Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader greatly enjoys reading all the various bits on many web sites about what people think will happen in the final Harry Potter book (which your Maximum Leader has pre-ordered through Amazon).

Your Maximum Leader isn’t much to speculate on things like this, but here is something…

The Dragonslayer ending!

Dumbledore wasn’t really killed by Snape, but put into a horcrux. Snape is carrying this horcrux with him and when the final battle comes he will use the horcrux in a way that releases Dumbledore who will come to the rescue and turn the battle for the good guys. But in the course of turning the battle, Dumbledore will sacrifice himself so that Harry can live…

And other predictions:
Hagrid will die.
Mr Weasley will become Minister of Magic and usher in a new golden age of wizardry.
Harry and Ginny will become lovers.
Harry will become the headmaster of Hogwarts.
Harry will break Ginny’s heart by saying that they can’t get married because he has to dedicate his life to Hogwarts.
Ginny and Cho Chang will become lovers.
and…
Ron and Hermione will “do the nasty” and have a “shot-wand” wedding.

The End.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has seen this so often on various sites that he can’t fairly give credit to anyone for it.

Apparently this blog is:

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

Your Maximum Leader fears he’s going to have to start checking ID’s and verifying that you have parental consent to read this blog.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is only posting this as something of an inside joke. One reader will get it. The rest of you… Well, your Maximum Leader apologizes for his obtuseness.

What’s Your Blog Wanted For?

Free Online Dating from Mingle²

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader found this nifty little exercise over at CalTechGirl’s site. She took less than five minutes. Your Maximum Leader, he is sad to say, took slightly over five minutes. Two minutes of that time was trying to remember one name, the name of the man who was President of the United States from 1881-1885.

The quiz makes it easy for you to do quickly. The form autofills the name in the correct location as you type it in the entry feild at the top of the page. Mulitple Presidents sharing last names are filled in together (which gives you 10 right quick). The quiz is timed and you have 10 minutes to complete the exercise. Time begins when you click the link.

Ready?

No cheating now…

Click here to begin.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noticed in yesterday’s Washington Post that many school systems in his beloved Virginia are eschewing naming schools after people, instead choosing “safe” place names.

Here is the beginning of the piece:

The Washington area suburbs of Virginia, befitting a state that supplied four of the first five U.S. presidents, has public high schools named after all of them, plus a nice sprinkling of famous Virginia generals.

Washington-Lee High School is in Arlington County. Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Marshall and J.E.B. Stuart high schools are in Fairfax County. Fredericksburg’s only high school is named after James Monroe, and Prince William County has Stonewall Jackson High.

But over the past decade, even though 12 Northern Virginia high schools have opened to handle one of the fastest-growing populations in the country, not one of them has been named after a person, much less a president or a general. Instead, the various school-naming committees have embraced scenic, geographic or patriotic titles: Battlefield, Colonial Forge, Dominion, Forest Park, Heritage, Mountain View, Riverbend, South County, Stone Bridge, Westfield and two schools named Freedom.

Part of the problem, according to a recent study and some Northern Virginia school officials, is that presidents, particularly the more recent ones, and other well-known people tend to be controversial, whereas few Americans have bad things to say about rivers, lakes, forests or freedom.

Has it gotten so bad that we can’t name high schools after people any more? Is George Washington not deserving of a school named in his honor because he owned slaves, or put down the Whisky Rebellion? Is Thomas Jefferson not deserving because he carried on with a slave? Is Franklin Roosevelt not worthy because he carried on with women who were not Eleanor and laid the foundation of today’s welfare state?

And what about other famous personages. While it might be out of character for a high school in Georgia to be named after William T. Sherman, it would be a fitting honor for him in his home state of Ohio… And there must be other people of stature to name schools after.

Here where your Maximum Leader lives, the elementary school that the Villainettes attend is named after a well-known clergyman who lived in the 19th Century (1832 to 1907 actually). The reason for the school being named after him was that he was born locally and was a prominent abolitionist. Unfortunately, he shares his name with earlier relatives who were definately not abolitionists - or even particularly nice men. While your Maximum Leader has no objection to the name of the school… If you know anything about the family (and frankly the vast majority of people don’t) you might get a little confused.

Your Maximum Leader is greatly disappointed that schools aren’t being named after people any more. Even if the person is controversial, that controversy is an opportunity to teach a lesson - perhaps a moral lesson. Gawd help us that we should attempt to teach a moral lesson in schools. (Smallholder’s teaching of American History in high school not withstanding.) We have just become a society ashamed of its past and much more willing to ignore it than to learn what can be learned and (we hope) improve ourselves as a result.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, in honour of the impending release of the latest Harry Potter movie, decided to take a Harry Potter quiz he found over on Minion Mo’s web site.

You scored as Albus Dumbledore, Strong and powerful you admirably defend your world and your charges against those who would seek to harm them. However sometimes you can fail to do what you must because you care too much to cause suffering. Albus Dumbledore 95% Sirius Black 80% Hermione Granger 75% Remus Lupin 70% Draco Malfoy 70% Severus Snape 65% Harry Potter 65% Ron Weasley 65% Ginny Weasley 50% Lord Voldemort 40% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

That isn’t very bad. In fact, other than having to watch out for his own personal Snapes, this result is pretty pleasing. He wonders if he would be Richard Harris’ Dumbledore or Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore. He isn’t sure…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader uses a customized My Yahoo page as his home page. Of course, you - the loyal reader - might have already noticed this as your Maximum Leader often finds articles to link from the Yahoo feeds of the various news wire services. Your Maximum Leader wonders if his use of the Yahoo page classifies him as a fossil? It seems so 1996… Humm… 1996/7 might have been the year that your Maximum Leader first customized his Yahoo page… Gawd…

Anyhoo…

From time to time Yahoo dishes up a piece that your Maximum Leader wouldn’t ordinarially click through and read, but for some reason this title caught his attention: What His Celeb Crush Says About Him. Your Maximum Leader admits his reasons for clicking on the link were purely salacious. He was hoping to catch a candid photo of some attractive female celeb. Specifically, he was hoping to catch a photo of the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Well… Was he disappointed when he finally read through and read the article? Yes he was. Having a “crush” on Angelina Jolie may mean that a man likes: “a do-gooder woman who also isn’t afraid to show a bit of a wild streak. It’s the reason why Jolie tops so many men’s wish lists: They want the woman who is good, but not too good. And the woman who is sultry, but not too sultry.” Great Jeezey Creezey! What mindless tripe that is. We all know that Angelina Jolie was positively nutty prior to her determining to be a mom. Marrying Billy Bob, wearing blood, “cutting” herself. All signs of being crazy. Now that she is a mom she is a do-gooder. Has Angelina done anything wacky recently? And by wacky your Maximum Leader isn’t talking about joining the Council on Foreign Relations so she could pick Henry Kissinger’s brain on the crisis in the Sudan. Nope… She hasn’t.

All in all the piece was just sad. It didn’t even attempt to offer any insight as to why a man (like your Maximum Leader) might have a “crush” on the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt. Since it didn’t, allow your Maximum Leader to offer some insight. If your Maximum Leader has a “crush” on the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt it may mean that he likes young attractive women who seem to have a sense of modesty (in that they will not pose nekkid in some magazine) yet still are sexy. It may mean that he likes women who seem “grounded” and “real” and not all completely caught up in Hollywood.

Then again… It may mean nothing…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noticed today that the AP news wire was running one of those fluffy stories it runs every year about the new words added to the Webster’s dictionary. This year new words appear to include: bollywood, sudoku, crunk, smackdowns, grey literature, and everyone’s favorite - ginormous. Apparently abbreviations like IED and DVR also make it into the new dictionary. Excursus: Are abbreviations actually words?

Now, your Maximum Leader is no gamy-handed postmodernist who feels that words can be ascribed any meaning you want; but he does recognize that language changes and words get added - and words fade from use. All in all, he is pleased with new words. He is particularly fond of ginormous in fact. He doesn’t use it very much in this forum, but he does use it from time to time with his kids (which makes the word more accepted among younger people and probably goes a long way towards promulgating the word further). Excursus: Sometimes in this forum he likes using the word “embiggen” when he uses a thumbnail image and wants you - the loyal reader - to click on the thumbnail to see the image made larger. He supposes that “embiggen” is an etymological cousin of ginormous.

He wonders if the popular (intentional mostly but unintentional sometimes) typo “teh” will one day make it into the dictionary. He will fully admit that “teh” doesn’t float his boat. Perhaps he doesn’t fully understand the concept of “teh.” Perhaps “teh” just upsets him because it causes him to face his own spelling issues.

At any rate, your Maximum Leader congratualtes “ginormous” for attaining the lofty status of “being in the dictionary.” May it last longer than “bootylicious” in our popular lexicon.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is now happily returned to the Villainschloss. He is sure you were all dying to know that… Let us catch up shall we?

Well… When last we left your Maximum Leader he was rife with pestilence and feeling miserable. Well… Actually… That was June 30th. On that day your Maximum Leader crawled out of bed and posted about Bush and Winston Churchill… On July 1 he went to the beach with his family. Upon arriving at the beach he discovered two things… He still had a hacking cough that was not sexy at all, and his interwebs connectivity at the beach was quite poor.

Monday, July 2 found your Maximum Leader sitting next to the pool reading “Flashman at the Charge.” It was about 75 degrees out and the water was frigid so he never got in the pool or ocean.

Tuesday July 3 found your Maximum Leader sitting next to the pool listens to Beverly Sills recordings on iPod mourning the great singer’s passing and reading “Flashman at the Charge” and the Washington Post. He was trying to determine if Bush’s commuting of Scooter Libby’s prison term offended him or not. The determination was that it did not. Your Maximum Leader continues to believe that the Special Prosecutor overreached and brought charges against Libby because he had to convict someone of something lest he be called a failure. Skippy’s post on this matter not withstanding, your Maximum Leader believes that what Scooter Libby was convicted of was (more or less) disagreeing with Tim Russert on matters relating to a time line. You can call your Maximum Leader a conservative mouthbreather (as Skippy did indirectly - and the Smallholder did directly recently) if you like. Honestly, your Maximum Leader didn’t care if Scooter Libby went to jail or not. And frankly, George W Bush is so unpopular now that any action he took (or yet chooses to take) on Scooter Libby can’t hurt him politically. Bush is beyond these “little” things hurting him now. And, truth be told, your Maximum Leader is more than a little pissed that Bush has done such a half-assed job of using his pardon powers. If you are going to take an action that will be so politcally charged that your enemies will be demanding your head on a pike; and your friends are not going to make any attempt to give you cover - well then you might as well just commit yourself to your choice. What Bush has done here is take a half-step that does nothing but keep the wound open just deep enough to keep from closing. And since Bush has left open the possibility that a full pardon may yet be in the works… This isn’t over yet. Bush should have either done nothing and let Libby hang - or he should have just given Libby the full pardon. But Bush isn’t good at thinking these things through…

Wednesday July 4th found your Maximum Leader sitting by the pool reading “Pompeii” by Robert Harris. Then, when he learned that the local fireworks were cancelled (due to high winds), he watched the film “The Illusionist.” The film was clever and quite entertaining. About half-way through, your Maximum Leader wondered how it was all going to come together. He didn’t figure out how it all came together, and was amused by the whole premise. He also liked how the writers wove their fictional story into an interesting historical context (Vienna before WWI.) Your Maximum Leader has since been told that “The Prestige” is a better film. Perhaps in a few weeks he’ll see it. (Excurus: You know something… Christian Bale - star of “The Prestige,” “Batman Begins,” “American Psycho,” and “Empire of the Sun” is a fine actor and a very handsome man. If your Maximum Leader played for “the other team” so to speak, he might have a man-crush on Christian Bale.)

Thursday, July 5th found your Maximum Leader reading “Pompeii” by the pool (which he never entered, nor did he enter the ocean). That afternoon, he took the Villainettes and the Wee Villain to see Ratatouille. He enjoyed it very much. It is possible that he enjoyed the film more than his children did in fact. He highly commends the picture to you.

Friday, July 6th found your Maximum Leader packing for, then making, the trek back to the Villainschloss. Upon arriving at the Villainschloss, your Maximum Leader went and slept.

Saturday, July 7th found your Maximum Leader packing for, them making, the trek to the Smallholder’s farm. There he met, obviously, the Smallholder and his family. Also there, not so obviously, were the erstwhile Minister of Propaganda (a sometimes contributor to this fine site) and Polymath (a sometimes commenter to this fine site, and virtual proprietor of his own fine site). There was much drinking and roasting of pork - great bonding activities… Also on July 7th, Skippy posts a fine piece on Richard Russell. Skippy’s piece makes your Maximum Leader feel both badly about not writing a blog post for a few days and relieved that he will not unfavorably compare his own crap post to Skippy’s lucid political discourse.

Sunday, July 8th found your Maximum Leader and the Smallholder having their son’s baptized. To this blessed event, your Maximum Leader wore his new seersucker suit. (He’ll have to post photos later…) Thereafter, there was much drinking and eating of roasted pork. Sadly, your Maximum Leader had to leave the festivities too soon for his own tastes and returned to the Villainschloss again.

Today… Your Maximum Leader caught up on a whole bunch of blog reading that he didn’t do last week. He also must advise his friend Skippy that while he has never wanted to know Katie Couric carnally (unlike Skippy), he can say that she (Couric that is) is quite attractive in real life. Your Maximum Leader has met her twice (both times we were waiting in the lounge for the DC to NYC shuttle at National Airport - most recently about 3 years ago).

Well… There you have it… The full update on what your Maximum Leader has been doing… More than you likely wanted to know, but there it is anyway… Oh… By the way… This site turned four last week. Like the Big Hominid, your Maximum Leader didn’t remember until after the fact… So… Happy Birthday to me - so to speak.

If there are any of you out there still reading this… Your Maximum Leader hopes to have some pithy content in this space soon.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is now at the beach, and he is feeling much better. But on the not so good side of the equation… His internet connection is very dicey… So it is unlikely that he will blog again until next week.

He did want to take note of the passing of Beverly Sills. Your Maximum Leader remembers many old 33 rpm recordings of Sills that his saintly mother used to play when he was growing up. He remembers seeing some performances in the late 1970s broadcast over PBS. He also remembers his dear departed grandmother “shushing” him when he spoke during a Saturday afternoon Texaco radio broadcast on which Sills was a featured performer.

You should read the Post’s Obit for Sills. If your Maximum Leader had a better connection now, he’d try and get one from one of the New York papers…

Carry on.