Ammpol recently made a comment about unemployment and the “Protestant Work Ethic”, which set me thinking . . . I probably have only a vague grasp of the concept — but I assume it has to do with (or descends from) a salvation-by-something-or-other angle on religion as distinct from a supposed earlier (Roman) Catholic salvation-by-something-else. It’s always puzzled me as I had the impression that Catholicism allowed for salvation-by-good-works whereas most varieties of Protestantism seem to be more about salvation-by-grace. But that’s a whole other boring topic, and not one I’m qualified to speculate about. I doubt it’s really germane to economics, or more to the point, it’s not the actual “work ethic” we appear to have in contemporary society.

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Whatever else will happen in the Chelsea Manning trial, it is apparent that the prosecution will be careful to present anything that could possibly be seen as out of order when it comes to her use of equipment — at least, based on this report in The Guardian:

Military computer experts told the hearing that they had found a computer programme called Wget that is used to speed up the transfer of files, and another called Roxio for burning CDs.

So, this may not be news, but possession of standard operating system utilities or the most commonly distributed applications may be regarded as incriminating evidence. And be reported as such. I commented on this recently in another place, to which the entirely valid response was made that use of Roxio may have been illicit on a military computer. Even that may be too broad — it could be that Chelsea Manning’s unit were not allowed to use Roxio or wget on specific computers, or perhaps she was personally banned from using them at all. But none of these seem likely — or at least, not very sensible.

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