Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the MuNuvians are still without their blogs for a little while. As a friend to many MuNuvians your Maximum Leader is a little upset that he doesn’t have their blogs to read today…

But on the other hand, that might mean more people will come to Naked Villainy for bloggy gooness! Woo hoo! (Ahem…)

Actually, if you are a MuNuvian and you have a backup blog your ought to go and leave a trackback at this post up on Basil’s Blog. Your Maximum Leader figures he’ll help get the word out.

Of course, your Maximum Leader would like to blog a lot today; but fate is conspiring against him. He’s got lots of stuff to do today that will keep him away from blogging. But even worse! His computer is having BIOS problems and is getting the blue screen of death and doing physical memory dumps when he logs on. He has never had a BIOS problem before with any computer he’s owned so he is operating a little in the dark here. If you know about BIOS thingies drop your Maximum Leader a line. He’ll reward you greatly. (If it helps the blue screen of death says the error is: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t looked that up yet to gain any insight about it. Again, if you know about these things, let your Maximum Leader know.)

Anyho…

Your Maximum Leader sees that Jeff is back. After a few weeks of reading about Girdles for Gitmo we now have a new update! Huzzah! Who knew Col. Gaddafi had a daughter? Who knew she was a lawyer? Who knew she has long blond tresses?

Go over to Cranky’s site and read over a long serious exchange that Cranky had with Loyal Achates on a subject that can breezily be classified as “Why they hate us.”

Read Skippy’s thoughts on the Iraqi Constitution and the future of Iraq. Your Maximum Leader thinks that Skippy’s concerns are well-founded. He also can see how Skippy arrives at his projections for future trouble in the region. Your Maximum Leader isn’t completely sure that he agrees with Skippy. One thing he will say is that the Iraqi Draft Constitution is rife with problems. He will also say that the Bush Administration is contributing to those problems by pushing the work forward. The situation in Iraq is bad. It is bad but reasonably stable in non-Sunni areas. By rushing the Constitutional process forward the chances of creating an unstable Iraq in all regions (Sunni, Shia, and Kurd) is greatly increased. While your Maximum Leader certainly doesn’t want to spend more time in Iraq than required, he doesn’t think we should rush a process through to completion. The peaceful, sucessful future of Iraq and the region depends on Iraqis “getting it right.” They can’t do so if they rush and don’t start building the foundation needed for discussion, deliberation, and compromise. It will not happen overnight, and it will not happen when you have 3 days to “wrap it up.”

Read about how to catch a 24-Hour Randian Flu.

Did you read The Colossus’ Dr. No Reviews? No. Do so. They are great. Here for Pt 1. Here for Pt 2.

PS - Looks like the LlamaButchers are hanging out over on The Colossus’ site.

That is about it for now. Indeed, that may be all for today unless one of the various Minister’s chooses to post.

Remember, if you know BIOS stuff let your Maximum Leader know!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders aloud… Is it just him or are all the Mu Nu sites down? And if they are down, have they been down for most of the day?

Just asking…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw the following quiz over on the delightful Sondra K’s site. He took the quiz. He scored 10/16. He isn’t sure if he should be proud about that or not.

BTW, the quiz is NSFW. Be warned.

Sex… Or Something Else. From the Modesty Panel.

Carry on.
(more…)

I think that our presence in Iraq does more harm than good and that we should bring our troops home. Are you also going to call me ‘ill-informed and ridiculous,’ Maximum Leader? Are you really going to dismiss my arguments by saying that I’ve ‘offended your senses?’

Let me know before I bother making the argument.

Believe.
(more…)

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that Scarlett Johansson sideswiped a car in the parking lot of Disneyland in an attempt to get away from 4 SUVs full of paparazzi.

Sweet mother! 4 SUVs following her? What the hell? Does the President have 4 SUVs full of Secret Service agents with him when he leaves the White House? Great Jeezey Chreezey people.

Your Maximum Leader feels badly for Scarlett Johansson. He believes her to be a talented actress with a great career in front of her. Indeed, he was disappointed to read the Minister of Propaganda’s one word review of The Island. He had hoped that it would be better. (He still might rent it.)

Indeed, your Maximum Leader is taking a liking to Ms. Johansson. He owns “Lost in Translation” and loves it. He has also seen “In Good Company” - which he didn’t really care for. But he enjoyed watching Scarlett. He might rent “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. It looks like a chick flick. Mrs. Villain will enjoy it - and your Maximum Leader can just watch Scarlett if it fails to keep his interest.

If Scarlett Johansson wants to “get away” from the paparazzi for a while, she is welcome at the Villainschloss. Your Maximum Leader will keep those nasty photographers away…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like so many of you this morning, are likely hearing about the comments made by Pat Robertson yesterday. You heard the ones. The whole “if-Hugo-Chavez-thinks-the-US-is-out-to-kill-him-we-ought-to-just-make-it-happen” comment.

Your Maximum Leader heard about this and a few thoughts went through his head. The first was the typical, “Oh great. There he goes again saying something stupid.” But following very closely on the heels of that thought was the, “Why the hell does anyone care?” Really now. Pat Robertson has a TV program. Okay. Oh yeah, he ran for President in 1988 - twenty years ago. How exactly does that make him any different than the dozens of other talking-heads who have TV (or radio) shows and spout off idiocy every day?

Oh. Your Maximum Leader forgot. Pat Robertson is the voice of the religious right in America. Because you know if Pat Robertson says something the mindless masses of Christian Conservatives in America (all of whom, by the way, watch or Tivo the 700 Club every single day) all run out and immediately do whatever he commands.

Look Pat Robertson in many respects is no different than Cindy Sheehan. Only no one (outside of some commentators and bloggers) seems to be offended or shocked at anything “Mother Sheehan” says. Your Maximum Leader for one thinks that her demands to bring the boys back home (as well as her claims that the US military is doing more harm than good in the Middle East among other inane comments she’s made) are just as offensive to his senses as anything Robertson says. They are just as offensive because they are just ill-informed and ridiculous.

Excursus: Why the hell are all the news wires now buying into the “Mother Sheehan” thing? It seems like many news agencies are putting some reference to “Mother Sheehan” in all their dispatches. Why can’t they do the same for Pat Robertson? Why can’t they refer to him as “Shepard Robertson” or “Metatron Robertson?” But your Maximum Leader digresses…

Robertson as a right to say what he will. Regardless of how stupid or inflamatory it might be. The fact that he owns a TV station does help his ability to transmit that message. Cindy Sheehan, for example, has the right to say what she will. And although she doesn’t own a TV station, she seems to have no trouble getting the word out. Then there is the case of Michael Graham.

Michael Graham was, until recently, a talk show host on a DC area radio station. He said that Islam had become a terrorist organziation. For those comments he was fired by the owners of the radio station. It was his right to say what he did. And frankly it was the right of station management to terminate him for his comments. (Although one suspects he can file a wrongful termination suit which may or may not go anywhere.)

You ought to go and read James Joyner’s great post in which he covers lots both the Graham story and the Robertson story in one stroke. Like Joyner your Maximum Leader wonders when we will hear the outrage over Graham’s firing.

What amuses and saddens your Maximum Leader about all of these cases is the hysteria with which the Robertson or Graham stories are being reported. Compare this to the coverage of Cindy Sheehan - which is tolerant and sometimes sympathetic. All three of these characters are speaking in a fashion that could be described as inflamatory or offensive. Objectively one would think that all three would be covered in the same fashion. But that is not the case. One would hope that one day we might see some more objective reporting, or at least a little less breathless surprise when someone like Pa Robertson says something wacky.

Carry on.

Get your position here

I don’t care about being President, but I would like to be ranked higher than our Maximum Leader (thanks, Phin, for the link — I voted to move you up).

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is having a Conan the Barbarian moment.

No. Not the one where he runs around in a loincloth with a sword hacking snake-worshipping thugs to pieces in between marathon sessions of drinking, cavorting, and nailing the blond girl…

The one where the “Woe Masters” ask Conan what is good in life. He responds, “To krush yo enemies, to zee dem driven before yo, and to hear de lamentations of de womens.” To which the gathered warriors respond, “Yes. That is good.”

Excursus: That quotation is a variation on one attributed to Genghis Khan. Genghis purportedly said, “What is good in life is to crush your enemies and drive them before you; and to hear the lamentations of their wives and daughters.” That line might have been in the Conan script originally, but Ah-nuld hadn’t mastered enough English to handle it. Although he did get lamentations down pretty well… Your Maximum Leader digresses…

If just a moment ago you would have walked up to your Maximum Leader and asked what is good in life he would have said cruising down the road in the Villainmobile. The sun shining. The weather great. The windows down and listening to the Derek and the Dominos album.

It was glorious. Perhaps he will go out and experience that some more.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is a little achy this morning. Lots of work around the Villainschloss over the weekend. The largest project, by far, was the installation of a new below-grade drainage system for taking water away from the building. 200 feet of trenches were dug. They were measured to assure proper depth and slope. Plastic tubing was installed and attached to downspouts. It was something of an ordeal.

The ordeal reminded your Maximum Leader that he needs to excercise more. He should go and spend some time down on the Smallholder’s farm doing hard labour from time to time. Because the digging and pushing and pulling and such wore him out.

Anyho… In other news…

Did you read the Hatemongers today? It made your Maximum Leader laugh. Specifically the line “Buckwheat of American higher education.” elicited an audible laugh.

You know… Preston asks a hard question. Your Maximum Leader wishes he could take the Kissinger approach. (After Henry Kissinger who said of the Iran/Iraq war, “It’s a pitty they both can’t lose.”) But if he had to choose one, he would actually go with Fox’s Halloway coverage. The poor girl is dead. It is unlikely that we will ever find out how or why it happened. That is tragic. But sometimes these things happen. One could make a case that focusing on Sheehan at least gets a serious topic (the Iraq War for those of you who have “zoned out”) into regular discussion.

Hey… Do the V-man a favour. Vote according to his wishes for some bridge project. Your Maximum Leader has. (A few times in fact.) Alas, your Maximum Leader isn’t sure how much the poll will count. When they (whoever “they” are) were investigating options for replacing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in the DC area your Maximum Leader voted for the mega-expensive-but-better-for-the-view option of an 8 lane tunnel under the river. It would have left the river open for navigation and would have dramatically improved the view from Alexandria, Virginia. A tunnel was the first choice of most people. But as the tunnel cost some un-thinkable amount of money (the figure could have been tens of billions of dollars for all he knew) they went with a bridge…

As your Maximum Leader asked you to remember Bosworth field Lemuel asks that you remember the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslavkia. You should. As well you should be thankful that the Soviet Empire doesn’t exist and Eastern Europe is free to live according to their own custom, tradition, and will. (Except for all that EU crap they seem to want to join.)

Your Maximum Leader rented “Alexander” over the weekend. Damn it sucked. He knew that going in. But he didn’t anticipate the suckiness to the extent he got it.

An interesting aside… The last two movies your Maximum Leader has rented were “Alexander” and “The Passion of the Christ.” He had a weird thought due to these films last night while attempting to fall asleep. Suppose one was a Hindu and believed in reincarnation? Further, as a Hindu you might believe that one of the purposes of reincarnation was to allow yourself multiple lifetimes during which you could learn lessons needed to be learned to eventually extinguish your existance. That said… Could Jesus of Nazareth have been Alexander the Great reincarnated to learn about peace and love since he had already learned about war and conquest? Hummm… That could be the scotch thinking there…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must note the date. Today is August 22. And on this date in 1485 the Battle of Bosworth Field was fought. At the battle, King Richard III was defeated and killed by the forces of Henry Tudor - who became Henry VII.

Your Maximum Leader, out of habit, will republish the famous New York Times obituary for King Richard:

“PLANTAGENET — Richard, great king and true friend of the rights of man, died at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Murdered by traitors and, dead, maligned by knaves and ignored by Laodiceans, he merits our devoted remembrance.”

For those of you interested in learning more about Richard you might try the following links: Battle of Bosworth from the Richard III foundation, The Richard III Society of the UK, another Bosworth site from the US Richard III Society and finally a brief Britannica article on Richard.

Carry on.

Welcome to one-word movie reviews! With the blessing of our Maximum Leader, I’m going to make this a semi-regular feature here at Naked Villainy (nobody seems to mind when Smallholder, aka the Minister of Agriculture, rambles on about cow insemination). These are the opinions of your Minister of Propaganda only; they are not meant to represent the opinions of the Hollywood Elite at large.

For benchmarking purposes:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: genius
Forrest Gump: trite
Big Trouble in Little China: awesome!!!!

Set? Good. Movies I’ve recently viewed, first in theaters:

Four Brothers: decent
Bad News Bears: ugh
The Island: wasteful
Wedding Crashers: inspiring

And via netflix:

Bang Rajan: confusing
The Ninth Configuration: dated
In the Mood For Love: beautiful
The Jacket: dull
Elf: headachy
The City of No Limits: intriguing

Screen the good and avoid the bad. If you can’t trust your Minister of Propaganda to select your entertainment options, who can you trust?

Believe.

Via Sadie, of course:

You’re Mr. White!

Which Reservoir Dog Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I’m comfortable with that.

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was surfing eBay tonight and found some real art available.

Jesus and Elvis. Or as they are refered to at the Villainschloss “The two Kings.”

Please note how the halo appears to be favouring the King of Rock and Roll… Or as he is listed on the right-side sidebar, Saint Elvis.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees so many items on which he wants to opine. He tries to make note of them and follow-up as possible. Alas, it is not always possible to do so.

Just the other day he saw a piece on the news wire that described how some scientists want to transplant wild African animals onto the prarie of the US. Indeed you may have read on Phoenix’s blog that she declares this to be the stupidest idea ever. Far be it for your Maximum Leader to disagree with pregant woman, but this is not the stupidest idea EVER. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t been around as long as some; but in his time he’s heard of some pretty damned stupid ideas.

He will concede however that the idea of transplanting wild animals from the savanah of Africa to the great plains of the US does rank among the most stupid ideas he’s heard recently. Especially when you consider what tigers accostumed to humans do from time to time.

Of course why stop at African animals. Your Maximum Leader is sure that some Indians he saw on TV would love us to take their tigers from them.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions Your Maximum Leader noticed an interesting piece on the new wires. The title of the piece is: Stress Equal for Female Soliders. The piece is all together too short on specifics, but it is good news to hear that men and women serving in the military seem to suffer at statistically equal rates from “mental disorders” after serving in Iraq. (To the extent that any such news is good. Your Maximum Leader would hope that no solider would suffer from any mental disorder after a deployment, but that hope is not founded in reality.)

The only “mental disorder” listed specifically is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other disorders like “depression” are mentioned as well. On the whole there is not much substance to the article. Well, not nearly enough for your Maximum Leader.

But that bit isn’t the full reason why your Maximum Leader wanted to opine on the subject. There are two portions of the piece that struck your Maximum Leader as out of place - yet worthy of comment - in a news piece dedicated (supposedly) to the results of mental screening on servicemen and women.

They come at the end of the article when suddenly the discussion changes to women in combat. There is a quote from Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America. She says: “But the best-trained women still can’t keep up with the best-trained men physically. If we’re putting men in harm’s way, we owe them battle colleagues who are just as strong as they are.” In the next paragraph Kim Gandy of NOW is quoted as saying: “There is no job that women should be excluded from because of their gender. If you can do the job, you should have an opportunity to get the job. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be there, male or female.”

Humm… This in an interesting subject, women in combat. He is sure it is one on which we’ve opined before, but is too lazy to look up the citation… Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has always had mixed feelings about women in combat. But his feelings have been based more on his desire to avoid women POWs and concerns about “chivalry” (aka: men disregarding a tactical objective in order to protect a woman they were fighting alongside) than a woman’s ability to fight in a combat role. But the salient point to this discussion is the physcial requirments for combat service.

He got to thinking about these two quotations and he found himself agreeing, at least in part, with both of them. On the balance, a young man (17-21) will be stronger than a young woman (17-21) and therefore one surmises might make a better infantryman. But then again, if the basic physical requirements for serving as an infantryman were met by a woman what justification other than her sex could one make for excluding her from that billet?

Your Maximum Leader did some poking around and the only basic physical training requirements he could find were for the US Navy. They break down the various physical tasks by age and sex. You can see them here.

Now, he understands how we came to have two sets of physical requirements - one for men and one for women. But if the US Army started to allow women to fight in frontline groups would the current physical standards for men be raised or lowered? It wouldn’t make sense to continue to have two sets of physical standards for the same job. If a infantryman has to be able to run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes why would you allow an infantrywoman to be able to run the same distance in a longer time?

Your Maximum Leader supposes that if the military could establish a baseline physical requirement based on a specific specialty regardless of sex. That woul eliminate one barrier to women serving in combat roles. Of course other barriers would remain. They would be the arguments of pregnancy in frontline units (which could be remedied by required use of birth control), and group morale problems (including chivalry mentioned above as well as other problems like sexual harrassment and such). Frankly there are probably many more that your Maximum Leader can’t even think of right now.

But your Maximum Leader does believe that physical requirements for various specialties in the military should not be normed by sex. There should be one set of physical requirements for every specialty and all soliders (regardless of sex) should have to meet them.

Carry on.