I used the word in the last advisedly.

Just to set up this post.

We have had a fecund week at Sweet Seasons Farm.

On Thursday my wife gave birth to a new farm hand.

Yesterday, in the middle of the torrential downpour of dying Hurricane Jeanne, one of my Tunis sheep gave birth to a ram lamb.

I went out to move the cows to a new field (they eat right through the rain) and saw “Wooly” standing over her son. He was very chilled and not very responsive. He couldn’t have been more than a few minutes old - the rain had not yet washed away the blood of the afterbirth on her udder and he was still covered in gunk. I picked him up and took them into the barn. I was afraid he would die, but after I rubbed him down with a warm towel, he struggled to his feet, began moving around, found a nipple, and downed his colostrum.

I am excited that it looks like he will survive after such a miserable birth experience. On the other hand, I am disappointed that he is a ram because if he had been a ewe, I could have used another ewe unrelated to my ram. Additionally, I am concerned that he is a singleton; the historical farm that sold me Wooly assured me that she had delivered twins in her last three births. I hope that she is not one of those sheep that only delivers one at a time. If it costs $80 to feed a sheep for a year, and a lamb sells for $100, there is very little profit from a single-bearing ewe. But a twinning ewe would yield a net of $120 - six times better.

The new guy is a grogeous, deep red. I look forward to showing him off to the Maximum Leader’s wee ones.

I note that the fecundity of the Maximum Leader has pushed the blog passed the 1000 post mark. Kudos to the Maximum Leader!

Becoming a Dad a second time is a calmer joy. With the first child, your awe at the immensity of the event is tempered by the raw terror that accompanies the new responsbility of rearing a moral human being. After two years with the Smallholderette, I can look on Smallholder Junior with a bit of confidence.

For a while it appeared that I would never be a parent. But the good Lord (or random, impersonal chance if you are the Propaganda Minister) has now blessed me with two healthy children. I hope that we will be able to raise decent people who love to learn, treat others well, and enjoy their lives.

Thanks to all the well-wishers and to Bill over at Bill’s Comments for his kind congratulatory note.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader warns you to be afraid. The Poet Laureate has a centipede. And worse that that, he might also have the free will to use it!

Then again, his free will might be illusory. In which case God only knows what will happen with that Hominid and his centipede.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader checks out Dr. Rusty’s site a few times a day - time willing.

But now that the good Doctor has been on MSNBC and has become such a huge star in the blogosphere; is he going to be insufferable at dinner parties? Is he going to forget his homeys?

Your Maximum Leader can’t help but wonder…

Seriously, congrats to Rusty.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, pending the establishment of the MWO, likes to keep a sort of low profile. But he would, for just a moment, want to trade places with Conrad this weekend.

Oh to have to fight off the paparazzi while taking your (no-doubt lovely) Indonesian paramour back to her villa; and then fight back your own inclination towards sarcasm when looking around the place…

Your Maximum Leader is sure that he could out-Elton Elton in the “rude, vile pigs” comment department… But isn’t sure he could keep his snide decor comments to himself.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would like to observe that the NHL is still locked out, yet there is still NHL news to report on ESPN. How odd is that? Pretty damned odd if you ask your Maximum Leader.

And what is even more peculiar is that none of the news about the NHL has anything to do with negotiations to end the lockout. Why is that? Could it be because there are no negotiations? Curiouser and curiouser.

Do you know what else? Nobody really cares at all. Because we have football and baseball.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was just experiencing an interesting dichotomy.

First he was reading some of the latest entries on the Sarong Party Girl blog.

Then he was reading some of the latest entries on Celibate in the City.

Humm…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader didn’t have much fun watching football this weekend. (But he did, as he always does, have fun reading TMQ today.)

Your Maximum Leader’s beloved Green Bay Packers fell to the Indianapolis Colts in what was a real shootout. One of the things that most annoyed your Maximum Leader in the run up to the game however was the incessant discussion concerning the quarterbacks. Yes, yes. We all know that Peyton Manning is possibly the best quarterback out there right now. (But a strong case can be made for Michael Vick.) And Brett Favre is a certain Hall of Fmer. But to cast this game in terms of the battle of the QB’s is a bit much.

First off, Manning is at the peak of his game. He is young, smart, and healthy. He is the Colts. Without Manning (much like the Falcons without Vick), the rest of his team is nothing. But it isn’t right to compare him with Favre. Favre, while still great, is in the early twilight of his career. (And he still has those melingering thumb problems.) And it must be noted that the Packers are a more balanced team than the Colts anyway. The Packers have a running game. The Colts do not.

Of course, neither team has a defensive secondary. Thus the very very high score.

And as for the Redskins/Cowboys game… Your Maximum Leader firmly believes that Joe Gibbs did not help his team win that game. Poor clock management at the end of the first half, and at the end of the game is definately a major contributor to the Skins loosing. This is not to say that the outcome would have been different had the clock been controlled better. It is just to say that poor management of the clock was as big a contributor to the Skins defeat as their weak girlie-man offensive line.

Well… There is always Week 4…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was thinking about our National Mall over the weekend. Then he found this article about the Mall just today. And as you may know, last Friday the National Museum of the American Indian is being dedicated. It is (supposedly) the last major building to be built on the Mall in DC.

Your Maximum Leader certainly hopes so. The Mall, supposedly a grand open space in our Nation’s capital, is becoming a cluttered melange of jumbled architecture. There is no space for another building, but your Maximum Leader is sure that someone out there is finding a way to fit another one in there.

And something else bugs your Maximum Leader. Everyone with a beef about something done to, for, or near them feels they need a monument on the Mall.

Allow your Maximum Leader to tell you all something. Monuments are trivialized when everyone gets one. Monuments are there to serve an important civic function. They are to remind citizens of the sacrifices of fellow citizens. Or they are to remind citizens of the lives of seminal figures in the “life” of our Republic. They are not tools by which we assuage the hurt feelings of some group. They are not band-aids for the bruised egos of the whiney.

It drives your Maximum Leader absolutely nuts when he hears of another group that wants a monument on the Mall. The Mall should be closed to new monuments. Period.

Carry on.

I know that the Nakedvillany crowd loves to take quizzes that help to determine what you already know about yourself.

Sooo
Are you a NeoCon?

Back to the trenches

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader continues to ruminate on the whole “Iraq is flypaper to terrorists” idea.

As you may remember, last week your Maximum Leader responded to a post from the Smallholder. Then Nicole commented on her blog about this topic as well.

First off, let your Maximum Leader state for the record that he continues to maintain that making Iraq the primary front in the war on terror is completely accidental. Nicole, in her peice writes:

I wonder. Was it so unintended? I mean surely, it was not so unpredictable that if we invaded the terrorists would come lend their hand to the fight against the Great Satan. I don’t think it’s so farfetched to assume that maybe the administration knew quite well that this is precisely what would happen and that one of the fringe benefits to the invasion of Iraq would be concentrate most of the terrorists in one place. Now you could argue that we already had that in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is not such a great place to fight a war. In fact, if history is a judge, it’s one of the worst places to fight a war. Iraq’s a bit better. It’s a little smaller, and the terrain, while not ideal, is not nearly so treacherous as in Afghanistan. It’s also more centrally located within the problem region, perhaps giving more of the jihadi types not specifically allied with a particularly group an opportunity to come lend a hand to the battle.

Your Maximum Leader believes that while Nicole makes some excellent points, many with which your Maximum Leader agrees, one fact belies the truth of the accidental nature of the current Iraq situation. That fact is that the United States is not prosecuting the war - nor apparently planning to prosecute the war - in a way that would eventually assure the “flies” are killed.

Your Maximum Leader believes it is a stretch to come to the conclusion that the Allied “no-go” zones are intentional creations meant to draw in terrorists. They seem to be zones in which the Allied forces have not been able to restore civil authority due to lack of resources and support of the locl population. They are organic growths that, as of yet, have not been dealt with.

The “no-go” zones (like Fallujah) are primarially Sunni muslim areas which stand to suffer the most under a non-Baathist regime. As your Maximum Leader wrote before, the Shia and the Kurds are grinding their axes in anticipation of what is to come. The Sunni’s in these “no-go” zones are acting in their own self-interest by not supporting Allied troops or the new Iraqi interim government. This choice has worked out rather well for them so far. They are self-governing and not under the thumb of anyone but themselves. Terrorists are welcome - we suspect - in these areas because their presence and activities will promote the continuance of a system that the Sunni residents of these areas find preferable to control by the Interim Government or the Allies.

Now, if the “no-go” zones were the intentional creation of the Allies (and the US specifically) then your Maximum Leader has a problem with the situation. The problem is that it is completely unacceptable for US commanders to allow those who seek to kill US (and Allied) ground troops (and Iraqis in general) a safe haven from which to operate. Safe havens for terrorists means more casualties and deaths of our troops. And each solider’s life is too valuable to allow to be wasted towards the goal of gathering as many terrorists as possible in a few specific geographic locations.

Since your Maximum Leader hasn’t been accused of being bloodthirsty in a while he’ll throw this out there. If your Maximum Leader were in charge of our troops, he would go systematically through those areas and exterminate anyone who resisted. He would destroy homes and property that was not immediately surrendered for search. He would relocate inhabitants while their city was razed to assure that no terrorist havens remained. (Then, being good Americans, we would rebuild their city and make it much nicer than the one we just blew up.)

Now, back to your Maximum Leader’s assertion that the war is not being prosecuted in a way that would end with the killing/arrest/detention of terrorists. At what point would the US, our Allies, and the Iraqi’s start to move to assert their control of the “no-go” zones? How much longer will the borders remain pourous and terrorists find safe haven? Apparently a while longer. No credible source has stated that it is in the works to send troops (of any nationality) into these areas.

Eliminating terrorist havens in Iraq will require troops and supplies. If one were planning on soon going after the terrorists in Iraq, one would start moving many more troops over there now. But, there doesn’t appear to be an increase in the number of troops going to Iraq.

This returns your Maximum Leader to his problem. Allowing terrorist safe havens to exist in Iraq is wrong. But, as your Maximum Leader wrote a few lines ago, the US does not appear to have committed the resources to restoring order to these areas. This can be for a number of reasons.

There are many who would say that it is political. The Administration is too willful to admit that they need more troops than they estimated. The Administration has also been accused of keeping the number of troops constant before the election, then building up after the election. This gets back to the previously stated problem, it is wrong to allow soliders to die pending a force buildup.

Your Maximum Leader is inclined to believe that the reasons the troop numbers are not what is needed to root out the terrorists are: 1) the US is overdeployed at the moment; and/or 2) the Iraqi interim government has resquested that we not send additional troops.

As for the overdeployed statement… For this both the Administration and Congress bear responsibility. Neither has made any significant movement towards realigning our existing force, or increasing the size of our forces overall. Both of these steps need to be taken.

As for the Iraqi government requesting that no additional troops be sent to Iraq… It appears as though the IraqiInterim Government is serious about trying to dispell the idea that Iraqi is occupied. An increase in Allied troops in Iraq would certainly seem to Iraqis as more occupiers. The Iraqi government may well be trying to do what it can with the resources available.

Neither of these situations is good. As Secretary Powell has noted, the situation in Iraq is “getting worse.” The US and the Iraqis need to determine, and determine NOW, how long they are going to allow an untenable situation to exist. One hopes it is not much longer.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wrote a while ago that he and John Kerry had something in common. That something was Soviet-style assult weapons.

Well, imagine your Maximum Leader’s dismay when he read Michelle Malkin’s piece saying that Kerry is retracting/clarifying/otherwise-changing-his-story on the whole Chinese assault rifle statement. Now the Chinese assault rifle appears to be a 100 years old Russian-made shotgun used by the Vietcong during the war in which, your Maximum Leader is lead to understand, Senator Kerry was a combatant for the United States.

Very very sad. Your Maximum Leader was hoping to invite the Senator out to shoot one day. That cannot happen now. Alas, your Maximum Leader’s Russian-made SKS would woefully out-gun Senator Kerry’s old shotgun. It wouldn’t be very fun…

Carry on.

I don’t know how many of you have been interested or have followed the UN’s corruption in dealing out the Oil for Food program. Seems like a lot of those countries (Germany, Russia, France etc) that were soooo against the war were just protecting their own interest….. wait I KNOW that the US is supposed to be the only unilateralist on the planet but look what we have here!

Kick backs, bribes, skimming money off… VERRRYYY interesting.

Can’t wait till te names get named but it seems that the Honorable Kofi Anon son is being implicated.

I love this stuff….

Back to the trenches

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is excited. The King returns on December 14th. Not Elvis (the one and only King). But the film “The Return of the King” comes out in the full extended version glory on December 14th.

Your Maximum Leader already has the first two Lord of the Rings movies in extended format. He has been awaiting the last. Mrs. Villain hasn’t even seen ROTK yet. Your Maximum Leader has forbade her from renting the theatrical version - telling her that she needs to wait and see the extended version… Very exciting.

Carry on.