Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been spending time with Mrs Villain as she is picking new appliances and flooring for the Villainschloss. Last night your Maximum Leader spent his quality bloggy time at Sears trying to get that elusive extra 10% off of a front-loading washing machine.

Oh the thrills…

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have much to say about the major stories of the day… But here are a few quick thoughts…

First off… Your Maximum Leader has grown weary of the Michael Jackson tributes. He doesn’t plan on watching any of the tribute today. Indeed, he’ll miss as much as he can and is able to given the huge amount of news coverage. Your Maximum Leader feels pity towards Michael Jackson. With the preponderance of news coverage given to the story his pity is turning to disgust. He doesn’t want to feel disgust towards Michael Jackson…

Secondly… Sarah Palin. Your Maximum Leader has never been a strong bandwagoneer for Governor Palin. He thought that with some time and more experience she could be the type of politician that he could support. She was not ready for the spotlight of a national campaign when John McCain selected her to be the VP choice. He had hoped that she would finish her term as Governor and move into getting different policy experience. (Job at a think-tank. Roving ambassador. Something.) Then she would be ready to more seriously campaign in 2012 or 2016.

That doesn’t appear to be plan now. Your Maximum Leader can’t get himself past one word now with Sarah Palin. That word is quitter. She is a quitter. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t care what the pressures are on her. She was elected to be the Governor of Alaska. She has a duty to serve out her term. If your Maximum Leader were an Alaskan citizen he’d be spitting mad. As it is, he is just done with Sarah Palin. (Not that he was ever with her in the way that so many are.) He can’t get past the quitting. Sure she’s been dealt a bad hand. The press loves to go after her and it would be hard to just “go back to being Governor.” But that is what she needed to do. Your Maximum Leader would be angry as hell if he were Palin given how her family is being mistreated in the press. But the solution is not to quit but to hunker down and do the best job you can as Governor and then move to the next stage of your career. If you can’t handle the horrible attacks on your person and family that comes with national politics, just finish your term and quietly fade away. Someone with half a brain should have told her that if she has any aspirations to higher office then she do the right thing - which she didn’t. Sorry Sarah, but your Maximum Leader doesn’t approve.

Thirdly… Your Maximum Leader’s beloved Washington Nationals Baseball Club are showing some signs of life and improvement. He thinks that they are better now than they were a few weeks ago. They still suffer from a crappy bullpen. But even there some minor improvements can be seen. He hopes that his predicition that the Nats will lose fewer than 90 games will come true… But it is likely that the Nats will be in the 95-105 loss category this year. That is an improvement over losing more than 120 and becoming (officially) the worst team in history…

Carry on.