Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is pleased to report that it appears as though the various renovations to the Villainschloss are completed. It is now just a question of moving some stuff around and getting everything back to normal. The renovations have caused the summer to be a bit tense among the whole family. So we are looking forward to a quiet long weekend to get our wa back.

Your Maximum Leader has, for the past few weeks, been storing up items upon which he wanted to comment at length. Alas, he couldn’t find time to do so. Rather than just discarding these items he’s decided to just dump some ideas in one post.

First up… Have any of you been following the abomination that has become the America’s Cup? Your Maximum Leader had some links that he’d planned on sharing. Alas, many of them are no longer functioning as the pieces have moved or changed or expired. To hit the high points… Basically the America’s Cup will be held in the Persian Gulf. The yachts will be trimarans. TRIMARANS! They will also allow motorized winches to be used on board. WTF? Really now… WTF? Your Maximum Leader thought that the requirements for the boats were determined a long time ago - and called for monhulled boats. Your Maximum Leader has only been marginally interested in the America’s Cup at best… And now all these changes have just set him off. It is crap.

Did you happen to notice this bit on the Washington Post concerning the possible discovery of a portrait of William Shakespeare done during the Bard’s lifetime? Fascinating stuff. Your Maximum Leader has seen the “forgery” portrait at the Folger Shakespeare Library and knew about it’s history. That said, these new researches and attempts to establish that the portrait actually shows Shakespeare are pretty interesting. Your Maximum Leader imagines that there is a National Geographic special in this story… Your Maximum Leader’s favorite passage from the article:

The hunt for a likeness of the bard in his heyday has turned up various candidates over the centuries, almost all of them illegitimate. Up to now, the painting with the most credible claim as a life image is the Chandos portrait, the star of London’s National Portrait Gallery. It shows a dusky, writerly-seeming man with receding hair and an earring. But its provenance is unclear. The search is complicated by the fact that a 1770s mania for Shakespeare souvenirs resulted in a spate of good forgeries. The Janssen portrait held by the Folger was thought to be one of those. The “Searching for Shakespeare” exhibit was therefore really a show about likely and, mostly, unlikely contenders. Cobbe and Laing wandered through the viewing, looking at bogus bards, until they arrived at a far wall, on which the Janssen portrait hung, on loan from the Folger. The oil-on-wood is legitimately dated to 1610, but it was discredited in 1937 when new X-ray technology showed the brow had been over-painted to make the sitter bald. It fell from grace under the supposition that it was altered to look more like the Droeshout. In 1988, the Folger restored the original hairline and exhibited it as an interesting mistake.

The Janssen showed a close-bearded man in a scallop-edged lace collar — in almost every detail, a replica of the unnamed courtier on the Cobbe family’s wall. The one who was not Sir Walter Raleigh.

After a moment, Laing said, “Don’t you have one of those?”

“Yes,” Cobbe said, nonplussed. “Rather a better one, actually.”

Your Maximum Leader will have to get to the Folger and see what he can. Of course it would be better to travel to Stratford upon Avon and see the whole exhibit…

Did you see the piece on Yahoo news about more people making their own bacon? Nope? Your Maximum Leader saw it. You can clicky here to get it yourself. The money quote:

“There is nothing bacon does not improve. Bacon is the new black,” says [San Francisco Chef Ryan] Farr, whose charcuterie company produces 4505 Chicharrones, the pork snacks favored by several San Francisco bars and restaurants. “I have five vegan friends who close their eyes when they eat them and pretend they are potato chips,” Farr says. “Bacon is the gateway meat.”

Bacon is a gateway meat… Wonderful! From experience your Maximum Leader can assure you that it leads to ham. If the Lord hadn’t wanted us to eat pork he wouldn’t have made the pig so darned tasty and easy to domesticate…

Your Maximum Leader is growing more and more tired of the “health care debate.” He should put extra emphasis on the quotes around the word “debate.” As your Maximum Leader mused earlier, there is no debate. There is only shouting. There is no meaningful discussion. Normally at this point the ossified battle lines either decide to actually battle or just decided to forget to fight. Your Maximum Leader hopes that the battle will not be joined at all in Congress and the bills will just die off until some other time. Republicans could show some real leadership in promoting a market based solutions along with legal reforms. Tort reform for malpractice and allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines would be a nice start. Also, one might as well consider the plan that your Maximum Leader blogged about in June of 2004.

Those are the big items on your Maximum Leader’s mind right now. Alas, there were some other bits he thought might make interesting posts, but they were too topical and their time is past…

More later.

Carry on.