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.

The Government of Shalampax today announced that, henceforth, it will no longer make public its budgets or financial statements.

The government believes that continuing to release these documents would be pointless as they have always been mythological creations designed purely for entertainment purposes. The government believes that there is far better entertainment available today, so there is little benefit to be derived from publishing the government budgetary and financial documents.

Plus, because the government will no longer be releasing phony financial statements, or any financial statements for that matter, this is seen as a step toward honest government, a concept that the Government of Shalampax thought it might try out on a very limited, temporary, trial basis, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

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?

There’s word of a shocking sex scandal to tell you about, peeps. Once again, shame has tainted Brokentoaster, a backbench Member of Parliament.

You might recall that his name made news a while back as a result of an expenses scandal in which it was discovered that Brokentoaster was a hopeless underachiever when it came to bilking the government through fraudulent expense claims.

This time, Brokentoaster, who is married and, to the best of his recollection, has one or two children, was found to be having an affair. Affairs are not normally news here in Shalampax, but Brokentoaster’s case is a little out of the ordinary.

For the past year, Brokentoaster has been engaged in a torrid love affair with a drop-dead gorgeous, busty blow-up rubber doll that he ordered from a sex toy manufacturer in Argentina. Breaking with Shalampaxian traditions for naming sex dolls, which are the same as the Shalampaxian traditions for naming humans, Brokentoaster calls his doll Maria.

Asked for her reaction, Brokentoaster’s wife of 17 years, Lockpick, appeared unmoved and even forgiving. “Well, at least he won’t be catching any sexually transmitted diseases from his doll,” Lockpick said. “That’s more than I can say for the two or three dozen men I’ve been having affairs with while married to Brokentoaster.”

Ignoring his wife’s and his long-neglected children’s blatant indifference, Broakentoaster had tears, or possibly eye drops, in his eyes when he sobbed that, “I am deeply troubled over the terrible pain I have caused my family, whom I like beyond words. There is no excuse for my actions. All I can say in my defense is that I have found my true soul mate in Maria.”

After his affair was exposed, Brokentoaster became intensely devoted to the practice of Paahlmism, the dominant religion here in Shalampax. As prescribed by Paalmist teachings, he has been consuming large quantities of coconut milk as penance for his sins. Brokentoaster assures his family, friends and constituents that his newfound commitment to his religion and to the glory of Paahlm have saved him.

Fortunately for Brokentoaster, Paahlmism does not have a lot of other strictures or practices, so his daily penance has not in any way impeded his continuing affair with Maria.

Other members of parliament are, needless to say, shocked at this turn of events. Brokentoaster has already been sentenced to serve an extra term in parliament as a result of his criminal underperformance at issuing false expense claims. His colleagues are now calling for him to be forced to serve a second additional term as punishment for his latest indiscretion.

The Government of Shalampax has reached an agreement with the Shalampax Civil Service Union to end the 13-month-old strike of government employees. The union members ratified the agreement in a vote today.

The government agreed to 100 percent of the union’s original demands. That’s not surprising as the union had, from the beginning, voluntarily offered to accept a 10 percent wage cut, with no new perks or job guarantees and no reduction in “work” hours.

A government spokesperson said that the strike could have been ended much earlier, but nobody realized that the government’s employees had been on strike.

The employees will be at their desks effective Monday. They are relieved to be going back as that will allow them to catch up on their sleep.

I’m sad and ashamed to have to report that a scandal is rocking Shalampax’s parliament at this very moment.

A thorough government investigation has discovered that Brokentoaster, a backbench Member of Parliament, used his parliamentary office expense allowance to cover the cost of renovations to his personal apartment. It has been determined that he has charged almost $150,000 of such expenses to his office account since becoming a member of parliament a mere two years ago.

This despicable act on Brokentoaster’s part is unprecedented here in Shalampax. In the entire history of Shalampax’s parliament, with the exception of Brokentoaster, not a single Member of Parliament, not even the lowliest among them, has charged less than $250,000 worth of personal expenses to his or her office account in just the first six months of holding office. Once they get going, the two-year total is usually several times that.

Clearly, Brokentoaster is not making the necessary effort. It’s no wonder that he has never been allowed to advance out of the backbenches of parliament and into cabinet, where the true spoils are to be found.

As punishment for his laziness, parliament has voted to force Brokentoaster to serve an additional term in office when his current term ends.

Maybe he’ll do better the second time around. One can only hope. We do, after all, expect our Members of Parliament to be role models and inspirations for our young folk.