Sidewalks and Paths in Reston

In Robert Simons' original vision of Reston, walkers and cars would be separated; cars would have streets and roads, and walkers paths which went through the woods, instead of sidewalks paralleling the roads.  That was the way Reston developed for the first 10-15 years, but then it became apparent that walkers preferred to walk by the side of the road, even when it meant walking on grass or in the mud, rather than following the path.  So gradually Reston has added sidewalks to its paths (Colts Neck Road got a sidewalk south of South Lakes Drive just last summer.)

Why the preference? Often the roads are more direct than the paths.  And the roads feel safer because you're visible to all. And we're all used to walking by the roads.

Our recent snow storm showed one virtue of Simons' vision: snowplows inevitably throw the snow from the street onto the sidewalk, creating an almost impassible barrier to cross, and a forbidding prospect to walk along.  Meanwhile Reston Association is able to send a plow (small Cat, I suspect) down the paths and clear them off quite well, yielding to the weight of snow only when trying to break through the snowplowed-barrier.

I Never Cease to be Amazed

Matt Uebel shares a video from 1994 showing the Today Show rather clueless at the Internet and email. That's just 17 years ago, hardly a generation.   Now, today, it seems a player in world politics, as witness Tunisia and Egypt.

Founding Fathers Had Imperfect Foresight

According to Rep. Duncan Hunter,(in a Grist post) when writing the Constitution the founders envisioned automobiles, but not bicycles.

Pigford II Website

Per an FSA notice, the website for Pigford II claims is blackfarmercase.com. 
It has two bolded statements:

: No payments can be made to any claimants under the Settlement until all claims have been determined. That means that it could be 2-3 years before successful claimants receive any payments.  Please be patient.

Please note: You do not need to pay money to any individual, farm advocacy group, or law firm to participate in the Settlement.  

USDA Moves With the Times

USDA gets props for advertising a website vacancy on Govloop.com. 

Powerline Loses Most of Its Common Sense

You can divide the world into two: people who drive you up the wall and people who don't. The Powerline blog is one of the few right wing blogs I follow, just to see what's going on and try to keep from freezing into intellectual ice.  John (Hinderaker) at Powerline drives me up the wall.  One of these years I'll do a compilation of his comments which seem to me to be unwise.  Paul (Mirengoff)[corrected] doesn't drive me up the wall, though usually I disagree with his comments. Scott (Johnson) also doesn't drive me up the wall.  Today Paul announced he was ceasing blogging.  Too bad.

{Updated: apparently Paul ran into trouble at his law firm over his response to the Giffords events. See TPM. ]

Stealing a Comment on Cats

From Ta-Nahesi Coates blog, his free-for-all comment thread:
by anibundel:

Today in felines:
There are people coming over. The cats don't actually know that. What they know is the following:
The vacuum monster ate the cat hair they so lovingly placed all over the stairs. It was traumatic.
They were given cat nip.
Roomba came out to play, give kitty rides and generally be undaunted by being pounced at.
Their favorite couch blankets all mysteriously disappeared, giving them free reign to shed on the couch proper.
There was bacon for stealing. There were latkes to sniff and generally be confused by before being swatted down from the counters. There were treats.
They then considered the concept of out-of-doors, but after one paw was placed outside by the bravest, and the snow sniffed suspiciously and then horror-of-horrors, gotten on her nose, there was general consensus that this was a Bad Idea, and cat condos were retreated to.

Currently cat toys are being cuddled, and general uproar seems to have died down.

Instead of stealing it I really (cross my heart) would have linked to it, if I could figure out how to in Disqus

Sugar Is Dead

Chris Clayton reports that Sens. Shaheen (D) and Kirk (R) are moving to abolish the sugar program. As they represent the centrists, and Tea Partiers have already said they don't want sugar with their tea, the tide is against sugar in the Senate.  However, look for Sens. Nelson(D) and Rubio (R) to join forces with Sens. Landrieu (D) and Vitter (R) in the fight to sustain the program.

[Updated: not to mention lobbying by American Crystal Sugar, a co-op of  MN sugar growers, which spends as much lobbying Congress as Cargill does. Via FarmPolicy. ]

Negative Things Are True: Payments to the Dead

This Barking Up the Wrong Tree post talks about a study showing humans are more likely to believe the negative to be true.  It comes on the same day as FSA reports that almost all its payments to dead people are valid.

Tea Party Budget Proposals

From Rep. Bachmann:

$20 Billion Replace farm subsidies with farmer savings accounts, eliminating the Foreign Agriculture Service, merging and trimming budget of four agriculture outreach and research agencies, and funding the Food Safety and Inspection Service with user fees.

Note: I don't know how she gets the $20 billion or how much money the farmer savings accounts would get (unless it's just a 401k with no federal matching(.

From Rand Paul:

The following agencies are defunded: ARS, FAS, NRCS (the text says "Resource Conservation Service, so I assume he's trying for NRCS), National Institute of Food and Agriculture. FS is cut by $1.178 billion, the remaining agencies are cut pro rata by $42.542 billion.

Sen. Paul presents the text of a bill (S.162) but it's not in the sort of detail any serious effort would need.  For example, the legislation on farm programs would need to amend existing legislation.  It's perhaps representative of the deep thought which has gone into his proposal that the first page completely defunds the Government Printing Office, this on a bill printed by GPO.  No explanation of how Congress will do its business without GPO.