Astronauts Are Human Too

The guts of Joel Achenbach's latest post:

"And there was an astonishing pair of images, presented by a fellow from Boeing, Greg Gentry, who has duties involving the International Space Station (I didn’t quite catch his precise role). He showed the U.S. laboratory module at launch: A perfectly clean chamber, with all the equipment carefully stowed in cabinets — not a loose item to be seen. Then he showed that same module as it is actually used at the International Space Station: Extremely cluttered, with wires everywhere, gear all over the place. Frankly, it looks like a mess (though I’m sure the astronauts know exactly where everything is and why they’ve got it set up that way).
“We really didn’t anticipate the needs for stowage very well,” Gentry said.

The ancient lament: Not enough closet space!"

Wisdom from a Man

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, here's words of wisdom from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Liberrals in a Bind on Organic Checkoff?

Liberals, being mostly urban types, tend in my observation to have little sympathy for the various agricultural promotion programs.  And libertarians definitely think they're an encroachment on the freedom of the individual producer. 

So this line from todays Farm Policy'  may set up an interesting conflict:

"Mr. Lies also noted that, “Schrader said he also is working on an amendment with Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., to establish a national checkoff program for organic producers.”

Why?  Because I think liberals are also more favorable to the organic movement.  Do they support a checkoff to promote organics or do they resist to promote freedom?

Support Beef, Vote Obama?

Who knew the President was a steak man?  I thought he was one of those effete liberal crunchies?  Guess that impression was wrong.

I Think It's a Bubble

According to Illinois extension, farmland prices have gone from $3000 to $7000 per acre since 2000. 

Ode to the "Greedy Bastards"

Anyone want to write poetry--there's room to convert this Jonathan Bernstein post on "Greedy Bastards and Democracy" into poetry?  I think much, maybe all, of agribusiness and the food community would qualify as greedy bastards of some size or another.

White House Wheat

This year the White House garden has some wheat growing, planted this spring.  It puzzles me, because I've always thought of spring wheat as growing further north, but I guess they know what they're doing.  They've planted it in rows, rather than broadcast.  Again, I don't know why, because motherearthnews  definitely talks of broadcasting.

If I'd ever grown wheat, I might mock them as ignorant city slickers, but I never did, so I can't and won't.

USDA Is Number 2!

But unlike Hertz, in the old days, they don't want to try harder.

Government Executive says USDA has the second biggest gap in the job satisfaction scores between its leadership (SES types) and the rank and file.

The assumption is that the leadership is out of touch, but it's possible the leadership knows what a great job the department is doing while the rank and file is too busy doing it to know.

It's possible.....isn't it?

Naw

An NPR Anniversary Evaluation

Government Executive has a piece on Gore's National Program Review/Reinventing Government project, assessing how it looks 10 years later.

NYTimes on Pigford, Garcia, etc.

The Times has a front page article, their big story for the day, on the course of the various discrimination class action suits against USDA/FSA.  The writer apparently talked to a number of career employees, and found a number of cases of fraud.  The politicians and the lawyers come across unfavorably.