Two things about the mailbag.

1. If you write the Mandarin, he will not reply, nor will he post your fan mail up here. The Czar is not sure if he ever has. Mandy does read your fan mail, though, which he prints off…and then races into his private quarters with them, promising no one will ever hurt his Precious. He slams his door shut, and we are fairly certain we hear floor boards being pulled up.

2. The Czar gets quite a bit of fan mail, and tries to reply to each one or even post the good ones up here.

The Czar in fact received a nice note from one of those Evil Canadian Polluters…and to think, we liked Canada because they don’t care a whit about soccer, either, but they do like hockey.

Anyway, the delightful Mr. Matt writes into say that he has coined the phrase (and probably copyrighted for enormous profit) Church of Environmentology, although he thinks Climate Scientology is pretty good too.

Not sure which one I like better, but feel free to incorporate it into one of the Czar’s scathing tirades of goodness (only if it meets with the Czar’s approval of course).

Also, I humbly apologize to the good Czar if it appears that I am attempting to aggrandize my lowly self in any way. It is not my intent, but I will accept any punishment the Czar deems appropriate as a great honour.

Actually, the Czar likes his phrase “scathing tirades of goodness” very much, although Matt does spell words differently.

And fret not that the Czar will react with characteristic and unbridled rage. Matt shall be in charge of Canada, Iceland, and just to mess with his travel arrangements, Thailand.

Finally! We identified our sole Canadian reader! The Czar will avoid burning down any Tim Horton’s the next time he visits Ontario.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.