This seems harsh...  

But pretty close to reality.

Moral of the story: the internet makes dumb people dumber and smart people smarter. If you don't know how to use it, or don't have the background to ask the right questions, you'll end up with a head full of nonsense. But if you do know how to use it, it's an endless wealth of information. Just as globalization and de-unionization have been major drivers of the growth of income inequality over the past few decades, the internet is now a major driver of the growth of cognitive inequality. Caveat emptor. [More]

Ryan Avent adds his two cents.

The question is: is this an iron rule of innovation in information technology—that the cheaper information becomes and the easier it becomes to manipulate it the greater will be the gap, productive and otherwise, between the informationally capable and the rest?
That's certainly possible, and there's little in recent history to convince us otherwise. It is not, however, a given. We might well be in an intial phase of the information age in which technology amplifies cognitive gaps which gives way to a period in which technology mutes those gaps. Mr Drum's line is taken from a post concerning the utility of search returns given search-box inputs; smart people are probably going to be better able to formulate search queries that return desired results. But who among us imagines that search technology and the interface between human and database won't substantially improve over time. Just take iPhone's Siri, for example, which applies voice-recognition and automated search technologies unimaginable not long ago. [More]

I think both have a point, but down here on the farm it plays out against the constraints of the zero-sum rule: technology like the Internet makes smart people smarter faster than it does dumb people (I'm not fond of the latter adjective, but we'll stick with their designations). The result is fast adapters crowd out - usually permanently those slower to understand and utilize.

For example, it doesn't matter if smart phones eventually lift every user's capabilities as they flow down the food chain. The biggest rewards will already have been claimed, and in our world there are only so many.

How unusual was February?...  

Cool new site to check extreme weather records.

 

No wonder...  

Farmers don't buy into climate change. We'd rather manage by crisis.

Glyphosate has failed on the driver weeds due to lack of diversity in our weed management programs and the fact nobody has been willing to change programs until it was too late.

Now we have the LibertyLink, which is excellent technology. Preserving the effectiveness of glufosinate (Liberty or Ignite) and the LibertyLink technology is critical to weed control for the near future. What are doing with that technology? Essentially everything we can do drive it off the cliff before we get a chance to find out how really good it is. We are only switching to this technology after glyphosate has stopped working, continuing our pattern of using up one technology and going to Plan B. And first-year users often struggle because they try to use it like they used glyphosate in Roundup Ready crops —with no diversity in the program.

How long will the technology last under these circumstances? My fear is not long enough. We cannot seem to get to the next step — switching systems, adding diversity or switching cultural practices in fields where what you are doing is still working fine. Once the first signs of resistance appear it is a snowball effect from there.

In Arkansas and across the Midwest, growers tell me what they are doing and that it is working fine. I politely just say, “Then please change your program now.” If you are in to farming for the long haul, that is where you have to get to.

It so critical to preserve glufosinate, because that is what we have now as far as anything new. In the next five years or so there are three rounds left in the chamber. Traits for three herbicide groups (dicamba, 2,4-D and the HPPD inhibitors) are being developed. Hard work is going into all of them. We need all three to be successful. It remains to be seen if they can be intercropped or grown together on the same farms or in the same areas. If not, we continue down the road of using up one technology at the time. There were presentations at the meeting on waterhemp resistance to 2,4-D and to the HPPD inhibitors and the technologies are not even here yet.

We continue failing to demonstrate that we can be smarter than weeds. There is no one answer. The answer is crop diversity, tillage diversity, herbicide diversity, trait diversity and soil seedbank management in every field starting now. [More][My emphasis]

Whoa - I thought I was blunt, even cynical, about farmer attitudes of apparent lack of long-term responsibility in our profession.

Maybe I was understating the case.

Junkbox, Episode IM...  

Maybe it's a lull before the calm...

• Desperate governments, desperate measures
• Another member of the NASS Non-fan Club
• Never plan a brainstorming session for your group
• Another member of the Former-conservative Club?
• What gas price spike?
• Not everybody loved the "talkies"

We have many friends/family struggling with person and health problems. We're trying to help as well as prepare for what we think will be a very early planting season. Hence the slow posting.

Thanks for reading.

Babysitters cause babies...  

Or at least, higher fertility rates in populations.

Conventional wisdom suggests that in developed countries income and fertility are negatively correlated. We present new evidence that between 2001 and 2009 the cross-sectional relationship between fertility and women's education in the U.S. is U-shaped. At the same time, average hours worked increase monotonically with women's education. This pattern is true for all women and mothers to newborns regardless of marital status. In this paper, we advance the marketization hypothesis for explaining the positive correlation between fertility and female labor supply along the educational gradient. In our model, raising children and home-making require parents' time, which could be substituted by services bought in the market such as baby-sitting and housekeeping. Highly educated women substitute a significant part of their own time for market services to raise children and run their households, which enables them to have more children and work longer hours. Finally, we use our model to shed light on differences between the U.S. and Western Europe in fertility and women's time allocated to labor supply and home production. We argue that higher inequality in the U.S. lowers the cost of baby-sitting and housekeeping services and enables U.S. women to have more children, spend less time on home production and work more than their European counterparts.  [More] [My emphasis]

Whoa - this complicates matters, but the data seem to support this hypothesis.


The implications are considerable.

Peak people will be an age when jobs compete for workers rather than vice versa. The cheapest labour will vanish. We’re already seeing this: Because China is ageing very fast, its dwindling working-age population is turning down the lowest-paid jobs and pushing up the minimum wage sharply, as well as the once-minimal costs of social services: Stuff from China will stop being cheap, because the Chinese aren’t young.
This can have larger consequences than we imagine. For example, the United States appeared to be escaping the worst of the ageing trend because it has an unusually high fertility rate (averaging almost 2.1 children per family, half a child more than Canada and Europe). Most analysts assumed that this was the result of American religion or prosperity. But an important new study by economists Moshe Hazan and Hosny Zoabi has found that the real reason for larger families is the unusually large supply of low-cost babysitters and child-care workers in the US – - mainly due to immigration, much of it “illegal,” from Latin America. But those Central American countries and Mexico are themselves ageing fast, which will soon choke off that cheap labour supply and drive up the cost of having extra kids – which will cause the US to become less fertile and more elderly.
Peak people will also be an age when countries will be competing for immigrants rather than trying to limit them. Immigration has spared Canada from the worst of ageing, but immigrants adopt host-country family sizes very quickly, so they’re a temporary fix. And if their home countries are competing to keep them, then we’ll have a harder time finding young people who want to come. It will require nimble and clever policies to prevent us from becoming old and lonely. [More]

People of a certain age like myself may never be able to get over our "population is a burden" thanks to Malthusian overexposure early in life, as well as our industry's fascination with the always looming "food shortage".

I have considerable confidence we, and our professional counterparts around the globe will find enough ways to grow calories to support all the people comfortably. The diets/crops may change, but we do that all the time.

And we always have ethanol acres in reserve.

Another fearless prediction...  

Since Philip Tetlock has shown that predictions from famous people are essentially...crap, to use the scientific term, my predictions could be right occasionally.

So here goes.

Soon we will have guaranteed health insurability and community rating, which will be the very hardest parts of the ACA to dislodge - not to mention political napalm. While I can't understand how right-wingers who thought up these ideas now justify opposing them - other than their disaffection for Obama - the consequences of these new rules may accelerate a profound change in our workforce.

Already, we are seeing an explosion of self-employed.

But the real drivers of the increase, Camden said, were the massive corporate layoffs that forced many Americans to find a new way to make money — whether they liked it or not.
Vera Pell, 58, has been laid off five times over the past decade. After the last time, the Oklahoma resident said, she simply gave up looking for another job.
“I finally decided that my life would be better if I had more control over it,” Pell said. “No more red tape and politics. No more giving away my skills so I could keep a job.”
Pell started a consulting firm, Evergreen Learning Designs, and began charging three times her former hourly wage. Her first contract was from a company that had laid her off.
She said her former employers think: “What about Vera? Can we get her to come back and do this?”
According to a survey by Staffing Industry Analysts, a research firm, businesses plan to increase the amount of temporary labor they use by 26 percent over the next two years. Jon Osborne, the group’s vice president of research, said the model is about 8 percent cheaper than hiring permanent employees, because most temporary workers do not receive benefits.
Camden said the cost of health care is the main deterrent for workers who would otherwise seek to join the contingent labor force. And it is a major reason that many workers hope temporary employment is just a pit stop on the way to something permanent. [More]

With the dream of a fat company pension dissipating like a fog in the morning sun, there will be fewer benefit monopolies companies can use to tie the rowers to the benches.

Just like we in ag enjoy our employment freedom (once the little woman has a group health-providing job, of course), it is not hard to imagine professionals of all kinds setting up little companies.

This strikes me as a big step forward for both workers and productivity. It also will change the corporate culture significantly as retention of talent becomes more difficult.

Not helping...  

I have long been uncomfortable with "bragvocacy" simply because it violates a standard of public conduct based on humility, which in turn derives from honest self-assessment. I mean, I have a pretty good idea whether I'm better than others morally. [Thanks to all of you who happily chime in from time to time to keep me reminded of my manifold flaws]

One of the most grating claims is we are the "first" environmentalists. That may be historically true, simply because we are one of the oldest professions. But even if we were first, we seem to be trying for worst as well.

Monsanto Co. and other seed makers reported a threefold increase last year in U.S. farmers caught violating requirements for planting genetically modified corn.

The data relates to farmers planting seeds that are genetically modified to produce a toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide. The Environmental Protection Agency requires the growers to plant an adjacent area -- a so-called refuge -- of non-Bt corn so that bugs don’t become immune.

About 41 percent of 3,053 farmers inspected in 2011 failed to fully comply with the refuge requirement, according to data from the Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Technical Committee, which Monsanto provided today in an e-mail. [More]

This is not going to end well.  And I suspect the biotech boom may be at least peaking. Thanks to such irresponsible farming practices, we're triggering the possible dissipation of both RR and Bt technology.

I look at our farm. We're using Liberty on all our corn to get the marestails, waterhemp, and ragweed. We're also using full-rate residuals in some fields. When it comes to RR resistance, we believe.

But the clue for the future for me was a visit to the Amvac booth in Louisville. Aaron bought a bigger planter and needed 4 more SmartBoxes to size up. Only we couldn't seem to get them.

It turns out they can't make them fast enough, even with 50% higher production in their plant. In fact, if you haven't ordered by now, it likely cannot get there in time. Meanwhile try finding the Aztec or Force to fill them. (We've located some used untis which should work fine, and our CPS fertilizer guy had ordered our Aztec for us, since we plant considerable non-GM specialty corn)

According to the Amvac rep, the demand is coming from north of I-80 - which surprised me. I thought is was likely from the eastern Corn Belt where "refuge corn" have been the best yielders for the past few seasons. (I theorize we are drowning what few larvae are hatching from depleted adult numbers thanks to Bt corn, but this is purely amateur entomology).

It seems the continuous corn is taking big hits from resistant rootworms in northern fields, so the plan seems to be plant multiple traits AND apply full rate insecticide. This strategy is a good one if you are over 55 and won't be farming ten years from now.

Otherwise, it looks like producers as a group are bound and determined to see how fast and often we can shoot ourselves in the foot. We are re-enacting the Tragedy of the Commons even with full knowledge of how the story will turn out.

On another issue, we just attended meetings where rootworm resistance to the Cry3Bb1 gene that was discovered in the central Midwest was discussed among researchers, extension specialists, and the various seed companies.  So far, resistance has not been seen with any of the other gene proteins.  Of primary concern was how to handle corn plantings in future years in those areas where resistance developed.  Resistance has NOT been found in Ohio rootworm populations.  However, of importance to Ohio growers is to remind them of the continued potential for resistance to develop, and what we need to do to help prevent it from occurring in our state. 
As discussed last August in the C.O.R.N. 2011-26 issue, growers should
1) rotate to another crop such as soybean (albeit keeping an eye out for the western corn rootworm variant),
2) ALWAYS PLANT THE REFUGE (remember that this is a requirement, which will automatically be planted if you use an RIB, or refuge in the bag, product),
3) if deciding to plant continuous corn, rotate among other rootworm management tactics such as using a soil insecticide, and
4) if wanting to continue to plant a rootworm Bt hybrid to control rootworm larvae, use a pyramided gene product such as SmartStax or rotate to a single gene product not containing the Cry3Bb1 gene. [More]

I find myself thinking this is just a hiccup and we're a long way from full-blown rootworm multiple trait resistance.

And then I look back ten years and see what I said about RR resistance. 

Junkbox, Episode IVYDIVY...  

Some stuff from recent browsing - then back to woodworking!

• Stranger things have happened via litigation pressure
• The problem with planter talc
• Another subsidy dependent shrivels up
• A better Star Registry
• How to talk about the economy
• Another upside from the NG boom 

What I really worry about...  

I don't mean to harsh your mood this morning, but this after spending two weeks listening to enormously prosperous farmers gripe loudly about imaginary looming regulatory nightmares (which essentially amounted to cleaning up our manure and fertilizer messes), I ran across this article that captured something of what I think is a more legitimate concern for People of a Certain Age.

However ghoulish, it is a world we will all soon get to know well, argues Gross: owing to medical advancements, cancer deaths now peak at age 65 and kill off just 20 percent of older Americans, while deaths due to organ failure peak at about 75 and kill off just another 25 percent, so the norm for seniors is becoming a long, drawn-out death after 85, requiring ever-increasing assistance for such simple daily activities as eating, bathing, and moving.
This is currently the case for approximately 40 percent of Americans older than 85, the country’s fastest-growing demographic, which is projected to more than double by 2035, from about 5 million to 11.5 million. And at that point, here comes the next wave—77 million of the youngest Baby Boomers will be turning 70.
Quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, for Baby Boomers currently shepherding the Greatest Generation to their final reward? Hope your aged parents have at least half a million dollars apiece in the bank, because if they are anything like Mama Gross, their care until death will absorb every penny. To which an anxious (let’s say 49-year-old) daughter might respond: But what about long-term-care insurance? In fact, Gross’s own mother had purchased it, and while it paid for some things, the sum was a pittance compared with a final family outlay of several hundred thousand dollars. But how about what everyone says about “spending down” in order to qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, Medi-Cal, or, ahwhich exactly is it?
Unfortunately, those hoping for a kind of Eldercare for Dummies will get no easy answers from A Bittersweet Season. Chides Gross: “Medicaid is a confusing and potentially boring subject, depending on how you feel about numbers and abstruse government policy, but it’s essential for you to understand.” Duly noted—so I read the relevant section several times and … I still don’t understand. All I can tell you is that the Medicaid mess has to do with some leftover historical quirks of the Johnson administration, colliding with today’s much longer life expectancies, colliding with a host of federal and state regulations that intertwine with each other in such a calcified snarl that by contrast—in a notion I never thought I’d utter—public education looks hopeful. Think of the Hoyer lift that can be delivered but never repaired, or the feeder who will not push, or the pusher who will not feed.
But it gets worse. Like an unnaturally iridescent convalescent-home maraschino cherry atop this Sisyphean slag heap of woe, what actually appears to take the greatest toll on caregivers is the sheer emotional burden of this (formless, thankless, seemingly endless) project. For one thing, unresolved family dynamics will probably begin to play out: “Every study I have seen on the subject of adult children as caregivers finds the greatest source of stress, by far, to be not the ailing parent but sibling disagreements,” Gross writes. Further, experts concur, “the daughter track is, by a wide margin, harder than the mommy track, emotionally and practically, because it has no happy ending and such an erratic and unpredictable course.” Gross notes, I think quite rightly, that however put-upon working parents feel (and we do keeningly complain, don’t we—oh the baby-proofing! oh the breast-pumping! oh the day care!), we can at least plan employment breaks around such relative foreseeables as pregnancy, the school year, and holidays. By contrast, ailing seniors trigger crises at random—falls in the bathroom, trips to the emergency room, episodes of wandering and forgetting and getting lost. [More]

Jan and I are blessed with loving and dutiful sons and daughters-in-law, and the idea of not doing my best to avoid this scenario seems like a singular abdication of my abiding love for them. I have written about this before (pdf), as I watched my parents' and grandmother's end of life, and I have friends currently undergoing this trial.

Writer Roger Rosenblatt, an essayist for Time magazine whose work I greatly admired, once described his heart condition as similar to having someone living in your basement who would occasionally try to come upstairs and kill you. The image stuck in my mind, but more often these days, the basement-guy looks less like a villain, and more like an answer.

As we continue to skew our resources to Boomers and their old age - which is THE federal budget problem - these lingering, unnatural death runways will stretch further and further into younger people's futures. We're only beginning to grasp the true consequences of enormous accumulated wealth and medical technology and their mutual attraction.

In the end, I doubt the regulatory overreach that many imagine in agriculture will amount to even an economic footnote, especially since compared to many developed countries (notable Europe) our farmers are allowed to run relatively rampant ( and given how we have obviously squandered both Roundup and Bt traits, this can't be too far off the mark).

Indeed, as we speak, soil conservationists are deeply concerned ag organizations will throw them off - if not under - the budget bus to get a higher buy-up or some such subsidy for a crop-insurance based farm program.

Our narrow- and short-sightedness has us fixated in ag on issues we can surmount with modest effort: runoff, over-application, food safety. I doubt any of these issues will end many farming operations.

But wait until Dad and Mom hit 70 and watch the equity leak away. That is an increasingly likely scenario.

This might help...  

Are you sick of hearing about the Greek crisis affecting corn/soy/banana prices and you realize you have no idea what the heck is going on except the hardworking Germans are being asked to bail out crummy, corrupt Greeks?

Felix Salmon, one of the best econobloggers in the world of finance deploys some rubber ducks to educate you.




The most interesting part for me was the statement that bondholders have agreed to a 50% haircut.  That's pretty harsh, but essential to a resolution. Like our mortgage mess here, there must be some liability for foolish lenders, IMHO.

Our new "insurance" infatuation...  

May be a forbidden love. While every ag group seems to have their own farm bill proposal, I think it is safe to say they mostly boil down to this: you can have the direct payments, just guarantee these whopping profits we've been making the last few years.

Of course, subsidizing a lavish crop insurance system could actually raise farm program costs if prices slide, but we'd have the moral high ground for once when prices are acceptable to our new expectations. In fact, farmers don't generally have a good handle on crop insurance costs.

With direct payments at risk, the agriculture industry last year began pressing for more federal support for crop insurance. It’s already one of the fastest-growing benefits for the agriculture industry, with subsidies for insurance premiums rising to more than $7 billion in 2011 from a little more than a $1 billion in 2000.  [More]

 But there is a slight problem. To my thinking, these are clearly counter-cyclical payments, and therefore market distorting. If prices can drop and you don't feel pain, you're not getting a real market signal about how much of what you're growing buyers want.

Guess who else thinks this way: our arch WTO nemesis, Brazil.

In a move that is liable to ruffle a few feathers in Washington, Brazil's government has sent letters to the agricultural committees of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, reminding them that leading proposals for a new farm bill actually increase subsidies and therefore could break World Trade Organization rules.

The message is clear: Brazil is willing to challenge the U.S. in Geneva if the new legislation increases market-distorting subsidies, just as it successfully did in the case of cotton subsidies seven years ago.

Back in October, Roberto Azevedo, Brazil's ambassador to the U.S., visited Washington and met with Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Frank Lucas, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee where he first voiced Brazil's concerns. They also talked about how the new bill could settle Brazil's claim over cotton subsidies -- the U.S. pays $147 million a year to Brazilian cotton farmers as a means of avoiding wider trade retaliation.

The unusual measure of communicating directly with a foreign legislature was taken after analysis of three farm bill proposals, from the National Cotton Council (NCC), from the American Farm Bureau Federation and from four senators, all of which increased market distortions, said Azevedo.

Among the issues raised was that government-subsidized crop insurance could also be considered market distorting under WTO rules and that none of the proposals significantly altered the GSM-102 export credit guarantee program, which the WTO has also condemned. [Apologies for the liberal exerpt from here]

I think they have a case, and they certainly have handed our farm schemes a few setbacks [e.g. cotton]. The reason is also pretty simple. No matter how it is packaged, US farmers want a federal risk protection program. But when the possibility of painful losses is eliminated by insurance or target prices or whatever, we don't react to the market. No matter how that risk is mitigated, it is de facto distorting.

In addition, our wishful proposals are going to cost too much. There is simply no way to provide the kind of "safety hammock" we want for less than we are spending now, unless fewer farmers/crops split the pot.

Somehow, I doubt that will fly.

I await our collective "Plan B", although we may have to have the WTO make us do the hard work.

Our greatest challenge...  

Increasingly transparent rental markets.  I got this land rent auction report from Murray Wise.

 [Click to enlarge, but sit down first]

Note the terms were up-front payment, two-year term. Make your own judgment re: CSR and rent.

Update: I guess Mike was already all over this.

Are we close to...  

A replicator?

 
Full Printed from nueveojos on Vimeo.

A consultant caveat...  

I have never been an ardent advocate of consultants for farmers. Indeed, they often strike as a very minimal result for an exorbitant cost. But if you look at the example of consultants use in industry, there may be another deliverable I was discounting too heavily.

The puzzle is why firms pay huge sums to big name consulting firms, when their advice comes from kids fresh out of college, who spend only a few months studying an industry they previous knew nothing about. How could such quick-made advice from ignorant recent grads be worth millions? Why don’t firms just ask their own internal recent college grads?
Some say that consulting firms use their access to collect data on best practices, data that other firms are eager to pay for. But while this probably contributes, I find it hard to see as the main effect.
My guess is that most intellectuals underestimate just how dysfunctional most firms are. Firms often have big obvious misallocations of resources, where lots of folks in the firm know about the problems and workable solutions. The main issue is that many highest status folks in the firm resist such changes, as they correctly see that their status will be lowered if they embrace such solutions.
The CEO often understands what needs to be done, but does not have the resources to fight this blocking coalition. But if a prestigious outside consulting firm weighs in, that can turn the status tide. Coalitions can often successfully block a CEO initiative, and yet not resist the further support of a prestigious outside consultant.
To serve this function, management consulting firms need to have the strongest prestige money can buy. They also need to be able to quickly walk around a firm, hear the different arguments, and judge where the weight of reason lies. And they need to be relatively immune to accusations of bias – that their advice follows from interests, affiliations, or commitments.
All three of these functions seem to be achieved at a low cost by hiring good-looking kids from our most prestigious schools. These are the cheapest folks you can buy with our most prestigious affiliations, they are smart enough to judge where reason lies, and they have few prior affiliations to taint them with bias. They can not only “borrow your watch to tell you the time,” but can also cow you into submission in accepting that time.
Yes the information contained in consulting advice can be obtained elsewhere at a lower cost. Firms could hire most any smart independent folks, or set up a prediction market. But alas those sources don’t have the raw strength of status to cow opponents into submission, opponents who in practice can block changes no matter what a CEO declares.
So mine is a signaling and status story (surprise surprise). The weight of status often decides outcomes, no matter what the CEOs commands, and so CEOs often need to bring out status ringers, to cow opponents into submission. [More]

My summary: we bring in consultants as ratifiers of actions we already know need doing, but require uncomfortable changes in our group.

OK, I can follow that. But for groups or businesses without high levels of dysfunction I assert there is a considerable competitive advantage. They do not need to fork out for expensive and often redundant statements of the obvious; they can react much more quickly in a high-speed business environment; they develop a confidence in their ability to face an uncertain future without hand-holding.

I will grant consultants can add some value to some business groups. But I would suggest, those who can develop a working environment that utilizes equally qualified in-house talent more effectively will achieve a substantial competitive advantage. It may also be that continued reliance on consultants would possibly minimize the chances for such group skills to develop and flourish.

File under "Holy S***!"...  

Not being a gun enthusiast, this item blew me away.

Earlier this month, a British Army sniper Corporal Craig Harrison broke the world’s record for superaccurate shooting, taking out a pair of Taliban machine gunners from a mile-and-a-half away. It was a one-in-a-million feat — one performed under “perfect” conditions, Harrison says: “no wind, mild weather, clear visibility.” [More]

But wait, there's more.

The U.S. military has been after self-guided bullets for years. Now, government researchers have finally made it happen: a bullet that can navigate itself a full mile before successfully nailing its target.
The breakthrough comes courtesy of engineers at the government’s Sandia National Laboratories. They’ve successfully tested a prototype of the bullet at distances up to 2,000 meters — more than a mile. The photo above is an actual image taken during one of those tests. A light-emitting diode was attached to the bullet, showing the amazing pathway that the munition made through the night sky. [More]

Between stuff like this and drones, is there a good argument against being paranoid?

Junkbox, Episode IDUNNO...  

Heading to the record-breaking TP Seminar to tape the show today.

• I take 'em when I can find 'em.
• Helpful global temperature chart. New study, same conclusion.
• Another step toward the HAL 2000 car.
• The Indian wheat yield problem
• Wild mustard could get a little wilder
• Is wind dying?
• I need to work "sustainable" into this post, I guess.