Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader emerges from the Villainschloss after 6 days of rest and relaxation. To be quite honest, Christmas day was not very relaxing. The Villainettes were wild with glee at all of the gifts they got. But that is to be expected from Villainettes. Overall, he feels recharged and reinvigourated. And to assure that his good mood continues into the new year, he may well go back into the sweet isolation of the great obsidian tower of the Villainschloss for a few more days this week.

So let us see what there is to blog about…

Mudslides in California. It is a really horrible thing. Mrs. Villain was distressed to hear about this on Christmas.

Your Maximum Leader also feels badly for the people of Iran. 25000 dead from earthquakes. Very sad that the mullahs controlling Iran don’t know anything about building codes.

Your Maximum Leader thanks the Minister of Agriculture for the beef. Especially with Mad Cows on the loose. Damn those Canadians.

They found me a new pet!

Your Maximum Leader is still writing his big post. But he is trying to edit and re-write and polish his work.

And finally…. Your Maximum Leader can proclaim that the terrorists have won. Yes they have. We no longer live in a free country. We live in a feeble state cowed by terrorists and thugs. Allow your Maximum Leader to explain…

For Christmas dinner at the Villainschloss, your Maximum Leader, Mrs. Villain, the Villainettes, your Maximum Leader’s honoured in-laws, and the esteemed parents of your Maximum Leader like to dine on fine prime rib roast of beef, yorkshire pudding, broiled potatoes, asparagus salad, and onion casserole. (In case you were wondering, we had cold appetizers this year - not the normal mushroom-caps stuffed with crab meat. And, of course, the dinner is finished with some pies and cakes. And we know dinner is truely finished when your Maximum Leader adjourns to his study with Port and Stilton. But I digress…)

For those of you unaccustomed to making yorkshire pudding, you need fat. This is not to say that you need to be fat, but you must have liquid beef fat in which t cook the pudding. This fat must be heated until it satisfies the three “S”es. The fat must be “silent,” “still,” and “smoking” before you add the pudding batter. Now, to move along the narrative…

With Americans being more health conscious than ever, our beef is being trimmed of its fat in a way completely unknown to our parent, grandparents, and other ancestors. Hamburger is proudly sold as being “95% lean.” This, my loyal minions, is a travesty. A few years ago, on Christmas day, your Maximum Leader looked into the oven in which was cooking the Christmas roast and saw that there were no drippings! And not only that, there were only 2 teaspoons of fat in the pan. This, my loyal minions, was not enough fat with which to cook the yorkshire pudding. So that year your Maximum Leader vowed never to be without sufficent fat on Christmas; lest his yorkshire pudding be cooked in Crisco and barely edible. From that year forward, your Maximum Leader himself has always gone out to a local butcher and acquired some extra fat for his yorkshire pudding. This year, the trip to the butcher was a rude awakening in how the terrorists have taken control of our nation.

Your Maximum Leader went to the grocery store and went to the meat department. Mrs. Villain has always had luck with this store and their butchers, so your Maximum Leader decided it was acceptable to patronize himself. He noticed a burly proletarian-looking fellow with a blood-spattered lab coat and assumed this man to be the butcher. Allow your Maximum Leader to recount what conversation ensued:

Maximum Leader: Good evening. Good man, are you the butcher here?
Butcher: Meat cutter.
ML: Come again?
Butcher: Meat cutter. I’m the meat cutter.
ML: (Thinking that someone called a meat cutter is a butcher’s apprentice.) Will the butcher return presently? I have need for beef fat and must speak with the butcher.
Butcher: Listen. We don’t call ourselves butchers anymore. We are meat cutters.
ML: You don’t say…
Butcher: Yup. Even the Union has changed its name. We don’t like to be called butchers anymore.
ML: Why is that? After hunters and prostitutes, butchers are practioners one of the oldest and most noble professions in the world.
Butcher: Don’ know. I just know I am a meat cutter. So you need fat?
ML: Yes I do.
Butcher: Come back tomorrow at 8am. We should have some then.
ML: Indeed. I shall send my man for it. Good day, Mr. Meat Cutter…

Now your Maximum Leader must say it… What the F**k? Since when have butchers not been butchers? And sure enough, the friggin union is calling itself the “Meat Cutters.” Your Maximum Leader was troubled by this nomenclature change while driving back to the Villainschloss in the Villainmobile. Then it dawned on him. The Butcher of Baghdad. The Butcher of Lyons. Damnit! The media was giving butchers a bad name… So they went and decided to call themselves “meat cutters.”

And so it is. Butchers have gotten a self-esteem issue because everytime some homicidal maniac kills people the appellation “The Butcher of ‘Fill-in-your-locality-here’” is liberally applied by the press. So to overcome their self-esteem issue, the butchers are no more. The butchers are dead! Long live the meat cutters! Damn the terrorists and nazis who have done this. Damn them all to hell… And that, my loyal minions, is another sign that the terrorists have won.

Carry on.