Are You a Screwball? Metaphors

A post at York Town Square provides a definition of "screwball", the definitive one.  It sounds logical to me, though a fast search doesn't reveal any confirmation.  But I know filter screens can clog, and I can imagine bouncing balls could vibrate it enough to keep it clear, and such motion (brownian, perhaps) would be erratic, erratic enough to lead to the modern definition of "screwball".

Food Waste

A while back I posted on the waste of food in the US, arguing that it was mostly due to our desire for choice.  I noted a contrast today in a NYTimes piece on the likelihood of soaring food prices in 2011:

China, which only really uses global markets for soybeans, is fretting over soaring shop prices for goods as diverse as pork and seaweed. In India, a fifth of the population is undernourished, according to the United Nations. Both countries have their own issues; for instance, in India, awful infrastructure means a third of produce spoils before it reaches the market. But something is clearly making the problem worse.  [emphasis added]

 For those curious, the "something" referred to in the last sentence is claimed to be an abundance of money.

Why Healthcare Is Costly

A nugget from a NYTimes article on the problems of providing adequate Wi-Fi connectivity to conferences, particularly of techies.

"“I’ve been to health care conferences where no one brings a laptop,” said Ross Mayfield, president of the business software company Socialtext and a technology conference regular."

 That's sad, and also revealing.  I doubt there's any conference in USDA where laptops aren't present, at least those conferences where there are worker bees.

Dan Drezner Decides to be Less Genuine

My takeaway from his post on being interviewed on cable news (taking off from Ta Nehisi-Coates post) is:

His fault: "I genuinely want to answer the question asked of me. "

His New Year's resolution: to improve as an interviewee.

You Think?

From a post on sex at Barking Up the Wrong Tree:

"Taking the data set as a whole, almost the only way to make the men’s and women’s answers consistent is for there to be some women in the United States who have enormous numbers of sexual partners without reporting that fact in our survey data. It is possible that this is because of the existence of prostitutes. An alternative, and perhaps more likely, explanation is that men overestimate."[emphasis added]

Central Cities Safer Than Suburbs?

That's the gist of a Grist post, based on a UVA study. Turns out the risk from things like car accidents and drunk driving outweighs the risk from the crime we think of when "central cities" are mentioned.

Cash Leasing Increasing?

Extension reports an increase in cash leasing as opposed to shares, suggesting an increase in the use of crop insurance to handle risk means farmers are more able to accept the increased risk of cash leasing.  There's another possible contributory cause: the declining impact of farm program payments. Relatively speaking, such payments are less important these days; payments have gone down and prices have gone up.  When payment limitation is a problem, there's an advantage to share leasing. But with the lesser importance of farm programs, there's also less incentive to worry about payment limitation in managing your affairs.

Merry Christmas from a Procrastinator

Haven't finished a lot of posts I wanted to, but I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Let All Populists Rejoice

According to this blog post of a study, Harvard Law students are no good (i.e., their free representation of indigents didn't help, and actually delayed decisions).

I Use E-Mail, I'm a Geezer

All that fits this Times piece: usage of email by oldtimers is up; by teens is way down.