Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is pleased to report that he can now see clearly again. As he reported earlier in the week his glasses got screwed up. We think that they got exposed to some heat somehow and got tempered. This tempering caused very small “waves” to form on the lens. When your Maximum Leader put the glasses on, he got the feeling like he was looking constantly through those heat waves you see coming up off asphalt during the summer. It made him sick to his stomach after a few minutes.

So your Maximum Leader tried to trot out his old prescription and get a new set of glasses. Sadly, since the prescription was three years old no one wanted to fill it. So, your Maximum Leader went over to his eye doctor and got a check up. He was clear. No signs of bad deseases of the eye. No deterioration of his vision either. In fact his eyes were unchanged in 3 years. That is a good thing.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has new glasses and can see just fine now.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t blogged much this week because of the glasses issue (which really wasn’t resolved until Wednesday) and a desire to get some of the books off his nightstand. You see your Maximum Leader can read without his glasses. In fact his vision at book-reading distance is quite good. So he read a lot. He is nearly done with two baseball books he recently received as gifts. The books are George Will’s “Men at Work” and Jason Turbow’s “Baseball Codes”. Your Maximum Leader highly recommends Will’s book to any baseball fan. It is certainly one of the best baseball books out there. Turbow’s book is a fun read. Your Maximum Leader can’t say that he learned much from the Turbow book, but it is filled with so many entertaining baseball yarns that it was a quick read.

Now your Maximum Leader is going to try and knock out Lord Norwich’s “Travellers Companion to Venice” and Christopher Moore’s “Lamb” before too long.

Your Maximum Leader is also going to try and get rid of all the old programming on his DVR and free up some space on that hard drive. Last night your Maximum Leader and Villainette #1 finished the last two episodes of Joss Whedon’s ill-fated series “Dollhouse.” The penultimate episode was okay, but would have been better if it had been the last episode. The final episode was disappointing from the perspective of the story. It seemed rushed, badly edited (in fact it felt like it was 3 hrs long when shot and only 1 hr long when it aired), and just thrown together. The best thing about the final episode was the Whedon was able to throw in a few of his favorite actors from previous outings (like Felicia Day from “Dr Horrible” and many members of the “Firefly” series).

For your intellectual curiosity, you should go and read one of the latest installments of FLG’s posts on time-horizons and their connections to politics/economics/world-view. FLG is probably on to something with this line of thinking.

That is all for now.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader receives a word of the day e-mail from Dictionary.com. He’s gotten it for years and years and finds that he is familiar with the word sent daily (even if he doesn’t use them regularly).

So… Today’s word was “hegira.”

Your Maximum Leader looked at it and drew a complete blank. He studied the word for a moment and thought to himself, “Self, this is probably a word of greek origin.” Then he thought for a moment to try and figure out the meaning of the word. Again he drew a blank. So he clicked through to read the definition.

As soon as he saw the pronunciation key he started kicking himself. Then the feeling of stupidity washed over him. Here is the definition for you:

hegira \he-JAY-ruh\, noun:

1. A journey to a more desirable or congenial place.
2. The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.

Hegira, whether referring to the event in the history of Islam or a general sense of the word, comes from the Arabic hajara, “to depart.”

Ugh. He should have recognized the word as being closely related to “Hajj” - at least phonetically.

The more he thinks of it the more he realizes that he’s read this word (and probably used it in school) a number of times.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if he really is growing more stupid.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader needs a favor from any reader who knows his/her latin.

One of your Maximum Leader’s most favorite old sayings is “When your luck has run out it doesn’t matter how big your dick is.”

This little line was told to your Maximum Leader once by a college professor who told him that it was a line from Ovid. Your Maximum Leader’s never found the line (or a close approximation of it) in Ovid. But he did find it (in English) in a book about sex in history (where the line was purported scrawled on the wall of a bath in Pompeii.

Your Maximum Leader’s request is that if you have expert knowledge of Latin, how would you render that expression. Your Maximum Leader would like to put it on a t-shirt or something… (He has it on a t-shirt in Chinese… Buy one here…)

If you can help, please let me know.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sure this will be the last post of 2009. He plans on trying to relax some this afternoon and then getting to be early. He will travel to New York tomorrow to visit Kevin’s mom. Sadly, it will be a day trip. Up early, on the train, visit, then back on the train and home.

Your Maximum Leader has been in a funky mood of late. There are likely many contributing factors to this funk. General pessimism may be the leading contributor. Pessimissm about the economy, the course of politics, the general outlook for things if idiots continue to be elected and behave (surprise!) like idiots. Your Maximum Leader has never really played the role of Cassandra here on this blog, but he supposes he could if he could get more motivated. Since he is not motivated he’ll leave you with some interesting posts from others.

First off, you should take a moment to read Daniel Henninger’s latest on the WSJ. “A Rodney Dangerfield America?” Henninger’s piece is good, and optimistic. It is worth your time.

Then you should read the recent prodigious output by our friend Skippy. He has been on a tear recently writing good thoughtful stuff that often closely mirrors what your Maximum Leader has been thinking. You could read about Vladimir Putin, or the rule of law, or Iran or injustice.

FLG commends a piece by Jim Manzi. You can read FLG’s excerpt here or the whole piece here.

If you are just looking for some interesting things to read here are some suggestions:

Is there a new Da Vinci painting out there? And by out there we mean Boston.

You can check out Jesus’ neighbor’s pad. It comes with a place to hide from Romans.

Will Russians star in the real-life Armageddon? Your Maximum Leader was still hoping for Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler…

Check out some words or phrases that some thing should be banished from our daily dialouge.

Of course… You could just close your browser and spend some time with family and friends and enjoy yourself.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wasn’t a big Bill Clinton fan while he was in office. Frankly your Maximum Leader isn’t a Bill Clinton fan right now. Okay… Your Maximum Leader jokes about Bill Clinton working to improve the US’s image one vagina at a time; but those jests are only half-jests at best…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t read Bill Clinton’s memoirs. He doesn’t plan to frankly. But there could be a Clinton book out there that he would want to read. Did you see on USA Today how Clinton and historian Taylor Branch met in secret 79 times throughout Clinton’s White House years and recorded interviews about what was going on in Bill’s head at the time? Your Maximum Leader didn’t know. Apparently, until a few days ago, no one knew. Now USA Today knows and has written about it.

Here are some highlights…

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and civil rights historian, would pick up a notepad of questions and two microcassette recorders and drive his truck down Interstate 95 to Washington. Parking on the South Lawn, he would head to the White House family quarters for interviews so secret Clinton stored the tapes of them in his sock drawer.

What followed sometimes seemed like one of the bull sessions the two had two decades earlier when they shared an apartment in Austin, running George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in Texas.

In these interviews and a new book that has followed, Branch says he tried to capture Clinton’s unvarnished perspective on the events swirling around his presidency, from the consequential to the occasionally comic.

Reluctant to discuss the affair with Monica Lewinsky that led to his impeachment, Clinton once lamented that it occurred when he felt sorry for himself and that he “just cracked” under the pressure of personal and political setback.

He also relayed how Boris Yeltsin’s late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him

…

Branch says the two conferred several times about it during the administration’s opening months. Clinton proposed Branch fill the role Arthur Schlesinger Jr. played in the Kennedy administration, a sort of court historian on the White House staff. Branch declined. Clinton tried dictating a diary but found it unwieldy; he said he needed to be interacting with someone.

In September 1993, Branch agreed to do oral history interviews with Clinton until the president could train someone on his staff for that role. No one else was ever trained, and their sessions continued until Clinton left office in 2001.

The president was determined to keep them secret to avoid what he saw as inevitable demands for disclosure.

“I was constantly wrestling with, ‘What is my job?’ ” Branch says. “Basically, my first goal was to say, ‘This is about history. … I want to get as much raw material on the record as possible.’ But it was never that simple.”

Branch was there as a historian but he also was a friend, and Clinton at times would seek his advice. From 1998 to 1999, Branch’s wife worked at the White House as a speechwriter for Hillary Clinton. As Bill Clinton finished his memoirs, he surprised Branch with a $50,000 “bonus” for his help in laying the groundwork for them.

Publication of Branch’s book has underscored the conflicting agendas of friend and historian.

Clinton on several occasions had encouraged Branch to write a book about their sessions, albeit at some undesignated point in the future. The author used the advance he received from the publishing house Simon & Schuster to have his own tapes transcribed; he had stored them in a safe deposit box at a bank.

Those tapes will be available to researchers next year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The former president had planned to use the interviews he had given when he wrote his book, but there is little sign he did. As he neared the deadline to submit his manuscript in 2004, he invited Branch to Chappaqua to read the first 700 pages. Branch was stunned to find that with only a month or two to go until his deadline, Clinton was just beginning to write about his time in the White House.

This looks like good stuff… Your Maximum Leader might actually spring for a copy when it is published. It sounds like it would be a better purchase than the money spent on “Dutch.”

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders if it is more common to say that one “tivo’ed” a program on TV or “DVR’ed” a program; regardless of the recording platform one owns. He says that he “tivos” programs, even though his recording device is a DVR… Curious… To use “tivo” as a verb is much more fluid sounding than the tongue-tied “setting the DVR to record.” But should we use the product-related invented verb even if we don’t own the product itself? Well… Your Maximum Leader does…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader must thank and curse FLG for a TV recommendation. FLG recommends “The Ascent of Money” on PBS. The thanks come because your Maximum Leader is something of a Niall Ferguson fan and is genuinely interested in the program.

The curses come because in order to make room on the DVR for the program your Maximum Leader is likely going to have to erase some older episodes of Two and a Half Men, How I Met your Mother and Burn Notice. He thinks that by erasing the sit-com’s he’ll be okay… He’s watched them all anyway…

Of course he could erase “Outland,” “Clerks,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and some episode of NOVA about butterflies that Mrs Villain recorded if he chose…

In fact… He might just erase all that stuff (except Burn Notice)… It is time to clean off the DVR…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has to ask something of his readers. As you all know, your Maximum Leader recently had a birthday. And although he’s mentioned this tidbit a few times, he was not trying to blatantly solicit a gift from any of his readers…

Well…

A box from an Amazon.com related retailer came in the mail last week. It contained a book that your Maximum Leader desired. Alas, the book contained a packing slip; but the packing slip did not contain the name of the party that ordered the book. Your Maximum Leader called a few of the usual suspects to see which one bought the book. But none of the ususal suspects purchased the book. Mrs Villain threw away the packing slip, so he cannot call the retailer and try and back-track to discover who needs to be thanked for the kind gift.

If anyone out there sent your Maximum Leader an out-of-print book off his Amazon wish list and hasn’t received a thank-you note yet… Please let him know. He would like to thank you personally.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has noticed a particular phraseology creeping into regular conversation. This phraseology annoys the hell out of him too.

He’s noticed that people have started to say that a person “is called” their name. For example: “She is called Cindy Lou Hoo.” Or “Hey dad. Meet my friend. She is called Cindy Lou Hoo.” What ever happened to “name is?” As in, “Hey dad. Meet my friend. Her name is Cindy Lou Hoo.”

Your Maximum Leader has even noticed this turn of phrase on the radio.

When the hell did this happen?

When you say to your Maximum Leader such and such “is called” this and that he is inclined to think that the epithet you’re using is title, alias or nickname. Your Maximum Leader is called “Your Maximum Leader”; but that isn’t his name.

This is likely a sign of the impending doom of civilization…

A minor sign… But a sign nonetheless.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was out looking for something quick to post… And here is another quiz, the results of which please your Maximum Leader.

Which Epic Poet Are You? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as P. Vergilius Maro You are Vergil, author of The Aeneid. Your epic meditates upon broad themes of history and fate, as well as especially glorifying Rome and your patron Augustus. Your perfectionism is notorious; it was said you would start a day with forty lines and end with four. P. Vergilius Maro 80% Torqauto Tasso 50% John Milton 45% Homer 45% Dante Alighieri 40%

Your Maximum Leader was a little surprised that he wasn’t Milton - whom he has always enjoyed a lot. And for the sake of being honest, your Maximum Leader has never heard (or never remembers hearing about) Tasso prior to this quiz…

Your Maximum Leader was recently talking about Vergil with Villainette #2 who is studying Ancient Rome now in school. He even pulled out one of his many copies of The Aeneid to have her read some. (She read in English, but saw the Latin on the opposite page.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noticed today that the AP news wire was running one of those fluffy stories it runs every year about the new words added to the Webster’s dictionary. This year new words appear to include: bollywood, sudoku, crunk, smackdowns, grey literature, and everyone’s favorite - ginormous. Apparently abbreviations like IED and DVR also make it into the new dictionary. Excursus: Are abbreviations actually words?

Now, your Maximum Leader is no gamy-handed postmodernist who feels that words can be ascribed any meaning you want; but he does recognize that language changes and words get added - and words fade from use. All in all, he is pleased with new words. He is particularly fond of ginormous in fact. He doesn’t use it very much in this forum, but he does use it from time to time with his kids (which makes the word more accepted among younger people and probably goes a long way towards promulgating the word further). Excursus: Sometimes in this forum he likes using the word “embiggen” when he uses a thumbnail image and wants you - the loyal reader - to click on the thumbnail to see the image made larger. He supposes that “embiggen” is an etymological cousin of ginormous.

He wonders if the popular (intentional mostly but unintentional sometimes) typo “teh” will one day make it into the dictionary. He will fully admit that “teh” doesn’t float his boat. Perhaps he doesn’t fully understand the concept of “teh.” Perhaps “teh” just upsets him because it causes him to face his own spelling issues.

At any rate, your Maximum Leader congratualtes “ginormous” for attaining the lofty status of “being in the dictionary.” May it last longer than “bootylicious” in our popular lexicon.

Carry on.

Illeist.

On a lighter note, my recent sojourn in the sunny state of Florida left me in a state of enforced idleness for a week and a half.

And Santa brought me goodies.

One of the best was Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons. Although my principles aren’t first and foremost a result of my belief system, I found that Dreher’s views quite attractive. Dreher believes that conservatives have allowed many of their core beliefs to be overshadowed by the cult of capitalism. Your humble Smallholder likes to paraphrase the great Winston Churchill when he explains his humble economic beliefs: “Capitalism is the worst form of economics… except for all the others.”

Capitalism works, my friends. I would ask our socialist readers (do we have any?) one simple question: “How’s that workin’ out?”

Capitalism has some serious rough edges.

Dreher, more eloquently than I, says that we need to remember that capitalism is a means to an end - a good society - and not an end in itself. When capitalism threatens that good society (Dreher is particularly concerned about its impact on society’s bedrock institution - the family), we have to be willing to modify or redirect the market. Dreher doesn’t talk specifics, but my newfound appreciation of the way much of government’s intervention is counterproductive makes me leart of unintended consequences. I am fine - in principle - with limiting the market. But the devil, as they say, is in the details. Much of what passes for “pro-environment/pro-farmer” agricultural regulation (market meddling) is neither pro-environment or pro-farmer. Most of our subsidy system is designed to protect the monopolies of the likes of Archer-Daniels Midlands. Government meddling with the market with the social welfare system hasn’t worked out so well either.

Dreher is by no means a liberal, but I fear that his fine principles are also in danger of forgetting the law of unintended consequences. If the camel’s nose gets under the tent, how do we prevent lobbyists and lawyers from tweaking legislation so that it helps the existing economic hegemons?

I’m with Dreher when we talk about some of the pernicious impacts of capitalism. Unfortunately, he doesn’t convince me that direct intervention will move us closer to the ideal of a good society.

That said, when he points out how existing governmental meddling, I’ve got his back. I’m all for cutting those pro-ADM “agricultural” subsidies so that the market will be more favorable to organic small farmers. If you want to know why some of us grow our own meat, read Dreher’s portrayals of small farmer stewardship.

I read two other books - Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love and a terraforming book. Heilein’s libertarian screed is much better than Rand’s. I never was able to work my way through Atlas Shrugged, but Heinlein’s political jeremiad kept me reading. Terraforming Harelquin’s Moon left me going “eh.” There were some interesting parts, but overall I wouldn’t call it Niven’s best work.

In a more serious vein, I recommend “Misquoting Jesus.” Give it to your best fundamentalist friend. Ehrman’s survey of the textual detective work and problems of scriprutal transmission is well-reasoned, supported by evidence, and decisively damning of the “If the King James was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me,” “Every jot and tittle” crowd. I now have a more sympathetic view of St. Paul - evidently some of the misogynist stuff in the Epistles are later additions and not original. I think the Big Ho would particularly enjoy this book (thanks for the farming link, by the way).

I have started “The Wisdom of Crowds” and am impressed so far. If my recent spate of posting holds up, I’ll give you my thoughts (for a price comensurate with their value).
The very best gift I received was the Univeristy of Wisconsin’s Beginning Dairy Farmers class. The multi-DVD set has 26 videotaped lectures, along with handouts and powerpoints. While the production value was rather low, the information was solid and I learned a great deal. Heck, I’m even working on putting together a business plan.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wants to say something right up front here. Fellow blogger Mark, of Witnit.org, rocks! Mark totally rocks!

Now, why you may ask does your Maximum Leader shower Mark with such praise on this day? Well… Not only is Mark having the coolest holiday week ever by going (with Mrs Witnit) to Florence, Italy for some quality time; but he remembered a modest request made my your Maximum Leader many moons ago. Back in June/July when Mark was planning his trip, your Maximum Leader made some sightseeing and dining suggestions. At the time your Maximum Leader asked if Mark would make a visit to your Maximum Leader’s favorite son of Florence’s grave and pay some respects to him.

And Mark, bless his little cotton socks, remembered your Maximum Leader’s request. Photographic evidence of this follows…

Gentle readers… Thanks to Mark, here is the grave of Niccolo Machiavelli with a rose of tribute from your Maximum Leader via Mark and his lovely wife.

And for those of you who aren’t into the whole photo-of-Machiavelli’s-grave-thingie, here is another image (with the same rose by the way) for you. This time it is a statue of Machiavelli found outside the Uffizi museum.

NB: Did you know that there is a school of etymology that believes that the work “office” in English is derived from “uffizi” in Italian? You see, the Medici’s organized the Florentine government during the Renaissance into a number of departments. One could say that the Medicis introduced the first “modern” bureaucracy to the West. (Bureaucracy had long existed in China after all.) The Medicis discovered that their growing bureaucracy needed office space. So the family purchased the Uffizi palace in Florence to house their growing bureaucratic ranks. Thus, if you were a Renaissance Florentine Bureaucrat working for the Medicis it was likely that you would walk every day to work at your office in the Uffizi. Not bad digs for a government employee.

Many thanks to you Mark for these pictures. Your Maximum Leader is very grateful.

And for the ladies! Check out Mark’s recent post about “art” in Florence. The post title should clue you in as to the type of art Mrs Witnit was looking at while vacationing…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader realizes that his comments are disabled. Some readers are kind enough to tell your Maximum Leader that his RSS feeds and archives might be intermittently available as well. Your Maximum Leader will have to poke around under the hood of his blog a little more to see if he can resolve some of these problems. In the end he thinks he’ll have to change hosting companies to ultimately finish these problems.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t get many e-mailed messages about his postings. (NB: Minion Molly, are you still out there? Your Maximum Leader is curious.) But from time to time he gets a little bit of virtual goodness tha is a fun e-mail. He recently received such a message. It came from loyal minion Buckethead from the Ministry of Minor Perfidy. Buckethead writes:

Dear Maximum Leader,
The last few days, I’ve been frustrated by the lack of comments on your bloggy thing. Toast is toast not because of warmth, but because of dryness. Granted, that dryness is often introduced by heat. The perfect toast is crunchy in a thin layer on the outside of the bread, and warm and moist goodness on the inside. Also, who cares which backstabbing medieval eye-tie despot (is there any other kind?) is better? The real question is which emotional state is preferable: fear, or apathy? Additionally, don’t get me started on the Red Dawn. I would have loved that movie unreservedly had it not been for the fact that the guerrilla group shared a mascot with the university of Michigan. Finally, Mary Magdalene is probably buried somewhere in the south of France, because the Da Vinci Code is all true, true I say.

Well… What can we say about all that? First off, your Maximum Leader hopes that Buckethead will not be offended by your Maximum Leader posting his e-mail. Your Maximum Leader has been wanting to post more than he has, but finds that actually writing a post is a problem. Thus, having at least part of a post pre-written for you seems like a great idea!

Now… To address Buckethead’s issues:

Your Maximum Leader, like Buckethead, realizes that toast has to do with dry and not just heat. The question was posed rhetorically because your Maixmum Leader was home at the time with the wee Villain and Villainette #1 who were both suffering from the same stomach flu. Villainette #1 announced that she was going to make some toast. Then she proceeded to put a piece of bread into the microwave for 15 sec on high. She announced that this was “her” idea of toast. This struck your Maximum Leader as some sort of heretical idea. “Her” idea of toast. She might as well have been saying “my personal truth” or some such nonsense. So, we talked for a little while about what makes toast toast. She still hasn’t been won over by your Maximum Leader’s oratory on toast to come around to the fact that warm bread is not toast. But she will. You Maximum Leader thinks she is just being a contrairian…

Your Maximum Leader must differ with Buckethead and say that there is a difference between one medieval potentate and the other. In the end, your Maximum Leader thinks it is better to be Grand Duke of Florence. Reasons being these: 1) Absolute monarchy vs. Some weird system whereby the Doge is elected and still suffers oversight by the city fathers; 2) More artists patronize Florence and more artists are Florentine than Venitian; 3) Better chance of having a family member become Pope; 4) Machiavelli wrote for Florence; 5) Your city, while it might flood from time to time, wasn’t always sinking into a lagoon.

Frankly, those seem like pretty compelling reasons…

And lastly… Dan Brown… Gawd your Maximum Leader thinks about Dan Brown and wonders if that sumbitch is waking up every day laughing at everyone who bought his book, bought tickets to the movie, or created some DaVinci Code knock-off book that probably pays him some sort of royalty. If Dan Brown isn’t laughing his arse off every day - he ought to be.

Direct comments, questions, desperate pleas for help, or photos of yourself (if you are cute and female) to your Maximum Leader at either address on the left side nav bar.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader learnt himself something today thanks to the glories of Albert Gore’s agical interwebs…

For many years your Maximum Leader has known that the ancient unit of currency known as a “denar” was of Macedonian origin. The “denar” (which your Maximum Leader has sometimes seen rendered as “dinar”) was a silver coin and was the basis of Macedonian currency.

The “denar” was often used with other “denar” and the plural “denarii” is the more common word in English. Not that the word is all that common; rarely do Americans (or other Anglophones) go talking to one another about being short a few “denarii” this week. Unless, of course, you are the sainted mother of your Maximum Leader. In which case she liberally sprinkles the word into conversation about money and the cost of things. (ie: “That antique tea service in the drawing room but me back a few denarii.” or - your Maximum Leader’s favourite - “How nice of you to telephone. You must be short a few denarii and are grovelling for a loan.” NB: Your Maximum Leader hasn’t called his sainted mother for a loan for quite a while… A long while at that…)

Anyhoo…

All that stuff is knowledge that your Maximum Leader already knew. What he learned today was that in Roman times the latinized “denarius” had become the norm for referring to multiple “denar.” What he also learned today is that the exchange rate used to set the value of “denarius” was the price of purchasing ten donkey’s. Some etymologists actually suggest that the latin word “denarius” is less related to the older greek “denarii” but more related to the value of a Roman coin that could be used to purchase ten donkey’s or “asses.”

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure he buys all that, but it is interesting enough to make a blog post out of.*

Carry on.
(more…)