When Luck has Little Bearing on Success

Back when Conrad Black's guilty verdict was first announced, the local radio shock-jocks were positively giddy about the various types of sexual assault they thought Black would endure in prison. Ignoring their tastelessness and ignorance of prison partitioning based on crime types, my first thought was that there was no way Black would end up particularly victimized in prison.

While his wealthy family certainly gave him a leg up, it is unlikely he would have been so successful without some talent, and that kind of talent is valuable anywhere. Even in a rough prison I bet he would have risen to the top of the food chain pretty fast.

As it happens he ended up in a minimum security prison and appears to be thriving! He is teaching American History classes (which are apparently popular) and still contributes articles to the National Post a couple times a month.

Hotboxing the House of Representatives

Is Congress high?

With voters clamoring about record high gasoline prices, the House voted 324-84 in a largely symbolic measure that essentially would declare as illegal any effort by the cartel to set world oil prices.

The bill would authorize the Justice Department to bring suit against OPEC member countries in U.S. federal courts.

Every single Congressman/woman who voted for this bill should be ousted in the next election. That's just embarrassing.

How does one go about getting elected to one of those seats without the slightest grasp of even one of economics, law, or international politics?

American Gladiators, Season 2

I'm not as down on the re-make of American Gladiators as Sacha, but he is dead right on one point: The trash-talking and intros and backstories are worthless. The show would be completely unwatchable without the aid of a timeshifting device. But with one of those you can skip right past every stupid word that comes out of the Hulkster's mouth, and knock off an hour episode in about 20 minutes!

So what's new in season 2?

There are some new events, and many of the old ones have been revised to be a bit more balanced.

Some new Gladiators, including the winning contestants from last season. Seeing the old winners back is pretty interesting - both are way more muscular now. Not steroids big, but clearly they've been working out a lot in preparation. I thought that their relative smallness might be a hindrance, but both are doing fine. It's pretty funny watching Evan (aka Rocket) tear people off the wall - he was untouchable in the first season in that event, and now he's doing smartass things like climbing above the contestants and attacking them from above.

One oddity in the first episode was an amputee competitor - he had a couple different prosthetic legs he used for different events. I'm not saying I could have done better than him, but his treatment was pretty patronizing; everyone kept congratulating him on a good effort when he clearly wasn't keeping up, and by the end the Gladiators were going out of their way to give him a fighting chance. Not that it did him any good.