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John's World
Sunday, September 30, 2007
 
You don't know nothing...

Not rude, poor grammar like it sounds. Twenty Things You Didn't Know About Nothing.

Example:
17 But to a physicist there is no such thing as nothing. Empty space is instead filled with pairs of particles and antiparticles, called virtual particles, that quickly form and then, in accordance with the law of energy conservation, annihilate each other in about 10-25 second.

18 So Aristotle was right all along.

19 These virtual particles popping in and out of existence create energy. In fact, according to quantum mechanics, the energy contained in all the power plants and nuclear weapons in the world doesn’t equal the theoretical energy contained in the empty spaces between these words.
[via PreSurfer]

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Saturday, September 29, 2007
 
A little light on a vexing problem...

I have been curious, like many others, why the United Kingdom seems to be the epicenter of livestock diseases. And it seems to be ongoing, despite vigorous efforts by farmers and health officials. The reasons are subtle, and some would never have occurred to me.
It's been a rough start to the fall for British farmers, with reports of sporadic cases of BSE (mad cow disease) and more cases of foot-and-mouth disease. And then on Friday, British public health officials officially pronounced an outbreak of bluetongue disease among the nation's cattle. So what makes British cattle so sickly?

Heathrow Airport. Agriculture experts say the outbreaks in the United Kingdom are the result of bad luck more than anything else. But the country does have the distinction of being Europe's primary landing spot for global travel, and that could put livestock at risk. Travelers from every continent pass through London Heathrow Airport (the busiest airport in the world for international traffic), and with them comes food waste from airplanes. Pathology researchers consider airline food waste, which is sometimes processed into food for livestock, the greatest danger to animal health in the world. Airline garbage that's contaminated with foreign diseases can end up in livestock troughs, or it goes to landfills where it might infect wild animals—who could then spread illness to domesticated livestock.

It's also possible that British cattle are simply the victims of bad publicity. Most European countries, as well as nations in Africa, Asia, and North America, have had confirmed cases of the three major livestock diseases—mad cow, foot and mouth, and bluetongue. But the United Kingdom happens to have one of the best systems in the world for reporting these outbreaks. Since the country was struck with a devastating BSE epidemic in 1968, British health officials have developed a surveillance network with a very high degree of transparency. This ensures that individual cases of diseases are immediately reported to the government, and appropriate action is taken. So the British cattle may not be any more sickly than those in other parts of the world; they might just be getting watched a bit more closely. [More possible reasons]
I lean toward the reporting exaggeration effect, but having flown through Heathrow several times (and lived to tell the story) I find the airline garbage idea logical as well. British media pick up every tiny scrap of news, and have elevated the coverage of this far beyond the actual risk. It may be such reports will become tiresome, and as no public harm has emerged, indifference will reduce the alarm.

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Another risk transfer...

I have been noticing the risk-aversion behavior that is now the standard for good farming practice. I think our profit margins will be squeezed relentlessly by these choices, despite record prices.

Primarily because the return to labor is diminishing. Our physical work takes less skill (autosteer) and some entire jobs have disappeared (walking beans). This shows up in our economic decisions.

We're not the only ones transferring risks. Consider this announcement from Monsanto:
A new pilot program recently approved by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) will provide farmers an opportunity to pay lower premiums if they plant a majority of their corn acres using hybrid seeds that feature YieldGard Plus® with Roundup Ready® Corn 2 or YieldGard VT Triple™ technology from Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON).

The insurance product will be offered as a pilot program in cooperation with Western Agricultural Insurance Company and will be called the Biotech Yield Endorsement (BYE). Western Agricultural Insurance will make the program available to all other approved insurance providers to offer to their farmer customers.

The pilot program will be initially available in four states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota. Implementation of BYE has yet to be determined pending available resources and priorities for the deployment and administration of the program by the Risk Management Agency (RMA).

To be eligible for the program, a farmer must plant 75 to 80 percent of their corn acres with seeds featuring YieldGard Plus with Roundup Ready Corn 2 or YieldGard VT Triple technology. Refuge requirements must also be respected. Depending on the grower's production history, amount of coverage purchased and other criteria, the farmer may be able to reduce the yield component of their premium up to 24 percent. [More]
I got word of this last week and saved my 6-hour commute to/from South Bend to tape US Farm Report to ponder the possible ramifications of this program. (Note: this strategy may or may not improve the quality of the pondering.) Some thoughts:
  • This is tacit actuarial proof of decreased production risks. We've all been seeing it in our fields. (Note the happy surprises in the AgWeb Crop Comments.) The number one yield threat - drought - threatens all corn growers less with this technology protection. So, if crop insurance has been a questionable benefit (example: I have only ever carried CAT coverage because of a FSA grain bin loan), it is a true loser now. I know many of you can't imagine farming without CI, but some of you probably could now, especially if you sock the saved premiums away for a "rainless day".
  • Insurance companies are probably not thrilled (more on this in a later post). The farm bill drafts are squeezing their profits - which have been handsome lately - and now premiums will drop because of seed choice. Monsanto has unilaterally transferred a risk premium from crop insurers to seed - and can legitimately capture that value. If it doesn't support an actual price increase, it will justify current boosts. This is superb business practice, and Monsanto is displaying again why they currently have no match in the seed/technology marketplace.
  • I bet rotary hoe sales jump and prices for old hoes increase sharply. Stay with me on this one. It seems to me the biggest risk now is having to replant. Even with a break on seed costs, you still pay the tech fees (now enormous) on replant seed. Slapping corn in the ground willy-nilly now carries one of the higher penalties even as the production boost to early planting may be decreasing. Free replant seed should be a big factor in hybrid seed choice. Ditto with waiting an extra day or not planting just ahead of a downpour.
  • This trend is not over. The (in my opinion) over-hyped pipelines just might offer more production-stabilizing technology that should make crop insurance premiums less by reducing payouts.
This is how competition looks in our 21st Century economy. Each link in the production chain must constantly be on guard to protect the value they deliver, because other links want to capture that contribution themselves. For that matter they should be looking to predate values currently being delivered by others themselves. Producers are building bins like crazy, stealing the value traditionally delivered by elevators. Tractors are too complicated for most farmers to manage, and a repair becomes a value delivered increasingly by dealers. Now seed packs insurance in the bag. The tug of war for margin continues.

The big and constant question for me is, "What value can only I deliver and claim for myself?" That list seems to be shrinking.

[Thanks, Darren]

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Friday, September 28, 2007
 
Mind-boggling Fact of the Day...

Buried in an article about a rumored new mobile phone from Google was a sentence that made my jaw drop.
Google and advertisers drool over the growth potential in wireless. The more than 2 1/2 billion phones in use worldwide exceed the number of PCs and TVs combined. On Sept. 17, Google announced a Web program aimed at advertisers who have created sites for display on cell phones and other handheld devices. Like its online ad network, Google's AdSense for Mobile delivers ads relevant to the advertiser's mobile audience. "The sheer volume of users across the globe makes mobile the next channel for information," says Dilip Venkatachari, director of product management for Google's mobile team. [More] [My emphasis]
Think how long we've been selling TV's, for the love of Mike! This is a clue about technology adoption and also the future of traditional "wireful" telephony, methinks.

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Add us to the list of sausage and legislation...

Well, we're all blogging like crazy now - even the highest levels of journalism.
This week, motorcycle enthusiast Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of the New York Times, said that his department is starting a new blog, "The Board." It'll join the paper's 14 other Opinion section blogs, including the Opinionator, which discusses the op-ed pages of other newspapers and will benefit from being freed from the Times now-dead paywall, TimesSelect. The Times looks to be the newspaper blog leader—they have 40 active blogs, not counting seasonal blogs like David Carr's movie awards season craziness, beating the Guardian with 18, the New York Daily News with 22, the Wall Street Journal with 16 active blogs, the Los Angeles Times with 27, the San Francisco Chronicle with 26, the Miami Herald with 31, and the Chicago Tribune with 33, for a random sampling. But. Do you read any of these blogs? [More]

The commenter may be on-target, but perhaps harsh (gosh - why does that sound familiar?) That old media doesn't instinctively know how to handle new media should be no surprise.

And some things may have to be discovered by trial and error.

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A country with two names...

The unrest going on in Southeast Asia is creating a secondary journalistic battle over who gets to name a country.
But when it comes to referring to the nation in English, there's little debate. Myanmar is the name invented 18 years ago by the benighted junta, known as SLORC* back then and the State Peace and Development Council now, when it seized power through force. When Westerners say "Myanmar," they're not being culturally respectful to the people of a beautiful but oppressed nation. (We don't call China Zhongguo or Germany Deutschland just because the locals do.) They're bowing to the whims of the generals who still imprison Aung San Suu Kyi.

There is no reason to humor them. Say Burma, as George Bush did. And CNN, grow some backbone when it comes to terminology! [More]

I'm falling in with James Fallows and Pres. Bush. And I'm starting to notice how different media sources make their choice as well.

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Pick a direction...

As I follow various sources of information in the farm bill debate, I am struck by the lack of consensus on possible outcomes. For example, some feel Sen. Harkin is over-matched by hardball players like Sen Conrad.
But Conrad is a relentless political operator who never quits. And that’s the pity. Harkin is an idea man with a progressive vision of where U.S. agriculture is going and what the farm bill should look like. But as the weeks drag on and Senate work on the farm bill is delayed, he seems increasingly hemmed in by Conrad’s aggressive tactics and the real politik of Senate dealing making.

He acknowledged as much Tuesday in one of his regular teleconferences with reporters. While he still held out hopes for what he said would be “very modest” reforms of the basic subsidy programs, he twice noted that he was limited by “the art of the possible,” i.e., he can’t move a bill out of his committee without votes from hardline advocates of traditional subsidies. [More]
Meanwhile, the change in leadership at the USDA leaves some unsure where the administration will draw the line in the sand (if any).
* If there is a payment limit for farmers with an average gross income (AGI) of $200,000 that the Bush administration has suggested, or the $1 million limit in the House farm bill, why not pay those farmers up to that point of the limit? Why take an all-or-nothing approach?

"Remember," Conner said, "our approach is $200,000 averaged over three years. So I don't see that as all or nothing. This is a sustained person who is in the top 2.3 percent of tax filers in America -- of all tax filers. We understand there are boom and bust years, and there is always going to be, so it may not be fair if you just happen to hit a great year, and maybe even marketing even more than one crop in a particular year because of the price situation, that one year would throw a producer out. But if you manage to do that over a period of three years, you are just flat out one of the top income people in the United States of America. As we have said time and time again, we do believe that if you reach a point where you've realized the American dream to the fullest extent, and again, if you're one of the top income earners in America, you need to graduate. These programs today are income support programs."
[More by ProFarmer subscription]

Meanwhile, back at the farm, incandescent prices could provide an interesting backdrop for any possible floor debate in the Senate. I doubt that will occur, but I do think the bizarre funding proposals (FICA exemptions?) may struggle to pass muster.

I also think a Doha agreement would put immense pressure on even a finished farm bill. Too many other sectors with political goals of their own would have to subordinate their interests to agriculture to pass up the trade benefits.

As always, the White House is a real wild card. This president looks veto-itchy to me.

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Thursday, September 27, 2007
 
Something completely different...
Mount Rushmore sings "The Teddy Bear's Picnic"

Ya don't see stuff like this on competing ag websites, folks!


[via Presurfer]

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Welcome back...

As an ex-nuke myself, I have long lamented the illogical choices people made to stop the development of nuclear power. Poor science training, negligible risk balancing skills and inflammatory rhetoric meant the US lost out on decades of low-risk, environmentally friendly energy, choosing to burn coal instead.


But one thing about science - it tends to be self-correcting and over time, good ideas persist. Nuclear power is officially back.
Since 2001, we and just about every other business publication have written stories on the coming nuclear renaissance. It’s a development that was seen as almost inevitable. The country needs more electricity. And with coal plants being blocked or cancelled because of concerns over global warming, nukes were looking more and more attractive. Sure, there are still lingering worries over waste disposal and nuclear proliferation, but the new generation of plants are safer and, the industry expected, cheaper to build. The question was, who would take the first leap? Now we have an answer. It’s a Princeton, NJ-based utility named NRG. On Sept. 24, the company and South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new nuclear units at the site of two existing nukes in Texas. "We think the nuclear renaissance is finally upon us," says NRG CEO David Crane. [More]
The nation will be watching closely to see how construction goes. The design is well-proven and the opportunity could not be brighter for this form of energy, I think.
NRG has chosen Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) technology for the new units to be built at the STP site. The 12,220-acre site and 7,000-acre cooling reservoir were originally designed for four units. The two new units will be built adjacent to the currently operating STP units 1 and 2. ABWR technology is certified by the NRC and has an impressive construction and operational track record. This includes setting world records for construction time and bringing the units in on budget. Four ABWR units have been successfully commissioned in Japan, with another three units under construction in Taiwan and Japan. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. has more than a decade of experience in ABWR operations and has provided their expertise to supporting STP’s planned two-unit expansion. [More]
The availability of cleaner electricity could shift the energy balance for transportation as well. Any kind of carbon tax could raise the reward for hybrids and plug-ins. Such an economic influence would change the mix of cars in cities at least, and certainly impact the demand for transportation fuels.

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When floor mats go bad...

There is trouble underfoot in this country. Terrorists? Mad cow? Weak currency?

You wish.
Toyota Motor Co. will recall 55,000 floor mats due to complaints of unintended acceleration caused by the mats sticking underneath the accelerator pedal, federal safety officials and the automaker said Wednesday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took the unusual step of highlighting Toyota’s recall announcement, advising owners of other Toyota models – including the Prius hybrid and Avalon sedans – to ensure their floor mats are properly installed.

Advertisement
“We have also received complaints about the RAV 4 (crossover) and Tacoma (pickup),” said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for NHTSA. “We will continue to monitor all of the other Toyota vehicles not involved in the recall." [More]

I'm going back to bed.

[via Fark]

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I think "consensus" is the right word...

The slowly dying debate on anthropogenic climate change has had one feature that I find puzzling. Climate change skeptics tend to trot out handfuls of scientists and claim there is no "consensus" in the scientific community. But the proof in scientific circles takes place in scientific literature - not talk shows, or even blogs.

And there the statistics are clear.
2) The blog reports of the Schulte piece misrepresent the research question that we originally posed. It was, "How many papers published in referred journals disagree with the statement, "...most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"? This statement came from the IPCC (2001) and was reiterated explicitly by the 2001 NAS report, so we wanted to know how many papers diverged from that consensus position. The answer was none. The Schulte claim does not refutes that. [More]
[My emphasis]
If there was credible disagreement across science on the very high probability of anthropogenic climate change there would be career-enhancing studies being published in bunches.

I support the right of individuals to hold differing opinions about this phenomenon. But as Sen. Moynihan famously said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

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I'm going to stop complaining...

About how dry it is here. Even though we're hauling water for our house, and fighting dust and too-dry crops, this little story about Australia puts my petty problems n perspective. They are paying farmers to quit essentially. Another view is handing out small parachutes to farmers and ranchers being slowly wiped out by prolonged drought. They key factor has been an asset limit to qualify.
If enough people did not take up the exit grants, further increases to the asset test could be made, he said.

University of Adelaide water expert Mike Young said measures to assist farmers move off the land represented a significant shift in attitudes to primary production.

"An important signal is being sent to everybody to make them think about whether or not it is appropriate to remain in agriculture," he said.

"We're now trying to farm and irrigate in a drier regime. A lot of the practices that have been in place won't work in the future unless it rains again."

James Stacey, a dairy farmer from Langhorne Creek in South Australia, said the asset limit was unrealistic for farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin who might want the exit grants but had valuable water licenses putting them above the $350,000 mark.

"I think a lot of people along the Murray system would think about it seriously, and that includes dairy farmers from NSW, Victoria and South Australia," he said. "The problem is, everyone is asset rich and cash poor."

Mr Stacey, who has applied for an exceptional circumstances interest rate subsidy, has been forced to sell his calves born this year because of high feed costs. [More]
Suddenly the wheat market makes a little more sense.

Note the statement in the middle from the water expert - "unless it rains again". How depressing is that?

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
 
A face that launched a thousand jokes...

Marcel Marceau, 84, was laid to rest today in Pere Lachaise, alongside other celebrities.

Reportedly, he had no last words.

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I thought it would happen slower...

The demand problem for feed grains in Europe is pressuring regulators to reconsider at least the residue limits for GMO's in feed. Rumors already are stirring in the market.
Corrêa de Barros warned the EU Farm Council that "The current EU GM policy will cripple the EU livestock industry.

"Livestock producers in third countries will be able to use the GMO crops not yet approved in the EU to feed their animals and will increasingly sell their products of animal origin to EU consumers at a lower price compared with EU operators".

He stressed that the systematic slowdown of GM approvals in the EU combined with a strict 0-tolerance policy for the presence of non EU-approved materials already resulted in the loss of 4 million tonnes of CGF (Corn Gluten Feed) and DDGS (Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles) that the EU used to import for years from the US. [More]

The livestock industry worldwide is slowly rising to battle the huge increase in feed costs. Coupled with concerns about meat consumption in general (at least in developed countries) the tone of complaint is becoming steadily harsher.

As our own Steve Cornett pithily puts it:
This next farm bill will be critical, and the ethanolics could use the support of the environmental lobby, which enjoys the Times’ editorial ear. My money is still with the corn guys, despite the obvious problems delineated by the Times editorial and about a jillion cattle feeders.

More people are beginning to look at the science and wonder if ethanol is really a prudent approach to energy conservation. You get a different answer, of course, from the ethanol folks—but they must be worried about the momentum shift.

It strikes me as a little bit blind like a bat to argue that ethanol production isn’t affecting food prices, much less sport a headline like RFA’s “NEW REPORT: FOOD AND MEAT PROCESSORS USING "ETHANOL SMOKESCREEN"

Of course ethanol has increased corn prices, and of course that increases meat prices. Geez. As sure as the price of water affects the price of ice. As sure as the price of barbers affects the price of haircuts. As sure as How can you argue that? [More]
That this rhetoric ramp-up is occurring right when soy and wheat acres are being bid for makes me nervous about whether the now-standard fall price hike might be front-loading some of our best opportunities for 07 and 08 crops to right now.

Matter of fact, I've got a call to make...
 
 
List rites for a myth...

OK, we now have enough studies frantically funded by corn growers to lay to rest the "cheap food" policy illogic foisted on credulous legislators and the public in general. Loudly proclaiming now that corn prices do not affect food prices (much), proponents of new plateaus of corn prices are notably silent on what benefit consumers therefore get from my fixed payment.
The dramatic increase in the use of crops for fuel is going to increase food prices, at least for the next several years. The magnitude of that increase however, may not be as large as some expect. Probably the three most important reasons why the impact will not be as large as in past years are: 1.) the share of the retail food dollar contributed by the farm level commodity value has been sharply reduced to just 20 percent today; 2.) the importance of food in consumer budgets has continued to drop such that the "food and beverage" category in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is now weighted at just 15 percent; and 3.) the sources of our food are more global and diverse than in the past.

Retail level food prices are expected to increase an additional 1.2 percent to 1.8 percent above their 2006 level due to higher farm-level grain and commodity prices partially attributable to the use of grains and oilseeds for biofuels. This will roughly parallel the calendar years of 2007 and 2008. This analysis is based upon the assumption that higher farm-level commodity prices are eventually passed to retail food consumers. Our assumption is that transferal is dollar for dollar. Not all of the current increased food inflation is attributable to increased use of crops for energy, as poor weather conditions have also contributed to poor world wheat crops in 2006, and to losses of some fruit and vegetable production in 2007. [More]

Giving money to farmers likely has little downward effect on food prices - it mostly goes to inputs and land costs. The study is just the latest of several efforts to counter ethanol opponents in the food vs. fuel debate. Regardless on where you are on that issue, one thing is does do is refute the "cheap food" argument.

[via Farmgate]

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There is good news and, umm....

Inappropriate news, in the parlance of today. Remember those weird frogs with congenital deformities that scientists suspected as victims of pesticides?



They were wrong. The cause now appears to be an involved cycle of parasites and nutrient (N, P) runoff.
The study showed increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus cause sharp hikes in the abundance and reproduction of a snail species that hosts microscopic parasites known as trematodes, said Assistant Professor Pieter Johnson of CU-Boulder's ecology and evolutionary biology department.

The nutrients stimulate algae growth, increasing snail populations and the number of infectious parasites released by snails into ponds and lakes. The parasites subsequently form cysts in the developing limbs of tadpoles causing missing limbs, extra limbs and other severe malformations, Johnson said.

"This is the first study to show that nutrient enrichment drives the abundance of these parasites, increasing levels of amphibian infection and subsequent malformations," said Johnson. "The research has implications for both worldwide amphibian declines and for a wide array of diseases potentially linked to nutrient pollution, including cholera, malaria, West Nile virus and diseases affecting coral reefs." [More]
Keeping nutrients in place is largely a matter of keeping dirt in place, and the ethanol-spurred demand for corn does not bode well for better conservation measures. No-tillers are already reluctantly ripping fields to accommodate continuous corn.

My guess is we'll see nutrient limits and/or fertilizer taxes in our future that will limit fertilizer application. Of course, prices are already causing many of us to reflect on how much we need. It's one more thing we can look to Europe and see the future possibility.

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
 
Technology finds a way around...

One of the big factors propelling ethanol production is a significant difference in the retail taxing. America has traditionally paid for roads by taxing fuel. What if GPS technology allowed us to pay by mile instead?
Americans are driving cars that get better mileage, and more are driving vehicles that use fuels taxed at lower rates than gasoline, such as ethanol, or making their own fuel and not being taxed. That means gas tax revenue isn't growing nearly as fast as the number of miles driven.

In addition, the costs of road construction materials have skyrocketed because of heavy demand from India and China. Congress and many state legislatures are reluctant to increase gas taxes, especially at a time of high prices at the pump. The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon has not been increased since 1993; 24 states have not raised their gas taxes since 1997, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

That has made a mileage fee more attractive to some agencies. The University of Iowa study is funded by the Federal Highway Administration and 15 state departments of transportation. [More]

How do you get a special tax incentive for ethanol with that kind of tax structure?

Answer: Levy both taxes.

You heard it here first.

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Just a little imagination...



Skyplay.

[via Presurfer]
 
 
Getting fiscal religion...

To the surprise of this observer, President Bush appears to be dead serious about vetoing more than a few funding bills. A key test will be the expansion of health insurance for children.
Bush is trying to establish that he's a fiscal conservative after overseeing a sharp rise in the deficit, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois.

"I think he has picked the wrong issues," Durbin said. "If he wants to fight over children's health insurance, I'm sorry but we're ready."

But Bush said lawmakers "are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they can score political points in Washington." He and his aides have threatened vetoes on several other matters as well, including House representation for the District of Columbia and subsidized insurance against terrorist acts.

Bush also has threatened to veto nine of the 12 appropriations bills that would fund the government for the fiscal year beginning October 1. [More]
Many of these vetoes are targeting bills near and dear to the farm lobby - like WRDA.

The veto threat came as the House prepared to take up the bill, loaded with $5 billion in new drinking water and wastewater treatment plants proposed by Senate and House negotiators.

"Indeed, it seems a $14 billion Senate bill went into a conference with the House's $15 billion bill and somehow a bill emerged costing approximately $20 billion," complained Rob Portman, the White House budget director, and John Paul Woodley, Jr., the Army's assistant secretary of civil works.

Because the bill's authorization now "significantly exceeds the cost of either the House or Senate bill and contains other unacceptable provisions ... the president will veto the bill," they wrote to four Senate and House members whose committees oversaw the legislation.

Congress must not increase the Army Corps' already huge backlog of $38 billion in authorized projects by adding new ones for wastewater, drinking water, sewer overflows, waterfront development, transportation and abandoned mines - all of which are "outside of and inappropriate for the mission" of the Army Corps, Portman and Woodley wrote. [More]

Given the sudden resurgence of interest in Doha negotiations, the farm bill is a prime target as well, making the imaginative new funding sources being contemplated by both the House and Senate reasons the White House can force Congress to rethink.

Most of all, the rather stunning new enthusiasm for vetoes after a total of umm, none for six years seems to have flummoxed a Congress who thought they had the upper hand after last fall's elections.

Bush is like Capt. Renault in Casablanca, who feigns shock that there is gambling in Rick's Cafe, said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and author of Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. "He's suddenly 'shocked, shocked' to find out there's all this pork-barrel spending in these bills," Bartlett said.

Bush's veto strategy "is the only card they've really got to play if they are indeed interested in restraining government spending," says Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. That has been "an open question" in the past, he added, but now the threats are aimed at "Democratic bills."

"He dislikes Democrats more than he likes big government," Slivinski said. [More]

The veto remains an incredibly powerful tool for the executive branch - and this is an administration that's all about executive power. Recent public relations Iraq victories have reignited his famed stubbornness, it seems.

Most observers still confidently boast "Congress writes the farm bill".

Yeah - and Congress can rewrite it too.

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Monday, September 24, 2007
 
Save the pint!...

The EU has buckled under on forcing Brits to give up pints and ounces.
I regard this story as curiously parallel to our own defunding of the Mexican truck program–a populist uprising against unpopular regulation. But where we had protectionist Teamsters, they had the “Metric Martyrs”–shopkeepers who violated European Union regulations by continuing to sell things in pounds and ounces and pints instead of in hemidemisemiquavers and hectagons and rectaliters or whatever such Continental barbarities the muscles from Brussels demanded. And they were fined heavily for it.

In 1984, there’s a passage about Socialist metricization being an extension of demoralizing mind control. I remember it concerned an old prole lamenting, over his beer, that a half liter was too little, and a liter was too much, and that he missed his old comfortable pints which had been just right. That’s it exactly. Feet and inches are a likewise a useful, human scale. NOTHING is a meter long. (Or are we supposed to switch to one-third-meter hot dogs at ballgames?) [More]

Hmm, if only there was a relevant way to celebrate this occasion...

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Sunday, September 23, 2007
 
I always wondered where that mnemonic came from...

As grade school music students know the bass clef spaces are A-C-E-G. It is most easily remembered by: All Cows Eat Grass.

Turns out grass is very good for cows. And fun too.


[via DailyDish]

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The search for the environmental GUT...

The Grand Unification Theory - long the Holy Grail of physicists - is grounded in the perhaps inborn desire for one explanation for everything. But physics isn't the only arena where the goal of tying everything together seems irresistible until finally adherents overreach.

Environmentalists, for example, often try to link disparate causes under one big umbrella. Not always with results that please everybody. Take global warming and vegetarianism.
Matt Prescott, a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asserted last month that "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist." PETA's pronouncement is part of a cooperative campaign among a number of animal-rights groups. Their message is that meat production exacerbates global warming.

PETA will lead the charge by dispatching an operative in a chicken suit to tour the country in a Hummer. The group will also deploy billboards nationwide with a mocking cartoon depicting climate-change hero Al Gore eating a drumstick, next to the words "Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming." PETA's recent bleating has attracted substantial attention, including a recent story in The New York Times. [More]

My guess is the broad attack approach will be far less effective than engaging people in the one thing they really get worked about. I don't think - judging from the widespread denial of the energy crisis as an energy consumption problem - people are quite ready to embrace the big, albeit pretty obvious solutions.

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What happens when the deep-fat fryer breaks...



[More]


Now if they just get it onto a stick...

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Bad news in old terminology...

To add to Great Britain's farm miseries, a new disease with the charming common name of "bluetongue" has appeared along with a sixth case of foot-and-mouth.
Britain's deputy chief veterinarian Fred Landeg told British television stations on Saturday that a cow on a cattle and sheep farm near Ipswich, Suffolk, northeast of London, tested positive for bluetongue.

The cow was to be slaughtered, other animals on the farm tested to see if they were also infected, and restrictions put in place at the site, Landeg and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

National Farmers Union (NFU) President Peter Kendall told BBC television that bluetongue "is definitely not as serious as foot-and-mouth but it is of major concern to us," as it is one more disease to deal with.

He said the disease is carried by insects like midges and is not transferred from animal to animal. [More]

Although this story is unfolding painfully slower than the 2001 FMD epidemic, the stubborn reappearance will likely further decimate British beef trade.

It is hard not to wonder if there is some systemic reason why the "sceptred isle" seems the be the lightning rod for these animal diseases. At the very least, we can say charming small producers in idyllic agrarian settings are not better protected against contagious outbreaks. In fact, it would seem insistence on past methods of animal husbandry sets up producers for persistent ancient disease scourges.

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Friday, September 21, 2007
 
Business as usual...


http://view.break.com/368159 - Watch more free videos



Make sure your watch is really, really correct.

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Another reason to be concerned about the economy...

One of the highlights of consumer spending has regularly been the steady splurging of the topmost spenders. Like people who didn't blink when the $600 iPod debuted this summer. So my thinking is if that group stalls out, it is a sign the rest of us won't have much extra cash.

Apple stunned the business world by announcing sharp price drops, and along with other indicators, there are suspicions this means something.
But the gonzo cuts can have negative results after the initial frenzy. First, it makes chumps out of the customers who made the product a hit—and profitable at full price—in the first place. Early adopters who paid through the nose for the new iPhone, were iPissed when they realized that their technologically less-forward neighbors could get the exact same product for one-third less a few weeks later. In response to an avalanche of angry e-mails, Jobs responded that he really cut the price in order to help all those who paid $599 for it. "It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent.' We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season." How would you feel if you bought a condo in a Hovnanian development last month, only to find that your new neighbor paid significantly less for the exact same floor plan? [More]

A softening general economy could mean even lower interest rates, as Fed action and recent comments this week seems to indicate less concern with inflation and more with growth.

Where will land prices go if mortgage rates slide back down?

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Thursday, September 20, 2007
 
Thanks a lot, science...

Men's brains are not in their pants, as women constantly claim.

But they could be.

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Closer to an answer...

Researchers are increasingly confident that IAPV (Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus) is a key indicator, if not the actual cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.
The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health announced a study linking CCD to Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. I haven’t found a link to the study itself, which is published in the journal Science, but ScienceDaily has published a summery. The authors of the study claim that the presence of IAPV predicts CCD in a colony with 96% accuracy. In other words, if someone selected a honey bee colony in the US and all they told you about it was whether or not it had IAPV, not how big it was, where it was, what kinds of bees they were, you tell them if it had collapsed or not. If you did this 1000 times and had average luck, you’d be right 960 times.

But we don’t know if it actually causes CCD

That kind of accuracy is pretty amazing and makes IAPV a “significant marker” for CCD, but it doesn’t mean that it causes CCD. It might even be the other way around; CCD weakens a colony that was otherwise able to fend off IAPV, allowing the virus to infect the colony. Or something else causes both CCD and facilitates an IAPV infection. [More]

But here is where it slides into ideological carping. Organic beekeepers would really like an answer that show current commercial beekeeping practices to be at fault which would in essence force the industry round to their way of thinking, and not coincidentally, buttress the entire organic philosophy (which is having a hard time finding evidence of their more extravagant claims).

The next-to-last thing they want to see is a solution involving more advanced science, such as a counter agent for IAPV of some sort that neatly ends the problem. Organic advocates want "process" to be the solution.
Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time. [More]
They could well be right. A combination of stressors and weakened immune systems is high on the list of causes.

But science gets done badly if we decide the answer before we do the experiment. And my guess is we could see a decidedly non-organic solution to this problem.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
 
You can't spell legacy without "a-g"...

Committed to an open-ended Korean non-solution in Iraq, I sense President Bush wants to mend some fences with potential conservative "library" donors. Hence, this interesting announcement regarding ag subsidies and WTO:
The United States is prepared to negotiate a multilateral trade deal on the basis of a WTO proposal calling for big cuts in agriculture subsidies, a government official said Wednesday.

But a spokeswoman for the office of the US Trade Representative, Sean Spicer, said other countries "must step up to ensure the strongest possible market access outcomes" in agriculture as well as manufacturing and services.

The comments in Washington came after a high-ranking WTO official said in Geneva that US officials had accepted WTO proposals as a basis for negotiations.

"They said they were prepared to negotiate within the range of numbers put forward in the agriculture paper, provided everybody else would work within the same parameters," said the WTO's chief agriculture negotiator, New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer.

In July, Falconer published a series of proposals for WTO members which suggested that the United States reduce its agricultural subsidies to between 12.8 to 16.2 billion dollars (9.2 to 11.6 billion euros). [More]
Bush has been savaged by the right for his cave-in on the 2002 Farm Bill, and it could be he will be able to have his way here, if US negotiators can deliver for American service providers and manufacturers. Between administration stalwarts and various other special interest factions, a farm bill veto override would be a tall order.

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The death of a business model...

The subscriber-based website is dead. Some simply don't know it yet.

Great news for Internet news fans and of course, bloggers.

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I'm still not sure I believe it...

Watch the bat.

[via Neatorama]

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Fallout from the housing slump...

Our neighbors adjusting to the repercussions from the American economic headache, just as they tagged along on the ride upward. The loonie is at $0.99 - a thirty year high. If you live along the friendliest of borders, the impact is considerable.

Only hours before the U.S. rate cut announcement, the Canadian forest industry, burned by the double whammy of the surging loonie plus the housing recession in its largest export market, also appealed to the Bank of Canada to act to moderate the loonie's surge.

Further, it asked the federal government for, among other things, more tax relief, including the extension of a two-year tax break on new investments in machinery and equipment to help it compete.

The federal government and Bank of Canada must act now to mitigate the damage that the rapid appreciation of the dollar is doing to Canada's manufacturing sector, the Forest Products Association of Canada appealed in a news release.

"The dollar ... is up over 10 per cent from the 88-cent level it was at the start of 2007 and more than 53 per cent from the 63-cent range it was at five years ago this month," said association president Avrim Lazar.

"This has placed enormous pressure on Canada's forest-products industry and Canada's manufacturing sector more broadly." he said, noting that since 2002, 110,000 jobs having been lost in Canada's manufacturing sector, including 32,000 jobs in the forest sector. [More]

Perversely, the rising price of lumber won't be much help to our struggling housing sector, raising home construction costs just when they need to trim prices to reach now-unqualified buyers. The slump in housing could continue for a significant period, I think as the dame factors that made the boom unwind.

No more. With U.S. home building in the dumps, Romero is working sporadically and sending little money. Diaz and her three young boys are eating rice and beans. She is watching every centavo.

So are economists who track this crucial southward flow of currency. They are worried by what they see.

Remittances are the financial lifeblood for millions of Mexican families and a crucial source of foreign exchange for their government. The $23 billion that maids, cooks, gardeners and others sent home last year — almost all from the U.S. — topped the amount that multinationals invested in Mexico. But fallout from the U.S. construction industry, which employs 1 in 5 Latino immigrants, is now rippling south of the border. Growth in remittances to Mexico has slowed to a trickle.

After increasing an average of just over 23% a year since 2000, remittances for the first two months of 2007 were just 5.5% ahead of the same period last year, according to Mexico's central bank. The figure peaked in May at $2.3 billion and has drifted downward ever since.

Analysts say tougher border enforcement and workplace crackdowns by U.S. immigration authorities may be playing a role. Still, the remittance slowdown has moved virtually in lock step with the stumble in U.S. home building. Housing starts hit their 2006 peak in May before tumbling 50% by year-end. [More]

While this may relieve many who are concerned about illegal immigration, it could be relatively good news for agriculture, which has been struggling to compete for jobs. Harvesting crops is widely perceived as the least desirable of the difficult jobs immigrants typically do ( although having hung drywall, I would debate that).

Still as the economy sputters due to the housing slowdown the transition for workers will only make life for the working poor more uncertain. Obviously the Fed is concerned, and their action yesterday to try to prevent further damage to credit markets and economic growth indicates to me they anticipate a deeper effect than many.

The tendrils of interaction in our economy can often be hidden until they unravel. Over the next months I think we will be surprised by other daisy-chained consequences of what was essentially bad mortgage lending practices.



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Monday, September 17, 2007
 
Some good bridge video, for a change...

A really cool (from an engineer's perspective, of course) clip of the repair of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.


Why did they do it that way? [More]

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Sunday, September 16, 2007
 
Not pretty...

While I have been willing to allow the market to decide whether organic food is a good idea or not, I have never been persuaded it is better in any way than conventional food. Well, it turns out I am a virtual weeny in this debate. Peruse this anti-organic broadside in the Australian science magazine Cosmos:
THE SURPRISING FACT IS that this mass migration to organic food has not been on the back of scientific evidence. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find comprehensive evidence that organic food is healthier – either for us or the planet. Nevertheless, in the public consciousness, organic farming is unquestioningly bundled with the reigning moral imperatives of sustainability, protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gases.
If you don't want to read the whole article, it is well (and equally brutally) summarized here, by Ron Bailey at Reason.

I didn't realize I was being so even-handed in my questioning of organic.

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Book Number One...

For lots of different kinds of knowledge.

[via MeFi]

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Saturday, September 15, 2007
 
Cook like a caveman...

Although "English cooking" may seem like a oxymoron, they are still trying, bless 'em. Lately they've been digging up some old - really old - recipes.
Researchers wanted to compile a list of favourite foods that sustained our forebears and their influence on modern-day menus.

Top of the pot came nettle pudding, which was traced back 8,000 years.

Close behind were smokey stew, a combination of bacon and smoked fish; then a mixture of offal, fat and herbs called meat pudding followed by barley bread and roast hedgehog. [More]
No wonder Brits are so tough.

Pass the hedgehog - AKA The Other Blue Meat.

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Another way of looking at oil...

This map uses old (2004) data and there are questions about some other types of reserves (see comments), but I think it helps put much of our energy debate in perspective. (Click on map for larger image)

So many of our energy ideas fail the reality test. Simply put, oil is incredibly energy-dense, easy to process, and still relatively cheap. It is going to be very, very hard to produce the kind and amount of energy we are getting from oil from other sources.

[via Neatorama]

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Friday, September 14, 2007
 
Do we have an ag news cycle now?...

Just like political news, any announcement that could be misconstrued by ag audiences may be now slated for release on Friday - so the media will have to take a breath or two before opining. For your consideration, this announcement today.
Dow AgroSciences LLC, and Monsanto today announced a cross- licensing agreement that breaks new ground in the commercialization of gene stack technology. The agreement is aimed at launching SmartStax(TM), featuring eight different Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto herbicide tolerance and insect-protection genes. This technology is expected to be available to corn growers by the end of the decade. [More]
I'm still wrapping my mind around this. My knee-jerk reactions:
  • Traits will soon be standardized in one humongous package - try buying something without all 8 traits.
  • Unless there is a battle for market share, pricing power will extract the maximum marginal revenue from seed corn buyers.
  • Monsanto and Dow must be remarkably confident about US energy policy. With ethanol profits slipping and soybean prices climbing, what would an RFS expansion failure mean to corn prices and seed profits? Then again, owning the market means never having to say you're sorry.
  • Is there no sense of panic at Pioneeer/DuPont? I realize they have been and are deeply invested in research, but can those products hit retail fast enough to make a difference? Where was management as Monsanto built the wall around them?
  • Forget refuge. Given the current lackadaisical industry attitude to the supposedly serious problem of Bt resistance, I had guessed (wildly, I admit) that products were at hand that would make refuge unnecessary. This now seems to be the case. Consequently, I will be listening skeptically to bug scientists who tell me 2-3 years of "refugeless" corn growing will select for a rootworm beetle that will baffle SmartStax.
  • How close to monopoly does the trait/seed market have to get before attracting government attention? Are two choices sufficient? Have we arrived at Microsoft (corn) and Apple (corn)?
Finally, if corn prices keep rising, will anybody care?

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Thursday, September 13, 2007
 
You can lead a consumer to nutrition...

But you can't make him eat better. At least, not very much very fast. After a year of careful labeling, this is what one grocery chain discovered.
After analyzing a year’s worth of sales data, Hannaford found that customers tended to buy leaner cuts of meat. Sales of ground beef with stars on their labels increased 7 percent, and sales of chicken that had a star rating rose 5 percent. Sales of ground beef labeled with no stars dropped by 5 percent, while sales of chicken that had a zero-star rating declined 3 percent.

Similarly, sales of whole milk, which received no stars, declined by 4 percent, while sales of fat-free milk (three stars) increased 1 percent.

Sales of fruits and vegetables, however, remained about the same as they did before the ratings were introduced. All fresh produce received stars. [More]

Of course, that isn't slowing down efforts to attract more at-risk people to healthier eating.
The measure, to be introduced in 2009, will see all expectant mothers given a one-off payment of around GBP120 (US$244) to spend on healthy food when they are seven months pregnant. Sure, some could argue that perhaps seven months is a bit late when trying to boost the nutrition a foetus gets in the womb. And, of course, while there is no compulsion to spend the cash on mangoes, melons or mushrooms, women may spend the money on alcohol and cigarettes instead.

In some quarters, the measure has been derided as a misguided policy from the “nanny state”. However, combined with intensifying health campaigns on the importance of a balanced diet – as well as the dangers of drinking and smoking during pregnancy – the cash may just be the carrot many mothers need to give their kids’ a healthier start in life. [More]

It could be it takes generations to change these choices. After all, it even took very cheap, questionable-benefit food a few decades to take over.

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Can you spare a twenty?...

How much cash do you carry? Better still, how much should you carry? For goodness sake, don't ask an economist.
This whole discussion came to mind the other night while out to dinner with a large group of friends. Since I am economically irrational in so very many ways, I had failed to conform to the Baumol-Tobin model and revealed myself as cashless when the bill arrived. So a good friend covered me. There is of course a mutual expectation of rough reciprocity among friends, but it occurred to me that a person who often dines and drinks in groups with friends could easily come out far ahead in this bargain, simply by being the guy who never has cash -- especially if his friends have short memories. It is true that, in a small group, sometimes you get stuck putting the whole bill on your card and collecting cash from your dinner or drinking partners. But then you've got cash without the hassle of going to an ATM. And if your friends are decent people, they round up, and you've been subsidized. Obviously, this is a winning strategy only if few other friends are playing it and if you are a horrible person who likes to profit at your friends' expense. But we were talking about an economist, right? [More]
I average about enough for one round of Bud lite.

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
 
Pressure from without...

Although farm interests are adamant in reserving the right to dictate their own policy to the government, an array of converging interests seem to be increasing in intensity. These factors may not have time to be fully felt for this farm bill debate, but could certainly color the nature of farm programs considerably over the next decade.
  • The ever-mischievous French. We kinda expect it from farmers like the Danes, but...
France plans to present a "radical reform" of European agricultural subsidies when it takes over the presidency of the European Union next year, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday.

Sarkozy said a major overhaul of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was "indispensable to ensure that this policy once again enjoys legitimacy."

"The French presidency of the European Union will prepare a new political framework for our agriculture in Europe, based on fundamental principles," he said in a speech on agriculture delivered in the western city of Rennes.

France, Europe's agricultural powerhouse and the EU's top recipient of farm subsidies, will take over the rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU in July next year for a period of six months.

Sarkozy's call for reform of EU farm subsidies marked a major shift from his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who steadfastly opposed changes that would inevitably penalize French farmers. [ More]

  • Eroding popular support for farmers in general - even surprisingly, the much beloved agrarian sector.
Michael Pollan's bestseller, The Omnivore's Dilemma, has gotten people all riled up about farmers again. The last time this happened was when the first Farm Aid concerts reminded America that we have strong feelings about the family farm and its economic viability. The new round of farmer feelings is more directly related to issues of trade and the impact of globalization. As Pollan writes:

"I’m thinking of the sense of security that comes from knowing your community, or country, can feed itself; the beauty of an agricultural landscape; the outlook and kinds of local knowledge the presence of farmers brings to a community; the satisfactions of buying food from a farmer you know rather than the supermarket; the locally inflected flavor of a raw-milk cheese or honey. All those things—all those pastoral values—free trade proposes to sacrifice in the name of efficiency and economic growth."

My general feeling about farmers is that they can go f*** themselves. Perhaps this is strong. But farmers also come on strong in their own sort of farmer way. They take a homespun approach but they often wrap themselves up in a hell of a lot of self-righteousness. It all has to do with the land, I suppose, the importance and simplicity of the land. Americans love the simple even if we've been destroying it for generations. A few pithy sayings and we’re eating out of their hands. The farmers. [More]

  • Brazilian lawyers - these guys have tasted victory in the cotton case and see a chance for lots more billable hours.
Brazil will ask the World Trade Organization for a formal investigation of U.S. farm subsidy programs, which it says includes payments for ethanol production, a senior Brazilian official said Wednesday.

The South American country, which has already won a series of WTO rulings over U.S. cotton subsidies, will make its request for an investigative panel soon, said Roberto Azevedo, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry's trade chief.

The dispute could become a major case for the global commerce body, which has largely steered clear of energy issues in its 12-year history. Brazil is a major ethanol producer.

It also could become a hot topic for U.S. presidential candidates as they gear up for primary contests, including voting in Iowa, the state that produces the most ethanol.

"Brazil will have to ask for a panel," Azevedo told The Associated Press.

The two countries held consultations last month after Brazil accused the United States of exceeding the $19.1 billion that it is permitted under WTO rules to spend on the most controversial forms of farm subsidies in six of the past eight years. Brazil also accuses the U.S. of giving illegal export credit guarantees, largely echoing an earlier complaint by Canada.

While most of the measures it questioned Washington about concerned farm produce, Brazil included in its complaint what it called "energy subsidies," which included tax exemptions on diesel fuel and gasoline.

"Ethanol results from agricultural subsidies," Azevedo said. "You don't produce ethanol from rocks or underground. It's derived from agricultural commodities." [More]

All these separate influences could be dissected on their own merits, but it appears to me to be the actions the Adam Smith's fabled invisible hand. Our farm policy impacts the whole world, and the whole world is reacting. Even our reliable domestic political "lovability" may soon be more constrained to smaller, quainter operations. Oddly enough, I think one reason global pushback is picking up steam is because their economies are more and more like ours - market responsive.

Besides, it's becoming obvious farm policy isn't where we need to be. We're now clients of energy policy.

The U.S.' ethanol production capacity will probably total 20.43 billion gallons as of August 2009, up sharply from 6.707 billion gallons as of August this year, due to high profit forecasts and government support, a U.S. commodity risk management consultancy firm said Wednesday.

That means corn consumption for ethanol will total 7.46 billion bushels in the 2009-10 crop year, more than double the 3.62 billion bushels in 2007-08, Bill Tierney, executive vice president of research and marketing for John Stewart & Associates, said during the International Corn Industry Conference in Dalian. [More]

In other words we could win a skirmish on the farm program and be waylaid by the energy bill.

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I don't know art...

But I know what I like. This ain't it.

After trekking for hours across a stark, lunar desert landscape awesome in its harsh beauty, our bus rolled into a former Silk Road waypoint where today's craftsmen still specialize in hand-knotted rugs. We passed through a beaded curtain to see, on the place of honor on the main wall, this: [More]



Woven proof globalization has gotten out of hand.

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Am I missing something here?...

The latest proposal to send me more money is calling for tax credits in order to do an end-around on PAYGO rules.
Landowners who enroll acreage in some land-conservation programs could get tax credits instead of cash payments, under a plan being developed in the Senate.

The proposal by the Senate Finance Committee is designed to free up funding in the farm bill to pay for other agricultural programs.

The tax-credit idea is among $8 billion to $10 billion in agricultural and rural development tax measures that the committee is considering, the committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday.

A Baucus spokeswoman said the committee was still working on ways to pay for the measures. The committee's top Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Ia., has said the panel is looking at earmarking some import duties to fund farm programs.

Under congressional pay-as-they-go rules, any spending increases or tax breaks must be offset by budget cuts or tax increases. [More]

If this works, couldn't it be used for just about any project Congress wants?

This could be budget history in the making.

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Look for a higher cattle market...

A second (suspected) case of FMD in the UK could be a real knee-capper for producers there. If it is confirmed, a nationwide ban on movement will be instituted.
A suspected case of foot and mouth disease has been found on a farm in southern England and the herd in question is to be culled, a government source said on Wednesday.

The return of the disease has raised fears of a repeat of a foot and mouth crisis in 2001 that devastated farming and cost Britain about 8.5 billion pounds. [More]

This could be nothing short of a catastrophe for UK agriculture, which barely had recovered from the 2001 debacle.

The question is begged, why does England seem to be the perennial focus of FMD?

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
 
Do not try this at home...

The participants shown are actually trained stuntpersons on a closed course...

Oh, who am I kidding?

The real meaning of a "case of beer to go".

[via Arbroath]

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Maybe I was born libertarian...

The more I follow current brain research the more creeped out I am about the powerlessness, if not the existence, of free will.
PARIS: Neurons in the brains of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, according to a new study.

Some previous studies have established a link between political persuasion and certain personality traits. Those who define themselves as conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions, for example. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances. [More]
It is hard not to react strongly to the idea we are "programmed" from conception to certain biases. It certainly colors my expectations about persuading others to my [obviously biased] point of view. However, there is a more hopeful side to this discovery.

When people rise above their backgrounds and prejudices, it represents a triumph of the new brain over the old brain. It occurs every day, but only by strength of will. The fallback inherited position of our onboard fears need not rule our actions. The lives of good people everyday offer proof.

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Oh yeah, well I'm more inefficient than you!...

An interesting dialog caught my attention, if only for its perverse ramifications. In order to justify our negotiating position for rents farmers are arguing how long it takes them to grow a crop.

Let's do the engineer thing and throw a few real numbers at this discussion as opposed to words. This is a crude spreadsheet I used to calculate how many minutes of in-the-tractor-seat time I spent to grow stuff. (Sorry, this formats weird when I post it)

Field Labor Requirements 2007










Day length 10 hrs.



Corn Beans
A/Day Min/A A/Day Min/A
NH4 Application 150 4.00
Burndown 400 1.50
Finisher 160 3.75
Planting 200 3.00
Planting 180 3.33



Spraying 300 2.00
Spraying 320 1.88







Cultivating 200 3.00
Harvesting (2 op.) 100 12.00
Harvesting (2 operators) 60 20.00



Chiseling (50% of ground) 80 3.75



Corn Total 39.83 Minutes Beans total 18.38
Corn acres
980
Bean acres 740
Corn time
650.6 hrs. Bean time
226.6







Farm totals





Corn
650.6



Beans
226.6



Misc (mowing etc.)
40.0



Total
917.2 hrs.









Total operators
1.60



Hours /operator/yr
573




If it wasn't obvious, the totals are about 40 minutes for corn and 18 for beans. Your results - as they say - may vary. The purpose of this spreadsheet is to help me make the numbers smaller.

Now this accounting does not include support operations - accounting, marketing, maintenance, etc., but I don't think that is what guys were talking about.


My point is when we brag about how much time it takes us to do our job, we have slipped to the wrong side of the "what's the point" decision.

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Maybe the rich should get all the money...

Boy, they economics of income distribution has hit full crescendo in favor of the wealthy.
Given the top-heaviness of the economy, one could make the case—one could, but I'm not—that the continuing upward redistribution of income is good for the economy and good for all of us. As they earn more, and keep more of their income, the rich and the very rich spend more, thus keeping the growing number of residents of Richistan gainfully employed. The fact that the rich are getting richer is one of the reasons that federal tax revenues—which are much less progressive than they were in 2000 but still somewhat progressive—are growing so smartly, up 7.4 percent year over year. Today, analysts are likely sifting through the jobs report and ratcheting down their forecasts for the Christmas season. It may well turn out to be a glum one for many retailers. But as long as the lights are on in the mansion on the top of the hill, the growing number of stores and businesses that cater to their residents will be busy. [More]
I fall in that despised category. I know, you are not supposed to acknowledge you are "rich", but numbers are numbers. And if a few more farmers would look more closely at their own AGI's we might see a different attitude about what's going "wrong" in agriculture today. Besides, the rich aren't the ones carrying the water to protect our advantages. Amazingly, it's the rank and file of agriculture who stand squarely against estate taxes or payment limits or pretty much anything I think might help level income.

Which leads me to suspect there are more of us in Richistan than even I imagine.

That, and the fact farmers are buying farmland with (gasp!) cash.

[Update: we're not the only ones whose economy seems to depend in the ultra-wealthy]

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Even more bad news...

For big sprayer owners. My shorts aren't as clean as they used to be.
Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean. Not anymore. Our latest tests found huge performance differences among machines. Some left our stain-soaked swatches nearly as dirty as they were before washing. For best results, you’ll have to spend $900 or more.

What happened? As of January, the U.S. Department of Energy has required washers to use 21 percent less energy, a goal we wholeheartedly support. But our tests have found that traditional top-loaders, those with the familiar center-post agitators, are having a tough time wringing out those savings without sacrificing cleaning ability, the main reason you buy a washer.

On the other hand, dryer technology hasn’t changed much in the last 10 years. Plus dryers tend to outlast washers. That’s why we offer buying tips and highlight only dryers that combine performance, value, and reliability instead of showing full Ratings.

Today most top-loaders only get a good washing score, and some had the lowest scores we’ve seen in years. One washer, with an overall score of 19 (out of 100) is one of the lowest-scoring washers in this and past reports. Several major manufacturers are meeting the new energy standard by lowering wash water temperatures. But doing this often lowers the washing performance. [More]

While this information could be used for good, I suspect it will be the leverage needed to switch the old Kenmore for a Bosch.

Boy, nothing gripes me more than wasting $500 for household stuff that could go toward a better stereo in my $300,000 combine...

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It's all about appearance...

Those guys with their fancy-pantsy $250,000 sprayers can eat my shorts when they see this.

I think I'll put one on my WD45 too...

[via BoingBoing]

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It's only a trick if you find out...

Otherwise, it's magic. I have been frankly puzzled by producers who are bound and determined to find a pile of excrement overwhelming the pony of ethanol. Whether some weird "I'm not worthy" mind game is being played out I have no idea, but I do suspect this.

Still the idea that it's all a trick seems to have found traction. While it could be true, the real question is what our response should be to discovering this subterfuge. Here's mine.

The fools who rush in will make out like bandits. Seriously, my lifetime is replete with examples of conservatives being totally used by circumstance. The fear of failure, especially public failure, is an all too convenient excuse for inaction. And those who do plunge into the fire, if nothing else learn more about fire.

[Important Note: This analysis applies to producers, not small ethanol plant owners, who could be so very ummm, "discomfited" in the not-too-distant future]

But I digress. The "Trick" sector just received some "I-told-you-so" confirmation from the OECD.

C'mon, you know. The Organization for Economic Commission... no, no..

The Organization for Economic Cooperative Development...no, that's not it either. Cripes, here.

ANYHOO, as I was blithering, the ethanol miracle has of course been sponsored by your local political process, and as such it is fair game for political commentary.
The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change.

“The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits,” say the authors of the study, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.

The survey says biofuels would cut energy-related emissions by 3 per cent at most. This benefit would come at a huge cost, which would swiftly make them unpopular among taxpayers.

The study estimates the US alone spends $7bn (€5bn) a year helping make ethanol, with each tonne of carbon dioxide avoided costing more than $500. In the EU, it can be almost 10 times that.

It says biofuels could lead to some damage to the environment. “As long as environmental values are not adequately priced in the market, there will be powerful incentives to replace natural eco-systems such as forests, wetlands and pasture with dedicated bio-energy crops,” it says. [More]

Yeah, yeah, been there, heard that. But unless you have been comatose or under 30 for the last decade, you realize that actual, verifiable reality runs a distant second to powerful stories. I offer Iraq and the current belief among Republicans that WMD were found as evidence. Truth is a long-term winner, but a short term way to be mugged.

Hence my full-throttle approach to this ethanol boom, regardless of it's predicted length. While others prepare for Doomsday, I think a better strategy is to scale the highest point from which to (possibly) fall. If we have learned nothing else from recent political action, it is government feels responsible for my personal failings, especially since I am a farmer.

With others working diligently to weave a "safety net" I have not asked for, I plan to exploit (doesn't that sound like a nasty word) the passions of others for patronizing support.

Any rational person would have a hard time justifying ethanol subsidies, but here are not that many "rationalistas" around and they don't seem to have the votes. Adjusting is what democracy is all about.


[Thanks, Greg]

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No upper limit?...

For dairy-illiterates like myself, an article in the current issue of Amber Waves, published by the ERS is a quick-and-dirty short course on current business trends in the dairy industry. I was struck by several points.

First, the cost structure seems to have no limit for economies of scale. The popular belief in grain farming is "small operations can be just as efficient as large". But that is clearly not true in dairy.

Small conventional dairies have higher average costs, 2005

Herd size (milk cows)

Item

1-49

50-99

100-199

200-499

500-999

1,000+

Dollars per hundredweight of milk produced

Gross value of production

17.87

17.56

17.20

17.25

16.56

16.54

Operating costs

12.30

12.94

11.51

11.31

11.07

9.74

Overhead costs

17.79

12.56

9.31

6.61

5.00

3.85

Unpaid labor

10.60

6.10

3.13

1.34

0.54

0.17

Capital recovery

5.26

4.56

3.89

2.55

2.03

1.66

Total costs

30.09

25.50

20.82

17.92

16.07

13.59

Net returns

-12.22

-7.94

-3.62

-0.67

0.49

2.95

Source: ERS estimates


Moreover, ERS suspects the trend continues beyond the current definition of "big".
On average, large dairy farms exhibit better financial performance than small. But ongoing structural change has led to even larger farms, with 5,000 and 10,000 cows. ERS’s financial database is not comprehensive enough to tell whether farms of that size have financial advantages over farms with 1,000 cows, but other evidence suggests that they might.

Finally, as in the post below, it strikes me that support programs are powerless to overcome the economics of consolidation, since this is all occurring as the government pays billions in dairy subsidies. The House version of the 2007 Farm Bill essentially continues current policy, so dairy producers are implicitly embracing the future suggested by the ERS, it seems.

I will be speaking to the 2007 Elite Producer Conference in November. I am looking forward to understanding how these farmers feel about their future.

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Monday, September 10, 2007
 
Much ado about nothing...

Some large places where nothing is.


[via Presurfer]

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Sights for sore eyes...

I stumbled across an interesting blog and wanted to share some great images.



Even though I am an industrial farmer, I respect the images of our heritage and the effort being made to preserve scenes like these. And I believe fervently the market can arbitrate the choices effectively for all of us.

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What will payments limits accomplish?...

As the Senate rouses itself to legislative action after a summer recess, one topic of huge debate is the idea of "payment limits". But in fact, there are two different types of restrictions under consideration.
First, a limit on payments to any given person.
In another news conference Thursday, Grassley explained his motives for reforming the farm programs. "The idea is that when we're subsidizing farmers to the point where 10 percent of the biggest farmers get 72 percent of the benefits out of the farm program, then it's tilted toward subsidizing big farmers to get bigger. And what my legislation also does is put a $250,000 cap (on farm program payments). Now I know to Iowans that still sounds like a lot of money, but this is a compromise that we can get through, getting farmers from all over the country to back it. And get senators to back it." [More]
This type of limit is based, I think, in the egalitarian ideal: "one man - one pile of money". It has appeal to those in the middle, since it would immediately place them on the same level of government favor as the largest operator - something dear to their hearts.

Second, a limit on how much money you can make and still receive any payment.
The current $2.5-million income cap on eligibility for farm program payments affects only a small number of farm program payment recipients each year. A reduction in the cap to $200,000 would affect a larger number of farm households but still only a small share of recipients. Based on IRS tax data for 2004, about 1.2 percent of all farm sole proprietors and about 2 percent of crop share landlords would be potentially subject to the proposed lower adjusted gross income (AGI) cap. ARMS survey data suggest a similar share of farm sole proprietors (1.1 percent) could be affected. When partnerships and farm corporations are included, about 1.5 percent of all farm operator households could be affected because a larger share of farm partnerships (2.5 percent) and farm corporations (9.7 percent) could be subject to the proposed cap. ARMS data indicate that $807 million in payments were received in 2004 by farm operators organized as proprietors, partnerships, and corporations with incomes exceeding $200,000. However, not all of these payments would be affected by a $200,000 income cap on eligibility for payments due to differences in IRS and ARMS data and changes by producers in how they manage their incomes and expenses. The study also found that farm income aver- aged $271,749 and net worth averaged over $1.86 million for farm households with AGI estimated to be over $200,000 based on the ARMS data. [More]
This proposal is much more straightforward: stick it to the rich. It arises from the inherent fairness bias programmed deep within our old brains. As the distribution of income and assets is perceived to be shifting to the tiny number of uber-wealthy, even irrational retribution seems like a good idea.
A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say. Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out "justice", dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher's own best interests. This tendency has been hard to explain in evolutionary terms, because it has no obvious reproductive advantage and punishing unfairness can actually lead to the punisher being harmed. Now, using a tool called the “ultimatum game”, researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for punishing unfairness. Subjects were put into anonymous pairs, and one person in each pair was given $20 and asked to share it with the other. They could choose to offer any amount – if the second partner accepted it, they both got to keep their share. In purely economic terms, the second partner should never reject an offer, even a really low one, such as $1, as they are still $1 better off than if they rejected it. Most people offered half of the money. But in cases where only a very small share was offered, the vast majority of "receivers" spitefully rejected the offer, ensuring that neither partner got paid. [More]
If you are like most of us subsidy recipients, you have been analyzing these proposals in a very personal way: "OK, how can I get around this one if I need to."


Most of us won't have to yet, of course. But the obvious solution in both cases is to become more farmers. Make the wife an operator - and the kids. So one immediate outcome of payment limits of either sort will likely be: more farmers (on the books, anyway). And simple economics tells us the marginal cost to create and maintain these alleged operators will be slightly less than a DCP.
Payment limits will be a huge boost to a) attorneys, b) accountants, and c) "financial advisers" (a vague occupation at best). Limits will have to be brilliantly constructed to survive the onslaught of fevered minds seeking a workaround on commission.

Farmers will, I believe, contort themselves to "protect the downside" and in the process make their operations more unwieldy with artificial entities and bizarre bookwork. They will also hand over most of the government proceeds to the experts who manufacture these constructs.

But a few - an obnoxious few - will accept the limits in the spirit they were enacted and rise above federal control. Once beyond reach of the FSA, they will learn to operate like other businesses do - insuring their own risks and enduring the consequences of nature and decision.
Those will be some scary dudes!


Which leads me to my grand conclusion: Neither limit will grant much relief since they are therapy for a symptom - namely the declining number of farmers and the intense competition to stay in the game. But that is not caused by prices or subsidies nearly so much as this:


This $592,000 machine replaces lots of guys on the old farm. And it is typical of what technology is handing us to work with.
While that number might produce “sticker shock” for some growers, it can be argued — as Deere marketing managers did in Cincinnati — that the machine replaces at least two other pieces of harvesting equipment and one or two tractors (at $183,019 for one of Deere’s new 9230 tractors).

Currently, most producers operate a boll buggy ($70,000 or so), a module builder ($80,000 to $100,000) and at least two tractors with a conventional six-row picker ($300,000 to $325,000).

As Deere’s managers point out, the equipment savings represent only a part of the equation. Both Deere’s and Case-IH’s new module building pickers can reduce the employees needed to operate the equipment from three or four to one.

Deere is also expected to emphasize increased speed of harvesting — the company says operators won’t have to stop to unload the round module — and quality enhancements of the polyethylene-wrapped module when it begins selling the new picker next year.

The latter is expected to help keep more cotton in and moisture out of the module. Deere managers say wet cotton modules can cost growers up to a bale of lint when cotton wicks moisture from the ground. [More]
The problem we are facing - the rapidly decreasing need for warm bodies on the farm - is lightly affected by farm programs and mightily affected by technology. Farming is not rocket science, and hence we are watching much of our work shift to clever machines.

Our problem is actually creating some value machines cannot create.

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Sunday, September 09, 2007
 
Fred and the farm...

So, we seem to have another candidate. One who is furiously trying to don the mantle of Ronald Reagan. He presents an interesting problem for farm subsidy fans.
Fred Thompson's record on spending is generally impressive. Aside from a fondness for Tennessee pork, Thompson was a strong proponent of streamlining government and eliminating waste. When he first entered the Senate, he joined a bipartisan group in sponsoring legislation hoping to put an end to corporate welfare. In 1996, he sponsored legislation to institute a biennial budget that would allow time for the Senate to exercise oversight on the spending process. He also often voted for measures to limit spending and against costly government programs. These include:

* Voted for the line-item veto
* Voted for the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996, which reduced, and aimed to phase out, farm subsidies while diminishing distortions to the agricultural economy
* Sponsored an amendment in 1995 and 1996 against a pay raise for congressional members (though he supported a pay raise in 2002)
* Voted for welfare reform
* Voted against a 2000 amendment that would provide a prescription drug benefit
* Voted against the Farm Security Bill in 2002 that sought to increase agricultural subsidies with market-distorting payments, undoing the progress of the 1996 act
* Voted against $2.35 billion in agriculture assistance

Senator Thompson often joined with a minority of his colleagues in voting to strip wasteful projects from the various spending bills. These include:

* 1 of 23 senators to vote for an amendment to eliminate funding for programs carried out by the National Endowment for the Arts
* 1 of 29 senators to support eliminating $2 million in construction funds for a Smithsonian Institution storage facility for specimens stored in alcohol
* 1 of 26 senators to vote against extending ethanol subsidies
* 1 of 31 senators voting to strike a $2.5 million earmark for coral reef mapping off the coast of Hawaii
* 1 of 24 senators voting to remove $50 million for the construction and renovation of facilities at the National Animal Research Laboratory in Ames, Iowa [More] [My emphasis]

Thompson strikes me as a political opportunist determined to make the most of having no accomplishments as a public servant: You can't be against what you don't know - and Thompson is a bundle of question marks.

Besides, like Ronald Reagan (the new standard of Presidential stature) he is an actor!!! OMG!!

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The next step for autosteer?...

Oh sure, we can simply plumb the GPS guidance into the steering hydraulics, but how much cooler would this be?


Be sure to watch the slightly creepy video.

[via Neatorama]

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Yet another reason to respect the Danes...

For a small country, Denmark has been showing remarkable leadership in the EU and the world as a whole. And it is the home to some of the world's happiest people. Now they are taking a remarkable step to consider at least, scrapping the CAP.
Some Danish colleagues told me recently that the Danish Parliament on 30 May last unanimously passed a resolution requiring the Danish government to propose a strategy for how it would actively work for the elimination of EU agricultural support. The strategy should include a timeframe and plan of activities which should take into account the planned CAP Health Check in 2008 and the review of the EU budget in 2009. The strategy should be presented to Parliament before the end of 2007. [More]

The entire EU is more than a little restive about their byzantine system of farm subsidies, especially after the single payment regime eroded much of the popular support by increasing the transparency of the payments. In fact, even the French are headed for a real moment of reckoning as shortly they will be net payers into the CAP rather than their historic sponge-like participation.
Sometime in the next five years France,
the country that has done the most to
defend a unified European farm policy,
will move from being a net beneficiary of
the CAP to become a net contributor,
paying in more than it is getting out. This
will fundamentally change the outlook
of the French government towards the
‘financial solidarity’ of the CAP. The
new government of President Sarkozy
has already signalled a desire for more
national responsibility for the financing of
agriculture policy. This is code for French
taxpayers paying for French farmers
but not for Spanish, Polish or Romanian
farmers. [More]

How ironic it would be if the most intensely subsidized region of agriculture would become the most reformist. Think of who the US would have to be "not as bad as" to justify our payments. A handful of Japanese rice growers?

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Friday, September 07, 2007
 
We kinda knew there would be a hitch...

In a frank and moving essay (at least for us 50-somethings) Lillian Rubin, writing in Dissent, captures the reality of preparing for retirement only to find the previous generation has first claim on your life.
“I always expected to inherit some money because my parents have been reasonably well off for most of my life. Not rich, but comfortable and careful with money,” explains a sixty-two-year-old college professor. “But now, I doubt it. My father had Alzheimer’s and spent his last years, nine of them, in a nursing home. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through it really understands how terrible that is. I don’t mean just the financial burden, which, by the way, was over three-quarters of a million, but the human cost. Seeing someone you love turn into a thing, not a person, and there’s no way out, it’s just terrible, one of the worst experiences in life.”

He stops talking, visibly moved, struggles to contain his emotions, then brightens. “My mother, bless her, is eighty-two and doing great. She moved into one of those assisted-living places a year or so ago, and before she was there a month, she was already practically running the place. It’s great; it keeps her busy. But it’s very expensive. Even with the money she got from selling their house, if she lives another eight to ten years, which right now seems likely, she’ll use up her money, and my sister and I will have to find a way to pay the bills.
“That’s a big twist, isn’t it? You go from knowing you’ll inherit money from your parents to wondering how you’re going to support them. I don’t begrudge her, don’t misunderstand me.” He hesitates, smiles, then in a voice that mimics an Old West cowboy twang, “Ah’m just tellin’ you the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” [More]
This article is worth reading to the end, regardless of your age. The relentless addition of years to our lives means more years of relative dependence - we are simply outliving our OEM equipment. These additional years are to use the economic euphemism almost always "less than fully funded", especially with the end of defined-benefit retirement programs and the looming possibility of Social Security shortfalls.

In fact, the one program growing to match the longer lifespans - Medicare - is in a way exacerbating the core problem by extending lives even further. Hardly a bad thing.

We think.

The experiences of Boomers caring for our very old parents as described above is doubtless reshaping our own planning. This will reverberate downstream, I believe, particularly in asset-heavy family businesses like farming.

I'm looking for clues to these attitude shifts, and would welcome your own thoughts or concerns. For example, I think Boomers will have an even more difficult time releasing control of assets since the prospect of long, long term disability late in life will require seemingly immense assets.
The average cost of long term care in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and in the home increased over the past year, with assisted living and in-home costs rising more sharply than nursing home care, according to Genworth Financial's annual "Cost of Care" survey. And, in the face of rising costs for all categories of long term care, Genworth found 65 percent of Americans surveyed in a new national poll admit to having made no long term care plans for themselves or a spouse.

The average annual cost for a private one-bedroom unit in an assisted living facility rose 7 percent from the 2005 survey, to $32,294, while the combined average hourly rate for a home health aide for in-home long term care spiked 13 percent to $25.32 per hour. The average annual cost for a private room in a nursing home rose modestly by 2 percent over last year to $70,912. [More]

Given we are a singularly selfish generation to begin with, this excuse will feed right into our historic self-absorption and provide the justification to keep our hands on every penny until we die.

Secondly, I am working to devise a scheme to prevent myself from entering the whirlpool of medical care. Hey, I know it's futile, but there's gotta be a better way to draw the line on life-extending medical care earlier than the now-common do-not-resuscitate orders. I have no idea how that's going to play out.

Furthermore, we need to devise a new or at least updated social contract with succeeding generations. Their retirement will be severely impacted by my longevity. Some trade-offs - economic or otherwise need to be made.

Long-term care insurance (LCTI) has been hard to justify, but perhaps deserves a second look, as the numbers have now changed and odds increased for both men and women to spend some time in a nursing or assisted living facility. I genially despise most all insurance, but do recognize this black swan is becoming more likely every day for me.

The constant philosophical struggle to balance life and wealth is not getting any easier. Guidance from our religious and social traditions may only carry us so far compared to the new horizons technology (medicine) extending before us today.

In the end we are faced with a pretty stark question: How much life can we afford?

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The engineering is convincing as well...

After a lifetime of familiar and well-deserved complaints from the person who cleans our bathroom (hint: not me), I persistently return to the obvious optimal solution: a urinal. I am not alone.
My contractor, obviously, thought this was the best idea anyone had ever come up with, and immediately went shopping with me for a classy, retro porcelain model, the kind you can saunter up to in a tux and slap a highball on. But then my neighbor, Holly Purcell, a very successful real estate broker, informed me that I absolutely could not install a urinal of any kind if I ever hoped to resell my house. Noting my confusion, she slowly explained that urinals, to my shock, gross women out. [More]
Joel Stein is foremost a humor writer, but his analysis of this situation borders on insightful, probably because it matches my thinking so closely.

America, at this crucial period in history needs more problems-solving creativity like this, and a lot more support from the mavens of interior design for utilitarian solutions.

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007
 
Nothing to do with Zambrano's last starts...

Why do girls "throw like girls"? Surprisingly it's not because of physical limitations or differences.
Readers who are happy with their throwing skills can prove this to themselves in about two seconds. If you are right-handed, pick up a ball with your left hand and throw it. Unless you are ambidextrous or have some other odd advantage, you will throw it "like a girl." The problem is not that your left shoulder is hinged strangely or that you don't know what a good throw looks like. It is that you have not spent time training your leg, hip, shoulder, and arm muscles on that side to work together as required for a throw. The actor John Goodman, who played football seriously and baseball casually when he was in high school, is right-handed. When cast in the 1992 movie The Babe, he had to learn to bat and throw left-handed, for realism in the role of Babe Ruth. For weeks before the filming began, he would arrive an hour early at the set of his TV show, Roseanne, so that he could practice throwing a tennis ball against a wall left-handed. "I made damn sure no one could see me," Goodman told me recently. "I'm hard enough on myself without the derisive laughter of my so-called friends." When The Babe was released, Goodman told a newspaper interviewer, "I'll never say something like 'He throws like a girl' again. It's not easy to learn how to throw." [More]
This really good read should be mandatory for all fathers with daughters.

And men in general.

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Rethinking manufacturing - and farming...

An outstanding article in the WaPo (as linked by Cat0@Liberty) reset my conviction we are on our way to very few manufacturing jobs in the US.
The United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation -- three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry. Between 1977 and 2005, the value of American manufacturing swelled from $1.3 trillion to an all-time record $4.5 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

With less than 5 percent of the world's population, the United States is responsible for almost one-fourth of global manufacturing, a share that has changed little in decades. The United States is the largest manufacturing economy by far. Japan, the only serious rival for that title, has been losing ground. China has been growing but represents only about one-tenth of world manufacturing. [More]
Color me surprised. I had acquired the hazy notion US factories were disappearing - not changing industries. The real problem is the same one facing much of our profession as well: the jobs with a future in the US are jobs requiring highly skilled workers.
During the most recent decade, U.S. manufacturing has become increasingly oriented toward the middle and upper ends of the value-added spectrum. Opportunities abound for workers with skills or the willingness and wherewithal to acquire them. In fact, the title of the National Association of Manufacturers tenth annual Labor Day Report on the state of U.S. manufacturing is “Rising Incomes Cushion Economy,” and its subtitle is “Finding Highly Skilled Workers Remains a Challenge for Manufacturers.” It seems to me that rising wages should make more workers willing to get the skills, and the need to find highly-skilled workers should induce manufacturers to assist on the wherewithal front.
We are pretty soft-spoken about educational standards or training requirements in agriculture. In fact, highly educated entrants into farming are often resented by colleagues as usurping a role that should be "reserved" for those who work hard and and possess more humble but admirable attributes. I mean, those guys could be doing hotshot jobs in the city, instead of displacing less qualified farmer wannabes. Indeed a significant number of present farmers are farming largely because they were not interested in educational challenge of occupations requiring degrees or other formal training.

Nevertheless, I believe developments like the human resource needs in manufacturing are being mirrored in agriculture. In addition, the subsequent quantum leap in capital management skills needed, wild volatility, and rapid adoption of technology combine to select for farmers with a much wider and deeper knowledge base and skill set. In fact, the current boom (Why didn't I grow some wheat this year?) could make farms capable of bidding for the fabled "best and brightest" along with other professions.

This sounds like a good idea until you realize we are becoming more intensely competitive at the same time. Having the "b & b" farm next to you is somewhat more sobering if you yourself are merely good and bright.

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007
 
I notice they don't do it in February...

This month conscientious consumers are eating local: consuming only things grown within 100 miles - thus saving humongous amounts of energy and pollution.

Maybe.
At its extreme, the 100-mile diet means no coffee, no spices and no chocolate. Most people don't go that far, but they do embrace buying food grown and raised locally where possible.

Freshness, energy conservation and contributing to the regional economy are among the reasons people offer for buying local food. It's a growing trend across the country. [More]
I think this is a wonderful idea. Jan and I relish eating "local" from our garden (ahem - Jan's garden) when vegetables are ripe. But unlike the many farmer's market fans, I don't see the need to denigrate the old supermarket, which oddly enough almost everyone counts on to be there 24/7 offering produce of all kinds every day.

Contextor likewise is troubled.
Estimated sales at farmers markets rose from $888 million in 2000 to $1 billion in 2005, according to a 2006 USDA survey.

There are now more than 4,300 markets nationwide -- an 18 percent increase from 1994 through 2006 -- where local farmers sell directly to the public the fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy and baked goods they have grown, raised, caught and made.
Wow! $1B! Contextor ponders the enormity of that number. Then Contextor thinks, "How much do we spend overall for food?" The answer: Americans spend $484 B per year in "food stores". Contextor takes a wild guess and uses 50% as the amount spent on food (as opposed to toilet paper and diapers and aspirin and light bulbs and...) and decides that the growth in farmers markets (about $100 million) is far less than the growth in food sales in total (about $10B). Farmer's markets will have to grow at PRC-like rates to just keep up.

Still, fresh local produce is a wonderful thing. We just don't need to badmouth the old reliable WalMart. Remember the temps could soon be -20°F.

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Cancel the cemetery plot, Edna...

Remember your gym class pyramid? Well, it's not too late to join in. (Of course, you'll still be on the bottom)

The Great Pyramid can potentially be any human being’s grave or memorial site. As monumental as it is affordable, it serves those of all nationalities and religions. Individuals who are either unwilling or unable to have their physical remains buried there can also opt to have a memorial stone placed instead. Stones can be custom designed with any number of colors, images, or relief decorations. The Great Pyramid will continue to grow with every stone placed, eventually forming the largest structure in the history of man. Outlasting personal physical existence is something that the Egyptian pyramids could promise only a few, but this pyramid is open to every individual. Rather than hastily burying one another or allowing our ashes to be scattered, as a small stone in the pyramid we can remain part of our species’ constantly shifting and ever-expanding tableau. [More]
Just another one of those "if-every-Chinese-would-eat-a-Big-Mac-every-month" schemes. Somehow the sheer size of 6+ BILLION people confuses us into thinking we can actually persuade more than twenty or thirty to do anything. If this thing gets larger than a Iowa gym, I'll be surprised.

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Monday, September 03, 2007
 
You call yourself a soprano?...

Sing this.

[Update: I realized after the fact this post gave no other information so here is the link to explain the recording. The voice is Mado Robin. The note is D4 above high-C - the highest sung note ever recorded]

[via Presurfer]

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Older is better...

Yeah - that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
There's no news like bad news. The tabloids are full of accidents, gory murders, and mayhem, and people eat it up. But there may be a silver lining, at least for seniors. A new study finds that the human brain reacts less strongly to emotionally negative stimuli as we age, in effect making us more responsive to all things positive and less responsive to the dark and dismal. This bolsters a growing body of evidence showing that aging changes how the brain reacts to emotional stimuli. [More]
As farms across the US (and the globe, for that matter) struggle with succession issues, understanding how different-aged minds work is crucial to establishing working rules and family harmony. In fact, as we see astonishing leaps in longevity, incorporating the point of view of the older partners can offset perhaps the up-tightness too often the plague of mid-career farmers.

Another reason not to move to PHX.

[via 3Quarks]

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Profiting from propheting...

Amateur forecasters - here is your homepage.

[via Marginal Revolution]

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Why the "safety net" may be a tougher sale...

Farmers - or perhaps our public relations consultants - have wisely realized we need to repackage our previous versions of "victimhood".

It is relatively hard to ignore charts like this and plead for government entitlements. (But not impossible - I should note.)
"We believe farm policy should support agricultural production and not some subjective and social goals," Stallman, a Texas rice farmer and president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said after the appearance. [More]
This is an interesting remark, seeing as it abandons any pretext of ag payments being deployed for reasons of fairness or humanitarian aims. In the case of corn production, it is also howlingly wrong. My $24 DCP has virtually zero effect on my 2008 crop plans - especially since I get it whether I produce any corn or not. At current prices, corn subsidies do not affect corn production, period.

With per acre gross incomes in $700+ stratosphere, the DCP for corn farmers is vacation money or as we have seen, "new paint money".

It appears in the face of hard-to-disguise prosperity, aid advocates are falling back on our old reliable nemesis: the EU. "We have to pay our farmers because those Germans are getting mucho dinero!" Of course, one problem with this argument is EU farmers aren't the competition. In fact, for a change, foreign competition is less of a factor, since wheat is short everywhere as the rush to fuel crops bids acres away here and abroad. Wheat has always faced strong EU competition since Northern Europe's natural advantage is cereal crops. But even wheat looks like a gold mine now.

And of course, while we are fixated on the EU CAP, our strongest competitors are places like Brazil. We seem determined to fight the foe we prepared for, not the one that really exists. How very French.

In fact, the only crops really, really desperate for support are cotton, rice, and sugar - a fact Mr. Stallman and the largely southern-facing AFBF understand well.

However, it will take firm control of facial muscles to look an America with 47 million citizens without health insurance and argue over-indulged guys like me need a "safety net" - but not potato farmers and certainly not other citizens such as umm, non-farmers. And I think the old "all the other kids are getting a subsidy" argument may be where we are going.

This will work right up until Pres. Bush gives the farm (subsidies) away at the WTO.

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I became a farmer because of a comet?...

I have developed an abiding interest the dawn of agriculture, and this idea certainly makes for fascinating pondering.
There is little doubt that a megaflood of glacial meltwater cascading off the North American continent into the Atlantic Ocean spurred the birth of agriculture and civilisation in the Middle East around 12,900 years ago. What was not known until recently is that this event, known as the Agassiz megaflood, may have been triggered by a comet exploding above or plunging into the ice sheet north of the modern Great Lakes.

According to two geologists at the University of Oregon, Dr Douglas Kennett and Dr Jon Erlandson, there is reason to believe a large chunk of a comet exploded above or crashed directly into the Laurentide ice sheet, rupturing the ice dams on the easterly margin of Lake Agassiz and causing frigid water to flood into the North Atlantic. [More]

I just ordered the book cited in the article: The First Farmers. Expect a review in a couple of weeks.

Or whenever I post the three others I have half finished.

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Sunday, September 02, 2007
 
Must...resist...posting...

Oh, what the heck. If you haven't seen it already, here is what happens when your mind goes blank and your mouth isn't told.


I was not going to post this - I genuinely felt sorry for the young woman. But she may be experiencing a William Hung flirtation with fame, which may or may not be a good thing in itself.

But most amazing is the website that fired up immediately to capitalize on this "maps for South Africa" blithering: mapsforus.org

Here's a sample of what you can find there:


The lesson here (if any) is how fast the Internet responds to any cultural stimulus. Don't tell me newspapers have an answer to this.

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Imperialist? Who me?...

Boy, it is difficult to look at Africa (for the most part) and not wonder if a more enlightened colonial rule wouldn't give a better outcome. Say what you will about the English in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) but at least the economy functioned and corruption was held to a genteel level. And the farms produced.
Mugabe will go but it will take decades for the Zimbabwean society to rid themselves of Mugabe fostered environment of corruption, greed and selfishness. Its common knowledge that the delivery of basic services in Zimbabwe is dependent on your political allegiance and who you know. Even if Mugabe has gone the corruption culture is deeply interred in the edifices of the structures that MDC will inherit when they get to power. A mechanic at CMD (Government controlled motor vehicle repair service) drains petrol from a government vehicle and sells it on the black market leaving the tax payer to pick up the bill. A state security agent stationed at Harare Airport waves in goods imported by his friends without paying import duty preventing the government to earn money to use to improve people's lives. A policeman stops a driver on suspicion of drink-driving which is an offence in Zimbabwe, his suspicions are correct the guy is over the legal limit to drive instead of arresting him, he accepts a bribe to turn a blind eye again denying the government a chance to earn money through fines that in turn could be used to improve the police deliver better service for its citizens. A utility company ignores the official waiting list for anyone with a better colour of money, so a provision of land-line telephone depends if you are prepared to bribe. For many Zimbabweans stealing from the government is ok they view it a victim-less crime not knowing that delivery of service depends on it and that they the tax-payers are stealing from themselves. [More]
Not so with the unceasing tribal self-destruction and institutionalized gangsterism that passes for government today in too many African nations. All of this would be simply a cause for rock concerts if it was not for the timing.

In one great global coincidence, the urgent need for energy, improving incomes in China and India, climate change, and the failure of African governments are combining to create a perfect storm for food production.
The threat of a food crisis is exacerbated by fears over energy security, with many countries opting to plant biofuel crops in place of traditional food crops. India, for example, has pledged to meet 10% of its vehicle fuel needs with biofuels.

Andres Arnalds, of the Icelandic soil conservation service, said the pressures on food production would have knock-on effects all over the world because of the international links in food supply.

Mr Campbell said: "If we can improve agricultural practices across the board we can dramatically increase our food production from existing lands, without having to clear more or put more pressure on soils. Simple things like good crop rotation, sowing at the right time of year, basic weed control, are what is needed. They're very well known but not always used." [More]
We need more output of calories from every arable acre, and we can scarce afford to lose any more of those acres. Without significant improvement in growing and allocating food resources, untold millions especially in Africa will perish.

The trouble is for those of us in the First World is simply getting past the incomprehensible bloodshed in places like Darfur. Establishing political structures to allow economic development seems hopeless without de facto occupation and colonial rule. This admittedly could be a nostalgic mirage, as we have learned in Iraq. The natives aren't quite as cowed by guns and technology as the good old days.

The failure of poor-country governments is not universal, of course. Many, especially in Asia are booming and raising the standard of living of their citizens. But in what is almost becoming digital in outcome, the losers are losing everything. Africa is moving the wrong way.

Colonialism is not a modern option of course. But it would be wrong to ascribe only base motives and mercantilism as the impetus behind the British or similar empires. India, Jamaica, and the good ol' USA have much to show for their period of colonial rule.

We are today forced to play with the cards we have been dealt, but the cost of losing more acres where they can hardly be afforded along with increasingly inhuman loss of life leaves the West with the option of watching a wretched end and writing off part of the globe, or intervening in a more vigorous way than we presently can stomach.



[Thanks, Greg]

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Saturday, September 01, 2007
 
This is for Jan...



My current wife and major Taco Bell fan.

[via Neatorama]

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Sometimes things go right...

To my resounding gratitude and amazement, my upgrade to faster satellite broadband was accomplished with only the now-standard "Son-of-a-Vista" difficulty. I was able to get online with the first helpline call to "Mark" in India (I'm guessing) and he rectified the issues that were not covered in the instructions because they don't have Vista versions out yet.

Vista never lets up, guys.

Anyhoo, I am now clocking about 1.4 Mbps vs. 700 kps previously (as clocked by PCPitstop.com). That's download, by the way - I still am only about 200K up, but even that is noticeably faster. All in all, it's the best $20/mo. [ProPlus] I have spent in a while.

This may be the only answer for many of us in rural America. It looks like the telcos have found ways to avoid providing broadband to the last few percent of us. And frankly, I'm OK with that. We are so few, and our tradition of expecting urban folks to pay for services comparable to theirs is way past its sell date.
As population density drops outside of metropolitan areas, it's impossible for telecommunications companies or cable service providers to justify the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile it can cost to bring fiber to every rural community, let alone every home. The result: Today, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service, according to the Government Accountability Office. And a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the U.S. dropped from fourth in the world in broadband penetration in 2001 to 15th place in 2006. Communications infrastructure is widely seen as the biggest driver of economic growth, yet 21% of Americans — the nearly 60 million people who live in rural areas — are often underserved. [More]
While cheap access to broadband would arguably help many lower income rural residents, the number is so tiny and the odds of big returns so small, I think satellite or WiMax is enough alternative.

Sprint has bet their future on WiMax, so I will be keeping a close eye on developments there, along with my son Jack, who works in the industry.
Working together with Intel, Motorola and Samsung, Sprint Nextel will develop a nationwide network infrastructure as well as mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices. These efforts are intended to allow Sprint Nextel customers to experience a nationwide mobile data network that is designed to offer faster speeds, lower cost, and greater convenience and enhanced multimedia quality.

The Sprint Nextel 4G mobility network will use the company's extensive 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, which cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets - the most of any wireless carrier in any single spectrum band. To access that network, Sprint Nextel will work with Intel, Motorola and Samsung to incorporate WiMAX technology for advanced wireless communications and help make chipsets widely available for new consumer electronics devices, connecting consumers to the Internet and to each other while providing them with the flexibility to do what they want or need to do regardless of time or place. [More]
I think we can all guess who is in the 15% not covered.

Broadband will be our own responsibility, and maybe a real badge of honor for small, independent rural tel-coops who have invested and whose customers are the fortunate winners to date.

It could also be we will look back and recognize that the international broadband competition was essentially lost because of our firm refusal to back one solution for all.


[Thanks, Aaron]

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Time is apparently full...

Blogging will be a little sparse as I just pulled some 22% ears out of a field, and I'm not really sure where my combine is.

Let's be careful out there.

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

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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.

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