Brown's Black

>saying that prosecutors lost 85% of their case against him >and the rest is on appeal This part of Conrad Black's 'Big Lie' shows how fortunate he was at his trial. Interviews with the jury panel show there was one wacko juror who refused to convict on a count unless she had "paper evidence". She applied her own judicial standard of "beyond all doubt" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt". Testimony was not sufficent for her. While most of the jurors were promptly ready to convict Black on all counts, the renegade juror searched through the boxes of documents (that Black had tried to make disappear!) and found what she was looking for on some of the counts. After days of wrangling, the majority decided to give in to the crazed juror and acquit on some counts so they could go home. Black was found not guilty on some counts only because he happened to get an extremely stubborn and misguided juror. Black didn't testify on his own behalf. Instead, he puts out a stream of jailhouse generated lies without ever having to face expert cross-examination. Of course, he blames everything on someone else... his lawyers, the 'Nazi' prosecutors, the judge, the jury, the Appeals court. What a vast conspiracy he sees! He's got more brass than the British Navy to beg George Bush for clemency without admitting any wrongdoing. What's sad for American taxpayers is that you're spending many thousands of dollars to jail Black. Worse, he brags that he has full access to the news media, the Internet, and friends. Hell, he's more prominent than he was when free! Thank goodness that Black threw away his Canadian citizenship so he could become a nobleman in the British House of Lords. If he hadn't done that, we (Canadians) would be paying for his accomodations while he writes his drivel. . Reply

>from luxury into squalor Not quite true. 'Lordy' is rich enough to enjoy the rights of the nobility - even while incarcerated. For example, he doesn't eat regular prison food with other inmates. Instead, he hired a fellow inmate to be his butler. The manservant buys food from the prison store, cooks it to Black's taste, and serves it to him in their dormitory. Black doesn't lift a finger during his incarceration. He wangled a cushy job as prison librarian where he surfs the Internet and takes shots a people like you. A U.S. prison is clearly no hardship for white-collar crooks like Black. Reply

I certainly can’t argue with the point that the web—or the solitary blogs, columns, and articles within it—lacks a certain amount of regulation, and subsequent standardization or ethical code with which to be bound. However I think a certain amount of lawlessness forces the reader to discern for themselves what, or in this case, who, is right for them, much the same way people have been deciding their personal newspaper of choice for over a century. It is true that you may not know if the person you are reading is incarcerated, at least not without more digging and time spent reading and researching than you may be hoping for, if you are the kind of person who likes to log on for their quick news briefs over your morning coffee. However, I am not so sure that being incarcerated makes a person wholly discreditable. No more than being poor makes you stupid, or poorly dressed might make you a bad presenter. In it’s own way the web has formed it’s particular way of stripping away prejudice, not because we don’t stereotype, but because in the web medium we have nothing more than your thoughts and prose style to go on, leveling the playing field in a way affirmative action could not have dreamed of. If Tina’s very rich inmate friend has something worth reading, well, who is to say this is a resource we should not tap, surely there are less trustable people walking among us. However, if we’re going to knit pick, I can’t help but notice the very obvious pot, kettle, black, sort of issue we are working with here. Surely Tina Brown’s image could not be more discredited than a man who was canned from a similar—though lower—gig at NYmag after a desperate and ill placed power grab. Only to be taken on at Vanity Fair, presumably, for sheer publicity sales, as the prose style and content thin gossip writing didn’t exactly fit, or even grow to fit, to the newsier, monthly, 3,000 word, style of the magazine. Virtually slipping from mini fame, albeit NY only mini fame, into blatant obscurity in less than a year’s time. Popping up periodically to describe bloggers as “…the millions of morons who form the critical mass of that central Internet genre, user-created content, sharing their drivel,"—whatever that means—and to write off blogs off as a passing fad. Until, ah-hem, reinventing oneself as Internet news entrepreneur and part time blogger. The mooching comment is a bit of a low blow, people use other people’s money to start up all the time—they’re called investors. The situation can’t be so different than Newser—and you Mr. Wolff, in particular—mooching off of Patrick Spain. The only difference being, of course, that you did it first. Reply

RE “Patrick Spain” When I logged on for my morning Newser and saw that Patrick Spain had commented on my little response, my pupils dilated a bit. I was thrilled, excited—flattered even—that I had said something so worth commenting on that anyone, let alone the founded of HighBeam—a man who made a very short appearance in the bottom paragraph of my comment—would feel the need to come forward and stand up for his colleague (a colleague, I might add, that comes under assail quite a lot), against a girl making a small observation from her mattress springs. However I suppose that brings us to the premise of Mr. Wolff’s blog entry. You can’t actually know whom you are dealing with on this whole www thing. Odds are very small indeed that Mr. Spain cares at all what I think (why would he?). In the name box you can write anything, I could have easily signed it Bill Gates, David Cameron, Tina Brown, Yo Mamma. The only ID check being that you have an email address. Though I think to focus on who said what, on what Mr. Spain may or may not believe, is to miss the point a bit. It doesn’t really matter who is mooching whom, one hardly enters into a business relationship with someone whom they don’t believe in, and you don’t give money unless you think you may earn it back. But who is to say that Mr. Diller doesn’t feel the same benevolence toward Ms. Brown? The issue here isn’t so much of money (though it’s hard to leave money out of any matter), but one of parallels. Yes, I did imply that Mr. Wolff was a bit of a twit (a mooching twit at that). But it is more, as I called it, a pot-kettle similarity, a takes-one-to-know-one, if you will. Brown and Wolff appear to be cut from the same cloth. Wolff’s funnier, but she tends to gross more. Though I suppose the possibility does exist that I was just, as Billy put it so eloquently, owned. In which case, touché Mr. Spain. Reply