1. If you haven't already figured it out, I try to document my sources with hyperlinks or links This is the true power of Internet writing - you can read the same stuff I read and reach your own conclusions, rather than accept my arguably half-baked conclusions. When you mouse over a link, your cursor turns into a hand and a red dotted line appears under the link. If you left-click your mouse the link opens.
2. You can choose to open the link in a new window (or tab for IE7 and FF2) by selecting that choice under "Tools/Options" on your browser command bar.
3. Quotes from outside sources are shown indented and italicized. The full context is either found in an accompanying link or at the [More] link.
   
4. Sometimes when I import quotes they screw up the fonts for a few paragraphs. I have no idea why, and it's fallen in that too-much-hassle-to-fix category.
5. For the last two months or so, all posts have "labels". The trick here is if you click on a label you will see all the posts with that label. This makes it really hard for me to be inconsistent with my arguments, but it can help you "read more about it".

• I do not pretend to be a journalist. I am instead more of an human aggregator. I would have used the term "presurfer", but somebody got there first. It pretty well describes my approach however.
• The material I add is eclectic, but almost all but the purely fun stuff has some implication for those of us on farms. It may be slight, it may be in the distant future, or may be short-lived, but I think knowing about it might be helpful.
  
• One of my goals is to scan sites not normally mined by ag journalism for news from the infamous "outside world" (which I like to call the "world"). It may be foreign agriculture, energy, economics, psychology, sociology, futurism, medicine, etc., but the goal is to add to, not duplicate other ag sites.
• I post almost every day. When on vacation I leave some preloaded posts to fill in. Like my personal hygiene, I have no firm posting schedule.
• While I welcome comments, and will try to answer questions, my guess it many of you will take some time to feel comfortable with this. That's cool, too. Always keep in mind you can post anonymously.
• I love surfing and finding this stuff. The blog is a way I can save some you some time by highlighting what I have come up with.
• Unlike my writing in Top Producer and Farm Journal, no real editing occurs between my writing and your reading. Now couple in the importance of speed. Unlike traditional media, bloggers can respond within minutes to new news. Mix all those factors together and you have the ingredients for misjudgments and flat out errors. Be sure to call me on them - you are my new editors. Gimme a break on the typos and grammar though, please.

Labels: blog

Labels: fun

Labels: energy, pollution

Labels: fun

Labels: ethanol, predictions

• 7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
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• 14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.
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• 23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.
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• 45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset
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• 68. The egg came first.
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• 84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.
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• 100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.
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Labels: fun

• The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center:
  

It is a joy to begin to work with the Divine Universal Sisterhood and continue on my journey to become one of the few good men who will support our Queen Sister’s in the 2007 Farm Bill Debate, together we can eliminate forever low, low, low, low food insecurity in our nation. [More]

My comment: While doubtless well-meaning here, the um, "Sisterhood" probably means low food security, not insecurity. (Low insecurity is a good thing).

• The American Farmland Trust:

• California Coalition for Food and Farming

CALL TO ACTION
Each of us must use our own expertise in a particular subject matter area that you’ve heard mentioned today.
§ Do you know your Congressman? Her or his staff? See me afterwards.
§ Do you understand the positive effect that payment limitations would have on Farm Bill debate, on our
relations with our trading partners, on our own farmers? Can you talk about it in a factual, passionate way?
See me afterwards.
§ Are you a member of Western Growers Association (WGA)? California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF)?
Agricultural Council of California? A marketing order or commission? Can you work with your
colleagues on areas of common concern? See me afterwards.
§ Have you used any of the programs in the Conservation title, like EQIP or WHIP? Do you have good
relationships with NRCS? See me afterwards.

• And of course, the view from Paris

Q. – Is the political situation in the United States conducive to them making major concessions at the WTO?

THE MINISTER – Given the budgetary situation in the United States, the American Executive is very keen for – and needs – a reform of the Farm Bill. It is finding this agricultural policy too expensive. To have outside pressure, in this instance the WTO negotiations, to compel Congress to accept such a reform is invaluable to the American administration./.

Labels: farm bill, politics

Labels: fun

Labels: global warming, predictions

1. about big business
2. about baseball
3. from tarot cards
4. about presidential hopefuls
5. about media trends
6. about business
7. about gold

1. worst book covers
2. best gadgets
3. 2006 in ideas
4. best photos
   
5. buzzwords
6. most unforgettable TV moments
7. best places to live
   

Labels: predictions

1. Bananas - Guatemala
   
2. Lemons - California
   
3. Lamb chops - Texas
   
4. Hamburger - Tricky to figure out, my guess Texas, [info on lean beef imports].
   
5. Canola oil - Canada
   
6. Onions - California
   
7. Flour - Kansas
   
8. Brussel sprouts - who cares? OK, California
9. Sweet potatoes - North Carolina
   
10. Olive oil - Italy
    
11. Pickles - Michigan
    
12. Apples - Washington
    
13. Milk - California
    
14. Wine - California
    
15. Garlic - China (BTW - for a peek at the gangsta, trash-talkin' side of garlic economics, check out the comments here.)
    
16. Baby back ribs - Denmark
    
17. Peaches - California
    
18. Tomatoes - Florida
    
19. Broccoli - California
    
20. Beer - California (I think)

Labels: food

But even loyalists go soft, as the GOP learned last month, and you need some Grade A propaganda to get people riled up again. Let no one accuse the NRA of shirking its duty. Freedom In Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century, is a spectacularly beautiful graphic novel. Here, for example, is one of the biggest threats to the white suburban hunter: dirty hippies and their evil sidekicks: the dynamite-carrying owl, sinister pig, angry Wall Street bull, dire wolf, terror chicken and Land Lobster

Labels: media

And then, finally, I came to the thought that Bretton Woods, the fixed-exchange-rate system, was coming apart. And when it finally comes apart, wouldn't there be a need for foreign-exchange futures? Our board thought I was crazy, and very frankly I thought it was a little crazy too, because why hadn't anybody else done this? I went to Milton Friedman, though, and he absolutely embraced the idea.

So the board had to go along with me. And the minute we went to foreign exchange, I said to the membership that if it works in foreign exchange, the sky is the limit! I was like a kid in a candy store, honest to God. Because in agriculture, where could you go with it? But in finance - ah, look at this! I mean, whoa, anything you want! [More of interview]

Labels: happiness, wealth

Labels: fun

1. Bananas
2. Oranges
3. Lamb chops
4. Hamburger
5. Canola oil
   
6. Onions
7. Flour
8. Brussel sprouts
9. Potatoes
10. Olive oil
11. Pickles
12. Apples
    
13. Milk
14. Wine
15. Garlic
16. Baby back ribs
17. Peaches
18. Tomatoes
19. Rye flour
20. Beer

Labels: food

Labels: human nature

If people are determined to pursue their calling rather than simply taking a job, some professions (surgery, cookery, genetics) may become overcrowded, others undersubscribed. But when a job cannot find enough takers, the market finds ways to ennoble it: first pay, and then status, begin to rise. It becomes economical to automate some aspects of the work, employing machines to do the deadening humdrum toil that men and women are no longer willing to put up with. What remains of the job will be the bits only people can do: tasks that require insight, ingenuity and the human touch. Ms McCloskey recalls the Cincinnati sewerman, interviewed a few years ago on National Public Radio, who earned $60,000 a year and liked to tell girls he was an “environmental” worker. [More]

"In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, [the poor] are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings fight for."

Recent research conducted by Daniel Gilbert (a professor of psychology at Harvard) and others has unearthed several new elements about the business of happiness as concerns humans. The first element being that the major events of our lives have a minimal effect on our overall long-term happiness. Did you get married this year, or not? Have you been involved in a war lately or a victim of a crime? Regardless as to your answer, it is a fair bet that your happiness will be more or less the same in the long term. The latter could be understood if you accept that the brain has a mechanism of sorts to reset people back to their baseline happiness over time. The second element of happiness is the terrible truth that we are awful at predicting what will give us happiness. Do you expect that a new car or home will give you happiness? Certainly it will, just not as much as you expect. The same is true in the opposite. Do you think that getting rejected by your crush or losing a game will make you unhappy? It will, just not as much as you expect. [More]

Federal payments put money in farmers' pockets, which they used to bid up land prices to as much as three times its production value, Lines said. Prime Ohio farmland is valued at $2,500-3,000 per acre, compared to its productive worth of about $1,000 per acre, Lines said. [More drivel from 2001 here]

Labels: economics, happiness

Labels: Christmas, economics, fun

Labels: retail

I have linked before about the growing male/female unbalance in Asia - particularly China. Here is more on the possible implications of the female shortage:

The long-term implications of the gender imbalance are largely guesswork because there is no real precedent for imbalances on such a scale. Some Chinese experts speculate, off the record, that there might be a connection between the shortage of women and the spread of open gay life since 2001, when homosexuality was deleted from the official Classification of Mental Disorders. It is possible to dream up all kinds of scenarios: Mumbai and Shanghai may soon rival San Francisco as gay capitals. A Beijing power struggle between cautious old technocrats and aggressive young nationalists may be decided by mobs of rootless young men, demanding uniforms, rifles, and a chance to liberate Taiwan. More likely, the organized crime networks that traffic in women will shift their deliveries toward Asia and build a brothel culture large enough to satisfy millions of sexually frustrated young men.

Labels: population

Labels: farm bill, media

The number of luxury buyers in the developed world is also being swelled by two other trends. First, consumers are increasingly adopting a “trading up, trading down” shopping strategy. Many traditional mid-market shoppers are abandoning middle-of-the-range products for a mix of lots of extremely cheap goods and a few genuine luxuries that they would once have thought out of their price league.

Alongside this “selective extravagance” is the growth of “fractional ownership”: time-shares in luxury goods and services formerly available only to those paying full price. Fractional ownership first got noticed when firms such as NetJets started selling access to private jets. It has since spread to luxury resorts, fast cars and much more. In America, From Bags to Riches—“better bags, better value”—lets less-well-off people rent designer handbags. In Britain, Damon Hill, a former racing driver, has launched P1 International. A £2,500 ($4,300) joining fee, plus annual membership of £13,750, buys around 50-70 driving days a year in cars ranging from a Range Rover Sport to a Bentley or a Ferrari.

( Full article here)

This rang a bell - it is similar to leasing combines, etc. that is becoming a trend across the Corn and Wheat Belt. Which led me to the question of how much is the growing acceptance and popularity of such schemes fueled by the desire to drive a bigger, nicer machine for local status reasons. If even we knew ourselves well enough to answer that honestly, I doubt any of us producers would admit it.

Still, I have been known to drive a new tractor/combine/sprayer the long way 'round to a field just to casually pass a neighbor's house. When it only happens a handful of times in your career...

Labels: economics, rural life

Labels: fun

Labels: ethanol, production

Labels: blog

BlueFire Ethanol, Inc. (previous post) is established to deploy the commercially ready, patented, and proven Arkenol Technology Process for the profitable conversion of cellulosic ("Green Waste") waste materials to ethanol, a viable alternative to gasoline. BlueFire's use of the Arkenol Process Technology positions it as the only cellulose-to-ethanol company worldwide with demonstrated production of ethanol from urban trash (post-sorted MSW), rice and wheat straws, wood waste and other agricultural residues.

Since 2003, the technology has been successfully used in the IZUMI pilot plant operated by JGC, the licensee of Arkenol for Japan and SE Asia, to produce ethanol for the Japanese transportation fuel market. Over the last 10 years, the initial testing on a vast array of potential feedstock has been completed both in the U.S. and at various locations throughout the world. BlueFire has completed the arrangement of the major commitments necessary to proceed with final development of its first commercial facility which will be sited in California. [More]

The most likely cause of those reported differences is the modification ofsoil nutrients due to addition/removal of residues. Although corn residue does contain significant amounts of macronutrients, the major contribution of agricultural residue to the soil is in terms of organic carbon (SOC) (Allmaras etal., 2000). Allmaras et al (2004) determined that over thirteen years of continuous corn, across tillage treatments, stover harvest (0% residue) decreased total SOCby 20% as compared to stover return (100% residue). [More]

Labels: ethanol

Your mother probably told you, as her mother told her: sit up straight. Whether at table, in class or at work we have always been told that sitting stiff-backed and upright is good for our bones, our posture, our digestion, our alertness and our general air of looking as if we are plugged into the world.

Now research suggests that we would be far better off slouching and slumping. Today’s advice is to let go and recline. Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a team of radiologists have found that sitting up straight puts unnecessary strain on the spine and could cause chronic back pain because of trapped nerves or slipped discs. [More]

Labels: fun, health

Labels: Christmas, fun

By studying blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail, scientists found evidence of a human smelling ability that experts thought was impossible. [More]

Labels: fun, human nature

Of course, if this were presented as an immigration crackdown, people might ask: Why were no charges filed against the employer -- Swift & Co? The world's second-largest meat processing company has "never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor ... knowingly hired such individuals," Swift & Co. President and CEO Sam Rovit said in a statement.

Note the word: knowingly. Rovit didn't just fall off the meat wagon. He's read the statute. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made it a crime to "knowingly" hire illegal immigrants.

That's a monster loophole. Suddenly, whenever there is a raid, no one knows anything. Illegal workers? Who? What? Where?

It's cynical, and it's the sort of thing that makes it hard to believe that Americans are serious about combating illegal immigration. How can we be if we don't address the problem at its source? [More]

Labels: immigration

Shafer and many rural Nebraskans for years have watched people leave, businesses dry up and the number of farms and ranches dwindle. In some places, small schools are among the few remaining symbols of vitality and community identity, providing hope for the future while acting as reminders of the past. An anomaly in some states, they remain a pillar of education systems in some, like Nebraska and Montana, that have remote regions where cattle have long outnumbered people.

But populations in rural areas of those and other states are dipping to levels where there are few, and sometimes no students to teach. A school in the same county as Pony Lake shut down this year when its attendance dropped to a lone student.

In Montana, small country schools are drying up like the state's drought-plagued pastures. About a hundred have closed over the last decade and "the rate of decrease has accelerated," said Claudette Morton, director of the Montana Small Schools Alliance. [More]