery.  If you can trust wikipedia, it may have been the second largest slave society (after US) at any time, though I don't believe it.  Brazil likely is similar in size and the Roman empire may well have had more slaves than the US. Other empires likely also had numbers in the millions.  The problem though is we're likely comparing apples and oranges, since the rules about slavery were different in different societies.

Nevertheless, an interesting take.

Digitized Forms

I read the FCW piece on this report. I'd forgotten there was a law requiring agencies to digitize their forms and make them fully on-line, including e-signature, but there is.

The report shows agencies haven't met the legal deadline for many of their forms: USDA is one of the laggards. 

I remember back in the early 1990s working to use WordPerfect 5.0 to design forms, or rather to convert the form designed used the old tools to a digitized form.  WordPerfect had a table feature with which, using a lot of patience, you could create a pretty close version of the old printed forms.  The Forms shop in MSD took up the challenge and did a lot of the ASCS/CCC forms before I retired.

Of course there's a big difference between the forms we did and what the law requires--I gather the ideal now is a fillable pdf file with e-signature activated.  I don't know how far FSA has progressed in meeting that goal.

I'm cynical enough to believe that most forms which meet the law's requirements probably are still poorly designed for online operations.  I expect the same human factors are operating with forms as they were with cars--the early cars were designed as "horseless carriages". I wonder how many filing cabinets FSA offices have filled with paper copies. 

[Updated--I see that FSA's newest form, FSA-2637, is a fillable pdf which can be signed on-line. Good for the people who did this.]

Herbicide Resistant Weeds

 NY Times Mag has an article on "superweeds", weeds resistant to herbicides, specifically Palmer amaranth.

It's a reminder that as we change our environment, our environment changes as well. Natural selection rules.  The same process is going on with bacteria, as we get resistance to antibiotics. 

I don't know, and haven't noticed discussion, whether the use of Crispr and the sort of science which led to the fast development of covid vaccines has any implications for our fights against resistance.

The Former Guy and Competence

 Dana Milbank IIRC summarized the  Mueller Report as saying the former guy's campaign was too incompetent to execute collusion with the Russian government; they wanted to but couldn't.

That's funny, and sad.

I'll summarize the FBI's investigation of 1/6 by saying the former guy's team was too incompetent to put together a conspiracy.  

Illogic in Organic Farming?

Modern Farming runs a piece on organic farming.  I find it illogical: 

One issue is price. On average, organic food costs 20 percent more than conventionally produced food. Even hardcore organic shoppers like me sometimes bypass it due to cost.

That's one paragraph.  The author goes on to talk about the need for more and more organic farmers, and a larger acreage, ending in a push to dedicate a percentage of USDA farm programs to organic farms.

I think this is ignoring market signals.  The market is saying that organic food is more costly.  Is organic making inroads despite its higher cost?  Certainly it's increased since the 1990 farm bill which directed USDA to establish standards for "organic".  But that's 30 years ago.  I don't think the market is saying the advantages and virtues of organic are sufficient to drive a massive surge in organic production.  (IMO what will drive expansion is a continuing rise in American living standards and incomes--"organic" is a status symbol, a signifier of virtue, a feeder into one's ego and self-image.) 

Conceivably added subsidies for organic farming could boost the share of the market, but I think they would be expensive.