Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, a good anglophile, is a fan of the good ole days of the British Empire. He is also a fan of the various regiments who’s long and illustrious history is wrapped up with the tales of Empire.

Your Maximum Leader has always been a fan of the most kick-ass regiment of soliders ever in the history of the world, the Gurkhas. If you knew your Maximum Leader many moons ago while he was in high school you’ll know that he lived for tales of Gurkha prowess on the battlefield. (Way back when he seems to remember writing a letter to the British Ambassador to the US expressing outrage that the UK was considering eliminating the Gurkha regiment.)

Anyhoo…

It is a sad day for the Gurkhas, for Britain, for lovers of freedom and for all who dare to stand up for what is good and right in the world when a private in the Gurkha regiment is punished for doing what his regiment has been doing for over a hundred years - namely kicking-arse.

It pains your Maximum Leader to say it, but perhaps the terrorists HAVE won…

To wit: Gurkha ordered back to UK after beheading dead Taliban fighter. Sadly, the private in question beheaded the Taliban fighter only after the Taliban guy was dead. Your Maximum Leader would have preferred that the private beheaded the Taliban guy in order to cause his death…

So here is the jist of the story…

A Gurkha soldier has been flown back to the UK after hacking the head off a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity.
The private, from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, was involved in a fierce firefight with insurgents in the Babaji area of central Helmand Province when the incident took place earlier this month.
His unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man.
The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes.
But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha took out his curved kukri knife and beheaded the dead insurgent.
He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.
This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.
[…]
The incident, which is being investigated by senior commanders, is hugely embarrassing to the British Army, which is trying to build bridges with local Afghan communities who have spent decades under ­Taliban rule.
It comes just days after a rogue Afghan soldier murdered three British troops from the same Gurkha regiment.
If the Gurkha being investigated by the Army is found guilty of beheading the dead enemy soldier, he will have contravened the Geneva Conventions which dictate the rules of war. Soldiers are banned from demeaning their enemies.
The Gurkha now faces disciplinary action and a possible court martial. If found guilty, he could be jailed.
He is now confined to barracks at the Shorncliffe garrison, near Folkestone, Kent.

So, let your Maximum Leader make sure he gets this… Gurkhas were attacked by the Taliban and three Gurkhas were killed. Three days later Gurkhas go out and do what they are ordered to do, namely kill a Taliban baddie. While taking fire from other Taliban baddies the private in question cuts off the mission (accomplished by the way) target’s head and high-tails it out of the fire-fight with proof of the mission’s success. For that the private in question could be jailed?

Great Jeezey Chreezey! What the hell is this world coming to? Your Maximum Leader would give that private a medal, promotion to corporal, and a nice whetstone to keep his kukri sharp as shit.

To all the Taliban who are offended by the fact that they cannot bury their scumbag buddy intact your Maximum Leader says: Reap the whirlwind muthafuckahs! Attack our cities and pay with your heads! War is hell arseholes!

If they convict this poor private of anything your Maximum Leader will officially say that we should just give up. We should just start having our women wear burkas, destroy our distilleries, re-consecrate our churches as mosques and just become subervient wussies who can give up all Western Civilization.

By the way… Your Maximum Leader has a replica kukri. One day he hopes to do something worthwhile enough to deserve the honor of a Gurkha (or former Gurkha) giving him a real one…

Of course, he could just go and buy one from here he supposes…

Also, your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled mylan cap to Wonder Woman for the pointer to this story, which he regrets missing in the first place.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader mused yesterday that he should, perhaps, give up the third person blogging style he’s employed here for just shy of 7 years. Our good friends Buckethead and Polymath suggested that we not give up the third person blogging, but instead add more villainy. In the immortal paraphased words of Larry the Cable Guy, “I don’t care who you are. That there is a good idea.”

So, in the interests of pleasing both Buckethead and Polymath let’s have a little villainy.

Most of you out there know who Michael Vick is. He was the standout quarterback at Virginia Tech who was drafted (1st overall) by the Atlanta Falcons. Vick was always the most entertaining player to watch on the field on any team. He would scramble and run and keep plays alive that one was sure were dead on arrival.

Then came the dogfighting.

Vick was involved in a dogfighting ring at one of his homes in Virginia. Many of his childhood friends were implicated in the dogfighting ring as well.

Now, as a particuarly old-fashioned villain, your Maximum Leader doesn’t object in principal to bloodsport. He does watch football afterall. He prefers his bloodsport of the gladiator type, not the animal type. Your Maximum Leader is a dog man, so he is actually quite put out by dogfighting and those who support dogfighting. Vick was found guilty of the dogfighting charges brought against him and served time in prison. Your Maximum Leader would have forgone prison for him and thrown Vick in a pit with a few of the hungry and maltreated dogs he bred for fighting to see how he liked it. But the American justice system just doesn’t do things the same way as your Maximum Leader.

Well… Upon getting out of prison Vick got a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles and a very short leash from football commissioner Roger Goddell. Many people thought that Vick would be able to stay clean and behave himself.

Of course, “many people” are not your Maximum Leader.

Your Maximum Leader was pretty sure that a stint in prison and some faux contriteness (coached by Tony Dungy - a man of whom your Maximum Leader repects) hadn’t changed Vick. He was going to be in trouble again. Your Maximum Leader was sure that we’d all see Vick’s name associated with something bad fairly soon.

Well… It is good to be right. Vick is denying that he was involved in a Virginia Beach area shooting that took place at a birthday party held in his honor.

According to the piece Vick is claiming that he left the club where the party was held before the shooting took place. The shooting victim is alleged to be one of Vick’s friends who was also convicted in the dogfighting incident. Apparently video shows Vick leaving the club and heading in the direction of the shooting about 3-4 minutes before the shooting took place.

Now… Your Maximum Leader isn’t going to hold Michael Vick up as an example of villainous behaviour. Vick is at best a talented henchman. To use a Shakespearian turn of phrase, Vick should be a pack-horse in the affairs of a great villain. To give you all the villainous breakdown of the best possible explanation of this incident… Vick needs a clean break with the past. He needs all the hangers-on and old posse members to disappear. But at the same time he needs some credibility on the street. He needs a repuatation. If he played his cards right (which your Maximum Leader doubts by the by) he was able to “convince” some wanna-be hanger-on that the former associate needed to be “dealt with.” The wanna-be took the hint and waited until Vick conveniently left the club do “deal with” the former associate.

From a villainous perspective, this is amateurish. If Vick really wanted to have this go down better he should have taken a page from history… He should have followed the example of Henry II of England… This is how it should have gone down. Vick should have been having a quiet get-together many miles away and days removed from the scene of the crime. At this quiet get-together Vick should have flown alternately into a rage and then into distraught anxiety all the while declaring that his former associate was the root of his emotional problems. Then he could muse aloud, “Oh if only something would happen that could rid me of this terrible problem I have.” At this point the wanna-be (who should have been carefully pre-screened for having a murderous temperament, lack of self-control, and shown a penchant for bad judgement - but no prior criminal record) would get a clue and later run off and do what needed to be done.

Sadly, Vick is just a thug and has no sense of history, drama or even self-preservation. Vick wouldn’t make the cut as a second-tier thug for your Maximum Leader…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t pay as close attention to the vast majority of opinions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. He views this as something of a failing. He generally finds SCOTUS opinions to be an interesting read and it is always good to know how the highest court in the land is applying the Constitution in different arenas of public life.

Of course, there are some issues and cases which your Maximum Leader follows closely. Take for example the case decided today of McDonald v. City of Chicago. In that case the Court incorporated the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to citizens of all states.

Now, your Maximum Leader has not yet read the various opinions and dissents in McDonald yet (and according to Jonathan Adler at Volokh the opinions and dissents go on for 250 pages - so it might take a little while to read and digest); but the summaries he’s read all seem pretty promising.

Your Maximum Leader will give a little cheer (Huzzah!) to the 5 members of the majority who did (in your Maximum Leader’s opinion) the right thing in incorprorating the Second Amendment to the states.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is a little disgusted. More than just a little disgusted perhaps.

Okay… He’ll concede that he is angry and frustrated at BP for the continuing problems in the Gulf. As more and more news comes out it seems more and more clear that BP really screwed the pooch on the Deepwater Horizon well. It is clear that BP will have to bear as much of the cost as is possible for them to bear in the cleanup and recovery of the area as a result of their ineptitude and failure.

That said, your Maximum Leader is disgusted at his countrymen for the hullaballoo over Carl-Henrik Svanberg’s “small people” comment yesterday.

No one in the America likes to be called “small people” it is insulting. But on the other hand no one seems to be very offended when we associate ourselves with being “the little guy.” We like politicians who lie and say that they will “fight for the little guy.” We want to “stand up for the little guy.” We feel kinship with “the little guy.”

Surely your Maximum Leader isn’t the only person in America who has (mostly unsucessfully) studied a foreign language. And furthermore he shouldn’t be the only person in America thinking that Carl-Henrik Svanberg is trying to make a heartfelt comment under tremendous stress and in a language that is not his native tounge. Your Maximum Leader wouldn’t be surprised in fact to learn that English is Svanberg’s fourth or fifth language.

WTF? We can’t cut a guy a break at all when he is trying to string together some words in a language that is probably not spoken by reflex in such a way that sounds both sincere and colloquial? Great jeezey chreezey. We can’t have a little understanding in this case. The news outlets that continue to report this story with (your Maximum Leader feels) no context are not doing themselves any service. Your Maximum Leader would like to see any big-name reporter go to Sweden and order off a friggin’ diner menu and see if they nail it.

NB to Carl-Henrik Svanberg: Your Maximum Leader apologizes to you for this specific incident becoming a big news story. Normally Americans are big-hearted people who appreciate it when you come to America and try to speak English. You happen to be in a tough spot and apparently we expected more from you in this instance than we would normally. If you would ask for a suggestion on how to handle this next time, your Maximum Leader would recommend that you either stick with scripted remarks or speak in Swedish and use a translator.

Lighten up everyone. That is an order.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader enjoys perusing Crumudgeonry. (And not just because Mike frequently posts photos of attractive women there in various stages of undress - but that does add to the experience.)

Mike posted a BP related funny today that made your Maximum Leader laugh and laugh.

Here is the video for your viewing pleasure. (Even though your Maximum Leader is posting the video here, that shouldn’t prevent you from going over to Curmudgeonry anyway…)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has to out of his way to get news about goings-on in Canada in the US news. Call him crazy, but he likes to know what is going on with our great neighbour to the north (and largest trading partner). Your Maximum Leader likes Canada. He’s liked pretty much every Canadian he’s ever met. It is a good place.

But imagine how sad he is to know that the only news he can get (without going out of his way) about Canada is about a fake lake being made for the G-20 conference.

So your Maximum Leader feels he must call out his good friend Skippy and ask “So is this “fakelakegate” really the biggest news in Canada right now?”

And a good follow-up might be… “Really… Nearly a billion dollars to protect the G-20 summit? Couldn’t you just not protect some of the leaders attending and hope for the best? How about you skimp on protecting all the ones from a parliamentary democracy in that the PMs are likely just glorified party leaders and can be easily replaced?”

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been following the whole gulf oil leak with growing feelings of dread and gloom. He was hopeful that the first capping device was going to work. Then it froze up and got clogged. Since then it has been one failure after another.

Are you ready for a prediction?

This gusher will be still be gushing on Election Day.

Yes. Election Day.

Your Maximum Leader has no confidence that anything is going to stop this in the near term. He also doubts that the “relief wells” that “should” be active in August will do the trick.

This is the worst ecological disaster since Chernobyl. And in some respects it might turn out being worse.

Just wait until hurricane season gets fully underway. Your Maximum Leader foresees oil everywhere along the gulf coast from Guatemala to the Florida Keys. At this stage he would not be surprised to find oil from this gusher wind up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Your Maximum Leader will wait to get a full and final report on what happened before he starts placing blame on any entity. It seems as though BP will come out holding the short straw in all this. But you can’t tell that right now with certainty. If BP is culpable, then we can all hope that they remain very profitable. Because if they go tits-up due to this the US taxpayer will be stuck with a clean-up bill. (Okay… Let’s be honest… The US taxpayer is going to be stuck with a big bill on this anyway. Lucky for us health care reform will save us so much money!)

Your Maximum Leader hopes you’ve seen the white-sand beaches of the Florida panhandle, because they aren’t going to be white for much longer.

Carry on.

UPDATE: Your Maximum Leader was recently reminded that Chernobyl is still worse in so many ways. Not the least of which is that the containment dome is collapsing and another will have to be built. This cycle will continue for centuries.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been following the fall-out from the Israeli raid on the “humanitarian aid” ship from Turkey. Sure the Israeli’s, in this instance, might have been a little heavy-handed. But really, how much of a “blockade” are they really running here? Bascially the Israelis stop every ship and vehicle going into the Gaza Strip to search for weapons. The real “humanitarian” aid isn’t being stopped and turned back. (At best it is detained.)

Your Maximum Leader has, for just about as long as he can remember, be very pro-Israel. He’s not saying that Israel is always right and everyone else is wrong. That isn’t the case. But he will generally side with Israel all the time because they are the one beacon of civilization (as your Maximum Leader understands it) in the region.

Sadly though, Israel, like the West in general, is doomed.

How does one put it delicately? The Israelis are going to be fucked out of existance. Quite literally. They aren’t having enough babies. Demographically they are screwed. Before too long the (Westernized Jewish) Israelis are going to be a minority in their own country; out populated by (not Westernized and Arab) Israelis. Once that happens all bets are off.

(NB: If Bar Refaeli wanted to do something to help her country - which she probably doesn’t by the way - she’d get knocked up and start having all sorts of really really good-looking babies.)

Frankly… It isn’t much better in Europe. Europe will be the next to fall (after Israel). The day will come when non-westernized immigrants (mostly muslims) will be the ones running France and Germany. Of course, Western ideas of social/moral/political relativism will hasten the end.

Then it will be the USA, Canada and Australia as the last bastions of Western Civilization…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader apologizes in advance to the late Robert Frost (as well as to his fans and admirers everywhere).

Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire, I side with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I know that 225 British nuclear warheads combined with 5, 113 American ones would do the trick.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just saw a piece on the Washington Post web site that struck him in a way that compelled (yes, compelled) him to post right away.

The piece is: NY mayor decries “terror gap” in US gun laws.

When your Maximum Leader read the headline he thought to himself, “Self, what is this ‘terror gap’ for US gun laws? Should this gap be closed if it exists.” Then he read the piece and started to get very very angry. To quote the piece:

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a Senate panel Wednesday that he strongly supports congressional efforts to close a “terror gap” in the nation’s gun laws, which currently allow persons on a federal terrorist watch list to buy guns and explosives legally in the United States.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in the wake of the latest alleged terrorist plot against his city, Bloomberg (I) pointed to a new Government Accountability Office report showing that individuals on the terrorist watch list were able to buy firearms and explosives from licensed U.S. dealers 1,119 times over the past six years.
…
According to the GAO report released Wednesday, FBI data show that individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list were involved in firearms or explosives background checks 1,228 times from February 2004 through February 2010. Of those transactions, 1,119, or about 91 percent, “were allowed to proceed because no prohibiting information was found — such as felony convictions, illegal immigrant status, or other disqualifying factors,” the GAO’s Eileen R. Larence said in prepared testimony.
…
Bloomberg said a bipartisan coalition of 500 mayors supports legislation that would allow the U.S. attorney general to bar such purchases. He said the group also wants Congress to close another loophole that allows people to buy firearms at gun shows with no background checks at all.

“It’s just common sense to give the FBI authority to keep terror suspects from buying guns and explosives,” he said.

So just to be sure we are getting this right allow your Maximum Leader to summarize. If an individual appears on a terror watch list he or she should be denied the right to purchase a firearm.

This is the same terror watch list that gets 12 year old boys from Long Island added to it for some reason no one can quite explain?

This is the same terror watch list that only seems to harass people getting on airplanes but ultimately doesn’t seem to stop anyone from getting on a flight?

This is a terror watch list made up of “suspects” that haven’t actually broken any laws and are legally residing in or citizens of the United States?

Now just to be clear. Your Maximum Leader has no problem whatsoever with our existing process to strip a person of the right to bear arms. It normally involves a judge’s order in fact. Last time your Maximum Leader checked, it didn’t require a judge’s intervention to get one put onto the terror watch list. (And from what he’s read it might take more than a judge’s order to get your name off the watch list once it’s there.)

If you are illegal, you shouldn’t have a right to bear arms anyway. (That could be a subject for a separate post however.)

So we are all in favor of stripping people of their rights because they are suspected of something? Can we extend this process to other situations? Should murder suspects lose the right to habeas corpus because they are on a police watch list? Should an anti-war protester lose the right to free speech or assembly because they are suspected of wanting to cause mischief at a rally? Where exactly do you want to draw a line?

Your Maximum Leader will tell you where he’d like to draw a line. He’d like to draw a line on the side of suspects not being stripped of any of their rights until they are convicted of something in a court of law.

Then again, your Maximum Leader finds himself agreeing with Skippy on so many items he isn’t sure what to think of the world anymore.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a few random thoughts to throw out there for your reading pleasure. Reading pleasure might be overstating the cast. How about he’ll throw out the random thoughts for your perusal…

First off… A note to Robbo. What the heck man? Every time you blog about the Nats playing well, they come back and get slaughtered. To wit. This post over at the Llamas is followed by the drubbing of last night. Ack. The Nats seem as they could show significant improvement over last season if they can get their pitching under control…

Secondly… Your Maximum Leader was polled last night on the subject of Governor McDonnell’s Confederate History proclamation. Sadly, your Maximum Leader’s opinions were not very well captured by the questions asked. They pretty much boxed you into either the Sons of Confederate Veterans camp or the we must remove all evidence of the Civil War that we don’t like camp. One of the questions, for example, asked if you supported keeping all of the monuments along Monument Avenue in Richmond that glorify various Confederate leaders as heros or if you support their removal. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t support their removal, but he also thinks a little balance is in order… Perhaps the lesson here is that your Maximum Leader shouldn’t participate in polls.

Lastly… Your Maximum Leader got a text from Joan yesterday that read: Am I the only southerner who finds it a touch scary when people from Boston or Nevada buy antebellum homes to “renovate”? Your Maximum Leader, although born and bred in Virginia, isn’t sure his “southerner” credentials are particularly strong. But as someone who actually does know something about antebellum homes his opinions are these: If the people coming to renovate the house are gay you have nothing to fear; they will do a great and accurate restoration. If the people coming to renovate are middle-aged empty nesters who are looking to retire, again nothing to fear. Pretty much anyone else from out of the area with no idea of the history of the house should be viewed with a wary eye. This opinion is formed by years of observation…

Carry on.

Greeting, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is not now, nor has he ever been in communion with the Episcopal Church of the United States. Frankly, he’s never been a member of any Episcopal/Anglican Church. He’s attended more than a few services in the Episcopal/Anglican Church, but that is about it.

Readers of this space are likely familiar with the ongoing secession of various Episcopal parishes in Virginia from the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) and their joining the Anglican Communion (under the auspices of a branch of the Anglican Church in Africa). The secession (schism if you will) has been the subject on an ongoing battle in the courts. You see the congregations that seceeded took their physical church buildings with them. Here is a little overview from the Washington Examiner.

If you happened to read that piece you might recall seeing that St. Stephen’s Church in Heathsville, VA is among those churches in the thick of the dispute.

So now your Maximum Leader is coming to the point… You might recall (from the last post) that your Maximum Leader went to visit his in-laws over the weekend. The path from the Villainschloss to the in-law’s runs through Heathsville, VA. For many years your Maximum Leader has driven by St. Stephen’s and always notices the wooden Victorian structure as he passes.

(NB: Indeed, he always tried to guess the age of the building as he passed. It is a little game your Maximum Leader plays in his mind while he drives across Virginia. He tries to guess the age of old homes or buildings based on what he knows of building styles and trends in VA. In the case of St Stephen’s he knew that although the congregation was established in 1664, the building was much later. He figured from the style of the church that it was likely built after the Civil War, but prior to 1900. He has toyed with dates from 1870-1880. And he learned recently from the church web site that the building dates from 1874.)

When St. Stephen’s left the ECUSA your Maximum Leader knew that there were bound to be some hard feelings. The tangible sign of the change came a little while after St. Stephen’s organized with the Anglican Communion. The sign was, in fact, the church sign. The old sign in front of the church was white with the crest of the ECUSA and it read “St. Stephen’s Church, Episcopal, Est 1664.” Then one day there was a new sign. It wasn’t white, but sort of gray. The crest of the ECUSA was gone and in its place was a symbol like a compass rose. The new sign read “St. Stephen’s Church, Anglican, Est 1664.”

Down the road about 50 yards from St. Stephen’s Church (Anglican); the first church sign appeared outside what had heretofore seemed to be a nice sized private home. Now within a stone’s throw of each other are a little white church which is St. Stephen’s (Anglican) and a nice house which is St. Stephen’s (Episcopal).

This past weekend, your Maximum Leader met his in-laws in Heathsville to go to the Farmers Market at the courthouse. While standing on the green behind the courthouse, he started talking to his father-in-law and a family friend about the church split. At some level your Maximum Leader knew that the split had to be hard on the tiny town of Heathsville. He knew that a significant portion of the original congregation (perhaps 20%) had not supported leaving the ECUSA. Those people are now the core of St. Stephen’s (Episcopal). He imagined that the Episcopal congregants were likely bitter and angry. Well, listening to the friend of the family describe it, the schism has torn some families apart. Two families were in fact pointed out to your Maximum Leader. They stood on opposite sides of the green. He is sure their physical position happened to be coincidence at that moment in time. But to hear the tale, these were close families. They were neighbors, friends, and at the distant cousin level related by marriage. Now they will not speak to each other. The kids no longer play together or even socialize at school. The adults avoid each other in public. It was sad to see. If your Maximum Leader had been more bold (and had the time) he’d have actually approached the people directly and asked them about the experience. He isn’t sure why he would want to hear the lurid details of the sad story from the actors themselves; but he does. He isn’t sure what he could learn from that. Perhaps it is a twisted voyeuristic tendency in him? At some level he wants to hear the story of what happened at the congregational level.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that he’ll ever hear the tale directly from the people themselves. At some level just putting faces to what has happened in this tiny town has been enough to humanize the story…

In case you care to… Here are two web sites for you. St. Stephen’s (Anglican) and St. Stephen’s (Episcopal).

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will share with you a number of thoughts he had over the weekend and actually wrote on a little scrap of paper in anticipation of making a blog post out of them. Sadly, they aren’t too pithy…

‘Tween girls (your Maximum Leader’s daughters for example) appear to only have two modulations for their voice. Inaudible whisper and wailing banshee.

Your Maximum Leader’s 10 year old daughter (Villainette #2) throws a tighter spiral with a football than he does.

Your Maximum Leader’s 5 year old son (the Wee Villain) throws a football at least as well, if not as far, as your Maximum Leader does.

Those last two observations hurt.

Pollen is a pain to clean off every friggin thing it touches.

Your Maximum Leader feels badly for the people of Poland. He wonders if the late President ordered the pilot to land the plane or if the pilot did it on his own authority. It is hard to imagine that the pilot of the ill-fated flight would make that call on his own.

The Washington Capitals lost their last regular season game to Boston on Sunday. It looks like the Caps have drawn the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the NHL playoffs; which begin Thursday for the Caps.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if there is a special sub-set of screenplay writers in California who’s job it is to adapt hit hollywood movies into catchy porn films?

Your Maximum Leader is glad he doesn’t have to go to DC this week. Traffic and protests will render the city unbearable.

Your Maximum Leader forgot to mention last week that he went and saw “Clash of the Titans.” The fact that he took nearly a week to mention this event should tell you all you need to know. RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t often find himself in pretty much complete agreement with an unsigned editorial published by the Editors of the Washington Post newspaper.

Today is the day he does find himself in agreement with the Editors of the Washington Post on the issue of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s proclamation declaring April 2010 “Confederate History Month.” From the editorial page:

It’s fine that Mr. McDonnell decided to proclaim April as Confederate History Month; the Confederacy is an important chapter of history that merits study and draws tourists to Virginia. But any serious statement on the Confederacy and the Civil War would at least recognize the obvious fact — that slavery was the major cause of the war, and that the Confederacy fought largely in defense of what it called “property,” which meant the right to own slaves. Instead, Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation chose to omit this, declaring instead that Virginians fought “for their homes and communities and Commonwealth.” The words “slavery” and “slaves” do not appear.

Even more incendiary is the proclamation’s directive that “all Virginians” must appreciate the state’s “shared” history and the Confederacy’s sacrifices. Surely he isn’t including the 500,000 Virginia slaves who constituted more than a quarter of the state’s Civil War-era population, who cheered the Union and ran away to it when they could.

As James McPherson, dean of Civil War scholars, commented on learning of Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation: “I find it obnoxious, but it’s extremely typical. The people that emphasize Confederate heritage and the legacy, and the importance of understanding Confederate history, want to deny that Confederate history was ultimately bound up with slavery. But that was the principal reason for secession — that an anti-slavery party was elected to the White House. . . . And without secession, there wouldn’t have been a war.”

It’s difficult to understand why Mr. McDonnell, who in his inaugural address paid eloquent homage to former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the grandson of slaves, and spoke movingly of slavery’s evils, would now trade in such glaring historical omissions. Charitably, we might suspect sloppy staff work; less charitably, we’d guess he is pandering to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that lionizes the Confederacy and pressed for the proclamation. It’s possible the governor thought he was being sensitive by eliminating the obnoxious glorification of the Confederacy’s “cause,” a word that appeared in a similar proclamation by former governor George Allen (R), whose idea of office decor ran to Confederate flags and nooses.

Okay… Your Maximum Leader thinks that the dig at George Allen was a bit gratuitous (although he’s sure his good friend Smallholder would disagree on that point). But the general thrust of the editorial is right on.

Your Maximum Leader thinks it is important to add one important observation. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t believe Bob McDonnell is a racist. In the brief time your Maximum Leader actually had regular friendly contact with (then Delegate) McDonnell your Maximum Leader never picked up any cue that might have signalled that McDonnell had a prejudiced bone in his body. This sentiment is echoed by UVA Government professor Larry Sabato who tweeted as much earlier today.

Your Maximum Leader wants to believe that this proclamation is a combination of the WaPo Editorial Board’s charitable and less-charitable explanations. He believes that staff in the Governor’s office decided to pander to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. (Of course your Maximum Leader can’t for the life of him understand why one would pander to them…) And that the staff decided to make a few minor editorial changes to the old proclamation and get it issued without much consideration.

This belief should not, and frankly does not, absolve the Governor of ultimate responsibility. His signature went on the proclamation. He is responsible for knowing what is in the proclamation and for questioning why such a proclamation was needed (or any way called for). Someone on the Governor’s staff should have asked what the hell was going on with the proclamation and given some pushback. Your Maximum Leader can’t understand why neither the Governor nor his staff seemed to have an inkling of the outcry the proclamation was bound to cause.

This whole incident is a sad misstep by a Governor who doesn’t need missteps. He had a very successful General Assembly session and has really been on-message and on-task since being elected.

If your Maximum Leader were advising the Governor, he’d advise a public mea-culpa and amend the proclamation to denounce slavery and encourage study of the full (and accurate) history of the American Civil War.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader tried a few news break posts a few years ago. (2004 to be exact. Including this one that was slightly notorious for the last line.) Do you remember news breaks? The networks would drop one commercial from a prime-time break and give you a 30-45 second review of the top stories nationally. (Remember Jessica Savitch’s famous final news break in 1983?) Your Maximum Leader used to miss the old news breaks… But now with the proliferation of 24 hour news networks they don’t have much of a place in regular broadcasts.

There are of course, local news breaks during prime-time. They exist to entice you to stay up to watch the 11pm news…

So… Here is a news break for you…

Abortion threatens to derail health care legislation, again.

Watch out! Another runaway Toyota.

Biden tells off Israelis in Israel.

Andy Richter is a professor of show business.

La Lohan can’t work, so she sues babies.

The popcorn you are eating has been pissed in. Film at 11.

Carry on.