Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks you to “stop him if you’ve heard this one.”

Q: Do you know what Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Michael Jackson are waiting for in heaven?

A: Patrick Swayze.

Okay… That is bad. But it made your Maximum Leader laugh.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s upgrades to the Villainschloss continue to eat into computer time. Alas, they also eat into his TV viewing time. If this keeps up your Maximum Leader will be burning candles and reading old dusty tomes in a wingback chair and going to bed shortly after dark… Hey… That doesn’t seem like too bad a plan…

Your Maximum Leader feels that a day without reading Fear and Loathing in Georgetown is a day intellectually wasted. To wit this post that directs us to 3 page piece in the New Republic by Sean Wilentz in which Wilentz smacksdown of some of his critics. You know, every once and a while your Maximum Leader remembers why he wanted to be a history professor once upon a time. Reading this exchange between Wilentz and his critics is one of those times. He enjoyed the historical aspects of discussion itself, but also the cattiness of the exchange. Few things amuse your Maximum Leader as much as a bunch of distinguished professors arguing with each other. On the one hand it is so intellectual; and on the other it is so petty and personal. It brings a grin to your Maximum Leader’s visage.

Of course, FLG isn’t always intellectual on his blog… To wit: he link to portraits of a naked President Obama and his unicorn. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know what to think of that upon which he just cast his gaze… It is disturbing…

In other news…

The Nationals have not been sucking recently. Indeed they have pulled off a few wins recently. It looks like the gremlin bogey number remains 53. Of course there are only 62 games remaining on the schedule. So it is quite possible that the gremlin bogey number will soon be unattainable. If your Maximum Leader were more statistically inclined he’d tell you what the chances of losing 53 of 62 games would be. So he’s hoping that the Nationals continue to not suck so badly.

Continuing in the baseball theme… Which is more impressive? A perfect game (such as the one pitched recently by Mark Buehrle of the White Sox) or hitting two grand slams in a single game (like the National’s own Josh Willingham). Your Maximum Leader is inclined to say that even though two grand slams seems to be more rare (in terms of instances of occurance) the perfect game is harder. He’d like to see the statistical breakdown of the chances of each. He imagines that building a statistical model to set up the odds of pitching a perfect game would be crazy… Of course the odds of hitting two grand slams in a game would be crazy too.

After Willingham hit his two slams on Monday, your Maximum Leader read somewhere that Frank Robinson (one of the greatest hitters ever) only hit two grand slams in his whole career - and those two were in the same game. Your Maximum Leader found it hard to believe that Frank Robinson could have only hit two grand slams out of the 586 home runs he hit during his career. So he looked up the stats and found that Robinson only hit two grand slams with the Orioles. He hit a total of 8 grand slams in his 21 year career. To be honest that seemed a bit low to your Maximum Leader. So your Maximum Leader looked up some other player stats… After a few looks that total of 8 doesn’t seem too low… Hank Aaron only hit 16 slams out of 755 total home runs. Barry Bonds hit 11 slams out of 762 homers…

Anyhoo…

Massive thunderstorms are upon the Villainschloss and your Maximum Leader thinks he’d better sign off now…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have much to (intelligently) add to the converstation of the day… That said, he’ll opine anyway… Sort of like the President and the whole Henry Louis Gates, Jr. affair.

Speaking of which… Your Maximum Leader will admit to not knowing all the facts (more admitting that the facts seem to be in dispute). Having admitted that he doesn’t know (or isn’t sure of) the whole truth of the matter he feels that Professor Gates overreacted and acted poorly. He also feels that the police also acted poorly by arresting Professor Gates. Gates should have tried to be a bit more polite and civilized. The police should have been more calm and willing to walk away from an agitated man in his house. Your Maximum Leader thinks, from what he’s read, that Gates is the one who put race into the situation. The police, however, have to deal with these types of issues every day and should have handled it differently once the suspected break-in was no longer suspected. If you were to press your Maximum Leader and force him to try and lay blame on one side or the other he’d say (right now) that the preponderence of blame lays at the feet of the Cambridge MA police.

So your Maximum Leader will be joining his extended family for the Nationals/San Diego Padres contest tomorrow night at Nationals Park. Your Maximum Leader is hoping to see a win. In the back of his mind, however, is the dreaded “gremlin bogey” number of 54. Your Maximum Leader and his whole family have their red Nationals t-shirts ready for the game. We will root (root, root) for our beloved Nationals and hope for the best.

Your Maximum Leader got a political polling call on Tuesday night. It was odd. Normally your Maximum Leader doesn’t deign to answer the phone if he doesn’t recognize the number on the caller-id display. For some strange reason he went ahead and answered and chose to particpate in a 10 minute polling call. The topics covered in the questions were all political - and mostly local political questions. The opening salvo were demographic questions (which your Maximum Leader only answered if the choices were in his opinion sufficiently broad). Then came the name recognition for the various offices up for election this fall in Virginia. Your Maximum Leader was pleased to have identified all of the names except for the Democrat running for Virginia Attorney General, and an independent running for County Board of Supervisors. (Sadly, immediately after he indicated he had no idea who the independent was the young girl conducting the poll filled in the blanks and your Maximum Leader remembered that the fellow was a former member of the School Board - and an idiot. He wished for a re-do on that one.) The poll was remarkably comprehensive in scope. It sort of surprised your Maximum Leader by its length and detail. He can only imagine that it cost some serious money. At the end of the poll he learned that it was paid for by the campaign of Susan Stimpson, who is running for County Board of Supervisors. She wants to represent your Maximum Leader’s district on the Board. Frankly, she has his vote. He’s met her a few times and spoken with her. She is a good choice to be on the Board. She will be a great improvement over George Schwartz. Schwartz is a pompus ass. He’s done more to screw up the county than any other person in recent memory.

In case you care, your Maximum Leader will, this fall, vote thusly in the Virginia elections. Bob McDonnell for Governor. Bill Bolling for Lt Governor. Ken Cuccinelli for AG. Bill Howell for Delegate. Susan Stimpson for Board of Supervisors. There you go…

You know, if your Maximum Leader didn’t already have big plans for the whole weekend he’d be off to see the hardest working man in the blogosphere, Robert Stacy McCain at the Richmond Tea Party event this weekend in Richmond. Really. R.S. Mcain is the hardest working man in the blogosphere. He doesn’t just sit back and comment on crap (like your Maximum Leader) he actually goes out there and does the leg-work needed to DISCOVER THE STORY. Seriously. You need to go back and read some of his reporting on the case of fired I-G Gerald Walpin.

Your Maximum Leader recommends to you all FLG’s piece on Fair Trade. You should also very seriously consider the difference between “organic” and “regular” products. Mrs Villain was gobsmacked over the weekend when she actually did a serious comparison between an brand of organic peanut butter (8 oz for $4.00) and the regular Jif brand that your Maximum Leader prefers (16 oz for $2.99). Okay, that example didn’t really address Fair Trade products - but they are vaugely linked in your Maximum Leader’s brain.

Oh yeah… Thanks FLG for the link to Bacon Salt. Another product for which your Maximum Leader really has no need, but will buy anyway just to try… Smoked meat… Heh… (Click FLG’s link to get the joke.)

And in closing… With luck your Maximum Leader will be able to catch two episodes of “The Ascent of Money” tonight on the DVR. Yay!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been feeling rather funky for the past few days. He’s got a lot on his plate at the Villainschloss. Major repairs in the dungeon are costing more than anticipated. And now your Maximum Leader is facing a serious ethical/financial dilemma.

You see… Your Maximum Leader’s trusted hound got a cut on her left rear leg about two years ago. It was slow to heal, but it healed. We thought she was fine. Then she started licking the leg way more than she should. It got sorta nasty looking. But she stopped and it healed up again. Then at the end of last year she started the licking again. A wound developed. We took her to the vet. The vet prescribed some serious drugs for her. Our dog spent the next 8 weeks on various drugs recouperating. It looked like she was all healed up. Total cost of Vet and drugs: $800. About two weeks ago she started licking the leg again. We went back to the vet. The infection in her leg had returned. We got more drugs, but this time there doesn’t seem to be as much of a positive response to them. The Vet has now recommended we take her to a veterinary surgeon who could cut out the infection and see if there is something else in there causing the problems. Approximate cost: $2500. There is no guarantee of a favorable or final result from surgery.

Now your Maximum Leader is facing the massive amount of spending going on at the house, and the prospect of a massive amount of spending on the health of our dog. He has to admit that he has more than once wondered if he should even seriously consider spending the money on our dog. But every time he starts down that path of reasoning he feels like a heartless ass. At what point is a dog a dog and not a four-legged loving member of the family? Your Maximum Leader could probably swing the various home repairs and one surgery. It would require a bit of creative budgeting; but it could happen. If anything happened after that…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders sometimes… Here are some of the things he’s wondering now…

What is the cost of nationalized health care in other countries to US healthcare providers, drug companies and research instititutions? This is to say that if a drug is conceived, developed, researched and orginally produced by a US drug company, but is sold in Britain for a price determined by the National Health Service and not the market; what is the cost that is passed along to US consumers who are in effect subsidizing the National Health Service of Britain?

Will your Maximum Leader have to buy “The Ascent of Money” on DVD to catch up on the episodes he missed? (NB: Nope, apparently he can watch them on-line or set up his DVR to catch the reruns. Joy! Thanks FLG for the recommendation!)

Why did your Maximum Leader not act on his hunch that a company he knows was likely to get a juicy government contract and buy some stock in that company? (NB: the company in question a month ago traded at about $3.50/share; they closed yesterday at $25.45 a share.)

Why would FLG accept sponsorship from the Vince Lombardi Service Area? FLG strikes your Maximum Leader as an Alexander Hamilton Service Area type of web site? (NB: your Maximum Leader is exploring the idea of a sponsorship arrangement with Yu Wan Mei right now. Krill! Yum!)

That is all for now…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has not been asked to run the Islamic Republic of Iran; and frankly it has never been an aspiration of his. Your Maximum Leader is not a Muslim. Neither does he speak Persian. Those two issues alone would likely preclude his installation as Supreme (Maximum if you will) Leader fo the Islamic Republic.

Of course your Maximum Leader has read the inner monologue of current Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameni. Until reading that your Maximum Leader has never really thought about being the unquestioned leader of a medieval theocracy on the verge of gettng nukes. It could be a real gas.

But then your Maximum Leader reads shit like this (from the Jerusalem Post via the Wall Street Journal) in which a member of the Basiji (a paramilitary militia in Iran loyal to the Supreme Leader) confesses to the following:

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.”

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her “husband.”

“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?”

“Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

“I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

Damn! Damn! Damn! DAMN! Gawd! Your Maximum Leader read that and wanted to go find Ali Khameni and sodomize him with a sun-dried and splintering axe handle. Sadly, that type of degredation would be too good for Khameni. Your Maximum Leader doubts that any techniques he could pick up from anyone short of the bastard love-child decendent of Stalin, Pol-Pot and the Marquis de Sade would do the trick. Your Maximum Leader thought, for a moment, that putting Khameni in a cell with a few of the mothers of daughters who suffered the brief “marriages” to their Basiji husbands might be suitable. Alas, it would surely be too quick. Any means of death that didn’t last at least 90 days would be to short.

Your Maximum Leader jokes from time to time about lining people up against the wall and them getting what they deserve. But unfortunately some people, and Ali Khameni might be one of them, don’t ever get what they deserve.

If your Maximum Leader were ever to find himself as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran there are many who would have to pray every second of their short lives that the worst thing that would befall them is that they would get dragged out and shot.

Just to go on the record, Ali Khameni wouldn’t even get the benefit of a show trial.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sometimes hears of, or reads a story, that simmers slowly in his consciousness for days or weeks. Then, after properly stewed and triggered by something, the rant comes… In this case the story has been stewing for a few weeks and the trigger was a piece on APM’s Marketplace today.

So it is that your Maximum Leader is going to rant for a moment about slavery guilt…

In late June your Maximum Leader first started to see the news articles. They were predominantly British articles. A number of scholars are beginning to go over the records kept by the British government concerning reparations paid out to compensate slave owners when Britain outlawed slavery in the whole British Empire (in 1833).

Your Maximum Leader remembers a Financial Times article detailing how two old-line British firms may have profited from slavery. The big firms were the Rothchild Bank and the law firm Freshfields. The Financial Times article opened:

Two of the biggest names in the City of London had previously undisclosed links to slavery in the British colonies, documents seen by the Financial Times have revealed.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the banking family’s 19th-century patriarch, and James William Freshfield, founder of Freshfields, the top City law firm, benefited financially from slavery, records from the National Archives show, even though both have often been portrayed as opponents of slavery.

If you go on to read the whole piece you would see that Freshfield and Rothchild were, in fact, abolitionists. In the case of Freshfield, his firm acted as trustee for Caribbean slave owners and set about getting reparation funds on behalf of the clients. In the case of Rothchild, the bank sought reparations for slaves that were collateral for broader transactions.

Now, one can certainly make a case that Freshfield and Rothchild could have instructed their firms not to deal at all with slave owners and not to agree to act as trustee for slave owning estates or use slaves as collateral for loans. So your Maximum Leader isn’t trying to put them completely off the hook here… But there is profiting from the slave trade and slavery, and then there is what Freshfield and Rothchild did. It may be a matter of degrees here, but perhaps these are important degrees to examine. If a lawyer is a trustee for an estate, he damned well had better do what he can to effectively and profitably manage the estate on behalf of its beneficiaries. And in the case of a bank, if you have chosen to accept slaves as collateral in a loan transaction, then when the government is removing the collateral’s value and offering reparations; the bank needs to take the money.

Your Maximum Leader is not sure how Freshfield and Rothchild are villains in this story. Especially given the large role the Rothchild Bank played in financing the reparations the British Government made…

But the part that sets your Maximum Leader off is the chorus of people who believe that the sins of the dead should be revisited on the unrelated living… This is especially true in how your Maximum Leader views the calls in the US for reparations for slavery. The Financial Times points out in their piece how JPMorgan has set up scholarship funds to “repay” the decendents of slaves in the US as a way of saying “We’re sorry” about the role some predecessor banks mortgaged slaves. The FT piece also mentions how Aetna and New York Life have apologized and paid for “educational efforts” to in essence make up for insurance policies they wrote on behalf of slave owners.

There is also the fact that the US Senate passed a resolution (which contained clauses saying that the resolution couldn’t be admitted into evidence in a court of law) apologizing for slavery.

If one views institutions like banks and insurance companies (and the US Senate) as continuing entities across time, then one might (just barely might) be somewhat justified in asking them to own up to a wrong they did in the past and say their sorry. Your Maximum Leader is not trying to let these companies off the hook for other transgressions they may have committed in the past; but he is willing to draw a line about slavery in America.

It would behoove people to remember that there was this thing called the American Civil War. That war was all about slavery. The war ended slavery in America. There was no reparation for freed slaves paid to rebellious slave owners. There was no compensation issued for destroyed farms and cities in states in rebellion. Northern bankers weren’t repaid for lost collateral and property they had claim to in the South. Insurance policies weren’t cashed out. The pro-slave and anti-slave forces pretty much took sides and decided the question on battlefields. Upwards of 650,000 men were killed or wounded fighting for the Union to decide the issue of slavery. Your Maximum Leader will suggest that those men paid in blood any reparations that might be owed slaves. He further suggests that it is wrong to extract monetary reparations from people who have never owned slaves or suffered as slaves.

It is not for your Maximum Leader to decide how the British should or shouldn’t settle the question of who might be owed what for profiting off slavery. But from what he’s read the case against Freshfield and Rothchild seems quite overblown. If he had to offer advice he’d recommend a heartfelt and tearful apology. Because this is more about how people feel things should be than actual wrongs. After an apology, move along…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would like to take a moment to thank loyal minions Bill Keezer of Bill’s Comments for taking some time out of his tremendously busy schedule to visit his (and your) Maximum Leader at the Villainschloss last night.

Your Maximum Leader (and the Smallholder) met Bill a number of years ago when Bill was on a previous trip to the area for business. It was great to see Bill again. We were able to go to out for a bite to eat for dinner and then return to the Villainschloss for a little more conversation. (NB to Bill: Thanks again for dinner. You shouldn’t have. It was greatly appreciated by all of us.)

Bill is as thoughtful, entertaining and engaging in person as he is on his blog. An evening with Bill is a real treat. Conversation will range from technology, science, religion, railroads, woodworking and politics. Conversation will also never lag. Your Maximum Leader’s only hope from the evening is that his “nickel driving tour of Fredericksburg” wasn’t too boring.

Thanks again Bill. Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy cap to you.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should thank Agent Bedhead for a neat little link to Premiere and their list of the Baddest Bad Guys. It is a list of well-known actors and their best villainous roles. Your Maximum Leader guessed a number of people on the list, but he didn’t guess who was number 1.

Let us just say he agrees completely with the list…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, for the most part, doesn’t have a dog in this fight; but he continues to read of the ongoing break up of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. He was motivated to post on this move mainly by reading this editorial from the Bishop of Durham in the Times of London. In it, Bishop Wright pretty much comes down and says that a way needs to be found that allows Episcopalians in the US who are aligned with the wider global Anglican Communion to stay so aligned. The offshoot of that position is that a break with those not aligned with the Anglican Communion need to be shown the door.

You know… About a decade back your Maximum Leader was acquainted with a fellow who would have bet serious money that the Roman Catholic church would see a major schism between those Catholics around the world and those Catholics in America. Your Maximum Leader thought it was highly improbable. But neither of us considered a schism within the Episcopal Church. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure why he didn’t. Afterall… Once you go down the path of splitting and forming your own church there are few roadblocks to doing it again. And again…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has completely forgotten to note a few things that he normally would note on his blog…

First off, he realized by looking at the draft post folder that he started to write a 4th of July post… But he didn’t finish it. So he didn’t mention anything on the Fourth of July… Damnation! Happy Birthday America. Depending on your outlook on things there might not be too much to be happy about right now in America. But the 4th of July remains the greatest holiday on the calendar for all Americans.

NB: In a patriotic fit, your Maximum Leader decided over the Fourth of July holiday to only consume alcohol produced in the United States (or our dependencies) for the balance of the year. Yes loyal minions… Your Maximum Leader has foresworn his favorite liquor (Scotch) for the rest of 2009. He moved his various bottles of Scotch to the back of the liquor closet and moved the bourbon and rum up towards the front… To be perfectly honest he did exempt the 4 bottles of Guinness he has in the beer fridge from this pledge. He doesn’t want them to go bad you know. (Although, if you happen to be passing near the Villainschloss and like Guinness, let your Maximum Leader know and he’ll save them for you…)

Secondly, your Maximum Leader forgot to mention the passing of Bastille Day yesterday. He had plans for some french cheese and perhaps beef burgundy for dinner last night… But he got shanghai’ed into going to a movie…

Your Maximum Leader was (somehow) convinced (against his better judgement) to join “the boyz” and go and see “Bruno.”

Dead Gawd! Let the burning in my eyes and ears stop now! Please!

Your Maximum Leader moderately enjoyed Sacha Baron Cohen’s last movie “Borat.” During “Borat” your Maximum Leader laughed for about a third of the movie, felt very uncomfortable with what he was seeing for about a third of the movie, and was bored for about a third of the movie.

Well… For pretty much all of “Bruno” your Maximum Leader squirmed and thought “okay, this is just too much.” On about three occasions he thought he’d just up and leave the cinema and go home. Alas, he didn’t. After the film “the boyz” all agreed that if any of us had mentioned during the film that we should get up and leave we all would have. Alas, we all sat and watched… And watched… Well… That is $9.75 and 90 minutes that your Maximum Leader will never get back.

Your Maximum Leader will now make certain that if he ever sees another Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle it will be on cable and by accident during channel surfing…

Ugh… Does a bad movie resonate for longer in your memory than a good movie? By this your Maximum Leader wonders if he’ll be thinking of “Bruno” for longer than he thought of “The Hangover?” The latter was great, the former was shit. But he thinks he might mentally come back to how bad “Bruno” was more over the next few days than he did mentally go back to “The Hangover” after seeing it…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader spent a little time last night watching the Home Run Derby. He was rooting for the National League players (because your Maximum Leader is a National League type of guy). Even though he rooted for the National League players, he sort of hoped that Ryan Howard didn’t win. Howard is on your Maximum Leader’s fantasy team and the winner of the Home Run Derby always seems to develop a hitch in their swing that takes a few weeks to work out after the All Star Break…

Ultimately, your Maximum Leader fell asleep and didn’t see the conclusion of the Home Run Derby… This could be due to consuming one of his takes on the “Cuba Libre” at the beginning of the Derby. (Your Maximum Leader’s take on the “Cuba Libre” is this: 1 part lime juice. 1 part rum. 1/2 part 151 rum. Add lime juice and rums to large Tiki mug and stir. Then add Diet Coke to just below rim of Tiki Mug. Stir again. Add ice. Then drink.

Did your Maximum Leader mention that the shot glass he uses to measure his liquor is not a standard sized one? Nope. It is much bigger. One day he vows to measure the actual capacity of his shotglass. But for now it remains a mystery…

Anyhoo…

Of course, the big baseball news for your Maximum Leader was the firing of Nationals manager Manny Acta. Your Maximum Leader agrees in part with Robbo. Acta is a talented young manager and will have a long and productive baseball career. With the right group of players Manny Acta will soar. Alas, the Washington Nationals are not the right bunch of players for Acta - or pretty much any manager.

The “Natinls” are a crappy team. Your Maximum Leader would “blow up” the team now, before the trade deadline, and try and build something better. The only position players he wouldn’t deal are Ryan Zimmerman, Nyjer Morgan and possibly Adam Dunn. The only pitchers he wouldn’t deal are Lannan and Zimmermann. Everyone else is on the table. Indeed he’d likely get rid of the whole bullpen again and try some call-ups and acquisitions of dudes who play ball that are out there. At this point they could hardly do worse with the bullpen than they are now.

Your Maximum Leader agrees with Thomas Boswell who has written time and time again that the Nationals cannot afford another season (by which we mean the 2010 season) being this atrocious. All but the most hardcore fans are staying away. Hell… Your Maximum Leader is guilty of this himself. He hasn’t been to ONE game yet this season. Last season by July he’d been to at least three games - and possibly 4 or 5. He watches nearly every night on TV. But it is hard to summon up the will to make the drive to town and shuck out the bucks to see a game when you know the outcome. (Your Maximum Leader just realized that he’s been to one Pittsburgh Pirates game this year, but no Nationals games. Sad. Very sad.) If the Nats remain bad they will curse themselves to being a sad footnote in the Washington area consciousness. They could rule the summer if they put a decent product on the field. That is a decent product… Not even contending… Just decent…

Did you chance to see the piece on ESPN Page 2 about the Nationals? The page entitled “Do the Nationals deserve your scorn?” Well… Of course they do right now. The hope is that they will not deserve the scorn next year.

If your Maximum Leader could make a suggestion to the Mayor of Natstown (aka: Stan Kasten) and the Rulers of Nationals Nation (aka: Ted and Mark Lerner). Make Mike Rizzo the GM of the team. That is a start. Take away the interim title and give him the room he needs to start being a leader. After that, start looking for a real manager. We need a strong skipper to give the team a kick in the nuts and get them motivated. (NB: Give everyone a kick in the nuts except Willie Harris. He’s already taken one to the nuts and doesn’t deserve a second. Willie can get a knock on the head.) Then start making deals to address the manifest needs of the team. Your Maximum Leader suggests some work on the bullpen again…

Damn. It is hard to be a Nats fan you know…

Oh yeah… One more thing… You finally got the road uniform right with the cursive script “Washington” on the front. Now ditch those mis-matched fonts and glittery abominations we wear at home (which sometimes read “Natinals”) in favor of the cursive script. We like the curly “W” so lets make it match…

Let’s go Nats!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a deep and abiding respect for those who have an artistic talent. Any type of artistic talent will do. Painting. Sculpting. Singing. Your Maximum Leader has a deep appreciation of the arts, but not much talent for it himself.

Well… Your Maximum Leader would like to share with you the blog of a friend. This friend has had a secret (okay, secret to your Maximum Leader) talent that reveals a great artistic ability as well as a deep font of inspiration. Your Maximum Leader’s friend Dan is illuminating his own Book of Psalms. You can clicky here to see his recent work.

Your Maximum Leader hopes you appreciate and enjoy Dan’s work.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must have been asleep on the throne yesterday to have missed the story about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about Roe v. Wade. He saw a piece on Justice Ginsburg’s interview at No Sheeples Here and started to wonder how he missed the story in the first place.

Here is the NY Times interview in question. The quote is on page 4.

Your Maximum Leader’s take on what Justice Ginsburg said is this: At first she (Ginsburg) thought that part of the reasoning behind Roe was so that the Government could start funding abortions through Medicaid in an effort to keep down growth in “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Later she realized that Roe wasn’t a step for government-funded population control.

Great jeezey chreezey! Did she really believe that the Supreme Court of the United States was, in deciding Roe, opening the door for the Congress and Executive of the United States to begin engaging in a eugenics program aimed at (one assumes) the poor, the undereducated and minorities? Does that seem way beyond the pale to anyone else?

Your Maximum Leader is stupified…

(NB: Why is it that reporters always feel the need to comment on the appearance of prominent women they interview? The Times piece mentions that Justice Ginsburg was “wearing an elegant cream-colored suit, matching pumps and turquoise earrings.” Why did we need to know that? If the subject of the interview was let us say, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (okay… the Times wouldn’t interview her, but let us pretend) would the description of her dress be a little more catty? More along the lines of “the GOP “Breck-girl” wore a couture white silk blouse and black skirt with a string of Mikimoto pearls that cost more than a family under the poverty line earns in a year.” Just wonderin’.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thinks very highly of his friend Skippy. Your Maximum Leader agrees with Skippy 96.8% of the time on political matters. And although your Maximum Leader is a generally buttoned-down type of guy, he has a libertine streak in him and enjoys Skippy’s non-political (read: sex) posts a lot.

Well… Your Maximum Leader was looking over the news wires this morning and saw a photo. The photo shows Presidents Obama and Sarkozy apparently checking out the rather fine posterior portion of a young woman walking past them at the G-8 Summit in Italy. Now… Your Maximum Leader’s stream of consciousness went something like this: Look at Sarko; always checking out a fine shape. Wow.. It looks like Barry is checking out the girl too… Nope… Barry is probably checking where he is stepping as he doesn’t want to pull a Jerry Ford… Do you think Carla will have to “punish” Sarko for being a “bad boy” at the summit? Damn… Silivo Berlusconi should always host these gatherings… You know… I wonder if Skippy has seen this photo?”

Well… Of course Skippy has… You can read his comments on it by clicking this linky…

Skippy, good job…

Carry on.

UPDATED: Carol at No Sheeples Here has a link that shows a second photo in which Barry and Sarko are obviously checking out a fine arse…