Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader remembers hearing over the weekend that Senator Kerry was quoted as saying that he wants to make the world a place were terrorist are not the focus of life, but a nuisance. That whole response stuck in your Maximum Leader’s craw. But, he was very tired over the weekend, and didn’t give it much more thought. Until this morning. He kept going over the whole idea of terrorists as a nuisance. Then your Maximum Leader read Pejmanesque: “A SINGULARLY INAPT ANALOGY”. It was a wonderfully clear assessment of why Kerry’s analogy stuck in your Maximum Leader’s craw.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader remembers when the good Smallholder thought that this woman was just the hottest thing ever. Your Maximum Leader always thought (even before she enhanced herself) that Pamela Anderson was sort of trashy. Now she is a USDA Grade A skank.

Of course, now the Minister of Agriculture says that he’s fond of Jaime Pressly. But your Maximum Leader finds her trashy too.

It is amazing that, given his propensity towards trashy women, the Minister of Agriculture was lucky enough to snag the definately classy Mrs. Smallholder.

What prompted this outburst you might ask? Your Maximum Leader was perusing the news wires and happened to see a photo of Pamela Anderson in the “Most Popular” photos area… One thing just lead to another. And a cheesey blog post was born.

And in honour of our much-missed comrade, the Minister of Propaganda, here is a not-work-safe link to some Kate Moss photos.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has read quite a lot about the unfortunate, yet somehow not entirely unexpected, death of Christopher Reeve. Since his paralizing accident, Reeve has been in a number of close-call situations. Your Maximum Leader respected his positive outlook on his condition and his tireless activism for causes in which he believed. But, your Maximum Leader never expected him to live out a full life.

Excursus: A dear friend of your Maximum Leader who rides/jumps horses once mentioned to him that she’d see Christopher Reeve jump horses at different meets along the east coast. And she said that his form was categorically bad. He seemed to love the saddle, but did not seem to have the aptitude for it. She was surprised he hadn’t injured himself years before he actually did. While your Maximum Leader doesn’t recount this story to speak ill of the dead, he does wonder if Reeve’s celebrity didn’t somehow contribute to his injury? Didn’t anyone tell him his form was bad and that he was going to hurt himself if he didn’t change? Humm… We may never know.

But your Maximum Leader was genuinely saddened to learn of the death of Ken Caminiti. But, Caminiti’s death may be a cautionary tale for many atheletes. It shows how one can abuse their bodies and destroy themselves. It is hard to say from the various bits of coverage if Caminiti has started or tried to reform. But the damage was done. One can hope that someone will learn from Caminiti’s posthumous example and save themselves. Something Ken wasn’t able to do.

Requiescant in Pace

Carry on.

UPDATE: Your Maximum Leader, when he first started to write about Christopher Reeve’s death, wrote something that he later thought might cross a line. Dr. Rusty saw the line too. And crossed it. Drat! Now your Maximum Leader wishes he hadn’t deleted his draft…

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader knows that somewhere, out there, in the ether of the internet, one of his minions is curious to know how went the ball. Well allow your Maximum Leader to hit some of the highlights.

The Princess Villainette informed your Maximum Leader (her father) on his way out the door that he looked “really handsome.” This made your Maximum Leader’s night. At least one pretty girl said that your Maximum Leader was nice to look at. The Princess Villainette particularly liked your Maximum Leader’s tuxedo jacket. It has a shawl collar, which your Maximum Leader likes quite a bit. Sort of a classic 1930’s look. The type Bogie might have worn to a night at the Oscars. The shawl collar combined with the nice vest did the trick.

Excursus: Your Maximum Leader avoids cummerbunds. To begin with, the very word “cummerbund” is offensive to the tounge. It has a completely alien feel that makes it unpleasant to pronounce. And secondly, it is essentially a man-girdle. This is not to say that some men don’t need a man-girdle. Some do. (Perhaps even your Maximum Leader.) But if you can get a vest to do the same thing? Why not use it?

So, having been complemented by his eldest offspring, your Maximum Leader went to a pre-ball party. It was quite nice. He imbibed in one too many helpings of bacon-wrapped scallops in teriaki sauce. But really, you don’t just have bacon-wrapped scallops often enough to hold back when they are presented by the chaffing-dish full. And for some mad reason, your Maximum Leader decided to drink rum and cokes and not his normal scotch whisky. Perhaps he was out-of-sorts due to the fact that neither Mrs. Villain nor any lovely female minion was accompanying him.

Regardless, your Maximum Leader ambled about the party-goers and socialized. When the party broke up and we all went to the ball… Well… The party broke up. The ball was fine. Quite enjoyable, but not quite as fun as the party. Your Maximum Leader did not partake of dancing. But he did learn that an acquaintance was raising his daughters to become lesbian strippers. That way he wouldn’t worry about accidental pregancy, and they would have a talent that would help them pay for college. Without breaking down the morality/ethical issues involving lesbianism or strippping; it did seem like a remarkably utilitarian solutions to the age old questions for fathers “How to I keep my little girl from getting preganant? And how am I going to afford college for my never-been-pregnant daughter?”

Your Maximum Leader also learned that he was on the “A-list” (or at least B+ List) for invites to a number of holiday parties later this year. It seems that his charm, ability to dress-up real nice-like, and his rapier wit have endeared him to the smart set around town. Your Maximum Leader does not want to soundtoo curmudgeonly, but he doesn’t really like holiday parties. He is not sure why. It has always been problematic for him. Perhaps he sees them as craven attempts to get together with people you only meet with once-a-year so that you can refresh your friendship. Perhaps he sees them as another step in the over commercialization of the Christmas holiday. Perhaps he doesn’t like getting all nicely dressed up and trudging through snow and ice to visit people. (All those damn dry-cleaning bills.) Your Maximum Leader loves Fourth of July parties, but Christmas (aka: “Holiday”) parties he can do without.

Maybe its all the gift-giving too…

Anyho…

Alas, after hanging out at the ball for a while waiting for a young Julie Christie look-alike to come in and attempt homicide upon one of the older men, your Maximum Leader decided to head back to the Villainschloss. He got back in time to see Presidential Debate re-run on either C-Span or Fox News.

As for the Debate… It seemed to your Maximum Leader that the President acquitted himself quite well. But, Senator Kerry seemed to handle himself with a certain measure of aplomb as well. Your Maximum Leader felt as though the President “won” the debate. What was most gratifying was hearing the President start to lay out some of Senator Kerry’s long 20-year record. The most odd moment for your Maximum Leader was when Kerry looked into the camera (Aww… He’s looking right at us…) and said he wasn’t going to raise taxes. But he has been talking for months about how he is going to roll-back the tax cuts “on the rich.” So who exactly was he looking at? Your Maximum Leader must have missed the disclaimer urging “the rich” who might be watching to avert their eyes and close their ears.

Well, that is enough on both these subjects.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was cruising through the various blogs that he reads when he found the Velociman’s excursion into the world of vocabulary.

It is wonderful.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must state (with much regret) that he is not going to be able to view the candidates debate tonight. It seems that your Maximum Leader has forgotten that tonight he has a long-standing commitment to attend. A formal ball in fact.

What’s that you say? Formal Ball? You know the type. Men in tuxedos. Women in swanky evening attire. Dancing. Drinking. Idle chatter. Women gossiping while powdering noses and men exchanging stock tips and sports predictions. One of those affairs. Need a mental picture? Think of the party at which Lara shoots (but fails to kill) Komorovsky. Got it? Good.

Alas, Mrs. Villain has informed your Maximum Leader that she will not be escorting him tonight. She is not feeling well, and has opted to stay at the Villainschloss and relax in a hot bath. So, your Maximum Leader will be going stag tonight. Any young attractive woman (already possessing formal wear) in the greater Fredericksburg, VA or DC area who would like to hob-nob with the local elite should contact their Maximum Leader right away. He would delight in causing a local scandal by showing up with someone other tha Mrs. Villain.

In other unfortunate news, your Maximum Leader has also learned that one of his favourite couples will not be attending the ball either. This means that your Maximum Leader will be deprived of sitting down with the wonderful female half of that duo and together drink scotch and disparage various persons.

Looks to be a slow night.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader may, or may not, begin a selection he is calling “Friday Villainy.” In this feature he will highlight some particularly villainous quotation, poem, photo, prose, or poetry that strikes his fancy. This week, an exerpt from Shakespeare’s Richard III. Here is Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s soliloquy after pitching a little woo in the direction of Lady Anne, wife of the recently deceased-at-the-hands-of-Richard Edward, Prince of Wales.

Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill’d her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by;
Having God, her conscience, and these bars
against me,
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb’d in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford
And will she yet debase her eyes on me,
That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?
On me, that halt and am unshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass,
And entertain some score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
Will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.

If you are like your Maximum Leader you may prefer to see Shakespeare as opposed to just reading him. Your Maximum Leader will commend for your viewing pleasure Ian McKellan’s Richard III. While this is a wonderful and innovative production, for the sake of running time about 40 minutes of the play is cut out. Still worth your time though.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just can’t get enough blogging about history. So, because it is unlikely that you have heard about him today… Go to Norm’s blog and read about Theodosius the Great.

Speaking of great Emperors… Your Maximum Leader is growing fond of the Byzantine/Roman Emperor Heraclius. Need more Heraclius? Click here or here.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know how he missed this in his link dump yesterday. The lovely annika writes about why a classmate had to move seats.

When your Maximum Leader was in college, he generally sat in the front of the room (second seat in the first row inside the door) to avoid this very problem. Rarely did anyone sit in front of your Maximum Leader. Except once or twice, when we shared the same class the Minister of Agriculture would take that first seat. And his ass is nothing to look at.

There was a time while your Maximum Leader was a TA in graduate school when he was distracted by one of his students. We were discussing the rediscovery of Roman poetry by the Italians of the Renaissance and one of the best students in the class (grade-wise and physical attractiveness-wise) happened to be wearing a her spandex warm-up suit. (She worked out before coming to your Maximum Leader’s 8am lecture.) When we got to Ovid’s “Art of Love” she started talking making comments about how the seductive techniques of men really hadn’t changed much… And your Maximum Leader… Well.. Let us just say he had to stand behind the podium for the remaining 45 minutes of class…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader just has to scratch his head and wonder… What would possess John Kerry to say that he likes O’Reilly? Because now O’Reilly Hopes for Interview With Kerry.

Kerry ought to go and enter the “No Spin Zone”… He likes O’Reilly afterall…

Boy… That would be something to see…

Great Jeezy Chreezy.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has wondered for a few days to whence Skippy disappeared.

Wonder no more: ‘World sex championships’ to defy ban by Warsaw mayor.

Skippy is looking to end that drought.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader loves the Titan Arum plant. Thus, he must link to all current news articles concerning he official flower of the MWO.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is suffering from a little writers block. It is not as though he can’t write anything, it is more the case that he just isn’t interested in any particular subject enough to write commentary.

That being said, your Maximum Leader is going to attempt to “phone in” something so that his loyal minions will not go through Maximum Leader DTs. If you prefer not to read on, resist the temptation to click away. This is your Maximum Leader afterall.

First off, many congratulations to the esteeemed Dr. Rusty Shackleford of MyPetJawa (or is it The Jawa Report?) He was the minion to guess the location of the recent “mind-clearing” done by your Maximum Leader. Here is the previously posted view. The location was the back lawn of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. Here is the view when your Maximum Leader turned around and put his back to the river.

Many people might assume that the river side of Mount Vernon, since it has the best view and the nicest finish, is the “front” of the house. It is, in fact, the back of the house. The tradition of Virginia plantations was to reserve the best view and nicest side of the house for side that was not first approached by visitors. Think of this as something of an 18th century architectural version of a “tease.” Show you a little to get you interested, but save the ful show for later. (For those of you interested here is a very large photo of the “back” of Mt. Vernon. Which is the side visitors would approach.

Anyho… Your Maximum Leader offered the good Dr. Rusty a Nakedvillainy t-shirt. But the good Doctor demured and asked instead that your Maximum Leader link to him profusely. Which your Maximum Leader is happy to do. Of course, if you are not reading The Jawa Report it is really too bad. Your Maximum Leader will understand if you choose to surf away to Dr. Shackleford’s site… Provided you return.

Today the good Poet Laureate did your Maximum Leader a great service. He provided a quick rundown of the contents of this site. Indeed the Big Hominid mentioned this in a Shatnerian post today. Your Maximum Leader asked this favour of his good friend because it seems that nakedvillainy.com has some francophone readers. Mercutioclub.tk, the blog in question, has not only linked to this site; but is directing traffic here.

So, in the interests of goodwill between your Maximum Leader and his francophone minions, mercutioclub.tk is now on the blogroll. Your Maximum Leader will try to visit the site periodically. It may help keep his meagre ability to understand some written French from disappearing altogether.

Another site your Maximum Leader loves to read, and does read frequently throughout the day (time permitting) is the Llamabutchers. Your Maximum Leader must thank Robert the Llamabutcher for sharing with us how the Spanish are now considering their humiliating defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar a moral victory. By the way, your Maximum Leader has, historically, celebrated the Battle of Trafalgar (Oct 21st) with his own party. While circumstances prevent such a celebration this year… Next year will be the 200th anniversary of that great event and will merit massive celebration.

Your Maximum Leader will also state for the record that he has eaten at the restaurant that Robert mentioned. It is quite good. There was a period when your Maximum Leader could evaluate in detail for you every Turkish restaurant in the Northern Virginia/DC area. But that may be a tale for another time…

Brian deserves a hearty round of congratulations. He will start a new (better paying) job soon. That is good. So good in fact Brian that your Maximum Leader will raise one of his crystal rocks glasses and toast (with Ardbeg) your good fortune. Your Maximum Leader will not, however, dance.

Your Maximum Leader persists in reading Sadie’s blog, even though she has not mentioned sex for a day or two now. She does have an interesting post on the whole Scalia misquoted situation. The Minister of Agriculture thinks that Scalia could have good grounds for a libel or defamation case. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure. Both of us agree he’ll take no action one way or the other.

Anna… Oh < href="http://primalpurge.mu.nu/">Anna… Please post…

Your Maximum Leader feels like he should drive to Florida and meet this man. Your Maximum Leader could help him cook a wild hog. Which your Maximum Leader has done. (Pit roast a whole hog that is.) Although, your Maximum Leader does like his local Chesapeake Bay oysters better than those from Georgia or Louisiana. Did you know that there was once a time when a single oyster from the Lynnhaven Bay could feed a grown man. Tis true. Alas those days are gone.

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities is responsible for your Maximum Leader neglecting his offspring for a few hours over the past few days. His linking to Rhian Salmon and her adventures in Antartica are fascinating.

Congratulations to Mr. Enoch Soames, Esq. for reaching his one year blogoversary. Your Maximum Leader has only been reading the site for a while, and is already jealous. Yet another writer better than he. (Of course, it is hard to write in this tortured third person. It is amazing that Ceasar had so much success with it.) Your Maximum Leader needs to take some time and write a little note to Mr. Soames and try to get better acquainted. BTW, it is always a pleasure to read (and sing to oneself) the second verse to “God Save the Queen.” One of the best second verses to a national anthem ever. Perhaps THE best ever.

Have you ever read the guys over at Perfidy.org? Try this. It is a subject that your Maximum Leader doesn’t normally discuss. As the Villainschloss is populated with one Mrs. Villain and two Villainettes. The Villainettes will one day start suffering from this condition… The horror…

Congrats to Nicole as well on her new job. May she enjoy it and be able to continue to blog.

The good Smallholder, Minister of Agriculture recently posted that there are some who doubt that the photos to which he linked are his animals. Well…

Here is one of George Washington’s sheep at Mount Vernon.

Here are two of Smallholders sheep, who are decended from George Washington’s sheep. (And here is the newest edition to the Smallholder’s flock of sheep.)

Here is an old photo of some of Smallholders calves.

And here is a photo of Bonnie looking through the window of the Smallholders barn just last weekend.

Link dump finished.

Carry on.

Some of the doubting Thomases out there seem to believe that the pictures I linked to below aren’t really the inhabitants of Sweet Seasons Farm. I direct those doubters to recall my much celebrated post on Bovine Longevity.

Posting will be light for a bit. Wee Jack isn’t gaining as much weight as we would like and everybody in the house is exhausted.

And I can’t even visit a presidential ha-ha (second link) to collect my thoughts like our Maximum Leader.

Here’s a good non-partisan web site dealing with the election. I would say it’s fair and balanced.