Oh, dear Lord…I’ve been keeping up my record. Yesterday, I was staggering a bit on the line (okay, actually staggering a lot) because it was the first time I’ve taken Xanax before I went to work. Unfortunately, during the staggering, I caught my right foot on something and really f*cked up my knee. Longtime readers know that my right knee’s needed surgery since 1999, when an MRI found a dislocaded meniscus and torn cartilage. I haven’t been in one place long enough to get surgery (and if this shit continues for very much longer, I’m not going to have enough vacation time or sick time to stay out). So I went home early, enough to get one story out of the way before I crashed out due to my nightly pills plus a Vicodin (my knee is why I got the Vikes in the first place, after all). So I’m walking with a crutch and hoping that my knee can hold up the whole day today. I think I’ll go to Wal-Mart and get an Ace knee brace before I go to work. That might help a bit.
The bad part about all this is now that I have my other supervisor wondering if I can stand this job. I reassured him that after I’m told if I can keep this job, most of the stress will go away, and I can definitely cope with a promotion, since I was doing the same thing with Illinois when not on the pills. I think that may have worked. He’s a rather gullible person.
Still waiting on the power adapter. I should get it Friday or Saturday, in which case next week’s columns, or even the Short Form, will be done on a system with blazing speed. I’m just hoping they make large-capacity drives in SATA soon, becuase I’ll pop cash for those, no problem. A pair of 250G SATA drives would work quite well with my system, thank you. Wonder if I can find any on Ebay…shit, if they’re not at Best Buy, they sure as hell wouldn’t be on Ebay. I’ll be going there to sell the GeForce 6800 Ultra that I got seven months ago anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to check. Also, I have to thank the guy who turned me on to ActivShopper (sorry, but I lost your email during a virus scan). It’s provided some nice benefits for me, including getting the cheapest PCI Express video card of the same model as that one. God bless you.
One correction to make prior to the Pimps: The Proud Graduate of Dartmouth His Own Self wrote in to remind me of something that Mick Foley wrote in Have A Nice Day, which I haven’t read in a while: Diamond Dallas Page, contrary to my speculation, is not hung like a moose. Foley wrote that he’s hung average, since he liked to parade around naked when they roomed together on the road. So now we have to speculate on why a hot piece of ass like Kimberly chose him. She must be into tats or something like that. Besides, I couldn’t resist the emendations to “big swinging dick” that I made. I think I was being awfully complimentary to Mistah Falkenburg, actually. He should write and thank me for overestimating the size of his wang. Of course, I don’t expect it.
Now on to the Pimps…
THE PIMP SECTION
First pimp goes to Widro and Daniels, who are going to do something about the massive amount of spam that our IP mail addresses have been receiving after Wids gets back from E3. I’ve heard something about SpamAssassin, but something’s got to be done, because we’re getting that virus-generated German shit now.
Grut says goodbye. Let’s see how long this “retirement” lasts.
McCullar rhapsodizes about Episode 3. I just want to see how long it takes before it hits Pirate Bay, regardless of the massive security it’s going to have in re cameras in the theaters.
If Gloomchen is in Chicago for The Project Hate concert in August and somehow I get promoted by then, maybe I’ll catch her.
Truncellito makes a great case against Special Guest Refs who don’t know anything about the wrestling business. And how many viewers did Final Justice really get from having Tito Ortiz as a Special Guest Ref? And why won’t Jarrett drop the title to anyone other than Styles?
Cameron breaks away from baseball to discuss the NBA’s current labor problems.
Weavil sounds a bit confused, but then again, whenever we watch Raw, we all are.
Gordi also sounds a bit confused, but then again, whenever we try to match minds with bookers and promoters, we all are.
REVENGE OF THE NERDS
Normally I’d go into a big, long diatribe about a certain movie opening today. However, I haven’t seen it yet thanks to the crackdown on cameras inside theaters, and I don’t plan on spending any money on it until the DVD comes out. Besides, we’ve got this Movies section here, and that’s the job of those people. I will say, though, that I have wonderful childhood and teenage memories about the first two films which have been subsequently wrecked by at least two of the next three, and if Lucas pulls some bullshit like he did with Return of the Jedi, there’s going to be a lot of very pissed off people out there screaming for his blood.
Read the Movies section for more details.
NOT ONLY OVERPRICED, BUT BAD FOR YOU
From Reuters:
An airline catering company must take major steps to clean its Honolulu location or risk the unit’s closure after U.S. health inspectors found live cockroaches, dirty utensils and an oozing, pink slime earlier this year, according to a letter released Tuesday.
Gate Gourmet, Inc., which provides food and beverages to a number of airlines at Honolulu Airport, also kept “dirty uncovered” trash cans near food, let workers handle ice cubes with bare hands, and did not keep food at proper temperatures, the Food and Drug Administration warned.
“Specifically, in the pot wash area, salad area and hallways were dirty uncovered trash cans and trash carts with fruit flies and cockroaches in and near them,” the inspectors wrote in a letter dated April 21.
FDA officials also found a greasy stirring paddle and a “dirty oily” utensil rack at the Hawaiian facility during a February inspection. All refrigerator handles “were dirty and sticky with old food residue” and one unit “had mold growing on the windows,” the agency said.
“A pink slimy substance was dripping onto the conveyor at the ‘clean end’ of the pot washing machine,” the letter said.
What, you don’t think I’m going to throw in a food safety story if I see one? You must be a new reader. After all, it’s been my life for seventeen years.
Okay, this is disgusting. Yes, even more so than airline food is supposed to be. However, it’s business as usual for health inspectors. I saw some really, really bad things when I was a retail health inspector in the Army, even more so than I saw as a meat inspector since. I closed down a large officers’ club for seeing things like one of the preparers mixing salad dressing with her bare hands, and then licking them clean when she switched dressings. I’ve seen food kept after expiration, roaches all over the place, undated frozen food from God knows how long ago (there are time limits in regulations for keeping frozen food), improperly kept trash, and other things that would curl your hair (and do heaven knows what to your stomach). Let’s face it, the more you know about the food you’ve had prepared for you, the less you’d want to eat it. That’s probably why I’m very fussy about where I eat if I have to eat out. I rarely do restaurants. I do fast food only if I can see the stuff being prepared. And you wonder why I have stomach problems.
Now, as to what the “pink slimy stuff” is, my guess is that it’s a mixture of liquid detergent as used in the pot wash and congealed fat. Disgusting, and definitely not wanted there. They have really got to flush out that pot wash machine. And, for that matter, call some maintenance guy in to look at it, because it sure as hell sounds like it’s malfunctioning.
So my best advice here is that if you’re flying anywhere from Honolulu, pick up something at one of the snack bars and don’t eat the food on the plane. Stick with candy bars if you have to; at least you know that they’re not going to kill you.
As for me, this thing’s triggered Plan C just in case I get fired or otherwise screwed. However, FDA’s online application site is 404ing at this moment. I’ll have to remember that for later. A health inspector job in Honolulu sounds pretty damn good to me.
MORE ABU GHRAIB FALLOUT
From the AP Wire:
An Army reservist tearfully apologized for her role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, saying she failed in her duties and took full responsibility for her actions.
Spc. Sabrina Harman’s voice cracked as she spoke during the hearing, where she was sentenced to six months in prison for mistreating detainees.
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
“As a soldier and military police officer, I failed my duties and failed my mission to protect and defend,” said Harman, 27. “I not only let down the people in Iraq, but I let down every single soldier that serves today.
“My actions potentially caused an increased hatred and insurgency towards the United States, putting soldiers and civilians at greater risk,” she continued. “I take full responsibility for my actions. … The decisions I made were mine and mine alone.”
Bingo, honey. You brought shame to the US Army and to the US. You were part of a group of people in that white trash unit who thought it was fun to abuse and, yes, torture people in your custody. Do you treat the workers at your pizza shop the same way when they have a disciplinary problem? Hell, I wouldn’t want to work under a manager like you.
Harman, of Lorton, Va., was convicted on six of the seven counts she faced for mistreating detainees at the Baghdad-area lockup in late 2003. Among other things, she was found guilty of taking part in a photographed incident in which a hooded Iraqi was threatened with electrocution while standing on a box with electrical wires in his hands.
A lot of SPC Harman’s trial, which I didn’t quote the AP story about, was based on her caring attitude toward Iraqis during another assignment. So how could she give in to doing stuff like this if commanded to do so? What you do in a situation like this is say “No, this is an illegal order, I am not following it, and I will report my decision to our commanding officer”. You don’t f*cking pose for photographs of a guy being tortured.
Harman had faced a maximum of five years, though prosecutors asked the jury to give her three years. With credit for time served, her actual sentence is just more than four months. She will be reduced in rank to a private and receive a bad conduct discharge after she finishes the sentence.
She should have got the five years for being too goddamn stupid to stay out of this abominable situation. Four months and a dishonorable is a disgrace to the people that she was involved in torturing.
Defense lawyer Frank Spinner said his client had the chance to plead guilty last year with a two-year sentencing cap, but Harman turned down the proposal.
“I felt very strongly in Sabrina Harman,” Spinner said. “I feel she’s a very naive, very innocent person … She didn’t know how to react to that experience (at Abu Ghraib).”
Ignorance of the Geneva Convention is no excuse. Hell, this should have been handled in MP training: YOU DON’T ABUSE PRISONERS! “Didn’t know how to react”, my ass. If she couldn’t get that through her head, she’s a pig-ignorant moron who had no business being in the military in the first place, just like all the rest of these idiots involved in the torture.
Two Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, whose testimony was read into the record, said Harman’s gentle treatment was unique among the guards in the part of the prison reserved mostly for detainees believed to have intelligence value.
“She has no cruelty in her,” Amjad Ismail Khalil al-Taie said through an interpreter. “Even though she is an American woman, she was just like a sister.”
Yeah, if your sister was a dominatrix. However, this is small potatoes. I can’t wait for the Lynndie England trial. That’s going to be the main event. I want prosecutors to go for the kill on that one so that every American knows and understands how cruel, vicious, and absolutely idiotic certain fellow Americans can be. Please, let that hold up a mirror to every September 11th jingoist out there so they can see exactly what their attitudes have created. But, knowing the sheer ignorance of people, they’re not going to see any reflection at all.
AND SPEAKING OF WEIRD TRIALS…
From Reuters:
Russian judges on Wednesday inched their way through a marathon guilty verdict in oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s fraud trial, in a finale the defence said was being strung out to spare the Kremlin embarrassment.
Khodorkovsky’s lawyers said judges wanted as few people as possible to witness the climax of a trial which is widely seen as a Kremlin attempt to crush a political rival and which has tarnished President Vladimir Putin’s international image.
“My feeling is that it will take days and days,” lawyer Robert Amsterdam told Reuters. “But as soon as the press loses interest it may speed up dramatically and there could be a verdict.”
The panel of three judges adjourned until 10:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) Thursday after a third day reading a judgment that detailed the 41-year-old billionaire’s crimes, leaving no doubt about an eventual guilty verdict.
But they did not deliver a formal verdict and sat for under four hours, making only a small dent in the 15 cm (6 inch) high pile of papers which contains their minutely-detailed verdict.
Khodorkovsky is on trial with business associate Platon Lebedev on charges of fraud, tax evasion and other crimes.
Since he was arrested at gunpoint 17 months ago in a raid on his private jet in Siberia, his YUKOS oil firm has been crippled by a $27.5 billion back-tax claim.
Khodorkovsky had been funding political parties, which was partly the reason for his downfall, say analysts. The Kremlin denies the case is political.
Investors have been spooked, fearing they could be the next targets of a YUKOS-style official onslaught and the U.S. State Department this week repeated concerns about the case.
Khodorkovsky spent the start of Wednesday’s session smiling and mouthing words at his wife, Inna, who was sitting about one metre from the metal cage from where Khodorkovsky a
nd Lebedev — who say they are innocent — listened to the judgment.
But he was more sombre than in the first two days of the verdict, spending the recesses in intense whispered conversations with his lawyers.
The defence team said they were upset that the judges’ verdict seemed to parrot the prosecution case.
“I thought they could not do any better than the Prosecutor General but they have,” Khodorkovsky was heard telling his mother, Marina, during a recess.
The prosecution is seeking 10-year sentences for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Analysts say a shorter sentence would indicate a softening in the Kremlin’s hard line on Russia’s wealthy oligarchs.
Observers had seen the verdict as the dramatic climax of a trial that has taken almost a year to reach this point. Journalists crammed into the courtroom and hundreds more waited in the street outside to hear the tycoon’s fate.
But by the end of Wednesday, the judges had only dealt in their verdict with evidence relating to one of 11 instances of alleged wrongdoing included in their judgment.
Once they have covered all 11, they still have to break the wrongdoing down into specific charges and set the punishment.
In painstaking detail, judges on Wednesday described a Khodorkovsky front company using deception to acquire shares in a privatised research institute.
However, defence lawyers said the judges had ignored their arguments the transactions were legitimate business practice.
“Why did they need lawyers and have such a long trial if they were just going to repeat the prosecution’s conclusions?” said Yelena Liptser, a lawyer for Lebedev.
I’ve been following the Khodorkovsky trial pretty closely, and have been interested in him ever since reading about his rise to billionaire status a few years ago in David Hoffman’s The Oligarchs, a wonderful book on the cut-throat capitalism that infused Russia during the early 90s. He’s a really interesting guy, actually. And I definitely think he’s being railroaded.
First of all, this is a political trial. Khodorkovsky was one of the more outspoken critics of the Yeltsin and Putin regimes, and did indeed finance opposing political parties. He was, in a sense, Ross Perot with the sense not to be the front man for the opposition movement. And, let’s face it, a government agency won the bid for YUKOS’s major assets during the liquidation auction. Putin wants some stability, which means a bit of a crackdown on dissent. So the political motivation for the trial seems to be more paramount than any fiscal malfesance.
Now, you’re going to ask me this question, and you have a perfect right to do so: if John Kerry had won, which he should have, and Ken Lay was indicted and brought to trial for the mess that happened at Enron, would that also be a political trial? Sean Hannity would definitely say it was. I would say no. The trial would be more for fiscal malfesance than anything else. Any kind of campaign finance law violation would either not be brought up, or, if the indictment contained such charges, would be plea-bargained out before trial began. Both parties in this country wouldn’t want that particular aspect to be brought up, thank you very much. There’s too many dirty deals out there to begin with, and full exposure might just cause the destruction of our current political situation without anything to replace it. It’s the same reason why the Watergate hearings never went into the subject of campaign finance, despite the fact that it was on the agenda.
Second, there was one major reason for the delay: if they’d started the recap/sentencing any sooner, it would have run into the V-E Day ceremonies in Moscow last week. It’s not good publicity to have a high-profile and controversial trial like this entering that phase when you have a pissload of world leaders in town. It draws too much attention. The prosecution and jurors do want to bore the press into submission. They underestimate the press. They’re sticking to this story. It’s just too damn big.
Is Khodorkovsky innocent? Yes, he is. The defense is right; that’s how business is done over there. It’s a very free-wheeling market, and that’s what scares the old guys like Putin. They’re used to having things under control and monitored. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand is very visible over there. If someone can find a way to make money there, they’re going to do it. Just to give one example, the MPAA and RIAA are trying like hell to try to crack down on illegal sales of movies and music over in Russia, since most of said are bought on street corners and in markets, obtained by the usual method of someone having broadband and a burner. They might be able to do something about, say, Malaysia or even China, but not Russia. Actually, they should put more effort into this than into suing people in the West for downloading and NOT selling the stuff for profit.
And what if Khodorkovsky is found guilty and sentenced to ten years (a moot point, since he will, and the judges’ actions have made it clear)? I don’t know why, but I have visions of Noel Coward as Mister Bridger in The Italian Job running through my head, with him buying off the guards and essentially running the prison and his business while in jail. In fact, that might be the best thing for everyone involved. The government thinks it has him under control, while he’s able to do his job without Putin watching him constantly.
Hey, and that’s a Wednesday column in the books for a change! It surprises me as much as it does you. Well, let’s hope I can clear out a Short Form for this weekend. That’ll be the first time I’ve done three in a week for a while now, and with no real distractions, unless I tear my hair out getting the new mobo/processor/RAM/video card/adapter to work, it should be done. Hell, I’ll even hold off installing WinXP 64-bit until I get it done. So I plan to keep these promises. Honestly, I do.
