Khodorkovsky Jealous?

A former-Yukos exec, Vasily Aleksanian, has finally figured out the loophole to life imprisonment: cancer, AIDS, and impending blindness. Of course, this short-lived freedom comes with a price tag of $1.8 million, which in today's economy may make even an oligarch blink.

Having participated in a hunger strike in the hopes of seeing his colleague freed, Khodorkovsky can probably expect to spend the next eight years of his term waiting expectantly for more charges to emerge from the Federal Procurator General's office. On the bright side, Russian legislators are about to restrict the application of trial by jury in "important cases," which will undoubtedly make the next round speedier and less...biased.