Anyone still confused about the degree to which the Harper government’s paranoia has penetrated the deepest recesses of the federal public service must read this article.

If satire isn’t dead, it’s on life-support at the moment. This tale outdoes Charles Dickens, and it’s not made up. But Dickens does set a kind of context:

[T]he Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. —Little Dorrit

The Citizen was interested in current research about how snow falls (there are still mysteries to be plumbed, apparently), and contacted the National Research Council, which has been involved with NASA in a joint study. The word “runaround” doesn’t begin to describe what happened after that. This was more like a lengthy game of hide-and-seek.

Thanks to NASA, which willingly offered up in formation as soon as it was requested, the reporter was able to put together a story nevertheless. The icing on the cake, however, was the response by National Research Council staff to the Citizen report:

A plaintive little note circulates within NRC the next day: “NRC is mentioned only in the last para (i.e. paragraph of the article), but with no mention of our science contribution.”

That’s all right, a staffer commented, because the newspaper never really wanted information on NRC anyway.

Just another month in the bowels of Harperia, where such folies à plusieurs are the new normal.

[H/t Dan Gardner]