advertisement

John's World
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
 
Oh c'mon, spend some money...

The head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz obviously owes his success to sartorial parsimony.


Wolfowitz was visiting a mosque where shoes are routinely removed. looks like times are tougher for neocons than I thought.

Personally, I think this is a wife failure.

I mean, that's their job, isn't it?



What??

[via Neatorama]

Labels:

 
  A commercial for the rest of us...

I have truly enjoyed the wonderful Mac - PC commercials (which I watched on the Internet). But I just bought yet another PC and this explains why.

 
 
I'll bet Realtors love this idea...

Buried in the farm bill proposals from the administration is an interesting wrinkle on 1031 farmland exchanges:
Recommendation In Brief
Eliminate commodity program payments for all newly purchased land benefiting from a
1031 tax exchange.
Problem
While many farmers are reporting significant economic hardship, land values have
continued to climb. Average farm real estate value increased over 90 percent from $974
per acre in 1998 to $1,900 per acre in 2006. During that same period, the average value of
cropland increased almost 80 percent to an average $2,390 per acre.
High land values continue to be a barrier for new farmers who are seeking to enter
production agriculture. These high land values are also problematic for small and socially
disadvantaged farmers who are seeking to expand their operations.
A reoccurring theme at USDA Farm Bill Forums centered on how individuals near urban
areas sold their land and moved to more remote areas where they outbid local farmers for
farmland, simply to take advantage of the 1031 tax exchange. For example, Troy, a 26-
year-old college graduate in agribusiness from Utah said, “It has always been my dream
to be able to someday own my own farm. Currently, I am unable to do so due to the giant
barrier of entry which is land values….This is mainly due to speculation of real estate and
1031 exchanges.” Ronald from Minnesota caused a round of applause when he stated
“it's the 1031 tax exchange that's killing the young farmer.” And Len from Wisconsin
added, “The 1031 is just driving our land rents and land prices to where the average
producer, even big producers can't compete.”


[My emphasis]

I'm going to ponder this in my heart of hearts and spout off later. Feel free to jump in first.


Labels: ,

 
 
The news from Spokane...

Man - what a great trip this is turning out to be! Wonderful people doing all kinds of interesting stuff we never would have thought of in the Midwest. Here are some items of interest:
  • I gotta try some Pink Lady apples. If you like Braeburn - which we do - the PL is maybe just a little more tart, but can sweeten with storage. I had never heard about them.
  • The sugar beet industry is pretty puzzled about what happens next. Opening the "sugar border" to Mexico will have consequences, but it is really hard to forecast with the turmoil caused by biofuels.
  • You can start a conversation with anybody in the Northwest by asking "You guys getting many Californians moving in?" I have not found anybody here who is not seeing incoming residents somewhere close.
  • Potato companies were caught uncovered when the rush for acres took over. Some didn't bother to contract, relying on farmers to overproduce as usual. Result: potato prices have nearly doubled for one producer.
  • You can't buy land cheap here either.
Finally, and most sobering: One wheat producer told me he has heard rumors of 46-cent N (as NH3).

Do the math.

Labels:

 
 
Hold me, please...

Jeez - flatlanders shouldn't travel to places like Spokane that have three (count 'em) dimensions. Oh, sure - these places make nice postcard materials, but it it worth the vertigo?

Farmers in this area are unique, and suddenly find themselves facing an agriculture reshaped by biofuels. Regardless of what part of ag is your particular corner, the size and depth of the disruption in markets, land use, and policy will leave no farmer/rancher untouched.

This great debate will at the very least expose the powerful ties which link producers. One is land. As the mandated push for renewable fuels thunders on, it soon dawns on participants that green resources have to be grown somewhere, and virtually all of our somewheres are busy already.

Another link is trade. Grass producers here face fierce competition from Danish growers, for one. [BTW - Danish grass seed production is a case study of what happens with just one decoupled, fixed payment for a subsidy]. And recent court decisions on open burning have forced changes for this high-value industry. Grass seed is a big export, and growers have much to lose from a failed Doha round.
A few players now dominate our world’s turf, forage grass, and legume seed production, with the majority of trade being turf grasses (perennial ryegrass, annual ryegrass, tall fescue turf varieties, Kentucky bluegrass, and the fine leaved fescue’s). With the European Union expanding to 25 nations, lands in the newer community members may switch to grass/legume seed production. Direct subsidies to grass species in the EU have been taken off, but now the market place will play a major role in European growers decisions to grow grass/legumes seeds. This change to “Farm Based” subsidies will no longer be applied directly to a particular crop. Instead, EU growers will be growing the most profitable crop for their situation, be it grains, oilseeds, or grass/legume seed.

The marketplace has also changed. No longer do end-users obtain supply in advance. Buyers have moved to a “hand-to-mouth” approach. Obtaining supply month’s in advance is becoming the exception. This has forced growers to hold onto their production longer, thus becoming the storage component of the marketing wheel. Improvements in transportation have also allowed end users to wait before placing orders. These marketplace changes will force growers into more timely decisions. In the grass/legume seed business, growers must decide quickly when and which crop to grow, which may also mean quicker movement of growers into, and out of, grass seed production. [More]


Ditto for wheat. My gut feeling is wheat needs to get even higher relative to corn to keep our foreign customers supplied. New 35-day corn varieties* opening the possibility of growing corn in places wheat has owned.

Finally, we are all linked by being citizens in the same country. Well, duh! But if the other 300 million citizens decide there are better things to do with government money - even slightly - we could be facing a significantly different business environment. Or if our economic policies grease the skids for an even cheaper dollar, that means something as well on your farm.

Livestock producers (especially ranchers) may reconsider if traditional independence has been more an aloofness from participating in farm policy. Up until now it has been a pretty good fight to sidestep, because 50-cent LDP's certainly helped keep the market price for corn um, reasonable.


Like it or not, we are all in this together. Globalization of markets has insured linkages will continue to intensify and entangle formerly disparate enterprises. And if producers in the US don't start communicating better, we could see our strongest opposition coming from across the street - not the ocean.



* Joke (for now)

Labels: ,

 
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
 
What you miss by drinking black coffee...


[Lots more]

Drops of milk hitting your coffee.

Labels:

 
 
Do not adjust your set...

I'm having some bizarre and seemingly unrelated computer glitches on my desktop unit. This is a great thing because I have been wanting to upgrade to Microsoft Vista anyway, and most advice is to do a clean install.

Well, no way am I wiping my hard drive and trusting to a reload. No, I think the safest possible path is to get a whole new computer which is faster and shinier. Following a long pattern, this new machine is way more computer for way less money.

Plus I can give you a farmer-user report of the new operating system.

Posts could be erratic, although my faithful laptop will be with me throughout a trip to Spokane, WA. to speak. (Why is the airport code for Spokane "GEG"?) And I have plenty of dead travel time.

So as I explained to Jan, I'm buying this computer for you guys, not myself...

Labels: ,

 
Monday, January 29, 2007
 
How deep the ocean?...

Pertinent comments below on the
NYC photo post timed well with the pending release of the IPCC release on global warming on Friday. Two comments:
  1. Is everything now routinely leaked? Drudge posted the SOTU an hour before the President delivered it. The Iraq Study Group Report was old news when it arrived. And one broker friend thinks even crop reports are being leaked. How else to explain a limit-up close the day before the report? Why bother with a ritualistic announcement if the entire staff has been chatting with the press about it for days?
  2. The early leak responses have been critical in that the report purportedly low-balls the effects, especially sea-level rise.

The early versions of the report predict that by 2100 the sea level will rise anywhere between 5 and 23 inches. That's far lower than the 20 to 55 inches forecast by 2100 in a study published in the peer-review journal Science this month. Other climate experts, including NASA's James Hansen, predict sea level rise that can be measured by feet more than inches.

The report is also expected to include some kind of proviso that says things could be much worse if ice sheets continue to melt.

The prediction being considered this week by the IPCC is "obviously not the full story because ice sheet decay is something we cannot model right now, but we know it's happening," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate panel lead author from Germany who made the larger prediction of up to 55 inches of sea level rise. "A document like that tends to underestimate the risk," he said.

The commenter on the previous post has a valid point about melting Arctic ice not raising sea levels. But the bulk of the scientific community seems to believe that global warming will cause higher sea levels, and the argument is how high. It may be that Arctic ice melts are predictive of glacial melts - and those are consequential.
Greenland's massive ice sheet could begin to melt this century and may disappear completely within the next thousand years if global warming continues at its present rate. According to a new climate change study, the melting of Greenland's ice sheet would raise the oceans by seven meters (23 feet), threatening to submerge cities located at sea level, from London to Los Angeles. [More]
Other estimates vary wildly but all predict significant sea level increases. This meshes with my understanding of Ice Age geography when oceans were smaller due to more glaciers, thus uncovering land bridges long since submerged.


I guess what goes down must come up.

Labels:

 
Sunday, January 28, 2007
 
Why you are reading this post...

A brilliant article about the plight and future of newspapers which I found (of course) on the Internet:
Nineteen-fifty marks the high point of newspaper penetration in America: 100 percent of American homes took one or more daily papers. Fifty-six years later fewer than half of American homes get one. At the current rate of decline, no homes will get any newspapers in the not-too-distant future. Morning news, once the monopoly province of newspapers (virtually all evening papers, facing competition from network news, folded in the 60s and 70s), is now overwhelmingly the province of the networks, cable, radio, and the Web. Newspaper readers (as well as broadcast-news audiences) are old and growing ever older (on an actuarial table, you can plot the newspaper's last day). There are, effectively, no new newspaper readers. Newspapers have worked best as a direct-marketing medium—introducing seller to buyer—but the Web is better and cheaper. The mainstay of newspaper profits—real-estate, auto, recruitment advertising—accounting for as much as 30 percent of them, is migrating almost entirely online. Shopping itself, that other elemental commerce connection of a newspaper ("The principle of free speech owes at least as much to department stores as to the First Amendment," notes Ken Doctor in passing), is ever more an online activity. While circulation steadily drops, and as online price competition becomes fiercer, newspapers have, nevertheless, continued to charge more for ads—a kind of pyramid scheme, which, sooner rather than later, falls in on itself. [More]
I am one of the dinosaurs, reveling in the feel of a fresh newspaper. We get the Chicago Tribune delivered by mail with (miraculously) same day delivery.

Few institutions go gently into that good night. Most die by inches, and it appears to me that newspapers will follow that pattern. But I have lost other friends on this journey - it's what being middle-aged means. And I have discovered to my surprise that the losses leave few holes.

So whether the Internet fills the void, or as the author of the article Michael Wolff suggests, newspapers become the economically non-productive status symbols of billionaires like Rupert Murdoch (much like sports teams), I see no end to the market for information delivered as honestly as possible.

Indeed, if that sector fails, no other market will be possible.

Labels:

 
 
Theoretically, it could happen during Al Gore's second term...

New York after the polar ice caps melt.


Not really - we've got until 2060.

Whew!

[via Neatorama]

Labels:

 
 
Actually, failure is an option...

There is a popular theme in modern political rhetoric that by denying bad outcomes we can command success. This could be the reason so many things have become "unacceptable."
In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes "unacceptable" or "not acceptable" as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001. [More]
Of course, after a few news cycles, events are accepted. There is no alternative.

Another similar locker-room mantra is "Failure is not an option". Of course it is - and frequently the most likely. Those who do not acknowledge it simply pass on the chance to glean data and refine the next attempt.

Anyhoo, it is suddenly occurring to free traders that the Doha round is really, really in trouble, and even worse, it might matter.

The administration seems less likely to be able to influence Congress with each passing day, and the steam behind free trade has been largely squandered. What has gone overlooked by many opponents of lower trade barriers is the status quo will not be the result if the Doha round stays dead or becomes even deader.

As Canberra joined a Canadian challenge to U.S. farm subsidies on corn, Australian Trade Minister Warren Truss said that if the Doha round negotiations could not be revived, then differences would move to international courts in coming months.

"The lawyers will have a field day," Truss told Reuters in an interview before traveling to Davos, Switzerland. "The negotiators will give way to the lawyers, who will take advantage of the expiry of the so-called peace clauses to exploit elements of the U.S. and current European programs in particular." [More]


The peace clause is very important to agriculture, and without its protection agriculture is fair game for a long, expensive legal wrangle. (Which, of course is good news if you are a trade attorney).

Recently, it looks like this means ethanol could become a litigation target as well. Like the Step 2 cotton program repeal, guys in really nice suits could rewrite farm policy via the courts while legislators and negotiators fume.

Regardless, the moribund trade talks are restarting with conflicting but persistent signals that the US may be willing to use ethanol to reshape US ag subsidies into a more WTO-compliant form.
The booming demand for corn as a fuel source will make it easier for the US to agree to cuts in farm subsidies, making a new global trade agreement possible this year, the US ambassador to the EU said.

"I am very confident that we are going to get a deal,” C. Boyden Gray told reporters in Washington yesterday. "This whole alternative energy revolution is taking hold.” "This will take the whole issue of agriculture off the table as a sticking point” between the US and European Union, Gray said. Gray was in Washington for the summit between US President George W. Bush yesterday and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Both leaders reaffirmed their support for the negotiations in the World Trade Organization.
The Doha Round talks, named for the city in Qatar where they began in 2001, broke down last July as the US resisted pledging further cuts in its farm subsidies unless India, the EU and Japan agreed to steep cuts in their agriculture tariffs. Barroso told reporters yesterday that he saw "unequivocal signals, very clear signals from President Bush, that he wants a deal for Doha.” Bush's trade negotiating authority expires at the end of June.
Gray said negotiators will try to make progress early this year, and the administration will ask Congress to extend so-called Trade Promotion Authority through the end of 2007. Negotiators "will be close enough to probably get an extension,” Gray said. Congress, "probably would not extend trade promotion authority” unless the trade talks looked promising, he said. [More]

We've heard predictions before, but as events unfold, policies that were unthinkable with corn at $2 are less repugnant at $4.

Crimony, everything looks better with $4 corn. I'd say it was very acceptable.

Labels: , , ,

 
Friday, January 26, 2007
 
I think I've seen that one before...

More than you ever wanted to know about snow, and stunning photos to boot.


Also a discussion of some flaky myths.

Snow crystals are so perfectly symmetrical! ... Are there not some special forces at work that ensure this perfection?
People are sometimes convinced that the simple explanation of snowflake symmetry cannot be correct, because snow crystals are so perfect in form. These folks argue that the simple explanation would likely yield less ideal shapes, less perfect six-fold symmetry. Therefore they suspect something else is happening -- perhaps some acoustical or quantum mechanical oscillations are enforcing symmetrical growth, for example.

The flaw in this reasoning is the statement that snow crystals are all extremely symmetrical. You can disprove this for yourself if you simply go outside and take a close look at some falling snow. You will soon realize that the beautifully symmetrical specimens are hard to find! The rather unattractive irregular crystals are by far the most common variety (see the Guide to Snowflakes under the heading of Irregular Crystals for some pictures). Even on the best of days, I search for hours to find
just a few beautifully symmetrical specimens. I typically glance over thousands of crystals on my collection board before selecting one to photograph -- so already each photograph shows the best crystal out of thousands. And the pictures you see in the Galleries are some of the best among over 6000 pictures I've taken.

Alas, the vast, vast majority of snow crystals are not even close to perfectly symmetrical. The simple mechanism does indeed produce lots of imperfect symmetry, as you would expect. Snowflake photographers always select their most symmetrical crystals to display ... we have to, because no one ever seems to be interested in looking at the irregular ones!

One other wintry note - Do Inuits ( Eskimos) really have 100 words for snow?

The way this winter is going some of don't even need one word for snow. And then some of us...

[Thanks, Jack]

Labels:

 
Thursday, January 25, 2007
 
Nuts! - I didn't make the sexiest men list either...

Where people go on the Internet



I was surprised by the small numbers on major sites, but the amount of traffic is so large that even a sliver is a lot of hits.

Labels:

 
 
How about 17 by 21? 43 by 28?...

Just what we needed - another catchy target for renewable fuels. Let's review:
  • 25 x 25 [0r 625, for short] - This effort shoot for 25% of all energy needs to be sourced from renewable energy by 2025.
25x'25 Vision: By 2025, America's farms, forests and ranches will provide 25 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States, while continuing to produce safe, abundant, and affordable food, feed and fiber.
  • 15 x 15 x 15 [3375] - This goal is to produce 15B bu. of corn turning it into 15B gal. of ethanol by 2015.
Doggett presented the association’s 15 x 15 x 15 vision that calls for corn growers producing 15 billion bushels of corn to produce 15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015.
  • 20 x 10 [200] - This idea is to reduce US gasoline consumption by 20% in 10 years.

A sevenfold increase in ethanol production over 10 years is key to Bush's plan to cut projected U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent, reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and enhance the environment. He also wants more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Bush's proposal wouldn't be fully effective until 2017. In the meantime, motorists will have driven up gasoline consumption by about 15 percent, according to government and industry projections. While critics want more rapid conservation, plan proponents say that a 20 percent reduction by 2017 still would be significant.

All these goals have some things in common. They all are set for the future when the authors will likely be safely off the scene. They all assume we've had our last short corn crop. I mean, if Pioneer and Monsanto can't save us, who can? Finally, they all are betting round numbers will make the market obey.

Well, I can play their little game, too. How about these plans?
  • 3 x 5 - A national commitment to get 3 times more 5 year-olds on cell phones.
  • 2 x 4 - A patriotic drive to add $2T more in national debt in 4 years. [Amazingly, this would call for much less spending!]
  • 8 x 10 - A glossy campaign to shrink the Supreme Court by 2010. That swing vote has been such a headache!
  • 12 x 12 - No, no - that's just gross
  • 16 x 9 - A national goal to give 16 million free HDTV's to deserving citizens by 2009.
Submit yours to amaze and inspire our readers!

Labels: , , ,

 
 
Where does your kid brother ride?...

Reinventing the (bicycle) wheel.


Behold the hyperbike.

You think your garage is crowded now!

Labels:

 
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
 
This explains a lot of interviews...

While we are all nattering on about ethanol, the powers that be and wanna be are gathering at Davos, Switzerland to ponder deep ponderings and communicate (?):

A Fortune 50 chief executive — I won’t tell you his name because he didn’t realize I was listening to his conversation — was sitting at a fast-food restaurant with a woman who was coaching him on how to talk to the media. “You’ve got to stay on message,’” she snapped when he would forget his lines. He sheepishly apologized and then managed to mangle his line again.

“Don’t answer the question being asked,” the woman said. “Get to your message,” she said, explaining that he should use “bridge phrases” such as “meanwhile” or “what we know is” to avoid the question being asked and change the context of the answer.

“Like the politicians do,” the chief executive exclaimed.

She also emphasized what she called “flagging,” telling the C.E.O. to insert phrases such as, “the most important thing is…” and “the main idea is…”

“Journalists are looking for complete sentences,” she instructed. “Especially on TV. You want to give them full messages.”

Before they got up, she told the executive, “Tell them what you do.”

He looked at her, slightly befuddled, and replied, “What do we do?”


I don't like to excerpt so completely but this was a short post on a wonderful blog, Davos Diary in the NYT

This is more than a casual get-together in a lumpy country. Deals are made and ideas are considered. The World Economic Forum, by virtue of its elitist image (deserved or not) attracts some very bright minds and features debate that should but does not occur in government circles.

Labels: ,

 
 
Fifty things you may not have known about credit cards...

  • It is against the merchant agreements of MC, Visa, and AMEX, for a vendor to require you to provide your phone number, home address, or other personal information for credit card transactions. In fact, some states make it illegal for them to require it. (It’s not illegal to ask, but it is if they refuse to process the transaction without that information)
  • Credit card numbers conform to the Luhn algorithm, which is just a simple checksum test on the number. What you do is start from the right and double each second digit (1111 becomes 2121), then add them all together, and you should end with a number evenly divisible by ten. If it doesn’t, it’s not a valid credit card number.
  • The first digit of the number is the Major Industry Identifier. 1/2 are for airlines, 3 is for travel/entertainment, 4/5 for banking and financial, 6 for merchandizing and financial, 7 for petroleum, 8 for telecommunications. 0 and 9 are for other assignments but you’ll likely never see them. If you look at an American Express card, you’ll see it starts with a 3, a throwback to their travel/entertainment roots.
More
One of my own: If your card is stolen and used, don't panic. I've been through it twice and it worked out fine each time. Be patient while they get your account straightened up. Keep an up-to-date list of automatic charges (satellite company, cell phone, etc.) that go to each card to make this process easier.

[via Metafilter]

Labels: ,

 
 
Full speed ahead...

President Bush seemingly set in stone America's commitment to immense amounts of ethanol and hence immense amounts of corn. This is good news for farmers, but really good news for ethanol investors.

"All the buzz in Washington surrounding ethanol indicates that it's going to survive," says David Lehman, managing director of the Chicago Board of Trade's commodities group.

Ethanol makers need the help. Corn prices, 75% of the cost of ethanol production, have doubled in the past six months, to more than $4 a bushel. At the same time, the price of ethanol has followed the price of gasoline downward.

Absent a rescue from Capitol Hill, the glut is going to get worse. AgResource's Basse estimates the blending demand for ethanol at 10 billion gallons, 7% of the 150 billion gallons of blended fuel burned each year. Current nationwide ethanol capacity is 5.4 billion gallons. But 6.1 billion gallons' worth of capacity is now under construction, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. That would push supply right past demand and destroy ethanol prices. Unless mandates are tightened. At the moment the motor fuel industry is meeting environmental minimums and exceeding the energy independence ones. [More]


If we in agriculture think this whopping injection of income will not attract competitors and predators we are fooling ourselves. In fact, there may be efforts to capture the income stream at the farm level. In other words, massive (on our scale, not theirs) investments in farms may be one obvious way to see a return on money. And farm suppliers are cashing in as well.
Shares of seed producers like DuPont and Monsanto and fertilizer makers like Potash and Terra Industries are soaring. The gains have further to run, even though the stock prices exceed their five-year averages relative to earnings, said Frank Husic, chief investment officer at Husic Capital Management in San Francisco. [More]
I have opined before that while investing in ethanol may still be a reasonable venture, land could be the next rush. Owners can capture significant profits with custom farming leasing or getting into the business themselves. Besides it is not rocket finance to see what doubling gross profits (and that is what it looks like to my computer) could mean to asset values.

The interesting thing will be to track trends like farm size, farmer numbers, off-farm income, young farmer cohort numbers, etc. to see if higher prices are indeed the answers to these "problems".

My bet is these trends will accelerate, not decline with increased revenue. And the ERS will give us the answers just a few years after the fact.

Labels: , , ,

 
 
It's not just for popcorn...

For all of you guys out there who think "cooking" means nuking something in a microwave oven, a heads-up. Your oven can also make kitchen sponges more sanitary.

They then zapped the cleaning equipment in a microwave for varying lengths of time.

After two minutes on full power, 99% of bacteria were inactivated.

And E. coli bacteria were killed after just 30 seconds. [More]


BIG, BIG Update: Make sure the sponge is wet!!

But wait - there's even more important news about this miracle appliance.



Using only cheap, readily-available equipment, you can create a spectacular lightshow in the comfort of your very own kitchen, providing hours of fun and excitement for your family, friends, and pets!

Ordinary grapes, when properly prepared and microwaved, spark impressively in an extremely entertaining manner. [More]

This example of meaningful science in action, not to mention culinary entertainment, is probably best done when your wife is gone.

Then use a sterile sponge to clean up!

Labels: ,

 
 
Gee - who's not running for President?...

The latest on possible candidates :
Despite the growing buzz about their candidacy, some, such as CNN political analyst Bill Schneider, say the family's lack of political experience is a setback. Phil, 49, is a pediatrician; Janice, 47, a homemaker, graduated from the University of Connecticut with a history degree; and Wesley, 19, and Phil Jr., 17, have been widely criticized for their youth. Likewise, the family has yet to form an exploratory committee, and, almost all observers agree that, with a combined annual income of less than $70,000, they are already at a serious fund-raising disadvantage. They were also roundly chided by the media after a major misstep in which John Jr. referred to the historic Shaker Village in Canterbury as "sucky." [More]

How sad is it when cnn.com has to label humor columns? Or has politics become indistinguishable from satire?

Labels: ,

 
 
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.


Labels: ,

 
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
 
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]

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
 
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.

Labels: , ,

 
Monday, January 22, 2007
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
 
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]

Labels: ,

 
Sunday, January 21, 2007
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
Saturday, January 20, 2007
  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]

 
Friday, January 19, 2007
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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]

Labels: ,

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
Thursday, January 18, 2007
 
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?

Labels: ,

 
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
 
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!

Labels:

 
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
"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...

Labels: ,

 
  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]

 
Monday, January 15, 2007
 
I thought our weather has been screwy...


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

[via Neatorama]

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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...


Labels: ,

 
Sunday, January 14, 2007
 
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 20th 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]


Labels: ,

 
Saturday, January 13, 2007
  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...)


Labels:

 
Friday, January 12, 2007
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
 
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.

Labels:

 
Thursday, January 11, 2007
 
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...

Labels: ,

 
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
 
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.

Labels: ,

 
  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?

Labels: ,

 
  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.

 
Monday, January 08, 2007
 
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.

Labels:

 
Sunday, January 07, 2007
 
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]

Labels: ,

 
 
OMG! -What if we don't ...

run out of oil?

[via Cato@liberty]

Labels: ,

 
 
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 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.

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?

Labels: , ,

 
 
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]

Labels: ,

 
Saturday, January 06, 2007
  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...


Labels:

 
 
Corn in Africa [re-post from 1/7/06]...

While corn growers have always been aware that South Africa grows corn, and competes in the export market, there is a lot of corn (maize) grown on subsistence farms all across the continent. We also forget how honkin' huge Africa is (this is a Gall-Peters Projection Map which is area accurate, unlike the Mercator projections we are used to, where Greenland/Canada/Alaska are swollen disproportionately):


My guess is that the struggle to develop stable governments in sub-Saharan Africa could yet yield the largest payoff in terms of lifting the poorest of the poor, simply by letting their farmers get on with their work.

Labels: , ,

 
 
Know the players...

Greg Mankiw, whose Harvard economics classes (and public blog) are very popular, re-packages his economic resolutions for 2007:
• #2: This year I will be unequivocal in my support of free trade. I am going to stop bashing the Chinese for offering bargains to American consumers. I am going to ask the Bush administration to revoke the textile quotas so Americans will find it easier to clothe their families. I am going to vote to repeal the antidumping laws, which only protect powerful domestic industries from foreign competition. I am going to admit that unilateral disarmament in the trade wars would make the U.S. a richer nation.

• #3: This year I will ask farmers to accept the free market. While I believe the government should provide a safety net for the truly needy, taxpayers shouldn't have to finance handouts to farmers, many of whom are wealthy. Farmers should meet the market test as much as anyone else. I will vote to repeal all federal subsidies to growers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice. I will vote to allow unrestricted import of sugar. (See resolution no. 2.) I will tell Americans that eliminating our farm subsidies should not be a "concession" made in trade negotiations but a policy change that we affirmatively embrace.

Big deal - another egghead economist comes out against farm subsidies. This is news?

One reason to make note of it: Mankiw is advising the all-but-announced, darling-of-the-right presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney.

Labels: ,

 
Friday, January 05, 2007
 
Somewhere someone is making their professional reputation...

Maybe. There were some obscure warning signs that a few perceptive minds detected before the Enron meltdown:

In the spring of 1998, Macey notes, a group of six students at Cornell University’s business school decided to do their term project on Enron. “It was for an advanced financial-statement-analysis class taught by a guy at Cornell called Charles Lee, who is pretty famous in financial circles,” one member of the group, Jay Krueger, recalls. In the first part of the semester, Lee had led his students through a series of intensive case studies, teaching them techniques and sophisticated tools to make sense of the vast amounts of information that companies disclose in their annual reports and S.E.C. filings. Then the students picked a company and went off on their own. “One of the second-years had a summer-internship interview with Enron, and he was very interested in the energy sector,” Krueger went on. “So he said, ‘Let’s do them.’ It was about a six-week project, half a semester. Lots of group meetings. It was a ratio analysis, which is pretty standard business-school fare. You know, take fifty different financial ratios, then lay that on top of every piece of information you could find out about the company, the businesses, how their performance compared to other competitors.”


The people in the group reviewed Enron’s accounting practices as best they could. They analyzed each of Enron’s businesses, in succession. They used statistical tools, designed to find telltale patterns in the company’s fi-nancial performance—the Beneish model, the Lev and Thiagarajan indicators, the Edwards-Bell-Ohlsen analysis—and made their way through pages and pages of footnotes. “We really had a lot of questions about what was going on with their business model,” Krueger said. The students’ conclusions were straightforward. Enron was pursuing a far riskier strategy than its competitors. There were clear signs that “Enron may be manipulating its earnings.” The stock was then at forty-eight dollars—at its peak, two years later, it was almost double that—but the students found it over-valued. The report was posted on the Web site of the Cornell University business school, where it has been, ever since, for anyone who cared to read twenty-three pages of analysis. The students’ recommendation was on the first page, in boldfaced type: “Sell.” [More]


It is easy, of course to look back and see prophesy in wild guesses, but ya gotta wonder if the ethanol boom is provoking doomsayers to get out there in print just on the off-chance of being right.

Then again, maybe it's not an ethanol bubble, but an oil bubble?

Labels: ,

 
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
 
Relentless technology...

This is why I think the best bet is on technology, not apocalyptic cataclysm. Britain was the epicenter of the BSE (mad cow) threat. The problem was real and people of science took it seriously and guess what? They a) discovered the cause and worked to minimize the risks and 2) they found a great solution: GM cattle.
As new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of the condition, can be contracted by consuming beef or beef products infected with rogue prions, the work could pave the way for breeding cattle that cannot infect people with prion disease.

This could be exploited by the meat industry, which could raise guaranteed BSE-free beef cattle, though the disease has become a much less significant problem since the practice of feeding cows on meat and bone meal from dead animals was banned. Such beef would also have to overcome public resistance to the idea of eating meat from GM livestock. [More]


The human ability to adapt to challenges is undiminished. From global warming to bird-flu, smart money will follow dogged disciples of truth, who sift tirelessly through data to tease out solutions. This is how genetic-modification will win wide acceptance - the absence of harmful outcomes (despite hysterical predictions) and the methodical elimination of problems.

It may take more time than the Internet generation can tolerate easily, but in the end, what works, works.

We may be a problem-creating species, but we are also a problem-solving species.

Labels: ,

 
 
What enormous wealth means...

Wired magazine has a cute story about a "meteor farmer".



Three days later, Arnold and his partner and investor – an oil and gas attorney from San Antonio named Philip Mani – were attacking the site with a backhoe. After digging down about 5 feet, Arnold scrabbled into the hole with a shovel and started clearing. Finally, the blade clanged against something metallic. The more dirt he moved, the more meteorite he exposed. They lowered the backhoe scoop and strapped the rock to it. Grinding and whining, the machine pulled free the biggest meteorite Arnold had ever seen.

While we could all appreciate his tenacity and ingenuity, the real nugget of this account is how the economics of meteors play out.

METEORITE HUNTING wouldn't be so lucrative if it weren't for a music executive named Darryl Pitt. He collected meteorites for years, buying them at rock-bottom rates when the only other buyers were scientists. But in 1995, sitting on a collection numbering in the hundreds, he guessed that people would pay big money for space flotsam. "I needed a mechanism to elevate the profile of my extraterrestrial friends," Pitt says. But he knew he wouldn't get any traction unless he could make people see his "friends'" inherent beauty. A former professional photographer, Pitt started shooting pictures of each of his rocks, lighting them as if they were magazine cover subjects and writing rapturous descriptions in the vein of wine connoisseurship. Then he put them on the block at Phillips International Auctioneers and Valuers, alongside dinosaur eggs and a 3,749-carat opal. The plan worked; the first auction netted close to $200,000.

Pitt is still at it. His online catalog describes meteorites as "objets d'art" with sensuous, zoomorphic shapes – an expert sales job. "Sleek tabletop specimen … evocative of the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth," goes one entry. "With a bright platinum patina and compelling from all perspectives."

Only in a culture where some have enormous amounts of money with little or no demands on it can essentially worthless objects, or even subjectively valued things such as art, command significant exchange rates.

And what's with the doctored picture? Meteorites don't glow.

[via Neatorama]

Update: How many meteorites hit the Earth every day? About 20-50.

Keep looking up!

Labels: , , ,

 
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
 
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

Dubai, which seems to have more money than architectural taste is rapidly becoming the place to build strange edifices. Behold the Underwater Hotel.

One critic dubbed it a "cartoonish phallic symbol".


I don't know about that, but I'd hate to tell you what it reminds me of...

Labels:

 
 
Plus we'll need a bigger fuel tank...

Cellulosic ethanol may be gaining on us. Researchers at Iowa State have adulterated a perfectly good combine to harvest stover.

Presumably, the product would be sold to an ethanol production facility. However, a few questions spring to mind:
  1. How much horsepower will this baby suck up chopping husks and stalks?
  2. How far will a silage wagon get you through the field?
  3. Why didn't this guy choose his hybrid for stalk strength (note the reel)?
  4. How are you going to store this stuff? And keep it from spontaneously combusting?
  5. Why not bale it?
  6. I suppose we can sell our grain carts, since we'll be stopping every through or round anyway.
These inventions remind me of the all-in-one tillage/spray/plant contraptions of the 70's. I think experience has shown us that dedicated machines making multiple passes are a superior idea.

Besides, once you have harvested at 7 mph. you are not going back to 3.

Labels: ,

 
 
I'm glad to be here...

So, neighbors - here we are at the start of a new year and we're asking ourselves, "What is there to look forward to?"

Thank goodness I got here in time with more reasons to be optimistic than you can shake a martini at:

From Edge, The Third Culture :

The Edge Annual Question — 2007

WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY?

As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put.

What are you optimistic about? Why? Surprise us!


My favorites:

Stewart Brand

Geoffrey Carr

Malthus was wrong to observe that population increases geometrically while the resources available to support it increase arithmetically. It was an understandable mistake. It flies in the face of common sense that population growth will actually slow down in the face of better resources. But that is what happens, and it might yet save humanity from the fate predicted for it by the Club of Rome.

Chris Anderson

So for example, the publication last year of a carefully researched Human Security Report received little attention. Despite the fact that it had concluded that the numbers of armed conflicts in the world had fallen 40% in little over a decade. And that the number of fatalities per conflict had also fallen. Think about that. The entire news agenda for a decade, received as endless tales of wars, massacres and bombings, actually missed the key point. Things are getting better. If you believe Robert Wright and his NonZero hypothesis, this is part of a very long-term and admittedly volatile trend in which cooperation eventually trumps conflict. Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.

David G. Myers

It's a challenge to persuade a nation to exchange its current hearing assistive technology (which requires locating, checking out, and wearing conspicuous headsets) for a technology that many more people would actually use. But the results of our west Michigan experiment, and another in 1000 California homes, supports my optimism. Doubling hearing aid functionality will greatly increase hearing aid acceptance and use.

With on-the-horizon technology, we can also foresee music buffs with wireless ear bud loudspeakers. When that day comes, having something in one's ear will become as mundane as glasses for the eyes, and millions of people with hearing loss will be enjoying fuller and more connected lives.

John Gottman

John Horgan

Susan Blackmore

That is the stage we have reached now on earth. The artificial systems we have built still depend on us, and would perish with us if we all died, but they are evolving far faster than we are, and are taking up the planet's resources in the process.

Some people still maintain the fantasy that we humans are in charge and can still control the memes we have let loose. Yet it must be increasingly obvious that we can't; that they are in the driving seat, not us. They are sucking up the planet's resources increasingly fast and, being selfish replicators, they have no foresight and don't care in the least what happens to us or the planet; they can't, they are just replicating information. So we are hovering at this second danger point right now.

Perhaps this critical point has been reached on countless planets and none pulled through—perhaps acquiring new replicators is so dangerous that memes (or their equivalents) always wipe out the original replicator that spawned them, explaining why we have not yet heard from any other intelligent beings out there. Or perhaps it is possible to for an intelligent species to work out what has happened, repair the damage and live in harmony with the creatures it unwittingly gave rise to.

I think it is, and I am optimistic that we will.

Jonathan Haidt

Diane Halpern
Allegiances now extend beyond national borders. I feel as distressed about the loss of the innocent lives of Iraqi citizens as I do about the loss of the innocent lives of the women and men in the U.S. military. I can view the suffering of each any time, night or day, by logging onto the "local" news in any part of the world. I can read the uncensored thoughts of anyone who wishes to share them on their personal blogs and watch the home videos they upload to YouTube and other public video sites. Government censorship is virtually impossible and the ability to hear directly from ordinary people around the world has caused me to see our connectedness. We have only just begun to realize the profound ways that technology is altering our view of the "other people" who share our planet. The use of technology to make the strange familiar will have an overall positive effect on how we think about others in our shrinking world. We are becoming more similar and connected in our basic "humanness." And, that is a good thing.

May be enough for now, but find some words to inspire yourself among these thoughtful comments.

More anon.







Labels: ,

 
Monday, January 01, 2007
 
Parallel universes of John's World...

If you google "John's World" you will get your loyal correspondent's blog, but also a wild assortment of blogs and websites such as:

  • John's World Nursery - not very funny, but it is in Australia - always good for a funny accent attempt.
  • John's World of XV - some of you might not know what XV is: xv is an interactive image manipulation program for the X Window System. That should clear things up. I have no idea what this site is about.
  • Sir John's World - art for some.

Whoa - guests arriving for brunch!

Happy New Year - Sturdy Citizens!

Labels: ,

 
US Farm Report host John Phipps surfs the Web so you don't have to...

My Photo
Name: John Phipps
Location: Chrisman, Illinois, United States

Jan and I farm 1700 acres near Chrisman, IL. I have also written humor and commentary for Farm Journal and Top Producer for 13 years. Please visit my website (www.johnwphipps.com) to learn about my speaking services for your group's next meeting.

ARCHIVES
April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / May 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 /


advertisement

MORE FROM JOHN
On the Coffee Table

Farm JournalTop ProducerBeef TodayDairy TodayAgDay
U.S. Farm ReportPro FarmerPro Farmer Members

AgWeb Professional - Subscription InformationAdd AgWeb.com to your Favorites

FAQContact UsPrivacy PolicyAdvertise on AgWeb.com

Quotes by eSignal • Quotes delayed at least 10 min

© Copyright 2006 AgWeb.com a division of Farm Journal, Inc.

Home    |    Agriculture News    |    Weather    |    Money & Markets    |    Ag Discussions    |    Site Map