Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Day in the Life of... Battistelli's Banana Republic

Battistelli



Summary: This is part 5 of a fictional diary from the EPO

November 2016 was looking so good right up to the end. And then came those stupid, stupid judgments from the ILO.



A man of my greatness doesn’t deserve such humiliations. I’ve had a fabulous year. A few morons in the Administrative Council thought they would stand up to me. Well, they soon realised how hopeless their efforts were when all my friends stood shoulder to shoulder with me and pressed the right buttons when it came to the vote. When I say “friends”, I mean it in the political sense, of course. It’s not as though they had any choice. I made it quite clear to them what would happen to their “co-operation” money if they pressed the wrong button.

Once I’d taken care of those hopeless revolutionaries in the Council, I was free to get back to my favourite pastime – bullying staff reps. I’ve made it so easy for myself with all the changes I’ve introduced, almost too easy. It’s like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. But hey, it’s still fun watching them suffer. I just loved signing that decision to fire Prunier. Not only did I feel a great surge of satisfaction at his pain, but I was also sticking up my middle finger to the clowns in the Council. It was wonderful.

Being unfair to others is part of my nature. It's a real pleasure to me. Of course, there is nothing like a bit of competition to add some spice and some extra motivation to my evilness. And that is why I like Frankie Boy in Geneva so much. We have a private bet on who can get away with the biggest and most obvious crimes and violations of the rights of others, without getting fired or ending up in jail.

It is not really the challenge, though, that I would like it to be. Firstly, because Frankie foolishly agreed that Lutz the Klutz could be the judge deciding who wins. Secondly, because I am well ahead in the race. Sure, I never ordered to take DNA samples to identify a wrongdoer, and I am a bit jealous that I didn’t think of it first. But, let’s face it, I don’t need scientific gimmicks to catch the scum I want to get rid of. I know myself who’s guilty: the people I dislike. I simply give Elodie their names, she tells the Investigation Unit what they have to do, and they do it. Any kind of garbage is enough, since I am the judge anyway. And - thanks to my immunity - I am clearly a truly independent judge. That gives me the moral authority to explain to the public why the accused is guilty as sin. The public then sees me as a benevolent, loving leader, and admires my leniency in the softness of the punishment I impose.

If it weren’t for Frankie Boy, I’d like to call my system the EPO Kangaroo Court but that would almost sound like I was honouring him and his silly upside-down nationality. Anyhow, whatever you call my clever legal system, thanks to the fact that I can determine myself whether and how to apply the ECHR, all legal requirements are met. That's at least what I tell my buddy Joff and the Council. They believe everything.

It sometimes happens that Elodie adds a few more names to the list. As in the case of Weaver and Brumme. And that's good since it leads to persecutions where nobody can understand how I pick my victims. That intensifies the climate of fear in the Office. The higher the level of fear, the higher the production - that's the secret of my success. The delegations love increasing production numbers since they are addicted to the cash.

Ah, I was having so much fun all month, right up to the end. And then, on the very last day came that idiotic judgment. I must get Klutzy to make an appointment for me with those idiotic judges in Geneva. I bet Frankie Boy has been bribing them to be mean to me. I need to get over there and offer them more than he is paying. Or maybe I’ll take my hunky body guards with me and explain what they can do if they get upset by people being mean to me. I could send them round to Frankie while we’re there. Oh, revenge will be sweet.

So, they think, those scumbag judges, that they have just rendered our Internal Appeal Committee retroactively null and void from the beginning of 2015. Hahahaha. Haven’t they heard of immunity, those fools? What are they going to do if I just ignore them, eh? Oh, this is going to be such fun. I can exploit the situation to my own advantage. After all, they’ve just dramatically increased our appeals backlog, haven’t they? So, I shall just have to be the decisive leader again and put measures in place to reduce the backlog. I shall call it “Early Certainty from Internal Appeals”. The only certainty will be that I refuse ALL of them. HAHAHA – je m’en fous – this is going to be so much fun. I shall prepare a Council document tomorrow, explaining how all internal appeals will be deemed refused. In fact, I shall make them retroactively refused so that the deadline has already expired for taking them to Geneva. I am such a genius. And all the staff can go on suffering.

Being president is so much fun. Je m’en fous.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 27/05/2026: TSMC Workers Next to Consider Strikes, Ceasefire Cracking
Links for the day
 
2025: EPO President Campinos Breaks the Cookie Jar, Steals Another Million Euros While His "Brother-in-Law" Does Cocaine at the Office and Staff Prepares Rolling, Indefinite Strikes
any additional month of Campinos in charge of the EPO is a liability not just to the EPO but the EU as well
Gemini Links 28/05/2026: Dumping Microsoft GitHub, Gopher Rabbit Hole
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 27, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 27, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 89 Out of 200: SRA Admits Malfunction, That's Why Transparency is Paramount
There have been more efforts than we can to count or can enumerate (probably over 100 such efforts) to gag us and to prevent us writing about what has happened
Our Free Software Activist in Connecticut (USA)
We'll soon revisit the latest round of legislation on "age" (surveillance, ID)
Links 27/05/2026: Living Without 'Smartphoones' and "Russia’s Biggest Attack on Ukraine in 18 Months"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2026: The USA as an "Experiment" and Some Ubuntu Manuals
Links for the day
[Video] Full Video of Richard Stallman's Talk in Rome
It seems inevitable that the official GNU site will have it
Slop is a Passing Fad, It's About Faking Productivity (Plagiarism, Misinformation, and False Positives)
Slop is a bubble. Some people accept it later than others.
Anderon - Like Kyndryl - Could be Far Deeper in Debt Than Its Alleged Worth (Vapourware)
Time will tell, but it seems like a Federal-enabled (by the Federal Government) accounting scam, nothing more, nothing less
The Media That Keeps Covering "AI" Because the Pushers of It Pay for Spam
23 times in the page they mention "AI"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 26, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Codecs and Software Patents - Part XI - The Stance of RMS (Dr. Stallman) Reassured GNU Regarding AV1
cautioned against software patents since the early 90s if not earlier
Google: We Are Locking You Out of Your Account (Since 15+ Years Ago) Because You Don't Have a Spyphone We Remotely Control
Google (GAFAM) is an evil company deep in debt
Red Hat: Bluewashing by IBM, Followed by RAs (Layoffs)
We could use some hints or evidence related to this
Gemini Links 26/05/2026: A Year of Composting, Fedora Bricks Itself and Infuriates Users With Slop and Wayland (Not What Users Want, What IBM Wants), Crawlers on Geminispace a Nuisance
Links for the day
Links 26/05/2026: "Making the Digital Physical"; "The Medical System Abandons Women When They Are Most Vulnerable"
Links for the day
While US Government Greenlights (or Bluelights) Bailouts for IBM Some Foreign Governments Blacklist It
"Albany leadership doesn’t know what they are doing but are damn good at pretending they do."
Good Thing When Home Appliances Are Ancient Antiques
dealing with the alarm has cost only time
The Bloating of the Web Contributes to Global Warming and Causes Burnout (Slowdown, Hardware Erosion, Waste)
This problem isn't limited to weather sites or subsites
IBM Bailouts and the IBM People Inside the Administration
It seems possible/plausible that it is bailout money down the drain or that this money will never arrive at all
Links 26/05/2026: Lithium Batteries Causing Fires (Even on Planes), 'Timmy' the Whale Dies
Links for the day
Why It's Ludicrous to Call Us "Microsoft Haters"
Even if clustered together, news items still cover a broad spectrum (or spectra) of issues
Pursuing Facts in an Age of Lies and 'Hallucinations' (Falsehoods Without Anyone Accountable, They Try Calling Computer-Generated Lies or Forgeries "Intelligence").
Our aim is to relay information while bypassing gossip networks like social control media and slop in "search" clothing
Computer-Generated Legal Filings Get You Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
We'll write a lot more about this in the future
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XII - In the Second-Largest Institution in Europe One Can Take Paid 'Sick Leave' for Doing Cocaine, Then Come Back
Cocaine addicts in the management were bullying colleagues. They're still in charge.
Sites in Their Twenties
We currently run concurrently a handful of series and have a lot more in the backlog
SLAPP Censorship - Part 88 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP is Defaming Trans People in America Because Garrett Pays Hired Guns to Silence Them
Garrett is scoring many own goals this year
Sloppy "Resource Action," (RA) or IBM Layoff, Leads to Another IBM Lawsuit, Alleging IBM Tries to Pass Liability to Algorithms
IBM is meanwhile resorting to slop to gaslight its remaining shareholders
The Latest IBM Layoff Rumours
What has happened to the company that invented so much of modern computing?
Holy See Recognises the Threat of GAFAM and Slop
Will the Holy See move away from GAFAM?
The Old Ways of Computing Were Objectively Better
Not as fast, but certainly much better
Social Control Media is a Giant Waste of Time (and There Are No Future Remedies for This)
Social Control Media is considered unhealthy to young people, but it is also collectively unhealthy to nations and nation-building
Codecs and Software Patents - Part X - Florian Müller Still Muddying the Waters for FOSS, Using Software Patents
Some things never change...
Gemini Links 26/05/2026: Slop Bug Reports and Crawlers Considered Evil
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 25, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, May 25, 2026