Bernie Ebbers has been convicted on ALL CHARGES. Woot!
Now, all we need to see is him cuffed and stuffed. Going up to the Big House for 85 years. Preferably to share a cell with a big biker-type named Butch. But what would satisfy me most is to see him being frog-marched up the perp-walk in orange coveralls. Leg irons would be a nice touch, too.
Ebbers is an ex-Canadian. Good thing he’s not Canadian anymore; he’s a disgrace to my home and native land and would probably be among the ranks of its own corporate criminals if he stuck around. I feel bad for the people of Mississippi, who got saddled with this god-awful crook. Sorry, neighbors-to-the-south. You didn’t deserve him; nobody does, except maybe someone who’s an even bigger crook, like Kenny Boy Lay, Karl Rove, or Dubya himself. Let’s hope all of them get what they deserve, too–hey, maybe they’ll even get to be bunkies together.
As it is, Canada has suffered abominably as a result of Bernie Ebbers, the homegrown corporate psychopath and former milkman from Alberta. Nortel Networks and JDS Uniphase are still struggling, thanks in no small part to his malfeasance. Thousands of Canadians have lost jobs over this. That’s a lot of human lives RUINED, Bernie!
Meanwhile, Martha Stewart, who was in for a far lesser offence, has left the building. Wearing a very chic poncho which is being frantically copied by crocheters everywhere, even as I type this. (Mwahahaha…I was already on top of this trend before it really became one again, more than two years ago; I knitted a simple turtle-necked beauty of my own design, fingertip length, with fringe, in olive-green tweed wool. And it looks smashing on me, too. Ah, the advantages of being a crafty Gen-X hippie chick…)
But back to Bernie. Honestly, where to start with this contemptible con artist? Bad enough that so many people lost so much. But Ebbers then had the gall to try to blame it on the accountants. That didn’t stick. How could it, when the truth emerged that Ebbers was so intimately involved in the fraud that he even personally abolished free coffee for the employees, installing vending machines instead?
And then he claimed it was out of his hands. That he had no idea what was going on. Yeah right, Bernie. Either you’re the world’s biggest dumbass, or the world’s biggest crook. I vote both; you’re a crook AND a dumbass. A crook because you stole $11 billion; a dumbass because you tried to lay blame in the last place where it would stick. You got caught in your own flypaper. Looks good on you, you conniving bastard. You don’t even deserve to be in charge of a coffee urn, never mind a major corporation.
And you are persona non grata up here in the Great North. If you ever show your face up here again, I hope every geek who lost a job due to your criminality recognizes it–and spits in it.
