Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been fixated of late. If you know your Maximum Leader personally he’s probably mentioned to you that he wants to go to Venice for Christmas.

Not Venice Beach California.

The Venice. Veniza. La Serenissima. Queen of the Adriatic.

Yes… He even risked the glower of Mrs Villain by announcing at the dinner table one night that he would go by himself if need be.

This fixation has been percolating in your Maximum Leader’s brain for some time. At some point early this year he read this piece in the Guardian entitled “Silent Night in St Mark’s” Two paragraphs of the piece are stuck in your Maximum Leader’s mind. Here they are:

It’s odd that so few tourists go to Venice for Christmas. But their absence - and with them the proprietors of a thousand souvenir stalls - is the winter visitor’s gain. It’s not that you have the place to yourself, but with a layer of tourist kitsch removed, you feel the Venetians are reclaiming their city. Neighbourhoods and markets seem more authentic, and the people standing next to you in the bars and bakeries are locals. The city’s population is less than half what it is during August high season, and as you stroll along empty quays or across deserted squares you savour the essence of Venice, with all of its extravagant architecture laid bare.

…

Warm dress is essential on Christmas Eve, too. It isn’t possible that the entire population of Venice packs into St Mark’s Basilica for midnight mass, but it feels that way. With the great doors open onto the square, the air is icy. The gold-lined basilica feels like the inside of a giant Fabergé egg. A thousand candles find a million reflections in the Byzantine mosaics, a simulacrum of the heavens. Cumuli of incense curl upwards.

Your Maximum Leader would do this in an instant if the circumstances would allow…

But, they do not allow…

So this remains a fixation in his mind…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads that the famous Citgo sign outside Fenway Park caught fire earlier today.

That can’t bode well for the Sawx tonight…

BTW, Sawx behind 2-0 right now in 2nd Inning.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would like to bring to your attention a number of things that are just wrong.

Number 1: Game Six of the World Series will be delayed by a paid advertisement from Barack Obama. (If the game is required,) It will be delayed by 15 minutes. Senator Obama is buying 30 minutes of prime time to deliver a “longform” speech to the American people. Your Maximum Leader is offended by this. He is offended when any sporting event is pre-empted by something sort of a serious national crisis. While some of your Maximum Leader’s Obama supporters readers might be tempted to say that we are in a serious national crisis… Listen… Your Maximum Leader means SERIOUS. If a speech can be scheduled in advance it is not SERIOUS. Just have Senator Obama start earlier. Damnation.

Number 2: American gluttony. Apparently some guy ate a 15 pound burger (with an additional 5 pounds of fixins’ and bun) in under 5 hours. This just seems wrong.

Number 3: Irish bookies paying out bets made for an Obama victory - now. Great jeezey chreezey! What the hell is going on in the world that bookies are paying out bets made on the outcome of an event that has not yet occured?!? This violates so many different rules it leaves your Maximum Leader just gobsmacked. Let it be known that this would never occur in the Mike World Order. Never.

Number 4: Palin lookalike strippers to strut stuff. What is wrong with this you might ask? Well… Doctrinal issues aside… This event will take place and your Maximum Leader will likely forget to look for photos on the internet to see how it went…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hates it when someone else states something apparently so self-evident that he feels like kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner. Your Maximum Leader is doubly down on himself when that someone not only states something self-evident, but does so in a such a concise manner that it is disarming.

To wit:

The current election is in part a referendum on Rawls versus Nozick.

That brilliant summary comes from Professor Greg Mankiw’s blog. Your Maximum Leader would have never read that were it not for the pointer from our friend FLG at Fear & Loathing in Georgetown.

Do you all know what makes this situation even worse… Your Maximum Leader feels this overwhelming urge to expand on Professor Mankiw’s line and discourse on Rawls and Nozick. But to do so would be a little intellecutally pretensious as well as ruin the simplicity of the cited line.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader didn’t watch the debate tonight.

He’s been watching the Phillies/Dodgers game.

It looks like it is going to be the Phillies in the World Series…

At least that is the way it looks as of 22:11 tonight. (Had to update the time. Misstyped.)

Your Maximum Leader is turning in now.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as longtime readers know, is a real Dracula afficianado. Something about the story speaks to him. He is quite fond of the films as well. Indeed, while doing some painting at the Villainschloss your Maximum Leader discovered that he had quite a number of versions of Dracula on DVD. Perhaps he’ll have a Dracula-fest on Halloween…

Anyhoo…

You should go and vote for your favourite film vampire over at AMC’s Fearfest… Here is the link to get you to the first round of voting.

Of course you need to vote Bela Lugosi… Not like your Maximum Leader is trying to sway your vote or anything…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must sadly report that Villainette #2’s soccer team lost the championship game earlier this evening. It was 2-1. Villainette #2 is taking it particularly hard. She was the goalie who allowed the second score during the third quarter of the game. It was 1-0 when the third started. And it was 2-0 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. She’s been beating herself up a little bit about it.

A pep-talk from her dad and a big ice cream cone from Carl’s Ice Cream seemed to take the edge off.

For those of you who do not know the area… Carl’s Ice Cream is the best… It takes the edge off just about everything bad.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been watching baseball playoffs in rapt attention over the past few days. Thus, he’s not been spending his quality free-time thinking of intelligent and witty blog posts. Actually, he’s been thinking of many blog posts - just not writing them.

So there.

He was going to write a pithy essay on the election last night… But fate conspired against him. Let us explain…

Villainette #2 is a soccer player. Her team this fall is very good. Last night they were playing in the semi-finals to see which team would advance to play for the league championship. The game last night was a nail-biter. The game was scoreless through 3 quarters. In the 4th quarter, the other team scored with about 3 minutes remaining in the game. Miraculously, Villainette #2’s team managed to score about 1 minute later and tie up the game. Since it is a playoff game, there are no ties allowed. They played a 5 minute overtime… No score… Then they played a second overtime period. Again no score. So the went to the shootout. The first two players (of five selected to kick). Then the next two players on each team missed. The final player on the opposing time missed… The final kicker on Villainette #2’s team came up and kicked the ball. The goalie got his hands on it but the ball spun out of his hands, over his head, and into the goal.

There was some dispute as to whether or not one of the referees had blown a whistle before the ball went in. But Villainette #2’s team won and is now playing in the championship game tonight…

Knowing this… Allow your Maximum Leader to say that he will be going to the game and hoping for the best. He will then head home, grab a bit to eat, then settle in for the NLCS game tonight… So don’t expect any quality posting here.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader always enjoys the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. They have thoughtful commentary and are almost always educational.

To wit: today’s piece by John Steele Gordon entitled “A Short Banking History of the United States.” In the piece Gordon lays the blame for the current financial crisis squarely at the feet of the responsible party… Here is the quotation:

How could the richest and most productive economy the world has ever known have a financial system so prone to periodic and catastrophic break down? One answer is the baleful influence of Thomas Jefferson.

Read the whole piece.

Although your Maximum Leader doubts that either John McCain or Barack Obama will start casting aspersions at TJ, your Maximum Leader will.

(Shakes fist at sky) “Damn your eyes Thomas Jefferson for our current banking crisis!”

There you go…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was out at lunch today with a good friend. Talk turned, as it does, to politics. We lamented McCain’s campaign not seeming to have lots of life. We lamented the press coverage being generally more supportive and positive towards Obama.

Then we spoke about Sarah Palin. We both agreed that we liked her politics. As hormonally normal men we agreed that she was good looking. The conversation went like this:

Max Ldr: That Sarah Palin is sexy. She’s got that hot librarian vibe going on.

Friend of Max Ldr: Yup. She’s a V-PILF.

Max Ldr: Yes. Could be first one.

F of ML: Nope. Would be second one.

Max Ldr: Really.

F of ML: Really.

Max Ldr: Who was the first one?

F of ML: Nixon.

Max Ldr: Of course.

That little exchange has made me smile and laugh all damned day.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has gotten a few earfulls from you all on his last post… Look, allow him to restate… He believes that given time and some learning, Sarah Palin will a fine Vice-President. She will be able to step into the office of President if the situation requires it after gaining some experience. If she didn’t do well in her debate last week he was ready to kick her to the curb as being a liability to the ticket. She did fine, and while she isn’t exactly perfect she is okay in the number 2 spot.

So… You may be asking yourself, “Self, where has my Maximum Leader been? What has he been doing?” Well… Over the weekend he wiped the hard drive on his computer, reinstalled Windows XP and has been recovering stuff. He hasn’t finished yet. He was going to work on it Monday night and yesterday… But fate conspired against him. The Wee Villain has been sick. (Sinus infection and strep throat.) So that has thrown the proverbial monkey wrench into your Maximum Leader’s plans. But that was Monday. Yesterday was something else all together.

Yesterday, your Maximum Leader and Villainette #2 went on a field trip. Well… It was actually a school field trip where your Maximum Leader was one of the adult chaperones. We went to…

Jamestown VA. (Clicken to embiggen if you care to.)

It was a great day. Kids were well mannered and attentive. The buses were comfy (PTA helps and rents the nice big motor coaches for the long field trips - this one was 2 hrs each way). The day was beautiful. It was a good day all in all.

When your Maximum Leader returned to the Villainschloss, he got himself some dinner. He helped with homework. Then he got comfy and waited for the main TV event… McCain/Obama part 2.

Your Maximum Leader thought that McCain would come out and kill Obama last night. That didn’t happen. The McCain supporter in your Maximum Leader wants to award the win to McCain, but the rational observer came away thinking that neither man scored the knockout that we all hoped for. Mrs Villain, a better barometer of the “typical voter” than your Maximum Leader, thought that the debate was boring and that neither man answered any question put to them. She was annoyed by the rehersed answers to every question. She thought that Brokaw was annoying and a distraction. Your Maximum Leader in fact agrees that Brokaw was a distraction; as well as a poor moderator. Of 80 questions in the hall (and something like 6,000,000 submitted on-line) the ones actually asked were the “best” ones? Your Maximum Leader finds that hard to believe. The questions were boring and allowed both men to give their standard stump speeches for the most part. Couldn’t we have had more of the unusual questions? The “what don’t you know” question was okay, but it set up the whole “can’t see the future” answer. Your Maximum Leader would have prefered to have more questions like “is healthcare a right?” Those types of questions give insight into the candidate’s thinking and beliefs. You could have had a great debate by just throwing out those questions. Additionally, the “offbeat” questions are less likely to elicit a standard response.

If one has to choose “big” moments in the debate your Maximum Leader would say that McCain scored twice when he first announced that he would seek to increase the standard deduction for dependents to $7000 (from $3500) and he scored a second time when he said that he would have the government buy up mortgages. Obama had one big score when he hit McCain with the whole “Bomb Iran” thing. That is an appropriate character attack that might resonate with people.

Now, as for the two memorable points for McCain… Your Maximum Leader is almost always up for a tax cut. He believes that a standard deduction increase is probably okay. He also believes that keeping the “Bush tax cuts” is a good thing. At this point what people need (in addition to confidence) is stability. Lets not go screwing with stuff that we don’t have to screw with. At this point major changes to the tax code are likely unwise. Not just from a revenue perspective, but from the stability perspective. You might be promised a tax cut, but until you know exactly what is in a tax bill you don’t know. Why not just leave things like they are while we focus on other messes.

Now… The “other messes” to which your Maximum Leader just referred might include this whole “government buying up mortgages and refinancing them” plan that McCain seemed to unleash on everyone last night. So, in addition to buying bad mortgages from banks and other institutions (as part of the rescue plan that was just accomplished) we are also going to go directly to homeowners and refinance their mortgages? That doesn’t seem very wise, nor does it seem fiscally prudent. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t really know why we should be too concerned with fiscal prudence given both the size and scope of the rescue package (as well as the past 8 years of spending). This strikes your Maximum Leader as being just too much intervention. How is this going to be done. Are Fannie and Freddie going to be completely nationalized and we have a Mortgage Bank of the United States? Everyone just sign up for mortgages with the US Treasury? That doesn’t seem too smart. People might like the plan, but it seems like a bad idea.

All in all it looks like we will have to wait until next week to see if either man can deliver a solid knock-out to the other.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader needs to make a little confession. Last night before the Veep debate your Maximum Leader was on the verge kicking Sarah Palin to the proverbial curb. After a poor performance with Charlie Gibson, an okay performance with Sean Hannity, and a really really really bad performance with Katie Couric your Maximum Leader was about to give up on Sarah Palin.

After last night’s debate, not so much.

Your Maximum Leader believes that Sarah Palin is teachable. She can come up to speed on the issues. She has a core set of beliefs that can guide her in decision making. She is a remarkably able political figure. She needs polish. She needs a litle more finesse.

So… Your Maximum Leader thought that Sarah Palin exceeded expectations. By that (low) criteria she could be judged to have “won” the debate. All in all, your Maximum Leader thinks that both Veep wanna-bes did exactly what they had to do. They attacked the other presidential candidate. They articulated the talking points of their campaigns. They did no harm. The best think that can be said about the debate is that it took the Veeps out of the mix. Argueably, much more will hinge on McCain and Obama’s performances in the next two debates.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that either Palin or Biden convinced an undecided voter of anything. They effectively pushed the debates on to the next level - the top of the ticket level - which is where it should be.

On partisan points… If one was disinclined to like Palin or Biden you came away with all the ammo you needed to say what you were already predisposed to say. For every Democratic partisan who says that Palin was too familiar, too cute, or too winky you will find a Republican partisan who will say that Biden was stiff, senatorial, and exaggerated. Your Maximum Leader finds that people he considers “normal” voters (not the acute political observers like himself) were not put out by the demeanor of either candidate.

So… In the end has your Maximum Leader changed his mind on anything as a result of this debate? Not exactly. His view has clarified in a number of ways however. He’s always thought that Biden was the right guy for Barack Obama - nothing has changed that. As far as Sarah Palin goes… Your Maximum Leader doesn’t believe that she is ready to be President on January 20, 2009. She is ready for a national stage, and with some experience and learning she would probably be a fine Vice President. He still has concerns about the whole trooper story that is lingering out there. Would your Maximum Leader have chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate? No he would not have done so. Did McCain make a mistake in choosing her? No. McCain made a calculated political choice that has helped him in an area in which he needed help. No person aspiring to be president seriously contemplates his own death and then makes up their mind on a Vice Presidential pick. They do political math and make a choice. That is what McCain did. Frankly, that is what Presidential candidates have been doing since they have had to make the choice.

Will this verdict on Palin change your Maximum Leader’s vote for McCain? No. It will not.

In case you were wondering.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is quite surprised to read the headline in the Washington Post declaring: Judge Could Dismiss Stevens’ Indictment or Declare Mistrial.

Your Maximum Leader can’t say as he was following the Ted Stevens case too closely. Indeed, after initial press reports, he sort of figured that Stevens was toasted and there wasn’t much more to know. Boy was he wrong! What is up with prosecutors holding on to exclupatory evidence? This seems to happen quite a bit. (Perhaps it is just TV where it happens…) The piece in the Post starts off:

A federal judge this morning scolded lawyers prosecuting Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) on ethics charges for waiting until the last minute to disclose potentially exculpatory material and said he would hear arguments today from defense attorneys about whether to dismiss the indictment or declare a mistrial.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the powerful 40-year senator “would not be getting a fair trial if it were up to the government.” He halted trial testimony so lawyers could prepare for a 4:30 p.m. hearing on motions to end the case or impose sanctions on the government.

…

The potentially exculpatory material involves remarks by the executive, Bill Allen, a key prosecution witness, who said he believed Stevens would have paid for the renovations if Allen had ever billed him. Attorneys for the government did not disclose those remarks until late yesterday.

The article goes on to imply that Stevens actually asked for bills (while making an off-hand comment about breaking ethics laws if no bill came). This is singularly at odds with your Maximum Leader’s understanding of the case. But, as your Maximum Leader said, he’s not been paying close attention to the whole deal since he (wrongfully) assumed that the Feds had Ted Stevens’ number.

This gets interesting now. One can suppose that if the judge throws out the charges and sanctions the prosecutors that Stevens might cruise on to another term in the Senate. Interesting…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will be ready with scotch in hand when the Vice President Candidates square off tonight. He will not live-blog anything (as he isn’t a live-blogging type of guy; and his computer at home is still on the fritz - long story). But he will be very interested to see what happens.

Biden needs to keep his answers short and direct. He needs to attack McCain and not seem condecending to Palin.

Palin needs to give accurate and cogent answers. She needs to attack Obama and not appear stupid or over her head.

It all seems so simple… But it will actually be quite hard - for both candidates.

This is the first political event since summer that has really excited your Maximum Leader to see.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader worries that something is wrong with him.

Everywhere he goes he thinks he smells maple syrup.

But there is no maple syrup anywhere around.

Carry on.

NB to Reader: Your Maximum Leader forgot to publish this yesterday… Not like that oversight is a real biggie…