Shalampax Speaks

Is the Shalampax parliament productive or what? Our Members of Parliament have been back for only a week after the more than two-months-long prorogation of Parliament and they have already passed a new law.

Effective immediately, it is illegal to keep a live woolly mammoth in your apartment in Shalampax. An exception is granted if, when treating an emotional disorder, a psychiatrist or psychologist prescribes the keeping of a live woolly mammoth for companionship.

It’s great to see that our Members of Parliament are scrupulously ensuring that they have all bases covered, no matter how unlikely the contingencies may be.

Government wooly mammoths

After a lengthy shutdown to celebrate an extended National Democracy Month, the Parliament of Shalampax finally reopened this morning. It’s return to session was quite normal for our Parliament, which is to say that it was totally bizarre.

As has long been the custom here in Shalampax, the parliamentary session began with the Members of Parliament (MPs) being formally summoned to the parliamentary chambers by a government official who holds the ceremonial title of the “Gentleman of the Black Rod.” I don’t want to get into how that title came into existence, but suffice it to say that I think it’s genetic.

Yes, I know that the Gentleman of the Black Rod is a sexist title. We usually practice near universal gender equality here, but the title was appropriate for the first person who served in the role and old habits die hard. Again, in case there are any children reading this, please do not assume that there was any pun intended by the confluence of the word “hard” with the title “Gentleman of the Black Rod” in this paragraph.

Shortly before Parliament was to reopen the MPs gathered in the Third-Floor Pub to await their summons. Unfortunately, because Parliament was not scheduled to reopen until 11:00 a.m., the Gentleman of the Back Rod had already consumed several alcoholic beverages at home before setting out to fulfill his duties.

Owing to his extreme intoxication, the Gentleman of the Black Rod went to the wrong location. Instead of the Third-Floor Pub, he burst in on a private apartment where several people were having an orgy. The Gentleman of the Black Rod remained there for two hours. It is reported that a good time was had by all.

By the time the Gentleman of the Black Rod finally made it to the third-floor pub to summon the MPs, they were, of course, three, or probably many more, sheets to the wind. On their way to the parliamentary chamber, several MPs suffered severe bruising as a result of bumping into walls and falling down a lot.

As soon as they returned to Parliament, Prime Minister Manexposinghimself delivered the Speech from the Throne, in which he laid out his entire agenda for the new session of Parliament.

The speech lasted five minutes. This gave him sufficient time to have a crap on the throne while reading the speech.

This was the longest Throne Speech in Shalampax’s history. Most have consisted entirely of something along the lines of, “OK. We’re back. Enough said.”

This time, Manexposinghimself decided to add a little flair by plagiarizing verbatim a speech from another Prime Minister from elsewhere in the world. He refused to divulge who he stole the speech from and nobody cared enough to try to look it up. Five minutes was the shortest speech he could find on the Web.

After the Throne Speech, the MPs wasted no time. They immediately began their naps.

Events, Government Black Rod, Members of Parliament, MPs, parliament

Looking ahead to the remainder of this week, the big excitement here in Shalampax is that Parliament will be reopening on Wednesday, March 3 after an extended National Democracy Month prorogation. (Prorogation shuts down Parliament and all of its committees. Considering how much our parliamentarians hate serving in our Parliament, it is surprising how infrequently prorogation is used here. However, I’m told that proroguing Parliament is a favorite practice of Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.)

All Shalampaxians are greatly looking forward to having our Parliament in session again because, with our Members of Parliament finally back in their chairs snoozing away, there will be much more room for the rest of us at Shalampax’s bars.

As is customary, the new session of Parliament will open with “the speech from the throne.” Many past Prime Ministers have found this to be rather embarrassing because, in Shalampax’s case, the throne is a toilet. However, Manexposinghimself, our current Prime Minister, has always taken this in his stride.

There have been rumors that, immediately following the throne speech, a Member of Parliament—the rumor mill isn’t saying which one—will rise on a Point of Privilege. Rumor has it that this member will then present a motion accusing Manexposinghimself of contempt of Parliament for farting loudly during the throne speech, as he inevitably does on these occasions. If the motion is presented, Manexposinghimself is expected to be cleared of the contempt of Parliament charge because all of the other Members of Parliament will certainly have fallen asleep by the time the vote is taken.

Government parliament, prorogation, prorogue, proroguing, Stephen Harper

The Parliament of Shalampax was supposed to reopen today, February 2, 2010, after its one-month shutdown for National Democracy Month and the subsequent one-day extension to compensate parliamentarians for already being off on Anson Jones Day. That was what was supposed to happen, but the reopening of Parliament has been postponed.

Totally out of character for him, Manexposinghimself, Prime Minister of Shalampax, read some news while on his extended vacation. He stumbled on an article reporting that, on December 30, 2009, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, shut down or, in the parliamentary vernacular, prorogued the Canadian Parliament until March 3, 2010.

Rather than embarrass Canada by making it obvious that Shalampax is a much more democratic country, Manexposinghimself has unilaterally decided to show solidarity with Stephen Harper by preventing Shalampaxian parliamentarians from debating in Parliament’s chamber or in parliamentary committees until March 3.

Despite parliamentarians being locked out of the Chamber of Parliament, the government’s Funds Facilitator will continue to pick citizens’ pockets in order be able to continue to pay the high salaries of Manexposinghimself and the other Members of Parliament.

Government Canada, closed, parliament, prorogation, prorogue, Stephen Harper, taxes

The lone civil servant who continued to work throughout National Democracy Month has asked me to pass along word that the Shalampax Government ePortal, which only Shalampax citizens can access, is now up and running. Shalampax citizens can use their citizenship number and the secret password shouted out to them in the recent open meetings to access the ePortal.

Effective immediately, all requests for government services must be submitted over the Internet through the ePortal. It is expected that this will dramatically improve the efficiency of government operations. Now, the system will be able to immediately delete the requests automatically, as opposed to having someone manually throw them out as soon as they arrive.

We should all welcome this tremendous advance in government efficiency. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Government eGovernment, Government, online government

A group of self-described “concerned citizens” (who knew we had any in Shalampax?) are expressing outrage over our process of using random selection rather than democratic election to choose our parliamentarians.

I don’t know how seriously to take this group because they haven’t yet given themselves a name. As you know, no group is worth a damn until they have a proper name, preferably one with a catchy acronym, but so be it.

The first phase of this group’s protest will be an extensive letter-writing campaign. Most members of the group will be writing the letter “A” because they are illiterate and haven’t learned any other letters.

When asked if she wanted a seat in Parliament, the spokesperson for the group responded, “Are you out of your freaking mind? Who the hell would want that crappy job?”

Of course, that is exactly why we use a random selection process to appoint our Prime Minister and other Members of Parliament. No one has ever volunteered to stand for election in Shalampax. Sometimes we force people to become a Member of Parliament as punishment for having committed some heinous crime.

I don’t think this group is going to make much headway with their protest.

Government democracy, elections