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Headline: IKEA to take over GM

Instructions:

Glenn Greenwald is commenting on Jeffrey Rosen's decision to swear off blogging and begins his commentary thusly:

The one trait that defines establishment pundits more than any other is a pathological inability ever to accept blame or admit error. That's because they work in the most accountability-free profession in America, where people … get promoted despite no retractions or remorse, and establishment media stars in general can pretend that they bear no responsibility for enabling the abuses and crimes of the [country's political leaders].

[Tip of the toque to Jay Rosen (no connection to Jeffrey)]

Well now, that sounds very good, doesn't it? And who knows? Such a sweeping generalization about all “establishment pundits”, like all sweeping generalizations, is probably right. Isn't it? That's likely because Greenwald and Salon — like all of those who make Sweeping Generalizations — are probably backed up by crack research staffs so they can back up those statements? Aren't they?

Now I don't have such a crack research staff but let me make a Sweeping Generalization or two of my own, if only because it seems like so much fun:

• Bloggers, be they smarty pants like Greenwald or just your regular anonymous online one-trick ideological ponies, often apologize for coming to the wrong conclusions all the time. At least that's the experience I've had in my six or seven years as a blogger. One of the hallmarks of the blogosphere is that biases and conflicts-of-interest are stated upfront. Isn't it? Unlike “establishment pundits”, bloggers are never wrong and frequently see good points in the arguments of their ideological or political opponents and often call their readers attention to those good points which don't reflect their world view. Don't they?
• It is “Establishment Pundits” and not voters who failed to vote who are, of course, responsible for the world's ills. Right? And, in any event, political leaders bear no responsibility for their actions or behaviour. One should never blame politicians for the world's ill because, after all, whatever went wrong was the fault of “Establishment Pundits”. After all, as we all know, when “Establishment Pundits” say jump, most of us, being the sheeple we are, yell “How high?”!
• Even though Greenwald writes frequently and often for one of the most widely read Web sites on the planet, runs (as he himself says) “one of the most popular and highest-trafficked in the blogosphere”, comes from a top law firm in New York City, went to top American universities, wrote some bestselling books and is white, male and lives in the United States, don't even be thinking he's part of the “establishment”. Why that very resumé would automatically disqualify you from being part of any establishment. Wouldn't it?

Very entertaining (and mouthwatering) piece from Sandra McElwaine at The Daily Beast on the Michelle and Barack Obama's penchant for eating out:

Since moving into the White House four months ago Michelle and Barack Obama have made one thing crystal clear: they have no intention of staying home. Not even in those luxurious digs. As devotees of good food and fine wine they have decided to shake up the conventional Washington scene by stepping out, having fun—going out on the town. And not to traditional boring embassy functions or the well-appointed homes of desperate hostesses either. The Obamas are genuinely enjoying city life, corralling friends for impromptu forays at an eclectic mix of DC restaurants—cutting a wide swath from downtown to the Capitol and DuPont Circle, to Georgetown and even Arlington, Virginia—leaving a gaggle of star struck proprietors and fellow diners in their glossy wake. (Quite unlike the Bushes, who preferred to hunker down with Tex-Mex inside the confines of 1600 Pa. Ave.) …

[At pricey high-end restaurant Citronelle] Michelle and the President indulged in straight-up martinis garnished with olives and soft-shell crab tempura. When Michelle requested a lobster burger not on the menu, chef Richard quickly obliged: “It was impossible to refuse the queen of this country,” he explained. The Commander in Chief opted for 72-hour-aged beef and a single fry. Both ended their meal with crème brûlée left a 20 percent tip, then headed home for that romantic hand-in-hand stroll around the White House grounds. . . .

Michelle is also a spur of the moment fast-foodie. She says she likes to sneak out of the White House with the girls and swing over to DuPont Circle, causing temporary gridlock, for a Five Guys burger. Another quick Michelle-stop: Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill, where she recently sat upstairs in front a large TV screen and chowed down on an assortment of gourmet burgers with a dozen members of her staff. “It was her idea,” said her press secretary Katie McCormick Lelyveld. ”Sometimes you just need a burger.”

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is just about to release the following update on the status of the National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River, Ont.. My annotation is in bold …

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) provides the following update of activities related to the unplanned shutdown of NRU at Chalk River Laboratories:

· The remaining Moly-99 available for isotope supply has now been removed from the NRU reactor and will be processed today.

· As reported on May 18th, the location of the heavy water leak has been identified at the base of the reactor vessel in a location where there is corrosion on the outside wall.

· The heavy water leak rate remains stable at approximately 5 kg/hr. Options to reduce the leak rate while inspections are ongoing are being considered.

· Due to high airflow in the area, a small portion of the leakage evaporates and results in a monitored tritium release through the NRU ventilation system. Although the airborne release is well below regulatory limits, the release has reached action levels for tritium. [I have asked AECL to explain what it means to have reached these “action levels” and what actions are triggered when this level is reached. I'll post any update here when I receive it.]

· Visual inspections using remote imaging devices are ongoing and will provide AECL with a better understanding of the nature of the leak and repair options.   

· An internal reactor vessel inspection using remote imaging was carried out at the leak location. No abnormalities were visible.

· Remote imaging inspection of the external wall of the reactor is ongoing.

· Ultrasonic investigation of the interior vessel wall is set to begin this weekend.

AECL anticipates that the NRU reactor will remain out of service for more than one month. However, the visual inspection process, once completed, will provide a more accurate return to service timeframe.

AECL confirms that there is no threat to workers, the public, the environment or nuclear safety related to this event. AECL will continue to provide updates to the CNSC and stakeholders when new information becomes available.

The National Research Universal (NRU) nuclear reactor operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) at Chalk River, Ont. produces most of the world's medical isotopes used to diagnose and treat diseases like cancer. Isotopes have a short shelf life and therefore cannot be stockpiled. The Chalk River isotopes are sent to MDS Nordion of Kanata where they are processed and shipped to pharmaceutical companies worldwide for distributions to medical clinics and hospitals.

Last night, AECL announced that the NRU was going to be down for at least a month because of a heavy water leak. No heavy water or other radioactive material has escaped the facility, AECL said. The bigger crisis will be the health crisis, as doctors and technicians cannot get the material they need to treat patients.

Reaction:

From MDS Nordion:

MDS Nordion expects the impact of this shutdown to begin to be felt this week. The NRU produces approximately 30%-40% of the world's medical isotopes and approximately 50% of those used in North America, and is one of only four reactors in the world with the capacity to produce significant commercial quantities. While MDS Nordion is working closely with its supply network to source additional isotopes, based on AECL's information and global supply capability, the Company expects that the medical community and their patients will experience a significant shortage of isotopes worldwide.

From the federal government:

Immediately upon being made aware of this shutdown, the Government of Canada enacted the Isotope Early Notification Protocol, which includes notification to the isotope user community, of an extended interruption in the supply of medical isotopes from AECL.

“Our Government is fully engaged with Provincial and Territorial governments, and the health care community, who are being encouraged to take planned measures such as modifying patient scheduling and triaging to maximize the supply of medical isotopes available,” said the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health.

A secure supply of medical isotopes is not only an issue for Canada; it is an international issue that is being addressed cooperatively by all isotope-producing countries. At the same time, the Government of Canada is engaging international isotope producers as well as companies such as MDS Nordion, Lantheus, and Covidien who all play key roles in securing medical isotope supply for North America.

From one of my sources on this story who I cannot name because s/he works for the federal government:

MDS Nordion could not survive such a prolongued shutdown of its only producer. I am sure by this time MDS-N are looking at moving their operations elsewhere, Europe, South Africa or Australia maybe. Few, if any organization in the world has the skills and experience of MDS-N in the critical processes of the Moly [isotope] supply chain, refining, packaging, shipping and distribution.

The reactor itself is kids' play…most fast-flux reactors can produce Moly [isotopes] if they are adapted for that. The rest is (expensive) bricks and mortar, glass and lead, gloves and fumehoods required for the construction of the universal (shielded) cells. The downside will be the ca. 1,000 jobs that will be lost in Kanata, and the huge cost of decommissioning the facility. Some of that cost may flow back to the feds as a legacy cost, given that MDS-N was once a Crown corporation (AECL Radiochemical)…depending on the terms of the privatization agreement in the early 90's

CIBC World Markets economist Benjamin Tal notes that the rate of business bankruptcies in this recession are a puzzler:

Given the current fragile state of the Canadian economy and the likelihood that first-quarter GDP will be the steepest drop on record, one would expect the number of business bankruptcies in the economy to skyrocket. The reality, however, is surprisingly different. Not only are business bankruptcies not rising, but they are, in fact, falling. This trajectory is completely inconsistent with both the experience seen in any other recession and the current situation in the US, where business bankruptcies are rising at a rate not seen since 1975. This abnormality suggests that, at least for now, downsizing as opposed to broadly based plant closures, is what defines the response of many Canadian firms to the current economic recession . . . [Read the report – PDF]

Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review Conrad Black's fraud conviction. Legal beagles believe it is because the Supremes are keen to weigh in on the concept of “honest service” as it applies between private parties:

…“It’s one-in-a-million for the court to review a criminal case,” said a U.S. lawyer who spoke to Canwest News Service on Monday. Neither the lawyer nor his firm are involved in the case.

“And they don’t hear these cases unless they want to overturn,” the lawyer said.

George Jackson, a lawyer with the Chicago-based law firm Bryan Cave LLP, was less certain the Supreme Court will overturn the fraud conviction but said the court seems to be interested in using the Black case to clarify a legal concept — the definition and application of “honest services” in U.S. law — that appears to have differing interpretations among America’s lower courts.

“It is not surprising that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this appeal,” Jackson said.

“The Supreme Court may not rule in Conrad Black’s favour, but I do believe they intend to resolve the debate over the application of honest services. The increased use of this statute coupled with the split among the circuit courts makes the Black case ideal for Supreme Court review.”

In their brief to the Supreme Court, Black’s lawyers noted he was found not guilty of several charges but was found guilty on three charges of mail fraud “based on an instruction that permitted the jury to find a ‘scheme to defraud’” — a hotly contested element of the offence — by determining that petitioners either stole the company’s money, or deprived the company or its shareholders of their right to (Black’s) “honest services,” according to the brief.

At trial, the prosecution successfully convinced the jury that Black and his associates deprived their victims of the “honest services” they owed to their victims, the shareholders of a New York company Black controlled, Hollinger International Inc.

The concept of “honest services” first entered the U.S. legal lexicon in the 1970s, when lawmakers wanted to to make it illegal for a politician, for example, to award jobs or contracts to cronies and, in doing so, unfairly earn a political advantage. In this kind of scheme, voters were being deprived of the “honest services” they were entitled to from the politician.

Lawyers and some jurists subsequently expanded the concept to the corporate arena, notably in the Enron case. But several U.S. courts have interpreted and applied the concept in different ways.

In agreeing to hear the review, the U.S. Supreme Court appears ready to rule on the definition and application of just what it means to provide an “honest service” in the context of a corporation or a contract between private individuals.

“The (U.S.) Courts of Appeals are hopelessly divided on the application of (honest services) to purely private conduct,” Black’s lawyers wrote in their brief. …

Read the full story
Also: Let me point you at a piece by Paul Waldie, a friend and former colleague at the then-Black owned National Post, who looks at the issue of “honest service” in a little more detail.

In a decision that stunned plenty of legal beagles, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review Conrad Black's fraud conviction. One lawyer I spoke to said it's a “one-in-a-million” chance that SCOTUS agrees to review a criminal conviction.

But review, they will. (They will not be reviewing Black's obstruction of justice conviction.) Black has been in jail in Florida since March, 2008 on a 6 1/2 year stretch. The court will review his case in October.

From SCOTUS Blog:

Docket: 08-876

Title: Black, et al. v. United States

Issue: Whether the “honest services” clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 applies in cases where the jury did not find – nor did the district court instruct them that they had to find – that the defendants “reasonably contemplated identifiable economic harm,” and if the defendants’ reversal claim is preserved for review after they objected to the government’s request for a special verdict.

The Bank of Canada has just released a research paper authored by Fuchun Li in which Li argues for a new kind of “stress test” to see how Canadian banks are faring under the current fiscal crisis and compares that result to how they fared under earlier fiscal crises. Li is an employee of the bank, working in its “Financial Stability” department. From the paper's abstract, here's what he has to say:

First, compared to recent financial crises, including the 1987 U.S. stock market crash, 1994 Mexican peso crisis, and 1997 East Asian crisis, the ongoing 2007 subprime crisis has been having more persistent and stronger contagion impacts on the Canadian banking system. Second, the October 1997 East Asian crisis induced contagion in Asian countries, and it quickly spread to Latin American and G-7 countries. The contagion from the East Asian crisis to the Canadian banking system was not as strong or as persistent as that of the ongoing subprime crisis. However, it had a stronger impact on emerging markets. Third, there is no evidence of contagion from the 1994 Mexican peso crisis to the Canadian banking system. Contagion from that crisis occurred in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, but the contagion effects of that crisis were limited to the Latin American region.