Slavery and Mauretania

Kottke.org links to a desire map--Google analyzed the most common query "how much does X cost" by country. 

In four countries of east Africa the most common "X" is "cow".

In Mauretania the most common "X" is "slave", which led me to find this wikipedia entry on slavery in modern?-day Mauretania.

Today's Euphemism: Depopulation

"Handling a depopulation and disinfection on a layer site is more complex than a turkey site..."

from an agriculture.com post on the bird flu problem in Iowa.  (I wonder what position the candidates for President will take on it?)
 
Didn't know birds got flu?  They do, and they're likely the original source of human flu type A, the most common kind.  

Flu is a big problem for poultry producers because there's not much to do except kill the birds, and invent an euphemism for it.

Competition in E-Books?

Just found Amazon and Google offering a cheap price on a new book of historical essays (Inequality in Early America).  Don't know why, whether it's a result of competition or not, but I like it.

On a personal note, I got a Kindle for Christmas a couple years ago.  I like it.  I've been able to restrain myself from buying lots of pricey books ($9.99 and up) but not the cheapies--both the free and the 1 and 2 dollar specials from Amazon.  All in all it's increased my book purchases.

CRISPR--Gene Modification

Technology Review has an article on gene editing, which I've posted about earlier.  The idea of removing genetic material from a genome is less frightening than the idea of incorporating genes from one species into the genes of another.

For now, the techniques are being used to modify plants in more modest ways. “The first wave of this technology is just removing a few base pairs,” says Yinong Yang, a professor of plant pathology at Penn State University, referring to the combinations of DNA letters—A, G, C, and T—that make up a genome. By “knocking out” just the right gene, as researchers did with the potato, it’s possible to give a plant a few valuable properties.[The potato modification is intended to increase storage life of russet potatoes.]

The article goes on to mention another permutation--using this new technology to transfer a preferred genetic trait from one variety of a plant to another, the example used is a drought-resistant trait.  Again I don't see such modifications as raising the concerns that GMO opponents usually raise.

How To Improve Government: Twinkies

Via Ann Althouse, a Forbes story on the revival of Twinkies--the company went bankrupt twice, but a turnaround expert has revived the brand. From the article:

Metropoulos’ recipe was threefold. First he spent $110 million modernizing the remaining factories–everything from a utomation (massive, new $20 million Auto Bakers) to improving air flow in the bakeries so they’d be more tolerable for workers in the hot summer months. “You must improve employee conditions, fix the cracks on the floor and those types of things,” says Metropoulos. “It affects the pride, energy and culture of the plant, and that translates into everything.” Next came a $25 million SAP software system to manage inventory and logistics.

 The point is the owners of an enterprise (like the public) have to make their employees feel valued. 

(Even if you disagree with the moral I drew from the story, I recommend the story.)

Organic Farms: Does History Repeat Itself?

One of my problems with the food movement, defined as the people who advocate for organic farming, and/or local farming, and/or  family/small farming, is their ignoring of history.  I once had ambitions to be a historian, and I've kept up an arms-length interest in the subject and profession since my college days, so I tend to be aware of history.

In the past, say up to the 1930's or 1950's, depending on the area and the crop, American farms were essentially organic and the food they produced was often sold locally.  I remember reading a memoir/history from Ontario county, NY (where some of my ancestors had settled and lived for a few generations).  The writer talked about the family farms, about hog slaughtering in the fall, and about the fact that every family had its own recipe for bacon, and knowledgeable folks could identify which farm the bacon had come from.

My point is that time passed, and there were reasons for its passing.  The forces of the market and the way American society has changed were too strong.  However earnestly the food movement tries, unless and until they come to grips with the reasons, its efforts will be eventually futile.

Actively Engaged

The Coalition for Rural America comments on the proposed "actively engaged" rule:

However, the rule also takes two steps backward. The biggest failure of the proposed rule is that it only applies the new “actively engaged in farming” definition to farms structured of non-family members, leaving the loopholes wide open for farms structured solely of family members. We believe the rules should apply across the board regardless if the farm is structured of family members or non-family members.

The first sentence is rhetorical nonsense:  since in their reading the proposal makes no change for family members, it's neither an advance or a retrogression.  However, I hadn't picked up on that point--if I get ambitious I may look at it.

[Updated: yes, existing regs require "significant contribution" (roughly 50 percent and/or 1000 hours of labor) by lineal ancestor or descendant. I know I don't have the ambition to figure out how much tighter the proposed rules are on non-family members than the existing rules are on family members.]

What Ticks Me Off--Taxes

What really gets me is all the politicians, particularly Republicans but Democrats too, who pontificate about the need for a simpler tax system.  When they're given a good idea which would ease the paperwork burden, be optional for the taxpayer, and save money, they allow the lobbying of special interests (i.e., Intuit) to kill the proposal.  See today's NYTimes--Mr. Manjoo picks up an idea Propublica.org has pushed for some time now (having IRS set up taxpayer accounts with the 1099/W2 data preloaded).


And don't get me started on the idea of cutting the appropriations for IRS. Don't go there.

A Sign of the Future: Female Majority in Government SES?

I think this is a portent of the future:

"The Health and Human Services Department is the only major Cabinet-level agency that boasts more female than male senior executives, according to the latest numbers from the Office of Personnel Management.
Of the 420 total senior executives at HHS as of September 2014, women made up 53 percent of the corps, compared to 47 percent who were men. That’s 223 senior executive women compared to 197 senior executive men, based on OPM’s Fedscope data compiled by CEB, a member-based advisory company. The bulk of the Senior Executive Service’s members are career employees – a whopping 90 percent.

Women have shown they'll work for less than men, on average, and members of the Senior Executive Service earn less than people in private, for-profit enterprise.  The "service" ethos, such as it is, of non-profit organizations and the government is also likely to appeal more strongly to women than men.  Thus I'd predict HHS is the first (article doesn't say that but I imagine it's true) but not the last department to see women become dominant at higher levels.

What Happened to Piracy?

Idly looking at Blogger stats, I see one of the most popular posts was one from 2008 suggesting a convoy system to deal with piracy.  Seven years later piracy seems to be a non-issue, at least in terms of media discussions. (The wikipedia article has a paragraph headed "Collapse of Piracy in 2013".  I wonder what happened--Tom Hanks made a movie, Captain Phillips, and that scared all the pirates into law-abiding citizens.  Or Somalia gradually got more orderly?  Or something else? (The wikipedia article suggests a mixture of measures, including effective government.)

Farming the (Hydro)ponic

“I went to conventional lenders and I was turned down by all of them,” said Villari, who had little farming experience outside of helping her father raise livestock. “Then I turned to the Farm Service Agency (FSA). They took a chance on me when no one else would. They not only made the loan process easy, they also provided me with a lot of support and information once the loan was closed.”
Villari received U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) FSA farm ownership and operating loans to help get Fresh Water Greens off of the ground. FSA financing provided the assistance needed to build a facility and begin production. It was the first hydroponic operation funded by New Jersey FSA.

From the USDA blog 

Is this "mission creep" in programs or adapting to new realities?

Caro and Moses

Via Marginal Revolution, Robert Moses response to Caro's The Power Broker.

It's a long response, in which the author paints a picture of himself.  The defense is basically the defense of any bureaucrat/government official: I did my best in the circumstances and criticism is second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking.

Local Food Is Not Organic,Necessarily

The New York Times had an article the other day on a "vertical farming" project in Newark, NJ.  An excerpt:

Unlike urban vegetable gardens of the past that took advantage of empty lots or evolved in rooftop greenhouses, AeroFarms employs so-called aeroponics and stacks its produce vertically, meaning plants are arrayed not in long rows but upward. Because the farming is completely indoors, it relies on LED bulbs, with crops growing in cloth and fed with a nutrient mist.

 I've been critical of some vertical farming concepts, particularly the ones which rely on sunshine and ignore shade, or use fluorescent lights.  LED's are more efficient than fluorescents so it's possible that such setups are energy-efficient when you add in the energy savings on transporting produce to market.

Meanwhile Sec. Vilsack is pushing local food:

Local food gives consumers a chance to know the farmers producing their food, to access fresher food and an opportunity to keep food dollars in the local economy, he said. In short, “local and regional food systems create a better connection between people who produce and people who eat.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/agriculture-secretary-tom-vilsack-locally-grown-food-116830.html#ixzz3X2JkLXKm

 But the organic types have reservations:

A definition for local would help organic farmers make the case for why their often more expensive produce is worth the cost, argues Laura Batcha, director of the Organic Trade Association.
“There is definitely an issue with the public differentiating between local and organic,” Batcha said. “In many cases, both things happen together … but the public, I think, assumes that local is organic.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/agriculture-secretary-tom-vilsack-locally-grown-food-116830.html#ixzz3X2K3LQGQ

Illinois on "Actively Engaged" Proposals

Illinois Ext. has posted an analysis of FSA's proposed rule on "actively engaged" in farming.

After summarizing the background and some of the egregious cases in the past, their own analysis includess:

"By limiting the use of farm managers to multiply payments, the proposed changes appear to address many of the concerns with the current rules. A few notable issues remain and are briefly discussed here for the reader's consideration. As an initial matter, the differential treatment of entity types when it comes to payments is not addressed here because it is provided for in the statute and may need Congressional action to change it. [by definition--my comment] The proposed changes create differential treatment for farm managers without much explanation or justification. USDA could provide more clarity on how the changes apply to the first farm manager. USDA may also want to explain or justify exempting the first farm manager from the new definitions applied only to the additional managers.

A similar issue arises with the recordkeeping requirement. Again, the proposed rule provides different treatment for the first farm manager than for additional managers. In addition to reconsidering treating all farm managers the same, USDA might also want to consider whether this recordkeeping should also come with a reporting requirement. The long-standing concerns about this issue would seem to counsel verification of compliance with the regulation."

Forms

As a bureaucrat I like forms, mostly.  Not this application to the KKK though.

The nicely printed form shows that the organization was big and/or had a good bureaucrat involved at the higher levels. 

GE Security Systems Violates Law

I really shouldn't use my blog this way, but I'm grumpy.  Got a recorded solicitation which claimed to be from "GE Security" (apparently an old General Electric division which got sold off from GE) offering a deal on security systems because of criminal activity in my area.

First, I'm not aware of any uptick in Reston crime.

Second, we're on the FCC's Do Not Call list, and it's a violation to call the number.

The Good Old Days

Brad DeLong gets Laura Ingalls Wilder's thoughts on the advantages of modernity, circa 1911.  "Oil stoves" (I assume kerosene) instead of wood/coal, gasoline engines enabling inside water supply, and rural free delivery of news were all having an impact.

This was just after TR's Country Life Commission had issued its report describing problems of country life.

Thank You Keith Good--End of Farm Policy

Over the years I've blogged on a lot of pieces from the Farm Polcy daily summary of agricultural news item.  But Keith Good has had to shut it down, with this his last post.

Adulterating the Milk: Then and Now

In the 19th century adulterating milk was common, leading to Henry David Thoreau's quote: "some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk".

Today though it's human milk which is adulterated, as described in this story.

White House Garden Coverage or Lack Thereof

Apparently Eddie Gehman Kohan has shut down the obamafoodorama blog and instead is solely tweeting (https://twitter.com/obamafoodorama).  She notes that March 20 was the anniversary of the initiation of the project in 2009, but a quick search doesn't reveal any recent coverage of it. The last news item I find is from last fall.  Now that Sam Kass has left, I suppose Barack is worried about his legacy, and the family is worried about colleges, it may be running on bureaucratic inertia.   If so, that's the usual fate of initiatives of outsiders who come into the bureaucracy with great ideas.

Different Perspectives on the Past: Golden Age versus Vast Wasteland

This Vox piece talks about "Golden Age"s of TV, in connection with the ending of Mad Men.  It seems the first Golden Age was the 1950's.  The referent is to the "high culture" approach, live drama and things like Leonard Bernstein's programming explaining classical music.

I more vividly remember JFK's FCC chair, Newton Minow, deploring the "vast wasteland" of TV.

Two takes on one history.

Why There's Turnover in the Billionaires

George Will had a column pointing out the extensive turnover in the Forbes list of the richest, arguing that mobility as seen in the turnover was more important than inequality.

Janet Kinzner had a letter to the editors pointing out one factor in the turnover: death.

Pinball in Space

We have one of those pot racks which hang from the ceiling and has hooks for pots and pans.  It's a small kitchen, so every so often my head hits one of the pots, resulting in a very unpredictable chain reaction of pot clanging against frying pan against saucepan, etc. etc. Gradually the interactions die out and the sounds fade away.

Turns out there could be the same sort of interactions in space, which possibility makes a hazard for ideas of NASA changing the course of an asteroid due to hit the earth.  That's mentioned in this piece on NASA plans to practice such things. I applaud both the idea of practicing (see Harshaw rule) and the wisdom of anticipating interactions.

A Violation of the Religious Establishment Clause

Stumbled on this language in a treaty between the US and the Kaskasia Indian Tribe:

. And whereas, The greater part of the said tribe have been baptised and received into the Catholic church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven
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years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for the said tribe the duties of his office and also to instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature. And the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.

Not sure how modern scholars would view this.

Sen. Charles Schumer and Payment LImitation

The good senator from New York was precocious, winning election to the State Assembly and then to the US House in his twenties.  He's notorious as a publicity hound, and I strongly suspect in his early days aggravated his elders and betters.  That, I speculate, is why an early committee assignment was to House Agriculture Committee--why else would one stick someone so obviously and completely a city slicker on that committee if not to embarrass him?

I don't remember all the ins and outs, but I do remember that Schumer was active in pushing payment limitation provisions.  And here's a GAO report back to Schumer and Conte on their proposal to change the provisions in the 1985 farm, to tighten them up.   In considering the 1990 farm bill he proposed an adjusted gross income limitation, which was defeated then, but which finally passed.

A lesson for farm state legislators: never agree to put ambitious urbanites on your committee.  As Shakespeare warned:

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Tell Me What You Really Think

Conor Friedersdorf on Ted Cruz:

That such a brilliant, accomplished man so regularly comes off as a petulant, short-sighted phony is inextricable from the demands of the conservative base, and the sorts of personas that it tends to reward.

Rice and "Actively Engaged"--the First Shot Fired

From the chairman of the House subcommittee on farm programs:

Chairman Crawford cited the need for action by the Department to address the collapse in cotton prices due to actions taken by the Chinese government, stating, “USDA has the authority to address an issue that is making the marketing of cotton extremely difficult for cooperatives and marketing pools at a time when the markets are already beating them down.”  The Chairman called newly proposed “actively engaged” regulations "arbitrary and capricious," noting that the regulation "ignores the remarkable diversity and complexity in agriculture today."[emphasis added]  And, the Chairman called on RMA Administrator Willis to ensure that margin coverage being developed works for rice growers.

Do I have to say that cotton and rice growers are the most affected by potential changes to payment limitation rules?

Hat Tip to Farm Policy, which is shutting down next week.

What Washington Really Thinks of Tourists

"On Washington, D.C. tourists: “You can always tell when it is summertime because you can smell the visitors. The visitors stand out in the high humidity, heat, and they sweat.” (April 2008)

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/harry-reid-retires-best-insults-116450.html#ixzz3Vbh0dh95

Politico on Farm Bill Costs

David Rogers at Politico analyzes potential costs of the 2014 farm bill.  It's too detailed for me, but I think the bottom line is he believes it will cut costs, unlike some publications which believe it will increase costs, over its lifespan.  However, I think he's saying that the cut will be much smaller than anticipated when the bill was passed.

Hill's Algebra

Textbooks need not be politically neutral.  Dead Confederates quotes from a pre-Civil War Algebra textbook.

After 29 Years, "Actively Engaged" in Farming

FSA published a proposed rule defining "actively engaged" in farming--from their press release:

Under the proposed rule, non-family joint ventures and general partnerships must document that their managers are making significant contributions to the farming operation, defined as 500 hours of substantial management work per year, or 25 percent of the critical management time necessary for the success of the farming operation. Many operations will be limited to only one manager who can receive a safety-net payment. Operators that can demonstrate they are large and complex could be allowed payments for up to three managers only if they can show all three are actively and substantially engaged in farm operations. The changes specified in the rule would apply to payment eligibility for 2016 and subsequent crop years for Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) Programs, loan deficiency payments and marketing loan gains realized via the Marketing Assistance Loan program.

It's been a while since the 1985 farm bill, which I think may have been the first time "actively engaged" was used in payment limitation language.  As I've blogged before, I remember the DC bureaucrats trying to comprehend the statutory language and come up with regulations and handbook instructions. Was that when the "left hand" and "right hand" first entered the picture (a farmer had to contribute labor, management, capital, equipment, etc. to the operation, but not all of them so we tried to clarify which combinations would qualify by using the two categories).  Anyhow, after long effort ASCS got the rules out and the training prepared only to have enough big shots exert enough influence on their Congressional representatives to force ASCS to reverse directions.  Again, if memory serves, and it's less reliable these days, the biggest loophole was managerial contribution: in effect, if John Goldbrick Doe, living as a beach bum in Key West, but one of the heirs to Sam Hardworking Farmer Doe, participated in a conference call with the other heirs and agreed to a share lease of the inherited land to Joe Dirty Hands Farmer, JGDoe could get a share of the payments.  (I may be exaggerating.)

The bottom line is "actively engaged" is a judgment call, and there's a Heisenberg principle at work: issue a regulation and the lawyers will change the reality, at least the legal reality, so the regulation won't work as it was originally intended.

Sen. Grassley has said the FSA proposal isn't as tough as he proposed.  We'll see if it survives the comment period.

PS: this issue shows the irrelevance of the President to much bureaucratic work.

The Expansion of the Bureaucracy

I remember when a hurricane hit Guam, I think it was, and two WDC employees were sent out to help the Hawaii office administer the provisions of the disaster program (late 80's maybe).  One of the big problems they had was the fact that land was communally owned, or at least that's how I remember it.  In rhe continental US we take our land tenure system for granted, at least we whites do.  The periphery still has remnants of other systems, the Spanish system in NM, perhaps the French in LA, the native American on some reservations.

Anyhow, my mind wanders.  The trigger for this post is this post, on an attempt to get an FSA employee assigned to Saipan, out of the Guam office. (Not clear what CNMI stands for--Micronesia probably.) It's the logic of a bureaucracy: institute a program with universalist parameters and it will get applied everywhere possible.

[Update: CNMI is on the mvariety.com site: "Marianas Variety"]

Dairy Down Under

From a post at Crooked Timber on New Zealand [hat tip Marginal Revolution]:

Then you drive through a town like Edgecumbe, past something which looks for all the world like an oil refinery, and realise that it is in fact a dairy, the size of an oil refinery. Four million litres of milk go through that particular plant every day (one litre for every New Zealander), and it’s not even one of the top three Fonterra plants. A lot of the milk is converted into powder, which is sold to the Asian market. This was my first clue that I might be heading into some interesting economics – at the duty-free shop in Auckland Airport, one of the things that they pile up high next to the scent and booze is great big tubs of infant formula.

From the context sounds like CAFO's have yet to come to the land of the hobbits.

Have I mentioned the David Hackett Fischer book:  Fairness and Freedom, which compares the histories of the US and NZ. The post touches on the history of the white settlers with the native Maoris.

Agriculture and Drones

An old story and a little confused.  The guy was a fighter pilot, but operated drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I guess he was a converted fighter pilot.  Anyhow he's got a drone business in Idaho, has FAA approval to photograph farms, and charges $3 an acre for the data.

I wonder how FSA/USDA aerial photography and drone photography will impact each other?

What Makes for Contented Cows? Robots!

Nathanael Johnson at Grist has a post describing on the use of robots by dairymen, quoting an observation that cows may be more contented (robotic routines are more stable [until they aren't]).

A Billion Is a Token Amount

So says the greenies, the National Sustainable AGriculture Coalition commenting on the Republican budget (from agriculture.com)

“While we continue to oppose re-opening the farm bill, we are thankful the draft House budget resolution released today is asking for farm bill cuts of only $1 billion …over the next decade, though it raises the rather obvious question of why bother to go through an agonizing re-opening the farm bill via the budget reconciliation process for such a token amount."

Sen. Ev Dirksen had the famous quote about "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you've got real money. Back then the federal budget was a bit over 100 billion, not the 3-4 trillion of today.

Just Say "No" in Olden Days

From a post by a museum curator discussing an exhibit of mostly 18th century shoes:

A pair of French garters (c. 1800) features early metallic clasps, as opposed to the ribbons typically used by men and women to secure their stockings just above or just below the knee. One garter says ‘Halt’ and the other ‘You can go no further.’ Some garments are on display, including one pairing of an 1837 silk brocade wedding dress and matching shoes.

FSA Gets Publicity for Midas

Farm Futures has a post on FSA implementation of MIDAS, based on some interview/speech by Dolcini.

I see they're doing a pilot project in a few IL/IA counties to handle acreage reporting for both FSA and crop insurance.  I wish them the best, though if you search on "acreage reporting" in this blog you'll see it's been a long slog.  I wonder if FSA got the $10 million Congress promised for progress by last Sept. 30.

2008 GAO Helps Clinton on Email Records?

In the flap over Clinton's emails, I've not seen any mention of the GAO report in 2008 on problems in preserving e-records.  Turns out I included much of its summary and commented on it back then.

I won't repeat it here, but this paragraph is interesting in light of the current controversy:

"Preliminary results of GAO's ongoing review of e-mail records management at four agencies show that not all are meeting the challenges posed by e-mail records. Although the four agencies' e-mail records management policies addressed, with a few exceptions, the regulatory requirements, these requirements were not always met for the senior officials whose e-mail practices were reviewed. Each of the four agencies generally followed a print and file process to preserve e-mail records in paper-based recordkeeping systems, but for about half of the senior officials, e-mail records were not being appropriately identified and preserved in such systems. Print and file makes no sense--electronic is cheaper [regular type is GAO, italic is my 2008 comment]

 Let me repeat words: "followed a print and file process..."  In other words, the idea in these agencies, and I think generally throughout government, was:

1. not all emails were official records worthy of retention, just as not all paper documents generated within an agency were official records worthy of retention. 
2. someone was supposed to winnow the wheat from the chaff, go through the email, select the ones which merited retention, print them out, and file them in the paper filing system which was governed by records retention schedules approved by NARA. 

My comments then, though not well expressed, were based on these ideas:

1. the cost of retaining all electronic records was low, and becoming lower with every year Moore's law applied
2. the cost of reviewing, printing, and filing email as prescribed by NARA  was high
3. the likelihood of a bureaucracy doing no. 2 in an effective way was very low, as borne out by GAO's report
4. therefore, agencies should just keep all email in a searchable repository.

In the context of Clinton, there's two issues: the propriety of using a private email server for her work, on which I've no comment, and whether she complied with rules on preserving records, on which I will comment.  Clinton seems in the end to have complied better with the 2008 rules than many of the senior officials GAO looked at.  Were there changes in the rules after 2008?  I'm sure there were, as NARA continued to play a game of catchup, trying ineffectively to bring its filing systems and records retention systems into the modern word.  So I'm not saying she followed all applicable rules--she may have, may not have. I am saying her end result, in terms of selection and preservation, is well within the range for other senior officials. 

I'm also saying I was right in 2008--the simple effective rule is to retain all email records from email servers used for any government business, and let them be searchable.

It's Pi Day--Not

Both Post and Times have pieces today on Pi day, the idea that today's date, 3/14/15 expresses the first digts of Pi.  Aside from providing an excuse for mathematicians to place pieces in newspapers (otherwise a rare occurrence) and perhaps for pie shops to sell a few more, , it's a stupid idea.  In a rational world (i.e., in Europe) today's date would be 14.3.15 or 14.3.2015, with the data in ascending order.  In a rational world there would never be a Pi-day.

A Praiseworthy Blog Post: On the Failure of Foresight

Credit where due: Will Oremus at Slate has a post, a very meritorious post.  (Have I ever admitted I was wrong? Don't think so.  Then I'm not wrong much.)  Subject: Snapchat.  Some sentences:

And then I wrapped things up by predicting that he'd look back someday in bitter regret at passing up the $3 billion. It was a pretty zingy blog post, if I may say so.
It was also, as is probably quite clear by now, utterly wrong.

It Takes a System

That's what I'd name this Vox post, which is actually named: "These 4 Big Inventions Were Terrible...Until Somebody Fixed Them".  My favorite is the time gap between the invention of the tin can and the invention of the can opener.

ARC and PLC Costs Increase

David Rogers in Politico reports on the new CBO estimates of program costs under the 2014 farm bill.  ARC and PLC costs will be higher than estimated, at least in the first years.

Should Social Security Handle All Government Websites

FCW reports SSA has most of the topranking Federal websites.

Score One for USDA: FOIA

Government Executive reports on a study which says USDA is tops in responding to FOIA requests, and it improved by 10 points from last year.  It's not clear to me whether they just reviewed the Departmental effort, or looked at the agencies as well; I suspect the former.

I might note, however, that USDA got the lowest score for its FOIA website of any of the departments, which may be an indication that efficiency in handling requests has little to do with effective on-line system design.  A thorough-going cynic might offer other comments, but enough for one day.

When the GMO Is a Human, What Then for Anti-GMOism?

No, I don't think we have genetically engineered a human yet, though one could perhaps argue the point. But the Times today reports on this experiment:

By delivering synthetic genes into the muscles of the monkeys, the scientists are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease. Researchers are testing this novel approach not just against H.I.V., but also Ebola, malaria, influenza and hepatitis.

Granted, this approach does not alter the genotype, the genes of the recipient, but if it works wouldn't that be the next step?  And if you take that step, do you have much basis for resisting GMO's in crops?

The De-Skilling of the Workforce: Taxi Drivers

NY Times reports that the exam for aspiring NY taxi drivers has been changed to deemphasize the importance of knowing the city's geography, recognizing that with GPS such knowledge in wetware is no longer that important.  It's just one more instance of humans outsourcing skills to machines, devaluing the worth of the old time-tested knowledge and the importance of the people who know it. 

In other words, it's part of the march of progress, of being better today than we were yesterday, of freeing humans from mindless routine in order to be better people.


Do you think I'm ambivalent on the subject? :-)

Mankind the Litterer

Mount Everest has a sanitation problem, and we're starting on the moon.  In a Vox post on what we've left on the moon so far (400,000 pounds), the first item is, guess what.

Iowa, Farm Issues, and the Republican Candidates

Today is a big confab in Iowa with a number of potential Republican candidates attending with the subject: agriculture.

As Politico describes it, the big issue is the renewable fuel standard (ethanol), which has long been shibboleth in Iowa.  I vaguely remember some candidates (McCain?) getting credit from the chattering classes for refusing to support it. We'll see who takes what position and who has decided not to compete in the Iowa caucuses.

There's other issues, like immigration reform, which is big in agriculture but which isn't supported by most Republicans, and trade with Cuba, which Republicans also tend to oppose.   All of which means that this first step on the road to the White House in 2016 may whet the appetite of followers of politics.

FSA Outreach?

Was at the agriculture.com website the other day, reading comments on the extension of the time to allocate base/update yields.  Saw one comment, part of which I was almost able to answer (possible combination of two farms--a recon). Got me to wondering--if any government agencies are active on such sites.   In this case, an authoritative comment could have resolved a problem, educated some people, and enhanced the image of the FSA bureaucracy.  On the other hand, finding someone who could be authoritative on a number of different issues would be difficult and there would be the continual temptation to be either defensive or engage too much.