Its that Endorsement time again!

I guess they are allowed one day to be unbiased! One day when all that time spent in Journalism class learning about reporting the news and not making it can go right out the window.

back to the trenches….

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader loves to cook. He loves the preparation of food. He loves eating food. He loves just about everything about food. (And he watches the Food Network with his kids a lot too.)

Indeed, today he is cooking a Venison Ragu. What is a Ragu you say? Well, until the word “ragu” was hijacked by that worthless sauce product, a “ragu” was a type of thick stew made by italian peasants. Your Maximum Leader took a large chunk of venison offer to him as tribute from the good Minister of Agriculture out of the freezer and decided that it was going to become ragu.

Your Maximum Leader has cooked a venison ragu for the Smallholder and his family before. And he has used a number of other game meats to make ragus in the past. Upon further recollection, your Maximum Leader has made ragus containing: venison, beef, pork, veal, caribou, elk, buffalo, and wild boar. That, my minions, is a damned versitile recipe.

Why is your Maximum Leader writing about food today? Well, he found a post from the ever thoughtful and always interesting Bill Keezer. After reading this peice your Maximum Leader thought that Bill was just spot on. Buffets are ugly. (And they bring out the worst angels of our dietary nature.) And presentation counts! Your Maximum Leader has thought before that one of the reasons he so enjoys Japanese food (served at a high class place - like Masaharu Morimoto’s restaurant) is the extreme care and thought put into presentation.

Carry on.

Drudge links to a Guardian article about a soon-to-air, 3-part BBC series called “The Power of Nightmares,” produced by Adam Curtis. The series argues that the war on terror (surrounded by scare quotes in the article) is founded on a myth. To wit:

…the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, “is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.” The series’ explanation for this is even bolder: “In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power.”

I think there may be something to the idea that politicians have exploited and will continue to exploit the terror threat to their advantage. But I also think that, if the Guardian article is correct about Curtis’s thesis, Curtis is willfully overlooking– or underplaying– the obvious evidence of nearly 3000 dead Americans.

Here, apparently, is the series’ take on al-Qaeda:

The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have “sleeper cells”. It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.

Curtis’ evidence for these assertions is not easily dismissed. He tells the story of Islamism, or the desire to establish Islam as an unbreakable political framework, as half a century of mostly failed, short-lived revolutions and spectacular but politically ineffective terrorism. Curtis points out that al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001, when the American government decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence and had to use anti-Mafia laws that required the existence of a named criminal organisation.

Notice the careful wording of the second paragraph. It seems to imply that the American government gave al-Qaeda its name. Is this true? I’ll grant that the paragraph could be interpreted differently, but something tells me this is deliberately manipulative.

The writer of the Guardian article, Andy Beckett, expresses some doubts about Curtis’s thesis:

Yet the notion that “security politics” is the perfect instrument for every ambitious politician from Blunkett to Wolfowitz also has its weaknesses. The fears of the public, in Britain at least, are actually quite erratic: when the opinion pollsters Mori asked people what they felt was the most important political issue, the figure for “defence and foreign affairs” leapt from 2% to 60% after the attacks of September 2001, yet by January 2002 had fallen back almost to its earlier level. And then there are the twin risks that the terrors politicians warn of will either not materialise or will materialise all too brutally, and in both cases the politicians will be blamed. “This is a very rickety platform from which to build up a political career,” says Eyal. He sees the war on terror as a hurried improvisation rather than some grand Straussian strategy: “In democracies, in order to galvanize the public for war, you have to make the enemy bigger, uglier and more menacing.”

I’ll be curious to read the Maximum Leader’s (and his other ministers’) opinion about the article.

_

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader decided to take one more quick glance down the blogroll before starting his Medieval Total War game. And what did he find…

Dungeons & Dragons at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy.

Your Maximum Leader and many of his friends had a long-running D&D game going for many years. He too sometimes wonders what it would be like to get a new game going after all these years…

And your Maximum Leader’s geek quotent just keeps rising and rising.

Carry on.
(more…)

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader answers the call of the Minister of Agriculture. Your Maximum Leader provides what he believes are the numbers for which he is looking. Below are the gross (estimated) number of civilian, non-farm jobs in the United States in the last quarter of the year listed.

122,575,000 - 1997
126,141,000 - 1998
128,936,000 - 1999
131,619,000 - 2000
132,358,000 - 2001
130,844,000 - 2002
129,902,000 - 2003
131,125,000 - 2004 (Through the last completed quarter of 2004.)

From that number we can see that there are 1,233,000 fewer jobs in the United States in 3rd quarter of 2004 than in last quarter of 2001. But, figuring that George W. Bush became president in January 2001 and not December 2001 the economy seems to have lost only 494,000 jobs.

Alas, your Maximum Leader couldn’t get easy to access charts and graphs for pre-1997 years.

But, as we all know, employment and economic figures all depend on more than just one set of numbers. Although he doesn’t know if he has found all the charts there are to find, the size of the employed civilian, non-farm labor force appears to be rather constant over the 2000 - 2004 period. But both the numbers of unemployed and non-workers (retired, children, etc) appear to be growing rapidly.

There are all sorts of reports to read about this, but it seems as though immigration and other population growth are the primary cause of more workers being added to the total workforce - thereby causing unemployment numbers to rise. And supporting a claim that we have lost jobs. (Sorry - no numbers to cite because the figures are embedded in tables and your Maximum Leader is having difficulty pulling out the ones needed.)

And these figures do not include farm workers, active-duty military, or government employees. The very few reports that your Maximum Leader have read all appear to show that employment in these areas has increased steadily from the last quarter of 2000 to the end of the 3rd quarter of 2004.

And while this little escapade may be interesting, it does not have any direct bearing on Dr. Rusty’s statistics. Which, indeed, do show exactly what he is claiming they do.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must apologize to his esteemed Minister of Agriculture if he has appeared snarky or out of sorts lately. He certainly wasn’t trying to be testy when he added that update to this post.

Perhaps your Maximum Leader didn’t make himself clear. He hadn’t intended to make it seem as though he was attacking the M of A. Your Maximum Leader is well aware of the Smallholders thoughts on the state of the Democratic party.

Your Maximum Leader was honestly just commenting on the link; which was actually quite interesting. The information provided wasn’t particularly partisan or slanted. So, your Maximum Leader went over to look at what the site had to say about Democrats and other parties. (He even checked out the Libertarians and Greens too.)

Your Maximum Leader was truly just trying to comment on how it seemed odd tha the descriptions were so alike - except for this one section which wasn’t listed for the Democrats. The absence of a factions listing for one major political party, but not another, was noticable.

For full disclosure, there is not a “factions” listing for the Libertarians or Greens either. But then again - how fragmented could they be? Really now, would we really care if the Nozickian Minimalist-Stater faction of the Libertarians were upset by their party’s choice of Michael Badnarik for President? Your Maximum Leader thinks not.

Sorry if you thought it was a sign of your Maximum Leader being testy. He didn’t mean it that way.

Carry on.

Our Dear Maximum Leader isn’t himself lately.

Please send him adoring e-mails to lift his spirits. Better yet, send me tribute haikus (smallholder-at-nakedvillainy-dot-com) to add to those posted below.

Maximum Leader
Good friend, purge your soul of all
Negative Mojo

Deep breath - ah - deep breath
Go to Mid War happy place
Crush the Egyptians

Mike, my friend, my boy
Always look on the bright side
Of life - ba - doo - boop

Now, minions! Instill cheer in your leader!

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is thinking about whimsical things today. And here are some whimsical things…

According to a quiz (from Llamabutchers and Nicole) your Maximum Leader is:

You are an enzyme. You are powerful, dark,
variable, and can change many things at your
whim…even when they’re not supposed to be
changed. Bad you. You can be dangerous or
wonderful; it’s your choice.

Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

For some strange reason, your Maximum Leader feels he’s taken that quiz before…

____________________

Update: Your Maximum Leader did take that quiz before. Back in November of last year. He’d show you with a link, but the results are the same so why bother?
____________________

Also, your Maximum Leader is setting himself up for a long night of Medieval Total War. It is looking like your Maximum Leader (as the Byzantines) will have to pound both the Egyptians and the Hungarians into total submission. They just refuse to make peace with the far more powerful, advanced, and cultured empire of your Maximum Leader.

Speaking of nerdy computer games… Your Maximum Leader owns Shogun Total War, and Medieval Total War. What are the chances that he may go ahead and purchase Rome Total War? Humm….

Also, Mrs. Villain just called your Maximum Leader to inform him that she wants to go to the movies this weekend and that your Maximum Leader should present her with a list of films to choose from. Humm… What if the whole list consisted of two films?

Your Maximum Leader asks his minions. Could a role in the Dukes of Hazzard movie be just what it takes to put Reynolds back on top? Heh.

Oh yeah… Hockey… Still locked out… Still only afterthought in silly post from your Maximum Leader…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just read over Sadie’s latest posting at NET POLITIK. You ought to go and read it yourself. A very nice little essay on Sadie’s political self.

It may also be somewhat topical here since the Smallholder was just wondering how the Republicans are able to hold their party together. Which, of course, leads to the alternate question, how are the Democrats able to hold their party together?

NB to Smallholder: Your Maximum Leader has an answer for you. Power.

Excursus: You know something else? Nothing remotely sexual about Sadie’s post and your Maximum Leader is still recommending it. NB to Sadie: You see, you are not just fodder for your Maximum Leader’s fantasies… He loves you for your mind.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, being a student of history, always like to read other people’s takes on historical figures. He was reading over the Wunderkinder site and found this post on why one of the Wunderkinder doesn’t like FDR.

Your Maximum Leader has already stated on the record where he thinks FDR ranks in the Pantheon of American Presidential Greatness. (Which reminds him… We never did hear from the Minister of Agriculture on his list of the 10 greatest presidents.)

In reading David’s reasons not to like FDR, your Maximum Leader finds himself agreeing on a number of points and disagreeing on others. Your Maximum Leader does think that some of David’s reasons for disliking FDR can be better understood by examining a little of the context in which the decision were made.

But it is an interesting post none-the-less.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will stick with the literature meme for this installment of Friday Villainy. This week, our theme is pyschological villainy. For your reading pleasure, your Maximum Leader reproduces for you the first paragraph of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House.”

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Your Maximum Leader believes that this is possibly the strongest opening paragaph of any story in the “horror/thriller” genre. It grabbed your Maximum Leader when he first read the story many years ago. And it still gives your villainous Maximum Leader a little chill every time he reads it.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will blog a little on the subject of abortion. He decided to do so because of some reflections on the recent Smallholder post on this topic; as well as Ally’s post.

NB to Ally: We like you too. The Smallholder suggested recently that your site be added to the blogroll. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure why he hadn’t added it sooner as he’s read your site a bit through links from Bill and Keith. That said, your Maximum Leader - being a jealous Maximum Leader - isn’t sure if you love all of us here equally. He suspects the Smallholder is the apple of your blogging eye here on Nakedvillainy.

First off your Maximum Leader must respectfully disagree with a basic premise of the Smallholder’s argument. You do not have to assume that life begins at conception or not. It does not have to be a clear-cut position. You can apply a number of different criteria when defining human life. There are a number of questions that should be posed before accepting the premise that this issue is defined by one (or not-one) position.

Let’s start to examine some of the questions. For the sake of this medium (which favours shorter posts) let us focus on just two questions. What are the characteristics or traits of a human? What constitutes life?

Perhaps the single biggest trait that defines a human nature is abstract reasoning. Subsets of abstract reasoning include (but certainly aren’t limited to) language skills, ethical and moral decision making, and the ability to conceptualize and create complex tools or machines. It is not uncommon to lament or feel sad for someone who through age, disability, or accident loses some or all of their ability to utilize their abstract reasoning capabilities. Often we would ask ourselves what sort of quality of life these people might have. And to an extent we recognize that they are now “different” from other “normal” humans. Different, and perhaps deserving of different treatment vis a vis other humans.

As for defining life, probably the biggest argument in this area is related to the concept of viability outside the womb. We all recognize that there is a point at which a fetus’ lungs, heart, brain, and such are well developed enough that if it were to be removed from the woman’s womb, it could live.

But, your Maximum Leader will posit for you, this is a rather broadly defined concept of viability. Indeed, the fetus just described would spend weeks or months in an intensive care unit at a hospital recieving constant attention. A reasonable person ca conclude that this is not really viability. Especially since, thanks to advances in medicine and technology, the point at which a fetus can survive outside a woman’s womb keeps getting pushed back by days and weeks.

So what is real viability? Perhaps real viability is when a child can at least begin to fend for themselves. Perhaps it comes at a point at which the child has some mobility, is able to grab food and place it in its mouth. For the sake of argument, your Maximum Leader will posit that viability is survival outside the womb without mechanical or medical assistance.

So, where does this bring us? It brings us to a point at which a person can make a reasonable determination that until a child has attained some level of abstract reasoning and is viable (without intervention) outside the womb it really doesn’t posess the traits of a human being.

And not posessing those traits, why would a woman not be able to terminate the non-human?

Of course, by these premises a woman would also be able to commit what is now labeled infanticide. By these premises, a child would not be entitled to protection as a human being until they were probably 3-6 months old.

Your Maximum Leader makes this argument to show that in fact it isn’t so clear cut when you look at it a little differently.

Your Maximum Leader recognizes that there is a “common sense” argument to be made against the premises he laid out here. But he entreats you all to think about all of the legal standards under which we currently live that wouldn’t pass a “common sense” muster - but do pass a “logical” standard.

What makes the abortion issue so tricky is that there is no single point in a pregnancy at which a reasonable person can say, “Okay, now it is a human baby.” Thanks to medical advances, babies that would have died from premature birth only a few years ago will now live normal lives. It used to be that reaching the 35/36 weeks milestone in a pregnancy was the point at which one could assume you had a baby that was ready to be born. Now there are babies born at 20 some weeks who - with the help of specialized equipment and drugs - will live and grow up normal.

This is part of what makes the issue tricky. When Roe v. Wade was written, second trimester fetuses were not viable. Therefore they could be aborted. Now they are viable. But they can still be aborted. Is there a point a few decades hence when a mother’s womb will be completely unnessesary? What then?

Your Maximum Leader has believed for many years that human life begins at conception. He has believed this because it just didn’t make sense to him for life to begin at any other point.

As for how abortion figures into your Maximum Leader’s politics, it is not near the top of his list on items that require immediate attention. Would your Maximum Leader like to see Roe overturned? Yes he would. But his reasons aren’t the ones you might think. Your Maximum Leader would prefer that States, or smaller local jurisdictions, make regulations (or not make regulations - be that as it may) concerning the practice of abortion. As is his wont, your Maximum Leader generally prefers that decisions be made by people on a level where they can interact more with the process. (Which is another subject for a different time altogether.)

There is one other point on which your Maximum Leader will differ with the Smallholder. Although he believes life begins at conception, he does believe there is one justifiable reason for aborting a child. To save the life of the mother.

There is one instance that really crystalized this exception in his mind. A few years ago, a friend of your Maximum Leader got pregnant. She was happily married and looking forward to raising a family. As she moved through the various tests that women get in the early stages of pregnancy she and her doctors discovered something was very wrong. Tests revealed that while her baby was fine, she had a very malignant rapidly-spreading case of cancer. She was told that immediate radical cancer treatment was required to sto the cancer and hopefully save her life. But, chemotherapy and radiation, and drugs would certainly kill the baby. She opted to wait and deliver her child and then start treatment. Seven months after son was born she died. She was 33.

This woman’s death caused your Maximum Leader to think a lot about abortion and how one would have saved his friend’s life. He came to believe that in a case where the pregnancy itself, or some other factor left untreated, would likely kill the mother having an abortion was acceptable. He likens this stance to a self-defence argument. If a woman was threatened in her home by some assailant he supports her right to attack - and perhaps kill - the assailant. Although the analogy is clumsy, the baby may be an assailant. But that is a choice for the mother to make. She can view the baby as an assailant, or she can choose another path.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what he would or could have said or suggested to his friend while she was taking her decision. He has often felt it was best that he didn’t learn of what was going on until it was done. He thinks it was best because he might have suggested that she save herself.

And that would have made the path Ashley chose that much harder.

Carry on.

UPDATE: READ THE THIRD UPDATE FIRST; EVIDENTLY I WAS MISTAKEN ABOUT THE GOOD DOCTOR’S USE OF THE “NET JOBS” TERM.

My Pet Jawa has issued a post defending Bush’s record by putting net job creation in perespective. I don’t have the time (and honestly, the inclination) to shift through the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, but found his graph interesting.

If the good Doctor Shackleford is attempting to support the re-election of a Republican, perhaps he should rethink his data presentation. According to Shackleford, of the Post-World War Two presidential terms, net jobs have increased in 5 of 6 Democratic terms. Net jobs have declined in 6 of 8 Republican terms.

If we judge economic stewardship SOLELY on net job creation, Democrats have been successful 83% of the time and Republicans have been successful 25% of the time.

Of course, judging the economy solely on one factor without controlling for extraneous variables would be silly. But in the era of sound-bites and short attention spans, some people might look at this data and say, hmmm….

Now, again confessing my rampant laziness for not looking at the statistics myself, but I just don’t see how there could have been net job losses in so many administrations when the economy itself is SOOOO much largerthan it was in 1948. Additionally, I would think the administration most likely to have lost net jobs would have been Truman’s. Even discounting the loss of public sector jobs, I would think that there would have been a huge downturn in private sector jobs even though we made a smoother transition to butter (from guns) than we had after the Great War, mostly because so many soldiers voluntarily removed themselves from the job market to pursue educational opportunities under the G.I. Bill.

Is this strange graph an artifact of an odd definition of “net job creation?” Someone please clarify this for me.

UPDATE:
It occurs to me that, if we were on the right side of the Laffer curve (see previous discussion here, here, and here), Clinton’s tax cut should have had an immediate impact on job numbers. If the tax level was rising in an environment already disincentivizing market risk (is disincentivizing a word?), business should have reacted quickly to cut jobs and limit hiring.
The tax cuts in the Reagan years aren’t necessarily supportive of where we are on the laffer curve. Yes, you might expect tax cuts in a country on the right side of the curve would lead to immediate job growth, but I would think that there would be a lag time before new enterpises could be online; it is faster to fire an employee than hire and train one. So I’ll grant the Maximum Leader that, if we were on the right side of the curve as he maintains (or at least plays devil’s advocate for), the drop in jobs in Reagan’s first term might not entirly debunk that position since it might take a while for private enterprise to react. That concession granted, I think the Clinton’s enormous tax increase DID NOT lead to net job loss, hinting rather strongly that we are indeed on the left side of the Laffer curve.

UPDATE II:
This whole post may be irrelevent. I took another look at the graph trying to figure out what I was missing and realized that, based on the graph, we have FEWER net jobs today than in 1944. Um, I think not. Either the numbers contain mistakes or I just don’t understand the economic definition of “net jobs.” I have sent the good doctor an e-mail asking for clarification.

UPDATE III:
The whole post is indeed irrelevent; Dr. Shackleford kindly wrote me back and explained:

It’s all an artifact of the baseline measure. If I want to see if unemployment went down or up in a Presidential TERM than what I look at is the number of unemployed at the beginning of the term vs. the number of unemployed at the end of the term. If less people are unemployed at the end of a term than at the beginning, we have NET jobgrowth (seasonally adjusted). Read the post again. If I am President and I come into office with an 8% unemployment rate, in the middle of my Presidency it drops to 6%, but at the end of my Presidency it goes up to 8.1% we have (adjusting for other fators) job losses. Even if for 47 months the jobs figures improve, if in that final month they decline - well, you see. When measuring something like ‘decline’ or ’surge’ you always have to pick a baseline. My point is simply that Kerry’s numbers are made up–fiction–no where even near the truth. Also, as per your last update you misread the data. These are not the # of jobs total, which is almost always on an upward curve (thanks to population growth). That would be spurious and is also why Kerry’s absolute number of 1.6 million jobs lost is misleading (since our population is now approaching 300 million with most women working vs. 1946 when women stayed at home and the population was, what, 100 million?). By ‘net jobs’ I simply mean the number of unemployed people at the end of a Presidential term vs. the number of unemployed people at the beginning of the term. I explained that in a previous post, but I should ave also clarified it here. I do not even adjust for population and it still shows that Kerry’s repeated statements about the jobs numbers are false!!

I would quibble with the choice of terminology for net -> I tend to think in accounting terms when I hear “net loss” or “net gain.”

If we looked at number of total number of jobs existing at the beginning and end of each presidential term, I think the statement that no “president since Hoover has had a net loss of jobs” holds up; even though Reagan might have had a higher unemployment percentage at the end of his term, the increased size of the workforce would mean that there had still been a net (in accounting terms) gain in jobs. Shackleford says as much when he says that the “total number of jobs is almost always on an upward curve.” Has the total number of jobs continued on the upward curve since 2000? If not, then I would say that Kerry’s statement is accurate. Volunteers to slog through the numbers and find out?

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must say, he likes JohnL’s style… Who needs democracy when you know the will of the people? So when the people seem to be going astray, just close the voting and declare yourself a winner. And so it goes, Ardala wins.

Even the Commissar got involved in the “democratic” exercise. He declared that the woolly beasts were attempting to use their influence to determine the outcome. And when you tamper with the will of the people, that means Show Trial.

Now JohnL has a new Sci-Fi babes poll. The women of Space 1999. Damn. How your Maximum Leader used to love that show. This is going to be a tough one for him too. While he does like the dark mysterious alien Maya, Yasko is also alluring. Your Maximum Leader must say that he takes no preference and thinks that minions should vote their conscience.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hears the call of his people! And their calls are answered!

Loyal minion Molly in Houston writes her Maximum Leader:

Could you please give my beloved Astros your imperial blessing? I know they beat your Braves, but I feel sure that you are man enough to get past that to give them your blessing. I think that’s why they lost last night. Could you hurry and bless them before the game tonight?

Molly, your wish is your Maximum Leader’s command.

Go Astros! Beat those Cards!

Carry on.

__________________________

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Alas, it seems that the blessing was not enough. Perhaps ritual sacrafice of a sheep or lamb is required to get the full effect.