Greetings, loyal minons. Your Maximum Leader sees today becoming one big fashion statment. Heh. Your Maximum Leader will direct his loyal minions to the House of Mirth to read recent posts on unmentionables (or knickers, or undergarments, take your pick).
First read Will’s post on female undergarments.
Then read CellieB on male undergarments.
And where is Sexy Sadie in all this discussion? Why she and the Smallholder are chewing on the same article. Humm…
Carry on.
I am surprised that the Maximum Leader did not turn to his trusty Minister of Agriculture for fashion advice. For those of you who only know us from the blogosphere, I am known for being quite the dapper clothes horse. I’m sure that Mike, Greg, Rob, Dave, and Kevin would all attest to their feelings of fashion inferiority when confronted with one of my tasteful ensembles.
I was unaware that your style of Jeans made a statement about your political philosophy.
I, like the Maximum Leader, used to be a 501 buttonfly guy. I always chuckle when I hear that term because it reminds me of a bad pickup line contest from college. A group of guys were sitting around the dorm room trying to figure out the absolute WORST yet successful pickup line anyone had used. One guy actually had had success by calling a girl and asking if she wanted to come over and “test fly the button fly.” Ah, true love in college.
Now I’m a Kirkland guy. What does that say about me?
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must make a confession. He reads the lovely (and ideologically pure) Annika’s site every day. (Do you? You should. Here’s a link for you.)
Anyway…
Something has been bothering your Maximum Leader for WEEKS now about Annika’s site. That damned Fash-ism poll near the top of the sidebar. What the hell are some of those things?
Your Maximum Leader knows they are all footwear. He understands basic pumps and boots. But what for the love of your Maximum Leader are: Mary Janes, d’Orsay pumps, t-straps (which sound quite sexy btw), peep toes, slingbacks, strappy sandals (which sound sexy in a granola-crunchy-Greatful-Dead-chicka way), kitten slides, and mules (which don’t sound sexy at all).
Your Maximum Leader probably could have figured all these things out for himself had he wanted to spend some time googling these terms. But instead your Maximum Leader chose to continue to let his ire grow. Finally this past weekend, your Maximum Leader asked Mrs. Villain and his Villainous Sister-in-law (who by the way used to be a buyer for Lee Jeans, and Liz Claiborne - and has lots of experience in couture) what the heck these footwear items were.
Your Maximum Leader now knows what a Mary Jane is. (It turns out that the Princess Villainette likes Mary Janes.) And they could also help with a Mule. (It seems as though the Princess Villainette also has a pair of Mules. As does the Villainous Sister-in-law.) They couldn’t help with the other stuff.
So your Maximum Leader asks you… What are these other things?
Your Maximum Leader will inquire of Annika as well. But he is befuddled.
And while your Maximum Leader is on the subject of Fashion. (A subject of which he admittedly knows little.) For how long has there been some sort of cosmic divide between “Levi’s People” and “Wrangler People?” Great Jeezey Chreezey people! They are just jeans! Your Maximum Leader got a lecture from a minion over the weekend the jist of which was that one couldn’t be a good conservative and wear Levi’s too. Wranglers were the jeans of conservatives.
Well, your Maximum Leader had never heard this before. Your Maximum Leader, by the way, is a Levi’s man. He doesn’t own but two pairs of jeans, and they are both (and have always been) Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans. ALWAYS. (Okay, maybe not always. But certainly since your Maximum Leader had a say in what clothes he wore this has been true.)
So could someone please clue in your Maximum Leader on the whole jeans issue here too? Throw your Maximum Leader a frickin’ bone here. He is Maximum Leader afterall. How can your Maximum Leader allow a seemingly crucial issue to the great masses of the unwashed minions go un-noticed?
Anyway… If some minon(s) care to opine on this, they have your Maximum Leader’s attention.
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had the opportunity to talk to some old friends on the phone over the weekend. All of them, for purposes of this blog, happen to be long-time Democrats. What follow are anecdotal stories about people your Maximum Leader happens to know.
With all of them your Maximum Leader chatted and caught up before politics came up. In most cases, your Maximum Leader didn’t bring up politics.
The first one is a late 50’s, female, resident of Ohio (of all places). She mentioned if your Maximum Leader was tired of the election yet. Your Maximum Leader said he was getting tired of it; and asked her if she had seen enough of the candidates to make up her mind. He even suggested that she didn’t need her mind made up. Your Maximum Leader then got an earful! And what a surprising earfull it was. This intelligent woman (who hasn’t ever in her life pulled the lever for a Republican nationally) said that she was going to stay home. John Kerry made her feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Your Maximum Leader pressed a little and wanted to know why. She said that while she cannot abide by Bush, Kerry worried her because, “All he knows how to do is talk.” She said that if a chemical/biological weapon were set off by terrorists in the US (which, by the way, she doubted would happen) she was convinced that John Kerry would talk with everyone in the world about what to do and equivocate until it was too late to do anything. That is what got her goat. She didn’t trust him to act when called upon to act.
This was interesting because no fewer than 4 or 5 hours earlier, your Maximum Leader was talking to one of Mrs. Villain’s relatives (a Democrat, male, resident of VA) who indicated that he planned on voting for the President for the same reason. He didn’t trust Kerry to act even if we were attacked. (This man in a veteran with no great love towards the President.) But he said he couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for Kerry.
The third Democrat your Maximum Leader spoke to was the most interesting of the bunch. She is a liberal (communist practically) living in Florida. (She is a 30-something mother of two living in South Florida with her “husband.” She likes to call him her “Partner” because “husband” is a sexist term which suggests submission to male authority.) In 2000, this woman called your Maximum Leader nearly every day after the election telling him how the Republicans were going to caught in their dirty little tricks to steal the election and how the power of the Bush family would be broken. Anyway… This woman informed your Maximum Leader that she was voting for some odd third party group of which your Maximum Leader had never heard. He asked why she wasn’t voting for Kerry. She informed him that, “If I wanted to vote for some pandering bastard murderer I’d vote for Bush.” Your Maximum Leader felt the likely follow-up question to that statement was, “Pandering bastard is understandable, but where do you get the murderer from?” “Look,” she said to your Maximum Leader. “If I wanted to elect some assult-weapon wielding Nazi I’d vote for Bush. It disgusted me to see that footage of Kerry out where ever he was in his outfit boasting about killing that helpless bird.”
The conversation then trned to Thanksgiving plans (or non-plans as the case of your Maximum Leader’s friend might be).
So, for what it is worth. Three Democrats your Maximum Leader knows. None of them voting for Kerry.
Of course, do these stories mean anything in the grand scheme. Probably not much. They are just anecdotal evidence of some people being dissatisfied with their candidate. But if there is non-anecdotal evidence of something going wrong for Kerry, it seems to be coming from Hawaii. Your Maximum Leader has read a number of articles about this poll showing Bush and Kerry neck-in-neck in the Aloha State. If Hawaii goes for Bush… Well… Your Maximum Leader would be gobsmacked. Just the prospect of it is as likely to your Maximum Leader’s thinking as would Saddam Hussein winning a popularity contest at a neocon cocktail party.
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just read that Chief Justice Rehnquist is in the hospital for thyroid cancer treatment.
Your Maximum Leader seems to remember reading something not too long ago about the Chief Justice’s failing health. Well, we need to call the people who gave Dick Cheney his bionic heart and see if they have a thyroid for the Chief. We need to have him stick around for a while longer yet.
Carry on.
Wow. I feel rather foolish. Not a week after I post about my amazement at the way that the Republican party puts aside its internal conflicts in order to unite around their candidate, it seems some major conservatives are declaring war on the Bush administration.
Republic Switchers chronicles conservatives making the switch to Kerry.
Scott McConnell of The American Conservative Magazine has endorsed Kerry (as the lesser of two evils):
Kerry’s the One
By Scott McConnellThere is little in John Kerry’s persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge-the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry-seems overdone, as Kerry’s contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002. But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.
It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Bush has turned into an important president, and in many ways the most radical America has had since the 19th century. Because he is the leader of America’s conservative party, he has become the Left’s perfect foil-its dream candidate. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II: both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their cuntries’ budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks.
Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliche about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal-Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it-and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.
During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. Of course there has always been “anti-Americanism.” After the Second World War many European intellectuals argued for a “Third Way” between American-style capitalism and Soviet communism, and a generation later Europe’s radicals embraced every ragged “anti-imperialist” cause that came along. In South America, defiance of “the Yanqui” always draws a crowd. But Bush has somehow managed to take all these sentiments and turbo-charge them. In Europe and indeed all over the world, he has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States. It’s the same throughout the Middle East.
Bush has accomplished this by giving the U.S. a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that “good” countries do.
It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security. These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists-indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America’s survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to providefull, 100 percent co-operation. Making yourself into the world’s most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help.
I’ve heard people who have known George W. Bush for decades and served prominently in his father’s administration say that he could not possibly have conceived of the doctrine of pre-emptive war by himself, that he was essentially taken for a ride by people with a pre-existing agenda to overturn Saddam Hussein. Bush’s public performances plainly show him to be a man who has never read or thought much about foreign policy. So the inevitable questions are: who makes the key foreign-policy decisions in the Bush presidency, who controls the information flow to the president, how are various options are presented?
The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA and State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidencyv=and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.
But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency-and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.
If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past-and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naive belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies-a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies-temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election-are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just couldn’t wait until tomorrow to blog on his World Series thoughts. Are you ready for the one big thought? Here it is… (Although your Maximum Leader hesitates to touch the keys to spell the word.) Sweep.
Yes, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thought last night that it is possible for the Red Sox to sweep the Cards. Now, having typed the unthinkable, your Maximum Leader must tell you what led to this idea.
Factor 1: Cards pitching. The Cards starters are now no longer playing at the level they were at the end of the season and through the first two rounds of playoffs. They are tired. They don’t seem to be controlling the ball. They are the reason that the Sox have been spotted two or more runs in the firstinning in both games.
Factor 2: Sox pitching. The Sox pitchers have been great. They have been better in starters. In middle relief. And in closing out the game.
Factor 3: Momentum. The Sox have carried their momentum from the ALCS into the World Series. The Cards have not carried their momentum from the NLCS into the World Series.
Last week your Maximum Leader said that the Cards would have to split the first two games in Fenway to have a shot at winning the series. They did not. Game 1 was the game they could have taken. It would have been hard, but they were, a few times, poised to make a run on the lead. But they didn’t. That will likely prove to be their undoing.
You see, the Cards are great at home. And they have lots of advantages over the Sox when they play in St. Louis. No DH. Homefield crowd. etc. But there are only 3 games in St. Louis. The Cards could win all three games in St. Louis, and then have to go to Fenway to lose two more games. Your Maximum Leader was sure that if they didn’t take one of the first two against the Sox they wouldn’t win the series. Now the Cards may just prove your Maximum Leader correct.
Of course, what makes this funny is that the only reason the Sox have homefield advantage in the Series is because the AL won the All-Star game. How funny would that be? The Sox win all their home games and thus the Pennant because of the All-Star game.
Well, we’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see what will happen. But your Maximum Leader wouldn’t be surprised if the Sox came on strong and won the first game at Busch Stadium. If they do… Well, your Maximum Leader will not type it again…
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader makes it a point to visit the Acidman’s site once or twice a day. Your Maximum Leader loves reading his thoughts and observations on goings-on and life. Well, it seems he’s had an “encounter.”
Now your Maximum Leader is sceptical. No mono-breasted, prehensile tail sporting alien babes have ever come to the Villainschloss and offered to mow the lawn or do the dishes for him. (He has enough trouble getting Mrs. Villain and the Villainettes to do that stuff for him.) So, either the Tall Dog is the luckiest man on the face of this planet… Or he had a tipple too many from ye olde bottle…
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader fresh off celebrating the mosts glorious naval battle since the creation of the world last week is ready to celebrate again. For today is the feast of Saint Crispin Crispian. A day when the English, under good King Harry (V) Plantagenet, crushed the French at Agincourt. Need a pick-me-up? Try The Bard’s take on a motivational speech.
You know something? Perhaps all this English over the French celebrating might annoy some (the one?) francophone reader of this site.
Nah…
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader read the lastest from his Poet Laureate and said, “Ah yes, this is the Hominid as we know and love him.”
Your Maximum Leader has worried quite a bit about the Big Hominid over the past few months. And to make matters worse, your Maximum Leader hasn’t written/chatted with him as much as he should. Perhaps moving into a new place with more room and DSL will improve things a little.
Or maybe we’ll just have to pray for the interession of one of God’s tentacles.
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like any benevolent dictator, must sometimes just have himself a little purge to keep things interesting.
The purge is of the blogroll. As your Maximum Leader has mentioned time and time again, the blogroll on this site is like a little favourites list that he can look up anywhere he happens to be. That said, your Maximum Leader has decided to purge websites that he has not read with any frequency in the past two or so months. Not that the majority of those blogs will care if they are dropped, it will make your Maximum Leader feel good to tid up some.
And in case this post left you cold…
On tap for later, more Electoral College madness! With comments from your Maximum Leader, the good JohnL of TexasBestGrok, and the Divine Minion Molly. But that will come when your Maximum Leader is willing to devote a little more time to blogging and a little less time to Medieval Total War.
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noted today that esteemed Canadian actor James T. Kir… No! William Shatner, has signed up to go on a Virgin Galactic space flight. Shatner and Dave Navarro (sans Carmen Electra we suppose) are both interested in seats on the commercial spacecraft.
If your Maximum Leader weren’t so preoccupied with world domination, Jennifer Love Hewitt, pie-encrusted Ann Coulter, the World Series and whisky he might want to put down the money and go himself.
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was very pleased to read the Minister of Agriculture’s most recent post about the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Your Maximum Leader remembers seeing the Senator speak eloquently and insightfully on the floor of the Senate. Your Maximum Leader always sought out the Sunday morning talk shows that Moynihan was on. And your Maximum Leader always tried to read his columns and editorials in various newspapers and journals. Senator Moynihan was a principled and intelligent man who served our nation very well. Although Moynihan and your Maximum Leader wouldn’t share many political views, we shared a love of knowledge and intelligent discourse.
If it were possible to do so, your Maximum Leader would have voted for Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Requiscat in pace, Senator. There are none like you in that august body now. And, alas, it may be a long time before another like you is elected…
Carry on.
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is quite excited about the upcoming World Series. But before we go there…
What a great NLCS game 7! The Astros took an early lead, but the Cards battled back to defeat the crafty Houstonians and grab the pennant. Your Maximum Leader extends his deep sympathy to the fans of Houston. The only words of relief to be found are, “There is always next year.”
In game 7 the Cards just overpowered the Astros and outplayed them defensively. What was interesting about the game, in the watching, was how when the Astros were in the field it seemed like an American League game. But when the Cards were in the feild, it seemed more like a National League game. The Cards were quick defensively and played to keep runs from happening. When at bat, the Cards played a good game of stealing and putting the ball in play to advance runners. It was great to watch.
Now that we know the Cards and the Sox are in the series what thoughts does your Maximum Leader have about the clash?
Well, first off it is good to see the best team in the National League battle the (almost) best team in the American League. Yes, your Maximum Leader knows that Boston didn’t have the best record overall. But Boston lead the American League in offensive production and pitching stats. Your Maximum Leader thinks that in terms of pure offense, the teams are equally matched. In terms of starting pitching, the teams are fairly evenly matched. The Sox pitchers should have a clear advantage in starters, but the Cards starters have stepped up and are playing just as well as Boston’s. Boston has a clea advantage in closers. The Card’s closers are shaky. The Cards play defensively better than the Sox do.
So what does all that mean? It means that we should be in for some really good baseball. If the Sox start Tim Wakefield; then the Cards have a good chance of taking one game at Fenway. That is critical for the Cards. They must take one of the first two games at Fenway to win the series. They can do this if they play aggressive National League style ball and concentrate on advancing and scoring runners. (Your Maximum Leader expects lots of steals and sacrifice plays.)
For Boston, your Maximum Leader believes they must come out swinging and jump to an early lead and get their closers into the game. Boston cannot win with good karma and high hopes alone.
Now, predictions… If the Cards take one of the first two games, your Maximum Leader feels that St. Louis will triumph in the series. If the Sox take the first two at Fenway, the Sox will triumph.
Now, hopes… Your Maximum Leader, normally a faithful National League man, is hoping that Boston wins. He would like to see the monkey flung from the back of this historic franchise. He hopes this is the year.
Carry on.
The Washington Post has two articles on potential cabinet heads in Kerry I or Bush II adminstrations.
I hope that recent discussions about Vanilla Ice Backup Dancers does not lead the Maximum Leader to shuffle his cabinet and change me to the “Minister of Being First Against the Wall.”
