10. I challenge anyone to score lower.

Only a 19 on the Libertarian test, I fear.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader took the following test: Libertarian Purity Test. (Which he found via the Volokh Conspriacy.)

Just as a frame of reference, your Maximum Leader scored 49 points on this test. That puts him in the “Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.” category.

Your Maximum Leader predicts that of all of the bloggers in this space, he will have the highest score. The Foreign Minister could wind up having a slightly higher score. But it is improbable. Your Maximum Leader believes that the Propaganda Minister will score fewer than 10 points. The Minister of Agriculture will score fewer than 30.

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was just reading over the Washington Post website when he came across this very interesting David Broder column. Your Maximum Leader himself was thinking this very same thing while watching the Today Show at the Villainschloss this morning. Your Maximum Leader seemed to remember reading something about FDR using WWII as the justification for a fourth term. Now thanks to Mr. Broder and Mr. Faler, you can read all about how FDR never showed up for the 1944 convention.

Of course, the current war is not like WWII. (Although it must be waged just as aggressively.) But the war, and its causes and conduct, are legitimate issues that must be discussed. Using imagery of the World Trade Center is a legitimate tactic in the discussion of the issue.

As other bloggers and commentators have noted, Americans seem to fall, generally, into two categories. The September 10th people, and the September 12th people. Many would prefer to revert back to their mindset that existed on September 10, 2001. This is easy, since there have been no further attacks on American soil. To the Sept 10th-ers, the imagery is a painful reminder of something they are trying to repress. To the Sept 12th people, the Sept 10th people are aggrevating. The imagery to them gets their blood up and makes them remember why we are in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Your Maximum Leader would like to have a sensible discussion of this very important issue. But to do so on the national level would require both campaigns to act a little more grown up.

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was struck by the complete stupidity of this AP news wire story: Police Secretly Watching Hip-Hop Celebs.

Allow your Maximum Leader to clue in the Miami and Miami Beach Police departments to something. When your “secret” surveillance is reported on by the AP, it probably is no longer a secret. And while your Maximum Leader is cluing people in to things… Hey you all at the AP, when you report on secret surveillance you might want to label it “heretofore secret” surveillance.

Just a thought.

Carry on.

The Maximum Leader‚ÄövÑv¥s rambling post has shamed me. I have been so swamped by paper grading that our loyal(?) readership has been denied my insightful(?) commentary for several days. Alas, this is not the day for insightful commentary, just a brief response to my colleague‚ÄövÑv¥s assays into the blogosphere.

Propaganda Minister: I am so thrilled you have joined us. Having honed your skills at an Ivy League humor magazine I have no doubt that your wit will enliven our space. Plus, I‚ÄövÑv¥m thrilled that when the L-bomb (liberal) gets lobbed, as it regularly does, you, not I, will be the target.

I am sad that you movie post was lost, but was happy that I had a chance to see it before it went down the memory hole. I was pleased that ‚ÄövÑv Big Trouble In Little China‚ÄövÑvp made the list, since it is ‚ÄövÑv our‚ÄövÑvp movie. Together with my posts on the propriety of gay marriage, the fact that we share a movie may lead readers to draw a conclusion about my orientation, so I will not discuss your attempts to French me during the toasting scene.

Now the Maximum Leader is directing you toward the Crown Princess. My God man, how many people do you have pimping for your insatiable ass?

My only concern about the addition of the Propaganda Minister is that I ma start receiving more friendly fire. In a personal e-mail after my ‚ÄövÑv poverty‚ÄövÑvp post, he called me ‚ÄövÑv shareholer.‚ÄövÑvp I first thought it was a clever play on my byline that referred to the irony of folks who own stocks proclaiming their poverty. Not so. Shareholder was not misspelled. It turns out that he was insinuating that I am a slut. I do hope that he will take the high-ground from here on out. Remember the security doctrine of the Cold War, my friend? Don‚ÄövÑv¥t make me launch a retaliatory strike. J

Maximum Leader: I never knew that you applied to be a cruise gigolo! Of course, I didn‚ÄövÑv¥t pry to much into my friend‚ÄövÑv¥s job searches as the end of the college years approached; everyone seemed to stressed out that I almost felt guilty knowing that my destiny was already decided: Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The cruise gig would have been exciting job, but if you had been offered the position, you would have missed out on the catamite job with Paul Tsongas.

As to the lovely Annika, I add my congratulations as well. Together with Kilgore and Analphilosopher, she is part of the sidebar troika I hit every day. Even if you weren‚ÄövÑv¥t married, I‚ÄövÑv¥m not sure how that would make any difference. You would be pitching Mike-style woo very furiously, but would be so oblique and inscrutable that the lass would never decipher your true, ignoble intentions.

All is well at Sweet Seasons farm. Yesterday‚ÄövÑv¥s unexpected pleasure was finding 11 eggs from 11 chickens. But not every chicken laid an egg ‚ÄövÑv¨ one of my Buff Orpingtons (brown egg layers) laid two eggs in an eight-hour period. Pretty neat. The calves are frolicking in the warm weather we have been enjoying. My patience with the new the two weaned Holstein-Angus mixes I purchased is starting to pay off and they are starting to tame down a bit. I was able to scratch both last night and one let me start pulling off his tags.

Non-farmers may ask what tags are. Tags are congealed manure that becomes embedded in the hair of he animal and forms a hard little ball. Many farmers raise their calves in manure packs over the winter. The stalls are never cleaned out and the animals‚ÄövÑv¥ manure gradually rises until it is up to their knees. Once it gets warmer, then animals are moved and the pens are cleaned out with a tractor. There are two reasons for this system. One reason is that the decomposing manure is a free heat source when it gets really cold. When the animals are in a (cheap) three-sided run-in shed, they need more heat. Secondly, it saves on labor. Why clean out a pen everyday when you can do it once with a tractor?

I don‚ÄövÑv¥t use this system at Sweet Seasons Farm. I pay a bit more for bedding and clean their stalls every evening before I put them in for the night (they are on pasture with access to shelter during the day when the weather is good). It may not be particularly efficient, but I do like the quiet time in the evening when I can shovel and talk to my laddies. As you may have guessed from my earlier postings, me emphasis isn‚ÄövÑv¥t on raw efficiency. Secondly, it is an aesthetic choice. I don‚ÄövÑv¥t want to have a barn that stinks to high heaven and I don‚ÄövÑv¥t like to see animals forced to wallow in their own shit. I don‚ÄövÑv¥t need the heat produced by manure since the calves have an enclosed, draft-proof barn and lots of hay as bedding. So why not keep them clean?

This is while the tags bother me. The two new guys were bigger than the day-old bottle calves I usually get. They lived in manure packs before I brought them home and the manure has congealed all over their legs, tails, and flanks. Their stomachs are solid masses of tags from laying in the filth. They don‚ÄövÑv¥t seem to be bothered by this, but it bothers me. So I have been trying to get close enough to clean them off for the last week. One down, one to go.

Well, as the Foreign Minister says, back to the trenches and the essays that need to be graded.

Since the Crown Princess Victoria didn’t complete here studies at Yale (”took several classes”), I don’t know that we should consider her a true “Eli.” And while it might be a fault of the dead-on camera angle, I didn’t find her website photo very flattering. Finally, while a six-year age difference might not be fatal to every relationship, in my personal experience it’s worth being cautious about. Personally, I’m going to pass on this one.

Thanks for the lead, Maximum Leader, nonetheless. You have the best interests of your minions at heart.

Okay, I’m trying this again. I DID post descriptions of my favorite movies as way of introduction, but I didn’t save a copy on my computer: those enlightening words of wisdom are forever lost to the ether of the internet. I think I accidentally deleted my own blog when I was trying to correct it, and didn’t post it again because I was afraid of posting it twice. I hope Maximum Leader and his bountiful minions will still respect my political musings, even though I’m having technical difficulties with the simple blog format.

I do remember suggesting that the country might be best served if the jolly Mr. Ashcroft’s pancreatitis proved fatal. Politically speaking, feel free to extrapolate from there.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled (yet floppy) hat to the lovely Annika. It seems that she has, as she puts it, “Hey, i Made It To One Year!”

Your Maximum Leader enjoys her site very much. Indeed, he reads it (nearly) every day. Hers is one of the handful of sites that when it is not updated daily, causes a wee bit of melencholy to fall over his otherwise calm and famously even-tempered persona.

Your Maximum Leader is quite glad that his is happily married to the lovely (and pregnant) Mrs. Villain. For if he was not, he would probably have already tried to pitch woo furiously in the lovely Annika’s direction. So much so that she would likely have had to have had a restraining order issued against him.

Happy anniversary Annika. Remember, when the Mike World Order comes, you will be well taken care of. (And named Commissioner of Baseball if I recall…)

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reading over the Poet Laureate’s site today and noticed that he had become a sad postscript to the le parcours des blogueurs post. Yes, it is true. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t had a lengthy screed in him for a few days now. He has been quite busy with other things, and has had to cut short his blogging time. To parapharase one of his favourite bands, “Is it better to have blogs left unwritten than to have blog misunderstood?” (Check out the song “Pale Sun.”)

Aside: Speaking of Cowboy Junkie lyrics… They are so poetic. Your Maximum Leader has (quite literally) spent hours and hours just listening to Margo Timmins singing those wonderful lyrics. One that really does stick in his mind is this: “Two are born to cross/their paths, their lives, their hearts/If by chance one turns away/are they forever lost?” There is one old friend of your Maximum Leader to whom he would like to send those lines annonymously and see if the person can guess who sent them… But… That aside…

So, why no lengthy screeds? As your Maximum Leader has said, he has been busy and just hasn’t had significant commentary in him. But! Now that he has been relegated to a sad codicil to the Poet Laureate’s site, he must produce something. In this spirit allow him to write a lengthy and truly meaningless screed.

In the days when your Maximum Leader was just a young villain out of college he applied for a job with Cunard Cruise lines. He noticed a position advertised that didn’t seem to require any effort or hard work. Essentially the position was for an “Escort.” In addition to general crew responsibilities, it seemed as though the primary function of this position was to sit around with little old rich ladies and make conversation with them as they crossed the Atlantic or cruised the Med. Your Maximum Leader is nothing if not a font of useless knowledge with which to make idle conversation. He was interviewed for the postion. Interviewed twice in fact. And is convinced that he lost the position to a much more handsome looking Aussie guy, who probably could dance. Your Maximum Leader, while waiting in the lounge to be interviewed, was sitting with an Aussie guy and we struck up a conversation. It turned out he was also on a second interview for the same position. Your Maximum Leader took one look at him and knew that the chances of the Mike World Order being sidetracked for the sake of a few years cruising around the world keeping old ladies happy were slim.

What does that little tidbit have to do with anything? Nothing really. It perhaps shows nothing more than your Maximum Leader loves to dispense his useless knowledge whenever possible. Such my minions is the benefit of a sound liberal education. (Liberal in the traditional sense. Not the sense of the Propaganda Minister - who’s post is still missing - is a bleeding-heart Liberal.) So moving right along…

Over Sunday dinner at the Villainschloss, Villainette #1 asked why there was no King of England, but there was a Queen of England? Your Maximum Leader complimented her on her completely esoteric question and took the occasion to lecture on this very issue. You see my minions, the reason there is no King of England to complement the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is simple. Kings always outrank Queens. (Although Kings aren’t nearly as useful in Chess.)

You see, there are two types of queens (in the monarchical, not homosexual, sense). There are queen-regnants, and queen-consorts. A queen-regnant, like Elizabeth II of Britain, is the hereditary monarch of her country. She is the rightful heir to the throne, and her line will be used to determine the succession. A queen-consort, on the other hand, is the wife of a king, and is only responsible (in a monarchical sense) for producing an heir to the throne for the king. So, in the grand scheme of things, if Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Philip were to be made king, he would effectively outrank his wife and his lines would be used to determine succession and such. Thus, Philip is the ever-quick-with-a-not-too-subtle-faux-pas Prince-Consort (and Duke of Edinburgh). A good example of a queen-consort would have been the current Queen of Britain’s mother, Elizabeth the Queen Mother. She was the queen-consort to King George VI. When Charles succeeds his mother (yes Mrs. Smallholder, it will happn) he will likely become King Charles III. Should he take a new wife (unlikely but possible) she will become Queen “Whatever,” the queen-consort. But William, thanks to the succession act regularly passed by the British parliament, will remain the next in line.

Primogeniture brings up an interesting aside… Sweden, that socialist monarchy on the Baltic, changed the traditional rules of inheriting the throne. Rather than the first-born son being the heir (agnatic succession), the first-born is the heir (cognatic succession). So, the heir to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is not his son, Prince Carl Philip (born 1979); but rather his daughter Crown Princess Victoria (born 1977). And if your Maximum Leader may comment, Crown Princess Victoria is quite attractive, quite available, and quite bright. (NB to the Minister of Propaganda - she’s an Eli.)

And that, loyal minions, was a completely useless, yet somehow vaugely theraputic, blog from your Maximum Leader.

By the way, here is a cool site describing titles, nobility, and the like. And while you are at it, this site is really fun. Your Maximum Leader particularly likes the “Inbreeding Index” for all the royals…

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks rhetorically, “Is this what happens to bad sons?”
ESPN.com - MLB - John Henry Williams, son of Ted, dies at 35

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader believes Martha will get 5 to 10 years but will actually serve 12-18 months in a Federal Minimum Security Prison. Just a guess.

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was pleased to see that the Minister of Propaganda had posted a list of some of his favourite modern films… But now his post seems to have been eaten by Blogger or something. Very distressing. Your Maximum Leader is endeavouring to discover what the hell happened.

Carry on.

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was over on Winds of Change Friday. In the course of reading the great stuff they’ve got over there the blogger “Armed Liberal” recommended a recent Tony Blair speech. Your Maximum Leader read it and liked it. If only our President would (could?) give a speech like this.

Blair’s terror speech in full

Carry on.

OK it is an Anti-Kerry ad (not official though)
Back to the trenches