Dear Mr. bin Laden,

We have been following your career with great interest, but you see, Mr. bin Laden, we are concerned that you will never become a world-class villain like ourselves. Face it, you wear a dress; you live in a cave and—we will try to put this delicately—you lack savoir faire. And your colorless henchmen are bringing you down. You are not Bond material but, as we see it, you have potential. We believe that, with our guidance, an upstart like yourself may someday hope to face a world-class nemesis like 007. We’d like to give you some friendly advice, one evildoer to another. Think of it as the Fab Five—Julius, Auric, Ernst, Emilio, and Kamal—giving you an “Evil Eye for the Bad Guy” makeover.

Lair. You have a real cave-design issue. A damp, dark cave filled with guano says worlds about your self-esteem, and we don’t really want to go there—and neither does anyone else. You live with bats and blind salamanders. It’s an embarrassment, but it doesn’t have to be. Caves can be among the most exciting and dynamic lairs to hide from governments and their minions while putting your dastardly brilliant plan into place. They are meant to be remodeled with the latest high-tech trappings and should always create a sense of space and grandeur of scale. Think oversized lasers. Don’t be afraid to accessorize; no cave is complete without a few hundred workers running around in sterile white garb or intimidating black jumpsuits, doing  …