Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was very tenative yesterday. He thought the race would be close. He hoped that Brown would eke out a victory, but thought that Coakley and the Democrats could save the race due to sheer numbers and organization.

Gladly your Maximum Leader was very wrong last night.

Scott Brown won an astounding victory. He won convincingly in a state where many didn’t think a convincing win was possible. Brown is an articulate and charismatic guy. His victory speech last night was great.

Your Maximum Leader hopes Brown is seated in the Senate quickly. He was glad to hear that one of his own Senators (Jim Webb, D-VA) has gone on the record and said that major votes (presumably on health care) should be shelved until Brown is seated. Good for you Jim. That is sense talking.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t going to go all gushy over Brown. We have yet to see how he will actually govern. Your Maximum Leader is encouraged that he seems to be saying all the right things on spending, defence and health care. Your Maximum Leader is all for more fiscally responsible members of Congress. One hopes that Brown will remain as fiscally responsible as he has promised.

Your Maximum Leader will say that if Brown is as charismatic as he seems to be and can stay on track with his campaign promises that boy will go far.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is going to have to buy a another computer or something. It is getting ridiculous at the Villainschloss. Mrs Villain is using her laptop most nights for school. The Villainettes are using your Maximum Leader’s computer for school. So your Maximum Leader who has pithiness to share with you all, is found watching TV and not sharing his pearls of pithiness.

Ah well…

Your Maximum Leader hopes Scott Brown can pull out a win in the Massachusetts Senate special election today. He doesn’t feel quite as confident as many of his political fellow-travellers. But he does feel it will be a very close outcome. Your Maximum Leader has always said that he is a great fan of divided government. And he is. Getting Scott Brown in the Senate will truly divide our government in a way it has not been divided over the past year. And yes, our government has been divided over the past year. It has been divided between the House and the Senate with the President standing by trying to “influence” things. That is not enough division for your Maximum Leader. He’d like to have a Senate with enough Republicans to sustain a fillibuster.

You know… All this talk of how the President has done over his first year seems to be the first stages of setting up for the rash of stories on how the administration hasn’t done much and is likely looking more likely to fail over the long-term. Your Maximum Leader is well aware that there are three years more in the term and that things can change very dramatically and very quickly. So, while your Maximum Leader is willing to say that so far the President and his team hasn’t done anything noteworthy yet (and adding Scott Brown to the Senate soon would not help him at all); he isn’t willing to declare the Obama Presidency over and failed. That is just stupid.

Your Maximum Leader, while not blogging last night, watched the speech by his Excellency Robert Francis McDonnell, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia to the Joint Session of the Virginia General Assembly. It was a good speech. The person operating the teleprompter should be flogged as there were at least three short delivery issues that your Maximum Leader things were all teleprompter related. All in all your Maximum Leader was pleased with the speech and the initiatives laid out therein. (Your Maximum Leader especially hopes that Virginia can lead East Coast states in expanding domestic energy production. He hopes we can auction exploration rights for oil drilling soon. He also hopes we can do more with coal gassification and nuclear power in the state. He’d like to see Virginia be the great energy exporter on the East Coast of the US.) Your Maximum Leader knows that there will be lots of compromises and changes to what the Governor wants. He does have a friendly House of Delegates, but the Democrats have a majority in the State Senate. There will be lots of compromising and wheeling-and-dealing. We’ll see how the 60 day session goes. Your Maximum Leader spoke briefly with the Smallholder last night. Smallholder was pretty critical of the Governor’s plans on changing the teacher pension system in the state. Your Maximum Leader is not unsympathetic towards Smallholder’s position, especially as it will impact Mrs Villain. But, at this stage changes to the pension system are all proposed and there is a lot of negotiating to be done. We’ll see how it goes.

Your Maximum Leader and Smallholder also mentioned Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ms Hewitt has been in the news recently because apparently she has been decorating her “hoo-ha.” Apparently she “be-dazzels” her “va-jay-jay.” Your Maximum Leader is a bit scandalized by this. On the one hand it seems like the dreamy JLH could be a bit more kinky than he suspected. On the other hand she might just be bat-shit crazy. She is likely a bit of both.

Your Maximum Leader should probably start looking around for a new platonic object of his affections. Kristen Bell? Mila Kunis? Who knows…

Be-dazzeled bits… Ewwww…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader lives. He was cut as planned on Wednesday. His doctor did remove a small piece of your Maximum Leader. Biopsy results will likely be a few more days. He is not worried. His side is feeling much better today than it did yesterday. Indeed, yesterday he was a little uncomfortable. He was also cranky yesterday. Funny. Those two might be related. Anyhoo… With each passing day he feels a little better. So that is good.

Your Maximum Leader feels sorry for the people of Haiti. They certainly don’t need nature piling on all of the problems they already have. But pile on nature did. He hopes the aid will help. If it is not too uncharitable to say, he fears that Haiti’s problems are so deep that no amount of aid will really help over the very long term. Aid given now can help end immediate suffering, but that country needs education, infrastructure and political change to make lasting change.

You should donate to help Haiti. It is the right thing to do, regardless of your Maximum Leader’s previous comments.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a few pithy thoughts he wanted to commit to blog yesterday, but his other computer is still not quite right. Apparently he has a variant of the virtumonde virus in the pc. It makes him want to go to Mac… He hopes to clear that up today…

He might not have a chance to post much today - and possibly tomorrow. He is going in for a minor (out-patient) procedure today to have a couple of (potentially) pre-cancerous growths removed. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but he’ll likely try and milk the cutting for all its worth and get some quality pamper time tonight from the family…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t in the habit of reading “tell-all” books about recently ended political campaigns. He feels that he gets all the good stuff from commentary on various news channels and in various blogs. He doesn’t feel the need to slog though all of the minutae in the whole book to get the point and/or juicy bits. Indeed, your Maximum Leader will not even consider buying/reading a tell-all unless it is positively endorsed by one of a handful of people. (Some of these people are those he knows personally, and some only virtually. And he should say that there is a small crossover of people he first knew virtually and now has met personally… Anyhooo…)

He might actually consider picking up this book from which the recent Harry Reid stuff was excerpted. He will wait for the needed endorsement, but he’ll think about it now…

So the President doesn’t speak with a “negro dialect.” What a joy to learn. Thanks Harry. We all needed to know that.

Frankly, your Maximum Leader thinks that Harry should step aside for Dick Durban as leader of the Senate. He said as much to some gentlemen with whom he had lunch today. They thought it was just your Maximum Leader wanting to be “fair” in as much as this would be a chance to “revenge” what was done to Trent Lott back when…

To be honest, your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that either man should have lost his leadership position over a stupid comment that may (or may not) have given insight into the man’s mind. He does think that he is fed up with the Senate leadership and would be happy for a change. Admittedly Dick Durban is a complete arse of a man and likely a bleeding idiot. But at this point he isn’t Harry Reid and that is enough. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t really care about the whole perception of “fairness” that many are bringing up. Politics aren’t fair. The attempt to make politics and political outcomes “fair” is the root of so much of what ails us socially.

Of course, it would make your Maximum Leader’s day to see Harry Reid actually driven from the Senate entirely. But that isn’t going to happen…

You know something. Off the top of his head your Maximum Leader can likely name more US Senators than the average bear. And right now he can’t think of one that deserves the job he/she has. Not one. Your Maximum Leader has had a soft spot for (Democrat) Mark Warner of Virginia for a while. Your Maximum Leader liked Mark Warner the few times he’s met him. He didn’t think that Warner did a bad job as Governor of Virginia. Indeed, Warner did a pretty good job as Governor all things considered. Sadly, Warner seems to be becoming just another Democrat among 60 in the Senate. At this point your Maximum Leader would be hard-pressed to vote for Warner again for the Senate (it would really depend on the competition he supposes).

But getting back to that book… What is it called “Game Change?” Your Maximum Leader would like to know the scuttlebutt on Bill Clinton. That man. Great jeezey chreezey. He gives hours of salacious pleasure doesn’t he? Your Maximum Leader would actually like to know just how much “thanks” he’s received from “grateful admirers” since leaving office. Hundreds? Thousands? It is a big number no matter how you look at it…

Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader might read that book…

Or better yet, borrow it from someone who has already read it…

Carry on.

Rodrigo had always thought that if he had someone else’s body and good looks coupled with his personality; he’d be a hit with the ladies. Everyone told him that he was a great guy and had lots to offer someone. It had to be his blandly normal body and face that kept him from getting chicks.

Then he found the lamp.

He made the wish of a lifetime.

Now he looked uncannily like Brad Pitt.

He was Rodrigo’s personality in a Brad Pitt body.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Rodrigo’s personality was the problem all along.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a problem. One of the computers he uses got infected with some malware. The ms-antivirus.net malware to be exact. He found a number of web sites that recommened the same process for eliminating the malware. Here is one representative sample. He followed these steps. He also uninstalled and re-installed Internet Explorer. He also installed Opera.

Most of the affects seem to be gone, but there is one nagging problem that makes him thing he’s not gotten the whole program out. He keeps getting these pop-up ads in both IE and Opera. And he has checked and double checked to make sure that the pop-up blockers are active.

The computer was still running a virus scan last time he looked at it (it had been running for 6 hours and wasn’t finished).

If anyone out there is familiar with getting rid of this malware and confirming it is gone, please contact me.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wanted to be sure that none of his readers missed this, the 75th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Aron Presley, the late King of Rock and Roll.

Your Maximum Leader is a big Elvis fan. His iPod contains over 740 Elvis tracks. (Many different versions of the same songs from different recording sessions…) He has watched a number of Elvis movies and TV shows (but only owns one video of The King - a gift from a friend that contains highlights of his career). If you happen to look over at the right sidebar you will see “Saint Elvis” over under the Pantheon of Greatness area.

Yes… Saint Elvis…

In the MWO (or Mike World Order for those of you just visiting for the first time), your Maximum Leader will exert some pressure to proclaim Elvis a Saint. Your Maximum Leader knows that this may be a contraversial view. But he (Elvis that is) is a unifying cultural and spiritual figure. Your Maximum Leader is sure that we can find someone who has been healed of their illness by heartful prayer at the grave of Elvis. Indeed, your Maximum Leader and his college roommate once made a pilgramage to Graceland. We stood at the grave of Elvis and sang (a cappella) “Heartbreak Hotel.” We also made sure to sing with British accents. Yes… Like in Spinal Tap… Whilst we were singing, a middle aged woman in a “be-dazzeled” jean jacket came up and listened to us. Upon our finishing, she declared that what she had just seen “Warmed her heart” and that she was sure that “The King in heaven is smiling on us now.” Your Maximum Leader told her he was impressed with her “be-dazzeled” jacket. The “be-dazzling” rendered a profile of Elvis with his name beneath. The woman was glad that we liked the jacket. She apparently made them for friends, and sometimes profit.

Anyhoo… If that woman knew that Elvis was smiling on us in heaven for a song, then your Maximum Leader is sure that we can find some (former-) cripple who was healed at Elvis’ graveside…

Anyhoo (again…)… Your Maximum Leader will get the traditional Elvis Day celebratory dinner tonight. Steak. Mashed Potatoes. A veggie (likely ochra). After dinner there will be a big cake and the singing of “Happy Birthday Elvis.”

He hopes you will celebrate as well…

Carry on.

As many of you already know, my best buddy Kevin’s mother passed away yesterday. It is hard to express the emotions that crowd one’s mind and heart at such a time. There is sorrow because of the permenant loss. There is relief that her suffering has passed. The contradiction of emotions one feels is often more difficult to deal with than the power of the emotions singly.

I spent time yesterday evening trying to shoo away my family for a little quiet reflection. I eventually did get some time to myself. I regret to say that I didn’t come to any great and noble ideas in my reflective time. I remembered the many kindnesses given to me over more than 3 decades. I remembered camping trips, picnics, concerts, and so many other moments. There was joy, sadness, embarassment, grief, and I suppose some calm at the end.

After my quiet time I went to bed a little earlier than normal. Strangely upon waking this morning I realized I’d been dreaming of the old cartoon “Star Blazers.” Star Blazers was a cartoon that Kevin and I watched together so often afterschool when we were younger.

Strange how the mind works.

Rest in peace Mrs Neidlinger. I will miss you.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was looking over various twitter feeds he follows today and found an obituary in the NYT that was so interesting: Knut Haugland, Sailor on Kon-Tiki, Dies at 92.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to steal the Amazing Ben’s schitck from Badass of the Week, but Knut Haugland seems to be a real badass. Resistance fighter against the Nazis. Sailor on a balsa wood raft across the Pacific. That is pretty awesome. That he seemed to be a decent man as well was an added benefit.

Your Maximum Leader used to regularly read the Obits in the Times of London to catch the interesting passings. He’s grown out of the habit recently. It would serve him well to start again.

RIP - Knut Haugland.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post this. Although he’d turned off the computer he had to fire it back up to report this.

He just finished smoking 6 pounds of his own home-cured bacon.

Oh dear God in Heaven. It is sooooooooooooooo friggin good.

About 14 days ago he put the pork bellies he’d gotten from his hog (Thanks Smallholder!) into the cure. Villainette #2 dutifully turned the bacon in the cure every day. Time got away from us and we were overtaken by events so we didn’t smoke the bacon last week as intended, but had to do it today. Rather than taking 2-2.5 hours, it took nearly 4 and a half hours to smoke the bacon. Your Maximum Leader belives that this was mostly due to the fact that his smoker was sitting in 34 degree temperatures and it was hard to keep it hot without over-doing the coals.

After letting the bacon cool for a few minutes (perhaps 5) after coming out of the smoker, he cut off a little slice. Oh it was good. Then Villainette #2 got a slice. Then Villainette #1 got a slice. Then Mrs Villain. Then before you knew it, we’d all had two or three slices. Then we had to stop. We couldn’t just eat it all right there. Well, we could have, but we resisted.

Your Maximum Leader can already tell that he will have to buy more pork bellies and make more bacon when this runs out. He only had about 6 pounds to start with. (Now he has about 5 and a half…)

Thank you Michael Ruhlman for your wonderful book, Charcuterie, without which your Maximum Leader may not have ever had the guts to try this. Also thank you Smallholder for raising such an awesome and tasty hog. Oh this is good stuff… Your Maximum Leader (almost) wishes all of his long-time readers could be here with him to try it… (Almost.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes you all a happy new year in this, the last year of the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. Your Maximum Leader can’t tell you all how friggin annoyed he is by all the “decade in review” peices he’s had to suffer through. If President Obama wanted to do something useful he’d go on tee-vee with some flip charts and timelines and have a “teachable moment” with the American people explaining that since there was no “Year Zero” that decades begin on ones and end in zeros.

Who the hell starts counting with the number zero anyway? Do we have nine fingers and one digit symbolically stands in for zero? It annoyed me when the year 2000 rolled round. He fears that this annoyance will grow to near rage as he gets older. Indeed he’s been more annoyed about it this year that he was in 2000. Perhaps he was willing to psychologically grant people a “waiver” because it isn’t often you see the calendar roll over to three zeros. But it is just friggin ridiculous.

Happily, your Maximum Leader’s loving wife Mrs Villain was teaching her children (her second graders that is) that the decade really doesn’t end for another year. We can hope that some of these kids will remember this lesson and stand up for decade integrity.

Your Maximum Leader would have written yesterdary, but he never thought about writing a post from his PDA. He got up early and took the train from DC to New York City to visit Kevin and Kevin’s Mom. Your Maximum Leader must say that he likes that Acela train. Very nice. He thinks it is now his preferred method of getting to the Big Apple. This was the most focused trip to NYC your Maximum Leader’s ever taken. On all previous visits he’s had time just to “do” something. But this trip was much more goal oriented. As he left Kevin and the hospital he lucked out and found an available cab on E 70th street (he’d excpected to have to have to walk over to Second Avenue to catch one) which would take him to Penn Station. Your Maximum Leader asked for one indulgence, namely that we drive slowly past Bloomingdales so that he could look at how they had the windows decked-out for the holidays. (The Wee Villain would have enjoyed the windows. There was a big superhero window with Batman and friends in it.) He tried to snap some photos of the windows from the cab (and another of Herald Square and Macy’s as he passed), but they didn’t turn out well.

Today your Maximum Leader will be smoking some bacon and relaxing.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that actor Patrick Stewart will soon become Sir Patrick Stewart. His name is on the honors list just released, CNN is reporting.

Bully for you Patrick.

Now we can only wait for Bill Shatner to get his. Shatner is Canadian afterall and still eligible…

NB to readers: Speaking of Star Trek stuff… Your Maximum Leader just bought his first Blu Ray today. JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sure this will be the last post of 2009. He plans on trying to relax some this afternoon and then getting to be early. He will travel to New York tomorrow to visit Kevin’s mom. Sadly, it will be a day trip. Up early, on the train, visit, then back on the train and home.

Your Maximum Leader has been in a funky mood of late. There are likely many contributing factors to this funk. General pessimism may be the leading contributor. Pessimissm about the economy, the course of politics, the general outlook for things if idiots continue to be elected and behave (surprise!) like idiots. Your Maximum Leader has never really played the role of Cassandra here on this blog, but he supposes he could if he could get more motivated. Since he is not motivated he’ll leave you with some interesting posts from others.

First off, you should take a moment to read Daniel Henninger’s latest on the WSJ. “A Rodney Dangerfield America?” Henninger’s piece is good, and optimistic. It is worth your time.

Then you should read the recent prodigious output by our friend Skippy. He has been on a tear recently writing good thoughtful stuff that often closely mirrors what your Maximum Leader has been thinking. You could read about Vladimir Putin, or the rule of law, or Iran or injustice.

FLG commends a piece by Jim Manzi. You can read FLG’s excerpt here or the whole piece here.

If you are just looking for some interesting things to read here are some suggestions:

Is there a new Da Vinci painting out there? And by out there we mean Boston.

You can check out Jesus’ neighbor’s pad. It comes with a place to hide from Romans.

Will Russians star in the real-life Armageddon? Your Maximum Leader was still hoping for Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler…

Check out some words or phrases that some thing should be banished from our daily dialouge.

Of course… You could just close your browser and spend some time with family and friends and enjoy yourself.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw a particularly long, and particularly interesting, article on the AP news wire a moment ago. The piece is: Pressure rises to stop antibiotics in agriculture.

Your Maximum Leader happens to agree with the thrust of the piece, which is that drugs fed to pigs, chickens and cows are leading to super-bacteria that do not respond to antibiotic drugs. These super-bacteria can, and do, move to humans and pose a tremendous threat to human health. What surprised your Maximum Leader about the AP piece is that they attempted to show the other side of the argument, namely that antibiotics keep healthier herds promote quick growth and reduced feed costs.

Now the peice doesn’t attempt a full-blow economic analysis of the costs of giving antibiotics to herd animals on farms vs not giving them antibiotics; but your Maximum Leader wouldn’t expect that type of analysis from the AP. He hopes that some Ag school somewhere in the US is working with the economics department to do such an analysis…

Yet another reason that your Maximum Leader relies on the Smallholder for the great majority of his beef and pork… Smallholder doesn’t dope his animals.

Carry on.