The Battle of Waterloo
Napoleon Bonaparte is an iconic character, not only because he was short, wore a silly hat, and had enough pirate brothers to conquer most of Europe, but because he is the only person in history to meet his Waterloo actually at Waterloo. (The rest of us tend to meet it in boardrooms, law courts, amateur beard-growing competitions, and if you’re English, in Surrey.) Had Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo, civilization would be quite different. For starters, there wouldn’t be 2,050,000 results on Google for the term “French surrender” (there would only be 2,049,999.) Also, we would all eat a lot more snails.
But Napoleon did not win the battle. Later his opponent, the Duke of Wellington (also famed for rendering beef completely inedible and known as “Sally” to his friends), described the fighting as: “The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life,” which was Sally’s way of saying Napoleon almost won. To add insult to injury, Napoleon’s famed Imperial Guard — the closest thing the French Army had to crack assault pirates — ran away:
My pirate brothers and sisters include Captain Stanky and Rank Ol’ Pete.
Happy International Worker’s Day everyone! Yep, it’s May Day, the traditional day to celebrate the worker, to dance around Maypoles, and if you’re really into it, you may even want to do some Morris Dancing. Alas, the hoopla falls on this, the 99th edition of the Carnival of Satire, but we will press forward with our cynicism anyhow:
This week we mark the passing of a great actor and showman. From the homo-erotic undertones of Ben Hur to the coolest, most ass-kicking post-apocalyptic dudes (Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man, Soylent Green), Charlton Heston’s delicious sense of irony will be missed. Speaking of Soylent Green, you should consider entering The Skwib’s 
Welcome to an impolite and somewhat freakish edition of The Carnival of Satire, where we discuss politics, religion, and improbable sexual positions. But first, we start with some advice for the evil masterminds of the world:
Readers who’ve only discovered The Skwib in the past couple of years may have missed the series we’ve done on the Beijing Olympic Mascots, and a number of demonstration sports planned for Beijing this summer.
