Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads that one of the largest private collections of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia is up for auction in Los Angeles. The family of collector Lloyd Ostendorf is selling the collection because they don’t want the “stress” of maintaining it. The million dollars probably eases the stress some.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if the National Archives or the Smithsonian Institution shouldn’t try to pony up the money and purchase this collection on behalf of the citizens of our Republic? Your Maximum Leader, generally a great supporter of private collections, would approve of such a sale.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader allows this next item to pass without comment.

Cheese Sandwch Bought for $28,000.

Okay, one comment. Yes, you read that correctly. A 10 year old, mold-free, grilled cheese sandwich bearing the imprimatur of the Virgin Mary was purchased on ebay for $28,000.

It is truly a miracle.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the Brits are taking the security of their sovereign monarch seriously for once. It seems as though Santa Claus has been arrested at Buckingham Palace and charged with causing criminal damage and creating a public nusiance.

In this respect, Santa now joins the illustrious ranks of Batman & Robin, Spiderman, and the late Princess Diana as people who have caused a disturbance at the Palace.

It seems as though Santa was protesting for more rights for divorced and separated fathers in Britain. And who knew that his long-lasting marriage to Mrs. Claus (a firery-redhead if the photos are to be believed) was on the rocks? Your Maximum Leader supposes the Heat Miser will have a shot at Mrs. Claus before too long.

And your Maximum Leader supposes that HM the Queen will be getting coal for Christmas.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader takes a moment to report the obvious. While he knows that all his minions are technology savvy people; some other out there are not so swift. And now… The death knell sounds for the VHS system.

VHS is dead! Long live the DVD!

Of course, it is only a matter of time before the DVD goes the way its illustrious predecessors, the Beta and the VHS…

Excursus: Your Maximum Leader is told that Beta tape is still widely used in TV production. Is this so? If any minions can educate your Maximum Leader on this narrow topic it would be appreciated.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what to make of this story yet. You know the one where the hunter from Minnesota shot and killed some hunters in Wisconsin.

Yesterday it seemed as though one hunter killed six other hunters in a wanton shootout; then gave himself up when the manhunt began. Now, the suspect says he was shot at first by the other hunters. No charges filed yet.

There is still something missing from this whole tale. Your Maximum Leader imagines we’ll start to hear more soon.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the good Smallholder has declared Nakedvillainy to be “All Ally All The Time.” While your Maximum Leader is great and can direct his Leaderly Love to many different lovely minions, he does want to write something about one of Ally’s recent posts.

Ally writes about porn addiction in a recent post. Your Maximum Leader is somewhat conflicted on porn actually. He believes it has a general coarsening affect on civil society and contributes to forces that rend apart traditional morals and norms that preserve civilization itself. On the other hand, he believes in personal freedom and free will and the marketplace. Those forces should also be allowed to work to provide porn to those who want it. He generally believes that access to porn should be restrictive, but the nature and type of porn produced should not be limited by government.

Excursus: Your Maximum Leader thinks he blogged once before on how he thought there should be an internet “red light” district. Defined by something like a “dot XXX” extension. Of course, how you define porn is a sticky wicket and likely the subject of a future post all its own…

So what is the purpose of this post you ask? Well, it is to discuss porn addiction of a sort. This is not at all related to any details of Ally’s life; as your Maximum Leader doesn’t know any to comment upon. But Ally’s post caused him to remember a couple whom he knew at one point….

You see, Ally’s post was not the first one in which he’s heard of a married man preferring to sit at his computer and surf for naked teem nympho sluts than go and nail his good lady wife. Indeed, your Maximum Leader knew a couple who are now divorced where this (porn addiction that is) was a contributing factor to the breakup of the marriage.

In his case, the wife (Jane) while in court declared that her husband (Dick - heh…) was “addicted to porn.” Jane declared that Dick would spend hours looking at porn on the internet, reading “dirty magazines,” and watching “adult films.” She further declared that she thought his love of porn was like committing adultery with thousands of women.

Excursus: And if you are both a devout Christian and a married man fantasizing about having sex with nude hairy pregnant teen nympho sluts you are committing adultery. And just to be even handed about this, if you are both a devout Christian and a married woman fantasizing about having sex with naked sweaty abs-of-steel big-dicked man-sluts you too are committing adultery. And as adulterers you should be put to death. Of course it seems in modern parlance “put to death” which used to mean something fun like stoning or slow eviseration now means “put through the ringer by lawyers who suck the life blood out of you.”

So, where was your Maximum Leader… Oh yes… Anecdotally speaking…

Well, Dick (in our Dick and Jane senario) countered that he really had no recourse but to turn to porn. Dick, it seems, had “needs.” Dick had twice a day “needs.” Or so he said. (And so his “special doctor” said too.) When Dick and Jane were dating, it seemed that once or twice a day wasn’t all that outrageous. When Dick and Jane were newlyweds, once or twice a day wasn’t an imposition. But about a year into their marriage, daily was too much for Jane. And by the three year mark, Jane was a once or twice a quarter type of gal. Dick had a choice to make, find sex in the arms of another woman; or find sex at the tip of his mouse-clicking finger.

Now if you are female, perhaps all you might need to take the place of your man is your handy Milesian do-it-yourself kit. But men are a little different. They like the visual stimulation that sometimes comes with taking the matter into their own hands.

So, your Maximum Leader asks, is porn addiction in a marriage bad if one party is not satisfying the needs of the other? In the case of the couple your Maximum Leader knew, sex was just one part of the problem. (As is so often the case. One particularly salacious part however…) If a person likes the hormone rush and feeling that is part and parcel of the sexual experience and is used to getting it - then doesn’t get it anymore should they be allowed to seek it out in other places within reason?

As your Maximum Leader was typing this, Mrs. Villain came down and started reading over his shoulder. (A practice your Maximum Leader cannot stand actually. He normally minimizes the screen and refuses to talk about what he is typing. But in this case, he let Mrs. Villain read…) She believes that porn, while bad in a larger societal sense, is only damaging to a marriage (and adulterous perhaps) if it becomes a replacement by one party to physical relations which are offered by the second party in a marriage. Your Maximum Leader would have to agree with that too. (And not just because Mrs. Villain said so.)

All in all, perhaps studying “porn addiction” isn’t all that bad an idea. Your Maximum Leader supposes that if there are Sex Addictions listed in the DSM, a subset of sex addiction would be porn addition. Of course the article to which Ally linked makes it sound as though there is a particular slant to the aim of the studies. (Which makes one wonder about the validity of the research before it begins doesn’t it?)

So… Where does all of this lead? Nowhere really. Like the end of an Eddie Izzard show, this post is concluding with you the reader minion saying “Humm… Is that it?” to yourself.

Yes. That is all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is the gift that just keeps on giving. More food for thought. This time the topic is what is wrong with academe.

Read this wonderful post by Roger Kimball on Armavirumque. And allow your Maximum Leader to say that any blog that quotes Lord Melbourne freely in the opening lines of a post can’t be bad.

Now think… Are non-profit foundations really helping the state of academe in America? What was O’Sullivan’s Law again? Any organization that is not specifically chartered to promote a conservative agenda becomes more liberal over time. Surely the Mellon’s didn’t figure that one day their millions would go to subsidize “junior faculty who have a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities, and breaking down stereotypes and promoting cross-racial understanding in their university communities.”

And from what your Maximum Leader reads, other foundations are even more egregious in their funding determinations than is the Mellon Foundation.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was just thinking aloud on the phone with the Smallholder. And a theological question came to him. He figured he’d post it.

Judas Iscariot.

Riddle your Maximum Leader this… Can Judas really be held responsible for his betrayal of Jesus if one is a good reformed Protestant Christian and believes in predestination? If you do, then it was in God’s own plan that Judas do what he did. How can you hold him in fault for something he was predestined to do? Without Judas, how would Jesus have fulfilled his purpose?

Even if you don’t believe in predestination, think about it. Jesus would have still needed a betrayer. Jesus had foreknowledge of his betrayal, though perhaps not his betrayer. This would imply, at least, that it was in the Divine Plan for someone to act in the role of betrayer. Can that person, Judas Iscariot, really be fully culpable for his role in The Plan? Does he deserve to be devoured by Satan in the lowest circle of Hell?

Just asking.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw this quiz over on TexasBestGrok and he decided to take it. Well the responses made him laugh aloud so he’s decided to post the results.

Heh. A giant hamster named Skippy. Heh. Skippy.

Carry on.

I check in here far more than I post. I just have to wonder though where you guys are finding all the time to post. And not only that, but when your not creating entertaining missives here at Naked Villiany, you are reading or commenting on other peoples blogs.

Geesh and I only have ONE kid!

Anyho.

In the minutes before my wife finishes getting the wee one to sleep so we can have the obligatory “Anniversary Sex” (which by the way is akin to the obligatory “Birthday Sex” (mine was just a few weeks ago Oct 31st), I have a minute or two to chime in.

Where or where is our esteemed Propaganda Minister? I can only assume that he is not still working for Kerry 04 (maybe he is on the team for Kerry 08?).

I have to admit that in the free time I have had (which is usually about 9PM-1AM) I have crafted a web site dedicated to Early 18th Century High Seas Piracy go ahead take a look!

One of my manifestations of Geekiness is that I have been into Living History since about the 8th Grade. I have participated in everything from WW2 to 15th Century (I did 15th C at Warwick Castle even!).

My latest passion is Pirate stuff.

The other thing I have been doing is going to Flea Markets here in Germany. Amazing the things that one can find. Last weekend I foundsome 1870s beer steins for $5! Just about every Sunday there is a market somewhere.

Anyway, my wife just gave me the “come hither” look so I am going to get Lucky!

Back to the…..

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like Winston Churchill to the Admiralty in 1939, is back. There is so much to blog about, and so little time to do so. This post will likely be just one big long excursion to where ever your Maximum Leader feels like blogging… Where to begin?

First off, thanks to the Minister of Agriculture for posting while your Maximum Leader was away. He’ll be called to do so again in a week or so when your Maximum Leader will have to be gone a few days.

Well, in case any of you are interested. The Virginia Tech vs. Maryland game last Thursday was fun. Well, it was a blow-out actually. Tech 55, Maryland 6. To be honest, your Maximum Leader and his party departed at half-time with the score 41-3. It had begun to rain, and none of us wanted to get wet watching a game where it was clear who the victor would be. One little interesting side-note… Your Maximum Leader was last in Blacksburg, Virginia in 1997-ish. He was there to help the AirMarshal move out after earning his PhD. At that point, Blackburg was a smallish town dominated by a huge university. What a difference about 7 years make. Now there are malls (plural - many of them), highway by-passes, and “urban” sprawl. Amazing really. Your Maximum Leader could hardly find his way around. Indeed, Mrs. Villain, and the Villainous-sister-in-law, both graduates of Virginia Tech, could hardly find their way around either. Crazy really.

Excursus: Your Maximum Leader sees that Uma Thurman and her “boyfriend” are buying the late Bob Guccione’s estate in New York. Guccione, the late Penthouse publisher, owned a nice spread up near Albany. Now it will be Uma’s. If walls could talk… Your Maximum Leader wonders if Uma is a little minx… Ahem…

Your Maximum Leader recently saw a news article stating that “Humans Were Born to Run.” According to this study, scientists are now claiming that mankind’s upright stance, arm length and position, curvature of hips and so forth all stem from our ability to run. The scientists go on to say much of our physiology is geared towards running. Your Maximum Leader, while not a researcher in this field, wonders if these scientists examined the human knee. From everything your Maximum Leader had read, the human knee is well designed for upright walking, but takes a real beating when running. And thus, human knees wear out quickly. If we were born to run wouldn’t one anticipate better knees?

Your Maximum Leader has been reading regularly about India’s decisions to start to demilitarize the disputed provence of Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Singh and Pakistani President Musharrif seem to be moving towards more serious negotiations over the status of this provence. Here is one article (now old) from The Times of India on this subject. Your Maximum Leader had planned to write a larger piece on this subject, but he’s been OBE. This will have to do for now.

Excursus: What is OBE you ask? Well, certainly some readers will think “Has our Maximum Leader gone loopy? The Order of the British Empire has no contextual reference in that last line.” In this case, loyal minions, your Maximum Leader is using OBE as an abbreviation for “overtaken by events.” He uses it from time to time. Just as he sometimes uses Churchill’s KBO abbreviation for “keep buggering on.”

Thanks to Sadie for her link to the Dante’s Inferno Quiz. It appears as though Sadie and your Maximum Leader will cavort with each other in the Second Level of Hell.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!/b>
Here is how you matched up against all the levels: