Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader feels quite refreshed today. A fun weekend with the kids was just what he needed. Of course, if you happen to have been looking for a political polemic you’ll just have to wait a little longer. Mrs. Villain had use of the computer for most of the weekend. And when your Maximum Leader did get on the computer, he was more inclined to play Shogun: Total War and work towards the conquest of Japan.

That said, imagine your Maximum Leader’s surprise when he read the following item off the news wire: Seoul Doubts N.Korea Has Nukes, Despite Claim.

What’s next? Will the South Korea deny that the Norks have thousands of feild guns aimed at Seoul? Will the Soth deny that the Norks have a huge army just sitting on their arses (because they are too hungry to do much else)? Or will the South start saying that Kim Jong-il is really just a misunderstood guy who desperately wants to party with Paris Hilton in Tokyo?

We’ll see.

Carry on.

The Wisoncsin Synod would never allow this!

I particularly like that he is described as a 99-year old dairy farmer. Note that it did not say “retired” dairy farmer.

When Grandma Fish died, they routed the funeral procession to the cemetary past the farm she and her husband farmed for a half century. It was a beautiful, moving moment to see the long line of cars passing the old farmstead.

Dairy farmers aren’t the retiring type. A friend of the family brags that, until he recently brought in a hired man, he hadn’t missed a milking since World War Two. He is over eighty now. A couple of years ago he slipped while climbing into the cab of his Deere - the first step on the larger models can be over two feet off the ground. He broke bones and jammed up his jaw on the step as he went down. Most people shook their heads and figured that was the end of the farm. And most likely Bill, since there was no way he could keep going on without the farm work.

When he came home from the hospital, he hauled his broken body out to the farm shop and welded a lower step beneath the factory step. He doesn’t slip now.

I’m reading Gene Logsdon’s “All Flesh is Grass” and was struck by his beautiful statement that he hoped that he would one day keel over while moving his cattle - no decaying in a nursing home for him.

As for me, when the day comes, I hope my son will dig a hole for me on the hill above the barn. A simple service and then a pig roast for the attendees.

I’m sure most of you have been unable to sleep without knowing what chicken breeds would be added to Sweet Seasons Farm this year.

Okay, okay, probably not.

But at least the Foreign Minister might share my joy.

I am getting:

Brown Egg Layers

New Hampshire Reds - Relatives of the highly productive Rhode Island Reds, but without the inbreeding. I’m hoping they will be hardy enough to graze grass and lay eggs at a fast rate.

Buff Orpingtons - Not the best layers, but they are a stolid, phlegmatic and friendly breed. I also just like to look at them. An old-style farmstead breed.

Black Austrolorps - An Australian breed that supposedly is good with children.

Barred Rocks - An old farm production breed - but not suped up for confinement life - so they should be pretty hardy and prolific.

White Egg Layers

Brown Leghorns - Like the New Hampshire Reds, they were the foundation for modern commercial breeds, but at the 1950s gnetic level.

Pearl White Leghorns - The modern white egg layer used by the big boys. I’m curious if they can survive without being doped to the gills with antibiotics.

Buff Minorcas - A Southern European light-bodied bird that supposedly is a good grazing animal.

Anconas - There is no solid farming reason for getting a couple of these - I just thought they looked interesting.

One Golden Polish hen - Because they are so ridiculous. I think I’ll name her Mike.

Green Egg Layers

Araucanas - My customers love the green shells. Some say that they can taste a distinct difference. They are also not as standardized as other breeds so have a wide variety of coloration - all of them will be identifiable as individuals.

I pretend to eschew material goods.

But I lie.

I just received two cool things in the mail.

My mother-in-law won a home pasteurizer on E-bay. I own a home pastuerizer (try to control yourself, Sadie. Not that you are engaged, you ought to stop throwing yourself at gorgeous graziers).

My wife’s aunt mailed me a key-lime tree from Florida. Emilie and I potted it up and put it in the kitchen window.

Milking equipment and citrus. I’m a happy man.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just wanted to point out that today is, depending on how you want to look at it, George Washington’s birthday. Washington was born on February 11, 1732. As you may know, Britain (and by extension her North American Colonies) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. This changed Washington’s birthday from February 11 to February 22. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure if Washington continued to celebrate his birthday using the Julian date (as did Thomas Jefferson), or switched to celebrate on the Gregorian date. Or maybe, just maybe (since he enjoyed a party), Washington celebrated on both the 11th and the 22nd.

Happy Birthday George. And your Maximum Leader will deliver birthday greetings again in about 11 days.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads on the news wire that great American playwright Arthur Miller is dead. Aged 89 years.

Your Maximum Leader will freely admit that the only Miller works he knows off the top of his head are “Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible.” He may have seen some movies for which Miller did the screenplay, but they are incidental.

Your Maximum Leader does want to relate a humourous ancedote about Arthur Miller. A old friend of your Maximum Leader’s attended a reading/lecture by Miller at George Washington University a number of years ago. After the public portion of the program, this friend went up to wait in line to shake Miller’s hand and speak with him. He waited through the interminable line of English majors and theatre critics who were fawning all over him. When your Maximum Leader’s friend moved up to the front he stood there for a moment and stared at Miller. Miller looked back. The friend extended his hand, and shook Miller’s. He spoke thus to Arthur Miller, “Damn. I just wanted to shake the hand of a man who nailed Marilyn Monroe. Good work.” Then he walked away.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is going to have to start working on his anti-dissent campaigns sooner than he thought. He always knew the Smallholder and Minister of Propaganda would be trouble-makers; but now there is another.

Et Tu Skippy?

Well… As with all dissenters that your Maximum Leader likes he’ll make a two pronged plan to deal with Skippy. The first prong will be to ply him with an endless supply of recreational drugs and loose horny women. Thereby satisfying his urges and depleting his precious bodily fluids and weakening his ability and desire to dissent.

If that doesn’t work… Well… It will just have to be the firing squad.

It is really that simple.

In all honesty… Go and read Skippy’s piece. It is very good, as his political peices are. It was very thought provoking to your Maximum Leader. And in a way it was helpful to him. You see, your Maximum Leader has been working on a long political polemic for quite some time. (NB to Sadie: Yes, it is the long peice I’ve mentioned before.) But now Skippy’s recent post has reinvigourated your Maximum Leader to finish his writing. It is not going to be exactly what he thought at first. But he hopes it will answer some of Skippy’s points and critiques. Here is fair warning. Your Maximum Leader’s response is long. Really long. And only getting longer. He hopes to post it tonight or sometime over the weekend.

Anyway. Watch out Skippy. When the MWO comes you’ll have a choice to make… Choose wisely; or at least choose better than Smallholder.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will use up some valuable free time to do what he can to push gay marriage posts from the Smallholder down the page. (As entertaining as they are…)

He figured he’d dip into the Minion Mailbag to cover a few little issues out there.

First, loyal reader and sometimes commenter “Powermfn” wrote your Maximum Leader to agree with him! Egads! What the hell is going on here? “Powermfn” agreeing with your Maximum Leader! And agreeing more or less unconditionally! Without quoting the message in full let it suffice to say that “Powermfn” felt that Super Bowl XXXIX was the most boring one she’d ever seen.

Your Maximum Leader agrees. That game was damned boring. The whole first half looked like a crappy exhibition game. Two teams trying to find something that worked. This is not to say that your Maximum Leader doesn’t like defensive struggles, he does. But what makes a defensive struggle is an offence that is threatening to do something. Offence was conspicuously absent on both teams during the first half.

And what is worse… The commericals sucked too. If Niki Cappelli got naked for ‘Go Daddy.com’ that might have been okay. But since she didn’t…

Second, follow up from the lovely (intelligent, desireable, available, and now in new brunette goddess style) Annika. She writes to your Maximum Leader about the main gun on the Abrams tank. Here is her message:

“…, i shouldn’t have said that the Abrams’ gun is “made” in Germany. it may be, but the only thing i’ve been able to verify by google is that it was “designed” by the Germans.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1a1.htm

it could very well be manufactured in the US under license from the Rheinmetall Corporation. if it is made under license here in the good ole usa, that would be a bit easier to swallow. Remember in WWI the Enfield and the Springfield rifles were basically rip-offs of the Mauser. But as is said, i haven’t been able to google the location of manufacture for the M256. i will let you know if i find out.”

Your Maximum Leader read over the links. Indeed, it is somewhat easier to stomach the knowledge that the M256 gun is manufactured in the US of A. But it is still quite annoying to think that it is made under license by a German firm. And Annika was nice enough to follow up with a forwarded message from her pal Matt. He writes:

I did a little googling of my own, and lots of sources of questionable reliability claim that it’s manufactured under license by General Dynamics Land Sytems Division in the Lima, Ohio plant. I can’t prove or disprove that. However, (1) GDLS clearly is the manufacturer of the Abrams; and (2) GDLS clearly has the capacity to produce that sort of gun. (See here: http://www.gdls.com/ Hover your pointer over “Programs” and then “Turret & Firepower Systems.”) The Lima claim is very plausible but, again, I can’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe not even by clear and convincing evidence!

So where does that leave us? It leaves your Maximum Leader wanting to believe that the M256 gun is made in Lima, Ohio. But there is a niggling doubt on that count. It would seem to be one hell of a security risk to have guns made in Germany and then transported to the US. But hell, what does your Maximum Leader know of these things.

It is still distressing when one thinks of how completely dependant on foreign made components for essential defence systems.

Carry on.

Here is one anthropoligst’s summary of the purposes of marriage:

To establish the legal (not necessarily biological) father of a woman’s children.
To establish the legal mother of a man’s children.
To define the rights of the husband, or his extended family over his wife’s sexual services. (the levirate–when brothers inherit a man’s wife when he dies)
To define the rights of the wife or her extended family over a husband’s sexual services. (the sororate–when a woman dies and her husband pairs up with her sister)
To define the rights of the husband and extended family over a wife’s labor power.
To define the rights of the wife and her extended family over the husband’s labor power.
To define the rights of the husband and his extended family over wife’s property.
To define the rights of the wife and her extended family over her husband’s property.
To establish a joint fund of property for the children.
To establish a socially significant relationship between the husband’s and the wife’s domestic groups.

Much has been made of the “fact” that the purpose of marriage is to raise children.

Yet we were able to raise children without marriage for millennia; it is a relatively recent social construct.

Pre-agricultural nomads typically rear children as a group - it takes a village (er, I mean, nomadic hunter-gather group) to raise a child.

As agriculture allowed a sedentary lifestyle, we began to acquire more and more material wealth. We began to have specialized occupations and developed complicated social hierarchies.

Many anthropologists argue that the development of marriage was a response to the necessity of codifying property rights and status. This interpretation is supported by the anthropological record, which records many instances of marriage between same-sex individuals for the purpose of status or acquiring property (including the involuntary labor of the spouse). Extensive anthropological research has been conducted on the Cheyenne, Nuer (Sudanese), Igbo, and Azande tribes. (Truth in advertising: I have only read summaries. Robin Wright’s “Moral Animal” is a good place to start)

The comparison of monogamous and polygamous cultures reinforces the property/status theory and introduces the idea of monogamous marriage as a masculine social bargain. More on that to come - right now I have to go put on my flame-retardant suit.

Just poping my head in the door… sorry I have been absent. But time is limited here with the wee new boy. The whole family has been sick. And 3 week olds with colds are not fun for mommies and daddies.

Anywhoo

Is the smallholder on the democrat talking point distribution list now? I mean, come on the Vietnam vote thing? To much NPR my friend!

We should have known that the South Vietnamese loved communism and were just waiting for us to leave. It was very nice of them to show up to wave good bye as the last helicopter took off out of Siagon. And they didn’t send any thank you card either.

back to the diaper genie…..

Orval Faubus, er, I mean KBJ, celebrates Virginia’s anti-gay marriage amendment:

“Once the commonwealth’s constitution is amended, only a United States Supreme Court ruling can overset it, and if that happens, the United States Constitution will be amended in a heartbeat. You heard it here first.”

Um, no.

You see, while the founding fathers wanted the Constitution to be more adaptable than the Articles of Confederation, they were also justifiably concerned about popular passions being aroused by a demagogue and were concerned about preventing simple majorities from trampling on the rights of minorities. So, while there is an amendment process outlined in Article V, it is a process designed to thwart willy-nilly changes designed to produce short-term political gains. The process is intentionally slow, deliberative, and possible only through supramajority at a couple of levels.

An Amendment can be proposed in two ways:

1) A Two-thirds vote in each house of Congress. This will not happen. In the midst of an election cycle, 48 Senators opposed even bringing a proposal to the floor of their chamber. FIFTEEN Senators would have to change their minds on the issue.

2) Two-thirds of the state legislatures can pass bills requesting a constitutional convention. This would take 34 state legislatures passing such a request - requiring 67 different chambers to agree (Nebraska is unicameral). Republicans - those likely to support such an amedment, control both houses of only 20 states. Even if a few Southern legislatures in the deep South concur, the state proposal path is still a longshot. See map here for party control in state legislatures.

Assuming a marriage Amendment is proposed, it then has to ratified by three quarters of state legislatures: 38! Sixteen states have changed their constitutions to ban gay marriage; will 22 more suddenly jump on the band wagon for a national amendment?

If the anti-gay forces are unable to muster a simple majority in the Senate and only a third of the states at present, they have little hope for the future. The younger generation is much more tolerant of homosexuality. Demography, my friends, is desiny.

Forty years later, Orval Faubus’ belief that “Justice requires that likes be treated alike and unlikes differently” is held in contempt. We struggle to understand how a man could be so blind to the obvious injustice of his position.

In 2045, our children will be reading primary sources containing arguments similar to Burgess-Jackson’s. And they will struggle to understand how a man could be so blind to the obvious injustice of his position.

No, not the Kelly Ripa show.

The Maximum Leader draws a distinction between the analysis of the 1967 and 2005 elections.

I hope that he is correct.

I am suprised and pleased at the Iraqi turnout for the election and the apparent responsibility of the transition government. But, as a historian, a little part of my brain remembers that we felt exactly the same way in ‘67.

I have the same little voice talking to me when I read other blogs that minimize the negative stories coming out of Iraq by saying that the attacks are coming rom a relatively small area and/or are being overemphasized by journalists who ignore the “good news.” That was exactly the position taken by hawks throughout the early years of Vietnam.

Those darn hippie reporters alla time ignorin’ the schools and medical clinics we wuz buildin’ for the Montegnards in favor of writing about Viet Cong massacres of South Vietnamese trainees.

I hope for the best, fear for the worst.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has really wanted to write a more lengthy and thoughtful essay commenting on the two recent posts by the Smallholder. They were the “I Hope” and “I Fear” posts. Alas, he doesn’t have time for a lengthy discourse so let him just get out his main point.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t feel that the analogy to the Vietnam elections is quite accurate. The main problem in his mind is the role of the media today vs. in the 1960s. Your Maximum Leader feels that the media is more critical of news from “offical” sources now than they were in 1967. They don’t want to accept the story told to them, and they do want to dig up the dirt. This is as it should be. Your Maximum Leader hardly believes that all of the major outlets (which are legion) could have been completely duped by the Iraqi Interim Government and the US authorities into thinking that the elections were a success - if in fact they were not. Recent talks by Sunni leaders and Shia leaders are, in many ways, evidence that the elections were successful. The Sunnis appear to be coming around to the fact that they missed the boat by deciding to sit out the elections. Now they are trying to get a place at the table. Hardly the reaction of a people who still feel like the elections were a sham.

Of course, it is too early to tell what will happen. But the signs look promising at this point.

Carry on.