QuickNews, Friday, Nov. 20.

Everybody's Business is a Sarah Palin-free zone.

CANADA'S AFGHAN DETAINEE SCANDAL

OTTAWA CHOOSES TO SHOOT MESSENGER

SIMILAR ALLEGATIONS BY NGOS DATE BACK TO 2007

 

Top photo: Canadian Afghan detainees. Below, right: Richard Colvin, former Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan, since reassigned to the U.S., who testified this week that Canada is complicit in abuse, even torture, of detainees handed over to the Afghan National Army, and that Canada's highest military and diplomatic officials have known this for years. Below, right, Peter MacKay, defense minister during the period of abusive treatment described by Colvin, sought yesterday to discredit Colvin. "His entire testimony is suspect," MacKay said. Yet in harsh Commons questionning, MacKay acknowledged it was Colvin's many secret cables warning of abuse that triggered Ottawa overhaul of hand-over procedures.

AFGHAN DETAINEE SCANDAL | Ottawa rejects widespread calls for public inquiry. Ex-diplomat Colvin's explosive allegations touch MacKay, former chief of defense staff Rick Hillier, top Foreign Affairs department mandarins. Tories better hope Colvin is a fantasist, as they yesterday depicted him, otherwise we have a government-defeating cover-up conspiracy on our hands. This is not a new development. Canadian officials discussed torture issue as early as 2006. Amnesty International among NGOs sounding early alarms, back in 2007, about abusive treatment of ISAF detainees, including those handed over to Afghan army by Canadian forces.

Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker. The House has narrowly passed a healthcare reform bill. Now it's the Senate's turn. 

CLIFFHANGER | Historic U.S. Senate healthcare reform vote set for tomorrow. Will be a close thing. First vote scheduled for 8 p.m. Reid is recounting heads every few hours as blue-dog Dems and moderate Republicans waver. Dem pollster Mark Mellman, in session with Senate Dems, reminds them of Dem loss of Senate after 1994 healthcare initiative died. Quoting Ben Franklin, Mellman says: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Call for party unity hasn't worked so far, not likely to this time either, even in rebuke to party's leader, Obama. Will come down to individual conscience - a chance to make history, or set back healthcare reform another 15 years.

OPRAH TO QUIT SHOW | Will announce today end of talk show in 2011, 25th year. World's first African-American woman billionaire wants to focus on entrepreneurial interests. LA Times has speculation on biggest winners and losers from long-rumoured decision. If nothing else - and she's done a great deal of good - Oprah will be remembered for popularizing reading with Book Club. And GM will miss her for all those free Pontiacs she gave away to entire first-day audience awhile back.

EUROPE'S FIRST FULL-TIME PRESIDENT | Meet Herman Van Rompuy, Belgian PM. EU chooses obscure figures for first president and first European foreign minister. Drives me nuts. Tony Blair's a lightening rod, I get that. But these two compromise candidates - neither of them widely known in Europe, never mind world stage - won't be the dynamic figures to rally Europe as a scold on Darfur or Iranian nukes, to create first pan-European armed forces so America needn't intervene in Balkans and other parts of Europe's backyard, or to contend with strong egos of a Sarkozy or Merkel.  

OBAMA REJECTS MAMMOGRAM REPORT | Will still fund tests for 40+. Government-appointed panel had recommended no mammograms for under-50s, finding them - and even self-examination - a pointless source of anxiety. Panel has since backed off own counsel, buckling under controversy. WaPo columnist bemoans missed chance to cut healthcare costs. NYT column on ritual of self-examination. Meanwhile, pap smears should begin at 21, OB-GYN group says.

SWINE FLU SNAFUS | Americans annoyed about vaccine distribution. So Canadian media not alone in playing up alleged Canadian concern about line-ups. Complaints flooding into CDC HQ in Atlanta.

CHINA BUBBLE | U.S. bond maven Bill Gross warns China economy overheating. Stimulus and rapid infrastructure spending will drive up prices, already triggering irrational exuberance. Consumer spending a disconnect with real incomes.

SACRAMENTO, NEW CAPITAL OF ONTARIO | Energy-hog big-screen TVs to be discouraged here too. Once green-conscious California does it, Ontario officials acknowledge, we're obliged to follow suit.

HIZZONER'S HIGHER AMBITIONS | Rudy to run for U.S. Senate. Will he represent Empire State or War on Terror State?

WHO KNEW? | New Yorker's Calvin Trillin on "Canada's national dish," poutine. Huh? Okay, the goopy mess is migrating west from Quebec, but Timbits still rule, no? Magazine also spends quality time with hyper-picky Michelin arbiter of restaurants and hotels.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it." -James Agate, British theatre critic.

Courtesy The New Yorker.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

QuickNews, Thursday, Nov. 19.

CANADA'S DISGRACE?

AFGHAN DETAINEE SCANDAL | Probe sought in alleged abuse of Afghans detained by Canadian forces. High-level diplomat astonishes Commons committee with assertion of routine abuse, even torture, of Afghan detainees turned over to Afghan National Army. Norman Spector, former high-ranking PMO official, argues for full inquiry - strange bedfellow with NDP demanding same. Meanwhile, U.N. today declares Afghanistan the world's worst country in which to be born.  

 

Afghan detainee with Canadian troops in Kandahar.

CANADA LAGS IN SOLVING YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT | Richard Branson backs report released today in Toronto. Australia, Britain, U.S. all doing a better job in addressing youth joblessness.

CANADIAN HEALTHCARE COSTS TO HIT RECORD HIGH | Crisis is common to all affluent nations. Search is on in Canada, U.S, Europe, Japan for greater efficiencies, more emphasis on preventive medicine.

CANADIAN RETAILERS POISED FOR BIG HOLIDAY DISCOUNTS. Economy still soft. Jobs and income drought prompt merchants to promote lower-cost items, cut prices to bone on must-have kids' requests to Santa.

CREDIT CARD RELIEF? | Flaherty unveils voluntary code of practice for credit and debit card issuers, so merchants can determine lowest-cost transaction fees and pass savings on to customers in current highly competitive market conditions. Visa, Mastercard, et all are studying non-binding code. Resistance likely futile, though. Non-compliance, with federal election in the offing and Tories wanting to appear consumer-friendly, will only provoke feds to make the changes mandatory rather than voluntary.

Muslin pilgrims from more than 160 nations converge on Mecca's Grand Mosque, among the 2.5 million Muslims who make the annual hajj pilgrimmage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in western Saudi Arabia. Photo: Mahinud Hams, AFP-Getty Images.

NEXT GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS IS DEBT | Britain vows budget surplus in four years. Obama acknowledged this week that debt-reduction is a must to avoid double-dip recession. Just the same, two prominent U.S. deficit "hawks" say inflation not yet a problem.

U.S. FORECLOSURES STABLE BUT HIGH | One in seven U.S. homeowners faces foreclosure or delinquent. Especially hard hit are Florida, California and pockets of Midwest, where previous record housing boom was most pronounced. Congress and administration likely to push early in New Year for additional homeowner assistance with renegotiated mortgages and direct subsidy relief. Not much hope for recovery in broader consumer economy until distressed homeowners are able to keep their homes and jobless rate stops rising.

9/11 TRIALS | WaPo's Ezra Klein is short and sweet on why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in NYC. See later post.

INDIA AFFLUENCE | Forbes reports doubling in Indian billionaires in latest Forbes 400 ranking of world's weathiest people. David Olive, who again failed to make the cut, would have ranked higher than his 32,639,038th spot had he and Gus's power bill not skyrocketed from all this blogging.

INDO-CANADA TRADE PROGRESS NEGLIGIBLE | Harper's recent did little to advance the cause. Globe's John Ibbitson's back-to-back reports on necessary steps for stronger trade ties with emerging South Asia economic superpower.

AUTO SAFETY | Ford, Subaru and Volkwagen take top honours in insurance-industry safety ratings.

NOT SO FAST | VW declared world's largest carmaker. Maybe so, for large part of this year. But VW counts entire production of minority-owned affiliates, while former No. 1 Toyota does not. Also, Toyota cut production in half for first six months of 2009 as its key North American and home market in Japan collapsed. VW will soon lose its crown as Toyota brings idled production back onstream. Indeed, its increased production in this year's second half may yet see Toyota City triumphant for 2009 as a whole.

 
 
SOUTH AFRICAN SPORTS DRAMA |  South African runner Caster Semenya (above, left) to keep medal. Her gender tests following 800-metre gold medal victory in world championships will be kept confidential, South African sports ministry says today. Irish incensed at dubious goal by which France secures World Cup berth in South African games next year. Watch the video and decide for yourself. Here's list of the final 32-nation line-up for World Cup, in which U.S. once again qualifies and Canada once again doesn't. Brilliant Irish deserve better outcome, columnist argues.

INTERNET MILESTONES | Wikipedia, iPhone among 10 turning points, tech journal says.

NORTH KOREAN OVERTURE | Obama, in Seoul, extends friendly offer to North over nukes. U.S. president wants to work with Pyongyang toward nuclear free Korean peninsula. Music to ears of South Korean leadership, which has financially supported Hermit Kingdom for years and sought peaceful co-existence.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY SUMMIT? | Disorganized Ottawa hasn't settled on venue for G-20 next year. Mandarins are trapped in in pre-G-20 mindset, when soon-to-be defunct G-8 could have met at likes of Deerhurst Resort. But much larger, less intimate G-20, for which Canada has ostensibly selected the Muskokas as the venue, will inevitably end up in Toronto - for which neither Ottawa nor Toronto have prepared. Time to study this year's London and Pittsburgh G-20 summits for tips on accommodating 20 heads of state, their advisers and security details. 

DUBIOUS HONOUR | Will Farrell declared most overpaid actor. Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey also made Forbes' top 10 ranking of actors whose compensation far exceeds their films' box-office proceeds. As noted here earlier, Hollywood is currently turned off A-list actors for this reason.

DUMB BLONDE | Kate Moss criticized for encouraging anorexics. Waif-like British supermodel, 35, says in interview she subscribes to motto found on many pro-anorexia websites, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." I'm guessing we can trace "dumb blonde" jokes back to the first woman of fair hair who said something this stupid and uncaring.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "He had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife." -Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition. 

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

QuickNews, Wednesday, Nov. 18.

 

 Checking out big-screen TVs at Best Buy, Elk Grove, Calif. Photo: Rick Pedroncelli, AP

CALIFORNIA CRACKDOWN ON ARENA-SIZED TVs | Power-hungry sets could be banned. Golden State, long the U.S. eco-trailblazer, now considering ban on sale of all but the most energy-efficient TV sets.

CARNEY IN NEW YORK | Canads's most credible economic expert talks reform tomorrow. Central banker with harsh words lately for half-measures is bound to detail substantive reforms all nations must take to avoid repeat of financial crisis. Wall Street won't like Mark Carney's calls for bigger capital cushions and restrictions on risk, but it will listen up. Canada will be one of two nations heading up development of global reforms package.

HELL FREEZES OVER | Goldman Sachs apologizes for role in global financial meltdown. CEO Lloyd Blankfein also pledges $100 million (U.S.) per year to help small biz, tiny fraction of Goldman bonus pool already set aside for 2009. A PR exercise, of course, but I think this is the first apology from anyone on Wall Street for triggering near-repeat of Great Depression. (Photo: Chip East, Reuters.)

ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEX EDUCATION A FLOP | STD rates still growing, says CDC. U.S. to reconsider Bush-era sex-ed focused exclusively on abstinence, without providing guidance on safe sex.

ANTIBIOTICS CRISIS | Over-prescribing has raised bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Docs say they're now resorting to earlier generations of antibiotics and to compounds they know of only from what's been written about them.

LIFE IS A MARATHON | Why fitness relieves anxiety. But doesn't reduce weight.

TEMPLE MOUNTS | Harper's Indian photo-ops a transparent bid for Indo-Canadian votes at home. PM's greatest-hits tour of India's most famous temples does nothing to advance Canada-U.S. trade and other issues. But the home audience of 1 million Indo-Canadians - especially those in swing ridings - might be impressed, Harper hopes. (Photo: Stephen Harper at Amritsar's Golden Temple yesterday.)

SQUIGGLY UPDATE | Iggy reverses again, maybe he will whip caucus on gun registry vote. After rumoured spine transplant by Rae, who if there was a god would be Grit leader by now, Ignatieff decides earlier decision to allow a free vote on dismantling the long-gun registry the Grits created and cops find essential might not be good plan, after all. But for rural Grit MPs who hate the registry, just wait a day, I expect Iggy isn't done pivoting on this one.

EXIT STAGE RIGHT | U.S. administration pushing for early sale of GM stake. Bankrupt only a few months ago, GM could be in good enough shape to regain stock-market listing by next year's second half. If the economy recovers. If N.A. vehicle sales abuptly pull out of unprecedented slump. If buyers like the look of GM's newest models. In other words, don't bet on a GM IPO in 2010 - but kudos for the ambitious goal.

LESS CROWDED SKIES | Delta and fellow SkyTeam members want JAL link. Meanwhile, British Airways negotiating merger with Iberia.

RAIL COUP | Bombardier close to landing huge SNCF contract. Deal could amount to 800 regional and commuter train sets for France at total value of almost $13 billion (U.S.). (Photo: Bombardier-built regional train at Rouen station in northern France. By Boris Maslard, Reuters.)

CANDID OBAMA | Warns of double-dip recession, hints 9/11 suspect will get death penalty. The first comment, an acknowledgment that indefinite deficit spending could cause a downturn, is a sop to the Johnny-come-lately fiscal conservatives in Republican camp - where were they when Bush was running up record deficits? Latter is a sop to Chicken Littles who fear Big Apple may become terrorist target again with criminal trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan rather than military trial at Gitmo.

PROFITS BAROMETER | Winners: Metro, Gas Metro. Losers: Tembec, Sears Canada.

GASSING UP | TransCanada forecasts 60% leap in pretax profit by 2013. Never mind current global gas glut. Company is predicting a 70% hike in natural gas demand over next decade with its increased use in generating power.

CANDY CONTEST | Hershey and Ferrero may try to outbid Kraft for Cadbury. Betting has to remain on the much bigger Kraft, which opened the bidding. Trust-controlled Hershey and private Ferrero don't have nearly the same access to acquisition financing. But savvy for Hershey to team with a Euro-partner, as EU Commission is bound to have a say in this.

BURIAL RITES | Coal producers' best hope is sequestration. But technology for burying CO2 is unproven, and scorned by environmentalists who worry about underground migration. Industry's only high cards are America's super-abundance of coal - Appalachia is the Saudi Arabia of coal - and fact that half of total U.S. power is generated by coal-fired plants. 

CARBON SINK SUNK | Oceans struggling to absorb greenhouse-gas emissions.

FOUNDING FATHERS ON CLIMATE CHANGE | Ben Franklin and the boys worried about it too. Lively debate among America's earliest leaders about abrupt warming and cooling of climate, and speculation about causes.

CASH FOR CAULKERS | Why not replicate successful "cash for clunkers" with home repairs? Idea has Obama's tentative support, as part of job-creation strategy that kicks off early next year.

IRAN RENEGES | Backs off earlier pledge to relocate uranium stockpile to Russia. Not sure what mullahs' game is here, except to extract friendlier deal from Western nations increasingly impatient with Tehran. With Iraq quieting down and Obama crafting exit strategy for Afghanistan, and existing members of nuke club like India hostile to new members, Tehran is playing with a weaker hand than it imagines.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? | Translation firm makes sure baby's name not embarrassing in other tongues. At steep fee of $1,678 (U.S.), London-based Today Translations expects to attract mostly celebrity parents. Like, for instance, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and daughter Suri, whose name means "pickpocket" in Japanese, "turned sour" in French, and "horse mackerels" in Italian. (I don't know what a horse mackeral is either.)  

QUOTE OF THE DAY | “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret. We apologize.” -Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, in a Tuesday speech at a corporate conference in New York.

 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 2 edition.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

 

 

America, where "socialized medicine" flourishes.

"Do you really want to have your future and your life and your health in the hands of the Washington bureaucracy?" -Newt Gingrich, Fox News interview, June 10.

A newsflash for the former U.S. house speaker and his kindred spirits now demonizing "socialized medicine" in the current U.S. debate on health care reform.

More Americans are covered by "socialized medicine" than the entire population of Canada.

Uncle Sam already is the primary healthcare provider in the U.S., covering about 100 million people - or one in three Americans.

If you're a senior in the U.S., Uncle Sam insures you for healthcare costs with Medicare.

If you're poor, the taxpayer insures you for healthcare costs with Medicaid.

If you're handicapped, the U.S. taxpayer provides you with healthcare coverage through Medicaid.

If you're a child of a working-class family whose income is modest but too high for Medicaid eligibility, the taxpayer covers your healthcare through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

If you're a military veteran, the taxpayer covers your healthcare costs through the Veterans' Administration.

If you're incarcerated your healthcare is provided by the state. This includes drugs, dentistry and chiropractic and other physiotherapy.

The two affluent nations with the biggest networks of government owned and operated hospitals are France and the United States.

In America, veterans are treated at VA and Pentagon health facilities at home and abroad.

These include some of the finest hospitals in the U.S., such Walter Reed Army Medical Center; the Bethesda Naval Hospital; and the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, formerly the Battle Creek (Michigan) Federal Center, renamed in honour of three future U.S. senators treated there for injuries sustained in the Second World War.

One of the biggest and most highly advanced hospitals in Germany is the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near the U.S. Ramstein Air Base, owned and operated by the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense.

Dwight Eisenhower was a recipient of taxpayer-funded healthcare his entire adult life.

Health care services are provided to the U.S. prison population at on-site clinics and nearby hospitals, some of them privately operated, but with the bill paid by the taxpayer.

The U.S. prison population is the world's largest, in absolute numbers and percentage of the population. At the start of 2008, 2.3 million American adults were incarcerated, or one per cent of the total population. The People's Republic of China was second, with 1.5 million people imprisoned. But with a far greater population than the U.S., China's incarceration rate was 18 per lower than that of the U.S.

Charles Manson has been a recipient of U.S. taxpayer-funded healthcare for 38 years. Should he serve his entire U.S. prison sentence, Conrad Black will have received U.S. socialized healthcare for six and a half years.  

Canada does not have the pharmacare that U.S. seniors, veterans and imprisoned criminals do. Canada does not have pharmacare, period. Nor does our Medicare system cover dental bills or chiropractic services. In Ontario, our Medicare doesn't even cover an eye exam. The spectacles themselves, at $400 to $600 a pop, are paid for by the patient, not the government.

But in the U.S. a serial murderer gets the trifocals he needs and the $4,000-a-month course of medicine his condition requires, care of taxpayers in Florida, Texas and New Hampshire.

In short, more Americans are already covered by "socialized medicine" than any country in the world but Japan.

True, France and Britain cover everyone, and the U.S. does not. But France and Britain each are about one-fifth the population of the U.S., with just over 60 million people each. Medicaid alone covers 47 million Americans; Medicare another 43 million people. Roughly one-third of Americans are covered by "socialized medicine."

Indeed, Uncle Sam is the key player in all major aspects of U.S. healthcare.

The federally funded U.S. National Institutes of Health finances the primary research on chemical compounds from which Big Pharma derives those that show the most promise of becoming commercial drugs.

The federally funded Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention in Atlanta sets the world standard on pandemic assessment and control. The federally funded Food and Drug Administration sets the world standard on which proposed new drugs boast sufficient safety and efficacy to be released to the market.

The U.S. debate today on healthcare reform is not about further socializing an already heavily socialized U.S. system. It's about trying to make sure the private insurers who cover those Americans who don't fall into the above groups treat their clients fairly.

It's about ensuring that private insurers stop trying, usually with success, to renege on their obligations. That they stop denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, "cherry-picking" only the healthiest payers of high and rising premiums. And that they stop putting an annual or lifetime cap on claims.

Next time someone asks you for an example of an elaborately socialized healthcare system, point them to the U.S.

As it happens, those parts American medicine that are administred by government bureaucrats are those with which Americans are happiest, especially the single-payer Medicare program, dating from 1965. Which is why a majority of Americans favour a new government health insurer (the so-called "public option") as part of the current healthcare debate.  

Oh, I left out a U.S. group that also benefits from "socialized medicine." That would be politicians, especially at the federal level.

Incorporated in the compensation of elected officials are taxpayer-paid premiums for first-class healthcare. Every Republican and blue-dog Democrat in the U.S. Congress who waxes indignant about the imminent socialization of American healthcare is a recipient of socialized healthcare. And very happy to be so.

I think the term for those folks is "hypocrite." I can think of some others - "heartless," "dumb as a plank," "chutzpah," "no sense of irony" - but this is a family paper.

If they were honest, those alarmist elected officials would surrender their gold-plated health-insurance benefits as they seek to deny decent coverage for low- and middle-income Americans - the hard-working taxpayers who foot the bill for a socialized American healthcare system from which they alone are excluded.

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 16.

LEADERS ON TOUR | Harper in India, Obama in China. Harper acknowledges Canada's trade with emerging Indian economic superpower is embarrassingly tiny. "Between us, our combined GDP is well on the way to $4 trillion. Yet at the moment we are only doing $5 billion worth of business per year. Where we are today is not where we ought to be." Obama, in Iowa-style town hall in Shanghai, describes liberating wonders of the Internet, a hint at Beijing repression he'd rather not dwell on tomorrow in tete-et-tete with Chinese president Hu Jintao, where the topic will be the debilitating trade imbalance between the U.S. and China. Paul Krugman convincingly explains once again here how China's artificially depressed currency effectively steals jobs from rest of world. Meanwhile, China has detained activists to squelch criticism prior to Obama's arrival.

  
 
Harper hails India as "South Asian tiger" in address to Mumbai business audience. (Photo: Rafiq Maqbool, AP.) Obama town hall with students in Shanghai. (Saul Loeb, AFP.)

APOLOGIES | Britain and Australia apologize for deportation, mistreatment of "Home children." Practice begun in 19th century, extending into 1900s, saw thousands of British orphans, runaways and other troubled children sent to Canada, Australia and other existing and former U.K. colonies, where often they were abused and used as slaves, including on Canadian farms.

GM COMEBACK | Troubled giant's 3Q losses lower than expected. CEO Fritz Henderson vows GM to begin paying back loans from Washington, Ottawa and Queen's Park as early as December.

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Canadian military leader insists progress being made. Arrival of Obama's extra troops, mostly deployed in treacherous south where Canadian forces are, has enabled Canadians to focus on smaller region of Kandahar, establish more intimate and humanitarian relations with Afghan civilians.

 
P.R. BONANZA | Canada's space clown got vastly more media coverage than Afghan mission. Cirque de Soleil cofounder brags that media survey shows his stunt generated 23 times more international press attention than Canada's Afghan mission. In return for the $35-million (U.S.) cost of his space trip, Guy Laliberte figures he generated $592 million (Cdn.) worth of publicity. Guy's red clown nose was key, marketing expert says.

LOOSE GERMS | Canadian labs have poor control over viruses in storage. Auditor calls for enhanced monitoring of inventories of potentially harmful bacteria and other compounds at federal labs across the country.

HOMELESS | Nicolas Cage joins expected 2 million Americans who will lose homes to foreclosure. Actor's financial woes known for some time, he loses two New Orleans residences in auction. Between 2008 and hoped-for stabilization of U.S. housing market by next year, estimated two million American families will have lost their homes to foreclosure.

CANADIANS REJECTING WILDERNESS | Attendance down even at most famous parks. Parks Canada says even Banff, Jasper, Cabot Trail see decline in visitors. "The population of Canada has become very urban," says Gloria Keyes-Brady, a Parks Canada tourism specialist. "A few decades ago people would go camping with their parents. That is not the trend anymore." Not enough cellphone towers, is my guess, or WiFi connections.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "We're entitled to it." -Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, on why U.S. companies deserve first bids on Iraqi oil plays, arguing for compensation for unprovoked U.S. war of choice on sovereign Iraq that claimed more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers' lives. So the estimated 200,000 Iraqi civilians killed in this needless war, to what are they entitled?

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 

QuickNews, Friday, Nov. 13.

 

EUROPE EMERGES FROM RECESSION

EU RECOVERY | GDP growing again in Eurozone. Key economies Germany and France turned the corner in the summer, others have followed, British turnaround remains halting.

BREAKTHROUGH | Pioneering Calgary doc uses glue to repair breastplates post-heart surgery. Superglue, called "Kryptonite" (what else?), greatly eases post-op pain compared with current method of wire stitches. Another coup for progressive Foothills hospital, as doc hits the road worldwide to teach others his method that's won acclaim from Calgary patients.

eHEALTH SCANDAL CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM | Ontario deputy health minister abruptly quits.

"BUY AMERICAN" BITES | Parochialism of U.S. stimulus bill hits Canadian manufacturers. Just the same, export data show Canadian recovery. 

LOONIE PARITY IMMINENT | Greenback still sliding against world currencies, including CDN$.  

HARPER HEADS WEST | In Singapore today, will promote Canuck exports at APEC confab.

BALSILLIE, TOO | RIM co-CEO in Silicon Valley to show the flag against Apple, et al.

PROFITS BAROMETER | Winners: BCE. Losers: Aeroplan, Western Coal, Hydro-Quebec.

MSM OUT OF SYNC | Canadian public say media, opposition MPs exaggerate H1N1 glitches. Canadians give government passing grade on flu vaccine supplies, distribution. WHO says global death toll from swine flu has hit 6,250 people. Swine flu boosts garlic sales in Serbia. (Photo: Garlic in a Belgrade shop, Nov. 11.)

OFFSIDE | Women and girls demand equal access to community rinks. About time, too.

FAUX PAS | France retreats on burqa ban plan.

FLAILING "TOO BIG TO FAIL" | WH disses Senate finance proposal for reining in banks. So does comptroller of currency, but for different reasons. Yet Jamie Dimon, head of monster-sized J.P. Morgan Chase, agrees "too big to fail" doctrine must be scrapped.

CENTRE-FOLDING | 56-year-old Playboy finally put on auction block. Effectively put out of business a decade ago by flood of free Internet porn.  

BACKSTORY ON LOU DOBBS | Told months ago to be newscaster or opinionator. If he chose the latter, Jonathan Klein, head of CNN/U.S. told the Day One CNNer, Dobbs would lose his TV platform. Which Dobbs has just done. We can thank Klein also for dispatching both Tucker Carlson (shown) and "Crossfire", saying "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise," and that CNN would dispense with "head-butting debate shows." A few weeks earlier, in a wild October 2004 "Crossfire" exchange, guest Stewart had told the co-hosts: "What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably." The humbled Carlson, having imagined himself too cute for anyone to fire, eventually emerged from Obscurityland, sans affected bow-tie and snark. What Dobbs learned from that episode was, er, nothing. He's 64, not reality-based and not cute, unless your taste runs to crinkly faced curmudgeons - which might disqualify him even for Fox. The Shelley Long Syndrome strikes again, quitting "Cheers" in expectation of better roles, mired in Obscurityland ever since.

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | U.S. Army admits troop morale is down in Afghanistan. Among soldiers on third and fourth tours of duty, more mental-health problems and higher marital-breakup rates. Conversely, in Iraq, where soldiers know they're coming home for good, morale is up.

ANOTHER "HERO" DETHRONED | Thank Airbus for "the Miracle on the Hudson, not pilot Sully. Authoritative new book, Fly By Wire, by author-pilot William Langewiesche, credits the Airbus A320's "fly-by-wire" automated controls, pioneered by the European aerospace consortium in the 1970s and 1980s, for the survival last January of all passengers and crew when Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III's jetliner engines failed from inhaling a huge number of geese. Sully - and why doesn't this surprise us - has never acknowledged the role of the aircraft that day, while bad-mouthing faulty aircraft-control systems generally, thus elevating the importance of pilots. Truth is, modern planes mostly fly themselves, something that $275,000-a-year captains and their union would rather not acknowledge. In Toulouse, they should order a 10,000-copy extra print run of this book for distribution to airline executives worldwide. Max Ward, erstwhile bush pilot, grasped immediately the value of fly-by-wire, and thus his Wardair introduced Airbus to the Canadian market and was second to Eastern among N.A. carriers to risk snubbing Boeing with the "foreign" plane. Sully has cashed in with his own book, in which he gives fly-by-wire the back of his hand. Also not surprising. (Yesterday, it was Fort Hood hero Kimberly Munley who got knocked off her pedestal.)

TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA | Happy Friday 13th! Norse origins of fear of #13, carried on by Bible stories, ultimately likes of Henry Ford and FDR. Latter died Thursday, April 12, 1945. Not willing even to arrive in afterlife on Friday the 13th, FDR museum official jokes.

GET A ROOM | Oh, you have one - English couples' noisy lovemaking lands them in court. When Steve and Caroline Cartwright got the urge, their intimacy sounded to neighbours like "howling," was "unnatural" and "hysterical," and "like they are both in inconsiderable pain", Newcastle court hears.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "The sex is better and I understand life better. I don't want to be young again." -Jane Fonda, 71, quoted this week.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David

 

QuickNews, Thursday, Nov. 12.

LEST WE FORGET | Military veterans yesterday honoured worldwide for their service and sacrifice. Scores of memorial services held, from Ottawa (above), Canada's Afghan base in Kandahar, to Arlington National Cemetary.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION | Medvedev excoriates abysmal industrial status quo. "We haven't managed to get rid of the primitive structure of our economy," Medvedev told the Duma in his second parliamentary address since becoming president, noting that Russia has suffered more than most advanced economies in the global recession. "The competitiveness of our production is shamefully low." Also warns that dissidents will be silenced, like in the good old days. If Dmitry can name a country where disruptive innovation has flourished despite state repression of free speech I'd love to hear from him. 

OUCH! | Cost of Canadian flu vaccinations projected at $1.5 billion and climbing. Some caregivers doubt all the shots are necessary, question efficiency of innoculation system.

WORLD HUNGER | Hunger causing stunted growth in estimated 200 million children. UNICEF calls for sweeping reforms in global population of malnourished people, including 1 billion people living in hunger. (Click on map to enlarge.)

 

BETRAYAL | Threat of populist revolt growing as independents swing to left. NYT columnist argues that Main Street anger over bailouts to Wall Street ingrates poised for $30 billion (U.S.) in bonuses at a time of 10.2% unemployment will take its toll on any mainstream politician who doesn't "get ahead of the rage."  

OFF THE RAILS IN SOUTH AFRICA | Bombardier's showcase project way over budget. High-speed commuter-rail connection between Johannesburg and airport is key to demonstrating Bombardier engineering prowess during upcoming 2010 World Cup, arguably the biggest sporting event in the world - just as Bombardier commuter trains completed in time for the Beijing Olympics led to megadeals for the Montreal company in that country.

PROFITS BAROMETER | Winners: Hewlett-Packard, Bell Aliant, Shoppers Drug Mart, AB InBev. Loser: CAE. Also, Peugeot Citroen raises profit estimates for 2009. Quebec says Caisse de depot will continue to underperform peers in 2010.

H-P vs CISCO | H-P pays $3.1 billion (U.S.) for 3Com. Hewlett-Packard wants 3Com's advanced networking gear to plug a hole in its line-up. Trend here is toward one-stop shops, as with software giant Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems. My worry is that 3Com and Sun were also-rans by the time they were acquired (hence the low purchase prices). Can't help recalling Nortel's 1997 purchase of Bay Networks, also-ran to Cisco in routers (who isn't?). What merger architects don't get is customers like to pick and choose, buying best-in-class routers from one guy, servers from another. Not H-P, not anyone, is going to beat Cisco in networking. Analysts above my pay grade beg to differ.

WE KNOW THE FEELING | Power blackout hits much of Brazil, all of Paraguay. Storms are the cause, crippling power grid. Identical cause to regional blackouts in Italy and eastern North America earlier this decade. Investor alert: a massive overhaul of world's power grid is coming, not just because the existing one is aging, but global demand for power will soon skyrocket as world vehicle fleet switches to electricity.

NO SENSE OF IRONY 1 | Beijing warns Obama off making nice with Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, everyday Chinese who set off for government offices to register complaints are routinely kidnapped, with police looking the other way.  

NO SENSE OF IRONY 2 | Lou Dobbs abruptly quits CNN after nearly 30 years there. Dobbs, 64, says too many issues are "now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought." This from controversial Dobbs, under fire for demonizing undocumented immigrants and showcasing "birthers" on his show who believe Obama is not U.S.-born. His plans for second life in politics might turn out if room can be found for him in the padded cell crowded with Palin, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al.

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Clinton and U.S.'s top Afghan envoy warn separately of Karzai corruption. Hint that sending still more U.S. troops might reward Mr. K. Meanwhile, Obama yesterday grilled his Afghan war council yet again on options. What's happening here is pressure on Karzai for genuine reforms in exchange for U.S. continuing to prop him up. So far, only lip service from Kabul. Hence the apparent U.S. "dithering" (Cheney's accusation), when reality is U.S. exploring every tool for trying to turn this Diem clone into a respectable leader. Can't be done, of course, just one reason U.S., Canada and rest of ISAF should quit the strategically inconsequential country now.

U.S BANK BAILOUT A WINNER | Surplus TARP funds will pay down deficit. The emergency $700-billion (U.S.) bailout, proposed by then-president George W. Bush but opposed by Congressional Republicans, not only arrested a complete collapse of the global banking system but will be far less costly than expected. WSJ estimates long-term cost of TARP could be as little as $200 billion (U.S.) WH is already redirecting TARP funds to ailing small-business and housing sectors and deficit reduction.

LAND OF THE RISING WON | South Korea eclipsing Japan in tech. Japan looks to new tech fields to conquer as Samsung, LG Electronics and the like steal a march on longtime Japanese leaders.

FORT HOOD "HERO" MAY BE NO SUCH THING | Questions over who finally stopped killer. As with Pte. Lynch and Pat Tillman myths, U.S. armed forces appear to have unduly rushed in declaring police officer Kimberly Munley (shown) as shooter of mass murderer. While not confirmed, appears instead that another cop, Sen. Sgt. Mark Todd, fired the shots that brought down the killer. I posted on this, based on what now appears false information. I apologize for my part in also rushing to judgment. This is the downside of the otherwise beneficial acceleration in getting out news and commentary. We also rushed to make heroes of the 9/11 firefighters, who for the most part weren't. I can hear my grandfather say, on such early reports, "Let's wait till all the facts are in" or "Better wait to see how this turns out." Well, modern media isn't about waiting, which is a problem.

APPEARANCES ARE DATE-ELIMINATING | Dating site rejects "ugly" applicants. Existing members of BeautifulPeople.com, Danish site that went global last year, assess photos submitted by applicants. So far they've given highest acceptance rate to Swedish men and Norwegian women, lowest to Russian, Polish, German and British men. Site managers say it's the stern, grim photos submitted that are the problem, not (always) the applicants.  

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes." -Marilyn French, The Women's Room.

Courtesy, The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need and the inner workings of the Workshop, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David

 

On the other hand, objectivity is killing journalism.

Daniel Froomkin, who blogged until earlier this year for the Washington Post and now is at Huffington Post, lays into to the bankrupt notion of "objective journalism" in an Economist interview:

Journalists should strive for accuracy, and fairness. Objectivity is impossible, and is too often confused with balance. And the problem with balance is that we are not living in a balanced time. For instance, is it patently obvious that at this point in our history, the leading luminaries on one side of the American political spectrum are considerably less tethered to reality than those on the other side. Madly trying to split the difference, as so many of my mainstream-media colleagues feel impelled to do, does a disservice to the concept of the truth.

Charles Krauthammer, for instance, is mad as a hatter. (An irony of sorts, since the McGill grad is a trained psychiatrist.) It's therefore imperative, in assembling a talking-heads panel, to include among those who are "tethered to reality" at least one individual who isn't. Which would be George Will (the Soviet Union will last forever), Michael Gerson (Bush's longtime head speechwriter), Krauthammer or any of the other neo-con status-quo upholders occupying perches at the "liberal" Washington Post. Froomkin managed to get fired from WaPo, after years of being one of the paper's most-read columnists - actually, among any U.S. paper's most-read columnists - which makes me worry about the job security of the paltry WaPo offering of moderates (the first-class E.J. Dionne, for instance).

But more to the point, on objectivity. Everything journalists do, and ever have done, is subjective. Do you run the Fort Hood tragedy above or below the fold? Do you even put it on the front page? Is it a "massacre" (a term we use too easily) or a "killing spree" (arguably sensationalist). Do we report the miserable U.S. jobs figures that came out the same day as good or bad news? (The jobless rate rose into double digits, but Obama and economists have been predicting that all year. The rate of job loss in this latest period is comfortingly lower than in previous months - meaning the trend is in the right direction.)

What stories we decide to cover, whom we choose to interview, the length and placement of stories in a paper or broadcast line-up, whether stories are accompanied by photographs or video reports from the scene, these all are subjective judgments that skew the story.

As to "getting both sides of the story," sometimes there's only one side. Pedophilia is bad. So that's a rare instance where we don't chase after some university prof who will defend it. But in reporting on French healthcare - if we decide to do so in the first place, a subjective judgment - though our reporting shows the French experience accord with France's ranking by most world health organizations as the best in the world (the U.S. ranks around 37th in most), we must find "experts" to provide the other side. Namely, that it's costly. Well yes, you get what you pay for. On torture, we must find someone to argue for it to accompany the chorus of the correctly appalled. These addled voices speaking for a malignant "other side of the story" greatly dilute the truth of matters.

Sometimes things are just right, or wrong, and we should say only that. And say it over and over again until the powers that be make a good thing the new normal and eradicate a bad thing from our midst. In the MSM, there is still some question about the wisdom about going to war in Iraq, an unqualified disaster that ranks among the worst foreign policy initiatives in U.S. history, Southeast Asia included. There's no honest argument to be had on this, only sophistry. A Republican House tried to block the banks bailout late last year, which would have tumbled us into a global depression. G.O.P. members of Congress were acting either out of partisanship, at the expense of sound policy and the public good, or were ignorant of basic economics. Again, there's no "other side" to this.

Some things are true - gravity, water finding its lowest level, Michael Jackson was weird. In reporting and commenting on crucial public-policy questions, we only muddle things by ensuring that cranks also are heard from. Our on-the-one-hand-on-the-other "objectivity" also coincides with the decline in audience for both print and TV network news. Fairness of course we strive for. Doing no harm, also. But objectivity not only is often bad journalism but lousy for business.  

 

 

Capitalism's not to blame, government is, Madonna can act, and other myths.

Really, I'd rather argue for a day with a tree stump than five minutes with a die-hard free-marketer. They're identical in disposition to religious extremists. As was said of the Bourbons, they had just one idea, that one idea was wrong, and they clung to it with ferocity.

It's generally accepted that capitalism - or, more accurately, capitalists - screwed up big time in the years leading up to the Depression. And that they did so again more recently. And that government was the only survivor in a position to clean up the wreckage and put our lives back in order.

Free-marketers utterly refuse to accept this. That when we let the free market run wild, do its thing exclusively by its own lights, it invariably gums up the works for all of us. That this fact is irrefutable can be proved by watching the activity of children in a playground. Unsupervised, their impulses led naturally to anti-social behaviour. This, as irony would have it, is a conservative doctrine handed down to us by the likes of Edmund Burke, who was skeptical of unrestrained free will. The rule of mobs. Like the mobs of unregulated mortgage brokers peddling subprimes in early this decade, to pick an example.

Bruce Bartlett of Forbes is under the mistaken impression that that Milton Friedman "got capitalism off the hook" as the principal cause of the Depression. He then argues, bizarrely, that emergency government action is required now, as in the 1930s, to flood the market with capital. That would be the same "government" that Ronald Reagan famously described as the overarching problem in our lives. Presumably the government action was needed to solve a crisis of the government's making. (That would, in Bartlett's belief, be the Fed in the 1920s. What he doesn't mention is an Ayn Rand-run Fed's role in helping cause the current downturn.)

Let's keep this straight, because it's important: Unchecked financier-capitalists, liberated by Congress, the Fed and the SEC - after relentless lobbying pressure by the financial industry - caused the Great Recession from which we're recovering at a painfully slow pace. End of story.

Congress in 1999 revoked the Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banking, after a period of no major bank failures lasting the exact duration of that FDR-era legislation. The immediate result was a surge in cowboy antics in the financial markets culminating by 2008 in the near-collapse of the entire global financial system. The Greenspan Fed, for its part, repeated its 1990s pre-dot-com mistake of not raising interest rates - or "taking away the punch bowl," as they say - in preventing a second bubble in less than a decade, this time a record run-up in U.S. housing valuations. And the SEC, run by Bush appointee Christopher Cox, a former G.O.P. congressman of a similar free-market disposition, repudiated a 2004 Congressional demand that he rein in financial markets. The same year, he decided that the big investment houses should be permitted to decide for themselves how much capital to have on hand to cushion the blow from risky investments gone sour. Since capital reserves are a detraction from profit, the securities firms naturally kept too little on hand. Besides, they believed they were super-human, a prequisite to work in the higher echelons of the Street.

You know the rest.

There was a Big Five oligopoly of U.S. investment banks before the do-do hit the spinning turbine last September. An insolvent Merrill Lynch, the world's biggest brokerage, was forcibly merged out of existence, now a unit of Bank of America, itself currently a ward of the state. An insolvent Bear Stearns, the smallest of the clan, also disappeared, forcibly merged into J.P. Morgan Chase. Lehman Brothers was permitted to fail; the Treasury wanted to draw a line somewhere against rescuing everyone on Wall Street from their cupidity. And the calamitous result was that banks and brokers worldwide suddenly froze global credit, fearful that the U.S. had suddenly become selective in who it would save, triggering mass layoffs in an industrial economy abruptly deprived of capital. The two survivors, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, hastily and successfully applied for banking charters to gain access to emergency cash from the Fed. They too came perilously close to ruin late last year.

Among the results is that in place of the brokerage oligopoly the U.S. now has a banking oligopoly, with the top four banks - J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup (also on government life support), Bank of America and Wells Fargo controlling an unprecedented 40% of U.S. financial assets. A bad thing? Not necessarily. As Galbraith recalled from his WWII years as America's wage-and-price-control czar, the one good thing about an oligopoly is that there are few players to supervise.

Contra Bartlett, what we know of Friedman is that he was a crackpot. His only competition in this distinction, among people of current or past influence, is Alan Greenspan.

Read Bruce Bartlett's Forbes essay, and chuckle over its many internal contradictions. But also worry that a lot of smart folks continue to hold to this view even after the latest, screamingly obvious failure of capitalism.

I am, BTW, a card-carrying capitalist, with the stock-market gains and losses to show for it. The variation I believe in is one in which we find that admittedly tricky balance between letting entrepreneurial forces run free to provide essential goods and services, and restraining those same folks, by regulation (since they for centuries have shown no inclination to self-restraint), to save them from their own worst instincts, and protect the rest of us from their occasional wealth-destroying behaviour on an epic scale.

These same free-marketers understand that taxi drivers, beauticians and real estate agents require licenses. Somehow the idea that a quant jock on the trading desk at Deutsche Bank about to commit his firm to a $121-billion bet on the yen does not need a license, and his firm doesn't need strict government supervision, goes over their head until someone forecloses on their own house or their think tank loses its line of credit in a general downturn.

I solemnly swear...

The Globe recently, and usefully, ran some oaths of ethical conduct now taken by business students at Harvard, the Ivey school in London, Ont. and so on.

This is a topic ripe for ridicule, of course. But the initiative is worthwhile, no less than the introduction of mandatory ethics studies at MBA mills about which I wrote in my first book, on corporate ethics, back when the Earth was still cooling.

Have a read of these oaths, and the above-average commentary that follows. My only fault with them is length. Americans like to codify things; Brits prefer a principles-based approach. We're somewhere in between. The trouble with rules, as the Americans discover over and over, is that the imposition of one is immediate cause by some to find the invariably present loopholes.

That's why the succinct oaths work best. For caregivers, it's "First, do no harm." Sir William Osler embellished that a bit with the sage, "Treat the patient, not the disease." That is, spend the time to observe carefully the patient, his body language, attitudes, changes in mood from day to day.

And for all of us, of course, it's the Golden Rule, to be found in variations in all the founding documents of all major world religions, from the Koran to the Torah to the King James version of the Bible. You can't beat the Golden Rule as both a starting and end-point in decision-making. Would I want to be treated like this? That's the general principle, to which I'd add the more strategic "First, do no harm."

The epidemic of white-collar self-interested recklessnesses that accounts for the current tens of millions of unemployed around the world today began with the mortgage broker in Tulsa who talked a young family into financing a house they couldn't afford. Would you do that to yourself? And the banks that endangered each other and thus the entire global system by playing hot potato with $250-billion packages of those same sure-to-sour loans were either had not thought of, or didn't care to dwell on, the consequences. If the trader at Bank of America took seriously the admonition to "First, do no harm," she would have chosen differently than to fob off the toxic assets to Deutsche Bank, en route to HSBC and thence to Switzerland's UBS, which alone took more than $40-billion (U.S.) plus in writeoffs on mortgages issued to income-challenged buyers of new, $450,000 split-levels in Santa Barbara.

It's worth noting that such personal commitments to the highest ethical standards do, or should, apply to regulators, as well. No less than the bankers, or any group of businesspeople overcome by a fleeting euphoria, they give in to peer pressure and dicta from on high - from politicans and lobbyists - to let this particular outrage pass. And the next one. Until collateralized debt obligations - "weapons of mass wealth destruction," as Buffett calls them - become the new norm.

As far as I know, only Richard Clarke, the U.S. counter-terrorism chief in the Clinton and early Bush era, apologized to the American people, in his introductory remarks in Congressional testimony, for failing to anticipate the events of 9/11. ("We let you down. Your government failed you.")

We've yet to hear an apology from any banker over events triggering the worst downturn in 70 years, and the first truly global one. Or from any regulator - and pretty much every one of them failed, also, from the Federal Reserve Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the exotic regulator that had only Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to oversee, and managed to be so thoroughly "captured" by the regulated that it bungled as well. No apologies from the lobbyist-influenced Congressional oversight committees, either.

Maybe they're all waiting for someone to go first. Well, I have, as financial journalist who didn't see the epic catastrophe on the horizon, and warn about it. So Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox, Stan O'Neal, Chuck Prince, et al, anytime now. We already think the worst of you. An apology could only help your reputations.