Bipartisanship Lives in the WH Garden

Politico reports Mrs. Trump is continuing with Mrs. Obama's White House garden.

[added: "After brief remarks, the first lady, dressed in a red plaid shirt, black pants and sneakers, joined the children in harvesting lettuce and kale, peas, radishes, Swiss chard and mustard. They also planted cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, carrots, spinach and kale, the White House said."]

Trump Appointees at USDA

Politico has an article (or is it a post--who knows these days) about the backgrounds of Trump's appointees at USDA.  These are special assistants and confidential assistants, i.e., GS-12's and 14's and 15's.

There's a comparison with what Obama's administration did, trying to make the case that the people are being hired more on loyalty and campaign experience, than their other qualifications.  But what's most interesting to me is towards the end:

"Meanwhile, even with the campaign loyalists who are now on the USDA staff, the administration is still behind schedule in hiring for the agency’s more than 200 political positions that span from Washington, D.C., to rural communities across all 50 states."

I take that as meaning the FSA state directors are mostly vacant, and as the next paragraph notes, Secretary Perdue has a steep hill to climb to implement his proposed reorganization of support/administrative services, for which he will need the support of those political appointees. 

Maintenance Isn't Sexy: USNavy

I see I've not set up a label for "maintenance", but I'm sure I've observed that it's an important and often overlooked issue.  What happens when you build a system, as we were building a software system in the mid-80's, is you can't keep building without adding more people/resources.  If you start with 10 people working on the new, once it gets deployed, you need 1 person to maintain the deployed software, leaving only 9 to build the next phase.  And so on.

Furthermore, maintenance is not sexy. You can't tell the people who are paying the bills they won't get anything for their money, just a continuance of the current service (maybe sneaking in a couple tweaks along the way).

The DC area Metro system has found this out.  They built a system starting in the mid-70's, but skimped on maintenance along the way.  Consequently last year and this service has been restricted on various sections so they could do catch-up maintenance.  People aren't happy about it.

Now it seems the USNavy is in the same boat.  GAO has surveyed their shipyards and produced a video of their major points.  An example, using 80+ year old equipment to service nuclear submarines, then discovering the furnace didn't heat the parts evenly, so they had to reinspect years worth of work.

I'm cynical today, so I'm sure Congress will continue to give DOD new weapons/things they don't ask for and fail to provide the money to fix the shipyards.  That will go until we lose a ship because of faulty repairs.  (Training is "maintenance" of your human equipment and lack of training is blamed for the recent collisions the Seventh Fleet has experienced .)

Bureaucrat of the Day: S. Petrov

Applying the term loosely to any one who holds a position in an organization and has to follow rules, or who makes the rules for others.

Farewell, Stanislav Petrov, with obits in both the Times and Post

How Humans React to Change

Lots of angst about the coming of artificial intelligence and autonomous cars and CRISPR.  Even more angst about our addiction to cellphones and social media.  I was a late-comer to smart phones, but have somewhat caught up and now understand the addiction. 

But I'm not agonizing about it.  Seems to me generally people overdo in reaction to any social change, whether it's the coming of railroads, crack, or smart phones.  Once people see the downsides, they create new norms which have the effect of damping the adverse impact.  Remember the crack epidemic of the 1980's?  Or the concerns over mass media of the 1950's (i.e., comic books, etc.)? 

So my prediction is we'll see the same thing happening with social media and smart phones.  I may not live to see it, but it will happen.

Problems in Predicting the Future

I never dreamed in the early 70's we'd see a Sunday NYTimes paper we see today.  Back then we were worried about overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, and the failure of the newly decolonized nations to achieve development.  See this piece.  

The Chinese were an ant-like people, all dressed in Mao jackets and still starving from the effects of his ideology.  In that they weren't much different than the residents in the rest of the Third World.The developed world was bad on foreign aid, often funding projects which were strategic in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, not worthwhile for the recipient.

But today we have an article on obesity in Brazil and Nestle's role in pushing First World junk food on willing Brazilians.  And we have an article in the Times mag about the billions of Chinese investments abroad, and the possible debt trap they pose for the recipient nations.

Of course there's no Soviet Union and rich Chinese are buying Western baubles.

It's a strange world.

Bringing Home the Bacon (VT, Uncured)

Walt Jeffreys, whose blog has been rather quiet this year, blogs about the process of getting the bacon, that is creating bacon from his hogs which meets the requisite USDA standards for bacon.  Interesting.

The Changing Dairy Sector

"Since 2000, milk production has doubled in Idaho,"

"Idaho dairy industry representatives estimate that between 85 to 90 percent of on-site dairy workers in the state are foreign-born."

Two excerpts from a long piece  at Politico on the complexities and tensions created by the trends, particularly the handling of undocumented immigrants.

Cost of Farm Programs by Crop

I've been remiss in noting this post from IL extension which goes through a Congressional Research Service report on the expenditures by crop under the 2014 farm legislation.

Good Sentence from the Mc

Megan McArdle: "One almost admires a salesman who’s too brazen to craft a believable lie, the kind who simply utters obvious falsehoods and hopes you’re too polite to call them on it."

The Harshaw Rule Confirmed

What is the "Harshaw rule"?  Something I discovered back in my days of innocence, trying to break down silos in USDA--"you never do things right the first time". 

Where is it confirmed?  In the videos Kottke has linked to here--the Elon Musk videos on landing rockets and our early space endeavors.  It's good to see someone paying more than lip service to the idea of learning from your mistakes.

Comments on Consolidating USDA Support Services

USDA has a request for comments on the Secretary's proposal to consolidate support services across agency lines. Comments are due before October 7.

I'm very sceptical of the OFR's request for comments process, particulary on clearing forms.  We'll see in this case if people like NASCOE etc. get comments in, or prefer to work with Congress.

Cottonseed Again

Illinois extension has a piece on the cottonseed provisions of the 2018 Senate Ag appropriations bill. To my jaundiced eye, it looks as if the cotton growers are trying to get a goodie added through the backdoor--using appropriations to change policy.  If they do, we'll see what Brazil and the WTO think of it.  If they do, the professors will have another example to add to their picture of how government really works.

Seats at the Table

The Trump administration is not exactly pushing the right boundaries.  Two factoids:

• He's nominated only one woman out of 42 nominees for US attorney. 
• And in foreign affairs see this photo.

Read the Damn Manual, All 700+ Pages

As a bureaucrat who started his career editing ASCS manuals, I'm a bit more friendly to the idea of reading manuals than the average bear.  The things we use in our lives often come with manuals, manuals I don't routinely read.  Yes, when the clothes dryer goes out or doing something new with the microwave I may consult the manual, but I don't sit down to read them cover to cover.

The same rule applies for cars.  The manual's in the glove compartment, and I'll check it for problems.  But today I'm changing my rules.

The background: as I age my driving ability is declining.  I'm more easily distracted, more easily confused when driving in unfamiliar territory,  and less quick to react.  I miss pedestrians and approaching cars at intersections.  And the future looks worse, not better.  Like most people I'd hate to give up my control and freedom by abandoning the car and switching to public transportation, even the options in Reston are very good.

With safety options multiplying rapidly as we get closer to the self-driving car, what seems to make sense to me is switching to a short-term leased car.  That way I can get the advantage of the new features and still have the flexibility to upgrade to a newer car in a couple years, assuming I'm still competent as a driver when that day arrives.

So, I'm looking at a Prius with all the safety options.  But it's a big leap from 2006 to 2017, so I'm looking at the manual.  Indeed, for the first time I'm reading the Prius manual from the beginning.

But, the damn thing is 700 pages.  (As a measure of the changes, I think the manual for my current car is about 200 pages.)  700 pages.

Trump on Improper Payments

Turns out Trump on improper payments is the same as Obama--from GovExec:

All of these ideas were also proposed by the Obama administration, representing bipartisan agreement on policy reforms.
Of the twelve policies aimed at curbing improper payments in the FY 2018 budget, four use the same language found in President Obama’s FY 2017 budget. The other eight have only small differences. The amount of projected savings also mirrors the FY 2017 budget, although with some differences. For example, the FY 2017 budget estimated that authorizing the Social Security Administration (SSA) to use “all collection tools to recover funds” would save $35 million, while the FY 2018 budget estimates $41 million. The savings projected under the FY 2018 budget are also much higher for Unemployment Insurance, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. However, the reasons for the higher projected savings are not clear.

America the Isolationist?

Those of us of a certain age can remember when there was a significant faction of American politicians who were basically isolationist, who wrapped themselves in the history of "no entangling alliances" and "America goes not abroad in search of dragons.

Thus it's startling for me to read this piece including these words:

"Several permanent stations had been established after the War of 1812: the Mediterranean, Pacific, and West Indies Squadrons. But Jackson would give his imprimatur to a new one. Asia appealed to Jackson as part of his effort to expand American trade routes. Like the merchants of the northeast, Jackson understood that America’s economic future lay not only with its traditional European trading partners but also with new partners in the East. Simply having Navy ships in the eastern Pacific was insufficient. Consequently, Jackson established the East Indies Squadron."

Independent Irish Lasses

"Uniquely among European emigrants in the late-19th century, young single women emigrated from Ireland in the same numbers as men."

From this.

Irma and Andrew and FSA

Hurricane Irma is being compared with hurricane Andrew, which devastated southern Florida back in 1992 as a category 5 hurricane.  Agriculture took a big hit then, IIRC mostly vegetables and nursery crops grown by producers who'd never had contact with FSA.  The FSA disaster programs then could cover some of the damage, though I don't remember whether Congress passed new legislation or whether existing law was adequate.

Because of the new producers, FSA had a problem of getting producer name and address and farm data loaded into the System/36's.  We were still using old COBOL code written back in the mid-80's, some of the first code written for the System/36.  Back then neither the Kansas City system designers nor Washington program specialists really knew what we were doing.  (Harshaw's law: you never do it right the first time.)  There multiple screens for data loading, moving from screen to screen was slow, and updating the file was slow. 

Consequently FSA got a black eye in Dade county, IIRC.

Shouldn't happen with Irma.  For one thing it sounds as if urbanization in the last 25 years has replaced agriculture.  FSA's programs likely cover less of the agriculture remaining as crop insurance has partially replaced FSA, except for NAP.  FSA likely already has records for the producers and its software is better.

Dutch Agriculture

Recently saw an article/tweet/blogpost/something which made great claims about the productivity of Dutch agriculture.  I think maybe it was claiming they were the top exporter of agricultural products.  Immediately my contrarian nature kicked in, and I was sure someone was in error on the Internet.     My logic was that the Dutch export flowers, a high value crop, perhaps the highest value legal crop, so the claim was misleading.  Dairy products would also be big, and high value.  However I didn't challenge it on line, just in mind

Now comes FiveThirtyEight with their significant digits, and this fact: 

144,352 tons of tomatoes per square mile

The Netherlands has been investing in new and improved ways to maximize the efficiency of humane farming. Acre for acre, the Dutch are the best on earth: using greenhouses they get 144,352 tons of tomatoes out of every square mile, with the closest runner up — Spain — getting a fraction of that. Essentially, the Dutch decided to be a food R&D lab for everyone else — the secret seems to be greenhouses — and the outcome is they export more food, judging by dollar value, than every country except the U.S. [National Geographic]

So I guess I need to apologize to the Dutch--they aren't just a one-trick pony.

More Reorganization for USDA

Sec. Perdue has a press release describing further reorganization in USDA.  For my own interests, FSA loses the commodity procurement (used to be DACO), but otherwise isn't touched, yet. However, this section seems to me to imply that Sec. Glickman's proposal of the late 90's to combine NRCS and FSA administrative support may be revived in some form:

Reducing Redundancies
While creating the Farm Production and Conservation mission area, it became apparent that across USDA there are redundancies and inefficiencies in the mission support activities.  Presently some agencies maintain redundant administrative support functions, including human resources, information technology (IT), finance, procurement, and property management.  For example, there are 22 employees in the department that are identified as Chief Information Officers (CIOs).  Having such a large number of CIOs creates redundancies throughout the Department when it comes to leadership on IT activities and services and results in unnecessary layering of leadership and direction.  Therefore, mission support activities will be merged at the mission area level across USDA.  Through these mergers, the mission areas will not only increase operational efficiencies, but also maximize collaboration between agencies that serve similar customers.  This has happened in many of the support activities in mission areas already and is working well.

Given the flack that got from Congress, which killed it, it will be interesting to see what happens now.

The Magic of the Free Market

Legalizing pot means lowering the barriers to entry and creating a more open market.  The result, as Kevin Drum links, is lower prices.  With producers' energies now focused on more efficient production, rather than evading law enforcement in distribution, I predict this trend will continue, at some point driving the least efficient startups out of business.

Using Racism as an Argument

Kevin Drum has a good post entitled: "Racism Is Not the Explanation for Everything the Republicans Do".

His point is very true.  I'd add another point: using "racism" to attack your opponent is dangerous to yourself.  It's like saying the opposing team won because they played dirty, cheated, and paid off the umpires.  All of that may be true, particularly if you're talking about the Patriots and the Red Sox :-), but it teaches the wrong lessons and removes the burden on you to improve your game.  It also makes the opponent the "other".

Race, Gender and Ethnicity Data Collection

USDA has its request for comment on its collection of data on its customers race, gender and ethnicity published here.  Deadline is September 21.  So far there have been no comments.  As an exercise in willpower I'm withholding comment on that.

From the notice, an explanation of why:

Summary of Collection: Section 14006 and 14007 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, 7 U.S.C. 8701 (referred to as the 2008 Farm Bill) establishes a requirement for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to annually compile application and participation rate data regarding socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers by computing for each program of the USDA that serves agriculture producers and landowners (a) raw numbers of applicants and participants by race, ethnicity, and gender, subject to appropriate privacy protection, as determined by the Secretary; and (b) the application and participation rate, by race, ethnicity and gender as a percentage of the total participation rate of all agricultural producers and landowners for each county and State in the United States.

Correcting Tocqueville

This Post Monkey Cage piece claiming Americans get more involved in politics than others includes this:

As Alexis de Tocqueville put it, “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. … Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.”

That makes it sound as if our associations come from the grassroots while in Europe they come from the top.  I think that exaggerates a bit.  I've looked at some of the early associations promoting agriculture in the U.S.  The pattern seems to be we had our  "rainmakers"  back then.  "Rainmaker" here meaning an illustrious personage, in these cases often a veteran of the Revolution and/or Founding Father, whose prestige attracts other members.

Trouble with Homophone: Significant?

I'm noticing more and more I've trouble with homophones (i.e, for those who have forgotten high school English, words with the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning, like "its" and "it's", "knew" and "new") and with completing words correctly (i.e., by writing "ful" at the end of "meaning" rather than the "less" I intended, or, as just now, typing "the" when I meant "than").

A quick google brings up this research but doesn't confirm my layman's belief that such a decline in functioning is significant, at least of old age if not of dementia.  But whatever.

I bring this up because our illustrious President has caught some flak over a tweet in which he spelled "heal" as "heel".  I don't know whether he can't spell, whether he's getting old, or showing early signs of dementia.  None of the alternatives are correctable at this point.

The Big Sick

Saw the movie the other day and enjoyed it, although I really do need to get a hearing aid. 

The plot rests on the well-established phenomena (which I remember from my college days)--it's not knowledge of the "other" which reduces prejudice, it's cooperation and suffering together in quest of a goal.  I'm reminded of that truth when I see this report on Houston Muslims and the flooding.

The Dilemma Will Hurd Poses

Run across the Republican Congressman from Texas Will Hurd a few times in the media.  He seems impressive, human, ex-CIA, not too partisan (he was half of the two Congressmen driving from TX to DC and recording it on social media).  But he's a Republican, and vulnerable.  His district is the Rio Grande area of TX, heavily Hispanic (opposes Trump's wall despite having the longest section of US-Mexican border of any Congressman).

So, on the one hand I want the Republican party to have more such representatives, rather than the Cruzes and the Gowdys, the wing nut.  On the other hand, I want the Democrats to take control of the House in 2018, and Hurd's seat is a good target.  Unfortunately I can't donate to the DCCC and specify--don't fund Hurd's opponent. 

So I'm torn.

Special Envoys and Monuments

Secretary Tillerson is looking to eliminate dozens of "special envoys"; liberals are looking to eliminate dozens of memorials and monuments to flawed people of the past.

What's the similiarity?  For me, I'm assuming many of the envoys are more symbolic than functional.  There can be an advantage to appointing a coordinator-type person to try to break down some bureaucratic silos.  But often they have the weakness of their position--outside the chain of command where "real work" (real at least in the eyes of the bureaucrats in the organization) gets done.  So their ideas are not invented here, and they just serve as a symbol for the outside organizations which sponsored the creation of the post, a sort of flag of attempted conquest planted on the foreign continent of the bureaucracy.

Memorials and monuments are also symbols, more important to a small group than most people going about their business.

Prediction: Classic Logroll--Harvey Aid Plus the Wall

A politico piece rehashing the NY/NJ grievances with TX Congress people, especially Sen. Cruz.  Since Harvey relief will be must-pass legislation, many people (i.e. me) predict that money for Trump's wall will be folded in with it, and Dems will vote for it.

The Uses of Violence?,

Josh Marshall has a post discussing violence against the alt-right.  He's against it, arguing that it's works to the benefit of the far right and undermines the rule of law.

While I'm with him on that, he doesn't pay enough attention to the seduction of violence, although he does admit he enjoys seeing a Nazi punched.  Most any football fan will say they enjoy a "good hit" on the opposing quarterback, running back, or receiver.  That's human--we like violence against our opponents (though we'll be sure to call for a flag if our quarterback, running back, or receiver is on the receiving end of a "vicious, illegal hit").

The antifa types seem to be much the same demographic as the alt-right: young males, though perhaps with a few more females and a sprinkling of people of color you wouldn't see in the alt-right.  But extremism attracts the similar people on both ends, although the left perhaps has a more intellectual gloss to their actions.  I suspect if you could do a brain scan of either group in the midst of an action, a march or a counter-demonstration, you'd see the same areas of the brain activated, areas which have little to do with rational thought.

Memory and Action

One of the problems we old geezers have is memory.  Not only are we losing it, particularly the short-term variety, but to the extent we retain some, we can be immobilized by it.

Maybe that's the problem with the controversies over memorials.  Memorials are signs, and important. but devote too much concern to the past and the future evades your grasp.  Much better in my mind to err on the side of focusing on the future, than the past.  (Yet, and yet, I tried to be a historian once--how does that fit?  Don't know.)

Bad News for Organic Farmers

Now that Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods has been approved, Bezos' first step was to cut the prices of some organic produce, probably signalling an emphasis on lower prices in the future.  IMHO that's bad news for organic farmers, who will face pressure to take lower prices, also meaning they will face their own pressure to enlarge their operations and/or cut corners in order to survive.  So the long summer  of years when organic farmers could ask for and get a sizable premium for purity is drawing to a close, and they face a turbulent fall and then: "Winter is Coming".

Wind River

Saw the movie today and liked it. Written by the same guy who did Hell or High Water and Sicario, both of which we liked.  Atmosphere a bit like Longmire, a Netflix series we also like (i.e., rural area, Native Americans and whites).

Lesson for the Week

"Always remember: driverless cars don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be better than cars driven by humans. As anyone who drives is aware, that’s sort of a low bar these days."

From Kevin Drum

My Dilemma With Game of Thrones

I follow a lot of blog feeds.  Have done since the days of Google Reader.  Many of my feeds include good pieces on Game of Thrones.  For example, here's a New Yorker piece.

Now since I'm getting a little deaf, not quite as deaf as my wife thinks but a little, I often like to follow British shows through DVD's, because that way I can get the subtitles.  (I know, there's probably a way to get subtitles on cable, but I'm too lazy to explore it.)  And because I'm getting a little senile, there's another benefit: I can watch episodes back to back, without straining my memory to track from one week to another what happened.  And a third benefit: I can go to bed earlier, without having to watch from 10 pm to 11 or whatever.

All of this means a dilemma: if I read the blog posts on the episodes as they come out, I inevitably get a lot of spoilers.  If I don't, there's no way, no easy way, to go back and pick them up when the DVD's are released and I'm watching them.  Life's not fair, sometimes.

Changes in Culture: Swearing

This New REpublic piece discusses research into the frequency of swearing in America, specifically the use of the seven words in American books.  The research found a vast increase (28 times) between the early 50's and the late oughts.

The article is dismissive of the research, claiming it's not good social science.  That may be, but as  someone has lived over those years, the prevalence of swearing is to me just a sign of the changing culture.

I'm tempted to say "standards are falling" but I'll just say changing.

Virginia as Multi-Cutural

Tyler Cowen has a post on that theme at Bloomberg.

An anecdote: a relative recently attended the high school graduation of a grandson in North Andover, MA.  She commented to me she was surprised by how diverse the area had become (she was a girl in Andover during the 1940's).  I looked up on wikipedia and found North Andover was, in 2010, about 6 percent minority.  Currently the  school's site says 18+ percent are minority.

According to Cowen Charlottesville is 9 percent minority.   Fairfax county is about 50 percent.

I'm the sort of soft-headed bleeding heart liberal who enjoys this.  

Death Panels Exist: For Strawberries

A NewYorker article: (Varieties are made obsolete based on the decisions of an internal group called the Dead Variety Society.)

Bad Logic in the Fifth Circuit

For some reason, this decision voiding a fine on Exxon-Mobil for a pipeline spill gets my goat.

Imagine a similar decision on airline accidents:

"“The fact that the [accident] occurred, while regrettable, does not necessarily mean that [Boeing/United Airlines/the pilot] failed to abide by the [rules for building and operating airplanes] pipeline integrity regulations in considering the appropriate risk factors,” the court wrote. “The unfortunate fact of the matter is that, despite adherence to safety guidelines and regulations, [airplanes] still do occur.” [brackets indicate where I've changed the terms]

Because we have a zero tolerance for planes falling out of the sky they don't.  Why not the same zero tolerance for pipeline spills?

The Good Old Days

Am I a total reactionary by mourning the good old days of the early civil rights movement, where non-violence was a successful tactic and there weren't competing marches? 

I don't like what seems to be the anti-fa tactic of counter-marching on the same day.  To me it would be a better appeal to public opinion to allow the alt-right marches to occur without an opponent, mocking them with a next-day march that is bigger and more orderly. 

It's interesting, though, that wikipedia is struggling to deal with anti-fa, calling it
"antifa".

Blast from the Past: Guadalcanal Diary

Guadalcanal Diary was one of the books on my family's shelves,

Mention it because the invasion occurred this month, as noted at the AmericanStudies blog.

My Hypocrisy: Coal Versus Corn

There are reports that the Republican governor of WV is looking for government subsidies for coal production.  My gut reaction is to immediately oppose them.

However, what's my logical basis? Am I being a hypocrite?  I assume the idea is to keep coal mines going through a bad spell, perhaps a bad century, providing jobs for coal miners, at worse easing the transition to a non-coal future.  (Actually Gov. Justice has a "national security" rationale, perhaps somewhat like the old subsidies for wool and mohair.) Compare that with my rationale for some farm programs: keeping farms going to ease the transition to a future with fewer farmers.  (Full disclosure: that's one of two rationales I mostly buy, at least with respect to historical farm programs, the other rationale being the production adjustment one.)

So can I come up with a way to distinguish between farmers and coal miners as worthy recipients of government subsidies?

One difference is clear: farm subsidies go to farmers, coal subsidies would go to coal mining companies. Is that sufficient?

How Bureaucracy Works

Jonathan Bernstein has good observations on the bureaucracy:

Or, to put it another way: Normal presidencies have a process in place in which important policy questions are brought to the president -- not just security briefings, but domestic problems as well. Just the need to present the president with serious briefings forces the White House staff and various agencies and departments to figure out what's important and what's not, to find potentially viable courses of action for the president to consider, and to be prepared in case the president asks tough questions in either an initial briefing or down the road. Good presidents won't just passively absorb briefings; they'll challenge the information and the options they're being presented with, reinforcing the need for everyone up and down the line to do their best work.

Sometimes the stimulus for action is from the top, sometimes it comes up from the bottom.  Either way the bureaucracy can't be much better than the person at the top.

Detroit

Just saw Ms. Bigelow's new movie: Detroit.

It's similar to her previous three movies: K-19, the Widowmaker, Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty, in that it's based on facts and avoids many movie cliches.  Our verdict on it: "interesting".  I think that means, it's worth seeing, just as it's worth seeing your dentist, assuming your dentist is very capable and you've got some dental problems.

In Defense of Bureaucracy

The Post has a new history blog, with one of its posts defending bureaucracy.  I think it's a sign of the popularity of the subject that it has no comments.

The Hostas and Caladiums With No Leaves

There's always a tradeoff.

What's the trade off for viewing deer from your living room window?

Having hostas and caladiums with no leaves. :-(

Interesting the way different groups of hostas have been more or less attractive to the deer.  While the deer got most of the hosta leaves in June, they just got the caladium leaves last night.

What Next: Numbered Eggs

This NYTimes article is on a problem with tainted eggs in Europe (pesticide contaminated egg-washing solution).  Among the steps taken:

The Dutch consumer safety authority has published a guide on identifying the tainted eggs through a 10-digit serial number stamped on the shells.

 Unfortunately I was never much good at languages so I can't read the Dutch.  I can sort of see how, if we have machinery which can roll a sticker onto an orange or apple we could also develop machinery which might print a number on the egg with ink that wouldn't penetrate the shell.  Presumably the number is a farm number, not the number of the hen.

The Foxes From My Window

Blogged earlier about the deer from my living room window. We also have foxes, as of today. We've seen single foxes occasionally during the past few years, but today is the first time I've seen three. A rainy day, explaining the drops on the window.

New Tech Shorts Panhandlers

The move to the cashless society means it's a harder life for panhandlers, according to a Post article.

Unfortunately, the people earliest to adopt new tech and move to cashless apps are the people who were most likely in the past to give to panhandlers.  (That's me, not the Post, but it's true, at least in the sense that panhandlers are most likely in urban office areas, reflecting the density of traffic not necessarily the generosity of the individuals.)

An interesting note--sometimes giver and panhandler form social bonds, that's the Post.