After finally (I hope) resolving the connection issue I was having with the site, my weekly column at GuildMag has been posted. I’d started to work on the big beta aggregation post, but when I lost connection to the site, I couldn’t keep updating that post. Much (but not all) of the overflow now gets wrapped up in the weekly column along with the usual assortment of blog posts, videos, and podcasts.
March 30, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
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Best — and most accurate — TV show ever on parliamentary government to return after 24 years
We’re talking about the return of Yes, Prime Minister:
The great satire of British bureaucracy, Yes, Prime Minister, is to return after 24 years away from our TV screens. The original scriptwriting duo of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn has already turned in their first plot, says UKTV, which has has commissioned the show to be broadcast on UK Gold. The BBC originals, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister ran from 1980 to 1988.
[. . .]
The original series was spookily prescient about today’s mandarinate. Last year The Spectator‘s political editor estimated that only four out of 22 elected ministers are actually in charge of their departments — the rest are run by the permanent government of the bureaucracy. Four may actually be on the high side.
The Thick of It portrays a world in which spads (special advisors) and spin doctors are in charge of policy-making — a view promoted by Westminster journalists, who are flattered by the depiction. But the news cycle actually has little do do with long-term policy-making.
Now, more than ever, the bureaucracy marches to its own internal rhythm, and quietly determines policy on issues as diverse as Europe, the environment, and criminal justice.
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The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) finally solved
In a twist that will delight conspiracy theorists everywhere, it really was a CIA plot:
In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.
For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.
The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France.
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Looking ahead to the next federal budget
In the Globe and Mail Economy Lab, Stephen Gordon thinks he can accurately predict the overall shape and content of the next budget:
The main features of the expenditure side of next year’s 2013-14 federal budget should be fairly easy to predict:
- Transfers to persons will be about 4 per cent of GDP, and future projections will be consistent with this share.
- Transfers to other levels of government will be about 3.2 per cent of GDP, and future projections will also be consistent with this share.
- Direct program spending will be at or just above 6 per cent of GDP, and this share will be projected to decline throughout the forecast horizon.
The reason we can make these predictions with a certain amount of confidence is that these paths were set out by the Conservative government several years ago, and they have shown little sign of wanting to deviate from them.
Even if they wanted to — and it can be fairly imagined that they do — cutting transfer programs would generate a certain amount of political blowback from the people and provinces that are on the receiving end. The Conservatives have doubtlessly concluded that limiting the rate of growth of transfer payments to that of the economy — which is the same as keeping them at a constant share of GDP — is probably the most restraint they can impose without incurring lasting political damage.
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