Improper Use of Government PC's--Northern Ireland

Bureaucrats in Northern Ireland got themselves into trouble by using government PC's to edit wikpedia. See this article

Using Government Computers

I've not followed up on the Pigford flap of 2 weeks ago. Based on links a reader graciously sent me, it seems that the rules for PC/internet usage generally follow those for the phone: personal use permitted on a limited basis, provided you use your common sense (work comes first, use during personal time, don't run businesses or distract co-workers).

So, is the woman in VA in trouble? Maybe, maybe not. Seems to depend on how close she came to lobbying Congress. My reading would say that, if she had gotten an email expressing a political opinion (for or against the war, etc.) she would be in her rights to send it on to a friend. Multiple addresses and more direct criticism of Congress would be questionable.

Will be interesting to see what the "independent investigator" appointed by Administrator Lasseter comes up with, and whether Congress buys it.

The Revenue Option

The House version of the farm bill has an option for producers to choose between the current program structure, where payments are triggered by, and computed based on, the amount by which national prices for the crop is less than the target price for the crop. That is, if wheat has a $4 target price, and farmers get $3.75, there's a $.25 per bushel payment. (Lots and lots of specifics ignored in this summary.)

The option would say, if wheat has a $4 target price and the national yield target is 25 bushels (being unrealistic to make for easy computation), the expected revenue per acre is $100. So if the national prices for wheat and the national actual yield are such as to make the actual revenue $10, there's a $10 per acre payment. See these links for more specific discussion:
Brad Lubben at U of Nebraska.
and U Of Illinois extension

I can think of lots of complications, particularly as the bill is written to make this a one-time option. But then, since I've left USDA, FSA has had experience with one-time options, so maybe I'm wrong about the complexity.

Another View of Local Food

It's always instructive to see what's going on in other countries. We (Americans, humans?) so often think that we are the embodiment of wisdom. Anyhow, I question Bill McKibben and his dedication to local food (thought I did--it may be one of my unfinished draft posts). But here's how some Frenchmen do it (along with some nice pictures, once you get past the introductory logo).

As long as I'm on the French, my impression is that in both Britain and France people tend to go to the store very often, even daily. It's the epitome of local food--the bread is baked, the meat is butchered daily, the refrigerators are small, so you practice "just-in-time cookery". Very different from suburban and country patterns here, where you make one big shopping trip a week to stock up, have big refrigerators, etc.

Bureaucrat as [Biased] Umpire II

In contrast to the Will piece on Froemming (see prior post) the New York Times reports an academic study (somewhat similar to the previous one on NBA referees) which shows umps biased in favor of their own race.

"Specifically, an umpire will — with all other matters such as game score and pitcher quality accounted for — call a pitch a strike about 1 percent more often if he and the pitcher are of the same race."

Apparently the bias would seldom affect the game, particularly as umpires are less biased when the situation is tightest (and not biased at all when the new electronic device that checks their accuracy is running).

Bureaucrat as Umpire

George Will writes of the glory of the umpire, focusing on Bruce Froemming, the ump with the longest career:

"Consider Sept. 2, 1972, when Froemming was behind the plate and the Cubs' Milt Pappas was one strike from doing what only 15 pitchers have done -- pitch a perfect game, 27 up, 27 down. With two outs in the ninth, Pappas got an 0-2 count on the 27th batter. Froemming called the next three pitches balls. An agitated Pappas started walking toward Froemming, who said to the Cubs' catcher: "Tell him if he gets here, just keep walking" -- to the showers.

Pappas's next pitch was low and outside. Although he did get his no-hitter, the greater glory -- a perfect game -- was lost. Another kind of glory -- the integrity of rules [emphasis added]-- was achieved."

That's one cardinal virtue (and vice) of the bureaucrat, upholding the integrity of the rules.

Economists Reinvent the Wheel

Brad DeLong is an interesting guy, a former Clinton bureaucrat, an economics professor, and prolific blogger. He posts a handout for an economic history class to be given this fall. There's lots of formulas and logic, but I'll excerpt the two key pieces:

The Puzzle:

"In the context of Economics 113—American Economic History—we have a
definite puzzle: it was Britain that was ahead in technology and was where
technology was moving ahead the fastest in the first half of the nineteenth
century, and yet it was America that appears to have had the fastest perperson
economic growth. According to eh.net, British growth in real GDP
per capita averaged 0.50% per year in the first half of the nineteenth
century; American real GDP per capita growth averaged 0.86% per year
from 1790-1850.1"

The Conclusion:

The westward expansion—the Erie Canal, the steamboats, expulsion of
Indians from the near midwest and the inland southeast, et cetera—thus
looks absolutely key to the form that economic growth took in pre-Civil
War America.

(The reasoning involves looking at capital, natural resources, level of technology, and labor.)

Seems to be that was Turner's "frontier hypothesis" of American history.

Office closing--miscellaneous articles

Office closing--on Long Island--take the ferry to Connecticut is one alternative.
Closing ten offices in NE approved by Johanns--apparently he has no further political ambitions in his home state. And 16 in Georgia.

I'm still not seeing news of closing of NRCS offices at anywhere near the same rate as FSA. I don't know why--whether they aren't doing as much or it's not as controversial. The FSA mythology had the soil conservationist driving around to his clients so it might well be that office closings don't rate the notice. Why should I care whether the conservationist drives 20 miles or 40 miles to my farm?

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Via Marginal Revolution, here's an amazing set of pictures.
See also here.

Disaster Waivers

Much of the regulation on government is well-intentioned (maybe even all of it) and has a purpose. We can argue about whether the regulation is wise or effective. But as I thought after Katrina, and said in this very blog, there ought to be two sets of regulations--one that applies in ordinary times, another for emergencies.

Government Executive reports:

The Homeland Security Department inspector general is urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency to streamline information sharing to help law enforcement agencies locate missing children, registered sex offenders and fugitive felons during disasters.

A report released by the IG this week showed that after Hurricane Katrina, law enforcement agencies struggled to get information from FEMA that would have helped them track down missing children and criminals. Among those missing after the storm were 5,000 children, more than 2,000 sex offenders and a number of fugitive felons.