Category: Uncategorized

Like many baseball fans not from the SF area, I assume Barry Bonds has been using steroids for years. I’ve always had a chuckle over the “it wasn’t illegal in baseball at the time” argument about much steroid abuse, because most of these steroids were illegal to possess in the U.S. I mean, my workplace doesn’t explicitly say that cocaine is off-limits, but possession of it would still be a crime.

Anyway, I come from the Turk Wendell school of analysis on this issue: the best evidence is provided by our eyes. Of course Bonds, McGwire and Sosa were on the juice; look at them! And it’s pretty obvious from the stat-anomalies that Bret Boone and Brady Anderson were on something a few years back (as well as a pack of other players).

But my question about the Bonds case is a little different. Yesterday, he tried to sue to block the writers of Game of Shadows from seeing any profits from the book, on the grounds that they were using illegally obtained grand jury transcripts as part of their source material. A judge shot down the motion in short order, but it brought up the same issue that I wondered about when Jason Giambi’s testimony was leaked: isn’t it, um, like felony-level illegal to leak grand jury testimony?

Because Giambi thought he was protected by the law during the grand jury deposition, he spoke honestly about his steroid abuse and history with the BALCO group that was under investigation. He was given immunity from prosecution (for perjury, or likely contempt) in exchange for his cooperation. However, if Giambi had to choose between

a) immunity, but having his testimony leaked to the press;

b) pleading the fifth, but running the risk of being charged in the case

it doesn’t look like he had much of a choice at all. It’s pretty obvious he didn’t want this stuff to be made public, so it seems his best bet might have been doing what Bonds seems to have done; taking immunity, then lying like a rug in front of the grand jury.

(Note: I’m not saying that the writers, their publisher or their newspaper should be charged with anything; they have first amendment protection to publish secret grand jury testimony, if they receive it. What’s illegal (and seemingly uninvestigated) is the act of leaking that testimony.)

I’m at a conference in NYC all mid-week, so I won’t have time to post for another day or so. Grr.

Tom Stoppard on the subject of the “inalienable right” of free speech:

A “human right” is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times. But the whole parcel of liberties into which free expression fits has a history. To St Augustine, religious tolerance would have been an oxymoron. The concept of pluralism as a virtue is a thousand years more modern than St Augustine. To say, therefore, that the right of free speech was always a human right which in unenlightened societies was suspended from the year dot until our enlightened times is surely beyond even our capacity for condescension.

Neat post by Vodkapundit, speculating on Russia’s over-strategy.

Just got back from our California honeymoon! I’ve got plenty of stories and pix to share, but not tonight; we drove from Big Sur to San Francisco International, starting around 6am this morning, so we’re pretty tired.

It was an ugly/bumpy flight, but we made it into New Orleans! Thanks to benzodiazepines, I was just fine!

Unfortunately, I blistered through the book I brought along with me (Charles Portis’ Norwood), and neither of the others I brought for the trip are appealing to me right now (Henry Miller’s Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch and Richard III (I inadvertently grabbed this instead of Richard II, which is an even dumber move than messing up the Dermot Mulroney / Dylan McDermott axis)), so I may need to pick up some other reading material while I’m here.

Sure, most people don’t spend the days before their weddings worried about book selection, but we seem to have everything under control: paperwork gets filed tomorrow, DJ gets his musical “guide” in the afternoon (along with a stack of CDs that we want to use), tux pickup is on Saturday, and public drunkenness is scheduled for Saturday night.

My brother plans on shooting video of the wedding and posting it pretty close to live (depending on the wireless setup at the venue). I promise that I will have NOTHING to do with getting that set up. But it’ll likely show up on this site.

The groom- and bride-to-be, last October at the Hi Life Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Ave. Courtesy of Tina.

Sorry I’ve been out of touch, dear reader. We’re closing in on the wedding date (March 12!), and this has necessitated a ton of work at the day job, preparing the April issue of the magazine so that my associate editor can handle what I’m leaving behind.

This will necessitate my knocking out articles on biogeneric drugs and site selection criteria for pharma facilities, and updating our glossary of pharma & biopharma terms. Since one of my associates at a major pharma company just sent me an in-house list of acronyms used in the industry, it looks like I’ll be updating a bunch of the glossary entries for this year’s edition.

And I’ll be getting married in 9 days. So, I’m probably not going to post anything for the next bunch of days, is what I’m saying. Typing. Whatever.

Don Knotts died last night, at 81. I find it hard to believe he was only in 25 movies.

In the Divine Trash doucmentary, Steve Buscemi remarked that he and John Waters should fight it out to see who gets to play the lead in the Don Knotts biopic.

This news item about governors-in-peril sounds like something out of the Watchmen. . .