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[Vinnie] Jones, who achieved widespread fame in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels … reckons that he could have an entire aeroplane’s cabin crew bumped off for a mere £3000.  This was his claim, somewhere between Tokyo and Heathrow, sometime last May, when a member of said cabin crew attempted to remonstrate with him for slapping a fellow passenger in the face, 10 times.  And this was not a shonky, under-manned CheapyJet Air Van.  This was a Virgin Atlantic A340-600, the longest commercial aeroplane in the world, with an on-board staff of 19. That’s less than £158 each.  Cheap for a stewardess, and a downright bargain for the pilot.

                    – Hugo Rifkind, “Keeping up with the Joneses”, The Herald, 15 December 2003.

Female inmates are forced to work on a chain gang, wearing bags of rocks on their backs, if they want three meals a day.  They work digging graves and burying people: homeless, elderly, infants.  One woman had to bury her own baby.  The draconian sheriff, a self-styled Old
West hero, has instituted cost-cutting measures.  Slashing inmates’ caloric intakes.  Housing them outside in tents in 125°F (52°C) weather.  Feeding them ruined batches of processed food.  And all this for mass murder?  Serial child molestation?  Genocide?  No.  Petty theft, substance abuse problems, and prostitution.

What third-world country am I talking about?  Phoenix, Arizona.

I startled myself by getting 7 out of 10 correct on The Guardian’s How much do you know about the Commonwealth? quiz, garnering a score of “impressive”.

Russia has pulled out of Kyoto talks.

Thanks, George.