Over time we are hopeful the fact that Canadian citizen Omar Khadr was the last person with the citizenship of a Western liberal democracy to be released from American custody and brought home -- in chains or otherwise -- from Guantánamo Bay will be remembered as shameful.

Most polls show that Canadians are divided on whether Omar is a vicious terrorist or the unfortunate victim of a bad father and vindictive superpower that lost its moral bearing.

He was a child and that is all that matters when justice came calling.

Shame on Canada.

A sample of commentary on Omar Khadr's deal to come home, more on QE2 -- voodoo monetarism or smart monetary policy? --,  seems China may have been the source of Europe's great plagues, John Donald's website, more evidence of the good work immigration does, and a wonderful history lesson about American politics in 1910.

The Canadian Supreme Court decision of January 2010.

The appeal is allowed in part.  Mr. Khadr’s application for judicial review is allowed in part.  This Court declares that through the conduct of Canadian officials in the course of interrogations in 2003-2004, as established on the evidence before us, Canada actively participated in a process contrary to Canada’s international human rights obligations and contributed to Mr. Khadr’s ongoing detention so as to deprive  him of his  right to liberty and security of the person guaranteed by s. 7 of the Charter, contrary to the principles of fundamental justice.  Costs are awarded to Mr. Khadr.  http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2010/2010scc3/2010scc3.html

The Globe and Mail thinks it shows the US in a bad light. Actually it shows Canada in a worse light.

The United States’ failure to recognize the lesser culpability of juveniles, at every stage of the incarceration and trial of Canadian Omar Khadr, shows that country’s military-justice system in a poor light. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/the-wrongful-prosecution-of-omar-khadr/article1779980/

New York Times reports on the deal that will get Omar home. The headline says much.

A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/us/02detain.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=globasasa210

Lorne Gunter thinks that Khadr's lack of remorse condemns him to treatment as an adult and under the supervision of the United States.

There are upbeat expectations for US “QE2”. The hope is that quantitative easing will force long term interest rates to truly abysmal levels, encouraging companies to seek returns via capital spending.   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f72e7b02-e5d1-11df-af15-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&ftcamp=crm/email/2010112/nbe/Comment/product

Meanwhile in the European bond markets surrealism prevails.

Like a Halloween party hangover, the European sovereign bond market is feeling little chills and sweats following the weekend's EU pact on fiscal governance. You will recall that Germany struck a deal with France to modify the EU Treaty and create a permanent mechanism for dealing with troubled EU sovereign debtors.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/carl-mortished/bond-market-realism-no-longer-in-fashion/article1782008/

Just accept it. The US economy is going through a structural downturn and employment levels will take a decade to return to post-recession levels.

An economy growing 2 percent a year might be tolerable in normal times. Today, it's a near-disaster.   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/01/ap/business/main7010576.shtml

Damn China.

The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

 

 

A bubonic plague smear.

I recently reconnected -- as only you can in the second decade of the 21st century -- with John Donald who I worked with at Jardine Fleming in Tokyo, Japan from 1990-1993.

He was a boy wonder then running the equity research department at some ridiculously young age with a kind of authority that a British university education and growing up in the home of the British Ambassador to China gives you.

He has great website that is worth revisiting. His comments on the difference between working in a big and small company are typical of how he cleverly puts things.

What is Catataxis? It is the confusion between levels. It is a disorder of magnitude. http://www.catataxis.com/?page_id=47

Immigrants displace tasks not people. More on immigration good.

Despite popular belief, often based on anecdotes and bodged analysis, there is hardly any evidence that immigrant workers have a negative effect on the wages of native workers (see for instance Card 2009 and Glitz 2007) or that they crowd-out other jobs in the US (Card and Di Nardo 2000) or Europe. On the contrary, some authors emphasise the existence of a potentially positive effect of immigrants on the demand for native workers (Manacorda et al. forthcoming).  http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5729

Quote worth quoting.

"This new type of analysis of the labour market impact of immigration paints a much more differentiated picture in which “tasks”, not workers, are replaced by immigrants in the production process. Hence natives may have an opportunity to move into tasks that pay better, are complementary to manual jobs, and in which they have comparative advantages. This virtuous mechanism, however, will take place only if native workers are mobile enough to change occupation and adjust to the new organisation of production" --  Francesco D'Amrui and Giovanni Peri

Historian Ed Morris on a different kind of Tea Party in 1910 where Teddy Roosevelt reminded Americans about fairness.

THE past may be a foreign country, as L. P. Hartley famously observed, but at least one of its landscapes — the political scene on election eve, a century ago — looks familiar to this time traveler.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/opinion/01morris.html?hp

Quote worth quoting.

"One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows." -- From Pdf below, 'The New Nationalism Teddy Roosevelt'.