Shalampax Speaks

Manexposinghimself, the Prime Minister of Shalampax, granted me an exclusive interview yesterday. Knowing that these are challenging times in the world, for most of our half-hour together he talked extensively and with great passion about the current batch of television reality shows. That part of our discussion does not bear repeating, but in an off-hand moment he did mention something interesting.

Prime Minister Manexposinghimself made a promise that I think he’s going to keep, which would be totally out of character for him. He promised that, in the future, his government will be much more decisive and will make its decisions much more quickly.

Manexposinghimself explained the rationale behind this new policy by saying, “In the past, we’ve spent a lot of time and money commissioning outsiders to extensively research and analyze data that helped us to make effective decisions. We would have hired Shalampaxians to do the job but, well, have you ever tried to get a Shalampaxian to do anything useful? You can’t find anyone outside of our spam and cult religion businesses who is willing to lift a finger, and those companies are running at full tilt.

“In the future, we’ll make government decisions much more quickly, without waiting for the reports. After we’ve gained more experience at making uniformed decisions, we will be able to stop commissioning the research because what’s the use of data and information when your mind is already made up? This will save Shalampax a fortune.”

You’ve got to hand it to Manexposinghimself. He’s got Shalampax’s interests at heart. I wonder what he’s up to.

When Parliament returns from its unexpected recess it plans to pass a new data privacy bill. To date, we don’t have any laws here in Shalampax concerning the protection of the privacy of data collected by businesses. And Shalampaxian companies have been, to say the least, quite lax in this regard.

Once this bill is passed, the following will be mandatory:

• Companies will have to inform everyone of what information they are collecting about them.
• Companies will be required to allow people to opt out of the data collection process.
• People will have a right to demand to see what information companies have on them and to demand that the companies correct any inaccuracies immediately.
• Companies will not be allowed to sell or share information without the individual’s express permission.

Of course, for reasons of pragmatism, there will have to be a few exceptions.

Any company that can demonstrate to the government that it will be able to make a profit from the information will be allowed to collect all the data it wants, any way it wants to collect it, and with or without an individual’s knowledge or permission. Companies that hold profitable information or information that can be used to earn a profit can share or sell it as the companies please, without first getting permission.

Without these exemptions, the bill was considered to be too much of an impediment in the way of companies’ profitability. However, even with these exemptions, the law still has teeth. If the information can’t be used to earn a profit companies will have to adhere to the restrictions of the new law.

Penalties have not yet been set, but it is expected that companies that break this law will have to issue an apology. Fines and jail terms are not being considered as they are seen as too harsh for this type of crime.

I have it on very good authority—I got it from a guy who promised to talk to me on the condition that I slept him, which I would have done anyway—that some entrepreneurs here in Shalampax are considering starting a new business. It’s only a concept at this point, but, if they go ahead with it, their idea will revolutionize the way democracies around the world work.

In their market research, the entrepreneurs found that in democracies where voting is not mandatory (is it democratic to force someone to make a choice?), there is a general trend toward lower voter participation rates in many places. Clearly, a great many people in those countries believe that voting isn’t worth the trouble.

The opportunity is clear. The entrepreneurs plan to offer a democracy outsourcing service.

The details haven’t been finalized, but here’s the general plan:

In those countries where most people can’t be bothered to vote, a new Shalampaxian company—it doesn’t yet have a name; let’s call it Electco for now—will take over the voting process.

Customer countries will cancel their elections and turn the process over to Electco. Rather than campaigning, politicians will submit their party affiliations, descriptions of their proposed policies, and a few pictures of themselves to Electco.

Electco will look at voting in past elections in the customer countries to determine how many “core voters” each party has. Core voters are defined as people who vote for a party no matter what. This might be because their parents always voted for that party, so they always vote for that party. Or maybe the party’s candidates and officials wear the same sort of clothes as the core voters, so the core voters feel a strong affinity for the party.

Electco will assign votes to each party in the same proportion as their core supporters make up in the electorate of that country.

There are a number of voters who, bizarrely, evaluate the candidates and the candidates’ and their parties’ positions before making a decision on who to vote for in each election. Consequently, they might not always vote for the same party. Let’s call these “swing voters.”

To represent the swing voters, Electco will assign five employees to work on each election. They will divvy up votes equal to the percentage of swing voters in the customer country and add those votes to the core voters’ votes.

Two of the employees will look only at pictures of the candidates and will cast their votes based on who looks best for the job. Because these employees will have only pictures, appearances will be the sole factor they consider. Forty percent of the swing-voter votes will be allocated in this manner.

The three remaining employees will all see the policies statements that the candidates submit on behalf of themselves and their parties.

One Electco employee will assess only how much he or she would benefit from those policies. This employee will not consider the costs or consequences of the policies. Nor will he or she consider whether the policies are even feasible. “What’s in it for me?” will be the only factor that determines which candidate will get these votes. Twenty-five percent of the swing-voter votes will be allocated in this manner.

Another Electco employee will assess the policy statements and compare them to reality to determine which candidate is the best bullshitter. The top bullshitter will be assigned 25 percent of the swing-voter votes.

The final employee, will have to do some work. This employee will carefully review each policy, consider the benefits, drawbacks and feasibility of the policies, and attempt to assess the integrity of the candidate. The most honest candidate, with the best policies will be assigned three percent of the swing-voter votes.

The remaining seven percent of the swing-voter votes will not be assigned by an Electco employee. Instead, a computer will randomly distribute them among the candidates.

In rough form, that’s the plan. The benefits are clear. For a comparatively small fee, the customer country can avoid the staggering costs of holding an election, its politicians can avoid the punishing costs of campaigning, and its voters can avoid the great bother and annoyance of getting up off their asses to vote.

What do you think? There are still a few kinks to be ironed out, but I think these entrepreneurs are going to hit the jackpot with this idea.

To better plan and manage governmental and business affairs, the Government of Shalampax thought it was a good idea to get a more accurate—or at least some—sense of the demographics of Shalampax. To this end, a few weeks ago the government undertook Shalampax’s first comprehensive census.

Censuses had been conducted in the past, but they only counted the number of people here. This census asked 50 questions on Shalampaxian characteristics and practices.

The chief statistician has just released the results of the census. They show that one hundred percent of the population of Shalampax speaks English as his or her primary language, owns a flat screen television, is single, has no children, is a Infinitian and is female.

Some foreign census experts who were consulted before the Shalampaxian census was conducted warned that making the census voluntary, as was the case in Shalampax, would lead to a sample size that was too small to be meaningful. The experts also advised that, because that sample would be self-selected, the results would be skewed, rendering them useless.

The Government of Shalampax considered the experts’ advice, but it decided that, in the interest of avoiding being overly intrusive into Shalampaxians’ lives, it would make the census voluntary and accept that there would be some inaccuracy in a survey of this nature.

In Shalampax’s population of 4,242, the single response that was received yields results that are considered to be accurate plus or minus 100 percent, 19 times out of 20.

By the way, I’d like to send my thanks to the one person who completed the census. It wasn’t me and, for privacy reasons, I can’t name her hear, but she’s obviously a complete idiot.

The automated, dial-in time signal, which was installed in March of this year, has broken. Due to the difficulty in getting parts shipped into Shalampax, it is not known how long it will take to repair it, but it could be a few months.

The system still works in a fashion. Now, instead of saying, “at the tone, it will be exactly six p.m.,” it now says, “ “at the tone, it will be exactly 6:45 p.m.”

Until further notice, please be sure to call the time signal 45 minutes later than you have in the past.

Thank you.

Today is Ocean Day in Shalampax.

Living on a tiny speck of an island in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, we are ever-conscious of the enormity, majesty, bountifulness, beauty, power and, yes, often destructiveness of our oceans. That is why we honor, venerate, often immensely fear and, particularly on this day, greatly celebrate our planet’s seas.

We are especially appreciative of the fact that there are no more than a few hundred steps—if that—between the ocean and every point on Shalampax. This provides us with easy access to a massive liquid dumping ground where we can, without a care in the world, dispose of our raw sewage and garbage.

We are ever-thankful to Paahlm for having blessed us with this free garbage and sewage dump right on our doorstep. And we pity people in those poor countries where they have to pay to process their sewage and garbage or transport it somewhere far away for disposal. We are truly blessed by Paahlm in this regard.

Many Shalampaxians get into the spirit of Ocean Day by saving up their garbage for weeks. They then ceremoniously fling it into the sea on Ocean Day.

Of course, because of our almost constant gale-force winds, this ceremony often has to be put off for another day for safety reasons. However, our weather forecaster is predicting that this year there should be about an hour this afternoon when it will be safe enough to go outside, provided that you can quickly lash yourself to a tree before commencing the dumping ceremony. Your best bet is to stand on the leeward side of the island so the wind will do most of the flinging work for you.

Happy Ocean Day!