Ibrahim Ali is Superkasa

KUALA LUMPUR — In a move to boost its powers, the independent-but-BN-friendly Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa (Perkasa), an NGO championing bumiputra rights today annouced that its president, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, has been elevated to superhero status, and he will from now on be known throughout the universe as ’Superkasa’.

FUAD: Superkasa's da man!

Speaking at a Press Conference at its Federal Territory headquarters in Sg. Besi, Perkasa deputy president Datuk Fuad Hassan said that this move was in line with the organisation’s goal of influencing policies in the country and the region.

“Since our inception in September 2008, Perkasa has strived to fight for the rights bumiputras,” said Fuad, as his exco members smiled and nodded in unison. “We have notched quite a few commendable achievements so far, with many memoranda handed out to different people, police reports made against those ungrateful fools who dared to speak in disrespect to the pribumis, and several high-profile pickets and demonstrations in front of embassies to show our dissatisfaction. Very big and impressive displays, I must say.

“But all our efforts pale in comparison to what our Great President, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, has achieved just by being himself.

“His super-supreme leadership, far-sightedness, global vision and not to mention his charming and infectious personality has elevated Perkasa from a small NGO to a national force, nay, a universal force,” he added.

“He da man.”

Fuad then elaborated by listing down Ibrahim’s many positive attributes, from his soul-penetrating gaze to his rib-tickling guffaw.

“But the best — and most important — thing about our Great President, is that he is intelligent beyond reproach. A sheer genius. His smarts simply blows us away. He could sneeze and we’d be left paralysed in awe of his profoundness.

“So, we have decided to accord him with a status befitting a super-man like him. He is now… Superkasa!” proclaimed Fuad loudly, as technicians dimmed the room lights, replacing them with multi-coloured spotlights focused on one corner. There, as a traditional Gamelan group enthusiastically played the theme song from Superman, a shrouded figure emerged amid the dry ice smoke, shocking all those present. As the smoke cleared, the figure removed his robe, revealing a superheroisque, muscular and utterly incredible Ibrahim, smiling majestically.

MAJESTIC: Superkasa with his Keris Kebenaran

“I… AM… SUPERKASAAAAA!” yelled Ibrahim in a deep but melodious baritone voice, his sexy, ripping muscles causing several female reporters to faint, bodies twitching in ecstasy.

Ibrahim then swaggered to the front of the room to join the other exco members, making sure to flash his beautiful smile at everyone and flexed his biceps every other step before sitting down.

“Firstly, I must apologise for being too incredible,” said Superkasa, gesturing towards the Perkasa staff reviving the unconscious female journalists. “I understand that my greatness can be overwhelming. Being the supersexy, ultimate Jantan Melayu does have its drawbacks, at least to other people,” he added, his genius sense of humour drawing laughter from all those present.

Fuad continued, “As you can witness, our super President now is even better than before, and he will lead Perkasa into the next century and beyond!”

Moving his left and right chest muscles up and down alternately as he spoke, Ibrahim/Superkasa said, “This is indeed an honour for me. As Ibrahim Ali, even though I was the epitome of greatness, I had my limits. I was a mere human being. A weak homo sapien. With my wits, intelligence and charm, I could only move people.

“But now, I can move mountains!” he proclaimed, as he lifted the heavy oak table in front of him with his two index fingers. He then humbly said that his new superpowers include the ability to shoot killer laser rays from his eyes, the power to stupefy enemies with killer pantun verses, the ability to extract the kind of truths that he wants to hear (with his Keris Kebenaran), and, by putting on and taking off his majestic songkok, the ability to jump political divides with amazing speed.

“I… AM… SUPERKASAAAAAAAAAAAA!” he further exclaimed.

As the audience again got excited with a few more female reporters writhing in uncontrolable pleasure, Superkasa sat down and said, “Calm down, citizens. My powers and greatness is not merely for creating pleasure, but have a serious purpose.

“It is my duty to further the objectives of Perkasa. With my new superpowers, I promise you this: I shall ensure that our goals are met.

“Our enemies shall relent, and give us what we want. We shall get whatever it is we’re looking for, by coaxing or coersion!

“For I… AM… SUUUUPEEERRKAAAASAAAAAAAA!!” exclaimed Ibrahim/Superkasa yet again for the final time, his eyes glowing with hope and fury as he floated over the table, across the room and out the door, to the Gamelan music of The Final Countdown and the audience’s cheers, marking the end of the Press Conference.

Lion butt guy wishes he was head

 

DEPENDABLE GUY: Lim (back) lending full support for the head-guy but is never recognised

SIMPANG EMPAT, TAIPING — If there’s one Chinese New Year wish Lim Kee Huat would ask for, it would be to no longer be the butt.

Lim, 36, has been performing in the lion dance troupe since he was out of school. Last weekend was the 17th Chinese New Year in which he and his band of brothers spreaded joy and good wishes to the audience. However, throughout his hardworking and amazing years, despite tireless training sessions and bruising performances, he has only been the backside of the lion. While others in the troupe have moved up, he has stayed pretty much in the same, support position.

“I feel underappreciated, really,” said Lim dejectedly as he sipped Chinese tea at a training break. “All these years, I’ve put in sweat, blood and tears, and nobody in my troupe management seems to notice me. I’m tired of being the backside guy. I want to be in front.”

Lim said that back when he approached his troupe master, Goh Swee Poh, ten years ago to ask if he could finally don the lion head and lead the dance, the 75-year-old man said that he must ‘earn’ the place.

“I accepted it with an open heart,” said Lim. “But after all these years, nothing. We’ve had newer dancers coming in, some fresh out of Lion Dance Academy, and they’ve moved up — or moved front — faster than me. When my Lion head partner left the troupe to open up a restaurant business some time ago, I thought, ‘he’s my chance’. But that spot was quickly filled by that greenhorn Yap there,” said Lim, as he gestured toward a young man sweeping the training centre compound. “I mean, he’s what? 22? Fucker is a baby, and he’s got the head! Blardy hell.”

Lim said that being the Lion hind legs and rump does have its advantages, but it hardly warrants doing it forever.

“Yes, being at the back you don’t have to carry the 20kg Lion head, while working the delicate system to control the Lion’s eye- and mouth-movements. Yes, being in the back you don’t have the pressure of being in the limelight,” he said. “But being a butt guy means you gotta stay strong when the head guy has too much beans and cannot control his wind movement. Being at the back you have to follow only and can’t go where ever you please. And being at the back, you always become the butt of all the jokes!” said Lim agrily, before scolding an apprentice dancer laughing nearby. “Bastards.

LIM: To give his troupe one last chance

“Look, I just want career progression, okay. I’m quite a good-looking guy. I could have become a model, but I chose to do this, out of love for the art. What’s wrong with me being in front hogging the limelight for a change?”

Lim says he’ll give this year one more shot before considering his options.

“I’ll have another talk with Master Goh. If he promises to let me do the head, I’ll stay. If not, I’ll be sending my CV around,” said Lim. ”I hear the other Lion Dance troupe across town would probably need a Lion head guy soon, since the current ones thinking of graduating to a Dragon Head.

“Dragon Head. Wow. Now that’s a job.”

Facebook changes layouts again just to piss off members

PALO ALTO, CA — Facebook, Inc, the firm that owns and operates Facebook, the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, today announced that the latest change in layout and functionality was designed to piss their users off.

“We were honestly getting tired of having too many members,” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckeberg at a Press Conference held at the company headquarters. “So we’ve been trying very, very hard to discourage new members from signing up, and make it as hard as possible for current members to go about Facebooking.”

“‘Facebooking’? Is there such a word?” asked Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO. “Oh well, you’re the founder, I guess you can coin whatever term you want,” she continued, laughing.

Among the notable changes introduced to the site, which brings the company an estimated US$300 million a year, were the re-positioning of the ‘Home’ and ‘Profile’ menu bars, as well as the introduction of new and completely irrelevant icons representing ‘Notification’, ‘Messages’ and ‘Friend Request’. Mostly used applications like games, which appeared at the bottom panel on every Facebook page, now only appears on the ‘Home’ page, on the left column. The Boring Blue theme colour remains unchanged.

ZUCKERBERG: Hopes the new UI will piss people off royally

“We’ve tried so many ways to get rid of users, from introducing different settings that don’t mean anything, to bugging them with annoying apps,” said Zuckerbeg. “What we found was that the best way to piss people off is to change the User Interface (UI) so often, they get confused.”

“Hell, I’m kinda confused with the new layout, bro,” Sandberg interjected. “I was looking for the notification thingy on the bottom left of the screen and it wasn’t there. An hour later I chanced upon it, right by our logo. Impressive.”

“We’ve pissed our users off before,” said Zuckerberg, noting that the last time they changed the UI last year, Facebook’s hotline email was flooded with irrate complaints. “We lost a few thousand members, who decided to go to MySpace and other inferior social network sites. This time around, we aim to lose at least 30 per cent of our 350 million active members.

“We’re just simply tired of all this success,” said the 25-year-old, said to be worth around US$2 billion. “They say ‘money can’t buy happiness’, well I have to second that. Now I spend my days lazing about, doing nothing interesting.

“I just wish I was dirt poor again, before Facebook changed all that. I was happier.”

“On that note, I hope our latest move doesn’t backfire,” said Sandberg. “We’ve had reports of some people being happy with the new UI. Imagine that. Despite all our efforts to spit on their faces, they keep on coming back for more. What the fuck is wrong with them?”

“There’ll always be some sort of masochistic individuals out there, dude,” replied Zuckerberg.

“Maybe we’ll need to start charging them for every status change or photo upload. Then maybe these suckers will stop coming to our site. A buck for a status update, and maybe five bucks for a superpoke.”

“We can’t do that, Mark,” said Sandberg. “We’re trying to get rid of them because we’re making too much money. Charging ‘em will just bring us even more money!

“Facebook has become a monster,” added Zuckerberg, sadly. “People are spending more time on it than on real life or doing work. Our creation is slowly eroding productivity everywhere, and has destroyed countless lives,” he said, referring to the divorces caused by inter-Facebook affairs and careless Facebook comments which have led to people being embarrassed, and even fired from their jobs.

“We hope people will get pissed off and leave us. We’re praying so. But there’s only so much we can do.”

Non-sodomy happenings cease as Sodomy II trial begins

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS: Anwar and Azizah at the courthouse

KUALA LUMPUR — As the much anticipated criminal trial of opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim began today, everything in Malaysia not related to the proceedings either paused until further notice, or has abruptly ceased to exist. The trial, presided by Justice Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, will be the only thing that happens in the country anywhere for the next few weeks to a few months, giving other interesting things in life a much-needed break and time off.

THE ACCUSER: Saiful

Anwar, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat advisor and Permatang Pauh MP, is accused of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan at Unit 11-5-1, Kondominium Desa Damansara, Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara, between 3.01pm and 4.30pm on June 26, 2008. He is charged under section 377B of the Penal Code which carries a maximum 20-year jail term and whipping, if convicted.

Checks around the capital city and other spots in the country revealed a surreal calm as the population went about their lives without anything interesting — or even mildly sensational – happening. In some areas, things which would normally be considered newsworthy like dirty restaurants or broken signboards have been replaced by white space, not worthy of any attention. This has somewhat affected news organisations.

“We anticipated the impossibly high level of newsworthiness of the trial about a year-and-a-half ago,” said Datuk Azman Ujang, editor-in-chief of Bernama, the nation’s premiere news agency. “So we’ve restructured our manpower allocation to accommodate the new scheme of things.”

Azman added that all the journalists, photographers, camera crew and editors from the other beats, including sports, entertainment, business and lifestyle, have been put on the ‘Sodomy II’ assignment until the trial is over. “We realise that nothing happens outside of the courthouse for as long as the Anwar trial is on. The trial is the only thing that matters. Everyone will be talking only about the proceedings, at the mamak shop, the trains, the offices, over dinners and nothing else… so we at Bernama want to be the premiere source of credible information for all that talk.”

Datuk Wong Chun Wai, Group Chief Editor of The Star, meanwhile said that the publication will institute a temporary shutdown of half its operations until non-Sodomy II things come back to life.

“It doesn’t make business sense to have the mill running at full steam when most of news has disappeared and the universe centres around the trial,” said Wong. “I mean, fuck, man. No other fucking things happen, period. People say ‘no news is good news’, but for a news organisation, it’s a bummer. But that’s what happens when really important things like this takes place.

“We’ve got enough staff manning the fort and covering the event. The rest of the pages will be filled by wire services like Reuters and AP, supplying us international news, which is not affected by the trial at all.”

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said that this is an opportune time for most of the police workforce to clear their annual leave days, seeing that there is no crime, accidents or any other cases for them to investigate during the trial.

“Yes, I’m still on the clock, since I’m supervising the case,” said Musa. “But the rest of my officers can get their rest, seeing that every other bad thing has ceased to exist, evil forces have paused and crime has disappeared. The whole country will have a complete and absolute peace while Anwar’s trial goes on.

“I’m kind of hoping for a long trial, so that my men will come back from their long leave refreshed,” he said.

According to media reports, the nation is holding its breath as it followed everything that happens in the courtroom at the Kuala Lumpur High Court. It is, however, not known exactly how long the nation would be able to hold its breath, although experts say that it could be quite a while, if coupled with gasps of excitement and the occasional “ooh’s” and “aah’s” by the nation’s 26 million-strong population.

Rais hurt by ‘Yorais’ jokes, plans to sue internet

RAIS: Young and hip

KUALA LUMPUR — Minister for Information, Communications, Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim today stated that he is deeply offended by the jokes circulating about his age and announced that he will be taking legal action against the internet for what he termed as ‘a concerted effort to humiliate a young-at-heart person like me’.

It all started with a sincere advise from a well-meaning, concerned leader. But now, it has spawned a malicious and personal internet campaign that would shame anyone. And being at the receiving end of the humiliating treatment, Rais is not planning to take it lying down.

Weeks ago, Rais gave Malaysian internet users a sound advice. He said that Malaysians, especially Muslims, must avoid being totally immersed in the internet culture, especially Facebook and Twitter, adding that facilities like the internet could not be accepted wholly because it was a form of business introduced by the West and “Malaysians were just users.”

“We are not saying that they cannot use Facebook or Twitter but when using such facilities they must upkeep the values taught by Islam, Buddhism or Christianity to maintain our culture,” he told reporters after opening a Seminar on the 1Malaysia concept in Seremban.

Unfortunately, however, his sincere caution was received poorly by internet-using Malaysians, who started a Twitter and online campaign called ‘Yorais’, modelled from the ‘Yo Mama’ jokes. They began a barrage of Yorais jokes, which poked fun at his not-so-young outlook on life.

“I’ll have you all know that I’m not that old,” said Rais, thumping his chest. “I am a lot younger than many of these people think. Fine, I’ve lived through two world wars, but who hasn’t?

“They are falsely saying that I predate dinosaurs and the Jurassic era. Obviously they exaggerated. I mean, a major meteor deep impact event wiped out the dinosaurs. Now, if the dinosaurs were killed by the impact and ensuing global winter, and if I were around back then, wouldn’t I have been killed too? Use your logic!” said the minister, agitated.

“Those irresponsible Twitter people have no evidence to support what they said in that malicious campaign designed to discredit me,” he continued. “To say that I’m so old that I knew Burger King when he was still a prince? Where’s the proof? Did they get Burger King to sign a statutory declaration? Of course not! If they did, I haven’t seen it yet.”

“I’m very upset. I see this as an attack on my personal being. It’s not my fault I’m not as young as they’d like me to be. I can’t help it if at the time I was born, Australia was still part of the main Asian continent land mass. All I know is that I am still very much relevant to every Malaysian, being still young and hip,” he stressed. “Such lies! Don’t believe the online people! Online people are liars!

“That is why I will take action to protect my fellow Malaysians against the scourge of the internet. This… internet fellow — and its evil agents like Facebook and Twitter — are the West’s weapons to destroy the 1Malaysia harmony we currently enjoy in the country,” he added.

“I have spoken to my lawyers, and we plan to sue the internet, Facebook and Twitter for a grand total of RM100 million. Yes, yes. That will teach the internet a lesson. This will bury the internet. Yes.

“And it wouldn’t matter if the lawsuit goes on and on for many years. I’m still young.”