Traffic Control in Korean Restrooms

Can't resist blogging this from my cousin's Olympic blog:

"That gives us just enough time to hit the restrooms. I don't think I've mentioned them so far, but they are worthy of mention. Korea is one of the most technologically based countries on Earth so I guess that it is no surprise that the toilets have more buttons on them that seem possible. But did you know that they have a sort of air traffic control board in the front of the restroom? A video monitor shows you which stalls are open and whether each stall has a western style toilet or a traditional "squat" toilet. I can't speak for the women, but I notice that the men don't pay any attention to the video board and will often stand waiting at a closed door when the board says that there are clearly open stalls. The other interesting thing is that the women who clean the restrooms don't give you any advanced warning when they go in to clean, they just barge in."

Appalachian Religion

This seems totally wrong, but I swear I got it from a tweet by Lyman Stone, who comes off as pretty knowledgable on both Appalachia and religion. But I can't find the tweet again.

"Statistically, Appalachia is one of the *least* religious places in America. It's as secular as a college campus in California."

PDF's and Forms

A bureaucrat loves her forms, and so in the current climate, loves her PDF's.  Here's a piece at Motherboard on the development of the PDF.

Big Issue: Shape of the Table

I remember when the US and North Vietnam spent  months negotiating over the shape of the table at which to conduct peace talks in Paris (1968).  It may be an issue for the Kim Jong Un/ Donald Trump talks (i.e., is it strictly bilateral or does South Korea want a representative, and if SK is in, how about China and Japan--one of the papers had a photo of the 6-sided table China constructed for the last time there were negotiations, six-party negotiations.

It's All in the Name

My mom would get very aggravated about margarine.  I vaguely remember her kneading coloring into the white brick, so it must have been at the end of WWII, when butter was in short supply and presumably my parents broke down and bought margarine as the cheaper, available spread (might have been rationed).  Despite living on a dairy farm, we didn't make our own butter.  A ban on selling margarine colored to look like butter was just one of the measures dairy farmers took across the country to limit its inroads on their market, and not just in the U.S., but in Europe and Canada as well.

Identity is big in food.  France and the EU fight hard to preserve the cachet of champagne, which can only be produced in Champagne.  Such fights over cheeses and other foods are  old hat.  More recent are fights over things like "soy milk" and "almond milk".  And the controversy over "organic" including hydroponic vegetables.  And the latest controversy  is "clean meat", which is meat produced in the lab/factory from cell cultures.

Regulatory Costs and Benefits

I'm a little confused here. Something called E&ENews noted: "The White House Office of Management and Budget on Friday evening released its annual report on the costs and benefits of federal regulations, showing that the benefits of major Obama-era rules far exceeded the costs."

Vox caught the release, and went on to do an extensive analysis here. It's all good and heart-warming for a retired bureaucrat who believes that regulations can do good. They do.

But--when Vox links to the report, the link goes to the E&ENews site and brings up the : "2017 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Agency Compliance with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act".  I briefly looked and didn't find it on the OMB/whitehouse site, but it may be there, well-buried.

Googling for the title of the report brings up a Forbes piece, combating the Vox analysis in part.  I disagree with the thrust of the writer's analysis, which says that "final rules" should be considered in the analysis, as opposed to "major" rules.  It's a sad fact that the threshold for the major rule is obsolete, when one looks at its history (which I've done but don't remember writing up--someday maybe).  I seriously doubt that considering final rules would change the overall picture. He's on somewhat better ground to doubt how concrete the cost-benefit analyses submitted to OMB are.

Towards the end of the Forbes article there's a little discussion of the process of submitting this report to Congress--interesting for a nerd like me, but disconcerting for anyone who believes in simplistic pictures of how the government operates.

"The Bureaucrat You're Looking For?"

"My family and I have lived in Reston since 2001. My experience with the RA is probably just like the average RA Member’s. I’ve asked its blessing in buying, selling, and improving my homes. I’ve been dragged before the Design Review Board to straighten a few things out. Two sons were RA lifeguards. I am an FCPS substitute teacher and a Fairfax Dept of Family Services Volunteer. Mainly, though, I am a proud bureaucrat. I know from experience that cooperative bureaucracy is greater than the sum of its parts. As a Foreign Service Officer for over three decades, my own specific work fit the big picture of representing our country and advancing our national interest in Washington or at U.S. embassies abroad. When I then ran two embassies, it was my job to forge consensus among different USG agencies to promote common policy. I’m the bureaucrat you’re looking for"


How can I not vote for this candidate for the Reston Association Board? Both a sense of humor and a proud bureaucrat.

(From the candidates statements here.)

Free Speech Issues

Interesting analysis here of poll data over 1972-2016 querying whether speakers with specified views should be allowed to speak.  Americans seem to be supportive of free speech across the board, and have gotten generally more supportive over the period.  When divided by their political views, the more liberal people seem to be more supportive.  The writer sees this data as undermining the idea that liberal snowflakes are limiting free speech on campus.  I think that's stretching it a bit--too much variety in the U.S. and too much possible ambiguity in the definitions.  Still, it's interesting.

Shame on (Some) USDA Employees

Turns out the OIG found some USDA employees were using government computers to access inappropriate material on some websites (i.e., porn).  This week USDA is blocking access to some 400 sites, including Facebook and Twitter.  (I assume those employees authorized to post on the USDA Twitter and Facebook sites will still be able to.)

Good Thinking by Congressional Republicans?

Govexec reports on the resignation of a Treasury tax expert, who apparently struggled with the job of writing regs to implement Trump's tax cut law.

But some parts of the law as drafted “were not well thought out,” Trier, a Treasury veteran from the 1980s and later a New York lawyer who consulted to congressional committees, was quoted as saying. Trier revealed that people looking at pieces of the new law sometimes asked him whether lawmakers could have reasonably meant to write it the way they did. “We’re going to have trouble with about half the legislation if we apply that standard,” he said, according to the Journal. 

Implementing a big bill is always difficult, but it sounds as if the GOP gave the bureaucrats a more difficult job than usual, a job likely to be complicated if Congress can't agree on passing a technical corrections bill to fix some of the problems. 

I wonder whether Treasury will be able to live with the 2 for 1 regulation mandate of the administration when implementing this?