Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is angry. Very angry. So angry you should not be surprised if he drops the “royal we” in this post. Your Maximum Leader has thought a little about how he is going to write this in a way that preserves the privacy of those his friends. So, please excuse him if this post is somewhat obtuse or short on detail.

As you may recall from previous posts, Mrs. Villain (your Maximum Leader’s lovely wife) is a teacher. She works with a wonderful group of other teachers. Among those she works with is a colleague who’s same-sex partner is the principal of another local school. Both of these women are wonderful educators and charming people. Mrs. Villain’s colleague (Ms. A.) left school early today to be with her partner (Ms. B.).

As it turns out, your Maximum Leader’s beloved niece and nephew are students at the school where Ms. B. is principal. And it is through this connection that your Maximum Leader has learned exactly why Ms. A. left to be with her partner. Apparently, an unknown person posted a number of flyers and posters on the grounds of Ms. B’s school threatening Ms. B’s life. According to local police, the unknown person threatened, at least by extension, the lives of the many children in the school as well.

This unknown person is threatening the life Ms. B. because she is a lesbian. The police are taking the threats seriously enough (as one has to in this day and age) to lock-down the campus today and to close the school completely tomorrow.

Your Maximum Leader is angry. Very angry. He is angry that a dedicated and respected educator is being threatened because of her sexuality. He is angry that these threats are forcing the school to close. And he is angry that we don’t know who is making the threats.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that someone out there turns the bastard in to the police. It would be just as well if the police were able to discover who the miserable turd is on their own. He hopes the person is found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Your Maximum Leader and Mrs. Villain have called Ms. A & Ms. B. to offer what comfort and support we can. The call went to voicemail, but we wanted them to know that we are supporting them and opening our hearts and home to them.

That is all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thought he’d give you all a quick update on the blog.

Let us see how the past few weeks have gone…

They started with your Maximum Leader being in a car accident that totaled the Villainmobile. He should now remark that it is the late Villainmobile. Sadly his 2003 Mercury Marauder is no more. It was shattered on the Falmouth Bridge in icy conditions Halloween weekend. Your Maximum Leader is fine; but he is a little sad to see that great American made behemouth with its 400 horsepower engine leave his garage. Your Maximum Leader has a new Villainmobile. It is a 2012 Volkswagen Passat. Better mileage, sufficent space, 4 doors, German engineering. It is a wonderful change. So, there is that.

Also… The computer situation at the Villainschloss as improved - somewhat. Mrs Villain has a netbook computer she is using now (Thanks Kevin! I still owe you for this.) She is pleased with it. Villainette #2 saved up money from odd jobs and such and bought herself an HP laptop. So she is set with computing. Now Villainette #1 has also saved up money and decided to get a very nice HP laptop as well. It is a refurb from Woot in fact. Your Maximum Leader was a little weary about getting a refurb computer, but his experience (through his daughter) has been a positive one. So your Maximum Leader has been left to deal with his aging desktop. The desktop he built (with the help of a friend) back in 2003… It has served a long and distinguished life, but it is slow and beginning to be persnickedy. (The most aggrevating thing is the boot time - which has now topped 9 minutes.)

Your Maximum Leader contemplated buying new guts for the desktop and having it solider on, but in the end he’s decided to go with a laptop. So, he broke down and went the way of his elder daughter and bought a refurb off of Woot yesterday. It is a Samsung with an i7 processor, LED display, blu-ray, 750GB storage, a very high end NVIDIA graphics card and 6GB of RAM. And it was only $600. (He configured a similar laptop at Dell, Samsung, Sony, HP and Alienware and found the prices ranged from $1200-$1500 for new.) Your Maximum Leader figures he got a deal. He’ll find out when it gets to him.

Of course, all this laptop computing around the house leads your Maximum Leader to think that he needs to upgrade his 5 yrs old wireless router to something with a higher capacity…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has been following teh politics recently. He was pleased to see Rick Perry falter. Your Maximum Leader will vote for a no-chance 3rd party odd-ball before he votes for Rick Perry for anything. If you need to know why… 3 words. Cameron Todd Willingham. As far as your Maximum Leader is concerned, Governor Perry cannot retreat to Texas fast enough and from there proceed to obscurity.

Your Maximum Leader was a little disappointed to learn of Herman Cain’s troubles. Cain was entertaining and engaging, even if your Maximum Leader had no intention of ever voting for him. Your Maximum Leader was disappointed because of Cain’s handling of the sexual harassment situation. He’d hoped that Cain might just put everything out there and move ahead. You see, your Maximum Leader had a pet theory that in the post-Bill Clinton age old sex scandals weren’t going to derail a candidate. It appears as though Cain will not be the test case for this theory. To test the theory the candidate would have to fess up to everything and then say it was “all in the past” and that he’s learned and grown since then and then see if the mess blows over.

Of course it is possible that this theory might only be true for Democrats - who don’t seem to have problems with sex scandals by other Democrats any more.

Your Maximum Leader was taken aback by the sudden surge of Newt Gingrich in the polling. Great jeezy chreezy! Is every one of the candidates going to get a moment in the sun? Is Rick Santorum next? (By your Maximum Leader’s count the leaders have been: Romney, Bachmann, Paul, Romney, Perry, Cain, Gingrich. It would seem to be Santorum’s turn.)

The most crazy thing about all these changes in the polls is that they just reinforce the weakness of the field. One of the weaknesses of the field to your Maximum Leader (but he doubts it is a weakness to the great majority of poll-ees in the Republican party) is that none of the candidates seems to be terribly serious about anything except beating Obama. All in all they are not particuarly innovative thinkers in any sort of policy way. They don’t seem to have clear messages on any particular subject. And they don’t seem particularly presidential.

Of course the primaries don’t engender a “presidential atmosphere.” They do promote the articulation of a plan and sound positions. They do promote the hectic and harried pace at which someone might have to actually be President. So, in a way, they simulate the job - without really giving you the trappings of the job. (The trappings of office which give you some respectability and decorum - two elements lacking in primaries.)

Your Maximum Leader believes that the Republicans will likely default to Romney (it is his turn afterall) and that it will be a close election. If the economy does not improve by next fall - it will be perilously close for Obama. All things being equal, it is hard to unseat a sitting president - and that is the only thing one can be certain of for next year.

Your Maximum Leader never did sum up his thoughts on the baseball season past… Since it is already well into hockey season he will give the short version. Congrats to the Cardinals! There is a lot to like about the Washington Nationals for next year and the upcoming years. Your Maximum Leader was worried that Davey Johnson’s day had past - but it apparently has not. Your Maximum Leader thinks the Nats could be a .500 team next year (or even a little better than .500).

Also, thank goodness that Wilson Ramos was rescued from his kidnappers.

That is about it for now… Your Maximum Leader is ruminating over a few other posts… So you might see more in this space in a little bit.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader woke this morning from the strangest and most real seeming dream he’s had in a long time. It goes like this…

Your Maximum Leader is going to the liquor store to buy some Scotch. He buys some and notices that right next to the liquor store is a church. The name on the church sign is “Saint Garrioch’s Anglican Church and Scottish Cultural Center.” Of course, your Maximum Leader goes in. He sat down in a pew and realized that the whole congregation seemed very lively and animated and very “scottish looking.” The pastor came out from behind an altar screen and invited everyone to come down into the common room downstairs. So we all got up and went downstairs. Once downstairs we were in a large room that vaugely resembled my paternal grandparents basement. It had late 60’s wood composite paneling and a dark colored shag carpet. There were chairs and sofas and more pews in the room. Your Maximum Leader sat down again in a pew. The pastor reappeared in clerical robes that seemed to be tucked down into a Royal Stewart tartan kilt. Around this point various bottles of whisky started to appear and everyone started drinking. The pastor began a sermon on drunkeness. Mid-way through his sermon he called out for our good lesbian friend “Michelle” to start the karaoke contest. Your Maximum Leader looked to his left and saw a very masculine woman stand up. As he looked at her more carefully, she seemed very familiar. Then he realized that the lesbian karaoke leader looked like a cross between your Maximum Leader and his great-aunt. At this point the pastor came over to your Maximum Leader, hugged him and declared “Laddie, your mum over there [pointing to the lesbian] is a fine lookin’ woman.”

Around this time your Maximum Leader awoke… Very strange…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader meant to post yesterday. As you can tell by the unaltered timestamp on this post, he did not. August 2011 was not a particularly good month for your Maximum Leader. But September should turn things around.

Since your Maximum Leader seems to be suffering from a short attention span, lets give some Twitter-esque commentary here on ye olde blogge.

By the way, you can follow your Maximum Leader on Twitter at: @maximumleader.

Your Maximum Leader didn’t think it was possible for a President to screw up getting to speak in front of a joint session of Congress. Our incumbent President apparently has.

Your Maximum Leader’s favorite primate is the orangutan. (Your Maximum Leader was always a fan of Dr Zaius.)

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure how he feels about the CIA CTC killing terrorists. To be more specific, he worries about accountablility. (He doesn’t really mind killing bad guys.)

It is getting hard to remember who the Prime Minister of Japan is at any given moment. They are on their 6th PM in 5 years.

Your Maximum Leader must agree with both Dr. Krauthammer and Robbo. Those Washington Natnals are going places. FYI - Your Maximum Leader often sees Krauthammer next to the Dippin Dots near Section 128. (Your Maximum Leader often mooches tix from a friend in Section 127. At a recent game in addition to Krauthammer, your Maximum Leader enjoyed a game in the company of George Will and Ben Bernake.)

Your Maximum Leader loved this little interplay between counter-agent and customer over at Ellison’s.

Your Maximum Leader wishes there was a person running for the office of President of the United States that could elicit more of a reaction than “hummmm” paired with a heavy exasperated sigh.

You know, if all you read was the Washington Post and NY Times you wouldn’t get much of a feeling of outrage at the recent debacle over at BATF known as “Fast & Furious.” This long piece from the WaPo is about as outraged as you would get.

Has your Maximum Leader mentioned how much he loves Doctor Who now? He does. He didn’t like it as much when he was younger (in the 1970s and 1980s). But now it is very cool. Very cool indeed.

Oh…

And… One day late…

Rabbit!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader mused the other night, on Twitter (@maximumleader if you care to follow him) that he felt like he should own himself a sword.

Now, it is likely that this sudden urge to own a sword stems from two elements in your Maximum Leader’s person. The first is that for the past month or so he’s been reading George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire.” (NB: He is now starting book four, “A Feast for Crows.”) There are lots of swords in those books…

The second is that swords are cool. Your Maximum Leader has always loved swords. (NB: He also thinks that a sword is a handy back-up weapon to have during a zombie apocalypse.) He, at one time long past, had a cheesy replica cavalry sabre. He doesn’t know what came of it (but it is likely that it wound up being sold or given away to someone). But he has, from time to time, wanted a sword.

He doesn’t want any sword mind you, he wants a sword with character.

For a long time your Maximum Leader has been torn two ways when it comes to swords. The first way is towards Japan. Like so many others, Quentin Tarantino for example, he believes that the Japanese samurai sword is about a great as you can get in a sword. Your Maximum Leader isn’t talking about a katana that is stamped out of pot metal, chromed, and sold in a Spencer’s Gifts in a mall somewhere. He is talking about a legitimate sword, crafted by hand by folding heated metal upon itself over and over again, then hand polished. Of course a sword like that is a work of art and, sadly, way out of your Maximum Leader’s current budget.

But there is another problem with an authentic katana. (Which is the only type he’d want.) It is Japanese. Your Maximum Leader is not Japanese. He feels a little weird about investing himself in a Japanese sword…

Your Maximum Leader is of good Scottish stock. So the likely sword for him would be the claymore. Now when your Maximum Leader says “claymore” he’s thinking about a full-out medieval two-handed great sword. That is a sword that befits a Maximum Leader. The very idea of a claymore stirs the Scottish blood in your Maximum Leader.

Then again, your Maximum Leader is American. And like America, we have got to make badass stuff that is our own.

That is where your Maximum Leader’s interweb acquaintance the Amazing Ben comes in. You may know the Amazing Ben from his kick-ass blog (Badass of the Week) or either of his two fabulous books (here and here). Ben also tweets at @badassoftheweek

If you know anything at all about the Amazing Ben Thompson, you know that he knows badass forwards and back. Ben, upon reading that your Maximum Leader was thinking of swords, and was thinking about how a sword would come in handy during the zombie apocalypse, suggested that your Maximum Leader check out a website that might satisfy his yen for a sword as well as be handy to have in the zombie apocalypse.

Your Maximum Leader now suggests you go on over and check out Zombie Tools.

Your Maximum Leader is not prone to cursing on his blog… But oh fuck yeah. This is what he’s talking about. Check out the blades they sell. (Here if you need a linky to clicky).

Your Maximum Leader is completely captivated by the Apokatana. (He is also pretty psyched by the d’Capitan, but the Apokatana seems to speak to him.) See the Apokatana in action (NB: they drop the f-bomb a few times - so be careful who is listening):

Need more?

How about the guys testing out their wares on Earl the zombie cow:

Well… Now your Maximum Leader is going to have to squirrel away money to save up and get an Apokatana for himself… There just ain’t no two ways about it. He’s going to have to have one…

Unless the guys at Zombie Tools decide to make a claymore style great-sword…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader owns a number of books that used to reside in various public schools throughout the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These books were either purchased by your Maximum Leader (or his friend Smallholder) when the books were going to be purged from the school library. Although some of the titles he’s purchased have turned out to be lamentable works of scholarship; all in all your Maximum Leader (and Smallholder) have felt that it was better that the books live out our natural lives on a shelf in a home rather than being reduced to pulp or landfill fodder.

When these purged books wind up on his shelf your Maximum Leader has felt he’s done a good thing. High school libraries are not places of scholarship. Libaries in high schools are for reference. The old and out dated should be moved to make room for the new. It seems to be in the natural order of things.

But your Maximum Leader feels very differently about college/university libraries. Collectively, colleges and universities libraries are the storehouse of the accumulated knowlege of humanity. Every college, big and small, plays a role in preserving the history of humanity. The good. The bad. The lamentable. The very poorly written. The classic. The obscure. All works have a place in the libraries of the world.

Your Maximum Leader loves the very smell of “the stacks” of a college library. The older the better. (NB: The book preservationist would likely say that the smell your Maximum Leader likes is decaying paper. Sad thought…)

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that a book that finds its way into a college library should ever be purged.

Sadly… That is not the case as Professor Mondo details in a recent post. Here is the hardest part to read:

Finally, there was the sense that I was engaged in a kind of intellectual Black Mass, inverting the sacrament that I was meant to perform. I love my students, but I also love the worlds of literature and ideas; indeed, I show my love to my students by offering them these other things I value so much. These books, these ideas in them, matter so much to me that I’m devoting my life to the business of letting those stories and ideas survive another generation. But instead, I spent today making it that much less likely that a Mondovillian might encounter someone’s story or idea, even through a confluence of idleness and serendipity. Education is meant to help the mind grow, and I see libraries as symbols of the growth that has gone before us. Instead, I spent today making our symbol shrink. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the opposite of what I do.

Go thee and read the good Prof’s piece.

After reading the piece it makes me want to call my alma mater and make a donation and specify it goes to the library fund…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is going to have to “drop out of character” for this post. (He thought it “sounded” weird doing it in his normal third person style…)

So, I’ve got a dog. She is a mutt. Part Whippet and part Lab. We got her at the pound. She was six months old, had a bad rash that made some of her fur fall out, and was pretty pathetic overall.

Did I mention that she was also named “Tequila” at the time?

We took her home and changed her name and proceeded to love on her. That was 2001.

She has been one of the best dogs ever. She is smart enough to learn and obey a number of commands. She is dumb enough to remain cute and never give you pause to think that she’s trying to outsmart you in anything. She has survived three kids who have tried to ride her, pull her tail and otherwise molest her. Her temperament is everything one could ever want from a dog.

Two years ago she was running through the woods and got a cut on her right hind leg. We treated it topically and wrapped it up. It seemed to heal pretty well.

Then she started to lick her healing wound.

Before too long it became a large, swollen, infected mess. We took her to the Vet. She got a steroid shot and some antibiotics. Everything cleared up. But after a few months she started licking again and got the leg into a swollen, infected mess. So it was back to the Vet. More steroids. More drugs. Recovery! Then the licking started again… Eventually in addition to drugs and steroids she got “doggie downers.” This cocktail of drugs worked for a while. Eight months or so. But it hasn’t stopped…

Basically… My dog is OCD and licks herself to infection and great pain.

We keep treating her, but my wife and I lament that she is just dumb to keep hurting herself like this. Then again… She’s a dog.

The other day I was sitting in my chair reading and rubbing the dog with my feet. I stopped reading and thought about karma. I am not a Buddhist, or Hindu, or new-agey person so I don’t “believe” (in a religious sense) in karma. Sometimes “believing” in karma makes me feel better about myself or things happening in the outside world.

But I was thinking about my dog’s karma. I thought that if you consider karma and reincarnation together what would explain my dog? If she was a person in a past life, what could she have done wrong to deserve to come back as a dog? Then again, life with my family is a pretty good gig for a dog. She is fed, groomed, loved on and well-treated. That is a pretty good life all in all. Then I considered the leg. Was she being karmically punished for a past life? Had the wheel of fate placed her (even as a dog) in too good a position in life and was karma “fixing” the problem by making her OCD and inflicting suffering on herself where none had to exist?

Then I considered something else. Perhaps it was my karma to inflict suffering in her. Perhaps I am the problem in this equation.

Then I figured that considering this was too much for someone who doesn’t really believe in karma anyway.

So I got up and poured myself a Makers and ginger ale and went back to my book.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sitting in the Villainschloss right now in the middle of a domestic crisis. Apparently the Doctor Who marathon on BBC America is not “family friendly” viewing. (So says Mrs Villain.) Additionally, your Maximum Leader has learned that Mrs Villain has no interest in any of the college football on TV right now. So your Maximum Leader has done the wise thing and vacated the TV viewing area for the solitude of his study. (He will likely move back in and watch something a little later this evening.)

Your Maxmium Leader is really looking forward to dinner tonight. Delmonico’s raised on Smallholder’s farm. Matched with baked potatoes and some sparkling wines from around the world.

Your Maximum Leader’s offspring are taking a pool to see which of them will fall asleep first. Your Maximum Leader bet all of them that he will be the only one up at midnight and that he’ll have to wake them all for the change to the new year. Indeed, your Maximum Leader raised the possibilty that he might turn in early and let them all fend for themselves.

Your Maximum Leader got some nice comments to his post on spinning the Civil War. Your Maximum Leader thought the post would elicit some sort of response from the whole “slavery wasn’t the cause of the Civil War crowd.” Sadly, those idiots must know that this is not the place for them.

The interesting comments were about your Maximum Leader’s speculation that Mitt Romney will get the Republican nod in 2012. From Professor Mondo: “Meanwhile, Mitt Romney remains a charisma-free zone. I’m just afraid that the folks down here in Mondoville will go for the Huckster, who is just another statist. At this point, I’m kind of pulling for Mitch Daniels.” Our friend Polymath wrote: “My Lovecraft fantasy has me wishing for a re-animated Reagan.” And our very own farmer, the Smallholder, wrote:

Republicans give their nomination to the last cycle’s runner-up.

But Romney may be the exception that proves the rule. Since Republicans are on a jihad against Obamacare, the fact that Obamacare is essentially Romneycare does not bode well for Romney. It will be difficult for him to squirm away from his record during the primaries, particularly given his preexistent reputation for flip-floppigng. Gingrich advocated a version of health care very similar to Obamacare in ‘94, but he may be able to sidle away because it never went anywhere - Romney actually got it passed.

Mondo, I kind of like Mitch Daniels too. But he’s a bit too centrist to survive the primaries. He would make a good VEEP to appeal to the middle.

Polymath, I doubt Reagan could actually get tea-party votes today. He was too much of a pragmatist, rasied taxes to balance the budget, was in favor of arms control, and advocated tax rates higher than Obama’s. Folks are in love with an idealized person who never existed.

First off, your Maximum Leader must put an end to all this re-animated Reagan stuff. WE CAN’T GO ELECTING ZOMBIES TO OFFICE. Any office, not just President of the United States. Every person with an iota of sense knows that a re-animated corpse is a zombie and zombies aren’t cool. Zombies just want to eat our brains. Your Maximum Leader fears that a re-animated Reagan would not be a strong leader because he could always be sidetracked by a plate of warm steaming brains.

(NB: could one distract zombies by throwing them turrines of sweatbreads?)

Anyway… Even if you were able to safely reanimate Reagan (which your Maximum Leader doubts by the way) the 22nd Amendment still applies and he wouldn’t be eligible. Your Maximum Leader fears that a re-animated Harry Truman is our only option for zombie chief executive.

Your Maximum Leader will stand by the charisma-less, former Massachusetts Governor as the leader for the Republican nod right now. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t really think he knows enough about Mitch Daniels to get worked up one way or the other about him. Smallholder’s comment about Daniels being too moderate for the primaries seems to ring a little false as John McCain (no raging social conservative) didn’t have much of a problem navigating the primaries in 2008. Of course one can argue that the results (and “rage” as the media likes to call it) of the 2010 elections might have changed that. Frankly, your Maximum Leader doesn’t think so. The primaries are the primaries and any Republican who wants a crack at the top job will cater to the base to win the nomination. We speculate about how this year it will be different from past years; but it rarely is that different one cycle to the next.

The whole Obamacare/Romneycare bit isn’t too much of a reach. One can spin it as a question of scale and affordability. Use the Constitution, Obamacare is massive federal overreach; but what Romney did in Mass. is not the same type of deal. States can implement broad social programs within the state if they want. Since the state has to pay for the program it isn’t an unfunded mandate to all or a major source of future debt. It is a subtle argument to be sure; but it might have legs. (Also, Romney can claim that the program has been mismanaged in the years since he left the Governor’s mansion.)

It was Professor Mondo’s comment that Mike Huckabee seems to be enjoying wide support down his way that caused a little distress to your Maximum Leader. Mike Huckabee is one of those potential candidates that really does upset your Maximum Leader. Perhaps your Maximum Leader has a latent prejudice against social conservatives who might actually rise up the the highest office in the land. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that he is prejudiced against prominent social conservatives. He thinks his problem is when the conservative in question has ONLY social conservative credentials.

Winston Churchill once said that a fanatic was a person who wouldn’t change their mind and wouldn’t change the subject. Your Maximum Leader thinks that his major objection with many social conservatives is that everything boils down to abortion, prayer and whether or not the US is a Christian nation. Don’t get your Maximum Leader wrong, he is a pretty socially conservative fellow; but he is often looking for policy discussions on a whole host of subjects from his candidates, not just an exposition on religion and politics.

So back to Huckabee… He has executive experience (from a state that has already given us one chief executive). He also seems so authentic and natural as to be everybody’s friend. It is when he starts going on about his young Earth beliefs that he loses your Maximum Leader. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t begrudge anyone their own beliefs concerning the creation and age of the universe; but he finds that there is a strong correlation between those who believe that the universe was created exactly per the Book of Genesis and a lack of curiosity to the natural world. Curiosity in the natural world may not seem like a big prerequisite to higher office, but in your Maximum Leader’s mind it is. That type of curiosity should lead to an appreication for (if not an aptitude for) observation, recording of facts and formulation of hypotheses. Understanding and applying the scientific method (as it were) is a useful tool for developing mental acuity. Mental acuity is a trait of which your Maximum Leader is fond in political leaders.

So back to Huckabee… Your Maximum Leader just can’t imagine him as having the mental acuity needed to be president. This is based solely on Huckabee’s religious beliefs. This type of assessment (a prejudice if you will) is based solely on observations and experience your Maximum Leader has made of others. It may be that Mike Huckabee is a brilliant man with wisdom and understanding beyond what your Maximum Leader has observed. But given what your Maximum Leader has observed, Huckabee is sorta scary as a potential nominee.

Well… Your Maximum Leader believes that he’s run this train of thought off the rails and has no more to say (for the moment) on this subject. He’ll now open the first bottle of bubbly for the evening and see when he might get those steaks.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was, until about 14 minutes ago, blissfully unaware of the conspiracy that exists in this nation to exterminate a certain minority group. This conspiracy is based in the public schools, churches, Planned Parenthood, the pyschiatric profession and organizations of “European” manufacture.

To elaborate on this conspiracy further your Maximum Leader presents this video (about 14 minutes in length):

Your Maximum Leader is stupified. Just when he starts to forget how insane some people are a video like this one serves to remind him of what craziness people are willing to believe.

Oh yes, one more thing… Your Maximum Leader is glad that Mr. Johnson doesn’t feel the need to subject himself to the oppression of conventional spelling or grammar in the graphics of this video.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has written in this space before that he’s not much of a “Tea Party” type of person. He considers himself a conservative. He further considers that he is likely in agreement (in broadest principles) with many of the overarching ideas espoused by the Tea Party movement.

But honestly, he thinks that the movement is going a bit far.

The requirement to which your Maximum Leader objects the most is the one calling for ideologocial purity. Purity in a political movement is counter-productive in this and most times throughout US history. (This is made worse by the fact that in many cases the ideology espoused by many in the Tea Party movement just isn’t consistent in the best case, and just completely ignorant in the worst case.) Your Maximum Leader also isn’t thrilled with many candidates running under the banner of the Tea Party.

So let us get a few things out of the way… Your Maximum Leader hasn’t directly supported any Tea Party candidate. Frankly he has no reason to. He is represented in Congress by Rob Wittman. Congressman Whittman is a great guy personally and is perfectly conservative enough for your Maximum Leader. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t spend a lot of time going around actively supporting candidates who have no connection directly to him. (Although he is still very interested in politics in the aggregate.)

To your Maximum Leader the Tea Party movement has been something from which he has felt detached and more than a little bit disturbed by. He is generally suspicious of any populist movement of any ideological stripe. Anger is not his favorite emotion in politics. Certainly anger and fear are the most powerful of political motivators in our country. That said your Maximum Leader isn’t all that comfortable with emotion being the major motivator in politics. (NB: This is not to say that your Maximum Leader doesn’t like intrigue, backbiting and grudges. He does. But he doesn’t want voters to be overly emotional that just makes them more crazy than normal. Emotional voters - bad. Politicians being politicians - normal and sometimes good and fun.)

So… What about the Tea Party victory of the moment? Let your Maximum Leader discourse for a moment on Christine O’Donnell. Let him start with the good stuff. Speaking as an objectifying man, she is cute. She’s a hell of a lot better looking than Mike Castle that’s for sure. (NB: Your Maximum Leader has met Mike Castle in the distant past. At the time Castle was Governor of Delaware. And he should also add that he seems to remember then-Gov Castle having a rather hot girlfriend. Your Maximum Leader only mentions this because apparently some people were rumoring recently that Castle was gay. Take that for what it is worth.) And being cute certainly must count for something. Insofar as her politics go, your Maximum Leader can’t say anything good or bad about her. Other than knowing that she was supported by the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin there doesn’t seem to be much written about her politics.

Except the stuff about abortion (she’s against it - so is your Maximum Leader by the way), masturbation (she’s against it - your Maximum Leader doesn’t know why masturbation might be a political issue - but insomuch as it is political he’s for it) and calling President Obama anti-American your Maximum Leader doesn’t know much about her politics. Again, like with the Tea Party at large, he suspects that he would likely agree with lots of her politics if he knew what they were. (Then again, like the Tea Party at large, the devil is in the details.)

She was nominated as the Republican candidate for Senate twice before. So apparently much opposition to her is recent. It is fine for her to be a sacraficial lamb before the campaigning of (now Vice-President) Joe Biden but it is too much for her to compete for a seat that is now open.

She won the primary fair and square. She won it in the only way she could. She tapped into voter anger and pushed the buttons that needed to be pushed. She’s played by the rules and won according to how the rules are played.

But there is the question of should she have run against Castle in the first place. This is the heart of what your Maximum Leader has to say on this.

Okay… Is Mike Castle a RINO? Is he a dreaded Republican in name only? No. He is a Republican. Is Mike Castle a conservative? No he is not. Your Maximum Leader realizes that Republicans tend to be more conservative than Democrats. But since we only have two political parties in this country they both need to be pretty big tents (to use a cliche). If one attempts to purify one of the parties you are left with a small rump party that ceases to be viable long-term.

Let us go back to the situation in Delaware. Is Delaware a particularly conservative leaning state? No. If it was would they have elected Joe Biden for all those years? Why has Mike Castle been so successful in Delaware? He’s been successful because he is in touch with the people he has represented for so many years. Mike Castle was the Republican that was able to appeal to the people of Delaware. Could conservatives count on the Mike Castle vote 100% of the time? No they could not. Could conservatives count on Mike Castle’s vote 50% of the time. Sure they could. Could conservatives count on Joe Biden’s vote 50% of the time? Nope. Could conservatives count on Joe Biden’s vote 10% of the time? Probably not.

So let us see where we are now. Christine O’Donnell might well win the race in November. Who knows. She won a primary “against the odds.” So if she can pull out one more win this year that would be great. If she wins in November your Maximum Leader will eat his words and state that nominating her wasn’t a mistake.

But let us say that history has not changed and Delaware is still what it has been for decades, a pretty safely Democratic state, and that Christine O’Donnell is beaten by a relative nobody on the Democratic side. Then what? What if Delaware was the difference between Republicans running the Senate or Democrats retaining control? In that situation would it not have been better to have Mike Castle there than in enforced retirement? As far as your Maximum Leader is concerned, the answer to that question is yes. Better to have Castle than nothing.

But for many Tea Party advocates it is better to have nothing than something. That is very disturbing.

Many years ago your Maximum Leader was an intern on Capitol Hill. And in his lowly position he had occasion to run into Lee Atwater and Mary Matalin and a host of other late 1980s early 1990s political guru types. At one point Lee Atwater said to a bunch of us interns that generally speaking 40% of Americans were always going to vote Democrat and 40% were always going to vote Republican. Both parties were fighting over about 11% of the electorate. Now Atwater was speaking about national races and speaking in the aggregate. But there is a basic truth here that many in the Tea Party movement don’t seem to get…

Let us say that those evenly split 80% of Americans were not just Democrats and Republicans. Let us instead think of them as Liberals and Conservatives. Those numbers are pretty hard and fast. Your just not going to change the mind of anyone in that 80%. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to. And in your Maximum Leader’s opinion that is just what the Tea Party movement activists are trying to do. It isn’t that the Tea Partiers are fighting in a meaningful way to win over the minds of the middle 20%. They are trying to make sure that the only people on their side are the ones that completely agree with them.

Your Maximum Leader thinks that it is unlikely that O’Donnell will win in November. She might, but it is unlikely. With Delaware remaining safely in Democratic hands it becomes less likely that Republicans (conservative ones as well as not so conservative ones) will take control of the Senate. If the Senate stays Democratically controlled it is much less likely that the Tea Partiers will get their (purported) wish, namely the opportunity to stop President Obama’s agenda.

So the question seems to be are the Tea Partiers looking to win, or just to make sure only the kids they want to play get to play? At this point your Maximum Leader thinks that the primary objective of Tea Party activists is to take control of the Republican party where ever they are able, regardless of being able to actually beat the man who they believe is ruining the country.

Sure some Tea Party supported candidates are going to win this fall (your Maximum Leader thinks Rand “Aqua Buddha” Paul will likely win in KY and it seems that Sharon Angle might actually beat Harry Reid in NV). It will be interesting to see how the Tea Party candidates will actually govern. Your Maximum Leader suspects that they will be a pain in the arse to everyone of all political stripes. We’ll see on that.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have many people he’d consider his personal heros. There are a few however. At the top of that list is Winston Churchill. (Also on that list are George Washington and Elvis. You can see others over on the right side nav bar under the “Pantheon” heading.

So… Your Maximum Leader likes Churchill…

Imagine his surprise when he saw a headline on his Yahoo homepage this morning about a Churchill UFO cover up. Wha? Well here is the juicy part of the peice (which can be found in its entirety here: Did Churchill order a UFO cover up?):

It’s a conspiracy theory worthy of the “X-Files,” and it goes like this: Churchill, then the prime minister, apparently ordered a cover-up of an encounter between a Royal Air Force bomber and an unidentified flying object during World War II. The reason: Churchill feared that news of the incident would create public panic and a loss of faith in religion.

The Daily Telegraph explains that Churchill is reported to “have made the orders during a secret war meeting with U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, the then commander of the Allied Forces, at an undisclosed location in America during the latter part of the conflict.” He ordered that the information remain secret for a period of 50 years.
[…]
Apparently, Churchill’s order was overheard by one of his bodyguards. The man, also a member of the Royal Air Force, kept the secret to himself for years, but told his daughter at some point, and told his wife on his deathbed in 1973. The man’s daughter later told her son (the bodyguard’s grandson, for those of you keeping score), and he inquired about the incident with the Ministry of Defense in 1999. That inquiry made it into the files that were made public on Thursday.

According to the report, the crew of the plane did manage to take photographs of the UFO, which “hovered noiselessly” near their plane before zooming away. Alas, the photos, if they do indeed exist, were not released.

So there it is. In case you are wondering about it, here is the link to the article in the Telegraph that is the basis of the article on Yahoo.

Now let your Maximum Leader say that he thinks that the odds of there being extraterrestrial life (in some form) somewhere out in the universe somewhere are statistically rather high. He also thinks that the odds of that life being able to travel the vast distances across space (and time) to come to Earth and stop by without saying hi are pretty much zero. So he doesn’t believe in UFOs - to be clear.

So your Maximum Leader doesn’t know what that RAF bomber crew might have seen, or what story might have made its way to Churchill… But in time all UFO stories have been debunked by careful examination. To much time may have passed for this UFO story to be debunked as well. But if we were able to get the all the facts your Maximum Leader is sure that we could sensibly explain whatever it was that those RAF flyers saw.

The more interesting question to this story that doesn’t seem to be asked is what exactly Churchill’s advisors might have thought the UFO was and what theories they presented to WSC to make him classify the incident.

Where are Agents Muller and Scully when you need them?

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader skipped out to the beach for a few days and while there had a brainstorm for a short story. So that explains his (now usual) lack of posting…

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t normally blog about his dreams. This is mainly because dreams (Inception aside) are just subconscious ramblings of you mind trying to unwind. Last night your Maximum Leader had a dream that was positively frightening. It did, in fact, wake him from his slumber. In the dream your Maximum Leader’s legs were encrusted with some material like peat moss. The moss was infested with flesh-eating ants that were trying to make a colony in his legs. In the dream after a bit of panic your Maximum Leader took a long knife and cut off the infested moss. He then swam in a very cold river. Apparently at this point he woke up.

This was the first time a dream has caused your Maximum Leader to wake up from a deep sleep in longer than he can remember.

Oddly… Shortly after waking up a loud thunderstorm blew in. It was comforting and put your Maximum Leader right back to sleep, happy in the knowledge that we were getting much needed rain.

If any of you out there care to play Joseph to your Maximum Leader’s Pharaoh and try some dream interpretation feel free to go for it. (NB to all minions: your Maximum Leader thinks dream interpretation is bunk by the way - but have at it anyway.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader attended a memorial service over the weekend for a friend of our family. Our friend was 90 and lived a great long life.

During the reception after the service there was a slide show playing on a video monitor. The majority of the photos were of our friend in the majority of his life before we knew him. It was interesting to see him as a younger man in the 1950s and early 60s. He had a flat top hair cut, crisp suit and narrow tie.

At one point your Maximum Leader looked around the room and realized something interesting. There were three other men in the room who still wore flat top hair cuts. Who still wore crisp navy suits. Who still wore narrow ties. The three men were likely all in their 80s.

Your Maximum Leader worked the room a little and found out about these other men, or directly struck up conversation with them. They were a former airline pilot, a former civil engineer and a former chemical engineer. They spoke of knowing our friend at various stages of his life. We shared our thoughts and memories and then went our own ways.

On the drive back to your Maximum Leader’s in-law’s house it occurred to your Maximum Leader that these men are directly responsible for so much that is America today. These men built the modern United States. They came home from a war where they had saved the world and proceeded to change their nation and the world.

Your Maximum Leader couldn’t help but wonder how their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are squandering their work. He lamented to himself the decline of American manufacturing. He was saddened by the coarseness of our popular culture. He was absolutely crushed by the whining that punctuates any discourse about affairs of the day.

This is not to say that your Maximum Leader wants to return to a 1950s that was all Ward Cleaver-esque. He doesn’t. And please don’t think that your Maximum Leader is unaware of the idealized 1950’s and early 1960’s. He holds no illusions about that period - for good and ill.

What he is saying is that the spirit of doing, and making, and building and progressing is lost in our time. We don’t build things. Sure we innovate and invent, but we rely on others to do the actual producing (and in many situations that is fine - but shouldn’t we have some domestic industrial capacity?). We hardly seem capable of maintaining a national infrastructure that was largely the vision and work of those men with flat top haircuts. We don’t seem willing to work for much when we can coast on reputation and good fortune.

Sadly, reputation changes and good fortune changes to bad suddenly.

Your Maximum Leader was struck by a deep pathos on a holiday weekend that is his favorite of the year. If a pollster had contacted him and asked the most inane of inane (yet frequently repeated) pollster questions he would have said that our nation is “on the wrong track.” Sadly the right track doesn’t seem like a possible path for us.

Say we were able to take some of the flat top haircut Americans we have and put them to the task of energy independence, what would result? Probably little. You see, in order to get from here to there we would need to transition. This transition period (one that might require more domestic oil production, and more coal and more natural gas to get us “over the hump”) is so objectionable to so many people that it hardly seems possible that we will be able to move forward. Frankly this is the stage at which we’ve been stuck for 30 years. Myopia is the problem we have in our nation, and it is the bane of the flat top American. When so many can’t see more that what is right in front of them you can’t really have a vision of the future. What is worse, when myopic leaders (who are legion and of all persuasions) articulate a “vision” it is nothing more than a series of short term (myopic) goals strung together; because these people can’t think in other terms.

Your Maximum Leader wants his children to grow up and be the descendants (spiritually, as well as literally - we have quite a number of family photos blessed with many flat top haircuts) of those Americans who changed the world seventy years ago. He hope that they can accomplish great things. He hopes they will not have to be he suspects that they will be the ones that will have to save this nation, if it is to be saved. He also hopes that if they do turn out to be the flat top Americans of the future that their spirits will not be crushed by short-sighted idiots who don’t have the ability to conceive of that it was the work of American with flat top haircuts that made it possible for them to become short-sighted idiots in the first place.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have a subject or theme to this post. So you’ll just have to bear with him.

Last night your Maximum Leader dreamnt that he (and Mrs Villain) were going to a party at the Hearst Castle. We were the guests of George Hamilton. Hamilton was taking us all around and introducing us to everyone. Somehow your Maximum Leader ended up in a huge Gothic library, in a smoking jacket, smoking cigars with George Hamilton, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, and Eddie Izzard (who was not wearing a smoking jacket, but instead a sequined evening gown). Conversation revolved around making a film version of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” The “gimmick” of the film would be having it set in late 20th Century America and Caesar has overthrown the government. (Caesar would be killed on the floor of the old Senate Chamber in the Capitol.)

Your Maximum Leader played with an iPad yesterday for about an hour. We wants one now. We wants one…

Your Maximum Leader thought of Robbo when he learned that Brooks Brothers is running a seersucker suit sale. Go for it Robbo!

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have too much planned for the weekend. If the weather holds he’ll take the family out for a little hike in the George Washington National Forest. We may see a waterfall if we are lucky.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a few mental sidenotes he’ll go ahead and immoratalize in the ether of the interwebs now…

Earlier today he opened a can of Spagetti-Os. That is not noteworthy in itself. The noteworthy piece is that he opened it with the can opener tool on a Swiss Army knife. It took about 40 seconds. It has likely been 15 or more years since he’s opened a can this way.

After reading Robbo’s latest he mused that there are some names he likes a lot and (half-heartedly) tried to apply to his daughters. Mrs Villain vetoed them immediately in fact. They are: Livia, Helen, Irene, Agrippina, Julia and finally Andromache. Theodora has a nice ring to it, but the historical connection is a little too slutty. (NB: Your Maximum Leader never learned why Helen and Julia were problematic to Mrs Villain.)

Your Maximum Leader has always thought (and perhaps has mentioned before) that he’s always found this song lyric particularly lovely and poignant: “Two are born to cross/their lives/their souls/their heart/if by chance one turns away/are they forever lost?”

Your Maximum Leader has about 8 hours of Dollhouse on the DVR to watch. He’s been meaning to see how Joss Whedon wrapped up the series. But since the Olympics are on, he’s not been watching the DVR…

Your Maximum Leader has often wondered how the course of Western Civilization would have been changed if the Emperors of the Byzantine Empire had been a little less concerned with iconoclasm and more concerned with Islam. Today, he found himself imagining what the world would be like if Constantinople was still the seat of an Orthodox Empire in the East.

Your Maximum Leader gets annoyed with people who spell it “ikon” and not “icon.” He notices that he only sees “ikon” in the context of a religious image.

Who is cuter? Mila Kunis or Kristen Bell? Your Maximum Leader normally would say Mila Kunis, but her connection to McCauley Caulkin makes her slightly less attractive. Repeated viewings of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” keep adding props to Kristen Bell.

Your Maximum Leader wonders about the great and terrible Velociman. He hopes all is well with him.

You know, your Maximum Leader has crossed paths many times with the police chief in this photo. (The photo is on the main page of Velociworld now, that prompted this thought.) He always seemed like a nice fellow who had the terrible burden of this photo being the only thing that people knew him for.

Your Maximum Leader’s kids keep singing this song.

Carry on.