Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the good Dr. Rusty has been keeping up with a breaking news story. The story is that 5 Americans are being held by US forces in Iraq for fighting with the terrorists.

Dr. Rusty is doing a much better job of keeping things updated than would your Maximum Leader. So go and read the latest.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should spend more time reading French tabloids. It would have the dual salutary affect of improving his meagre French skills as well as keep him up to speed on which unmarried Royals are going around fathering bastard sons by Air France flight attendants.

Albert, your Maximum Leader hardly knew ye! Your Maximum Leader expected that you got around, but he always assumed that you were “protected” against “that” sort of “thing” happening. This isn’t the middle ages and all when Kings and Princes had whole divisions of bastard sons. (Like Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.) That said, your Maximum Leader is happy that you passed along that elusive Grimaldi “Y” chromosome. Will the little one grow up to be “Count So and So” or “Margrave Such and Such.” Who knows?

Anyhow… This settles a long-standing wager between Mrs. Villain and your Maximum Leader. She thought that a handsome, put-together guy like Prince Albert would have married years ago - unless he was gay. Mrs. Villain became convinced that the Prince was gay. Your Maximum Leader always believed that Albert just wanted to “play the field.” It seems that the field was played indeed.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thought he would shock you with that title line. A line in your Maximum Leader’s last post caused his good friend the Big Hominid to write him a longish e-mail missive about the French. And while the details of that message are not important, it did cause your Maximum Leader to think more about what he does love about France and the French.

There is, as many may know, a lot to love about France and the French. Alas, their elected officials and policy stance is wrongheaded (to your Maximum Leader at least); but that doesn’t condemn a whole nation.

Your Maximum Leader loves the French and France for their food. He once had an old French lady teach him how to properly scramble eggs. It was a perfect exercise in what makes French cooking so good. First you let the eggs warm to just below room temp. Then you break them gently into a very large bowl. She fished out the yokes with a spoon and put them into another bowl. She would then whip the whites until they were nearly ready for meringue. Then she would beat the yokes in the other bowl. She would combine the yokes and whites together with a little fresh cream in the big bowl. Then came salt and pepper. Then she would melt butter in a huge iron skillet. Then when the butter was melted (but not brown - watch the temperature) she would add the eggs to the skillet. She would be careful to lift and fold the eggs as they cooked. She didn’t beat them in the skillet. When the cooking was nearly done and the eggs were still very moist she would take a spoon and give them a nice firm stir to break up the peices. Then they were ready for plating and eating.

Those are some damned good eggs.

Of course, the fact that one would have to clean up two bowls, a skillet, two whisks, a rubber scraper/spatula, and a metal spoon (not to mention a plate and whatever cutlery you were eating with) after making scrambled eggs is a bit much. Also, the whole process took about 25 mins. (All that beating and such is done by hand.)

That is a lot for some eggs. But once again, those eggs are damned good.

Excursus: This technique was duplicated by another elderly woman your Maximum Leader once knew. She spend a good portion of her life in France. She was actually Russian by birth. Her family fled the Revolution (nobility). They lived off the money they got from selling the family jewels in Paris. She stayed in Paris until the Germans came in WW2. Then she went to Switzerland. After the war, she went to Italy. Then back to Paris. Then to London. There she met a handsome American whom she married and they moved back to the greater Washington DC area. But that is another story…

True French cuisine takes time. And patience. And technique. Speaking of cuisine, your Maximum Leader has a great Coq au Vin recipe he is waiting to try in true French fashion. You see, he’s done this recipe before with store bought chicken. But to do it in true French fashion (country fashion that is - as Coq au Vin is a country dish) he needs an old, sinewy, thin bird. The type you don’t find in a grocery store. (Lucky for your Maximum Leader he knows of a farmer who has some old birds lying around on his farm…) If he started this Coq au Vin recipe today, it would be ready for eatin on Friday night. You can’t rush these things…

Therein is something important about French cuisine. You can’t rush it. Perhaps the French have learned something about living and life that we in the US have not. We have sacrificed quality for convenience in many cases. Fast food (since we’re talking food here) is a great example of this. What do you really gain by eating at McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy’s? You gain some time (supposedly). Time you can use doing something else. But do you really do anything meaningful with that time? Probably not. So rather than spending an hour or so eating a good meal, you’ll spend 20 mins eating crap so that you can spend 40 minutes watching TV or surfing internet porn? Your Maximum Leader is guilty of trading for time when he eats, but he tries not to make a habit of it. Perhaps the cultural glorification of food in France is an outward sign of the French being more at ease about life. Sure the French are not going to be outpacing Americans in productivity any time soon, but have they realized a certain quality of living should be reflected upon? Perhaps they have.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is returned from a long weekend with no internet connectivity. Well… In all honesty, he was back yesterday. But he didn’t post out of a combination of having lots of stuff to do and laziness.

But he is back with a vengance today.

The big news of the morning appears to be that London has been awarded the 2012 Olympic Games. Cheers to the people of London and to the people of Great Britain. Your Maximum Leader is sure the games will be great.

Of course, for every winner, there are a series of losers. They are, in this case, Moscow, Madrid, New York, and (heh) Paris. In the final presentation to the IOC, Jacques Chirac said “You can put your trust and faith in France…” Heh. Faith and trust to do what? Be international contrarians? Make fantastic food? Continue to decrease the hours in a work week? Defeat the EU Constitution? Your Maximum Leader is still puzzling over that one. (Defeating the EU Constitution that is.)

Now, one supposes that Tony Blair can thumb his nose at Chirac for his comments about British food. Now say what you will, but British food is not really bad at all. It is much more international than you would think. London is one of, if not THE, most international cities in the wold. And their cuisine reflects the influences of the whole world.

Now that said, your Maximum Leader will go on the record saying that the best meals he’s ever eaten were prepared by two of the most fastidious cultures in the world. Namely the French and the Japanese. French cuisine is wonderful because of the mentality needed to truly do justice to French food.

But French food is likely the subject of another post…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know if you all saw that footage of Turkish police killing the failed suicide bomber. (Failed in the sense that he failed to detonate his bomb - but was successful in the getting himself killed department. So that means that he was probably batting .500 in that respect.) The footage was rather graphic. But a follow-on news article from Reuters disturbed your Maximum Leader. Here is the article: Turk police shoot dead suspected suicide bomber.

Here are the disturbing points for your Maximum Leader. “Suspected” Sure the terrorist was “suspected” in trying to bomb the Justice Ministry building. But his bomb failed to detonate. That would lead your Maximum Leader to believe that once the boby was examined there was little suspicion of the terrorist’s intentions.

The other disturbing point is how sensitive the Turks have to be in this whole matter. The Justice Minister is quoted as saying the police weren’t trigger-happy but had to shoot the man because he had a bomb on his person that he was intent to use. Then the Justice Minister went on to say that Turkey will improve its human rights.

Wha? Your Maximum Leader is confused. You are defending the actions of the police who killed a terrorist bent on destroying himself and taking as many others as he could with him? Who are you defending your actions from? Oh… That’s right. Europeans. Those sensitive Euro-weanies.

Well Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy hat to you and the police who did the shooting. Job well done. One more dead bad-guy. Kill some more if you find them trying to blow up any other buildings.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was perusing the blogroll and noticed the following post from Professor Chaos: Conditioned Response.

In it the good Prof muses what beer should one pour on the ground to symbolize your solidarity with your dead homies.

Well Peeps. Your Maximum Leader (aka: Fine Ass M Ice) thinks the answer if the dead homies were beer drinkers would have to be Colt 45. If they liked a little of the hard stuff it would have to be Stoli.

Of course, if you really loved yo bruthaz, then it would be Crystal.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is surprised. He reads that O’Connor to Retire From Supreme Court. Your Maximum Leader (and everyone else) figured it would be Rehnquist.

Well… Batten down the hatches of partisanship. And let the battle begin!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader found himself watching a little morning news today while getting up at the Villainschloss.

Particularly, your Maximum Leader was struck by a report that Alabama Senator Richard Shelby was writing Secretary of State Rice asking Secretary Rice to encourage the Government of Aruba to basically turn over the Natalee Holloway investigation over to the FBI.

Your Maximum Leader supposes the next step will be to send US Prosecutors, Judges, Defence Counsel, and Jurors to Aruba for the trial.

Now last time your Maximum Leader checked, Aruba was a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. One wonders what Queen Beatrix is thinking about this whole case. One wonders what the government of the Netherlands in general is thinking about this case. Afterall, a US Senator is pretty much asking the US Secretary of State to ask the Arubans (and Dutch by extension) to give up their sovreignty to the US for the duration of this investigation.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if we’ll next hear George W. Bush call for “Holloway alive or van der Sloot dead!”

Really now… You’ve got Aruban Prosecutors saying that they “are not a bunch of cowboys here.” How can you expect that justice be done when you have an attitude like that? Where is that famed Ole West Posse justice that the Arubans and Dutch are famous for?

Your Maximum Leader supposes that if the Arubans don’t move more quickly in resolving this matter the US will just have to invade. We just cannot stand by idly while our blondes disappear while on vacation after meeting up with exotic men in a tropical paradise. The real question would be what to do with Aruba after the US invasion. One can’t expect that the limpDutch will actually try to take the island back. So that leaves the US with two choices. Annex the island as a US Commonwealth; or hold local elections and let the Arubans decide what they want. Your Maximum Leader bets that Aruba is tired of suffering under the autocratic heel of a despotic monarch thousands of miles away anyway. They are probably chomping at the bit to be rid of their Dutch overlords.

Who knows what will happen?

Your Maximum Leader feels confident of one thing though… Natalee Holloway is dead and it is seemingly more unlikely that her killers will be brought to justice.

Carry on.

Would you rather be a part of the Mike World Order or the MoP World Order?

For your consideration, I submit the results of my latest quiz:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Believe.

I laughed at the Maximum Leader’s results for this quiz until I took it myself. Now ML is frightening me . . .

Believe.

I hope I didn’t screw anything up.

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the lovely Annika has a neat poll question up on her blog. (It is there on the left side nav bar. In black with purple-ish lettering.) The question is: If Lara Croft and Beatrix Kiddo were given orders to kill each other who would win?

Well… Beatrix Kiddo of course.

Alas, some of the voters don’t seem to agree. So go and vote for Kiddo!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader went and took that MIT weblog survey you may have seen links to around. Want proof?

If you are a blogger and haven’t taken the survey, you might want to.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads that Shelby Foote has died.

Your Maximum Leader, a student of history, has never been a particular fan of the US Civil War. But he has always been a fan of Shelby Foote. Your Maximum Leader picked up (years ago) in a second-hand bookstore a copy of “The Stars in their Courses.” That small book is the republished chapters on Gettysburg from Foote’s masterpiece “The Civil War: A Narrative.” Your Maximum Leader was so taken by Foote’s style and flowing prose that he went out and read all three volumes of “The Civil War.” Since then, no other writing on that period will ever do for your Maximum Leader.

Your Maximum Leader also remembers a 3 hour interview with Foote conducted by Brian Lamb of C-Span a number of years ago. Your Maximum Leader watched the whole thing live. Foote was elevated to a much high plane for your Maximum Leader that day. What a thoughtful and learned man. Your Maximum Leader wanted to meet Shelby Foote and shake his hand. Alas, that will not happen.

Shelby Foote, resquiscat in pace.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader presents his latest batch of silly quiz results (this quiz found at Club Mercutio):

Apparently your Maximum Leader is a Paranoid/Schizophrenic Narcissist with OCD. Like that is news…

Carry on.