The Globe reported Tuesday that Conrad Black faces an uphill battle in winning a reversal of the four charges on which he was convicted:

Whenever the papers are filed, the appeal will be heard by the Seventh Circuit Appeal Court, located in the same building in downtown Chicago as the district court that convicted Lord Black.

Last year, the Seventh Circuit reversed 12.1 per cent of the criminal cases it heard, according to figures compiled by the federal judiciary. That was nearly half the rate in 2005, which was 22.8 per cent.

"It is one of the least reversed courts in the United States," said Hugh Totten, a Chicago lawyer who has followed Lord Black's case.

In e-mails to journalists over the weekend, Black displayed something of an "just a flesh wound" attitude. The Globe's Margaret Wente thinks he's slightly nutty about this, and contrasts him with former partner David Radler:

It was Mr. Radler who saw the writing on the courtroom wall. He could rot in jail for years. Or he could rat out his old friend, pay back the money, serve six soft months in Canada, and return to his old life. So what if some business school chiselled his name off the building? He weighed the odds, and chose Door No. 2.

Lord Black never weighed the odds. Like Napoleon, his philosophy is kill or die. Evidently he forgot what happened when Napoleon marched on Moscow.

"We move on to the next phase in this long war," he e-mailed The Globe and Mail's Paul Waldie on the weekend. "We got rid of most of [the charges], and expect to get rid of the rest on appeal." ...

In Chicago, they have a saying that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. Lord Black was a hog. What's worse, he is a victim of his own delusions. Give me a realist any day. Realists know that, although it hurts like hell now, it'll be over soon.