Personal Information

Back in the day, when the Privacy Act was first enacted, we notified all program participants their information was personal and protected from disclosure. Then, in the early 1990's, the Environmental Working Group took ASCS/USDA to court, saying that farm and program information was not personal. They won, at least at the circuit court level, and DOJ decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court. So our IT folks had to figure out how to provide the data to EWG, while masking the social security number (which was the primary key to a number of the files).

They did, and EWG put it online. I've used this data as an example of the problems of providing governmental transparency.

Meanwhile, FSA has been dealing with the current rules and issued an interesting notice AS-2179. Looking at the list of data which is protected, I'm not sure I see a clear line between what FSA is providing to EWG and what FSA has to protect. The notice doesn't provide a rationale for the division. But it's another example of the complexity the administration will run into as they push for open government.

The Decline of Intermediaries?

Yesterday I commented on a OSTP blog post asking about how to improve "public" participation in rulemaking. It's part of a bigger effort by the Obama administration to be open and elicit input on various e-government issues. It stimulated a chain of thought on intermediary institutions.

Today newspapers are in trouble. Consider them as intermediaries which gather news, vet and authenticate it, and provide it to individuals. Along with the news comes ads, which pay the freight. But now the Internet is allowing individuals to get their own news more directly and newspapers suffer.

Consider "interest groups", people like the Farm Bureau, the Corn Growers, the Sustainable Agriculture people, groups large and small. One way to look at them is as intermediaries: they search out news, they identify concerns of their members, they carry the concerns to Congress and the executive branch, they give news to their members. Suppose Obama (or his successors) succeed in adapting Web 2.0 to make strong connections between the public, or subsets of the public with their own hot issues, and the government, or subsets of the government concerned with writing laws and implementing them. What happens to the intermediaries?

Do we possibly have an arms race, a competition between private interest groups and public institutions to serve citizens?

Consider IRS. Back in the day tax returns were simple. As they grew more complicated people like H&R Block developed into intermediaries between taxpayer and IRS. As PC's came along we started getting software packages which allow the individual to do tax returns. And now IRS has its own software to do returns.

Farmers Can Be Optimistic, But Doubling in 5 Years?

From Chris Clayton's post on House Ag hearings:

Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, D-S.D., also highlighted that technology is expected to continue boosting farmer yields for corn dramatically in the next five years. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack reiterated this perhaps a dozen times in his testimony. So if technology is going to allow corn yields to soar, perhaps come close to doubling, then why do we need an arbitrary 15-billion cap on corn-based ethanol in the Renewable Fuels Standard?

Of course, I may be misunderstanding this. But if corn yields are at 150 bushels or more, it's taken about 35 years for them to go from 100 to 150.

I know I'm old and have my head in a dark place (as Tom von G used to say) but when I hear of corn being used for ethanol I've just the beginnings of the same qualms I have when I hear of good farmland growing houses. Corn is for food. Yes, I know better, but that's my upbringing.

A Tale of Two Michaels: Pollan and Roberts

Professor Michael Roberts reviews Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" (after commenting on Kindle) and comes out about the same place I do (although at longer length and more politely).

An excerpt (once Roberts has gotten past praising Pollan):

So this is the tone that grates. Pollan writes as if the nutrition scientists are conspiring in a sinister plot with the food business to make us all fat and unhealthy. He doesn't actually say that but it is implied. And, well, that's just silly. The reality is that food companies exaggerate findings from food science to market their goods. But this is neither new nor surprising nor in anyway unique to food. It's absolutely ubiquitous. That doesn't make it right, but the problem surely isn't science. And by misrepresenting the problem it becomes more difficult to articulate reasonable solutions.

And, now, the real rub. Did I mention prices?

Go to Greed, Green, and Grain to read it all.

Technology Is Often Upsetting

Reading a chronology of the Pennsylvania railroad (the historical site has very detailed ones by year) I stumbled on this entry for April 4, 1839:

Alarmed by the fact that steamboats and railroads provide quick and superior escape routes for runaway slaves, Maryland Legislature passes act prohibiting any slave from traveling on a steamboat or train unless in company of a master or with a signed pass; captains and railroads to be fined $500 for each violation; owners of runaway slaves may recover full value from and railroad or boat line involved in escape. (PL)

And for Apr. 6:

P. Lucianna, passenger contractor on Northern Liberties & Penn Township Railroad, complains of people stealing rides on freight cars rather than ride his pleasure cars. (MB)

Google Generosity

From a post by on a talk by Google's chief economist:

Why does Google give away products like its browser, its apps, and the Android operating system for mobile phones? Anything that increases Internet use ultimately enriches Google, Varian says. And since using the Web without using Google is like dining at In-N-Out without ordering a hamburger, more eyeballs on the Web lead inexorably to more ad sales for Google.

So, it's enlightened self-interest. This comes from a long piece in Wired, which explained the auction logic behind Google's sales of ads. Complete and interesting.

The End of Tobacco

A little tobacco was grown in Alabama, but now the tobacco program is gone so too is AL baccy. So says this human interest piece from the Birmingham News. I liked the quote about tobacco and handling hay as the two hardest jobs on the farm. I miss the smells of haying, but not the scratches.

That Ol' Devil Walmart

The left used to love to bash Walmart for many crimes, some still do. But this Treehugger piece on the top 10 buyers of organic cotton illustrates one of my themes: things are usually more complicated than you believe.

So Much for the Family Dairy Farm

Half the nation's dairy farms use immigrant labor according to this.

And milk prices are dropping and Jim Goodman at grist has a tirade about the dairy industry based on Mr. Bunting: "Milk prices, like the rest of the world economy, crashed because of a globalized, unregulated free market system, not because of surplus product."

And John Phipps is feeling guilty because his high grain prices are causing problems for dairy.

And the foodie who writes ObamaFoodorama wants us all to help

And I Thought Asians Were Lactose Intolerant

Not so if one takes this post at extension.org at face value:

We are constructing a mega dairy farm in Asia with 30,000 milking cows. My greatest concern is to find out the best way for manure treatment. Would you please help me in this regard?

Bureaucrats and Rats

No, I'm not saying bureaucrats are rats. The only relationship between the two is "bureauc rats". But here' Margaret Soltan, whose pleasure is good writing, commenting on a great piece about Baltimore rats with a final kicker. And it's educational.

Napoleon's Mother

According to Mr. Beauregard, Napoleon originated the idea of Mother's Day in France.

"Clinton Pal Wins Dem Primary in Virginia"

That was the heading on the link to MSNBC's story on yesterday's VA primary. The story was right, as the current piece says: "Country lawyer tops McAuliffe" but whoever had set-up the main page for the coming story was totally mistaken, as Creigh Deeds won easily. VA's not that Democratic, yet.

Wilbon and Karnal Bunt

When ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" was covering the French Open, Michael Wilbon had a thing for the word: "Monfils". (That is, he said it probably 50-60 times over a period of 2-3 shows.)

I know what he was feeling; I've the same fixation on "karnal bunt". (Perhaps because I'm a puritan at heart and am therefore intrigued by the sonic associations.) Anyhow, that's the phrase for today.

EEO Issues

The El Paso Times has an article on the concerns of Hispanic farmers with USDA programs: farmers talking with the new Assistant Secretary for EEO, Joseph Leonard, and some words from the attorney running the lawsuit on behalf of Hispanics that parallels the Pigford suit.

Foodies Will Win Gradually

They'll win on at least some issues, such as some animal welfare concerns, as shown by this Brownfield note saying the American Veal Association is moving away from individual pens to "group housing" (though they have to deal with "bullies"). The bottom line is that, because farmers get a small share of the price of food at the margin, pressure groups who are able to legislate higher standards will be able to enforce their will. Consumers won't notice the additional price. (It's the same economic logic as farmers have been using for years.)

Government Doubles Its Productivity

Or, at least that portion of the IRS devoted to processing tax returns. "During that same period, the number of staff-years required to process returns has dropped from about 4,600 to about 2,225, although the overwhelming majority of time still is devoted to paper returns." From a Government Computer News piece.

Government Organization

The Post has an op-ed by Max Stier arguing it's more important to get good people in government than to worry about government reorganization, because most mergers/reorganizations fail. He's got a point. I think I've noted the ASCS/FmHA reorg in 1994 still hasn't erased all past lines. But...

Back in the day, Harry Truman thought it was nonsense for us to have 3 air forces (Army, Navy, Marines), two armies (Army and Marines), etc. so he was pushing for one armed service. Of course he got shot down. For 30 years or so the Joint Chiefs were rather powerless. In 1986 Goldwater and someone else got reform legislation passed, essentially saying to the four services--if you want to hit the top ranks, you've got to spend time on the Joint Chief staff. (All my details are suspect, but the general idea is right.) That apparently has, over time, improved the coordination among the services.

The 9-11 Commission noted the divide between the intelligence and law enforcement communities, which their recommendations hoped to redress. The divide reminds me of the divides among the services.

My point is leadership needs a long range perspective. In the short term, Mr. Stier is right--focus on the people, not the organization. But for the long term it's important how you're structured, more so than who the people are. For example, look at GM. It was formed by the combination of different companies (i.e., Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, etc.), most of which became divisions of the company, each with its own dealerships, supply chains, etc. Although GM worked toward consolidation, in the long run that organization wasn't able to compete with companies like Toyota, with just two lines. Certainly the organization wasn't the only problem, but it was a big part of it. There were good people in GM (the company, UAW, dealers, etc.), but they were handicapped by the organization.

The Grim Reaper and the Dems

Not to be gloomy on a bright June day, but I'd just note these ages, from Wikipedia:

Robert Byrd	(D-WV)	91	November 20, 1917(1917-11-20)
Frank Lautenberg	(D-NJ)	85	January 23, 1924(1924-01-23)
Daniel Inouye	(D-HI)	84	September 7, 1924(1924-09-07)
Daniel Akaka	(D-HI)	84	September 11, 1924(1924-09-11)
Arlen Specter	(D-PA)	79	February 12, 1930(1930-02-12)
Jim Bunning	(R-KY)	77	October 23, 1931

As it happens, Senator Byrd has been in the hospital for 3 weeks for a staph infection. The Reps have a crack at taking the governorship of NJ and they hold the governorship of Hawaii. But I'm relieved to find that the governor of WV is a Democrat (must have won last year).

D-Day

In the "I didn't know that" category is this" "70,000 Normans were killed or wounded during the Normandy campaign – more than the number of Londoners killed or wounded during german bombing on the capital from 1940 to 1944." From Dirk Beauregard. Interesting for those of us who grew up in the shadow of WWII.

Kudos for CDC

CDC is doing what all government sites should: publish their metrics. (Are you listening, USDA?) That's one small step for an agency; one giant leap for good government.

[Updated--Though I'd like to see more than 1 month's data, which is all CDC is showing.]

Food Poisoning at the Inaugural Dinner

Yes, and someone died! I'm sure the food system was to blame. Of course, this was in 1857, based on a couple sentences in this blog post and it was Buchanan's nephew. (Interesting cemetery in Lancaster).

Have Any Architects Ever Gardened?

Here's a sentence from a proposal for a Dallas project,which is supposed to be "economically, environmentally and socially sustainable": "Some of the unusual features to be included in the 2.5 acre block include enough garden space to feed around 300 inhabitants, 40% affordable housing, an educational element that serves all of the residents and fully renewable, off-the-grid energy." That's roughly 350 square feet per person. Not sure how you do much meat off that area, so presumably these are 300 vegans. And I personally doubt the ability of 350 square feet to provide all the fruits and vegetables for a person, much less the grain.

[Some may say I'm willfully misreading the description, that "sustainable" doesn't mean self-sufficient. That may be true, but still a reasonable modesty in claims would be fitting.)

The Amish Head West

That's the lead from this MSNBC story--driven by the rising cost of farm land, Amish are now in Colorado.

A professor is quoted as saying the average size of their families is 7 children, meaning a doubling every 20 years. (I would have thought more.)

That means:
230,000 Amish in 2009
460,000 in 2029
1 million in 2049
2 million in 2069
4 million in 2089
8 million in 2109

Organic, Inc.

Organic, Inc., Organic Foods and How They Grow, is written by Samuel Fromartz. It's an easy read, which looks at both the small organic producers and the big ones, with products from soy milk to packaged salad greens. He explores the tensions between "organic" as a business and "organic" as a movement. He seems to me to have an open mind, accepting that organic products have their advantages, particularly in their freedom from pesticide residue, while being attracted to the romance of the movement.

In a related item, ERS has a report (summary pdf here) on the challenges facing the organic people. One item I found interesting in the context of the above book, was this sentence: "According to an ERS survey of organic handlers, 24 percent of organic sales in 2004 were made locally (within an
hour’s drive of the handlers’ facilities) and another 30 percent were made regionally." That means 46 percent of organic sales were transported long distances.

Pushback on WH Garden

Slate provides a forum for conventional ag to comment on the White House garden: the spokesmen make the usual points. Organic is a niche, conventional costs less and can be less hard on the environment, locavore doesn't satisfy tastes all year round, etc. Bottom line--the big boys aren't worried yet.

Meanwhile Obamafoodorama highlights a video of Ryan Howard (Phillies) touring the garden with Sam Kass. There's a brief picture of the garden. Nice lettuce, but I heard somewhere a claim they've harvested 80 pounds from it so far; based on the video I think not. Lettuce is bulky but light. I note the whitehouse.gov site doesn't have much on the garden--just the Howard visit since April was all I saw.

Workload for NRCS?

That's what I get from this item from the letter sent to Speaker Pelosi by a set of farm organizations about the carbon cap and trade proposals:

Eligibility and offset compensation should be based upon whether a project, technique or practice sequesters carbon or otherwise reduces GHG emissions. USDA should establish an activity baseline for each offset project type in effect on January 1, 2001 with standardized methodology. We support the establishment of a static baseline of activity to measure against when determining additionality. The fixed baseline should establish which practices were in effect on a specific piece of land on a specific date; any activity that results in GHG reductions measured against that baseline should be deemed eligible/additional.

I'm not sure why they used Jan 1, 2001 as the magic date. Nor do I know if they consulted with anyone from NRCS (or FSA) as to the feasibility of doing this. I know the acreage reports submitted to FSA provide some information on the activity on the land, but I don't know whether it's sufficient to be used for this purpose.

If and when it comes to writing legislation, there are lots of issues to be addressed. For example, there's a maintenance question--if farmer Jones was doing no-till on her acreage in 2000, does she have to have continued no-till in the years since? How about shifts in practices among the fields on the farm? And how do the bureaucrats encapsulate the requirement? (See my earlier mention of "conserving base".) Might it be another layer(s) added to the GIS?

But I'm sure this proposal is causing some bureaucratic hearts in NRCS to beat much faster.

I Passed the (Not Harvard) Typing Test

John Phipps linked to a site that offers a typing test. I won't embarrass John by repeating his score but I scored 39 words per minute. Not bad, though I used to be faster. My elder sister told me I needed to take the typing course in high school, because college papers had to be typed and she earned some money by typing them for male students. So I did, being one of the few male students in the class. It was difficult for a few weeks, but then suddenly the neural network got rewired and the link between recognizing the word on the page and hitting the proper keys to type the word became automatic and natural.

Although taking the course meant lowered my high school grade average by enough, I think, to drop my class standing, typing and typing reasonably fast has always helped, so I should thank my sister for her advice.

I Failed the Harvard Face Recognition Test

Freakonomics linked to a series of puzzlers from a Harvard research project. Being an impatient sort, I opted for the shortest-- a face recognition test. Simply put, they display a face (face only and a bit "off" from a normal portrait of the subject), you type the name (or say you don't know), they display the correct answer and you say whether you're familiar with the person.

Anyway, I did very poorly, only recognizing 25 percent of the people with whom I was familiar (I got Obama and George Clooney and Scarlett Johannsen :-). I've always been poor at facial recognition (and sometimes, more now, at remembering the name which goes with the face I recognize) which has often made me awkward in social events. Or, possibly it's because I've had below average exposure to social events that I never developed the neurons needed to recognizing and distinguishing faces. That's what some of the latest brain research might indicate, if you believe Malcolm Gladwell.

Great News from Harvard

Via Greg Mankiw the senior class at Harvard is going much less into finance and much more into teaching and health care than they were 2 years ago.

Supreme Court Speculation

I find it fun to speculate how Ms. Sotomayor's confirmation to the Court might work out. We know Ginsburg and Scalia are the best of friends, which is totally surprising and counter-intuitive, so let me guess:

• Sotomayor and Thomas might well get on. He seems shy, she seems not, they share a background in that their opponents diss their appointments and careers as affirmative action babies.
• Roberts, Alito, and Sotomayor are of an age, so there might be a generational divide. It might be hard for Sotomayor to show Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer the deference which they might expect from their seniority. Sotomayor, Roberts, and Alito might form a "new boys [sic]" club.
  
• Obviously Ginsburg and Sotomayor would share the gender experience.
• Alito graduated from Princeton before she did, and didn't like the idea of women undergrads, but old alums might share a bond.
• There seems to be little common ground between Sotomayor and Stevens or Kennedy, which might be bad news for us liberals.

Of course, the other lesson from the Ginsburg/Scalia bond is that justices can perfectly well separate their opinions and their personal feelings.

Should the World End in 400 Years?

Or rather, what proportion of your income would you spend to help ensure the world wouldn't end in 400 years? That's the nugget buried in the economics discussed at this blog.

Somehow it seems very important to me, even though the economists tend to say I shouldn't worry my head.

Wingnuts and Open Gov

Federal Computer Week has a piece on the open.gov episode. The optimistic ending: do more open gov and the "birthers" will lose their zeal. In other words, you gotta outlast them.

Pork = Fat = Lard = Good

I'd guess, because I'm too lazy to click the mouse, that using the term "pork" in connection with government programs had some relation to the idea there's lots of "fat" to cut out, and we all know fat is bad, except for Slate, which has this article praising lard. And I remember mom cooking with lard.

The Realities of Rural Life

Yes, Montana is rather extreme, but still. See Erin's latest vacation

Wisdom and Sex and Race, and Age

Many on the right have attacked Judge Sotomayor for a quote from a 2001 speech. I was going to blog on it, then stumbled on the "whole thing", which I finally read. Here's a link. I like it. And recommend it.

But for anyone too lazy to check it out, here's the infamous quote, which the White House says is poorly worded: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Let me rephrase it: "I would hope that a wise old man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a wise young man who hasn't lived that life."

My point: I hope I'm wiser now at 68 than I was 20 years ago, much less 40. I'm sure I'm losing brain cells and slowing down. I've probably developed new blind spots and am less able to judge some things (like current popular music) than I was 20 years ago. But on the whole, I think I'm wiser. And that's because of added experiences, experiences which a wise Latina wouldn't have, but which I didn't have 20 years ago. And I'm willing to stipulate a Latina operating in a white male's world is likely to have a broader set of experiences than a comparable white male. So, given that logic, I'd concede my hypothetical Latina twin sister would be wiser than I.

Federal Employees Have No Imagination?

One possible interpretation of the failure of employees to take advantage of a new website. See this story in Politico.

A Route to Bipartisanship--Kneecapping Senators

If he wants to inspire bipartisanshi on the Hill, Obama should hope Tony Soprano kneecaps some Senators and Representatives. That's my takeaway from this Politico piece on the experience of Sen. Murkowski, who busted up her knee skiing and since has found bipartisan amity growing. [Revised--my reference to "goons" was more tasteless than I intended.]

Farmers Depend on Efficient Markets?

That's a surprising sentence from a NY Times article on big banks and possible changes in regulation:

Mr. Peterson, whose constituents include farmers, who are historically suspicious of Wall Street and whose livelihoods depend on efficient markets [emphasis added], is a longstanding critic of loose regulation. And since his committee oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, he would retain more of his prerogatives overseeing the market if the C.F.T.C. were the main regulator.

As part of the history of farm programs was to limit and temper the impact of efficient markets, it struck me as odd.

The Wingnuts Strike Again

The people who believe Obama is not an American citizen have struck Open Gov.

It's reminiscent of flame wars on Usenet or the problems wikipedia has had in the past: people who believe passionately in oddball causes can overwhelm. Not sure how one goes about moderating their impact so government can use Web 2.0.

Crop Insurance and GAO

Keith Good at Farm Policy blogs on a GAO report on crop insurance. If I get ambitious I'll look at the report myself, but one striking thing is that the federal subsidy for administration and operations is tied to the value of the crops insured. So the increase in crop prices in 2006-8 raised the subsidy, though presumably not the actual work involved. (The total program cost $6.5 billion, $2 billion for administration. Don't know what FSA's administrative expenses are.) Nice work if you can get it.

Why I'm Not a Conservative

The New Yorker had an article last week by Atul Gawande concerning the costs of health care. He uses McAllen, TX with its high costs to compare with other cities with lower costs. His analysis, in brief: Some treatments clearly work, others are more uncertain and some carry both possible gains and risks. But most treatments cost money. Some physicians care about money, some don't. It's partially a personal trait, but also a result of the culture in a city. American culture and social institutions particularly encourage thinking about money (as opposed, for example, to worrying about risks and the patients' overall health) and activity ("do something, don't just stand there").

My stereotypical conservative would argue that following the money always conduces to better health care, but not so.

Gawande is always interesting. In this case, I think he could have mentioned the specialization of care a bit more.

A Different View

Cafe Hayek alerted me to this article by Brink Lindsey from Reason discussing the reasons for the growing disparity between rich and poor. The writer may be using a strawman in arguing against Paul Krugman: " We have to back up to the 1930s and ’40s—when, he contends, the “norms and institutions” that shaped a more egalitarian society were created."

I'm not a conservative so I resist the argument, but he does remind of the bad side of that society--racism, discrimination, sexism, and nationalism. The "Greatest Generation" it wasn't, IMHO.

The Wikipedia Revolution and Culture

Just finished "The Wikipedia Revolution", by Andrew Lih. Before I get to the most interesting part of it, let me complain. The type face used is a sans serif one which I found particularly bothersome. Way back in the early 70's I was researching replacements for our IBM MT/ST word processors, which got me into CRT displays and legibility which, since I tend to digress, surprising as that may be to, got me into reading about type faces. This was way before Postscript and other computer-generated fonts. It seems the function of "serifs" is to help guide the eye, and the older you get the more guidance you need.

Anyhow, the book is good, although I was vaguely aware of some of the history. What was most interesting was his discussion of the way culture and history impact the structure and operations of the Japanese (lots more anonymity), German (more rule-oriented and concerned with quality, not quantity), and Chinese (although the spoken languages differ, there's one written language, except there's actually three systems) wikipedias.

ERS and Locavore

ERS is doing a conference on locavore. It's not true USDA is in thrall to big ag--it's better to view agencies like ERS and Extension as bureaucratic entrepreneuts--willing to follow the crowd whereever it wants to go because that's the way to get the right people on the Hill to support your appropriations.

On Cooking

In today's Times Amanda Hesser has an op-ed criticizing Michelle Obama for saying cooking isn't her favorite thing, etc. I'm not impressed with the column, particularly this paragraph:

The twist, of course, is that convenience foods save neither money nor time. As Marion Nestle pointed out in her 2006 book “What to Eat,” prewashed romaine hearts cost at least $1.50 a pound more than romaine heads. And the 2006 U.C.L.A. study found that families saved little or no cooking time when they built their meals around frozen entrees and jarred pasta sauce.

Ms. Hesser neglects the critical saving, at least for the old geezers and the lazy: effort. And most convenience foods save effort, if not money.

On a sidenote, have we had any spouses in the White House who enjoyed cooking to the extent they sat the chefs down? (If I remember, Calvin Coolidge did some of his cooking, at least according to Backstairs at the White House.)

Kristof Versus Shakespeare

I remember we read Julius Caesar in high school (9th grade maybe?). I vaguely remember someone, maybe Caesar, saying not to trust skinny men (like me) who are hungry and discontented.

But today in the Times Nicholas Kristof has a list of 15 things to do to stay safe in the sorts of countries he visits and in number 9 he disagrees with the great Will:

9. When you arrive in a new city, don’t take an airport taxi unless you know it is safe. If you do take a cab, choose a scrawny driver and lock ALL the doors — thieves may pull open the doors at a red light and run off with a bag.

I'm glad to know skinny is getting some respect.

Czars and Bureaucracies

This article at Government Executive argues that Obama's "czars" reflect and counter a bureaucracy's resistance to cooperating with other bureaucracies. Makes sense, but what happens when the bureaucracies in conflict are the Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force in DOD or NRCS, FSA, RD, APHIS, etc. in USDA? (Though it seems Secretary Gates is reasonably effective in managing DOD.)

Motorcycle Babe for Justice?

I don't like motorcycles. When I was young, occasionally a motorcyclist would come bombing up NY route 369 to the corner (it was a reasonably flat and quiet ride from Binghamton, or maybe from the Chenango Valley State Park). The noise would carry across the valley to our farm, disrupting the rural tranquility. To a young boy it represented the intrusion of urban aliens into our agrarian paradise. No, I don't like motorcycles.

But, given this sentence from the Times profile on Judge Sotomayor, I'm ready for her to be on the Court: "One incident that figures largely in firm lore was a seizure in Chinatown, where the counterfeiters ran away, and Ms. Sotomayor got on a motorcycle and gave chase."

This was when she was with a law firm that was trying to protect trademarks from counterfeiters, particularly high-end pocketbooks. It's the urban equivalent of Justice O'Connor's youth on her Arizona ranch.

Unpleasant Report for Bureaucracies

It seems bureaucrats are better at paying their bills timely than the bureaucracies they run--from a Government Executive article on a Congressional Research Service report:

According to the most recent data from the Office of Management and Budget, in January 2009, governmentwide delinquency rate for centrally billed card accounts -- those paid by an agency rather than an employee -- was 19.23 percent. The average delinquency rate for individually billed cards was 6.25 percent, data showed.

USDA was one of the worst agencies, though apparently DOD distorts the picture.