Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was, until about 14 minutes ago, blissfully unaware of the conspiracy that exists in this nation to exterminate a certain minority group. This conspiracy is based in the public schools, churches, Planned Parenthood, the pyschiatric profession and organizations of “European” manufacture.

To elaborate on this conspiracy further your Maximum Leader presents this video (about 14 minutes in length):

Your Maximum Leader is stupified. Just when he starts to forget how insane some people are a video like this one serves to remind him of what craziness people are willing to believe.

Oh yes, one more thing… Your Maximum Leader is glad that Mr. Johnson doesn’t feel the need to subject himself to the oppression of conventional spelling or grammar in the graphics of this video.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minons. Your Maximum Leader thought he’d have a chance to write Christmas well-wishes on ye olde bloge on Christmas Eve. Sadly, he was overcome by events and is only now getting the chance to sit in front of the computer to type out a post.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that you all had a great Christmas. It was a good Christmas at the Villainschloss. Your Maximum Leader was surrounded by family (his own, his parents, his in-laws and his sister’s family). We feasted on roast beast and yorkshire pudding. We had a wide assortment of pies. A great time was had by all.

In the bad news department, Christmas dinner was the first meal that your Maximum Leader prepared in his remodeled kitchen. It did not go off without incident. He did burn the broiled potatoes. (Some of them actually - not the whole batch. His saintly mother-in-law was able to cut of the bad parts on the burnt potatoes.) He also partially burned the second yorkshire pudding. (Again, not badly. But we had fewer crispy pieces as some was stuck to the pan.) The lesson here is that his new oven works better than his old one and he’ll have to watch things a little more closely until he figures out the peculiarities of his new oven.

Before Christmas your Maximum Leader went out to the locale cinema and saw “True Grit.” By happenstance, Turner Classic Movies showed the John Wayne “True Grit” a few days earlier. The Wayne version of the film didn’t stand up as well to a viewing as your Maximum Leader thought it would. He remembers it more fondly than it might deserve. The acting seemed a little forced in the Wayne version and your Maximum Leader got constantly annoyed by Kim Darby (who played Mattie Ross to John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn). On the other hand, the Coen Brothers did a great job on their version of the film. Yes, it was not ironic in any way (like most Coen Brothers works), but it was an adaptation of a great book. Both films have a lot to commend them. Your Maximum Leader, if forced to choose, would likely choose the Coen Brothers’ adaptation over the John Wayne vehicle. (Let’s face it, True Grit wasn’t Wayne’s finest role, it was the one they decided to give him the Oscar for since they didn’t yet have “lifetime achievement” awards.) Frankly, both films are a great way to pass a few hours.

Lest you think you’ve escaped a mention of Venice at Christmas, here is the famous porphyry of the Four Tetrarchs found on the side of St. Mark’s in Venice:

And in keeping with his own tradition, here is “The Adoration” by El Greco:

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has seen the various reports and links to the recent Pew quiz on religion. As it turns out, many Americans don’t know much about religion. Unless you are an Atheist, Jew or Mormon in which case you know more than the average American. Not like we all didn’t really know that already.

Your Maximum Leader took the quiz and got 15 of 15. If you want the quiz you can clicky here. Your Maximum Leader was excited that he scored 1 better than his good buddy Kevin. Of course, he figures that the only reason he was able to score better is that he knew the 3 history/politics questions.

Your Maximum Leader imagines that his readership would likely score better than most Americans. Of course you all read this blog. And we all know that reading this blog makes you smarter and better looking than the average American…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reading the Wall Street Journal’s daily wrap-up of news and blogs the other day. In that wrap-up the editors of the WSJ introduced your Maximum Leader to the plight of Molly Norris.

Now in all honesty, your Maximum Leader allowed himself to be overtaken by events and he didn’t immediately write about how he felt and what he thought about Molly Norris. Thankfully, your Maxmium Leader was over reading Professor Mondo’s blog and it all came back to him.

Rather than just blather on himself, how about we check out what the good Professor had to say:

“Islamophobia” is a term that gets bandied about these days, with the ever-popular rhetorical effort to define disagreement with the multicult as mental illness. However, Molly Norris isn’t being stalked by rogue Episcopalians or offended Baha’i. The fact is that she’s been forced to go to ground by deranged Muslims. Meanwhile, saying that we have to be careful not to offend the deranged is a cowardly way out — and it simply makes all of us hostage to whoever we perceive as being least rational.

Well put sir! Well put. You should click through to see the Professor’s site and you should click on the links he provided.

Your Maximum Leader grows weary of trying to avoid the delicate sensibilities of Muslims around the world. If every Muslim in the world thinks that when your Maximum Leader speaks out against “Muslim terrorists” he is actually saying that “every Muslim in the world is a terrorist”; then most Muslims in the world need to lighten up and catch a clue. We all know that just being a Muslim doesn’t mean you are or are sympathetic to terrorists. Conversely, not every Christian is a Koran-burning Christian. Don’t you find it odd that the President of the United States and just about every Christian religious leader in the United States has to apologize to the entire Muslim world for the (threatened) actions of about 50 Christians at a Florida church who thought burning the Koran would be fun?

You know something. If 50 Muslims somewhere in rural Wahziristan decided to burn Bibles, wrapped in American Flags while throwing apple pies off a cliff; your Maximum Leader would hardly think it was newsworthy. Furthermore he would not assume that those 50 Muslims were speaking on behalf of a billion Muslims around the world. Call him crazy (He’s crazy!) but he doesn’t think that way. Apparently many Muslims do think exactly that way.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader is upset (very upset) about what is happening to Molly Norris. She doesn’t deserve to have to go into hiding and make a new identity. Frankly, she shouldn’t have to pay for it too. Isn’t this another battle in the War on Terror? Can’t we find a few grand to help Molly out in the Defence budget? Or the Stimulus bill?

We should all be appalled by what is happening to Molly Norris. We should all demand that the President request that the Muslim leaders apologize to Molly Norris. Or, heaven forfend, perhaps the President could put a bounty on the head of Anwar al-Awlaki and see how he likes it.

Oh! The President apparently has done so.

Sadly your Maximum Leader doubts that the President is encouraging the CIA (or other entities) to actually kill the people on this “hit list.” Perhaps we should go the route of Letters of Marque & Reprisal.

By the way… Professor Mondo is now on the blogroll - over there on the left side. You should go over an take a read.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has no political capital to expend so his suddenly wading in from the sidelines on the “Ground Zero Mosque” is only slightly less interesting than President Obama wading in suddenly from the sidelines on the same issue.

By now, unless you live under a rock, you have heard that a group wants to put a mosque in a building a few blocks away from the World Trade Center site.

So… Let your Maximum Leader just unload on this issue, and others on the periphery of the issue…

To speak directly to the issue of the mosque…

There are two questions at the heart of the mosque issue. The first question is can a mosque be built near the site of the World Trade Center attacks? The second question is do people want a mosque built near the site of the World Trade Center attacks?

The first question, the rarely asked question, in this discussion is so very important and so constantly overlooked that it makes most of the people on both sides of this “debate” seem like drooling idiots. Can the mosque be located in the building in question? So long as local zoning laws and building codes are followed it can. Of course it can. There is no legal reason why you can’t put a mosque in that building.

It was the this first question that President Obama was trying to address in his remarks on the subject recently. Now let your Maximum Leader go on the record and say that he wonders why the hell the President would inject himself into this “debate.” It is a loser all around for him. It makes no sense, from a political perspective, to comment on this issue. Sure my liberal friends can say “He needed to use the bully pulpit to do the right thing.” Yeah, your Maximum Leader can see that. But in this case doing the “right thing” diminishes the President’s ability to do the right thing later. He is spending political capital (that he is losing at a rapid rate) on an issue that so inflames peoples sensibilities that there is no possibility of coming out ahead. Sure the president is “right on principle” as the linked Washington Post peice says, but he is completely wrong on politics. Furthermore, President Obama’s opinion on this matter cannot affect the situation one bit. The president isn’t on the Zoning Board for lower Manhattan. He doesn’t own the property. He isn’t a stakeholder in the neighborhood. His opinion ain’t gonna change a thing.

In fact, President Obama’s opinion and the opinion of your Maximum Leader are worth about the same in this “debate.” Neither of us are contributing to the discussion. We are throwing our opinions into the crashing noise of raised voices that passes for debate on this subject. We are just two more voices crying out into the cacaphony. Two more voices that, frankly speaking, don’t need to be heard on this.

Of course, your Maximum Leader is a lowly blogger with minimal following and no future in politics short of an armed coup and Barack Obama is President of the United States. He is coming up with the short straw in this game.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t addressed the second question yet. Does your Maximum Leader want a mosque built on the site discussed? When this “debate” first began his answer was that he didn’t care much one way or the other. He sympathized with the many who just didn’t want the mosque so near the World Trade Center site; but in the end he figured out that NYC officials and stakeholders in the project would do the right thing.

Your Maximum Leader has changed his mind now. He wants the mosque built. He is willing to stand up for the principle involved. The principle involved is twofold. The first is a straight property rights issue. If you follow local laws you should be able to build what you want on property you own. If the landowners want to lease the space for a mosque, great! Let them do it. The mosque shouldn’t get any special treatment or concessions. If they can put a mosque there they should. The second issue is the religious issue. This site is a few blocks away from the World Trade Center site and was damaged in the attacks of September 11. But it wasn’t the object of the attack. The building in question wasn’t destroyed and rebuilt. How close is too close? From what your Maximum Leader reads there are some mosques in the general vicinity already. Why is this one a big problem? Would it be a big problem if it were a block further away? Two blocks further? 10 blocks further? Would “society” object to a Christian Church being put in the same building? A Buddhist temple? A meeting hall for the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

This brings your Maximum Leader to a issue that has now been simmering in his mind for a year or two. How long are we going to fetishize the whole lower Manhattan area around the World Trade Center site? Your Maximum Leader doesn’t like calling the site Ground Zero. He doesn’t because Ground Zero is a term that can be used in any disaster. He is concerned that at some point in the future people will be upset by some other disaster site being called “Ground Zero.” Sad isn’t it.

If your Maximum Leader could point out a few items… The World Trade Center site is very valuable real estate. He should be redeveloped (and is being redeveloped). But many Americans have a maudlin fixation on the site. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks there was a sort of consensus that we needed to get on with rebuilding the World Trade Center site. Now your Maximum Leader wonders if we are going to start objecting to certain uses of the redeveloped space? Would a muslim charity renting office space in a new World Trade Center building be objectionable? Would investment bankers (given their role in the recent economic troubles) be objectionable in that they weren’t a “good enough” type of organization. Should we just build a mega-public safety center on the site and fill it with Firefighters and Police officers?

Is your Maximum Leader the only one that worries about this? (Well… When he’s not waxing eloquent over Lindsay Lohan and mastubating furiously Skippy might have some similar concerns. But that could just be your Maximum Leader projecting on Skippy.) We still use Pearl Harbor. Is it “less sacred” than the World Trade Center site? We have built all over Bunker (and Breed’s) Hill? Is that site less meaningful because of it’s continued use? Is it just a question of scale? If more patriots died at Bunker Hill would we have objected to building on and around the site?

Your Maximum Leader isn’t advocating that we all forget the attacks of September 11th. Not at all. But at some point we need to take a more practical approach to how we will use the land of lower Manhattan.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have many people he’d consider his personal heros. There are a few however. At the top of that list is Winston Churchill. (Also on that list are George Washington and Elvis. You can see others over on the right side nav bar under the “Pantheon” heading.

So… Your Maximum Leader likes Churchill…

Imagine his surprise when he saw a headline on his Yahoo homepage this morning about a Churchill UFO cover up. Wha? Well here is the juicy part of the peice (which can be found in its entirety here: Did Churchill order a UFO cover up?):

It’s a conspiracy theory worthy of the “X-Files,” and it goes like this: Churchill, then the prime minister, apparently ordered a cover-up of an encounter between a Royal Air Force bomber and an unidentified flying object during World War II. The reason: Churchill feared that news of the incident would create public panic and a loss of faith in religion.

The Daily Telegraph explains that Churchill is reported to “have made the orders during a secret war meeting with U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, the then commander of the Allied Forces, at an undisclosed location in America during the latter part of the conflict.” He ordered that the information remain secret for a period of 50 years.
[…]
Apparently, Churchill’s order was overheard by one of his bodyguards. The man, also a member of the Royal Air Force, kept the secret to himself for years, but told his daughter at some point, and told his wife on his deathbed in 1973. The man’s daughter later told her son (the bodyguard’s grandson, for those of you keeping score), and he inquired about the incident with the Ministry of Defense in 1999. That inquiry made it into the files that were made public on Thursday.

According to the report, the crew of the plane did manage to take photographs of the UFO, which “hovered noiselessly” near their plane before zooming away. Alas, the photos, if they do indeed exist, were not released.

So there it is. In case you are wondering about it, here is the link to the article in the Telegraph that is the basis of the article on Yahoo.

Now let your Maximum Leader say that he thinks that the odds of there being extraterrestrial life (in some form) somewhere out in the universe somewhere are statistically rather high. He also thinks that the odds of that life being able to travel the vast distances across space (and time) to come to Earth and stop by without saying hi are pretty much zero. So he doesn’t believe in UFOs - to be clear.

So your Maximum Leader doesn’t know what that RAF bomber crew might have seen, or what story might have made its way to Churchill… But in time all UFO stories have been debunked by careful examination. To much time may have passed for this UFO story to be debunked as well. But if we were able to get the all the facts your Maximum Leader is sure that we could sensibly explain whatever it was that those RAF flyers saw.

The more interesting question to this story that doesn’t seem to be asked is what exactly Churchill’s advisors might have thought the UFO was and what theories they presented to WSC to make him classify the incident.

Where are Agents Muller and Scully when you need them?

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that there is good news ye olde news wire today.

Apparently His Holiness (and likely most of the College of Cardinals) have a soft spot for a film by John Landis. To wit: The Vatican Endorses “The Blues Brothers.” Here is the release from Reuters in full:

TAORMINA, Sicily (Hollywood Reporter) – When Jake and Elwood Blues, the protagonists in John Landis’ cult classic “The Blues Brothers,” claimed they were on a mission from God, the Catholic Church apparently took them at their word.

On the 30th anniversary of the film’s release, “L’Osservatore Romano,” the Vatican’s official newspaper, called the film a “Catholic classic” and said it should be recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

The film is based on a skit from “Saturday Night Live.” In the story, Jake and Elwood — played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, respectively — embark on an unlikely road trip featuring concerts, car chases, clashes with the police and neo-Nazi groups, and attempts at revenge from a spurned lover, all, ostensibly, to raise money for the church-run orphanage where they grew up.

But aside from a brief appearance from Kathleen Freeman as a wrist-slapping nun referred to as “The Penguin” and the brothers’ periodic claim that they were on a mission from God, spirituality does not play a significant role in the film.

In addition to Belushi and Aykroyd, the film featured an all-star cast including musicians James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Chaka Khan, in addition to noted actors John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, and Henry Gibson, and cameo roles for Frank Oz, Steven Spielberg, Landis, Mr. T, and Paul Reubens.

With the recommendation, “The Blues Brothers” joins the list of dozens of films recommended by Catholic authorities that includes Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” “Jesus of Nazareth” from Franco Zeffirelli,” Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ,” Victor Flemming’s “Joan of Arc,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” from Frank Capra.

Your Maximum Leader should put the movie on the olde Blu Ray player tonight and celebrate…

In a stream of consciousness type of codicil to this post… Another film on the list is “The Passion of The Christ.” In that movie the highly desireable Monica Bellucci plays Mary Magdalene. It has been a while since your Maximum Leader has attempted any sort of RCBfA type post… So here is Monica Bellucci for your viewing pleasure.

Please note the fruit on the banquet tables in the back… Because as we all know, where there is fruit there is art. You know something, and this is a sad confession to make, Monica Bellucci is the only reason your Maximum Leader bothered to watch “Shoot ‘em up.” It was a horrible film, made slightly less horrible by Ms. Bellucci being in it.

BTW, did your Maximum Leader mention that Ms. Bellucci just made the number one spot on Pajiba’s list of the Ten Hottest Celebrity Women over 40 list. You can clicky the link if you like to see the other nine…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been following the fall-out from the Israeli raid on the “humanitarian aid” ship from Turkey. Sure the Israeli’s, in this instance, might have been a little heavy-handed. But really, how much of a “blockade” are they really running here? Bascially the Israelis stop every ship and vehicle going into the Gaza Strip to search for weapons. The real “humanitarian” aid isn’t being stopped and turned back. (At best it is detained.)

Your Maximum Leader has, for just about as long as he can remember, be very pro-Israel. He’s not saying that Israel is always right and everyone else is wrong. That isn’t the case. But he will generally side with Israel all the time because they are the one beacon of civilization (as your Maximum Leader understands it) in the region.

Sadly though, Israel, like the West in general, is doomed.

How does one put it delicately? The Israelis are going to be fucked out of existance. Quite literally. They aren’t having enough babies. Demographically they are screwed. Before too long the (Westernized Jewish) Israelis are going to be a minority in their own country; out populated by (not Westernized and Arab) Israelis. Once that happens all bets are off.

(NB: If Bar Refaeli wanted to do something to help her country - which she probably doesn’t by the way - she’d get knocked up and start having all sorts of really really good-looking babies.)

Frankly… It isn’t much better in Europe. Europe will be the next to fall (after Israel). The day will come when non-westernized immigrants (mostly muslims) will be the ones running France and Germany. Of course, Western ideas of social/moral/political relativism will hasten the end.

Then it will be the USA, Canada and Australia as the last bastions of Western Civilization…

Carry on.

Greeting, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is not now, nor has he ever been in communion with the Episcopal Church of the United States. Frankly, he’s never been a member of any Episcopal/Anglican Church. He’s attended more than a few services in the Episcopal/Anglican Church, but that is about it.

Readers of this space are likely familiar with the ongoing secession of various Episcopal parishes in Virginia from the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) and their joining the Anglican Communion (under the auspices of a branch of the Anglican Church in Africa). The secession (schism if you will) has been the subject on an ongoing battle in the courts. You see the congregations that seceeded took their physical church buildings with them. Here is a little overview from the Washington Examiner.

If you happened to read that piece you might recall seeing that St. Stephen’s Church in Heathsville, VA is among those churches in the thick of the dispute.

So now your Maximum Leader is coming to the point… You might recall (from the last post) that your Maximum Leader went to visit his in-laws over the weekend. The path from the Villainschloss to the in-law’s runs through Heathsville, VA. For many years your Maximum Leader has driven by St. Stephen’s and always notices the wooden Victorian structure as he passes.

(NB: Indeed, he always tried to guess the age of the building as he passed. It is a little game your Maximum Leader plays in his mind while he drives across Virginia. He tries to guess the age of old homes or buildings based on what he knows of building styles and trends in VA. In the case of St Stephen’s he knew that although the congregation was established in 1664, the building was much later. He figured from the style of the church that it was likely built after the Civil War, but prior to 1900. He has toyed with dates from 1870-1880. And he learned recently from the church web site that the building dates from 1874.)

When St. Stephen’s left the ECUSA your Maximum Leader knew that there were bound to be some hard feelings. The tangible sign of the change came a little while after St. Stephen’s organized with the Anglican Communion. The sign was, in fact, the church sign. The old sign in front of the church was white with the crest of the ECUSA and it read “St. Stephen’s Church, Episcopal, Est 1664.” Then one day there was a new sign. It wasn’t white, but sort of gray. The crest of the ECUSA was gone and in its place was a symbol like a compass rose. The new sign read “St. Stephen’s Church, Anglican, Est 1664.”

Down the road about 50 yards from St. Stephen’s Church (Anglican); the first church sign appeared outside what had heretofore seemed to be a nice sized private home. Now within a stone’s throw of each other are a little white church which is St. Stephen’s (Anglican) and a nice house which is St. Stephen’s (Episcopal).

This past weekend, your Maximum Leader met his in-laws in Heathsville to go to the Farmers Market at the courthouse. While standing on the green behind the courthouse, he started talking to his father-in-law and a family friend about the church split. At some level your Maximum Leader knew that the split had to be hard on the tiny town of Heathsville. He knew that a significant portion of the original congregation (perhaps 20%) had not supported leaving the ECUSA. Those people are now the core of St. Stephen’s (Episcopal). He imagined that the Episcopal congregants were likely bitter and angry. Well, listening to the friend of the family describe it, the schism has torn some families apart. Two families were in fact pointed out to your Maximum Leader. They stood on opposite sides of the green. He is sure their physical position happened to be coincidence at that moment in time. But to hear the tale, these were close families. They were neighbors, friends, and at the distant cousin level related by marriage. Now they will not speak to each other. The kids no longer play together or even socialize at school. The adults avoid each other in public. It was sad to see. If your Maximum Leader had been more bold (and had the time) he’d have actually approached the people directly and asked them about the experience. He isn’t sure why he would want to hear the lurid details of the sad story from the actors themselves; but he does. He isn’t sure what he could learn from that. Perhaps it is a twisted voyeuristic tendency in him? At some level he wants to hear the story of what happened at the congregational level.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that he’ll ever hear the tale directly from the people themselves. At some level just putting faces to what has happened in this tiny town has been enough to humanize the story…

In case you care to… Here are two web sites for you. St. Stephen’s (Anglican) and St. Stephen’s (Episcopal).

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader gives you this paragraph to mull over without any explaination of context:

If Leibniz is right, then natural disasters aren’t the result of divine punishment for sin. They are the foreseen but unintended consequences of a well-regulated and overall good system of natural laws. So religious believers can explain the causes of earthquakes in purely natural terms (Leibniz was an avid scientist himself), while still maintaining belief in a divine, nonpunitive purpose for allowing such events. The harmonization of natural and theological explanations, reason and faith, is Leibniz’s true legacy.

If you would like full context, you can click here for the piece by Samuel Newlands at the WSJ.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader read yesterday that Maryland Atty General Douglas Gansler has determined that the state of Maryland will recognize same-sex marriages (and presumably civil-unions) performed legally in other states. The piece says that Gansler recognizes that his decision will be challenged in court rather quickly.

Frankly, your Maximum Leader has wondered for a few years now why no Atty General hasn’t done this sooner. (Other than the fact that they are, collectively, gutless.)

You know, your Maximum Leader agrees with Gansler in two ways. The first is that his decision will be challenged quickly in the courts. The second way is that Gansler’s decision will (and indeed must) be upheld.

For years now your Maximum Leader has completely agreed with everyone (the Smallholder jumps to mind first) who has said that once one state legalizes gay marriage it will be legal everywhere due to the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution. As he stated a few sentances ago, the thing that has been amazing is that no state Attorney General hasn’t done this sooner.

A number of years ago, the Congress passed the Defence of Marriage Act which stated that states don’t have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. As he said back then, and he’ll say again, DOMA is an unconsitutional law. Your Maximum Leader can’t see a circumstance where the plain language of the Constitution doesn’t completely trump the DOMA.

You know, if your Maximum Leader were Attorney General of Virginia (which he gladly is not) he would have to go down much the same course as Gansler is in Maryland. Your Maximum Leader just can’t see how the marriage of a homosexual couple performed legally in Iowa would not be valid in Virginia (or any other state) if the couple chose to move to Virginia (or any other state).

One imagines that the court challenge on this decision will move quickly, how hard can it be to read the Constitution and over 200 years of practical application of the full faith and credit clause and not decide to uphold Gansler? Once a major court (like the Supreme Court of Maryland or a federal court) decides that Gansler is right other states will follow quickly.

Once this resolves itself the gay marriage debate will, for practical purposes, be ended in America.

(At that point we can all start focusing on polygamy. And once Utah allows polygamy…)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader finds that his blog is quite moribund when it comes to seriously argued discussion. Most of the time your Maximum Leader just sits here at his computer and spouts off Kornheiseresque rants.* Indeed, most of you must come here out of habit more than seeking intellectual stimulation, ’cause your Maximum Leader hasn’t been putting up the thoughtful stuff recently.

Happily for all of us out here, Fear and Loathing in Georgetown is not affected by the intellectual moribundity that rules here at Naked Villainy.

To wit: the very thoughtful discussion of what your Maximum Leader will summarize as the “slippery-slope” possibilities in the gay marriage debate. The first post (with very important comments) is here. Then FLG restates the issue in the post available here.

FYI… Your Maximum Leader and Smallholder went around and around on this issue a few years ago. Some of the posts that you might be interested in revisiting… Here is a 2003 post in which your Maximum Leader throws out some of his thoughts about the gay marriage debate in terms of lawmakers vs judges. Here is a link to a Volokh Conspiracy post about why polygamy would be hard to implement. There are many more… But he’ll hit just those two.

For the sake of full disclosure, here is a link to another 2003 essay in which your Maximum Leader discusses gay marriage, equality and the state. His views on gay marriage have changed some over the intervening years; but the larger point about equality and the state is still valid.

After looking through the archives a little for some of those past post your Maximum Leader thought to himself, “Self, we really did write some decent stuff here once upon a time…”

* - In case you care, your Maximum Leader is a huge Kornheiser fan. He didn’t find the remarks about Hannah Storm particularly offensive; but he was also unaware of ESPN’s strict policy about ESPN personalities commenting on other ESPN personalities. In light of this, how exactly does PTI get away with treating Dan LeBatard the way they do? Also, as far as female ESPN personalities go, your Maximum Leader likes Hannah Storm. The one he can’t get used to is Cindy Brunson. Brunson’s eyes weird out your Maximum Leader.

Carry on.

Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,
eaque detestor, quia peccando,
non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum,
sed praesertim quia offendi Te,
summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris.
Ideo firmiter propono,
adiuvante gratia Tua,
de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum.
Amen.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure if he will blog again until next week. Until then he wishes you all a very Merry Christmas.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has said time and time again here that he isn’t sure what the question it, but Venice often comes up as the answer. He continues to have a hankering to go to Venice at Christmas time. Your Maximum Leader blogged last year about a peice he read in the Guardian a few years back that planted the seed of this idea in his mind. Sadly, such a trip is still not in the cards for your Maximum Leader.

Of course, for the past two years the acqua alta has hit Venice at Christmas time. The news wires have been reporting flooding in Venice as rain, snow, and high tides combine for high water over the past few days. Apparently 60% of the city’s streets are underwater. The acqua alta this year doesn’t seem to be as bad as it was last year at this time.

In the slideshow accompanying the article linked above were a number of pictures showing the high water and people going about life in the high water. But one photo caught your Maximum Leader’s eye. Before there was rain and high water, there was snow in Venice. Here is the photo that caught his eye:

It is a sculpture of the four tetrarchs on the corner of St Mark’s covered in snow. Your Maximum Leader knows this sounds strange, but he’s known of this sculpture for years and has seen photos of it before. But for some reason he made the incorrect assumption that the peice was inside St. Mark’s, not outside. He’s now been disabused of that misconception.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader would still jet off to Venice in a minute if circumstances allowed.

Carry on.