I’ve been busy and thus ignoring the outside world (though I hear there was some kind of a protest?). So, just links:
Crooked Timber has more discussion of the “unpaid forced work for the unemployed” plans. Notably:
Doesn’t every country implement a scheme like this every once in while, when they have forgotten it didn’t work the last time?
The problem is always the same: if the work were worth doing (after paying for management and training and capital etc.), you should hire people in normal jobs for it. If not, you are simply firing people to re-hire them as Workfare.
On the other hand, if the work is not worth doing, you are cheaper off if just let people sit at home, where they can check the job advertisements and mind their own kids.
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Switzerland seems likely to vote in a law allowing deportation of EU nationals convicted of crimes.
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Did everybody see Laurie’s article on Katy Perry’s magic breasts? Not
entirely
fair to Katy Perry, but entertaining enough that I don’t much care.