Sound family science net...

Sophisticated research and polling methods have identified words and phrases that can do more than convey a thought.

Unspeak, writer Steven Poole's term for a phrase or word that contains a whole unspoken political argument, deserves a place in every journalist's daily vocabulary. Such gems of unspeak, such as pro-choice and pro-life, writes Poole in the opening pages in his book Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality, represent an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak—in the sense of erasing, or silencing—any possible opposing point of view, by laying a claim right at the start to only one choice of looking at a problem. [more]

This power in words is an important weapon in the media war waged by mainstream ag. Consider the words "sound science". To begin with unsound science is not science at all. I have already ranted about this type of code-word communication, but the technique continues to create misinformation throughout modern media.

But even more weasel-wordy are labels like "family" and "community".

Poole calls community one of the most perfect political words in English because it

can mean several things at once, or nothing at all. It can conjure things that don't exist, and deny the existence of those that do. It can be used in celebration, or in passive-aggressive attack. Its use in public language is almost always evidence of an Unspeak strategy at work.

The plasticity of community allows it to encompass geography, ethnicity, profession, hobby, or religion, and in the mouths of diplomats and journalists can expand to include everybody, as in the international community, a concept that Justice Antonin Scalia once described—rightly—as "fictional."

Hence the current clamor for a "safety net". It sounds so much better than guaranteed profits. From an engineer's point of view, however, there is little to differentiate between a safety net and a hammock. Besides, couldn't we weave our own nets, like other Americans have to?

Another word-bomb is "actuarially sound" insurance programs. For cryin' out loud. Without $4B in subsidies an actuarially sound crop insurance program would demonstrate vigorously where we should not be planting stuff.

Last year, the companies made $927 million in profit, a record. They received an additional $829 million from the government in administrative fees to help run the program. On top of that, taxpayers kicked in $2.3 billion to subsidize premium payments for farmers.

All of that to pay farmers $752 million for losses from bad weather. [More]

As long as we talk in unspeak, we will never truly communicate, and the real world will simply pass us by while we recite the same thoughts to each other. We can do better, and the first step is to call a spade a bowl.

You put that submarine down right now, mister!...

My jaw dropped at this picture of the world's largest floating crane.


Toying with a sub that way is just so wrong. [more]

[via Neatorama]

It's all about corn...

Our government has apparently decided all farmers should be corn farmers. The State of the Union speech tonight should officially make this One Nation Under Tassels. And when the US is one big cornfield, ag policy will be really easy.

• We can finally start cooperating at the WTO. I mean, with $4 corn who is going to whine about losing LDP's or small direct payments?

Farm subsidies: The United States has offered to cut the amounts it is allowed to spend on subsidies to farmers under WTO rules by 60 percent. But the European Union and leading developing countries say that it could still spend over $22 billion a year, more than 2005 spending of some $19.5 billion. It is widely assumed that the United States has at least a further $5 billion of cuts up its sleeve made up of so-called “product-specific de minimis” support, which it rarely uses.

The United States is also under pressure to tighten disciplines in the so-called “blue box”, which is a half-way house between farm aid that is considered trade-distorting and aid that is not, like rural development spending.

The EU, which spends far more, has offered a 70 percent cut in subsidies, but could go to 75 percent if the United States went to 65. [More] [Another view]

• We won't have to worry about cotton farmers or ranchers or livestock producers, but can just throw 'em under the bus as we all produce for wildly expanded mandated markets. Southern producers are not idiots - they are already gaming the shift from cotton to corn. And no doubt scientists will come up with new hybrids or something those guys can grow instead.

The Energy Future Coalition, a Washington-based proponent of alternative fuels, said yesterday that the group expects Bush will call for more than 60 billion gallons a year to be blended with U.S. gasoline by 2030, up from the 7.5 billion by 2012 mandated by current law. [More]

• Agribusinesses will be ecstatic as demand for fertilizer, machinery, seed, etc. will be huge. My guess is we're going to need a bunch of trucks and roads to move all that stuff from where it is to where it is needed as well. If not, Iowa could soon be knee-deep in DDG's.
  

Mandates are easy, and don't show up on government budgets. They are also a side-effect of the strong-executive theory of government. If livestock operators think their study group report will have any more effect than the Iraq Report, they are fooling themselves. In fact, they might be the next big subsidy recipients.

This decision has been made, I think and there is small chance of turning back (we like to stay the course a lot).

Too bad it's another unfortunate choice.

Medical posturing from the ivory towers...

President Bush's purported health insurance SOTU proposal has been leaked and the economist-blogosphere is buzzing with instant analyses. I've read about 10 and not one - that's right, ZERO - seem to address the fundamental underlying problems:

1. Providing all the medical care we now have to everybody.
2. Including the growing number of "uninsurables" (thanks to rapidly improving screening such as genetic testing) outside groups or self-employed.

One can only assume that most academic economists have pretty darn good coverage through their universities, and have never confronted the issue of being able to pay for insurance but being turned down.

Health insurance is simply a way to hand the bill around. It does nothing to tackle the hard problem of how many liver transplants a person is allowed, or whether to do bypass surgery on a 90-year old or how does a 25 year-old independent trucker with genetic markers for MS get coverage.

Our problem is not just medical insurance. It's paying for all the medical care we now can provide, such as drugs and procedures never imagined 10 years ago. And for how long? The expenditure of increasing portions of our economic output in the final few months of lives is a growing problem that nobody want to tackle, even as it threatens to consume us.

They warned you to plant refuges...

The latest version of the corn borer


Just kidding! This is cecropia caterpillar in a particular stage of shedding (molting?).

Looks to me like it was designed by Lego.

My campaign for an HDTV [Day 1]...

We watch about 10 hours of TV per week - really - I timed it. Thanks to TiVo we watch only stuff we like. But like many of you, I have a perfectly good TV to watch on.

ALL the other guys have BIG TV's however. I am being oppressed. So I have begun an intellectual campaign to convince myself that I need one of those sleek marvels in my living room. It would really help if you guys who have one write in with rapturous comments about how it has changed your life for the better.

Actually, some people are finding despite their skepticism that HDTV adds something.

But my favorite is a Discovery On Demand channel, which has a series called "Sunrise Earth." Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Put down the bong. But you need no bong to be entranced by the simplicity of the series. It takes the highest quality video cameras around the world and captures 50-minute scenes of the dawn in a variety of spots on this water-planet. There is no narration; no music; just natural sounds. Here's one review:

When seen in vivid, crystal-clear HDTV, the effect is hypnotic. Few viewers will fail to have an impulse to immediately book a flight to join the fun. After watching last night's program on the Cadillac Mountains at the Acadia National Park in Maine, I quickly checked my work schedule for vacation dates. When seen in high-def, the burnt orange skies lingering over the Maine mountains was enough to make me forget, well, nearly everything.

Again, like Kubrick's "Dawn of Man," Sunrise Earth lets the high-def pictures do the talking. There is no narrator getting in the way; only an occasional graphic reveals the location and the time of day. It's a powerful technique. By eliminating the human altogether, Sunrise Earth makes you feel like what you're seeing could be what you would have seen hundreds of years ago. It's nature unplugged.

I checked into that show, and it looks pretty cool. However, some TV producers are worried about that HDTV may actually deliver too-realistic images.

I'm going to investigate what it will take to upgrade my DirecTV subscription to HD. Their goofy website does not make this an easy task.

I'm also thinking that those puppies may go on sale after the Super Bowl.

More later.

Trojan consumers...

There is a trend in public debate to create a "consumer advocacy" group out of thin air. I suppose there is something authentic seeming about "grassroots" opinions. So now, it has become common in public relations for corporate and political campaigns to quietly organize, fund, and even prop up dupes to pose as the "grass". The trendy term for such fronts is "astroturfing"

Some examples:

• Here in Illinois (Rex Grossman for President!) we about to start paying full price for electricity after a mandated freeze. Politicians are sorting themselves out and a helpful "consumer" group has emerged to inform the public about this proposed rate hike.

The commercial, in a foreboding tone, suggests that the lights may go out in Illinois if an electricity rate freeze is extended.

"We don't need a California-style energy crisis in Illinois," cautions a voice representing Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity.

It may sound like the campaign of a grass-roots consumer group, but it is not.

Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity gets most of its money from ComEd. CORE, as it is known, is a group of organizations and executives, many with ties to ComEd or the utility industry.

But ComEd's name is nowhere to be seen as the voice-over raises the specter of the disaster to come if the Illinois legislature extends the freeze on electricity rates next week. The commercial has been running on television stations around the state in recent weeks, and full-page ads have been placed in newspapers. [More]

• In New York, PETA is being attacked by a similar "consumer group"

There's a very public PR campaign (full page ads in today's New York Times, billboards in Times Square) attacking PETA. Click on their website and hit about us, and you'll find a link. Two more clicks and you find:

The Center for Consumer Freedom is supported by restaurants, food companies and more than 1,000 concerned individuals. From farm to fork, our friends and supporters include businesses, employees and consumers.

The Wikipedia article sheds a bit more light, pointing out that a cigarette company was the initial sponsor of the group and that fast food restaurants are funders as well. Millions of dollars worth of funding from a few giant corporations. [More]

While I'm not crying for PETA, the tactic stinks.The happy part is thanks to search engines, anyone can find out who these groups really are. So when I link to a site and wonder where their info comes from and who is punching the buttons, I always start with the "About Us" page. I also like to Google board members and check financial reports.

As for this doubtful source, I get paid by FJ Media to write this drivel and these opinions and words are my very own (not counting the stuff I stole outright or was too lazy to link).

They aren't that easy to think up either.

This can only get worse...

Thanks to a strange set of consequences, "meatlifting" is now the number one "loss prevention" problem for supermarkets.

Meatlifting is a grave problem for food retailers: According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America's grocery stores in 2005. (It barely edged out analgesics and was a few percentage points ahead of razor blades and baby formula.)

Meat's dubious triumph is due in part to a law enforcement crackdown on methamphetamine use. Meat used to be the shoplifting runner-up to health-and-beauty-care items, a category that includes cough medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in home-cooked meth. In 2003, for example, a quarter of shoplifted products were HBCs, while meat took second place at 16 percent. But states began passing laws that require stores to move medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind secure counters. That was enough to cut the pinching of HBCs, which fell by 11 percent between 2003 and 2005.

When ethanol demand raises feed prices and the livestock industry cuts back production, meat prices will likely rise. Too many weird store security scenarios spring to mind as shoppers respond with more theft attempts.

So, more innovation is required in the battle against meatlifting. Meat-sniffing dogs pop to mind, though some shoppers might object to having a Doberman nosing around their crotches in search of stolen steaks. But you know what they say about civil liberties in a time of crisis. [more]

I think we can label this "bad press"...

A searing indictment of Smithfield Farms ran in the Rolling Stone magazine. Not pretty.

We climb to 2,000 feet and head toward the densest concentration of hogs in the world. The landscape at first is unsuspiciously pastoral -- fields planted in corn or soybeans or cotton, tree lines staking creeks, a few unincorporated villages of prefab houses. But then we arrive at the global locus of hog farming, and the countryside turns into an immense subdivision for pigs. Hog farms that contract with Smithfield differ slightly in dimension but otherwise look identical: parallel rows of six, eight or twelve one-story hog houses, some nearly the size of a football field, containing as many as 10,000 hogs, and backing onto a single large lagoon. From the air I see that the lagoons come in two shades of pink: dark or Pepto Bismol -- vile, freaky colors in the middle of green farmland.

From the plane, Smithfield's farms replicate one another as far as I can see in every direction. Visibility is about four miles. I count the lagoons. There are 103. That works out to at least 50,000 hogs per square mile. You could fly for an hour, Dove says, and all you would see is corporate hog operations, with little towns of modular homes and a few family farms pinioned amid them.

The viewpoint is far from even-handed, and the language is masterfully accusatory. However, discounting these fully still yields a pile of bad news and worse projections. Most troubling to me is the concluding paragraph about plans for Eastern Europe.

When Joseph Luter entered Poland, he announced that he planned to turn the country into the "Iowa of Europe." Iowa has always been America's biggest hog producer and remains the nation's chief icon of hog farming. Having subdued Poland, Luter announced this summer that all of Eastern Europe -- "particularly Romania" -- should become the "Iowa of Europe." Seventy-five percent of Romania's hogs currently come from household farms. Over the next five years, Smithfield plans to spend $800 million in Romania to change that.

Even though I consider myself an industrial farmer, I support strong efforts to control environmental externalities caused by CAFO's (or any agricultural activity). We can find other methods of husbandry and we can endure higher meat costs to fund them.

States like North Carolina have the right to manage such economic activity as they choose, but they may be surprised what the increasing population density on the East Coast can do even against powerful business interests.

We're not the only farmers doing well...unfortunately...

Say what you will about the old Taliban, but those guys ran a tight drug ship. Oh sure they oppressed the heck out of women especially, and the population in general, but they really put the clamps on the opium trade.

Our record is somewhat less effective...

But the most mind-boggling datapoint to me is a 2006 World Bank estimate that opium production in Afghanistan now accounts for at least one-third of the country's GDP.

Hardly a surprise that we've failed to locate bin Laden. Hell, we apparently can't even find almost half a million acres of opium. [More]

The popularity of harsh authoritarianism in lawless countries is hardly surprising. People who feel threatened sometimes feel the trade off of freedom for safety is worth it. Something similar may be happening under our noses.

“Wait a minute,” Specter interjected. “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?”

Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion. [More of a very scary interview with your Attorney General and mine]

When any American loses a basic right, we all do.

I'll bet I can rig this up in my shower...

Sure - a few T-jet valves, and old Apple computer, some garden hose...

What could go wrong?

[Via BoingBoing]

One more reason to distrust horses...

Never my favorite animal, the horse reveals it hideous nature once again. Watch the chicken. The poor innocent chicken...

[via Neatorama]

Updated 1/20 to add the "missing link" - heh, heh.

A new toy for teaching change in our world...

Check out the latest amazing piece of work from Google.

Follow the path of the Russian Federation, for one. And then watch China and India. You can slow it down and focus on individual countries.

[via HitandRun]

It would make merging on the interstate easier...

The Navy is experimenting with new electromagnetic catapults that can hurl a plane off a carrier. The acceleration is 0 to 150 mph in under a second - which is why I used the verb "hurl".

The limiting factor is going to be the poor dude in the cockpit. Keeping in mind the brain is about the consistency of week-old pudding, 14 G's could be a pretty hard on even the toughest airman.

I'm not worthy...

The Top producer Seminar has turned out to be the best meeting I've been at in year. Part of it is due to the general euphoria from $4 corn, but the large crowd also has a sense of the significance of this moment.

To be sure, there is a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming tome to the conversations, and a determined effort to not get overly worked up, but it is hard to keep from grinning. And I think more than a few of us are trying to figure out what we have done to deserve this economic blessing.

Some of them remember 1973-4 and how that price spike set the expectation level for my generation. I got to the party late in 1975, but my friends were still talking about then. Somehow, I think this good fortune is different.

First, demand for ethanol - and hence - corn is not a whim of the marketplace or foreign buyers - it is mandated by law. While I personally think mandates are bad policy, the fact remains they are in place an controlling corn demand.

Second, while small livestock producers will likely be hit hard by this run-up in feed prices, much of the feed demand is from very large operations who will adapt differently than individual producers - even running losses for significant periods. The events of 1995 showed us how long they will hang tough.

Farmers (and I'm talking grain farmers here) are better positioned and have, it is to be hoped improved management skills at their commands.

I think we can handle prosperity. But can we do it with grace and maturity?

What about an anvil?...

I don't really get this but apparently there are people walking among us who like to pile stuff on cats.


Now stuff on my hamster would be funny!

Early to bed, early to rise - it's in the genes?...

There are people whose body clocks are stuck in another time zone seemingly. They are pooped at 7 pm. and wide awake at 4 am. While I'm learning to manage the wide-awake part (I think I'm sleeping faster), these folks are simply wired differently. By studying them, scientists hope to unravel secrets of our internal timers.

The result, published in Cell¹, should have implications for those trying to manipulate the body-clock system, perhaps even with a simple pill. Such treatments could be used for many disorders, from serious sleep problems to simple jetlag. [More]

This may seem like a minor problem to devote research on, but it indicates to me how rich is the stream genetic research results. Which in turn adds to my confidence that corn researchers can increase the slope of the yield curve.

We're gonna need bigger trucks and even more bins, I bet.

Here we go...

Farmers are bidding up inputs, exactly as predicted by Pasour and Rucker in their obscure economic tome "Plowshares and Pork Barrels". One of the first indications is also one of the purest sentinels - machinery auctions.

I think of an auctioneer friend of mine, Dean Eastman from northeast Iowa. Dean had a very nice farm auction last Saturday. I dropped him an email wondering how things sold. His response back really caught my attention.

"My phone has rung nonstop for two weeks asking about machinery. They called the morning of the sale, during the sale, and the day after the sale. I'm still getting calls wondering what stuff sold for from people that couldn't make it to the sale. I feel we had a very good sale on Saturday! I do a low-high price estimate on everything when I have a sale with this many dollars. Low being a train wreck bad day, and high being almost a pie in the sky high price. We overshot the high number by 18%." [More]

Vigorous bidding at auctions will support new machinery prices as well. Already pretty lean on inventory, dealers have strong hand.

While many will wring their hands and lament our lack of control when bidding for combines or acres, history shows this instinct is not unreasonable.

Waiting too long to compete is.

"Did you get that in Egypt?" "No, that's Barney"...

Good ideas never really disappear, they just wait for full funding. And one idea that won't die (snicker) is mummification.

Whether it be the practice of an ancient civilization or the subject of examination by a modern day culture, Mummification has always been held in the highest esteem by society. It was common among early cultures, most notably for religious reasons. With the onset of the Dark Ages and the plagues, the art of Mummification began to diminish until finally, this form of care ceased. Looking back in time, it was a practice that extended around the world.

Still, we find ourselves attracted to the role Mummification has played throughout history and the significance it has carried throughout time. It touches something deep within our esoteric being. History shows us what great concern Mummification expressed in the final care of one of nature's most beautiful creations: the human being. [More]

When you are making out your final plans, you have more options than you may think. And you may want to try a test run on your old family pet.


You might want to start saving now, because currently mummification runs about $70,000 not including casket, vault, shipping & handling, airport taxes, activation fee, etc. It is not a simple process.

Me - I'm considering plastination.

I'll just be sitting at my computer, surfing away forever...

Freehand Circle Drawing Champion

I had a Calc III professor - Dr. Peter Palmer - who could draw spherical sections with the same uncanny accuracy.

Still you gotta admire somebodt who tells his wife "Honey, I'm going to the World Freehand Circle Drawing Championship in Vegas, OK?" and lives to tell the story.

[via Mentalfloss]

I thought our weather has been screwy...


Lightning, sunset, rainbow - what more could you ask?

[via Neatorama]

Who worships where...

The revival of religion has surprised many jaded world observers. But often we are not sure who's on first. Behold this handy map:

(Click to enlarge)

The most fascinating aspect of this article could be the predictions for future church membership. I had no idea of the powerful results of Pentecostal missions in Africa, for instance.

This ascent of Africa is due primarily to Christian missionaries. Pentecostal Protestants, who place greater emphasis on revivalism and ecstatic religious experience - like speaking in tongues - than on theology, have proved particularly successful. In South Korea and Latin America, Pentecostal Protestants have lured many millions of worshippers away from the Catholic Church, especially in Brazil. [More]

Anyhoo, as we tend to forget here in the USA there are a lot of people out there who believe much differently but equally strongly on matters of faith as we do.

But what will I do with all the money left over?...

Could we see $20 oil in the future? As improbable as it seems, some are predicting it:

But what about $20 per barrel oil by 2011? Oil analyst Peter Beutel of the energy consultancy Cameron Hanover thinks it could happen. Beutel told MSNBC:

"I believe we have that a lot more oil on this planet than people believe. And we are going to find it over the next few years."

Beutel thinks oil prices could fall as low as $20 a barrel in the next 4 to 8 years before beginning to rise again.

And why not? All other things being equal, higher prices encourage more exploration and more technical improvements which leads to more production. If Beutel's right, New York Times reporter John Tierney's $5,000 bet with peak oil alarmist Matthew Simmons is looking pretty good.

In times of great flux, pundits gamble on your memory issues and make all kinds of wild prognostications they can later point back to as prescience.

Then there are the oil analysts. At the beginning of last year most were still expecting the oil price to fall back. It didn’t. By the end of 2006 they had more or less given up and started forecasting long-term oil prices in the region of $70 to $100 a barrel. It should come as no surprise, then, that the oil price spent much of last week in freefall and is now hovering at about $55 — its lowest level since mid-2005. The result? Many analysts have flip-flopped and now predict oil at below $50 by the end of the year. [More]

Meanwhile, I'm retracting my prediction about Rex Grossman...

Refuting the Gospel of Helplessness...

I use the label for the apocalyptic philosophies so prevalent today but so short on evidence. The Gospel of Helplessness is also the undergirding of our farm policy - farmers are incapable of coping with reality or creating their own future. That aspect of the Gospel has now become agri-dogma.

The GOH also extends to matters environmental. It is not useful to merely attack the adherents as wrong-headed, some alternative vision should be offered. Here is an excellent view on humans and the environment and how we are creating a future very different from the GOH:

The logic for Reversal and Restoration is obvious and deep. Intelligent humanity made revolutions in productivity sweep all industries in the 20^th century. We now stamp out cars like tin ducks and microchips too. Unnoticed by many, revolutions in productivity also penetrated forestry and farming. Combined with more efficient production chains and changes in consumer taste, rising yields began to allow us to meet demand for food, fiber, and fuel while using less land: the Great Reversal. The enlarging forests and abandoned farms in the US and in many other nations show it.

Because cities will take a few hundred million hectares more land for the 10 billion people of 2070, we need the Reversal to spread to more nations and for it to extend into a Great Restoration. In the US, foresters may offer 70 million hectares for nature and farmers that much or more. The net effect should be to allow a restoration of nature on land in the US exceeding the size of 100 Yellowstone National Parks or twice the area of Spain. Regional and national case studies could build a global picture. Reflecting the diffusion of productivity through industries around the world, the Great Reversal will surely happen at different times in different places and with different potential. Setting goals, such as a 300 million hectare or 10% expansion of the world's forest area by 2070, may help.

Accomplishing the Great Restoration is the work of the 21st century for foresters, farmers, scientists, engineers, and all the other participants in the wood and food businesses. While avoiding the dangers of intensive cultivation, wise humanity can lift average yields toward the present limits and lift the limits even more. By sparing cropland, we can also spare water and nitrogen.

Malthusians are simply wrong. And for all the hatred extended to it by its beneficiaries technology continues to solve problems, increase productivity and improve lives - even correcting its own errors along the way.

And if we don't, I think life on Earth will find a way to adjust to that failure as well.

If you want a more bucolic version of the ecological future, consult a paleontologist. The paleontologists look further into the future to a time when the great evolutionary opportunities are not agricultural habitats, but are, instead, vast forests—to a time when the seas are again filled with large species—to a time when new large vertebrates roam new kinds of plains. They look forward in time to a world more interesting to us than our present evolutionary future. The paleontologists can do all this because they begin their discussions of future evolution with the statement, "once humans go extinct." [More]

Is it me or does he remind you of Sulu?...

We Trekies have infiltrated the highest levels of government.

Bwaa-haa-haaa!

Who's laughing at the nerds now, huh?

Not unimportantly, it demonstrates Putnam's academic integrity...

I have been a big fan of Robert Putnam's bestselling book Bowling Alone. In it the Harvard sociologist painstakingly measures our social capital by tracking such things as voter registration, church attendance, and bowling leagues (hence the title), among other social institutions.

His conclusions and predictions were well-thought out and match up with my real-world observations.

Thus is was with some shock I read about his latest research results concerning diversity:

In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us. [More of an important and well-written article]

Putnam has been widely cited by liberal critics of our social and economic institutions. His opinions on diversity will doubtless confuse and anger many, and affect the outcome of many debates, notably immigration.

Still his analysis may not be as damning as it first seems - it may simply frame the questions more clearly.

Even if there were a stark choice between diversity and social solidarity, it is not clear that the latter would be better. In 1856 Walter Bagehot, deprived of the diversity which the past century and a half has brought, railed against his tight-knit society, which he thought stifled excitement and innovative thinking. “You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius,” he wrote, “but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbour.” [More]

Regardless, as long as as much freedom as possible is reserved for individuals, I'm pretty sure we can make life work.

It is interesting to speculate how this reluctant conclusion by Putnam might have helped quell the outrage Tom Dorr's USDA nomination hearing. His infamous remarks:

"I know this is not at all the correct environment to say this, but I think you ought to perhaps go out and look at what you perceive [are] the three most successful rural economic environments in this state. ..... And you'll notice when you get to looking at them, that they're not particularly diverse, at least not ethnically diverse. They're very diverse in their economic growth, but they have been very focused, have been very non-diverse in their ethnic background and their religious background, and there's something there obviously that has enabled them to succeed and to succeed very well."

Of course, even setting aside his frank (and possibly now accurate) views on diversity, Dorr packed too much baggage for that trip.

(Crimony, Tom, you can't talk libertarian and game the FSA! Sheesh...)

Where little green men really came from...

A really disappointing explanation of how this phrase entered popular usage.

About an hour after Taylor reported his “flying saucer” sighting, a barking dog attracted him and “Lucky” Sutton outside. Spotting a creature, they darted into the house for a .22 rifle and shotgun, thus beginning a series of encounters that spanned the next three hours. Sometimes, the men fired at a scary face that appeared at a window; sometimes, they went outside, whereupon, on one occasion, Taylor’s hair was grabbed by a huge, clawlike hand. Once, the pair shot at a little creature that was on the roof and at another “in a nearby tree” that then “floated” to the ground. Either the creatures were impervious to gun blasts or the men’s aim was poor, since no creature was killed.

Luckily, aliens are apparently trying to land at O'Hare now.

Good luck with that! They may get in, but they'll never take off again.

Save your fingers...

Should have mentioned this on the earlier post about how I write this blog. Some of my abbreviations:

BTW - by the way
IMHO - in my humble opinion
LOL - laughing out loud
SWMBO - she who must be obeyed
OTOH -on the other hand
DAMHIKT -don't ask me how I know this

more here. Or search for acronyms/abbreviations here.

Pillar fight!...

I have long maintained - somewhat humorously, somewhat cynically - that the Four Pillars of American Farm Policy were:

1. The cotton program
2. The NE Dairy Compact
3. The Iowa caucuses
   
4. The Senate debate rules

My contention was that if these powerful institutions were to collapse, farm policy as we know it might finally change.

Well, let's do an update.

• The cotton program: Let's see, the WTO has ruled it unsportsmanlike conduct, the cost per farmer has raised all kinds of eyebrows, and cotton farmers are voting with their planters on their predictions for this venerable program. In addition, it doesn't have any conservation or energy glamor. Pillar Strength: 45% .
• The NE Dairy Compact: I have no idea what this was about. All I know is whole bunches of politicians of every political faction from very populous states supported it. It expired in 2001. Pillar Strength: 0%
• The Iowa primary: Iowa residents take very seriously the job of selecting the candidates for president by flocking to caucuses in January. Unfortunately, that is not their unique Constitutional duty. The "momentum" theory of the modern nomination process and examples like the "Dean Scream" exaggerated the importance both of Iowa voters and farm issues. The best explanation of this phenomenon in my opinion was a series of episodes on "West Wing" and dealt with how candidates are forced to take positions they would avoid otherwise to prevent being blown out in the IA voting. This emphasis is being challenged by candidates choosing to skip the caucuses and by other states moving their primaries earlier. Pillar Strength: 40% but dropping fast.
• Senate debate rules: These gentlemanly rules came close to being altered by the Republican majority during heated judicial appointment squabbles. Although they went to the brink, maybe Majority Leader Frist had a prophetic vision about losing the Senate last fall. Pillar Strength: 100%

Bottom line: Farm program structural integrity I measure at about 51.3% (margin of error +/- 82%). It could go either way, but we haven't seen conditions this conducive for change ever before.

That other war isn't going well either...

The incredibly expensive and questionably effective "War On Drugs" hasn't offered much good press lately. Now we find out one of the casualties is US asparagus:

The [U.S. asparagus] industry has been decimated by a U.S. drug policy designed to encourage Peruvian coca-leaf growers to switch to asparagus. Passed in 1990 and since renewed, the Andean Trade Preferences and Drugs Eradication Act permits certain products from Peru and Colombia, including asparagus, to be imported to the United States tariff-free....

Meanwhile, the Washington [state] industry is a shadow of its former self. Acreage has been cut by 71 percent to just 9,000 acres. [More]

Hey - this could become a trade negotiating tactic for poor countries. Start growing coca (or pot, hash, opium, etc.) and then negotiate to stop in exchange for open trade for stuff you are very competitive with. I could see it happening with cotton, for example. I think the horror of drugs would outweigh the love of farmers in a heartbeat. Who needs a WTO? This outcome also illustrates the peril of basing your business plan on government manipulation of the market.

Of course, on the bright side of the war failure, the most valuable US crop is now marijuana. Unfortunately, this growing agricultural success cannot be taxed or generate jobs legally, thus allowing the wealth to flow underground to support the wrong people.

Jon Gettman, the report's author, is a public policy consultant and leading proponent of the push to drop marijuana from the federal list of hard-core Schedule 1 drugs — which are deemed to have no medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse — such as heroin and LSD.

He argues that the data support his push to begin treating cannabis like tobacco and alcohol by legalizing and reaping a tax windfall from it, while controlling production and distribution to better restrict use by teenagers.

"Despite years of effort by law enforcement, they're not getting rid of it," Gettman said. "Not only is the problem worse in terms of magnitude of cultivation, but production has spread all around the country. To say the genie is out of the bottle is a profound understatement."

I know, I know - to solve this problem we should spend even more billions and send in more enforcers.

Wait, I've heard that somewhere else...

Works for me...

I've killed time in enough airports to consider using a micro-hotel like this:



These are similar to "capsule hotels" in Japan - which cross the line of claustrophobia for many, but just being able to have some privacy on a long trip would be great. Having them in the terminals is the best part, IMHO.

Beef - it's what's in the cross hairs...

Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry. For example, consider this headline from Green Business News:

Miliband muses on farm farts ban

and this excerpt:

While it is unlikely that this will result in a "fart-tax" with civil servants chasing cows round with breathalyzer style methane measurers, Miliband did argue that farmers should act to reduce methane emissions by feeding cattle different food, breeding them to live longer, altering the handling of manure and getting farms to generate "biogas" or "biofertiliser" from animal waste.

Extending the polluter pays principle to farming would likely lead to higher food prices, but Miliband insisted that climate change could provide an opportunity for farmers, as it has done in other sectors. [More]

[My emphasis]

No, this is not some sophomoric humor rag, but a serious report on a speech in the UK. After we pause for rude jokes, I'll point out what did trigger some speculation on my part.

The "polluter pays" principle is popping up more often in environmental discussions. I'm not sure I disagree. It is a straightforward way to get the cost of externalities included in the price of consumer goods.

Oddly, the polluter-pays principle is accepted by both sides of the environmental issue. The right seeks to define it in terms of private property:

A correct interpretation of the polluter pays principle would detine pollution as any byproduct of a
production or consumption process that harms or otherwise violates the property rights of others. The
polluter would be the person, company, or other organization whose activities are generating that byproduct. And finally, payment should equal the damage and be made to the person or persons being
harmed.
Inanimate objects and the environment do not incur costs, people: do. It is not merely the physical
property that is being damaged, but the interests of the owner. However, most advocates of PPP rarely
talk about harm to people. Instead, they misappropriate the economic theory by redetining the concepts
of cost and damage to apply to things rather than to people. The statement above is typical. Polluters
are said to be those who “damage” or impose “costs” on the environment. [More]

The more familiar version of this axiom accords more rights to the the physical world itself. That is where it gets tricky. As long as my actions on my property do no measurable harm to anyone else, am I polluting? Can I cut down all the trees and re-shape the land to suit?

Strong property rights advocates have held this position for some time, but technology is catching up with them. Just as with the "cow-emissions" stories, we are now able to measure many more forms of "pollution" than before. And doubtless, attorneys are working to use those measurements to demonstrate downstream "harm" that would make recovery of damages legitimate - and the effort billable.

So like many private property defenders, I'm thinking this is a good time to begin negotiations before all the effects of my activities can be traced clearly back to me. (At a visit Tuesday at the EPA, I learned of efforts to use bacteria-tracing to see whose animal doodoo is in the creek). For environmentalists, accommodation is not such a bad idea either, as we have now had enough examples of polluters simply committing corporate suicide (bankruptcy) when challenged adversarially.

But back to the cows. As global warming unmistakably gathers momentum, I expect some of these now-silly ideas to be translated into costs for cattlemen. Either manure digesters or feedlot size limits or feed restrictions - the possibilities are significant.

Now add in feed cost increases due to an escalating market demand for corn. (We are finding out DDG's are not the simple substitute for corn, BTW). Corn farmers could be the unwitting tools of animal activists who want to decrease meat consumption. Some health advocates would likely be smiling as beef prices especially escalate beyond frequent consumption range from most budgets.

So do I think the beef industry is doomed? Oddly, I believe, not here in the US. Beef prices (retail) will rise, and consumption may stagnate, but our beef industry could still emerge strong if it is the best global competitor for the beef consumer dollar. Other producers/packers will have to battle our scale, efficiency and brand power to maintain market share.

Still corn producer's fickle abandonment of their long-time #1 customer - the cow - is short-sighted. The problem is serious for poultry and hogs, but the feed-conversion ratios suggest that beef could be the hardest hit.

On top of all that, factor the loss of grazing ground from conversion of CRP acres. Although that risk may be overstated.

It may not be Marlboros that kill the cowboy - it could be corn farmers.

Monty Python sufaces in Iraq...

From the Aussies - insurgents get attitude.

[via Neatorama]

That was fast...

Moments after we have laid socialism-slayer Milton Friedman to rest, this durable old economic philosophy popped up twice in a weird coincidence.

1. Hugo Chavez, the wildly popular leader of Venezuela, executed an even harder left turn and started nationalizing key sectors of his economy. His example is rippling across South America as a repudiation of capitalists' naive presumption that showing poor people data tables and charts about how they are better off than they would be even with a tiny few becoming obscenely rich. Look, I agree the arithmetic is correct, but the marketing is not working. A vastly scaled down version of this revolt on inequality could be building here.
2. Even weirder, while in Washington DC yesterday I was walking by Union Station about 5:30 PM. when I heard a choir of really good voices singing in a plaza. This choir director could not resist and I stood transfixed for several minutes as a group of about 25 young people made some gorgeous music in open air - always a tough venue. The punch line: They were part of the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement. [I thought that dude was in jail, actually] An earnest young disciple approached me with the inevitable literature, and "engaged me in dialogue" I listened patiently - I had accepted the free concert - and tried to leave by telling him I was simply a choir director who loved good choral music, and I complimented (sincerely) the singers. He began to walk with me explaining how a choir was a good way to show the power of their socialist ideas. I stopped and looked him in the eye and said, "Look - a good socialist choir is a wonderful thing. The real trick is to form good libertarian choir." He turned and left me.

If socialism is making a modest comeback, one reason could be the immodesty of those who have lifted the world economy to unparalleled prosperity. There is considerable debate today about whether income inequality is increasing, but general agreement that it exists and is widely publicized to promote consumer spending (Here's what rich people buy!). There may be nothing academically wrong with wild disparity of incomes and assets, but jeez - it sure irritates the have-nots.

Wait - don't we count Venezuela as a "safe" place to source oil?

Draw your own conclusion...

Make note of your reaction to this clip of Honda's Asimo robot "running". Also notice (and if you desire, add to) the comments section on YouTube. I found the demonstration fascinating and mildly unsettling. We are farther along this path that I ever imagined.

Want to see my woonerf?...

Another counter-intuitive result has popped up in traffic planning. Instead of building roads as as controlled, cars-only thoroughfares, it turns out that intermingling humans and autos produces better results - at least from the safety point of view.

Combining traffic engineering, urban planning and behavioral psychology, the projects are inspired by a provocative new European street design trend known as "psychological traffic calming," or "shared space." Upending conventional wisdom, advocates of this approach argue that removing road signs, sidewalks, and traffic lights actually slows cars and is safer for pedestrians. Without any clear right-of-way, so the logic goes, motorists are forced to slow down to safer speeds, make eye contact with pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, and decide among themselves when it is safe to proceed. [More]

I would label this the "Rural King parking lot" syndrome. Since your have no idea which direction drivers and pedestrians are going to attack from, you proceed with intense caution. Especially when your car is less than 3 years old.

This concept of presenting risks realistically, rather than seeking to control risky behavior is rooted in the principle of moral hazard. Behavioral science has particularly critical of many insurance schemes because they induce the very behavior insured against.

PS - you gotta read the whole article to find out what a woonerf is.

Food science takes another step...

sideways. Duda Farms has developed hollow celery to make Bloody Mary's even more healthy.



Makes you proud to be a part of the American food industry!

[via BoingBoing]

OMG! -What if we don't ...

run out of oil?

[via Cato@liberty]

Other voices in the Farm Bill debate (Volume 2)...

I've been noticing that casual web searches for "farm bill" yield some unexpected hits. While few farmers worry about do-gooders being able to touch our LDP's, there do seem to be a few more factions weighing in this time around:

• Bread For the World -
  

Bread for the World hasn't released the kits yet, but the message will be this: America has a moral obligation to change the way it subsidizes farmers and put more money into conservation, nutrition and rural development.

"What we have learned is that the current system does not work for rural America," said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. "Disproportionately, the money in the farm bill is going to a relatively few people, mostly prosperous people." [More]

My comment: It is hard to use "pit bull" defense tactics on benevolent organizations like this if you are a farm lobbyist, unlike say, complaints from the sugar users or the oil industry. Some of us may even find our consciences listening to them. Plus the incredibly concentrated distribution of farm payments is receiving more and more media coverage. It's hard to keep enough lipstick on this pig.

• Chesapeake Bay Foundation -
  

Maryland farmers are not getting their fair share of the money that the federal government hands out each year in farm production payments. That's a major complaint of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which says that if bay region growers received as much funding as their Corn Belt counterparts, the bay could be a lot cleaner.

An analysis by the environmental group shows that for every dollar's worth of food produced in Maryland, farmers receive 4.8 cents in federal support money. That is well below the national average of 9 cents. Farmers in North Dakota receive an average of 22 cents in federal payments.

The payment figures are based on the foundation's analysis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture farm support payment data for 2000 to 2005. [More]

My comment: While there has always some internecine squabbling between regions over farm payments, the EWG has demonstrated that one guy with a laptop can sort the numbers to reveal inequities - you don't have to wait years for the USDA to describe what happened in the past in vague terms. Now every group is doing their own number crunching.

Moreover, I don't know how to break it to these folks, but farm subsidies are not about food. If they were, we wouldn't send cotton farmers money, right? Farm payments are political subsidies - we get them because we can make Congress do it. And when acres vote (the Senate) ND will win over MD every time.

• Democrats - the party of fiscal discipline (Benefit of the Doubt Rule #6) But seriously,
  

Also on Friday, Democrats will focus on "fiscal responsibility" through debate of measures promoting "Pay-As-You-Go" (PAYGO) budgeting and earmark reform, a reference to pork-barrel projects or line items inserted in "must-pass" legislation.

According to a Democratic fact sheet, PAYGO restrictions "will not allow consideration of any bill, amendment or conference report where the combined effect of provisions affecting mandatory spending (such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and farm bills) and revenue would increase the deficit over the five-year and 10-year windows, relative to the Congressional Budget Office baseline." [More]

My comment: I'd sooner bet on Rex Grossman as Super Bowl MVP, but hey - they deserve their chance. The image of a Democrat Congress tackling farm bill costs only is possible for me to envision if I factor in a payment limit and/or increased money for conservation, and political voter polls which convince Democrats are going to lose southern rural voters anyway because of social issues.

Coming up in my next post about new voices in the farm bill debate:

• International Chess Federation
  
• Estonian Parliament
• American Chemical Society

You aren't sure I'm kidding, are you?

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him*...


Note the small dots on the left of this photograph of the sun. Now see it magnified:



The space shuttle and the International Space Station as viewed on September 17. 2006.

*Ps. 8:4 KJV

[via NextNet]

Watch at your own risk...

Some of us work very hard to make people laugh, and then some of us...

Pass the boneful, skinful chicken, please...[Re-post from 2006]

The poultry industry is nervous these days. Avian flu is a constant presence in the news - not an attractive marketing image. Kudos to the industry for an active response, BTW [readers will note my refusal to use the pretend word: proactive]. In fact, despite sentimentality to the contrary, our poultry industry may not be as vulnerable to the spread of avian flu as the more picturesque small farm operations. I still recall how foot-and-mouth spread through the English livestock sector - through small farmers traveling to small markets. Good system for warm feelings about farms; bad for quarantine efforts.

But there may be more subtle issues at work as well having to do with eating habits.

I think one of them is this: chicken breasts are very healthy because of all the components they don't have much of - fat, cholesterol, yadda, yadda . Fair enough. But after a few years, it dawns on you they don't have much flavor, either. Julia Child was right - fat is where the flavor is. That's why Jan has switched most of our (many) chicken recipes to thighs.

There are secondary benefits. The frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts [FBSCB's - pronounced fub-scubs] you buy in 20# "Bag-O-Breasts" are getting huger and huger as chicken breeders work strange miracles on chicken architecture. OK - most people may want that product, but it still doesn't make it good-tasting. Using chicken thighs (leg quarters) - the despised dark meat - we can keep our portions in line with our calorie expenditure, which on the average January day is ummm, minimal.

Best of all the poultry industry practically gives thighs away. They provide more "juice" for sauces, and if you want, you can always skip the skin. Switching to thighs has improved my appetite - that's for sure.

Now there's a sentence that could come back to haunt me...