Welcome to the official Web site of the Government Bureau of Superheroics! The BoS is for all superheroes, from those donning spandex for the first time to the veterans who remember when costumes were made of cotton and wool. That said, the newer heroes are the ones more likely to visit our site seeking answers, encouragement, and blueprints for concealable gizmos that can cut through the shackles pinning you to the torture table just seconds before the laser beam overhead finds its target. But whatever your level of experience, we hope your visit to the BoS Web site is as rewarding as actually battling evil.
Category Archives: War
Dubai: Land of Laughs
I'm not an American, but from time to time I can't help but feel bad for the poor buggers, like when their president tries to sell their ports to people like this. Mind you, I like people like this, but I wouldn't be selling my ports to them; there's the ones you date, and the ones you take home to momma and sell your ports to, and these are not the latter. Wisdom and good times from a Dubai taxi driver, via Gridskipper.
Cabbie: Where are you from?
Us: Washington, D.C. in the United States.
C: You know George Bush?
U: (polite laughter) No, we’ve never met him.
C: You know Osama Bin Laden?
U: (slight discomfort) No…. We’ve never met him either.
C: Do you want to meet him?
U: (wondering where he’s going with this) Um… no. (sincerely hoping that we’re not on our way to see him right now)
C: I want to meet him very much.
U: Uhhh… Really? Why?
C: So that I could turn him in to the United States and gets lots and lots of American dollars. (hysterical guffaws)
U: (relieved smiles) Oh, okay.
C: No, I couldn’t do that. They would kill all my family. (another explosion of hilarity)
U: (polite but uncomfortable laughter)
Bush: Achievement and Entitlement
There have been many memorable moments in George Bush's career – invading Iraq, declaring the war "accomplished", Hurricane Katrina. But the US president recalled that his greatest moment in office had come not on the field of battle but while out fishing.
Asked by Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper what he considered to be his greatest triumph, President Bush replied: "I've experienced many great moments. It's hard for me to name the greatest." He went on: "I would say that the best moment of all came when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound perch while fishing on my lake."
From The Guardian. And you know, I don't doubt for a second that it was the high point of his life so far. Failed oilman, failed businessman, cokehead and alcoholic, a man who nearly lost the battle for his life to a pretzel, George W. Bush is indeed the worst, most embarassing leader that the United States has ever had to endure.
On May 1, International Worker's Day, May Day, Sploid published a tender retrospective of the man the world has come to know as "that dumbass."
It remains one of the proudest moments in American history, and it was only three years ago today. On May 1, 2003, the president piloted a military jet onto an aircraft carrier and told a cheering crowd that we had won the war in Iraq.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," President George W. Bush said to wild applause.
But in this crazy world we live in where "victory" so often means "pathetic failure," winning the war in Iraq somehow ended up meaning losing the war in Iraq.
On May 1 of 2003, America had lost 139 troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Today that number stands at 2,400. In the three years since we won the war, 17,000 more soldiers have been wounded — many of them mangled beyond recognition and doomed to live their remaining days without arms or legs.
The victory pushed "insurgent attacks" up from eight per day back in 2003 to 75 per day in 2006.
Three years after the war was won, the American price tag has risen from about $80 billion to more than $320 billion, and the commander in chief has dropped from a 70% approval rate to disapproval ratings unseen since the last criminal days of Richard Nixon's presidency.
Almost all Americans now believe the president intentionally lied about every aspect of the Iraq invasion and occupation. And a dismal 9% believes the mission was accomplished, according to a new CNN poll.
But there's some good news for the president on this third anniversary of the victory in Iraq: Despite everything that's happened and everything that's known, he remains a free man and still occupies the White House. Amazingly, Bush and his team have yet to be removed from office, prosecuted, convicted of treason, imprisoned or executed.
And that's a victory, too.
Operation Double-Double: The Bootcamp
Candidates are learning about land mines, hostage
situations, nuclear and biological attacks and medicine in developing countries.
If chosen, they'll be offered a six-month contract in Afghanistan.
Helluva bootcamp program for a job slinging crullers and coffee.
In early March, Tim Hortons announced it would be opening a Kandahar branch of the popular coffee-and-doughnut chain. Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan had lobbied for the move for weeks…
The 2,300 Canadian soldiers around Kandahar can line up at the converted trailer for a familiar taste of home: timbits, cookies and double-doubles.
The first Tim Hortons doughnut shop was opened by its namesake, hockey player Tim Horton, in Hamilton, Ont. in 1964.
Horton died in 1974. His partner, Ron Joyce, later sold the chain to U.S.-based fast food chain Wendy's International, which spun part of the company off in a share offering earlier this year.
And here is the original announcement of Operation Double-Double.
Tank Man
Where [are] Hitler's Nazis? Where is the former Soviet Union? Where is Suharto's Indonesia or Pinochet's Chile? They're all gone, and the Chinese Communist Party and its dictatorship will be gone. And the men standing in front of tanks will stay. … And that's what this picture stands for me.
Xiao Qiang
Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley.
Remember Tank Man? Half a generation after Tiananmen Square, has the Chinese government succeeded in their mission to crush the spirit and the memory of that moment? Frontline looks into the political legacy of Tank Man within the Hidden Kleptocracy:
After all others had been silenced, his lonely act of defiance against the Chinese regime amazed the world. What became of him? And 17 years later, has China succeeded in erasing this event from its history?
May 4
Student demonstrators mark the anniversary of "May Fourth."
Tens of thousands of students march intoTiananmen Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1919 "May Fourth Movement," which also took place in the square. They pledge to return to classes the next day but intend to keep pressing for reforms.
Zhao Ziyang, in a speech to foreign bankers, expresses support for the students' "patriotism" and essentially contradicts the government's April 26 editorial. This angers senior Party members.
While he's become a political icon for many of those in the Chinese diaspora as well as for those who were on the outside looking in, within China he's known, if he's known at all, as a criminal subversive. Religion truly is the opiate of the people, and in contemporary China they worship money. Stoned with the soma of seemingly instant cash, when confronted with proof of conspiracy among the princes they laugh it off and chalk it up to greater subtlety on their part, something to be emulated rather than fought against. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Indeed.
After the massacre, the enforced prohibition on any discussion of it, no challenge allowed to what the government did that night, no debate — that has induced deep cynicism amongst those same people who were active participants in the May '89 movement towards the realm of politics as a whole. They have been beaten back. Once again, the message has been driven home that they have no role in politics. They're not wanted. None of their business! Stay out!
[The people have] gotten the message. They're now deeply cynical about anything like that. Those aspirations have been crushed, and all that's left is what the Party is now offering them, which is the chance to make more money, if they're lucky. And who wouldn't take up that offer if it's all that's on offer?
It's possible change will never come from within, although we've seen compelling proof of the desire for it within our own lifetimes. I still remember the Spy magazine which listed every official fax number in China and advised you to fax a protest letter (also supplied) to as many as you could. It did actually bring the Mandarins to their knees for a time. This kind of culture jamming is still possible, aided if not abetted by the camel through the eye of a needle model of Internet access the government has dictated, but one factor we have to deal with today that we did not before is that, by culture jamming China, we will be costing American companies Google and Yahoo, among others, actual dollars. This tends to give Americans pause, if not because they want American companies to be rich, then because they don't want to get sued up the ass by American lawyers.
We are as of one mind in this.
But we're willing to do some culture jamming, or at least witness-bearing, unlike that ex of mine who, upon seeing hundreds of people on bicycles rolling into the square, and hearing shots and screams coming from the square, and seeing tanks and soldiers headed to the square, promptly went to his hotel room, locked the door, drew the curtains, and turned on the tv.
Note "ex."
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