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…

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was visiting with the Smallholder a few weeks ago. During the visit the subject of nationalized health care came up. The Smallholder made a point that your Maximum Leader has now heard at least twice more from others in discussion.

As it stands, there are bureaucrats in the health care process. They exist in private insurance companies, hospitals, and other for-profit health care providers. For the private insurers the job of the bureaucrats is to enforce policy and keep down costs to maximize profits.

Your Maximum Leader is not disputing this point here. But this is where the comments by Smallholder and others come into play… Their point is this: If there are already bureaucrats involved in the healthcare process; then why not eliminate the maximize profit part of the equation and have a bureaucrat who will be more responsive to the needs of the patient.

Your Maximum Leader more clearly articulated his objection to this premise today than he has before. So he will post it here. The problem with the premise being put forth here is that the government bureaucrat will in fact be more responsive to the needs of the patients. The assumption is that the current functionary’s job is to deny (needed) procedures in the interests of maknig more money for the company. Why does one assume that a government functionary will approve procedures differently? Regardless of who is running the program the job of the bureaucrat is to enforce rules and contain costs. The government will have to maintain a budget for healthcare. (One presumes…) It can’t just approve any procedure for anyone at any time. Additionally, there will be rules (as there already are in Medicare and Medicaid as well as in the private sector) to be enforced. The rules will state what procedures will be covered at what time. It is wrong to assume that the rules will be more favorable to patients than those extant today.

It is an assumption many people make… And it is a wrongly reasoned one.

Oh… You should also check out FLG’s post on power and the left in the context of health care.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know if you happened to catch this article about travails of Dave Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell.

Apparently the baggage handlers at O’Hare played catch (poorly) with Dave’s guitar. United didn’t want to pay up for damages…

Dave is a musician… So he wrote a song about the ordeal.

They also made a video (that you can watch here as it is too wide to embed here).

Good on you Dave Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell… Way to stick it to the legacy carriers…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader directs you to America’s finest news source for this wonderful story: Baseball Fans Delighted by New Between Innings Fuck-Cams.

As you can probably tell from the link itself… The language is sort of saucy… So be aware if you have people reading over your shoulder…

Of course, one of the reasons for directing you to the link is that the ballpark used to roll-out the fuck-cam was your Maximum Leader’s own beloved National’s home field, Nationals Park.

While your Maximum Leader feels that the baseball product on the field in Washington ranges from “OMG they stink!” to “Nauseatingly incompetent” to “They just can’t catch a break can they?” he isn’t sure that pornography on the HD jumbo-tron is the answer…

It may be AN answer but it is not THE answer to the National’s woes…

THE answer would be a bullpen… And some better defensive players… And a one more guy with some speed… And…

Okay… Porn might be THE answer.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders if it is more common to say that one “tivo’ed” a program on TV or “DVR’ed” a program; regardless of the recording platform one owns. He says that he “tivos” programs, even though his recording device is a DVR… Curious… To use “tivo” as a verb is much more fluid sounding than the tongue-tied “setting the DVR to record.” But should we use the product-related invented verb even if we don’t own the product itself? Well… Your Maximum Leader does…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader must thank and curse FLG for a TV recommendation. FLG recommends “The Ascent of Money” on PBS. The thanks come because your Maximum Leader is something of a Niall Ferguson fan and is genuinely interested in the program.

The curses come because in order to make room on the DVR for the program your Maximum Leader is likely going to have to erase some older episodes of Two and a Half Men, How I Met your Mother and Burn Notice. He thinks that by erasing the sit-com’s he’ll be okay… He’s watched them all anyway…

Of course he could erase “Outland,” “Clerks,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and some episode of NOVA about butterflies that Mrs Villain recorded if he chose…

In fact… He might just erase all that stuff (except Burn Notice)… It is time to clean off the DVR…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has never read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Nor has he seen the film.

That is all.

Carry on.