Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the lovely Phoenix has chimed in on his recent Valentines Day post. Your Maximum Leader would like to get Phoenix and Mrs Villain together for a little while. Perhaps Phoenix’s love of firearms can somehow be transmitted to Mrs Villain. Alas, your Maximum Leader’s lovely wife is not a big firearms fan. Although we did go shooting at Nemacolin Resort not too long ago. She claims to have enjoyed it - although your Maximum Leader has his doubts.

And just in case you were wondering… Yes… Men do love flannel. It is special enough and sexy enough to be a Valentines Day gift. Frankly it is special enough and sexy enough to be a suitable gift any time. (Although your Maximum Leader would say that it is a better gift in fall and winter.) You know what is sexy ladies? Allow your Maximum Leader to tell you. The most sexy thing out there is (obviously) a woman wearing a Naked Villainy t-shirt, tank top, or even a Naked Villainy sweatshirt. If you are not going to wear the Naked Villainy swag… The NEXT most sexy thing out there for a woman to wear is her man’s flannel shirt. And just in case you aren’t clear on your Maximum Leader’s meaning here. The ONLY thing the woman should be wearing is her man’s flannel shirt. Since there might be chirren readin’ this here blog, your Maximum Leader will not go into further detail. But you can see where this is going? Can’t you?

By the way… Your Maximum Leader is fond of LL Bean’s (poorly named) Scotch Plaid flannel shirt in the Lindsay tartan. Your Maximum Leader likes Lindsay because his own clan is very close to Lindsay (but not Lindsay). He further says that the shirt is poorly named because “Scotch” is a distilled beverage and “Scottish” is the adjective that one would use to describe things from or invoking being from or like Scotland. So it should be a Scottish Plaid shirt…

Anyhoo…

Robbo also is on-board with disliking the consumerist spin to Valentines Day. But in good Robbo fashion he puts forth his assertion in true Oxford Union fashion. Speaking of the Oxford Union… Have you read about the recent presidential election held by the Oxford Union? Sexism. Racism. Voter irregularities. Good stuff… Go and read all about it.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t do much in the way of photos on this site. Not much at all. That is in part because once that photo is out on the interwebs you never know what is going to come of it. Your Maximum Leader refuses to post photos of his children on the internet for this reason (indeed, he doesn’t even email photos often).

So… It was with great interest that he read this peice on the Washington Post. The piece describes how big corporations are lifting photos from the internet to use in their advertising. Here are some excerpts:

Under the banner of “intellectual property,” record labels warn you not to bootleg their songs. Hollywood studios warn you not to download their movies. Intellectual property has lately seemed the concern of corporations trying to protect the artist from the grabby public.

But in an increasingly user-generated world where the public is the artist, sometimes it’s the big boys who get grabby. And the questions that arise are about ownership, but they are also about fairness, and changing culture, and ultimately, the search for authenticity.

[…]

Photographers (even amateur ones) automatically own the rights to their own work (even online). That means others can’t use a photo without permission.

But sometimes, through “fair use,” it actually is okay to use a photo without permission. Fair use can include scholarship or parody, and is determined by a number of criteria.

Further: sometimes, individuals… can decide to give away just part of their control. For example, permitting use of a photograph as long as the source is credited.

[…]

Says Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford legal scholar who created Creative Commons, when asked about the issue of corporations borrowing photos: “There’s really no excuse for [these companies] except that they think it’s not important to protect the rights of the amateur.”

[…]

What’s noteworthy…, Lessig says, “is that bloggers, a community typically associated with piracy, are rallying in support of copyright.”

He says average individuals are increasingly thinking of themselves as artists, whose work has value — or at least deserves respect. Lessig predicts that as the average Joes have their own material appropriated, it will eventually result in better behavior from both individuals and corporations.

Very interesting stuff. Your Maximum Leader knows that he’s used some photos without attribution. He does know better (and does try to provide attribution - in the form of a link mostly). Appropriation of web images by big corporations without trying to get permission is wrong, in your Maximum Leader’s mind at least.

Be careful with your images people….

Carry on.

Huckabee victory
Evangelical power
Beware New Hampshire

Moneybags Romney
Outspends seventeen to one
Not good investment

AWOL John McCain
Chosen by thirteen percent
Will he rock Concord?

Somnolent Thompson
Fails to excite Iowans
Law and Order bore

Ron Paul – ten percent!
Libertarian triumph
Stoners celebrate

Hillary derailed
Who’s inevitable now?
Obama, momma!

Demagogue Edwards
Own success puts the lie to
Two Americas

Richardson, Biden
Dodd are dead on arrival
The Veepstakes begin

Via Volokh:

The last post of a milblogger.

The last two paragraphs choked me up.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what to think of this week. Today certainly felt like a Monday, although it was definately a Wednesday. The abbreviated week is nice, but it does seem to upset (on some level) the regular flow of time…

So… Iowa caucuses tomorrow… Predictions? Anyone? Here you go… On the Democratic side: Obama wins narrowly over Hillary Clinton. Edwards a distant third. Richardson fourth. Other Dems decide to call it quits after results. Four way race going into New Hampshire. On the Republican side: Romney narrowly edges out Huckabee. McCain polls third. Thompson fourth. Rudy fifth. The five (and Ron Paul) remain in contention in New Hampshire. Republican field will not clear out until February.

Your know… Your Maximum Leader has a “thing.” Actually, he has many “things” but this one relates to Egg Nog. He doesn’t think that one should drink Egg Nog after the Feast of the Epiphany. He doesn’t know why this is, but it is. He has a fresh half gallon of Egg Nog he bought right after Christmas. Alas, his Egg Nog consumption was low over the New Years holiday. He now is going to have to go through lots of Egg Nog in a few days.

Your Maximum Leader’s lovely wife, Mrs Villain, buys skim or fat-free milk when she does the grocery shopping. Your Maximum Leader mostly buys 1% (or sometimes whole - or what passes for whole in stores now - when he buys whole milk he pretends he just grabbed the gallon from “the wrong shelf” when asked why he bought whole milk). Now he will urge Mrs Villain to buy 1% milk at the store… For the sake of your Maximum Leader’s prostate.

Your Maximum Leader believes that all-you-can-eat buffets are - essentially - wagers. Bets if you will. The restaurant is betting that they can prepare more food than you can eat (and make a profit) for the price they charge. In most cases, given the quality of buffet food, it is a bet the restaurants win. Then again there are people like Ricky Labit. Ricky apparently doesn’t like losing bets with all-you-can-eat buffets.

And finally… In a sign that “science” has in fact reached to new lows… Apparently a bunch of intrepid researchers have determined that male macaques “pay” for sex with female macaques. Yes… female macaques are, apparently, all whores who wontonly exchange intercourse for… wait for it… grooming. According to the piece:

Michael Gumert of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore made the discovery in a 20-month investigation into 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, New Scientist reports on Saturday.

On average, females had sex 1.5 times per hour.

But this rate jumped to 3.5 times per hour immediately after the female had been groomed by a male — and her partner of choice was likely to be the hunky monkey that did the grooming.

Market forces also acted on the value of the transaction.

If there were several females in the area, the cost of buying sex would drop dramatically — a male could “buy” a female for just eight minutes of nit-picking.

But if there were no females around, he would have to groom for up to 16 minutes before sex was offered.

The work supports the theory that biological market forces can explain social behaviour, the British weekly says.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that the males are “paying” for sex in the sense of prostitution - as seems to be implied in the article. The males are more “exchanging” sex for the primate equivilent of spa treatments. (Try paying Trixie down on the corner in spa treatments and see how far that gets you…)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader realizes that in this very space he (and his good buddy Smallholder) has joked about feeding his (our?) enemies (or others who have done him (us) wrong) to Smallholder’s pigs. We, of course, do this in good humour and for a laugh. Your Maximum Leader does know that pigs are greedy little buggers who would just as soon devour you in an instant as oink for a cob of corn. Your Maximum Leader love pigs (and thinks that they are the most perfect non-pet domesticated animal in all God’s creation), but knows that they have a nasty streak…

Apparently others know this too… To wit, the case of Robert “Willie” Pickton of Port Coquitlam British Columbia. Mr Pickton was just convicted of the murder of six women from the Vancouver area. He may also be responsible for the deaths of up to 70 women. According to the Reuters article:

Pickton is accused of killing 26 Vancouver prostitutes, and prosecutors say they are preparing for a second trial to deal with the remaining 20 murder charges.

Pickton, 58, lured the women to his farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam with money and drugs, killed them, and cut up the bodies and disposed of the remains using the pigs and a rendering plant.

Investigators found human remains on the farm, including severed skulls and feet. A woman who lived briefly in Pickton’s trailer testified she saw him cutting up a body in the middle of the night.

Jurors also viewed a taped jailhouse conversation in which Pickton told an undercover officer after his February 2002 arrest that he had killed 49 women and planned to make it 50.

Pickton’s legal defense team argued the human remains did not prove he was the killer and that police ignored other suspects. Pickton did not testify during the trial and rarely showed emotion.

The jury’s failure to convict Pickton of first degree murder meant it did not agree with prosecutors that he planned the murders in advance.

To your Maximum Leader this sounds as though the prosecutors weren’t doing their job very well, or that this Pickton fellow had a brilliant defence team. Since this article comprises the whole of what your Maximum Leader knows of this case, he will leave it to more learned fellows (and he’s thinking Skippy here) to fill in that which he doesn’t know.

It is really too bad that Canada is so civilized that they can’t execute people… Or give out non-concurrent life sentances for mulitple murders…

Carry on.

President Bush has caught a great deal of flak for vetoing the SCHIP program. He may very well hate poor people, but I don’t think this veto was driven by a hatred of wee Horatio Algers.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but:

George was right.

Please don’t take that as an endorsement of his asinine leadership. When Bush claimed that he was vetoing the bill because her was financially responsible, I laughed at his dishonesty. The drug hand-out to seniors was twenty times more expensive than the SCHIP. The real difference is that old people can vote and poor kids can’t.

However, the SCHIP program was too generous. Setting the bar at three times the poverty level was way to high. Supposedly a family of four with an income of 60 odd thousand dollars is within three multiples of the poverty level. As George Will points out, when the median income is 48 thousand, saying that the bill is to help poor people is silly.

The numbers projected for its cost were based on adding uninsured kids to the system. The real cost would have been much more. Our Congress, being economic retards, failed to understand that other people might react to incentives.

Economics, after all, is the study of human responses to incentives.

Let me ’splain.

I’m a public school teacher and a farmer. My wife prepares taxes during tax season.

We also pay $330 a month in health insurance through my school job. The school system kicks in about twice that, so the dollar value of my health insurance is close to $1000 a month. If we only got insurance for ourselves and left the kids off the bill, our contribution would drop to $140/month.

We would have qualified for SCHIP. I earn 50k as a teacher, 5k as a farmer, and my wife pulls in around 5k during tax season. We are withing three multiples of the poverty level for a family of five.

Mrs. Smallholder is a bit to the left of your humble Smallholder. She was enraged by Bush’s veto. I argued, respectfully of course, that old George was right (even a blind pig occasionally finds a chesnut). I pointed out that we would qualify. Mrs. Smallholder said that we wouldn’t join the system because we already have health coverage for the kids. Your humble son of the soil replied that we’d save over two thousand dollars a year - of course we would take it.

And here’s where I got in trouble. I linked children’s insurance to drought payments to farmers. Mrs. Smallholder, you see, has been after me to fill out paperwork to claim our share of “drought emergency” payments. Sweet Seasons Farm doesn’t have a drought emergency. I stock appropriately and don’t overgraze. I’ll be grazing deep into December. But the heavy hand of government subsidies pays you per cow owned. I find this abhorrent. The government is basically subsidizing overstocking and erosion and the term emergency is a joke. We have had an “emergency” four of the last five years. So I refuse to take the government dime.

Don’t think I’m too noble. It is easy to take a principled stand to turn down $280. If I owned a hundred cows, I would probably take a hit from Uncle Sam’s breast.

So I told Mrs. Smallholder that if she wanted me to take drought insurance then she would of course save $2000 by shifting the kids into socialized health care. Best of all, her mother agreed: “You pay your taxes. Take every dime to which you are entitled.”

Incentives.

It is all about incentives.

If you give away health insurance, many families will drop their expensive employer-provided plans and glom on to the government teat. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t understand economics or human nature.

Steve-O the Llama Butcher just made me guffaw:

“What would William Seward do?”

Of course, I always call him William Henry Seward. In fact, the eldest male wee Smallholder is named Jack William Henry Smallholder.

Besides wanting to paint the map British American Red from Cairo Hudson Bay to Capetown Tierra Del Fuego, he was an abolitionist who was considered too radical to get the 1860 nomination. He became one of America’s greatest Secretaries of State and played a key role in putting down the secessionist slavocracy sedition.

Steve-O linked to a Christian Science Monitor article describing a nascent independence movement in Greenland. I was particularly amused by one of the local idiots opposed to independence:

“Aqqaluk Lynge, head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s Greenland chapter, agrees. “We are afraid that the United States will take over Greenland if the Danes get out,” he says. “If Americans can take Iraq, then why not Greenland?”

Indeed, sources say that even if Greenland becomes independent – an event supporters see as at least a decade away – it will keep very close ties to Denmark, in large part out of fears of US hegemony. “

Meanwhile, in the secret underground lair, Darth Cheney’s mad Machiavellian machinations continue:

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Greenland will be hours. We will feast on the entrails of the Inuit!”

“But sir,” stammers the stunted minion, “Greenland is constitutionally linked to Denmark! An attach on Greenland will trigger a Danish counterattack!”

“Bah! Foiled again!” Wailed the Vice President/Prince of Darkness, “If it weren’t for the invincible Danish army, we would rule the world. But we’d best bide our time for now. Eventually, those omnipotent Danes will make a mistake. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!”

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader notes that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. He does not believe that he has ever noted the occasion of this festive event before. (Although Smallholder may have.)

Your Maximum Leader has put up his one post with a few instances of “ye” and “hath” — which are both a little more Elizabethian than “pirate.” What can your Maximum Leader say? He’s just cultured that way.

And just for the record…

Arrrrr.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader’s got nuthin. His little brain is awash in the end of summer blues. Thus, it is not working as it should. But rather than leave you without any (however crappy) content, here is a little something that struck your Maximum Leader as funny…

Fake money doesn’t fool Tennessee strippers.

SMYRNA, Tenn. - A man who authorities say used his computer to make fake $100 bills to buy lap dances at a strip club has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting charges, federal prosecutors said.

Strippers at Deja Vu in Nashville were suspicious of the bills and called police after Damon Armagost spent $600 of the fake money April 16, authorities said.

When officers arrived, Armagost first told them he got the money when he sold gold coins for $1,400 to an unidentified person.

U.S. Secret Service agents later determined that counterfeit bills with the same serial number had been passed in other parts of the country. When they went to Armagost’s Smyrna home, about 20 miles southeast of Nashville, a family member told agents that an image of a $100 bill had been on a computer there.

Armagost then acknowledged that he had downloaded the image from the Internet and printed 14 of the bills, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty Friday to manufacturing and passing counterfeit currency and has a sentencing date of Nov. 5.

Your Maximum Leader applauds the strippers for doing their civic duty and calling the police. Then again, those hard workin’ gals are probably pretty sore at plying their trade and getting the proverbial shaft. Then again, Mr Armagost is probably pretty dumb himself. There are a few professionals to whom your Maximum Leader would assume that one ought never to try and pass fake bills. (Excursus: Of course, you should never pass fake bills in the first place…) Strippers are on the short list of professionals who know their money. Can you think of a job where the money is such an integral part of a transaction? And frankly, wouldn’t a stripper be more familiar with the look, feel, and composition of a piece of legal tender than just about any other person out there? Mr. Armagost deserves everything comin’ to him.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader shuddered when he read this off the news wire:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A woman set fire to her ex-husband’s penis as he sat naked watching television and drinking vodka, Moscow police said Wednesday.

Asked if the man would make a full recovery, a police spokeswoman said it was “difficult to predict.”

The attack climaxed three years of acrimonious enforced co-habitation. The couple divorced three years ago but continued to share a small flat, something common in Russia where property costs are very high.

“It was monstrously painful,” the wounded ex-husband told Tvoi Den newspaper. “I was burning like a torch. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Hummm… Let your Maximum Leader think about this. What could the man have done to deserve this… Not put the toilet seat down? Not squeeze the toothpaste tube from the end? Left dirty dishes in the sink for days on end? Not sharing the remote to the TV? The possibilities are endless…

Also… Was the man awake? The story just says he was naked and drinking in front of the TV. One would have to presume that he a) had fallen asleep and didn’t notice his ex-wife preparing to light him aflame or b) been so drunk he didn’t notice his ex-wife preparing to light him aflame.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader realizes that (rightfully) many (if not most) Americans are concerned about the global war on terror and the threat posed by Islamic radicals to our nation. Indeed, this threat should be foremost in our minds as we have committed our sons to fight these threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the world remains a very dangerous place…

To wit: Have you given much thought to Chinese Ballistic Missile Submarines? No? Well perhaps you should. Check out this site and stop and think to yourself about a Chinese boomer sitting off the coast of California when it comes time for the Taiwanese to “consider rejoining” the mainland. Apparently the Chinese have decided to build up their fleet of ballistic missile subs to carry more of their Julang-2 type sea-launched missiles.

Your Maximum Leader is sure his readers will sleep better knowing this.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must agree with Vinnie over at the Jawa Report. This here is funny.

Damned funny.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader can’t find the right words to summarize his thoughts on a piece he read on the new wires. He will let the article stand without comment.

Testicle surgery mystifies police.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - When conventional medical professionals refused to remove a 62-year-old local man’s testicles, police said he turned to mysterious “professionals” to relieve what he called chronic pain.

Now police want to find the fly-by-night surgeons.

“I have never in my life seen anything quite like that,” said St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed Monday, the man complained of chronic pain and turned to conventional medical personnel to remove his testicles.

When they refused, the 62-year-old man said he hired other “professionals” to do the surgery. He would not tell officers who they were, saying he didn’t want to get them into trouble.

Police said a couple of weeks ago, two or three people operated on the man in his home. He was unconscious. When he woke up, his testicles were gone. So were his “professionals.”

His groin area was bleeding heavily, so he called his daughter. She called for help.

Police found an improvised operating room in the man’s house, with bright lights, an apparent operating table, a camera and various medical supplies and equipment. There was also blood in several rooms of the house.

Oy!

The only thing your Maximum Leader can think to say is that if he had chronic pain in the groin, the LAST option he would consider would be surgical removal of his testes. Indeed, he would contemplate a horrid death first.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have the chance (ever) to scoop major news outlets or Drudge, but a friend of his called today with shocking news. John Paul Stevens is retiring from the Supreme Court, and President Bush is planning on appointing either Elvis Presley (now out of the Witness Protection Program and living in Kalamazoo, MI) or the famous “Bat Boy” to the court.

Okay… Lame attempt at a laugh. But some people aren’t laughing at the demise of the Weekly World News. Your Maximum Leader seems to remember hearing something about WWN closing down its shop later this month. (He thinks he heard it on “Marketplace” on NPR.) Well… The Washington Post is confirming the story and does a great (5 internet page) article on the WWN.

Your Maximum Leader admits he’s bought a few WWN issues. (He can be a sucker for the Elvis sightings.) But he never knew how it all got started:

It all began in Lantana, Fla., in 1979, when the National Enquirer, America’s premier tabloid, bought new color presses to replace its old black-and-white presses. The Enquirer’s owner, a former CIA agent named Generoso Pope, couldn’t bear to leave the old presses idle, so he founded Weekly World News as a sort of poor man’s Enquirer, running celebrity gossip and UFO sightings that didn’t quite meet the Enquirer’s high standards.

That is a choice paragraph. Enquirer’s high standards… Heh. Double heh even…

Read the piece. It is a great bit on a soon to be passing piece of Americana. Frankly, your Maximum Leader’s favourite Weekly World News bit is the scene from Men in Black where Tommy Lee Jones goes to the news stands to pick up the fact sheets and grabs a Weekly World News. That was a classic piece of cinema there.

Adieu Weekly World News. Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy cap in your direction for years of enjoyment and laughter.

Carry on.