The UK's Approach to IT

I've posted before, but not recently, about the differences between British and American governmental use of IT.  Briefly, as would be implied by the UK's civil service setup, the Brits are much more uniform, much more top down, while the US is (excessively) fragmented and siloed, much more bottom up.

Here's the website of the Government Digital Service:

• Going on the road to spread the gospel "we're here to help" to the field and "local authorities" (i.e., no states here)
• They have a Service Toolkit.
• Something called "roadmaps" (i.e.high level graphic representations of IT systems?)
• Clear writing training.

FSA Reg Writers Breathe Sign of Relief

From an OMB document on procedure for the 2 for 1 regulation:

" In general, Federal spending regulatory actions that cause only income transfers between taxpayers and program beneficiaries (e.g., regulations associated with Pell grants and Medicare spending) are considered "transfer rules" and are not covered by EO 13771. Additionally, an action that establishes a new fee or changes the existing fee for a service, without imposing any new costs, does not need to be offset; nor does an action that establishes new penalties or fines or changes those already in existence."

 The way I read this most if not all FSA regulations are excluded.

Prediction for a Democratic Congress: Reverse Congressional Review Acts

This article on the President's accomplishments notes that several of the bills he's signed into law are revocations of regulations as provided by the Congressional Review Act. The CRA provides if the Congress revokes a regulation, the agency cannot later issue a new regulation on the same subject.  There is an exception, however: Congress can specifically authorize the agency to regulate the subject.

My prediction is this means that CRA revocations will become like the Mexico City rule (no federal money for population control info):  each new administration (change of control of Congress) will result in legislation switching the revocations.  That is, when the Democrats regain control of Congress they'll pass a law(s) authorizing agencies to reissue the regulations killed this spring by the Republican Congress.  An interesting question: under the Administrative Procedure Act would the agencies be able to bypass the proposed rulemaking process if the regulation is reinstated verbatim?

Farm Bill Time

Congressional Research Service has a report apropos of the 2018 farm bill.  This is an excerpt from a table of the projections and actual expenditures under the current law.

Farm Bill Titles (sorted)

		Projection for FY2014-18	Share	Actual FY14-16; Proj. FY2017-18	Change since enactment
IV	Nutrition	390,650	79.9%	364,837	-25,813
XI	Crop Insurance	41,420	8.5%	30,533	-10,887
II	Conservation	28,165	5.8%	24,378	-3,787
I	Commodities and Disaster	23,555	4.8%	36,040	+12,485

And What Do You Really Think?

"In short, the problem is Trump’s personality. His presidency doesn’t suffer from a failure of ideas, but a failure of character."

That's from an article in the National Review--color me dumbstruck.

Organic Dairy

Extension has a long and detailed study of an organic dairy operation, favorable in most respects, but this jumped out at me:

"Compared to when he was farming conventionally, Joe finds that organic farming requires 50% more labor and twice as much management. Describing his farm as organic by design, Joe continuously evaluates and adjusts his farming practices, striving to design a system where everything works together."

Does conventional production agriculture substitute capital (i.e., machinery and inputs) for management?

Not Truly a Divided Country

Three of the blogs I've followed for a long time are: Kevin Drum, Life on a Colorado Farm, and Northview Dairy.  

They're in California, Colorado and New York; Kevin's a liberal, the two farm women are more conservative (though they don't mention politics much).   Kevin seems to be urban, the other two rural.  So you assume they don't have much in common?

Wrong.  All three of them like photography and photography of hummingbirds, as you can see by the links above.  Kevin, however, has the advantage of  a new and expensive camera, but all three appreciate the same thing.

The Possible Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles

Via Technology Review here's a good review of these impacts from Ben Evans.

The Wooing of the Powerful: Swamp Creatures Attack

Too lazy for links today but two comments on the wooing of the Trump administration:

• the Pentagon is wooing Jared Kushner by one of the best tricks in the book: take him on a trip to Iraq.  The academics say the way to create friendship is for people to engage together in an effort towards a common objective.  Nothing better than a trip to create togetherness, which is one reason why teleconferencing can never fully replace the real thing.  Remember that Clinton and McCain bonded together when as senators they went on trips and drank vodka together?
• the Chinese are wooing both Kushner and Trump, partly through the vehicle of Henry Kissinger.  A comment in the Post story this morning was to the effect that Chinese knew about dynastic politics, since President Xi is himself the son of a founder. 

No Purity Here

I agree with Jonathan Bernstein's lecture to Democrats on what their priorities should be, notably creating primary challenges to Heitkamp and Manchin as lowest.

I've no problem if my senators Kaine and Warner support Gorsuch--if you can't win a fight, IMHO there's not much point in fighting.