Not something wonderful

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had planned on using this weekend to catch up on new episodes of Battlestar Galactica. For one reason or another, your Maximum Leader finds himself turning in early on Friday nights. Since he has a DVR/Tivo device - BSG gets religiously recorded and stored for that day when he can watch and contemplate the episode.

As you might have been able to tell by the past tense of the opening line, your Maximum Leader’s plan will not come to pass. You see, your Maximum Leader’s DVR died at some point this week. The cable guy was here and had to install a new one… The data off the old one was not recoverable.

So, bascially… Your Maximum Leader is now 6 episodes behind in BSG and unlikely to catch up until everything is out on DVD.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Carry on.

Tim Russert, RIP

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would normally be watching “Meet the Press” right now. But today he is sitting at his computer thinking about Tim Russert.

Your Maximum Leader has watched MTP for ages. At least since the late 80s - just before Russert became host. In recent years he didn’t always watch MTP, but downloaded the audio podcast and listened to the program. One way or another it was “can’t miss TV.”

Your Maxmium Leader must admit that he is getting a little worn down by the remembrances, celebrations, and eulogies all over the news channels for Tim Russert. It is not that he is getting tired of Russert; but that he is getting tired of the maudlin recitations of the same story being replayed over and over. In a way it is ironic that in remembering Tim Russert his collegues are becoming boring - the one thing Russert never was. At 2:00am on Election Night in 2000 when there was nothing new to report, Tim Russert was still making interesting commentary.

There is very little I can add to the ever lengthening list of tributes you will see on TV and read online. I am deeply saddened by Tim Russert’s passing. I mourn as someone who felt that Tim Russert helped me be a better citizen because he helped to keep me more informed. I mourn as someone who could observe the love that Russert had for his family - a family now bereft of his presence. I mourn because a town that is filled with phony people, egomaniacs, and sometimes loathesome characters has lost a genuine man.

God bless you Tim Russert. May you rest in peace.

Carry on.

Happy Father’s Day

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes any and all of you fathers out there a very happy day (in advance since this is Friday and Father’s Day isn’t until Sunday). Of course, this day, like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and others are just made up holidays used to suck dry our wallets and spirits.

In case any of you are wondering, your Maximum Leader tried to get out of doing anything this weekend (as it is the double-header of Father’s Day and your Maximum Leader’s birthday). He fears that it is not to be. He’ll have to do some grilling over the weekend. (Which isn’t really work… But it is still a required task…) He’ll also likely have to help clean up around the Villainschloss. He may also have to do his own laundry (which is also not unusual as your Maximum Leader is very persnickety about his laundry and has always done his own…). So all in all it is looking to be like most every other weekend out there.

And that is good…

If you feel the pressing need to do something to celebrate your Maximum Leader’s birthday here are some options. 1) You could buy some neat Naked Villainy swag from his store. (NB: if you happen to be a hot woman and buy some swag - your Maximum Leader would appreciate a photo…) 2) You could write your Maximum Leader an email and offer to shower him with gifts… He’ll provide suggestions if you are serious. 3) You could pour yourself a nice adult beverage where ever you may be and raise your glass and toast “To my Maximum Leader! Long may he prosper!”

Carry on.

Mutant!

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader took a little quizzy he saw over on Agent Beadhead’s site. Apparently he is:

Find out Which Marvel Superhero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Your Maximum Leader fancies himself a Magneto type frankly… If he was going to be a mutant that is…

Carry on.

RCBfA Project

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the membership of the RCBfA may soon be growing and a number of august sites are doing what they can to promote art on the interwebs. He has decided that he must - as it is an imperative - follow suit. Some selections (upon which you can clicky to embiggen):

Thomas Couture’s “Decadence of the Romans” (1847 - Musee D’Orsay)
Roman Decadence
Is there any decadence quite like Roman decadence? Your Maximum Leader thinks not…

Felix Trutat’s “Girl on Panther Skin” (1844 - Musee D’Orsay)
Nude Girl on Panther Skin
Your Maximum Leader has often suggested that fur becomes a lady.

In keeping with the lounging theme:
Titian’s “Venus D’Urbino” (1538 - Galleria degli Uffizi)
titian_venusdorbino.jpg
Your Maximum Leader loves Titian. (So does Christine apparently…)

Or perhaps:
David’s “Mars disarmed by Venus and the three Graces” (1824 - Musees des Beaux-Artes, Brussels)
Mars disarmed by Venus et al
Allow your Maximum Leader to go on the record and say that it would take a bit more than a sea-foam girl and her three skinny friends to disarm your Maximum Leader. He packs heat enough for the four of them…

Carry on.

Obama Poster

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader recently saw this poster for Obama and liked it a lot.

malkin-snob1.jpg

Thanks to Nicolas for posting it. Apparently it was first on Michelle Malkin’s site. But for some reason your Maximum Leader didn’t notice it there. (Likely because he doesn’t read Malkin’s site as often as you might think…)

Now your Maximum Leader is all for snobbery… But Obama’s snobbery disturbs him. It is that mixture of condescension and entitlement that is most disturbing… Well… Those traits and his socialist ideas…

Carry on.

Tenderness

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader can’t recall if he ever blogged this before. He doesn’t think he has, but is too lazy to check.

He has had General Public’s “Tenderness” going through his head over and over recently. He doesn’t own the song, but he would if it were on iTunes…

So… Here is the video for your listening (if not viewing) edification:

Carry on.

Nats/Cards

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been listening to the the Nationals/Cardinals game going on now (it is about 9pm now). This is the second game of a doubleheader (caused by a rainout yesterday).

The Nats appear to be blowing a (once) six run lead. The game is now Cards 6 - Nats 8. But it seems that the “mo” (as in momentum people…) is now with the Cards…

Will turn off computer and watch game now…

If the Nats blow this…

Carry on.

For Eric…

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader feels badly that he has not written a better review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (hereafter IJ&TKOTCS). Our friend Eric was kind enough to point this out in a comment to an earlier post. So here is an attempt to provide you with more of his thoughts on IJ&TKOTCS.

Your Maximum Leader, in his youth, spent many a rainy Saturday watching old movies WDCA Channel 20 out of Washington DC. These movies were, predominately, from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. They were mostly black and white and more often than not they were one of three genres. Horror, Science Fiction and “adventure.” These movies were the great “B” films of the age. They were matinee fare for his grandparents and parents. They were lazy TV for him.

These films were great, if you were about 11 years old. The dialogue was right on the 11 year old level. The stories were simple. The action was engaging. The women were vixens. It was all mightly good.

Of course, when your Maximum Leader watches these films now, he cringes. The dialogue is forced and campy. The jokes were stale in 1930. The “special effects” weren’t that special (although he does note that we’ve come a long way in that department). Thankfully… The women are still vixens.

So… Back to IJ&TKOTCS…

IJ&TKOTCS would fit perfectly into the mould of a 1954 Saturday matinee, except it would be in color. Frankly, as he said in his earlier post, years from now if an 11 year old is watching WDCA on a Saturday morning - he might see IJ&TKOTCS and be most pleased. (In fact your Maximum Leader’s 11 year old nephew thought IJ&TKOTCS was great.)

Your Maximum Leader grew very tired of all of the “old” jokes and cracks in IJ&TKOTCS. One couldn’t go through a few minutes without someone commenting on how old Indy was or Indy commenting on how old he was. It got tiresome. While the general quality of the script didn’t decend to the level of Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones (perhaps the nadir of the Star Wars movies in terms of script), one could see the strong hand of Lucas in every word written. Your Maximum Leader has been told that George Lucas went to college (okay… film school), but if he were to go on just the body of work he’s produced since 1988 he would conclude that Lucas has in fact regressed to being 11 years old.

As for the plot… IJ&TKOTCS can be summarized by Indy meets the X-files and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Woo-hoo there are space aliens with crystaline skeletons (the skulls of which appear to be filled with mulitcolored, glowing saran wrap)! There are nasty Commies! It should be noted that the leader of the Commies carries a sword around with her. Way not to stand out there. Wearing a rapier with your socialist laborer’s jumpsuit in 1957. You know, your Maximum Leader thought wearing rapiers on the hip went out of style around 1657. He supposes there must have been advantages to being a communist in the 1950’s. Not only could you disavow Stalin, vacation in Cuba (after Castro), crush eastern europe at a whim, but you could also wear rapiers with impunity.

Does your Maximum Leader really need to go on here? Not really, but he will make a few more points… Only a complete, total, drooling idiot wouldn’t have picked up that “Mutt” Williams was Indy’s love-child with Marion. When Indy tells Mutt (before he knows that Mutt is in fact his son) that it is okay that Mutt not go to college but should do what makes him happy any thinking person would know that this is just setting up the whole “I don’t care what I said to you before - you’re going to college young man.” speech for a later scene. (And a really thinking person would know that the later scene would be punctuated by some crisis - oh… like sinking in quicksand.)

Your Maximum Leader was greatly saddened by the pathetic peripheral role into which Marion Ravenwood (Williams) was relegated. She essentially is a driver for a big chase scene. Other than that there isn’t much of a role for her. She hardly speaks. She is full of great potential - especially considering how great a character she had in the first film. But that potential is unrealized. Your Maximum Leader will again attribute this to the hand of Lucas. Is your Maximum Leader the only one who thinks that all women in Lucas roles are characatures of women in other movies?

All in all, your Maximum Leader went into IJ&TKOTCS thinking it was really going to be much worse than it actually was. Which is saying something. If the particular showing he caught had cost any more than the $6.50 it did he would have felt badly ripped off…

Well… There you have it… A longer review of IJ&TKOTCS.

Carry on.

Congrats Wings

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been without internet at the Villainschloss quite a bit of late. Bad thunderstorms through the area have been wrecking havoc on power and telecom grids…

Imagine your Maximum Leader’s chagrin when the power went out at the Villainschloss just about 40 seconds into the first period of last night’s decisive Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals. Since it was later and nearly time for the wee Villain and Villainettes to go to bed, your Maximum Leader didn’t fire up the back-up generator. As power was restored about 2am, he missed the game. He saw highlights… A poor substitute, but better than a sharp stick to the eye.

Congrats to the Detroit Red Wings, and their fans. Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy cap in your direction.

Also allow him to add this… Fear not Penguin fans… Your boys are maturing and they will hoist Lord Stanley’s cup a few times before their time is done.

Carry on.

Topless Ban!!!!

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees in the Washington Post today that the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has made a greviously bad recommendation. Wanna know what that recommendation is?

The sportsmanship committee of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association recommended banning fans with bare or painted chests from indoor games last month. The proposal will take effect if a committee of state athletic directors OKs it next week and the association’s Board of Control approves it June 19.
“People say, ‘Hey, we are attempting to take the fun out of high school sports.’ That isn’t the intention at all,” Tom Shafranski, assistant director of the association, said Thursday.

Au contraire mon frere. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association is trying to take the fun out of high school sports. You can read the whole piece here.

Your Maximum Leader is of two minds when it comes to topless fans. These topless fans are okay:
packer-jersey.jpg

This topless fan… Not so okay…
fat2.jpg

Your Maximum Leader believes his position here is clear…

Carry on.

Some people shouldn’t be laid off

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is not a whining socialist. He is not a gamy-handed collectivist. He is not a isolationist. That said, he is in favor of the government keeping some people employed for their whole lives. Those people would be the nuclear scientists working on building, improving, and keeping going America’s nuclear arsenal. A good number of those people work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Some of those people are being laid off. Per the Associated Press:

Because of budget cuts and higher costs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laid off 440 employees May 22 and 23. Over the past 2 1/2 years, attrition and layoffs have reduced the work force of 8,000 by about 1,800 altogether.

According to a list obtained by The Associated Press, about 60 of the recently laid-off workers were engineers, around 30 were physicists and about 15 were chemists. Some, but not all, were involved in nuclear weapons work or nonproliferation efforts, and all had put in at least 20 years at the lab.

Some lawmakers and others said they fear the loss of important institutional knowledge about designing warheads and detecting whether other countries are going nuclear.

Also, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said job reductions at Lawrence Livermore and two other big U.S. weapons labs represent “a national security danger point.” These unemployed experts might take their skills overseas, Feinstein said.

[…]

The possibility is also on the mind of the nation’s top nuclear weapons official, National Nuclear Security Administration chief Tom D’Agostino.

“Always in a situation where people leave under less-than-ideal circumstances, we worry about that, and it’s something I assure you we’re looking at closely,” D’Agostino said. “I’m always concerned about the counterintelligence part of our mission, and we have an active program to go make sure we understand where we’re vulnerable and where we’re not.”

Asked to elaborate, NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the agency is “always on guard for foreign entities approaching our employees, active or retired, but it’s their responsibility to alert us to those circumstances.”

The NNSA is aware of no instance in which a U.S. nuclear weapons scientist had gone to work overseas, he said.

He said the agency regards the possibility of a hostile government picking up laid-off workers as “highly unlikely,” in part because these are American citizens who have responsibly held high-level clearances for many years, and because federal law provide stiff penalties — which range as high as life in prison — for divulging nuclear secrets.

[…]

Lawmakers and others have expressed concern that wave after wave of work force reductions will diminish the lab’s expertise. D’Agostino said he could not guarantee that national security would not be harmed.

With a self-imposed nuclear test ban in place since 1992, maintenance of the warhead stockpile — Lawrence Livermore’s top responsibility — is performed on supercomputers. So is the task of designing a new generation of warhead, which Lawrence Livermore won the right to do last year.

The layoffs have reduced the lab’s roster of experts with invaluable experience they had gleaned from taking part in actual nuclear tests, Sale [a laid-off physicist who until recently worked at Livermore] and others said. “Designing, building and seeing a device go off is very different from designing a device and handing it to a computer jockey,” Sale said.

Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, whose district includes part of the lab, said the stakes are especially high as the United States tries to divine through science what other countries are doing inside their weapons programs.

[…]

Los Alamos, the New Mexico laboratory that built the atom bomb during World War II, cut its work force last year by about 550 through retirements and attrition, and Sandia, also largely in New Mexico, plans to shed dozens of workers.

Congress cut $100 million from Lawrence Livermore’s budget in the fiscal 2008 budget, and the lab has been hit with an additional $180 million in unexpected costs from its transfer last year to a new management company, lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton said.

So it seems that your Maximum Leader joins California Senator Diane Feinstein (D) in her concern over these lay-offs. Your Maximum Leader and Senator Feinstein doesn’t see too many issues on which he and the Senator agree. (Although it is possible that there are on plenty of mundane issues that never bubble up into the media on which they agree.)

Your Maximum Leader is a free-trader. The downsizing of American Airlines, United Airlines, GM and a host of other companies don’t scare your Maximum Leader. He is disappointed that these companies haven’t found ways to get healthy and competitive faster; but those are the breaks. That said, your Maximum Leader does fear that our national security is too seriously jeopardized by the outsourcing of our defence related industries. He is also worried about what is happening to our nuclear scientists. He doesn’t advocate permanent employment as policy. But he is willing to make an exception for people who can help a hostile power develop the weapons needed to destroy us.

Before you think your Maximum Leader has gone all soft on you… Yes, he knows that brainpower alone isn’t enough to get a bomb. You need materials, specially engineered equipment, etc etc. Let it be known that your Maximum Leader isn’t convinced that non-proliferation protocols work well. He doesn’t want to tempt fate by letting our brain-power proliferate too…

Carry on.

Game 6

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a choice… Blog or watch Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. He figured that the game would be decided quickly and he could do both.

Boy was he wrong.

Now he is a bleary-eyed Maximum Leader who stayed up way past his bedtime. Sadly, your Maximum Leader actually dozed off for a moment and missed the game winning goal by Peter Sykora. He saw the replay right after it happened. But the live broadcast was missed.

Now he will likely be grumpy all day.

Carry on.

Rice

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader probably loves rice more than anyone else in his family. He was quite distressed recently when he went shopping at one of the local “warehouse/price club” stores and couldn’t buy the 20lb bag of rice he was searching for. In fact all they had were 5 lb boxes of Minute Rice. Your Maximum Leader wonders if Minute Rice is actually rice. Anyhoo… Lucky for him he was able to nab a 25 bag of rice at another store.

Your Maximum Leader still isn’t sure what exactly caused the run on rice in this nation. The US is a great exporter of rice. There must have been some supply chain glitch that caused rice to be hard to find (in bulk at least - there didn’t seem to be a problem if you just wanted a small bag of rice).

That said, your Maximum Leader does know that in other rice producing nations - particularly those in Asia - there have been a number of factors that have contributed to rice price spikes and rice shortages. Drought has been the major factor. Your Maximum Leader read that one of the hardest hit nations was the Philippines. The Philippines has been an net importer of rice for decades now. And in this rice crunch the Philippines has been suffering. Your Maximum Leader read, with some pleasure, that Japan has agreed to sell down some of its rice surplus to the Philippines. According to the piece in the Washington Post, Japan has agreed to sell 200,000 tons of rice to the government of the Philippines. Sadly, that only puts a small dent in the problem the Philippines has. According to the reporting at the WaPo, the 200,000 tons will last about six days at current rates of consumption.

Now you might think that your Maximum Leader would want to comment on the problems of the Philippines in getting rice. That might be a good topic on which to ruminate, but that isn’t the part of the article that got your Maximum Leader to thinking. This is part that got him thinking:

The deal with Japan, though, is substantially different from the purchase agreements Manila is making with Southeast Asian countries. Japan is selling off imported rice that its people do not eat and that its government imports only because it must — under international trade rules.

Although Japan grows far more rice than it needs, it has to import about 700,000 tons of the grain a year under the terms of a 1993 World Trade Organization agreement, which obligated Tokyo to open its protected rice market to foreign competition.

The stockpile of imported rice peaked two years ago at 1.9 million tons, when Japan began using about 25,000 tons a month to feed livestock.

The emergence this spring of an acute rice shortage seems to have provided Japan with a way of unloading the unwanted rice in a way that is both acceptable to its international trading partners and good for its image.

Under WTO rules, Japan needed the approval of the United States — principal supplier of the rice it reluctantly imports — before it could reexport the grain. The Bush administration said Friday that for the sake of easing world rice prices it would back the plan to sell the stockpile.

Japanese consumers, for the most part, do not like the taste of imported rice. Even if they did, they could not buy it in Japan. Their government, to protect local rice growers, keeps it off the market and stores it in refrigerated warehouses. Japanese-grown rice costs at least double the price of imported rice.

This is one of those pieces of international trade pacts that just gets your Maximum Leader fuming. Now, your Maximum Leader realizes that American rice farmers have wanted to sell rice in Japan for decades. Further he realizes that the Japanese shouldn’t protect their rice farmers in the way they do. But to have the Japanese government buy rice and stockpile it - and eventually feed it to livestock - is just ridiculous. There are many countries that need rice - hummm… Like the Philippines or Bangladesh. Those rice importers would seem to be better targets for American rice farmers.

Your Maximum Leader also wonders about the whole “Japanese don’t like the taste of imported rice” bit. This could be because the rice that the US tries to sell in Japan is a longer grain rice with less starch than the rice you traditionally find in Japan. Your Maximum Leader bets that if American farmers grew “japanese” breeds of rice and tried to sell those in Japan the response would be better. This assumes that the market could be opened.

This appears to be another example of where well-intentioned politicians get together and make bad trade pacts (or laws) and wind up badly interfering in market functions that shouldn’t have been interfered with.

Carry on.

Indy, fare the well and lessons learnt

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a great Memorial Day weekend. Although he forgot to put any sort of thank you message up, please know that your Maximum Leader is very thankful for the service given to our grand republic by our soliders, sailors and Marines (past and present). He particularly gives a big shout out to his cousins Karen and Cindy. Both are Colonels in the US Army. Karen is currently in Iraq. Cindy is between assignments overseas. Our whole family (and by extension our nation) are better for their service.

In other news…

Your Maximum Leader and his best buddy (his brother really) Kevin spent just a little time this weekend. Damning gas prices to hell, your Maximum Leader drove to Northern Virginia and picked up Kevin and returned him to the Villainschloss. There we enjoyed some sandwiches in the company of your Maximum Leader’s brood. Then Kevin and your Maximum Leader went and saw “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Your Maximum Leader went to the film with two thoughts. The first was that it would be good to “recapture a bit of youth” with Kevin. It was with Kevin that your Maximum Leader saw the first three Indiana Jones movies. So that was going to be good. The second thought was that the film couldn’t be all that good - so it was best to approach with lowered expectations.

Indeed, your Maximum Leader fully expected IJ&TKOTCS to suck big time. And in fact it did not suck big time. Sadly, it wasn’t all that either. If you expected it to suck big time - then you came away slightly impressed. Your Maximum Leader thought the story was a hodgepodge of charactatures of 50’s “B” movies. The dialogue was campy and forced. And even the special effects (where one would expect the film to shine) were just okay. Karen Allen’s role was merely ornamental - which was sad. And Shia LeBoeuf has a silly girl’s name.

The best that can be said of this film is that in 20 years some 13 year old kid might really enjoy it on a rainy Saturday morning on TV. That is assuming that there is TV 20 years from now and 13 year old kids might watch it.

Your Maximum Leader belives that this past Saturday is the only time he will ever see IJ&TKOTCS. (It is possible that at some point in the future your Maximum Leader might see the movie on TV and stop his incessant channel surfing to watch for a few minutes.)

Anyhoo…

It was very good to see Kevin. Your Maximum Leader is happy that Kevin is on the road fulfilling his wish to walk across America exploring themes of religous diversity around this nation. Kevin is now in Blaine, Washington at the beginning of his journey. Your Maximum Leader prays for Kevin’s safety and good fortune on the road. Fare thee well Kevin. I look forward to welcoming you home after a great journey.

And lastly…

Villainette #1 must be the lucky charm for the Washington Nationals. This past Sunday, your Maximum Leader and his eldest child went to the Nats/Brew Crew matinee. This was, perhaps, the 9th or 10th Nats game Villainette #1 has been to see in person. In all those games, she’s never seen the Nats lose. Your Maximum Leader was sure by the middle of the 9th inning on Sunday that his daughter’s luck was going to change. The Nats were down and it wasn’t looking good. Then all of a sudden they got men on base, men were batted over, and Elijah Dukes scored the winning run on a wild pitch. It was incredible. Then when it was all over, your Maximum Leader and his daughter went down on to the field (and she ran the bases - along with a few hundred other kids…). It was a great Sunday afternoon.

Except for one thing…

This is the “lessons learnt” part of the post…

Your Maximum Leader put some sunscreen on his arms and neck and face… He forgot to put sunscreen on his legs. Now his knees (and pretty much only his knees) are so damned sunburnt that it is painful to do just about everything involving movement of his legs. Indeed, the sunburn on one side (the right) is so bad that it seems as though it is actually swelling.

Lesson is - wear sunscreen.

Carry on.

    About Naked Villainy

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