The Maximum Leader and I have been bashing each other with Laffer Curve shillelaghs recently.

To catch you up:

The Maximum Leader hails the recent unexpected reduction of the deficit as evidence that we are on the right side of the curve.

I shot back with this.

Mike claimed that I was actually making his point here.

Mike and I wereboth off-track in the second and third posts. The real determination of where we are on the Laffer Curve isn’t based on a reduction of the predicted shortfall. The acid test is whether or not total tax receipts have increased or decreased as a result of the Bush tax cuts. The deficit may not be as bad as predicted, but this does not tell us whether or not the total collected taxes have risen or fallen. The deficit is somewhat independent of the amount of taxes collected. If our congress, to mix metaphors, dipsenses pork sandwiches like a bunch of drunken sailors, they can drown any amount of tax receipts in a flood of red ink.

So let’s set aside the budgetary proclivities of our duly elected representatives for a moment.

If we are to settle, once and for all, where we are on the Laffer curve, we have to look at whether tax cuts have generated an economic surge sufficient to actually increase revenues even though the total tax burden is a smaller percentage of the GDP. (Of course, we’d have to adjust a bit for inflation, but that’s been pretty mild of late.)

If 2004 tax receipts are greater than the 2001 tax receipts, Mike is right. We were on the right side of the Laffer Curve and Smallholder will have to confess his error.

If 2004 tax receipts are less than the 2004 tax, I’m right. We were, and still are, on the left side of the curve and the Maximum Leader will have to confess his error*.

I’m not very good at finding numbers stuff on the internet. Can anyone find a site that shows the total taxes collected by the IRS on an annual basis? Please let us know.

* Actually, the Maximum Leader will just ignore evidence contrary to his world view and sing “la-la-la.”

My dear friend the Minister of Propaganda is sorely distressed. He, like I, is disappointed in the direction the country seems to be heading. We may have different reasons for this distress, but we both, like the rest of the Ministers here at Naked Villainy, are patriots who want what is best for the country.

Rob is not concerned about the Fundies’ twisting of Jesus’ teachings - he, after, all, believes that we Christians are chumps - but we both are concerned about where their intolerance leads the civil society.

(As slightly connected aside, let me congratulate the Maximum Leader for acknowledging that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. He’s on the right road. Eventually he will do some soul searching and discover that his blase acceptance of existing discrimination is also wrong. It troubles me that he downplays the importance of fighting for basic civil equality while at the same time sending dough to an organization dedicated to the unregistered ownership of rocket launchers, but I try to look at the bright side: at least he is a Packers fan)

The good Ally has commented on Rob’s stridency. And, truth be told, I wish he would go easier on my pal Greg. But his anger is real. If you love your country and see it being hijacked, you are bound to get testy. And I’d remind Ally that there have been demagouges on both sides. Remember when the Republicans - with straight faces, mind you - claimed that the Clinton administration was the most corrupt in history?

If Smallholder agrees with Rob’s general negative assessment of the religious right, you may be asking yourself, why is Smallholder weeping and gnashing his teeth: “Self, given that Smallholder and Rob both agree that the fundie movement is dangerous, why isn’t Smallholder weeping and gnashing his teeth?”

I’m glad you asked.

The answer is simple: I’m a historian.

Well, honestly, I’m a historian given to trodding the halls of the academy with manure-spattered boots, but I think that still counts.

Culture wars are cyclical. We have seen backlashes before.

The Great Awakening was a backlash against the secularism symbolized by the halfway covenant.

The 1820s saw a backlash against the hardening of the North’s industrial system and the South’s peculiar institution.

Know-Nothing Nativism was a backlash against the New Immigrants.

The Scopes Trial was emblematic of middle America’s concern over the secularization of society.

The conformity ethic of the fifties was partially an attempt to restore a sense of order destroyed by the agony of the World War.

The late sixties gave us the backlash against conformity.

Nixon’s appeal to the “Silent Majority” wasn’t all race-baiting “Southern Strategy” - though I’ll admit that was a big part. It was also about a backlash against “dem dirty hippies.”

So, to quote the Bare Naked Ladies, “it’s all been done.”

So, I’m not particularly concerned about the fundies. They will overreach and the pendulum will swing back in the other direction. I think, as I have already posted, that the Schiavo case may have already been the high-water mark. Time will tell if the tide is indeed going out.

Many modern commentators have predicted doom and gloom for the Dems. The Republicans have become so arrogant that they are going to abolish the filibuster for short-term goals. They will be in the minority again.

Remember when Johnson’s decisive defeat of Goldwater signaled the end of conservatism? How did that turn out.

So, my dear Minister of Propaganda: It will be okay. America, in the long term, has always moved to expand the circle of protected rights. Short term blips like the Gentleman’s Agreement and Prohibition aside, our system does work.

The DOI’s white property-holding males over the age of 25 “all men” has morphed into all people over the age of 18. The march of progress will go on.

Small “l” liberalism has always triumphed. In fifty years, my Hollywood liberal friend, you’ll be a conservative. Not because you will change - this is the mistake made by all those “it only takes a mugging” folks. We do become more conservative when we get older - because our youthful liberal goals have been achieved and must now be conserved against a new generation’s youthful goals.

The Republicans are hypocrites on the issue of judicial appointments. The nominated individuals are activist judges that cater to the reactionary views of the religious right. The fight now is really about the next Supreme Court vacancy. I don’t want another conservative serving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, particularly given this administration’s stated legal views concerning the designation of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, the Patriot Act’s disregard for civil liberties, the Geneva Conventions and the use of torture, the slow criminalization of dissent, and a general disregard for the rule of law. I hope the Republicans lose now, on general principle. As a bonus, it will be a mortal wound for Frist, and that’s something I would love to see.

Of course the country elected these assholes, and we all have to live with the growing influence of the religious right. I just imagine a better country than that, even though I expect it to remain imaginary.

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is watching in rapt attention the goings-on in the Senate today. Since that august body has taken up debate on Bush judges.

Your Maximum Leader has not weighed in on this subject in this forum, but has privately to some. This fight, fascinating as it is, leaves your Maximum Leader torn in a number of different ways.

On the one hand, your Maximum Leader is disgusted by Democrats in the Senate. They can’t stop the Republicans through winning elections, so they are now resorting to parliamentary tactics. Now don’t get your Maximum Leader wrong on this, he LOVES parliamentary tactics. Indeed, should he need to occupy the post of Vice-President of the US in the establishment of the MWO he will make it his life’s work to stop that body from considering new laws through every parliamentary trick imaginable. And as frequent readers of this space know, your Maximum Leader is fond of gridlock in government - because it means that the government is governing less and that is generally good.

But on the other hand we are a nation of laws. And, since petitioning the emperor has had no place in our legal system, we need judges to see to it that the business of litigation and prosecution is done throughout the land. Generally speaking, your Maximum Leader thinks it IS a good idea for the Senate to move in a speedy fashion to confirm judicial appointments. (Cabinet appointments are another matter all together.)

So, in the fight over Bush appointees, your Maximum Leader is torn. Your Maximum Leader is all in favour of the filibuster in the Senate. (Which is the most undemocratic tradition in our republic - BTW.) The general idea of a body with rules that support unlimited debate is a sound one. But on the other hand, tradition also (generally) supports the timely confirmation by the Senate of judicial appointments.

While he thinks that the Republicans will win this fight and end judicial nomine filibusters; he thinks that it would be better in the long run to not fight this battle. But now that the battle is joined, you have to win the fight. The best outcome would have been for Democrats to just confirm the judges and do their best to take control of the Senate and White House so that they could, in turn, confirm their own people. (NB: There is a difference between killing a nomination in Committee and filibustering it on the floor of the Senate after the nomination has been discharged. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t - and to his knowledge no one in Washington ever has - objected to nominations dying in Committee.)

How this will affect the judiciary is a subject for another post all together.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wanted to comment on British MP George Galloway testifying in front of a Senate panel investigating the Oil for Food Scandal. But he couldn’t quite figure out from what angle he wanted to approach the story. Then he read this:

I must admit I have been smiling over the Galloway hearing.

Don’t get me wrong: Galloway is a piece of offal, who used a sick-kids charity as a cover for enriching himself, and smooched with one of the world’s nastiest dictators for the same purpose.

Galloway came up through the UK parliamentary system, though, where you have to be fierce and clever in debate, and need to be able to think fast on your feet. The US Senate is full of pompous bores, stuffed up to the nose holes with a conviction of their own terrific importance, whose idea of debate is to drone their way through a speech some minimum-wage staffer has written up for them. This was like watching an alley mongrel let loose in a room full of pampered, overfed lap dogs.

To judge from Galloway’s name, appearance, and style, this was also a vivid illustration of the good old Scotch-Irish scrapper from the Borders taking on a smug establishment. I wouldn’t want Galloway at my dinner table, but I must confess, this was fun to watch.

Thank you John Derbyshire for putting it just as your Maximum Leader would have.

Carry on.

I think the Foreign Minister’s suggestion (stated first here and then repeated) that Sexy Sadie accompany/supervise me in regards to this July’s Jackfest gathering is a most excellent suggestion, indeed.

A most excellent suggestion that will understandably remain an amusing blogosphere innuendo, as I am neither Irish nor the Lad. Plus our dear but spurned host, Mr. Smallholder, would claw his eyes out.

Smallholder’s reaction, of course, might prove temptingly storyworthy. Hmmm. . .

Believe.

. . . although, like our Maximum Leader before, I have little to say about this one:

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meanin outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 94% Existentialist 81% Postmodernist 75% Idealist 69% Modernist 50% Materialist 50% Fundamentalist 31% Romanticist 19% What is Your World View? (corrected…hopefully) created with QuizFarm.com

I’m amused to see that, once again, ML and I are showing some world view similarities. There’s probably some analysis to be made of the various percentages (therein lies our differences), but I was working a night shoot yesterday and, tired as I am today, it’s much easier to simply make jokes about the Maximum Leader’s villainous appendage.

Believe.

I disagree that my earrings make me look stupid. Presently I’m wearing two black wire hoops, discreet and close to the lobe, but I’ve also got studs and slightly larger hoops in both black and cobalt blue that I’ve worn on occasion. I’d like to petition for a ‘film industry’ exception. I do not presently belong to a rock band (though I always thought I’d be a great drummer).

I was additionally surprised to see that our Maximum Leader made no mention of his own Prince Albert piercing; probably he considers it ‘practical’ rather than ‘ornamental.’

Believe.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads from the news wire that a Parachutist dies jumping from Eiffel Tower.

Deservedly so. Why on earth would you want to jump off the Eiffel Tower? (Unless of course you are MayDay being pursued by James Bond.) Everyone knows that the Eiffel Tower is for proposing to your loved one and/or jumping to your death when you just can’t take it anymore.

Okay… Perhaps the Eiffel Tower has more uses than just those two. But those are the big ones…

Carry on.

I will correct Max on several points.

First, rings. A man can pull off two rings (assuming the first is a wedding band) if

1. the second one is a class ring from a Military Acadamy that the wearer attended. From someone who works in an industry where I come in contact with many military folks, I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a Naval Acadamy graduate to wear that ring longer than Max’s three year limit. Same for the other Acadamies, of course.

2. the second one is a championship ring from a major league pro sports team, and the wearer played on that team. (i.e. SuperBowl ring. For example, Brett Farve could wear his SuperBowl ring, along with his wedding ring until he’s 99 if he wants. I’m aware that some franchises buy rings for all employees. If you work n the ticket office, take the damn thing off. You look stupid.)

Also, pinky rings ALWAYS look stupid on a man.

As do gold chains.

As do earrings, unless the wearer is in a rock band… a good rock band.

Lastly, what about tie tacks/pins/etc. Are these not considered Jewelry because they are functional and not ornamental?

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Your Maximum Leader stands corrected. He completely agrees that graduates from a military academy are permitted (and in many cases expected) to wear their class rings for many years after they graduate. And while he agrees on this point, there is probably a case to be made that this habit ought to be eschewed as it sometimes promotes a sometimes undeserved feeling of superiority by military academy graduates over other non-academy graduate officers.

And generally tie tacks, tie pins, collar bars, or tie chains fall into the “practical” category and aren’t jewelry. But it is certainly possible that they too can fall into the “Rolex” category…

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is pleased to announce that he and his ministers have agreed to join the once-weekly “Mens Club/Demystifying Divas” posting clique. We are all men. We all have opinions. And in the end, there is a certain amount of link-whoring that we do not put ourselves above.

Your Maximum Leader has taken it upon himself to write the first of the weekly updates to appear on NakedVillainy.com.

This week’s subject: Jewelry.

Allow your Maximum Leader to first define a term. In his mind, jewelry is ornamental. It serves no practical function, beyond that of ornamenting the human form. Jewelry can be precious or cheap. It can be hand-crafted or mass-produced. It can be classy and refined or ostentatious bling-bling.

(Excursus: NakedVillainy is, in case you’ve forgotten, a bling-bling free zone. Save only for your Maximum Leader’s bejeweled floppy hat.)

The only two forms of irregular jewelry enter your Maximum Leader’s mind. The first is the watch. Now most watches fall more into the “practical” and not “ornamental” column. However all one has to do to find the irregular case demonstrated would be to visit the website of those superb Swiss Chronometer makers, Rolex. Look at a Cellini Orchid or an Oyster Perpetual Lady DateJust Pearlmaster and you will see how the functional crosses over into the form of jewelry.

The second is jewelry denoting rank or station. Falling into this category would be the Crown Jewels of Britain, medals denoting military service or awards, and - of course - your Maximum Leader’s bejeweled floppy hat.

So, excluding watches, allow your Maximum Leader to discourse on jewelry…

First he will pick the low hanging fruit, the list of acceptable jewelry for men. It is a short list indeed. Here it is:

High school class ring. It is acceptable for one year - that being senior year of high school. It is acceptable to wear this ring on the ring finger of either hand. The most acceptable place to wear this ring is not on the man at all; but rather dangling on a cheap chain in the cleavage of your “one-true-love-until-I-get-to-bang-a-chick-in-college” girlfriend. Wearing a high school class ring beyond high school is a sure sign that the ring’s only purpose is that of liquid asset. This is to say, it is worn until it is needed to be pawned to put a new muffler on the General Lee or finance a threesome with Mexican whores in Tijuana.

College class ring. It is acceptable to wear for up to 3 years. Those years being your senior year of college and two years thereafter. As you might imagine, this ring is also best worn on an inexpensive chain dangling in a woman’s cleavage. But, this ring can also be worn for a time after one’s graduation as an outward sign that you are both college degreed and from a family wealthy enough to afford a useless trinket that will eventually gather dust in a tray in the first drawer of your dresser for decades only to be discovered upon your death by one of your grandchildren ** who will bestow upon i the status of family heirloom. Whereupon it will be removed from the tray in the first dresser drawer and either put in a safe deposit box in a bank or in a shadow box in a sitting room next to the pocket watch that Great-great Grandpa Earnest bought in St. Louis before going on to Dodge City to be gunned down by Wyatt Earp in a dispute over a hand at poker.

** - should you be o.s.p. the ring will be found by a social worker and pawned for a muffler job on a dilapidated Toyota Camry or a threesome with Mexican whores in Tijuana.

The small pinky ring. Acceptable only if one is of Italian or Greek heritage.

The simple gold/silver/platinum/white gold bracelet. This is generally only acceptable if the wearer is among the highest socio-economic class; or a tennis player.

And lastly…

The Wedding Band. Acceptable for all.

Generally your Maximum Leader believes that two rings on a man are excessive. He’s not actually known any man to be able to pull it off and still look refined. But he does not doubt the possibility that such a man (however mythic) might exist.

Of course, one might wonder what to think of rappers, rock stars, and athletes who sport necklaces, rings, bracelets, and gold teeth. Jewelry in this context is male bling-bling. And it is nothing more than an ostentatious show of newly found wealth. Wealth that will be gone in an instant, like the wearers fame. And then the bling-bling will become another liquid asset. (See: High School rings)

Now… On to women…

As the Foreign Minister has always said, “Diamonds and Distance are a girl’s best friends.” (NB: Think about it… Very true is it not?) Why is this pithy statement a truism? Well frankly it is a statement about our modern western consumerist/objectifying society.

Let us briefly retrace the history of jewelry and women. Thru the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras ornamental jewelry for women didn’t exist. Women were too busy surviving to worry about how they looked. Moving through the mists of time we get the first women’s jewelry to really mean something. That is the jewelry of ancient Egypt.

In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh - for political reasons - had to have many wives. Now, as most of his wives wouldn’t resemble in the least Anck Su Namun (played by Patricia Velasquez in The Mummy), Pharaoh had to bedeck these women with gems set in precious metals to bedazzle onlookers. If the reflected light from the necklaces, bracelets, rings, head-dresses, anklets, and belts could blind an onlooker in the bright Egyptian sun it was unlikely that any peasant/priest/passerby would say to himself, “You know the Pharaoh’s wife is ugly.” Instead the peasant/priest/passerby would say to himself, “Daymn! Pharaoh’s wife has a lotta bling goin’ on. She must really be somethin’, if you know what I mean. (Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge.)”

So for centuries jewelry was the province of the nobility. By the beginning of the middle ages in Europe, jewelry passed from being a way to “dress up” the Queen/Princess/Duchess/Countess/Lady to a symbol of her station - and an outward show of how much she was worth in the eyes of the King/Prince/Duke/Count/Lord. This is because jewelry was part of a dowry. The more important the woman the more jewelry in the dowry.

Over time peasants/merchants/non-noble types started to take notice of jewelry. They noted that the giving of jewelry by a man to a woman could warm an icy relationship, fan the flames of passion, and get a woman to think twice about a cad she would otherwise dismiss out of hand.

With the coming of the early industrial period, and the creation of disposable capital, came the mass distribution of jewelry. Men (and children) forced off the land by the enclosure movement moved to the cities. Somewere forced out of the cities by a lack of jobs to various colonies. There, in the colonies, they forced the indigenous populations to stop their primitive ways and participate in the economy. Under the keen eye of budding capitalists, they dug precious metals and stones out of the earth. With powerful machines they extracted more stones and metals than ever before. The increasing supply of precious metal and stones dropped the price of said materials to a point where women suddenly realized that if a man would forego food, water, and shelter for six months; he could buy a diamond.

And thus the diamond’s glitter caught the eye of middle and lower class women alike. They gave up the promise before God of eternal submission as the outward sign of a man’s affection and started to demand bling-bling.

Men, as you can imagine, were conditioned by women (and marketing directors at DeBeers) to believe that diamonds were an essential step towards proving their love and commitment to a woman before marrying her. Some men even likened the gift of a diamond ring to their betrothed as a down payment for a lifetime of hot sex.

Well, if the diamond ring was a down payment for a lifetime of hot sex; then the follow-on bracelets, earrings, necklaces, anklets, chains, rings, broaches, pins, and loose precious stones are the installment payments.

Installment payments normally come due at certain milestone events, like wedding anniversaries divisible by 5. The birth of children is another installment event. But sometimes just when an installment is due may be unpredictable. A payment may be demanded (or more likely insinuated) after a rough patch, or the purchase of a large screen TV on which to watch football. And sometimes the installment is needed for no particular reason.

So, jewelry for women has played many roles in history. The role of bedazzler, the role of status signifier, and the role of shiny gift exchanged for sex.

Of course, men know that any woman who would put up with them is worth every piece of jewelry she might want/need/ask for. And men also know that any woman who would pledge to spend their lives with us is beautiful without any jewelry on at all.

For other manly views check out Phin and Puffy. Your Maximum Leader is informed that The Wizard will discourse on this topic later this week.

And to read about jewelry from the girl’s side of topic check out Sadie, Silk, Kathy, and Feisty, and Phoenix, they have penned their thoughts for all to read.

Carry on.

Looking through recent posts, I’ve noticed a lack of discussion on Star Wars. So here I go, relating Star Wars, George Bush, and … shudder… The Frenc. OK, so I’m not going to do it myself. I’ve just forwarded what my father E-mailed me. I don’t know the source. Still an interesting read.

Cannes ‘Star Wars’ Premiere Sparks Debate

Sunday, May 15, 2005

CANNES, France Without Michael Moore and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and “Star Wars” to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States’ role in it.

Lucas’ themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday and Lucas himself noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.

Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between “Revenge of the Sith (search)” the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering to President Bush’s war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Two lines from the movie especially resonated:

“This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause,” bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.

“If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” Hayden Christensen’s Anakin soon to become villain Darth Vader tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush’s international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

“That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush,” said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. “Plus, you’ve got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war.”

Though the plot was written years ago, “the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there,” Engle said.

The film opens Wednesday in parts of Europe and Thursday in the United States and many other countries. At the Cannes premiere Sunday night, actors in white stormtrooper costumes paraded up and down the red carpet as guests strolled in, while an orchestra played the “Star Wars” theme.

Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.

“As you go through history, I didn’t think it was going to get quite this close. So it’s just one of those recurring things,” Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. “I hope this doesn’t come true in our country.

“Maybe the film will waken people to the situation,” Lucas joked.

That comment echoes Moore’s rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ won the festival’s top honor.

Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.

“When I wrote it, Iraq didn’t exist,” Lucas said, laughing.

“We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn’t think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. … The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we’re doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.”

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three “Star Wars” movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.

Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.

In ancient Rome, “why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?” Lucas said. “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

“You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself nto a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody’s squabbling, there’s corruption.”

There’s so much wrong with this, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. One conclusion I draw from this article is that not only can Lucas not write believable dialogue to save his life, but he’s also absolutely clueless about a great many things.

But who knows. Maybe, along side Michael Moore, we’re seeing the next Jerry Lewis.

And, yes, I already have my tickets to EP-III.

Oh come on M of P! No comment on the lions?

****Edt*****

I just spent a good 35 minutes crafting a great witty and thought provoking response but I decided to delete it and move on.

Now I know some of our readers just love these internal laundry airing episodes among the ministers here, but it can become a little too draining and emotional at least on this Minister.
Adding to that is the fact that there is little chance of actually persuading the M of P over to my side of the Aisle (or vice versa). Aint’ going to happen.

Plus, the more that this wears on, the less we remember that the other person in the debate is a human being too, and that they have arrived at their current political philosophy via their own life experience that are meainingful and real to to them.

The M of P is a great guy, as a few Liberals tend to be, so I don’t want to fan any of the flames that may inhibit us drinking out of a boot when we get together at Jackfest in July.

Speaking of which, everyone kind of glossed over my suggestion that you bring Sadie as your bouncer/governess/date. Anything come of this?

Back to the trenches

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was catching up on missed Skippy posts and saw a quiz. He took it. Results follow:

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you re not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 63% Existentialist 56% Idealist 56% Romanticist 56% Modernist 19% Fundamentalist 13% Materialist 13% Postmodernist 13% What is Your World View? (corrected…hopefully) created with QuizFarm.com

Carry on.

In his post about Newsweek and Guantanamo Bay, the Foreign Minister wrote:

I mean, I know that the left benefits from making Iraq look bad but, honestly, do you have to make stuff up?

The Foreign Minister attempted to tie the inaccurate story about Gauntanamo Bay to Iraq first, so my linking the Abu Graib prisoner abuses — which are, incidentally, not made up — is just following his lead.

Additionally, the information in my other links is certainly more accurate than what the Foreign Minister’s ranting would suggest. He doesn’t like my sources, but he doesn’t want to say anything about the issues, either.

Propaganda? Here’s the link again for coalition casualties in Iraq.

In his defense, the Cambodian link was both sick and funny. That’s the kind of foreign affairs stories I look forward to from our Foreign Minister. I hope he keeps up the good work.

Believe.