Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will start this post by thanking the many of you who have expressed concern for him after his last post.

To fill you all in a little bit… Your Maximum Leader’s life was even less fun after his post. His work situation isn’t ideal and he is looking. His best friend’s dad has had heart surgery. Two toilets in the Villainschloss are not functioning properly. And your Maximum Leader and Mrs Villain spent all day yesterday in the hospital with the Wee Villain. He was diagnosed with a double ear infection last week. Somehow that condition has transmogrified into dehydration (although he was eating and drinking). So the Wee Villain was poked, prodded, and IV’ed for about 8 hours yesterday. He is doing much better at home today, but will likely see his pediatrician every day this week until his condition abates. Please keep the Wee Villain, and the BigHominid’s dad in your prayers.

In what might be the only update of this site today… Here are other stories….

Your Maximum Leader is sorry that he missed the DC area bloggers gathering on Saturday night. He hopes everyone understands and will invite him next time.

You should check out the latest from the Hatemongers. This is Third Annual Week of Loathing. The object of this week’s loathing is Sarah Vowell. She is on your Maximum Leader’s “list.” While he will not go so far as to say that she’d be “up against the wall” in the Mike World Order, she might be chained in a dungeon and forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh constantly. (Which frankly would be torture for just about anyone…)

It is sort of funny that the Hatemongers should pick the Christian observance of Holy Week to be their Week of Loathing. It is almost like we can loath this week while trying to repent our sins at the same time. Get all that bad juju out of our systems and then be resurrected on Sunday with a new clean (yet still appropriately misanthropic) world view.

Your Maximum Leader would like to comment a little bit on the Bush as Leaker-in-Chief post directly below this entry. The good Minister of Propaganda would, your Maximum Leader is sure, acknowledge that some of those quotations are taken a bit out of context. The President spoke those words in the context of who disclosed Valerie Plame’s name; not the leaking of information contained in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). So we are talking about two different things here. The first issue is who leaked Plame’s name. On that count it appears as though Scooter Libby is still on the hook for that - although it might not be a crime (since no one has been indicted for it). The second, related, item concerns the NIE. Not a single commentator or pundit has challenged that the President can declassify documents at his discretion. Indeed it seems as though every President in the modern era has done so. And when they have it has almost always been to do exactly what Bush has one - namely to address critics and defend policy.

Now where your Maximum Leader will admit to there being problems are these: 1)The Administration is still under investigation. Give a Special Prosecutor unlimited time and money (which they have) and they will get someone convicted of something. 2) The Administration’s claim to be a good steward of intelligence information and against leaking - in general - is greatly diminished. 3) The Wilson/Plame claims of being attacked by the Administration (or should one say counter-attacked) are obviously true.

Problems two and three are mostly image problems. In time they will wane and people will become disinterested. Problem one is the real tricky one - and the one that can’t be ignored. So long as Patrick Fitzgerald is out there investigating anything goes. One wonders if the President has the statutory authority to fire the Special Prosecutor (or if he can order the Attorney General to do so). If your Maximum Leader recalls all his Watergate history the President can order the AG to fire special prosecutors. Your Maximum Leader wonders if he shouldn’t just do so and take the hit. His poll numbers don’t have anywhere else to go. His stature with the rest of political Washington doesn’t seem to be that great too. If the Democrats take control of the House or Senate in the fall then he will be investigated (regardless of what happens to Fitzgerald). What is the real downside? You say that Fitzgerald has had the time and resources required to find out if a crime was committed in the case of leaking Plame’s name to the press. No charges have been filed in that count and the office should be closed. The country has years of experience with Special Prosecutors who have run amok in their investigations. In fact your Maximum Leader would argue that every Special Prosecutor has run amok in their investigations. Perhaps it is better end it now.

Anyho…

Your Maximum Leader will go now. He hopes to post something more later. But don’t wait for it.

Carry on.

“There’s just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.” [Bush, 9/30/03]

“I want to know the truth. … I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers.” [Fox News, 10/8/03]

“I’d like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive information.” [Bush, 10/28/03]

President Bush authorized the selective leaking of classified information to undercut Iraq War critics and bolster his own position. No one in the White House will deny this.

So how will the blogger right respond: Silence or Spin?

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Yur Maximum Leader apologizes to you for the generally lackluster quality of his work here since the beginning of the year. There are issues in his personal life that have been taking center stage in his mind. Those issues seem to be coming to a head now. How those issues play out here is hard to gauge. It could mean a complete renaissance in quality writing from your Maximum Leader - who will use the blog for fun & relaxation. Or it will mean that he does a lot more playing of video games.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t taken a quiz in a while. So, thanks to the Llamabutchers here is an new one.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Here is the extended entry on Tesla:

A minister’s son from Simljan in Austria-Hungary, you were precocious from an early age. At three you could multiply three-digit numbers in your head and calculate how many seconds visitors to your home had lived. In awe of your older brother Dane, you shot a pea-shooter at his horse, causing it to throw him and inflict injuries from which he later died. This tragedy haunted you ever after. You frequently suffered bouts of illness with hallucinations throughout your life. During one affliction of cholera, you encountered the writing of Mark Twain, with whom you were later to be close friends. Later, another, this time mystery, illness inexplicably heightened your senses to a painful extent, only relenting when you hit upon the idea of the alternating current motor.

You developed an aversion to human contact, particularly involving hair, and a fear of pearls; when one would-be lover kissed you, you ran away in agony. Later, you insisted that any repeated actions in your day-to-day life had to be divisible by three, or, better yet, twenty-seven. You would, for example, continue walking until you had executed the required number of footsteps. You refused to eat anything until you had calculated its exact volume. Saltine crackers were a favourite for their uniformity in this respect. In the midst of important work, you forgot trivial details such as eating, sleeping or, on one memorable occasion, who you were.

Your inventions, always eccentric, began on a suitably bizarre note. The first was a frog-catching device that was so successful, and hence so emulated by your fellow children, that local frogs were almost eradicated. You also created a turbine powered by gluing sixteen May bugs to a tiny windmill. The insects panicked and flapped their wings furiously, powering the contraption for hours on end. This worked admirably until a small child came along and ate all the creatures alive, after which you never again touched another insect.

Prompted by dreams of attaining the then-ridiculed goal of achieving an alternating-current motor, you went to America in the hope of teaming up with Thomas Edison. Edison snubbed you, but promised fifty thousand dollars if you could improve his own direct-current motor by 20% efficiency. You succeeded. Edison did not pay up. It was not long until you created an AC motor by yourself.

Now successful, you set up a small laboratory, with a few assistants and almost no written records whatsoever. Despite it being destroyed by fire, you invented the Tesla Coil, impressing even the least astute observer with man-made lightning and lights lit seemingly by magic. Moving to Colorado Springs, you created a machine capable of sending ten million volts into the Earth’s surface, which even while being started up caused lightning to shoot from fire hydrants and sparks to singe feet through shoes all over the town. When calibrated to be in tune with the planet’s resonance, it created what is still the largest man-made electrical surge ever, an arc over 130 feet long. Unfortunately, it set the local power plant aflame.

You returned to New York, incidentally toying with the nascent idea of something eerily like today’s internet. Although the wealthiest man in America withdrew funding for a larger, more powerful resonator in short order, it did not stp you announcing the ability to split the world in two. You grew ever more diverse in your inventions: remote-controlled boats and submarines, bladeless turbines, and, finally, a death ray.

While whether the ray ever existed is still doubtful, it is said that you notified the Peary polar expedition to report anything strange in the tundra, and turned on the ray. First, nothing happened; then it disintegrated an owl; finally, reports reached you of the mysterious Tunguska explosion, upon which news you dismantled the apparatus immediately. An offer during WWII to recreate it was, thankfully, never acted upon by then-President Wilson. Turning to other matters, you investigated the forerunner of radar, to widespread derision.

Your inventions grew stranger. One oscillator caused earthquakes in Manhattan. You adapted this for medical purposes, claiming various health benefits for your devices. You found they let you work for days without sleep; Mark Twain enjoyed the experience until the sudden onset of diarrhoea. You claimed to receive signals in quasi-Morse Code from Mars, explored the initial stages of quantum physics; proposed a “wall of light”, using carefully-calibrated electromagnetic radiation, that would allegedly enable teleportation, anti-gravity airships and time travel; and proposed a basic design for a machine for photographing thoughts. You died aged 87 in New York, sharing an apartment with the flock of pigeons who were by then your only friends.

Ridiculed throughout your life (Superman fought the evil Dr. Tesla in 1940s comics), you were posthumously declared the father of the fluorescent bulb, the vacuum tube amplifier and the X-ray machine, and the Supreme Court named you as the legal inventor of the radio in place of Marconi. Wardenclyffe, the tower once housing your death ray, was dynamited several times to stop it falling into the hands of spies. It was strangely hard to topple, and even then could not be broken up.

Beauty, eh?

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has to tell you all that he is still feeling bleh. This condition is made worse by the fact that he’s discovered that his internet connection at the Villainschloss is on the fritz. Not sure of the cause of the problem, but he will work to diagnose it. Writing now on a borrowed connection…

The good Minister of Propaganda has been (in the comment section of previous posts) been goading your Maximum Leader about Mr. Tom DeLay’s decision to not seek re-election in his Texas district. So, while he can still post here, your Maximum Leader has decided to give some of his thoughts on the matter.

Frankly, your Maximum Leader is disappointed in Tom DeLay. If readers recall your Maximum Leader advised DeLay to fight to keep his leadership role for as long as possible. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that DeLay fought quite long enough, but it appears as though there was a little bit of a respite in the “mindless canibalism” of political attacks in Congress once DeLay did step down. Certainly the Dems aren’t belabouring the specific ethics of individual members any more in favour of a general “Republicans are sleazy” theme.

As for DeLay deciding not to seek re-election, well that disappoints your Maximum Leader too. DeLay always struck your Maximum Leader as more of a fighter. This move certainly gives DeLay’s (now the Republican nominee’s) Democratic opponents another arrow in the quiver of “Republicans are sleazy” attacks.

Your Maximum Leader continues to believe that DeLay will eventually be exhonorated of the charges against him. But he will not return to elected politics again. He’s given up the fight.

And if he’s given up the fight, he’s no good to Republicans any more.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, in checking his calendar, discovered he does have something for today. He will be celebrating today in fact. Celebrating the anniversary of the birth of his favourite philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was born this day in 1588.

To mark this day, your Maximum Leader will repost a Hobbes post he did years ago…

Thomas Hobbes was born in April 1588. His premature birth to a Vicar’s wife in Westport (near Malmesbury), Gloucestershire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I coincided with the threat of the Spanish Armada. Hobbes was later to comment that his mother gave birth to twins “myself and fear” that year.

Thomas’ father died when Thomas was young, and the young Hobbes was sent to live with a nearby uncle. Eventually, Hobbes left his uncle and secured an education at Oxford. He became a mathematics tutor to the powerful Cavendish family (who were the Earl’s of Devonshire), and eventually a tutor to Charles Stuart (later King Charles II of Great Britain).

Hobbes’ first published work was a translation of Thucydides “History of the Peloponnesian War.” He also published a number of mathematical treatises. But, for the sake of this blog, your Maximum Leader will focus on Hobbes’ political treatise, “Leviathan.” Hobbes published a number of political tracts, but they are all variations on the same set of political beliefs. Of these “Leviathan” is both best known, and most comprehensive.

In “Leviathan,” Hobbes creates a logical model of human nature, the nature of consent to government, and the authority of government. His opening chapters set out in detail the physiological elements of human action. While they are dated by our thinking today, they still accurately depict the modus operandi of human activity. It is when Hobbes begins to discuss human motivation that he begins in earnest his philosophical discourse.

To Hobbes, man is motivated by “appetites” and “aversions.” We act to acquire things we desire, and seek to avoid thing we do not desire or will cause us harm. Human appetites are constant, insatiable, and vary in degree from man to man. Man, therefore, has the power to act of his own accord to satisfy his appetites and avoid his aversions. Man acts to bring the greatest possible good to himself, using the means and methods at his disposal. In order to bring the greatest possible good to himself, man must acquire power over others.

To Hobbes there are two types of power, original (also called natural) power, and instrumental (also called acquired) power. Original power is that power that comes from the man himself. His physical strength is the clearest examples of a man’s original, or natural, power. But also considered an original power is man’s intellect and brain-power (if you will). Instrumental powers are those that flow from their acquisition. They include money, fame, reputation, and everyone’s favourite, God’s favour (or good luck as we might call it).

Having established the nature of man, and defined man’s power, Hobbes starts to get really interesting. He asserts that the exercise or acquisition of power by one man naturally hinders or limits the exercise or acquisition of power by anothe man. Given that man’s appetites are insatiable; this puts man in an uncomfortable position of always being at odds with other men.

Hobbes then begins to postulate on the nature of the state. First he envisions the state of nature. That is the condition where there is no state or governmental structure that will confine the passions of individual men. That state is the condition of war by all against all. Or to use the famous quotation:

In such condition there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, the continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

Of course, no man wants this kind of life. Man has an appetite for life, and the acquisition of power. Man is also a rational creature and will seek to avoid violent death. This rational aversion to death, is essentially man’s natural right. By limiting the extent to which a man will use his power over other men, he will, himself, enter a state of peace with other men. This is the essence of Hobbes’ social contract. All men, seeing the benefits of peace with other men, will voluntarily, or tacitly as the case may be, limit his own freedom to do whatever he will to whomever he will.

Of course, when one enters into a contract (by agreement, assent, or in the case of man in society - by birth) one is obliged or bound to agree to the terms of the contract. Once a man ceases to be obliged or bound, the fabric of the contract begins to erode, and the state of nature will arise.

Hobbes, at this point, constructs a model of a sovereign state. While he may have seemed to profess a preference for monarchy, closer reading of “Leviathan” shows that a parliamentary system would also be perfectly acceptable. For Hobbes the institutions of the sovereign state are not quite as important as the role of the sovereign state. The first job of the state is to protect the property of its citizens. As every man has a significant interest in the property of his own body, the protection of the lives of men is the most important role of a state. After protection of the body, protection of a man’s riches (possessions) and his means of living are the chief functions of the state. And a state that preserves a man’s life and property is, ultimately, a just state.

Within the context of the state, men have different obligations, based on their different appetites and abilities. Generally, those with more are bound to support the state more. Hobbes describes, for example, a tax code by which those with more pay more, based on how much he consumes in society. (Taxes, for Hobbes, are the price you pay for your very life.) Hobbes also establishes a system of justice based on contracts and rule of law.

Hobbes spends considerable energy in “Leviathan” discussing Scripture. Many facile and superficial readers of “Leviathan” assume that he is doing this to reinforce the authority of the state. Ergo: God orders you to obey legitimate civil authority, therefore one must always obey the dictates of the state. But this is not Hobbes’ goal. He uses Scripture, in many cases, to support his revolutionary idea of a state that gets is legitimate authority to rule, not from God, but from the consent of the governed. A common misinterpretation of Hobbes’ work is that he was justifying the Divine Right of Kings to rule. He was not. He wouldn’t have gone through such an elaborate explanation of the nature of man and the causes of a state to then fall back on Romans 13.

Hobbes’ great work, “Leviathan” details much more about the nature of the state, just rule, and the nature of man. But alas, this medium (the blog) doesn’t always lend itself to a lengthy exposition on a single topic. Yur Maximum Leader wanted to take a moment and expound a little on this great man, who very much influenced his political thought.

If my minions would like to know more about Hobbes, and how his thought is still very much applicable to our times, let me know. Your Maximum Leader will expound further.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has nothing.

Absolutely nothing. If you were to give him a call today and ask his opinion on anything he’d probably give you an “Eh?” and wander away. He just doesn’t feel motivated to write anything.

Of curse, that hasn’t stopped him before from publishing complete crap on this blog…

He does hope that many of you have enjoyed the full 48 hrs of the Big Hominid’s “Britney” bit. It is damned funny. I get a chuckle out of it every time I see it.

Anyho…

Nothing to see here… Move along…

Carry on.

You’ve doubtless seen the strange yet wonderful statue (if so dignified a term may be applied to a piece of bad fiberglass pop art) depicting Britney Spears blissfully giving birth to her son, Sean Preston, upon a bearskin rug.

_

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes he had Golden Palace’s money. (He will not link them unless they choose to buy a link. Which, in case anyone in the Goldenpalace.com marketing department is reading this, he is glad to do.) The company that paid $25,000 for Admiral Kirk’s kidney stones, and $28,000 for a grilled cheese sandwich seems to have now issued a $250 reward for the return of Jerry Garcia’s toilet. (A toilet that Golden Palace purchased for $2,550.)

Oh to have money flowing freely out of one’s coffers to spend on things like grilled cheese sandwiches, kidney stones, and dead Dead frontmen’s toilets…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader notes with some sadness that the Winchester factory in New Haven, CT has finally closed. When the close was announced many bloggers, including your Maximum Leader, started to post obituaries for the venerable American rifle. Well now the plant has closed and the future of the Winchester brand is uncertain. Well… What is uncertain is where the rifles will be produced. It seems certain that Winchesters will be manufactured… Somewhere.

Your Maximum Leader likes the photo that AP chose to run with that story. The one with Ike, Omar Bradley, and Winston Churchill. Here it is.

Your Maximum Leader will have to admit, that he can’t tell if these rifles are Winhesters. He is not as good at id’ing gun porn as he should be. But one thing he will note. Your Maximum Leader’s firing stance is closer to Ike’s than Churchill’s or Bradley’s.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has often thrown out the slippery slope objection to legalizing gay marriage. The slop, he claims, could lead to polygamy among other things.

Well… Your Maximum Leader has finally read a thoughtful blog entry on why polygamy’s legalization would be significantly more difficult to do than the relatively simple change required for same-sex marriage.

Here it is. Thanks to Dale at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Your Maximum Leader will still stand by slippery slope arguments in many areas of public policy as still being possible. But he will concede that in this area it is not a practical objection.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is so pleased to commemorate the second blogaversary of the Hatemongers Quarterly. Indeed, he’s already hit the sauce this morning in celebration. (Expect your Maximum Leader’s ramblings today to become less and less cogent as the affects of the scotch whisky takes firmer and firmer hold…) Of all of the accolades that one could receive in the whole vast ethereal expanse of Al Gore’s Internet the greatest, your Maximum Leader feels, is to be an official honorary member of the crack young staff of The Hatemongers Quarterly. That your Maximum Leader is an official honorary member of the Crack Young Staff of the HMQ means so very much to him.

One hopes that the big ball tonight will be as cool as last year’s affair. Last year, your Maximum Leader was lucky enough to be escorted (ahem) by Dead Sexy Sadie. He hopes to be that fortunate tonight. He might have to run a little interference for Dead Sexy Sadie as he’s heard that Steve-o might want to have a few words with her about some pictures.

To the Crack Young Staff your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy hat and wishes them many hateful returns.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that there have been three small earthquakes in Iran. So far 66 people are reported dead.

This is obviously the work of God. The Almighty is smiting the heathen Iranians for their refusal to embrace Christianity. This is evidenced by the fact that there were three earthquakes. Three. The number of the Trinity. So far 66 dead. Your Maximum Leader wouldn’t be surprised if the final death toll was 666 dead. If your Maximum Leader were dispensing advice to the eople of Iran it would be this: abandon your Godless pursuit of nuclear weapons, embrace the one true religion and accept Jesus as your own personal saviour, and join the Christian Crusade against the heretic Musslemen in the Levant.
(more…)

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a little egg on his face. But just a little.

It seems as though Ben Domenech has resigned from his new blog at the Washington Post. He has resigned because of accusations of plagiarism which appear to be true. This is a sad turn for Ben, but a sad turn of his own making. Your Maximum Leader agrees with how this has shaken out.

Your Maximum Leader stands by his original post’s contention that one shouldn’t be forced to resign from an op/ed position because one’s views are regarded by many as undesireable. But one should be fired or forced to resign for plagiarizing the work of others.

The best coverage of this has been over on Dan Riehl’s site. Start here. Then move to here, here and here.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that a number of news outlets and bloggers are writing about what they were doing 25 years ago today when Ronald Reagan was shot.

Your Maximum Leader remembers what he was doing. He was in an after-school clarinet lesson. He was trying to improve his skills (which by the way never did improve) at that instrument (which by the way his sainted father plays very well) when a teacher stuck her head in the doorway and said, “My God! Have you heard? Reagan has been shot. Someone says he’s died.” At that point the music teacher asked us to stop what we were doing and have a moment of silent prayer for the President. After our silent prayer, we put our instruments away and went home to watch the news.

Your Maximum Leader likes to think that his prayers, and the prayers of millions of others, helped Reagan that day. The world is better because of him.

Just in case you might want to read a golden oldie on Reagan & your Maximum Leader, he presents for you a link to your Maximum Leader’s recollection of his 1 minute with Ronald Reagan. Which was posted right after Reagan died in 2004.

Carry on.