Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noticed an interesting heading on the news wire today. It is: Mormon Church Disciplines Author for Book.

The meat of the piece is this: a Mormon former seminary teacher has published a book in which he looks critically at the early history of the Mormon church. In his book he suggests that Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon by the gifts and power of God; but rather wrote them himself based on his own experience and knowledge of the King James Bible.

The former seminarian, Grant Palmer, has been “disfellowshipped” from his church. This seems to be a type of suspension. Just short of excommunication.

Palmer wants to remain a member of his church because the still believes in the essential beliefs and teachings of the Latter Day Saints.

Here is the interesting point for your Maximum Leader. If you accept the basic teachings and beliefs of a particular religious tradition, but might quibble with how those teachings and beliefs came to be; how faithful are you being to your church? It is an interesting mental excercise.

Take for example a person who might believe that while Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who lived and breathed on this earth. During Jesus’ time on earth he was a rabbi and taught an important (and perhaps even Divinely inspired) message. Then he was crucified and died. End of story. If one accepts the teachings of Jesus, without accepting that Jesus was God or the literal Son of God; does that still make you a Christian? Does it make you an Episcopalian or Methodist or Presbyterian?

Is thisan instance of the message being missed because the messenger is unacceptable?

And let your Maximum Leader throw one thing out there for you all to contemplate. In your Maximum Leader’s mind, churches are associations who can regulate the terms and conditions of membership as they want. Your Maximum Leader has absolutely no issue with any church/established religious organization kicking someone out for whatever cause it sees fit. If in the case of Mr. Palmer, the Church of Latter Day Saints wanted to excommunicate him for saying what the hierarchy of the Church finds unsayable; that is fine with your Maximum Leader. Your Maximum Leader supposes the question is more how how do we define ourselves in terms of religious affiliation? Is the faith in our heart more important than the faith we practice with a group? Is it possible for someone to “know” facts that point to a historical truth yet still choose to believe in their hearts a revealed or religious truth at odds with the view of historical fact?

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader missed the initial kerfuffle concerning Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld’s comments about “going to war with the army you have.” But they are worthy enough to deserve some commentary from your Maximum Leader.

First off, your Maximum Leader was a little put out in the knowledge that the question was planted by a reporter. But, after thinking about it for a little bit, the reporter planting the question didn’t detract from the necessity of answering the question. In the end, bringing up this whole aspect of the story struck your Maximum Leader as an attempted diversion.

Next off, isn’t it a great thing to see an enlisted man asking a difficult, pointed, and uncomfortable question of the Secretary of Defence? That man asked the question and put his superiors on the spot. He did so knowing that he wasn’t going to be dragged out and shot. He wasn’t going to be retailiated against. He was a citizen-solider who wanted to know about what resources were being given to him to fight a war the Secretary and President wanted. It was a sight that made me proud to be American.

As for Rumsfeld’s comments itself. They weren’t very thoughtful. He should have waited a moment longer and composed a better answer. But there are two important undercurrents to what he said that are important to note.

The first undercurrent is the easier one to comment upon. As so many others have noted, this was a war that the US started. We had the opportunity to delay. We could have tried to get the “army we wanted” before going to war.

This is where most people stop their interpetation. We could have waited and crafted an army that would be better suited to the war we found ourselves in. But your Maximum Leader asks you to think about that for a moment. How do you get that army?

You get it through a political process. And in many ways, the army we have is the army that Congress gives us. While your Maximum Leader will not spend a lot of time here discussing the military procurment process and how “pet” weapons systems aren’t killed when their usefulness is ended. Neither will he spend lots of time saying that the US hasn’t recovered from the massive cuts of the 90s. Let it suffice to say that our political procurement process is not suited to building ANY single type of army. We will always have an army by committee. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have a problem with that. So long as the army can betweaked along the way as needed.

Which leads to the revelations that the armour manufacturers reported that they could have increased their outputs if they were asked. They just weren’t asked. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t read enough about this. The articles on this topic don’t seem to address the questions your Maximum Leader wants answered. Those questions are: 1)who made the call not to ask for increased production? And 2) what was the rationale behind the decision?

Follow on questions to the first point are: Was it some procurement person who didn’t want to have the army slapped with contract related fees? Was it some desk commander who determined that he knew what the men in the field needed better than the men themselves? Was it a field commander who had to make a choice between armoured humvees or something else?

Follow-on questions to the second point are: How did was the rationale communicated down the line? Was the rationale communicated?

You see these are complicated questions. And they deserve sensible answers.

But there is one more point that your Maximum Leader would like to make on this item. Rumsfeld’s comments were callous and also can be interpreted to mean that he knew that this was an issue that wasn’t being addressed. If Rumsfeld and his commanders knew that armoured Humvees were a concern (and who really didn’t know); and they also knew that production could be increased; and they chose not to increase that production. Then Rumsfeld should resign. He failed in his responsibility to advocate for the troops on the ground.

Of course, when you consider the prison scandal, and this supply issue together; it seems to become more clear that Rumsfeld ought to go. There are plenty of others who could be effective in the Secretary of Defence role.

Carry on.

UPDATE: While it is not surprising to see in print, it still reflects your Maximum Leader’s position too… Senator John McCain expresses “no confidence” in Rumsfeld.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what to think of this post by the sexy and mirthful Sadie.

Should he be pleased that he made her uterus twinge? Afraid? Disappointed?

Ponder that.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been trying to go over all the blogs he likes and catch up on his reading. With the exception of his own site, this is proving to be a little harder than he suspected.

One post that seemed to scream out for commentary wasone entitled The Gift of Reading on the Outer Life site.

Your Maximum Leader found himself going through a whole range of different thoughts reading this post. On the one hand, your Maximum Leader sees all of the shortcomings of giving a book as a gift that Outer Life notes.

But on the other hand, if you really know someone very well the gift of a book can be very intimate and personal. Your Maximum Leader wouldn’t consider giving books as a gift to anyone he didn’t know very well. But he tries to be thoughtful in his book-giving.

You should just go and read Outer Life and see how it corresponds to your thoughts on gift giving…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader presents the wee Villain’s first blog entry ever. Here it comes:

qukjyuhh hhj . fghjol;uiio

This blog was written by the Maximum Leader’s son, aged 5 months. He touched some keys and declared himself done.

And with that one line of gibberish, he wrote more during over the past week than did the Minister of Agriculture, The Foreign Minister, and Minister of Propaganda combined.

Many thanks to the Poet Laureate for the graphic repost. But it only counts a half a post in the grand scheme…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has returned to the Villainschloss.

(And there was much rejoicing.)

But let your Maximum Leader say this… What the hell happened? Gone for a few days and what do the other ministers choose to do? Sit on their fat arses and eat bon-bons and drink champagne (okay, perhaps nachos and beer).

What did they post in your Maximum Leader’s absence?

Nothing.

They didn’t even succumb to the “when the cat is away…” syndrome. They just posted nothing.

One minister was in line to get himself named panjandrum. But since he couldn’t manage even one meagre post… It should be obvious why your Maximum Leader is, in fact, Maximum Leader.

There will be more over the weekend…

Carry on.

I posted this over at my blog, but decided it’d be a nice followup to the Maximum Leader’s gun control post.

_

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is taking a little break from nefarious planning to read over some of his favourite blogs.

Well, if you want yourself a great laugh at the expense of a stupid armed robber. By all means go right away to see: The Lost Nomad: Gun Control

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must inform you that the dearth of posting you’ve experienced today will continue throughout this week. Your Maximum Leader has lots of nefarious plans coming together this week, and all these things will take time from blogging. He hopes to get some quality blogging done later tonight and tomorrow night. (Although if Sadie contacts your Maximum Leader with interview questions, those will take priority over original blogging.)

He will be away from the Villainschloss; and indeed away from civilization (read: internet) from Wednesday to Friday of this week. In fac, Wednesday to Friday your Maximum Leader will be in a place with no internet, no phones, no TV, and no room service. He is assured that where he will be going there is electricity and indoor plumbing. (Although he can live without those too if it comes down to it.)

So, catch as catch can from your Maximum Leader this week. He hopes that his loyal ministers will pick up the slack.

Carry on.

Well, MaxLeader, you should tell your daughter she did a great job on the photoshop. Not many grade school kids could do a job like that. Give her a pat on her head. And it’s so obvious that an adult didn’t help her!

Now go away, or I shall taunt you for a second time.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reviewing the Llamabutcher site and noticed that they laid down a challenge to which he will belatedly respond.

The caption reads: “Wonkette distracts the Llama while her evil assistant prepares to surprise him and produce the famous “orgle” noise.”

Now your Maximum Leader asks you… DOES he have what it takes?

Carry on.

Golly Gee, what a shocker there, eh. Does he expect us to belief that one of the most prominent athletes of his era is blissfully ignorant of chemicals he’s putting into his body? uh huh. He said he didn’t know what he was taking while under oath, right? I wonder if Barry knows what perjury is. Here’s a picture of Barry. Ya think he’s juiced?

As if ML’s ego needed any more stroking, now he’s being interviewed? We’ll I’ll be sure to forward Sadie as many embarassing questions as I can.

A bit of research turned up a site called the Napoleonic Guide, wherein we find this little ditty about the death of Josephine’s dog, Fortune:

Barely has the electronic ink dried on our request for information on Napoleon’s dog and Mike has come up with a possible answer to the Master’s Degree question that Chuck has been [pondering].

“I wonder if the examiners really meant Josephines dog, which was a pug (if memory serves) called Fortune.

“Napoleon hated the animal (a feeling which was mutual) and was therefore quite pleased when his chef’s big dog at Malmaison killed the unfortunate beast in a fight.

“Hope this is useful.”

Well, Mike, you have certainly saved us from having to dig through the old books again and we’ll get a message off to Chuck.

Thanks for the help.

- Richard Moore.

I assume from this that there’s more than one take on what fate Fortune/Fortunato suffered.

_

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has missed two weeks worth of Friday Villainy peices. So he hopes to make up for it today. As the Llamas reminded your Maximum Leader that this week marked the 200th anniversary of Napoleon crowing himself Emperor; your Maximum Leader thought it was altogether fitting that the little Corsican Corporal be the subject of this Friday Villainy.

It is often said that you can get the measure of a man by learning about how he interacts personally with others in private situations. One suspects that a man’s interactions with animals would also shed some light on what type of man someone is.

This brings your Maximum Leader to the story of Napoleon, Josephine, and Fortunato (or sometimes just Fortune). Who was Fortunato you ask?

Ah minions… That is the story.

Around the time that a young general named Napoleon Bonaparte was wooing a young Josephine Beauharnais, the aforementioned Madame Beauharnais* had a little pet mongrel dog named Fortunato.

Every day Josephine would write a little bit in her journal about what Fortunato did that day. They went something like “Fortunato and I took a walk in the Tuilleries.” Or, “Fortunato chased the cats around the garden.” Or, “Fortunato peed are the carpet in the foyer.” Every day Fortunato would get some mention in Joesphine’s diary.

Until the Josephine’s wedding night. That would be the night of her wedding to Napoleon Bonaparte. After the night of Joesphine and Napoleon’s wedding, Fortunato is never mentioned again.

An industrious Napoleon scholar was reviewing Josephine’s diaries and noticed this unusual disappearance. No mention of why Fortunato suddenly disappeared from Josephine’s diary - and presumably her life.

Upon doing further research, the scholar discovered that Fortunato didn’t care much for Napoleon. He yipped, snapped at, and was otherwise aggressive towards the soon to be Emperor of the French.

As it turns out, after all of the wedding celebrations Napoleon went up to Josephine’s bedchamber to “consumate” the marriage. Perhaps unbeknownst to Napoleon, Fortunato was also in the bedchamber. Fortunato it seemed regularly slept with Josephine.

Now if any of you minions have a dog that sleeps in bed with you, you know that dogs don’t appreciate being cast out by some other person. Fortunato was no different than any other dog in this respect.

As the Corsican approached his wife with amour on his mind, Fortunato sensed trouble. The dog leapt up from out of the covers and bit Napoleon Bonaparte on the arse.

Bonaparte, who didn’t like the dog as much as the dog didn’t like him, was injured and enraged. The general and soon-to-be-Emperor ran out of the room and returned with a bayonet or sword from another room and ran through Fortunato. Poor, dead Fortunato was then thrown out the window and became the late-night feast for the large hounds kept for gaurding the house.

And such was the end of poor Fortunato.

Your Maximum Leader will allow you to decide what you think of Napoleon after reading this. In the course of writing this peice your Maximum Leader tried to find some resource on the web that could be linked to. He didn’t find too much. He did find an interesting time-line on this site that mentions the incident. (Although it doesn’t mention Fortunato’s death; and places the bite on Napoleon’s calf.)

Carry on.

*- Josephine was Madame Beauharnais because she had previously been married to Alexandre de Beauharnais - who was guillotined during The Terror.