Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have much time to blog today, although he will be puttering around the Villainschloss for part of the day. He has to attend to family matters today and this weekend. You see, your Maximum Leader’s esteemed sister is engaged to be married tomorrow; and your Maximum Leader is going to have to twist the Pope’s arm to perform the mass…

Anyway… Well… After reading the AirMarshal’s post about the movie “Troy” and how it features Mr. Aniston’s ass, your Maximum Leader thought he would go ahead and write a post about his revelation last night while watching TV.

You see, Mrs. Villain was on the Ubercomputer again and your Maximum Leader was unable to blog. So, he decided to watch some TV. He surfed around until he found AMC TV’s “Epic Thursdays.” Last night’s movie was the Stanley Kubrick Classic, “Spartacus.” Now, your Maximum Leader is a big fan of Laurence Oliver, Kirk Douglas, and Stanley Kubrick. And he has seen Spartacus many times before. But last night he noticed something he never had noticed before and felt pretty silly for having missed it.

Your Maximum Leader trusts you have seen Spartacus. If you have not, go and buy it or rent it or something. It is worth your time. But to get on with it…

There is a scene in which Crassus (Laurence Olivier) is bathing and speaking to his new slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis). And Crassus asks Antoninus if he likes both “oysters” and “snails.” Saying that some men prefer only “oysters” and other (but many fewer) only “snails.” As for Crassus himself, he proclaims to like both.

Now my minions. Your Maximum Leader has watched “Spartacus” at least a dozen times in his life. (And regrettably he suffered through the USA Network Miniseries of the same name recently.) And he has watched that scene every time. Only your Maximum Leader JUST NOW CAUGHT ON TO WHAT CRASSUS REALLY WAS TALKING ABOUT!!!! He must have been concentrating on Glabrus’ secret march out of Rome which is in the same scene…

Anyway. After that scene, your Maximum Leader thought to himself, “Damn, that Laurence Olivier was one studly guy. But he isn’t as studly as Kirk Douglas and that cleft chin of his.”

And after a few more hours of watching sweaty gladiators and legionnairs duke it out all over southern Italy, your Maximum Leader realized that he prefers only “oysters.”

Carry on.

I must say one thing about the film “Troy” excites me. Sean Bean as Odysseus. Could a sequel version of “the Odyssey” be far behind? And nowing Max’s respect for Peter O’Toole, his role as King Priam sounds like an enticing bit of casting. As an aside, Peter O’Toole always sounded like it should have been a porno actors name to me.

Rumor has it that “Troy” is filled with multiple glorious visions of Mr. Anniston’s ass. This may be enough to prompt a boycot on my part. If I want to see a decent ass on film, I’ll wait for Shrek 2.

I quote from a review from www.screenit.com

“Don’t get me wrong. I like Mr. Pitt as an actor and think he’s terrific in the right roles. And he certainly doesn’t stink up the place with his performance. Yet, despite having the physical look down pat — the buff bod, flowing main of golden locks and various butt shots will certainly have many a lady’s heart aflutter — he ends up being the film’s Achilles’ heel.”

haw haw haw

P.S. for those parents among you with children of movie going age, or approaching such an age, www.screenit.com is an invaluable web site in choosing films to watch.

So Smallholder I read your profile; you are expecting number 2? No, I don’t mean taking a dump.

Congrats! When is the due date?

Wow this is a fertile discussion group. Mrs. MaxLead is due with a son mid June (number 3), Mrs. AirMarshal is due with a daughter about a month later (number 2), and now we learn that Mrs Smallholder has a live being inside her lower abdomen!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

BigHo has a nice piece about the nature of this war and our enemies.

Kilgore Trout has a funny piece about commercials. I just wish he would have mocked a Kubota commercial. Smallholder’s family IS a John Deere family. Allegiances to farm equipment companies run deep; the only acceptable ball caps in my family are John Deere, F/S Seeds, or the Extension Agency. If you go to cattle auctions, you would notice that guys tend to cluster together with other guys wearing the same equipment hats. If I were ever to buy a tractor, it would be hard to resist the pull of the green and gold. Of course, I farm the 19th century way: with my own two hands and a shovel.

And because I would jump off a bridge if my boys did, here’s my profile.

Furthermore, I would like to apologize to Rob for the breech of parliamentary decorum. I should have been more Churchillian: “The right honorable gentleman from Hollywood is too smart to buy the protectionist argument and we are not so dull as to believe otherwise.”

One suggestion for the Maximum Leader (If I might be so bold, your supreme potentness): I would prefer to have a patron goddess rather than a full on sex goddess. Should we not show a bit more decorum as we enter our mid-thirties? Besides, if JLH were ever to google herself and come across this blog, she might be more inclined to write you if you were a bit more respectful.

When it comes to the green-eyed monster, I guess the Minister of Propaganda has exercised (exorcised?) the better part of valor by not telling our supreme leader about those after-wrap back rubs. Best keep that to yourself, Rob.

Since everyone seems to be working on interesting tag lines (and who wouldn’t want to emulate the Maximum Leader and Foreign Minister), I’ll be trying some out on a rotating basis. Feel free to provide feedback and suggestions.

Trifle not with a farmer with a shovel. You will compost nicely.

Yes, Greg, I’ve heard (and even made) the argument that the problem is that Islam hasn’t had it’s reformation yet. Unfortunately there is a cultural stigma against self analysis or change. Reading Bernard Lewis, and Karen Armstrong on Islam, one gets the sense that there is even a Taboo against suggesting change.

Now I have read some who argue that Wahabism is, in fact, a reformation. Just not the kind we’d lik. Who knows. So far, though, the trend seems to be to blame Islam’s problems on the US, Europe, Israel… i.e. anyone but the Muslims themselves. You see, “the MAN is holding them back.”

And, yes, I fully agree that it will get much worse before it gets better. And that is a real tragedy.

The way I see it, Herr Air Marshal, is that Islam has yet to have its equivalent to Martin Luther. No one has nailed a letter on the door of the holiest mosque saying, “Wait a minute, what we are doing is F*&#$’d up!”
We hear on the news about how the “Majority” of Muslims don’t condone (yadda yadda yadda) but I ask “Where is the voice for the majority when Islam needs it the most”?

Oh, it will get much worse before it gets better….

Back to the Trenches.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, in his never-ending efforts to pass along interesting (but useless) esoterica; commends this to you: WWII Code-Breakers Tackle Inscription.

It is silly to speculate about the Grail. Afterall, your Maximum Leader knows he uses it for bourbon shots at the Villainschloss when the AirMarshal comes over…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would gladly purchase one of these to give to MWO Sex Goddess, Jennifer Love Hewitt. And more photos of this astounding device are here.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is possessed by the green eyed monster of Shakespeare fame having now read that the Minster of Propaganda has said the Sex Goddess of the MWO, Jennifer Love Hewitt, is “cool.” Your Maximum Leader must know more!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader believes that not enough attention is being paid to the recent outcome of the elections in India. What’s that you say? You didn’t know there were elections in India? Shame. Read about them here, here, and here.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if India will be able to sustain 8% economic growth per year under a Congress Party government? And how, if growth slows, will that affect Congress’ promises of rual electrification and infrastructure improvements to make life better for India’s masses of poor.

Carry on.

Here’s another example showing how Islam just can’t get along with those different, in any context.

Keep in mind that Islam was/is involved in the Bosnia mess, in Chechnya, in the Pakistan/India disbute, in the violence in the Phillipines and so on and so forth. The mess in the Sudan is a case where the Arab government in Khartoum (best city name, ever) is persecuting native Africans. Persecuting to the point of sending gunships into neighboring Chad to slaughter refugees.

No, Islam doesn’t have a monopoly on nasty stuff going on around the globe. My point is only that nasty stuff is ubiquitous where Islam comes in contact with “other”. The Rwanda mess, for example, did not involve Islam. And, no, I can’t blame violence in Northern Ireland on Islam. There’s no Guinness drinking Paddy Bin-O’Brien spewing Koranic verses while blowing up British soldiers. Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus are unfortunately all capable of being nasty and evil.

The one differing thing about the other Western faiths (dunno enough about Eastern faiths, though I invite BigHominid to comment) is that the West has the ability of critical self examination. Take America for instance. We air our dirty laundry in public. It can be messy, but it also results in our struggle to fix that which is wrong with us. We strive constantly to be better, to match our vision of what America should be or can become. Can anyone conceive of an Arab looking at Arab society and saying “you know what is wrong with us?”

I’ve debated the nature of this over AIM with BigHominid. We can come up with many reasons why this is so. The fact that Muhammed was both Prophet, Ruler, and conquering General set the precedent for linking militarism to the faith when others are concerned. The extreme tribal nature of Arab society is another contributer. Throw in the dictatorial nature of all Arab governments, and you have a society that thrives on conflict on its borders… even within it’s borders.

The one thing that 9/11 proved to me is that in the modern world, borders aren’t necessarily lines on a map. A border now can exist in the mind. The terrorists saw the US as a threat to their way of life in some way, so they struck. It didn’t matter that we’re on the other side of the world, they still hit us, and hit us hard. The reflexive should be true. It shouldn’t matter to us that they are on the other side of the world. They want to harm us. We should take them out.

Possible Minister of Ag tag line
- Inseminate a Cow or the Terrorists Win!

Regarding the release of the Brown Recluse, I tend to release spiders since they prey on other insects, thus reducint he overall insect population. The caveat to this is that I’ll destroy egg sacs if I find them. In retrospect, I should have killed the Brown Recluse. Now it’s free to release all the digital pictures in it’s posession of my mistreatment of other arachnids and insects.

Tag Line Free for 124 days!

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: This tagline made your Maximum Leader chuckle. So much so that he decided to go ahead and add it to the list of rotating tag lines that now work at the top of this page. (Thanks again Francey!)

One of the reasons I have taken a hiatus is that these Blogs can suck down HOURS of your time… Sometimes over semantic issues that should probably just be left alone (so I won’t touch the Spain thing again or the Rice thing)

Where I am sure that Kerry wants Osama brought to justice and Terrorism defeated, I would bet the farm on him not wanting those things to happen TOMORROW (or before the election). He wants them to happen after HE is elected.

You are a smart enough guy to know that when this prison crap broke, the Democratic election machine was giving themselves high fives. It doesn’t matter that there was an investigation underway and it was being taken care of already by the military.
As sick as it sounds, every body bag and flag draped coffin that comes back is an opportunity for the Kerry election campaign and they don’t seem to be missing the opportunities that often.

Yes the war may hurt us in the short to mid term but it will only hurt us in the long term if we pull out/loose. I think that the war in Iraq WILL help us with to defeat global terrorism and (when we are successful) help with the middle eastern problem.

If George Bush had gone to the American people on September 1st 2001 and said that we were about to begin offensive operations against the Taliban-Osama-Afghanistan because of a major threat to the security of the US, your side of the Aisle would have been up in arms! “What proof do you have?”; “We have no interests in Afghanistan,” etc ect. And after the invasion, Colin Powell would have shown pictures of terrorist camps that looked like budget kids playgrounds and the Left would be having a field day.

Just like in Iraq now.

The worst thing that could happen for the Dems (before the November election) is for the US to find Osama, get Iraq back on track, and continue to add 288K jobs per month.

What would they run on?

On a different note. Do you get to VA often? How about this summer?

Back to the…. you know

And I take special note that he has his own closure line, ‘Back to the Trenches!’ Bravo, Foreign Minister! Incidentally, I’d like to point out that while I didn’t have a problem with Spain turning out their pro-U.S. government, I think the Minister of Agriculture could rightfully argue that a vote for Kerry is still a vote for a pro-U.S. President and theefore his position remains consistent. Kerry would like to see Osama bin Laden killed and terrorism defeated just as much as anyone else, and only a self-blinded ideologue would suggest otherwise. The issue under debate is whether or not the Bush-conducted war in Iraq helps us or hurts us in the war on terror, not which individual is a bigger patriot.

The correct answer is that the Iraq war hurts us, but everyone is welcome to disagree; that’s why it’s a debate (unless of course the Republicans are in charge, in which case “it’s not a time to be disagreeing with the President”).

On a lighter note, I would like to open the floor to suggestions for a Minister of Agriculture closure line, since he’s failed to select his own. Perhaps ‘Rotate your crops’ or ‘I’m not all squishy, I’m independently principled’ or ‘Boys don’t make passes at girls who are fascists.’

The last one might be a nice addition to the Maximum Leader’s rotating tagline on the blog.

The Air Marshal could use ‘Aim High,’ but I don’t know if there are copyright issues with the Air Force itself.

Believe.

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: As someone being accused of being a fascist at times, your Maximum Leader might not add that last one as a tag line for the site. But he did add some others….

I do protest his releasing of the ever-dangerous brown recluse, now free to spread it’s venemous hatred for humanity amongst it’s acursed ilk. I have a strong dislike for spiders, and I think they should all be classified as enemy combatants. Before anyone lectures me about their supposed benefits, let me just say that I’m content to swat at flies myself.