Request for Information on Acreage Reporting

USDA is:

investigating the use of a commercially available service to provide a reporting system to support Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Risk Management Agency's (RMA) common acreage and crop reporting compliance and other program needs. The objective of this RFI is to investigate whether commercial capability presently exists that can supply a viable alternative to the current Java based in-house system. 

The actual RFI is here.

Looking at the template for responding, I'm wondering whether there's been previous extensive meetings with potential respondents.  If there hasn't, the respondents may be at a loss to complete many of the items.  

China's Rural Areas and America's

FiveThirtyEight  has a post on Monroeville, AL, which has changed since the 1930's.   That reminded me of this NYTimes piece on China's rural areas.  President Xi visited a rural town:

The bucolic scenes, shown on Chinese state television, cast Mr. Xi as a paternal leader in the footsteps of Mao, at home with the rustic virtues that once made this mountainous region of southeast China a birthplace of the Communist Party’s rural revolution.

But those images conflict with contemporary reality here. Within days, this struggling community of 250 souls will be nearly empty.

Like an increasing number of villages across China, most of its people have left to find work or attend school elsewhere, returning to their ancestral home only for the New Year holidays. The rest of the year, only 50 or so people live here, most of them elderly, usually fending for themselves.

 My point?  China's social evolution is similar to the US one, except much faster.  In our case, the rural areas emptied out over decades; in theirs, just years.  (

Crop Insurance Explained

Modern Farmer has an explanation of crop insurance, particularly the Harvest Price option, in their explanation of the cuts Obama is proposing in his last budget. Seems to me to be a reasonable explanation, not that I'm an expert these days.

The Rebel Lee, Harper That Is

The print version of the NYTimes has a picture of Harper Lee and A.C. Lee taken in 1961 on the porch of the home in Monroeville, AL. It's different than the one online in this piece.

I'm sure that town was at least as conservative as the upstate NY area I grew up in.  Three things caught my eye:

1. she's smoking, not something a proper lady did at that time.
2. she's wearing slacks, also not something a proper lady did.
3. her expression, which seems a bit rebellious and sulky.

It's interesting, in the online picture of the two, perhaps taken on the same day, the two are posed the same (A.C. facing left nearest the camera, his daughter reclining behind him facing right), no cigarette is in sight, A.C. hides the slacks (or perhaps she's wearing a dress), and the expression is more neutral.  I wonder about the story behind the two photos.

In the Post there was a picture of Ms Lee as a white-haired pleasant old lady.

Transitions and MIssing "W"s

GovExec has a piece on presidential transitions, basically from a luncheon sponsored by the White House Transition Project.

It's focused on the White House, but there could be similar efforts at the department and agency level.  Though come to think of it, it's likely in the case of USDA that incoming appointees used to work there, so have some institutional memory.

(Incidentally, now the passions have cooled, it appears the stories about the Clinton-Bush transition were overcranked.)

The No-Good Thieving Daily Mail

I'm taking Nathan Yau's account at face value, but it seems convincing--in short, The Daily Mail has stolen his visualizations twice in a year, and has been accused of making it a general practice.

Not good.

Insurance Against Ransomware?

LA hospital paid ransom to free up their IT systems.  Technology Review explains vulnerability.  I wonder if any insurance company is offering insurance against this risk?  It seems a logical step, which would also provide financing for investigators to work against such hackers.

Don't See "Hail Caesar"

Don't see it, that is, unless you're over 65 or are devoted to post WWII movies.  If you meet either of those conditions, see it.  It's very funny, with more of a message than you might expect.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Human

Some more on Scalia:

• a Post piece by a liberal who clerked for him.  At least during the first 20 years, he usually had a liberal clerk.  I guess as a Catholic he believed in the devil's advocate (the post in sainthood proceedings).
• politicians are by nature hypocrites--a good way to persuade people is to make them believe you agree with them, and the only peaceful way to resolve conflicts is to persuade people.
• the fight over his replacement is occasion for a lot of hypocrisy on both sides.
• prognostications on the importance of the replacement process forget we have several senior justices, anyone of whom might kick the bucket at any moment, which would decidedly upset current calculations.

Bitching at OPM

Trying to be good and do taxes early this year.  Need my statement from OPM.  Their website has not, to my eyes, been updated in some years.  Usually these days a commercial site has a "Sign in" button in the upper right corner which allows access to the customer account.  Not so for OPM.  They have "Services Online" stuck in the middle of the page.  It should be obvious to the observant, but it wasn't to an old geezer.

Next, for some reason my password manager and OPM's software are allergic to each other. Over the years I've tried a few times to get into the site.  I've never been able to manage it, without having to reset my password (part of the problem is the weird way they handle account numbers). 

Finally they have two questions to determine whether you can request a new password by email or by snail mail.  That's fine, except who remembers whether one's accessed the site within the last 15 months and set up security questions?  I certainly don't.  Consequently, OPM may be stuck not using an automated process to reset my password.