Steve Earle -- Without Comment

More on the Honduran Coup

Andrew Sullivan provides a sampling of opinion across the spectrum. It appears that this coup is in many ways similar to the Venezuelan situation in 2002. Societal elites are pushing back, through the military, on an increasingly populist and left-leaning government that is attempting to directly engage social movements in government.

It also captures the tragedy that dogs revolutionary movements. The changes themselves are a legitimate expression of a yearning for justice by oppressed people. And not surprisingly, they are bitterly opposed by those who benefit from the status quo. Yet overcoming oppression almost inevitably results not in justice but in new and often worse abuses. In Latin America, Cuba is the paradigm example of this, but it also plagued the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, and Chavez in Venezuela. And despite the high hopes for the Morales presidency in Bolivia, it is likely a danger there as well.

Democracy Now's take on this

Not Sure What To Make of This

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office is reporting (pdf) today that the current estimate for the actual cost of the TARP program, originally budgeted at $700 billion will in fact cost taxpayers about $159 billion. And about a third of this will be accounted for by the GM and Chrysler loan/bailout program.

At the same time, it is clear that large banks, eager to forestall or avoid increased regulation, have begun paying back TARP funds before effectively cleaning up their balance sheets, an effort aided by changed accounting rules that ease fair value requirements. In other words, the much lower cost of TARP quite likely does not reflect the much higher higher level of toxic assets remaining on bank balance sheets.

Indeed, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney remains bearish, reminding us that the health of the financial sector is largely the result of public sector largesse (and accounting smoke and mirrors). So where are we? I for one am not quite ready to commit to the market again. I may miss the initial gains, and am happy to do so. But I remain a skeptic.

Madoff is a Fool -- The Smart Criminals Get Bonuses

So Bernie Madoff was sentenced today to 150 years in prison. He will undoubtedly spend the remainder of his days in a cell, albeit a comfortable one. Yet the ending is almost biblical -- by sending Bernie away we expiate the guilt of a whole class of fraud artists who are once again receiving record bonuses.

Madoff swindled about $60 billion in an unabashed ponzi scheme that used incoming "investment" to pay returns to earlier contributors. Like all such schemes, it seemed, according to Madoff's testimony, to arise incrementally rather than by some grand design as these things so often do.

I guess it is sort of like selling CDS's that are inadequately funded, securing short term gain (and massive bonuses) at the cost of longer term consequences that must have been understood as potentially catastrophic. A more sophisticated scam, in other words, but a more morally defensible one? Probably not.

Honduras Coup

The news of a coup in Honduras has been widely reported. What has not been as carefully covered is the reason for the coup, which appears to be an upcoming non-binding referendum on a Constitutional Assembly which would re-draft the country's constitution. It would also open the way for re-nationalization of several industries and cement a progressive turn in the countries politics.

Not surprisingly, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Bolivia voiced strong protests, while U.S. concern was much more muted. You can follow events on the coup at the Narco News blog.

John Gray on the New Atheism

John Gray, who describes himself as a skeptic, has another take on the "new atheism" which he sees as simply a variation on the theme he described in his book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.

The lecture can be found here

Rent vs. Buy?

Some fun from Dilbert (ht Calculated Risk)

They Shout Jump and We Ask "How High?"

On Tuesday, Canada's key IT security providers announced a joint security task force:

A group of five Canadian IT associations have joined forces to launch a national security research group in an effort to advance the country’s cyber security strategies.

The Canada Advanced Security Initiative will develop a study, survey and workshop program to develop a new strategic vision for the security industry in Canada and its ability to support users at home and abroad.

This is on the heels of Security Minister Peter van Loan's announcement of a cyber security initiative for Canada in which he compared security concerns to "a new arms race." For a government that seems unable to comprehend economic threat, these folks verge on paranoia regarding crime and terrorism. And of course the security industry is ready to belly up to this new trough.

For those who want a more balanced and less breathless evaluation of the cyberterrorism and cybercrime threats might wish to read Evgeny Morozov,s article in the current Boston Review. Morozov, a fellow at George Soros' Open Society Institute, writes on the role of the internet in authoritarian societies. His concern in this article is that governments, encouraged by providers who would profit, are insisting that

[t]he age of cyber-warfare has arrived. That, at any rate, is the message we are now hearing from a broad range of journalists, policy analysts, and government officials. Introducing a comprehensive White House report on cyber-security released at the end of May, President Obama called cyber-security “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” His words echo a flurry of gloomy think-tank reports. The Defense Science Board, a federal advisory group, recently warned that “cyber-warfare is here to stay,” and that it will “encompass not only military attacks but also civilian commercial systems.” And “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th President,” prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggests that cyber-security is as great a concern as “weapons of mass destruction or global jihad.”

Unfortunately, these reports are usually richer in vivid metaphor—with fears of “digital Pearl Harbors” and “cyber-Katrinas”—than in factual foundation.

But of course, whether true or false, they represent opportunity. Thus

Cyber-security fears have had, it should be said, one unambiguous effect: they have fueled a growing cyber-security market, which, according to some projections, will¬†grow twice as fast as the rest of the IT industry. Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, among others, have formed new business units to tap increased spending to protect U.S. government computers from cyber-attacks. Moreover, many former government officials have made smooth transitions from national cyber-security policy to the lucrative worlds of consulting and punditry. Speaking at a recent conference in Washington, D.C., Amit Yoran—a former cyber-security czar in the Bush administration and currently the C.E.O. of NetWitness, a cyber-security start-up—has called hacking a national security threat, adding that “cyber-9/11 has happened over the last ten years, but it’s happened slowly, so we don’t see it.” One way for the government to protect itself from this cyber-9/11 may be to purchase NetWitness’s numerous software applications, aimed at addressing both “state and non-state sponsored cyber threats.”

So much of the so-called war on terror has been about the erosion of freedoms. Yes freedom involves risk, but it is worth recalling the dictum that those who would trade freedom for security inevitably end up with neither.

A New Watchdog for CSIS?

In an op-ed piece in today's Globe & Mail, Maher Arar calls for more effective oversight of CSIS in the wake of yet another case of Abusfian Abdelrazik. It is worth noting that the Globe was force to close of comments on its site regarding Arars piece because of the abusive nature of comments being made

Abdelrazik, a dual Sudanese-Canadian citizen has been held in a Sudanese jail for years as a suspected terrorist despite being cleared by both Sudan and Canada and despite a judges order to return him here. Arar argues that what this and many other similar cases indicate is a need for vastly more effective oversight of the activities of CSIS as well as the RCMP. It is telling that a judicial inquiry into his own case made such recommendations in 2006 that have yet to be acted upon.

As Arar argues

Canadians deserve to know why so many of this country's citizens, all of Muslim background, have been imprisoned and tortured abroad. Human-rights organizations, activists and national-security experts have been calling for the current government to establish the credible oversight agency that was recommended by Judge O'Connor several years ago. Their calls have landed on deaf ears.

How many more victims will it take before our government realizes that it needs to act? If the government had established this agency, Mr. Abdelrazik could launch a complaint upon his return. The time required for him to get answers and justice would be much shorter. For taxpayers, it would be a much cheaper alternative than a full-blown federal inquiry.

The Harper government has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to score cheap political points and acquiesce to every American demand rather than protect the rights of the citizens it represents. It is one more reason that it is time for this government to go.

And Speaking of Paternalism . . .

In an example of breathtaking bureaucratic paternalism, Health Canada apparently withheld supplies of hand for remote native reserves during the recent swine flu outbreak because it feared the abuse of the alcohol based compound. As a report in yesterday's Globe & Mail notes

Kim Barker, public health adviser for the Assembly of First Nations, told the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples she was “devastated” when she first heard that health officials were spending precious time debating the wisdom of sending hand sanitizer – which can contain up to 70-per-cent alcohol – to the communities.

“We heard that ... people were spending days discussing the pros and cons of a non-alcohol-based hand sanitizer versus an alcohol-based one because of the concerns about addictions in communities,” she said. “It was absolutely outrageous.”

A senior health official confirmed to the committee that chiefs and public-health officials debated the sanitizer issue at length in the nascent stages of the outbreak last month. “The discussion was with the best interests of our clients in mind,” said Anne-Marie Robinson, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch. “We have had some rare experiences in our communities where we have had theft of hand sanitizers. … We do have communities where we have large proportions of people who suffer from addiction. … We have had a number of people come forward, and some evidence, where this could potentially put people at risk.”

During late May and early June, the mild flu outbreak erupted into a full-blown crisis on several of Manitoba's remote fly-in reserves. Dozens of flu-stricken aboriginals had to be flown from a collection of towns in the Island Lake region, 600 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, and several were hooked up to respirators. At one point, two-thirds of all flu victims on respirators in the province were aboriginal.

What can I say?