This could get interesting...

The WTO has begun "emergency" talks (ooooh - scary!) aimed at preventing outright failure of the Doha Round. In between open-mike gaffes Pres. Bush has signaled some flexibility. This oughta fire up the farm lobby.

I mean, what if we DID get market access to India, fr'instance. Would we miss LDP's?

Boyhowdy!

When stag parties go wrong...



Several dozen deer simultaneously assaulted a European chalet, rammming it from all directions.

No explanation was available from deerologists.

Comments made easier...

Thanks to a tip from Denny, I have changed the settings for comments for this blog to "anyone" - which means you do not have to set up an account.

While this raises the risk of getting spam and junk, it will make it simpler for readers to add their thoughts. We'll see how it goes. I can always revert to requiring commenters to have an account - which BTW is safe.

Let me know what you think.

They still stole the gold, however...


As any student of history knows, Spanish conquistadores conquered Mexico not with deeds of warrior prowess, but by exposing the hapless natives to Western diseases like smallpox and typhus, for which they had no natural immunity.

Maybe not.

Acuña-Soto's trips into the woods with Stahle and the Mexican researchers continue to fill in epidemiological details. "I have evidence from 24 epidemics from 1545 to 1813," he says. "I am comparing the tree-ring data with each of them." In each case, he sees the same pattern. He also thinks he may have solved one of the other great mysteries of cocolitzli—namely, why it hit the Aztecs hard but left the Spanish largely unaffected.

Hemorrhagic viruses affect human populations that are already stressed, Acuña-Soto says. "The natives were poor and probably near starvation and living in unsanitary conditions where the rats would congregate. They also worked in the fields, where they'd be exposed to the rat droppings. The Spanish made up the upper classes."

Cortés and his soldiers defeated, enslaved, and murdered the Aztecs, but now it seems that cocolitzli, a disease brought about by a native virus, is what really finished them off. Today the Aztec kingdom exists only in museums and ruins, but the virus could still be out there. As Mexico enters into yet another period of severe drought, could the killer reemerge?

This is going to severely irritate those who really liked having a foreigner to blame cultural failures on. One would be "Guns, Germs and Steel" author Jared Diamond. It also discomfits those psuedo-anti-racists who use similar arguments as ways to demonstrate Western societies were just lucky.

The upshot for me is that all groups of people had battles to fight - some with each other, some with their environments. It's not just chance, nor is it purely genes, but expecting population quotas to be maintained over millenia as proof we are all equal is nonsense.

Sudden-death overtime for WTO...

The previously deceased Doha Round of the WTO were sent into overtime today by leaders from the G-8 nations. Pascal Lamy was given a one-month deadline to do what several years of wrangling apparently could not. If he is successful, cynicism about trade negotiations will deepen as obviously no participant has been negotiating in good faith. No future deadline will be taken seriously and negotiator careers will be golden.

I want trade to be freer, I want negotiations to be fruitful, but I want diplomats and bureaucrats to honor time commitments - and to go off the clock when the deadline passes.

Now if we could just get John Deere to make a "Gator" version...

When I was a kid, there was a lot of hoohah about a car-boat. This looks a little more useful.



I guess they make a car-boat version as well.



[via Neatorama]

Field tile and hard work...

I did a commentary about installing drainage tile in my fields this week on USFR and got this great letter back today:

Dear John

I thought your show was good today. Can't believe the oil companies would allow us farmers a chance to buy stock in the ethonol business if it is a good deal. That is why we have not bought any. The oil company will sell their product just enough cheaper that only us dedicated farm people will pay the extra. Remember we wouldn't buy ethel cause it was ten cents more and that was when gas was twenty five cents a gallon.

Anyway my reason is to tell you about my grandpa.He came here to MO. about 1880 from W VA. He stopped to see his sister at Chenoa ILL. They were laying tile there so he worked there and learned how to do it.

He taught my dad and so about 1947 my dad tiled a wet bottom we have and then in 1960 we extended it a ways as the creek had changed the lay of land so i learned how to lay clay tile. We dug the trench with spades by hand. Streched a string from point to point then used a gage made out of lath to gage the depth from the string. Used a carpenters level on a 2 x 4 to make sure the string had the right fall so the tile would be laid on the right grade so it would drain after it was covered up. I guess grandpa wore a pair of hob nailed shoes that were heavy so when you lay the tile segments you walked on the completed tile then the new one you lay down you bump it tight against the others with your heal. I could show you easier than tell you. They kept the spades in a bucket of sand and used oil to keep them bright. Talk about hard work that is it. The neighbors north of us tried it but were not good enough with the level so theirs never did drain. a lot of hard work for nothing . My dad had a guy working for us said he could just sight through the spade handle and get the right grade. Of coure pop showed him it wasn't that easy. You also had to prime the tile as they called it which was to throw a little dirt on it to hold it in place while the rest of the dirt is thrown in the ditch. We still have the finish shovel that you use to make the little grove or depression to lay the tile on grade. It would be easier to show you than it has to tell you. Hope i haven't bored you too much.

Dale Hartley Kingston Mo.

Maybe it's growing up with machines, but I love to hear how earlier farmers solved problems with ingenuity and muscle-power.

At least now we all admit it's not aliens...right?...right?....



It's crop circle season in England and unlucky farmers are being visited by nocturnal artists. With the short nights at this latitude, creations like this have to be rolled in seven hours or less. From that perspective it's pretty impressive work.

Plus, it's three dimensional (think looking down at skyscrapers) - a first.

Of course, I'm not the guy trying to cut this barley.

Jeez- I hope this wacko idea stays mostly in Europe.

[via Neatorama]

Nothing exceeds like excess...

Obviously Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin weren't paying attention during the Tyco scandal or the Worldcom fiasco. They have ordered a Boeing 767 wide-body customized to their "party specs".



Look, I know it's their money and they are not doing anything illegal or particularly immoral (yet), but one of the most attractive aspects of Google was a certain idealism. After all, their motto is "Don't be evil". In a cynical world, even a hint of higher aspirations than "I'm getting mine" stands out from the crowd.

Workers at Google - however well-paid - may now rethink what it really is all about. Lost on many, it seems, is the possibility that self-discipline is the key to avoiding evil actions.

Investors may note that extravagant displays like this occurred shortly before the above financial blowouts.

[via B2Blog]

This could rewrite a few business models...

One of the sneaky little secrets about the propane tank exchange business is how full the average tank is when it is exchanged for a full one. Most consumers just don't want to take a chance on running out in mid-barbecue, and hence half-full returns are the norm.

It's kinda like buying the whole tank of gas when you rent a car. What a stroke of marketing genius!

Anyhoo, all that could change with transparent 20# tanks like these:



Of course, why would any propane company want to switch to them?

[via BoingBoing]

In then end they are just models after all...

As debate about the 2007 Farm Bill intensifies, numbers will start pouring out from economic modelers like the folks at FAPRI. But if you have been having doubts about the various weather models, why should we believe economic models?
Maybe we shouldn't.

But how plausible were the numbers? Twelve years on, economists have shown little inclination to go back and check. One exception is Timothy Kehoe, an economist at the University of Minnesota. In a paper published last year, he argued that the models “drastically underestimated” NAFTA's impact on trade flows (if not on jobs). The modellers assumed the trade pact would allow people to buy more of the goods for which they had already shown some appetite. In fact, the agreement set off an explosion in the exports of many products Mexico had scarcely traded before. Cars, for example, amounted to less than 1% of Mexico's exports to Canada before the agreement. By 1999, however, they accounted for more than 15%. The only comfort economists can draw from their efforts, Mr Kehoe writes, is that their predictions fared better than Mr Perot's. A low bar indeed.

More here from The Economist

While I do not doubt the sincerity nor the integrity of such groups, I do always remember they would be much smaller and poorer organizations if we did not have intrusive government interference in the ag sector. Ag economists are one of the big beneficiaries of a complex and expensive ag policy.

What kind of answers do you think they want to find?

Update (7/14): Another model that is not working out as well as hoped measures job creation to contrast with BLS stats that roil the markets every month.

Sudoku for dummies...

Puzzle fans have taken to sudoku with a passion. Unlike crosswords, these puzzles seem to me to be simply a matter of elimination.



Nonetheless, many derive immense pleasure working them. I wonder if it is a response to jobs and lives that never seem to get anything truly resolved.

[via BoingBoing]

Happiness - it's not just for vacations...

I have read a few books on the economics and psychology of happiness. Although they often wander toward the 'New Age" part of the universe, the most recent research is fascinating. This week in a wonderfully readable article, Jennifer Senior condenses many of these ideas into a helpful summary.

So can happiness be taught? Literature based on twin studies seems to suggest that roughly 50 percent of our affect is determined by genetics. If you’re like me, a pessimist, that seems like a depressing lot. Optimists, of course, would argue that 50 percent is a lot of room to play with, and that through a combination of acts of will and shifts in fortune, our happiness levels can change substantially. (In fact, happiness researchers frequently use the equation H = S + C + V, or happiness equals our genetic set point plus our circumstances plus what we voluntarily change—a tad too reminiscent, for my taste, of a certain “Far Side” cartoon: “Einstein discovers time actually is money.”)

Seligman is most interested in V. And because he’s a self-identified depressive, or perhaps because he’s a philosopher, his idea of happiness is much more comprehensive than positive emotion. By engaging and cultivating our strengths, he says, and by deploying our virtues, we can lead a fulfilling, meaningful life—a notion not unlike Aristotle’s, who defined happiness as “an activity of the soul that expresses virtue.” He makes the critical distinction between pleasures, which make us feel good, and gratifications, which, oddly, may not involve positive emotions at all, but rather the blunting of them. Eating a Mars Bar is a pleasure; doing something that engages or enhances our strengths is a gratification, whether it’s swimming, welding, or listening to a friend in need. Optimally, when we’re in a state of high gratification, we’re experiencing what Seligman’s colleague, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “cheeks sent me high”), calls flow—a state of total absorption, when time seems to stop and the self deserts us completely.

For even shorter attention spans, try the accompanying "User's Manual".

Man, Oman - maybe bilateral agreements won't fly either...

A little noticed free trade agreement (FTA) with Oman ( 200 bonus points if you can name the capital*) may be in trouble in the House. It appears that protectionism is a big political strategy with Democrats and "textile" Republicans.

Oman is the fifth Middle Eastern country to sign a free trade agreement with the U.S., joining Israel, Jordan, Bahrain and Morocco. Oman wants to modernize and diversify its economy, and free trade with the U.S. is part of that strategy. Two-way trade is now only $1.2 billion a year, but the deal would make all U.S. industrial and consumer products duty-free immediately and phase out farm tariffs over 10 years. The country is also a stalwart friend in a rough neighborhood where we need all the help we can get.

So you'd think this would be an easy call. Nope. While the FTA passed the Senate last month with 60 votes, 34 Senators voted no, including 29 Democrats. And when the deal was approved in the House Ways and Means Committee on the same day, all 15 Democrats opposed it. Congressman Charles Rangel, ranking Democrat on Ways and Means, signaled the battle to come on the House floor by noting, "I don't believe we will have much bipartisan support on the question of Oman." Thanks for the statesmanship, Charlie.

While I have been blogging away about the Doha round, it would appear that many in government have already forsaken that vehicle to concentrate on piecemeal treaties. Even that's not working very well, apparently.

That's a problem because a much larger agreement with Peru is in the works. If that one goes down, trade talks of any kind will face gloomy prospects.

(*Muscat - as in "Muscat love", I guess)

I told you not to look down! Or ahead! Or back!...

The world's most dangerous road? Or merely the one of the top 6?



[via Neatorama]

This won't help the drought as much as I thought...

Wisconsin is famous for many things like beer, and uhh, cheese, and umm...mayflies.

Last Friday a swarm was thick enough to alert the ACTION Weather Storm Danger Action Alert Dynamic Warning Lookout Teams at local TV stations.




Luckily, they rarely attack. And no two are alike.

[via BoingBoing]

First - take a deep breath...

OK, I'm going to say a name now and I want you to keep reading calmly without exploding.

The Union of Concerned Scientis

Yes, yes, I know these guys are wacko, lefty defeatists who are anti-techonology and probably wear Birkenstock sandals with socks - but surprise!

In a remarkably even-handed Q & A about biofuels they stick to what I believe is the righteous path of fact. And while most farmers don't want to hear about increasing fuel efficiency in vehicles, many are also quietly shopping for Colorado's instead of Silverado's at the same time.

Am I getting paranoid or does having these guys on our side seem a little spooky?

Update: For a real energy intiative check out this.

Here is the idea: Propose an international treaty whose signatories would agree to eliminate gasoline from their transportation systems by a date certain—say, in 30 years. Seek initial support from Europe and Japan, but open the treaty to any country that cares to join. Specify only that the treaty should allow signatories to reach the goal in any fashion they please and that it should allow for tradable credits against whatever interim targets it sets. That way, countries can act at different speeds and in different styles. Then let the negotiations begin.

Honey, could you watch the kids while I run to the store?...



OK boys, Daddy has to run out to the garage and get another brush.
Be good...

Welding adjacent links...

As farmers move into processing with ethanol plants to capture more value, processors may be moving "downchain" to secure commodity supplies. One indication of this business model is showing up in California.

In another new twist, Correia said processors were willing to pay $10,000 to $12,000 per acre for land, regardless of what it has on it, and plant it to tree fruit. Processors, he explained, are consolidating to withstand the pressure they face from retailers.

[More here]

For farmers with low-value crops like corn, this strategy is pretty obvious. For processors of high-value crops (tree fruit) it also makes sense. Walmart has changed the game for all of us. Giant retailers breed in response giant suppliers who trigger the formation of giant farms.

The result is fewer, welded links in the old food chain.

Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts..

Everybody, now - join in on the chorus!

In Carthage, Missouri a long struggle to convert umm, greasy, grimy, yadda, yadda into oil may be paying off.

The smell is a mélange of midsummer corpse with fried-liver overtones and a distinct fecal note. It comes from the worst stuff in the world—turkey slaughterhouse waste. Rotting heads, gnarled feet, slimy intestines, and lungs swollen with putrid gases have been trucked here from a local Butterball packager and dumped into an 80-foot-long hopper with a sickening glorp. In about 20 minutes, the awful mess disappears into the workings of the thermal conversion process plant in Carthage, Missouri.

Paying off for Europe, that is.

No kidding. Once again the Europeans are leading the way with their energy policy. Even though the process has been painfully developed here, the EU is the best place to make a profit.

It looks even more promising to process automobile non-metallic waste. Of which there is mucho.

"The process is brilliant," says Candace Wheeler, a GM research scientist. "There are substances of concern in shredder residue such as PCBs, and traditional incineration of chlorinated plastics can make dioxins." But, she says, the preliminary test results indicate that the hydrolysis at the heart of the thermal conversion process breaks down the PCBs and converts the chlorine into hydrochloric acid. "No PCBs. No dioxins. No emissions," says Wheeler, noting that the principal output of the process was a "light oil" that could be used at an electric power generation plant. "It looks good from all perspectives," she says. "We think it has great potential."

The biofuels biz could be hijacked by lower cost feedstocks a little faster than I originally anticipated.