Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wanted to let you know that he is going to the beach soon. Possibly tonight. Possibly tomorrow. Staying through Thursday of next week. It is likely you’ll see little of him here.

He is bringing a laptop with him to the beach… So there is a possibility of posting… But no promises.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has not been himself for the past few days. He has been rather weary and sometimes short tempered with people. He thinks he lost it a little bit last night.

EDITIED OUT BY YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER

Well, loyal readers… Your Maximum Leader wrote a rather lengthy post describing how and why he “lost it” last night. But after hitting the publish button, he decided he didn’t want to be that candid. So he is editing himself.

Let it suffice to say that your Maximum Leader’s not in a great mood. He’ll probably just take the weekend off from thoughts of posting.

Have a good one…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader extends his warm well-wishes to those of his readers who are mothers this Mother’s Day.

He especially wants to extend his warm wishes to mothers who are dear to him including: Mrs Villain (the mother of your Maximum Leader’s children and his loving wife), Your Maximum Leader’s own Sainted Mother, Your Maximum Leader’s beloved sister (for whom this is her first Mother’s Day as a mom), Your Maximum Leader’s beloved Mother-in-law, Your Maximum Leader’s beloved Sister-in-law, Mrs Smallholder, Mrs Air Marshal, Mrs Foreign Minister, and the Big Hominid’s Mother (who has always been like a second mother to your Maximum Leader - and to whom your Maximum Leader has been a bad “son” of late has he hasn’t written or called in a long while.)

Your Maximum Leader knows that many of his readers are moms. Please forgive him if he doesn’t list you all personally, as he is sure that he will inadvertently neglect to add someone’s name and give unintentional offence.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thought he would share some thoughts he had while dining today at a Chinese buffet here in Fredericksburg. Thoughts are in no particular order.

1) Is there some ambience to be gained by requiring the pseudo-servers to wear silken (rayon?) blouses reminiscent of a “chinese” style?

2) Your Maximum Leader likes it a lot when the buffet has three separate sections. One for “entrees.” One for “appetizers.” And one for fruits and desserts.

3) Who’da thunk that they would have pretty good sweet tea at a Chinese buffet?

4) Your Maximum Leader loves shrimp toast. Damn. Shrimp toast fresh out of the fryer is good stuff. He’s probably eaten two whole slices (not just portions of slices - but full-sized slices of bread with the shrimp mixture on top.) He’s probably going to regret enjoying that so much.

5) Even considering the place is a buffet at lunch… There are lots and lots of very heavy people eating here. And your Maximum Leader doesn’t mean just a little obese. He’s talking one fortune cookie away from disaster (or a wafer thin mint if one prefers).

6) Doesn’t Kung-Pao chicken have peanuts? He’s searched and searched, but there don’t appear to be peanuts in the Kung-Pao chicken. Bits of zucchini it has, but no peanuts. Odd. It will be avoided.

7) Ah… General Tso… You were a murdering bastard, but you do make a tasty chicken…

8 ) Your Maximum Leader hates fortune cookies that contain pithy sayings, but not fortunes. Actually, he will make an exception for pithy sayings by an actual chinese philosopher. But damnit, he wants fortune cookies with fortunes in them. Such as the one he got today. It read: “You will be traveling and coming into a fortune.” Now your Maximum Leader can hope that he wins the lottery or something this weekend as he travels to his mother-in-law’s house for Mother’s Day.

9) Your Maximum Leader likes it when they bring a sliced orange with your fortune cookies. Indeed, he actually likes the orange more than the cookie.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader recently enjoyed dinner at a friend’s house. These friends are very well off and have a large lovely home. A few other couples were at dinner as well…

The rest of this post may not be for the faint of heart…

So… After dinner, your Maximum Leader felt the need for a consitutional. He went to the WC and discovered it was lovely smelling. Your Maximum Leader did what needed be done and noticed a small spray bottle of air freshener on the back of the toilet…

Here is the question. Does one:

a) spray, then wash hands?
b) wash hands, then spray?
c) wash hands, then spray, then wash hands again?

Think about it. There are interesting implications to all three answers, not just for oneself, but for the other people using that particular lavatory.

Feel free to discuss…

Carry on.

The Maximum Leader is my good and respected friend… yadda, yadda, yadda.

(The Maximum Leader and I only prefix our comments with respectful murmerings because we don’t want you readers out there to think we are nasty to one another. When alone, we simply reach across the table and go for the jugular. We’ve been friends now for half our lives so we know that we only mean the best. That said, I now return to the regualrly scheduled smack down).

Your humble Smallholder is well aware of the standard of proof in a criminal trial.

I could be mistaken - and the Maximum Leader seems to think I am - but I don’t believe the inquiry into Wolfowitz’s behavior is occuring in a court of law.

Applying a criminal trial level of proof to this case is a bit disingenuous. And even if it was a criminal case - it might be because the Maximum Leader wants to apply this standard - that doesn’t mean that everyone should refrain from commenting because we have to wait to see how things shake out.

Even in a criminal trial, it is perfectly acceptable for non-jury members to derive and talk about opinions based on the facts presented. I went way out on a limb and said that the Menendez brothers and O.J. were guilty, guilty, guilty. Hell, I’ll say that O.J. killed Nicole AFTER the not guilty verdict.

When someone says that the press and the public should not draw conclusions until after the court case is over (or in this case, if I’m not mistaken, until the board inquiry is over), you can guarantee that the facts are not on their side and they want to ignore those facts.

Most of our readers are to the right of center, so I’ll ask how everyone felt about refraining from judging during the lead up to Clinton’s impeachment trial. Did you all try to shush fellow conservative bloggers because Monica’s claims had not been proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt? Of course not.

Reasonable people can look at two people lying and make a reasoned judgment. But we don’t need to do that in this case. The former general counsel, in the same article I linked, also says that Wolfowitz acted improperly. Addtionally, Bennet, Wolfowitz’s lawyer, doesn’t dispute the actions his client took on his client’s behalf. He simply says that the ethics board approved. On NPR this morning I heard Bennet recast that argument in light of the conflicting stories presented by MORE THAN ONE other bank employee. “We didn’t mean that they approved, we just meant that they weren’t deceived and my client would have explained his actions if they had asked.”

One can’t fault the Maximum Leader for not knowing about Bennet’s “clarification,” but even if the Maximum Leader missed the second person corroborating the ethics story in the article I linked, his dismissive “there is nothing to see here!” doesn’t make sense. The very fact that hearings are being held leads a reasonable person to conclude that something is indeed rotten in Denmark.

If there wasn’t loads of evidence that Wolfowitz acted improperly there wouldn’t even be a discussion. The governing board of the World Bank is in an awkward position. Firing Wolfowitz will bring them into conflict with Bush, so they would like for this whole thing to go away. Unfortunately for the board, the staff of the world bank is so upset about Wolfowitz’s leadership that they won’t let it go away. The next best option would have been for Wolfowitz to leave voluntarily or for Bush to ask for his resignation. That’s not happening either. Wolfowitz is a fighter and Bush has restated his confidence in Wolfowitz.

(Here’s another issue aside from the cronyism that the Maximum Leader doesn’t want to discuss: What exactly does an appointee have to do to lose the confidence of this president? Get caught engaged in homosexual Satanic rituals while drinking the blood of Bald Eagles?)

The cronyism is an issue in this administration, but I didn’t address that point. I did say that cronyism is a problem in third world economies. I then made the link that said that the appearance of cronyism at the World Bank would make it harder to sell reforms to tinpot third world kleptocracies.

That is what makes it newsworthy. There is hardly, as the Maximum Leader purports, a “salacious” angle. No one is particularly titilated by images of Woflowitz and his fiftyish paramour getting on (except perhaps the pugnaciously prurient, persistently priapic Big Hominid*). There is a news story here and it is no less a news story because it makes right wing apologists uncomfortable.

But since the Maximum Leader brings it up: Cronyism is a problem in this administration. Is there anyone left who is so delusional as to believe that Bush gets the best advice available to Americann leadership? Bush’s reliance on an inner circle Praetorian guard and discomfort with conflicting views is a real problem.

Of course, take my opinions with a grain of salt. I’m not the all-knowing Maximum Leader. I’m just an inbred agrarian. Perhaps this really is a criminal trial and my reading skills are too poor to understand that the news articles we linked to are about courtroom procedures.

* The Big Hominid has nothing to do with this. But the alluring alliterative aura of that phrase led me to launch an undeserved ad hominem on the Hominid. I could have chosen someone else, but then I couldn’t have paired ad hominem with Hominid. Small pleasures and all that.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must make two public apologies.

The first is to his good friend and co-blogger, the Smallholder. Like the Foreign Minister, your Maximum Leader neglected to call, e-mail, or otherwise make note of the Smallholder’s birthday. There really isn’t any excuse. There were reminders and such, but your Maximum Leader dismissed them and then promptly forgot. Your Maximum Leader will admit that he is horrible about remember birthdays. He rarely remembers his own in fact. The only three that he remembers faithfully are those of his own children. For all others he requires unceasing reminders.

Happy Birthday, Smallholder. Many happy returns to you.

The second apology your Maximum Leader must make is to his friend Gordon the Cranky Neocon of Six Meat Buffet. A little while ago, your Maximum Leader shot Gordon an e-mail indicating that he (your Maximum Leader that is) would be in his (Gordon’s) neck of the woods in late April. Well… Your Maximum Leader, Mrs Villain, and all his villainous progeny, did make the trek to the greater Philadephia area this past weekend. It was your Maximum Leader’s intention to contact Gordon and try to meet him for an adult beverage and conversation. It was Mrs Villain’s intention to have many activities planned for the whole family and to keep a tight schedule. So, unfortunately, your Maximum Leader owes Gordon an adult beverage and conversation at some indetermined point in the future.

By way of further explaination, the whole Villainous family was in the Philly region from Friday to Saturday. It was your Maximum Leader’s original understanding that the family would not return until Sunday. Reality was that we departed Philly Saturday and made our way back to Fredericksburg. During our brief visit, we were able to visit with some family friends of Mrs Villain and her parents in New Jersey. Then your Maximum Leader took his children to see the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. After Tut, he took his villainous progeny through the Franklin Institute, saw one of the IMAX films there, then caught lunch. After that carousing, he had to gather up the family and stick to the plan to return to the Villainschloss.

By the way, if you have a chance to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute, you ought to. It was well worth it. It kept a 9 year old girl and a 7 year old girl captivated for over two hours…

So… In closing… Happy (Belated) Birthday Smallholder; and Gordon, your Maximum Leader owes you one.

Carry on.

The Minister of Propaganda makes the Volokh Conspiracy.

If you aren’t a Villain, ignore this post. You won’t get it.

And no, Brian, this has nothing to do with the President or any other conservative.

I’m sure that Mrs. Polymath is glad that Venus Ramey is a bit long in the tooth for her husband. The former Miss America is quite the pistol-packin’ mama.

Via the Jawa Report and CNN:

WAYNESBURG, Kentucky (AP) — Miss America 1944 has a talent that probably has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle’s tires and stop an intruder.

Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

“I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.”

Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

Curtis Parrish of Ohio was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, Deputy Dan Gilliam said. The man’s hometown wasn’t immediately available. Three other people were questioned but were not arrested.

After winning the pageant with her singing, dancing and comedic talents, Ramey sold war bonds and her picture was adorned on a B-17 bomber that flew missions over Germany in World War II, according to the Miss America Web site.

Ramey lived in Cincinnati for several years and was instrumental in helping rejuvenate Over-the-Rhine historic buildings. She returned to Kentucky in 1990 to live on her farm.

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hesitates to admit that he doesn’t have much to say right now. He is still shocked and saddened by the news that continues to come out of Blacksburg, VA. The shootings have put a damper on his ability to be creative. Or so it seems…

Excursus: One can debate just how creative your Maximum Leader is on a regular basis…

Additionally… The Wee Villain is home sick. He is throwing up, but shows no other symptoms of anything. It is just a flu going around… But honestly… Have you ever seen anything more pathetic than a 3 year old who is sick? It tugs at your heart strings.

Not only is the Wee Villain sick, but Mrs Villain has been called by the state to do her duty and serve on a jury. When all is done with that, perhaps your Maximum Leader will have a post about Mrs Villain’s experience with the criminal justice system.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been quite busy over the past few days. It was good to see that the Smallholder and Air Marshal posted a little last week. Your Maximum Leader spent some time yesterday writing some blog posts, but in light of what is happening at Virginia Tech right now, he doesn’t really want to post much.

Of course, the Villainschloss was running on emergency power until just a little while ago… So that wasn’t much fun either…

Carry on.

Via Llama Butchers: Russian Wargaming.

I think we can all agree that anyone who dresses up in World War Two clothing and runs around with guns is a big nerd. The next thing you know, people will be doing pirate reenactments.

Just sayin’.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is in something of a funk. No particular reason, but he just can’t seem to motivate himself to actually type anything. He has seated himself in front of his computer and thought about a post… But he just can’t seem to will himself to type. (Frankly, he hasn’t been playing computer games of any sorts.) Indeed, he finds himself strangely drawn to “Scrubs” re-runs. If he times it right, he can watch 90 minutes of “Scrubs” every night. The zany antics of Zach Braff and his cohorts seem to make your Maximum Leader feel a little better.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has been reading blogs, although not contributing to his blog. And one of the most entertaining posts he’s read recently was Buckethead’s post on Lightsabre toting Jesuits… It is a great post. Buckethead begins:

Why, indeed, are stormtroopers not all the same height, given that they are clones? As I watched, with half an eye, the great saga that is Star Wars, some questions popped into my head that had never popped before.

Imagine that Adolf Hitler conquered the world. He is now known as Der Fuhrer, of course, and rules with an iron hand and generally goes around scaring the bejesus out of people. Imagine that in a desert region, far from the bright centers of the Nazi world – maybe in Indiana – there is a young boy with the last name Hitler. He becomes involved with the resistance, and learns to fly, and in a climactic confrontation with Der Fuhrer at a oil shale strip mine in Alberta learns that Der Fuhrer is in fact his father. Should he be surprised? Would no one have ever commented on the puzzling similarity of last names?

The post gets better from there; ending with lightsabre toting Jesuits…

And by the way… Some Stormtroopers are taller than others because, while clones, they over time develop their own personalities. And some of them want to “stand out.” So they put lifts in their boots.

Your Maximum Leader should also mention that if one starts to think at all critically about any of the Star Wars movies, they fall apart very quickly. Faster in fact than does Star Trek, in all its various forms… The deconstruction of Star Trek takes a bit more time, as male viewers are constantly distracted by the large shapely breasts of one of the female leads… Indeed, your Maximum Leader found himself watching nearly all of a rerun of “Enterprise” on SciFi last night for the sole purpose of seeing Sub-commander T’Pol do whatever Sub-commander T’Pol does…

Well, if he can summon up the blood to do so, your Maximum Leader may try to post again soon.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was wasting time on You Tube and found this…

Okay… Perhaps the title of “Weaponizing a Big-Arsed Bunny” was the best part. But it did make your Maximum Leader laugh.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is working with the beautiful, witty, and intelligent blog-goddess Sadie to fix up some issues here at Naked Villainy. (BTW, if you need work done to your blog - contact Apothgem. They’re da bomb.)

So, while work is going on, your Maximum Leader might be posting lightly over the next few days.

Anyhoo…

Sort of like Big Stupid Tommy, your Maximum Leader just loves this clip…

Your Maximum Leader is smiling and laughing just thinking about this clip…

Carry on.