Parliament nears resolution on crucial “which superpower is the best” debate

Weeks of arguments and rhetoric are going to pay off today, after MPs and parliamentarians announced that they are on the brink of reaching a resolution on the heated and months-long debate over which superpower would be the best.

The debate – which has seen proponents for “totally sweet” invisibility at loggerheads with advocates for “frikken awesome” flight or like really cool laser-beam eyes – has raged in the halls of our nation’s legislative centre for nearly two months; and both sides have been staunch and unmoving.

“Those idiots don’t even get it,” said the leader of the Freedom Front Plus party, Lay Zerbeems. “I mean, how sweet would it be to be able to fly? Like, no more walking from place to place, just you and the eagles in the sky – how frikken cool would that be?”

She explained at length.

“Some of our critics have put forward super strength as an alternative – but when do you ever lift anything heavier than like a suitcase at the airport?” she said, to loud “exactly”s from the Minister of Argiculture.

“Besides, all your friends would just always ask you around to their house whenever they need to move house and you’d have to move all their furniture – and just think, all this time you could have been chilling with the hawks in the boundless blue skies above,” she finished to resounding murmurs of approval, agreement and “so friggin’ badass” from gathered MPs.

The debate has unleashed a slew of controversy.

“This whole debate is just silly and a massive waste of time, because it stops us from asking important questions,” said chief whip of the opposition party IKP, Ian Visabel. “Questions like, 'How would you even breathe in the thin upper atmosphere?'. It's glaringly obvious that you’d freeze to death without some kind of heated suit, and the baddies would see you easily and use radar to fight you.”

The answer, he explained, was obvious.

“Everyone knows mind control or telekinesis would be just so awesome,” he said, speaking at a deliberation over a moratorium of debate proceedings, “like, you could lift things with your mind.”

“Or, like, block bullets and throw things around without even having to stand up, so freakin' cool,” added the Minister of Rural Development.

But even this brings has only served to add fuel to the flames.

“The Honourable Member is misguided and wasting our valuable time, my Fellow Honourable Ministers,” said the chief whip for the Democratic Alliance. “You can’t just say ‘mind powers’ because you can’t have more than one, that’s cheating and totally not fair.”

And despite contentious and tiring debate, citizens are showing their support for the democratic process.

“I think it’s important,” said Johannesburg accountant Flei Mbreff. “After all, how can we deliberate over trivial issues like Nkandla and the growing issues around unemployment, the education crisis and worsening corruption when we can’t even agree over whether we’d use our ice breath to freeze the baddies or swish our hands to fight with the metal around us like we’re Magneto?”

“Besides, it gives us a great insight into our politicians,” he added. “Like that one minister of finance wanting invisibility? Bloody pervert probably just wants to sneak in the ladies’ volleyball changing room, the creep. Or steal money in a way that doesn’t involve some intricate tenderpreneurship scandal.”

“And that guy who wanted to slow down time? Shows you why he’s the Head of the Department of Home Affairs.”

But despite all of this, the Office of the Presidency has assured all South Africans that the real answer is in their hands.

“We don’t really listen to parliament, and this time is no different,” they said in a statement early this morning. “Besides, if you’re looking for a power that will give you unlimited control over a whole nation, totally freedom from attack and accountability, and as much wealth and luxury as you want, I think it’s pretty clear which power is the best of them all.”

“Being Jacob Zuma.”

“My vote doesn’t even matter” say 21 million non-voters

Expressing their belief that ballot-driven democracy is hopelessly flawed and that their one vote wouldn’t change a single thing, 21 million non-voters individually said today that “at the end of the day, voting doesn’t even matter.”

The 20 685 435 voters – who make up the 26% of citizens who choose not to exercise their democratic and hard-won right to choose their president and country’s government – explained how their one vote wouldn’t even be missed.

“The system is broken,” said 25-year-old Noah Voating, one of the nearly one-third of the entire voting populace who has chosen to abstain on voting. “It’s all corrupt and gone to hell. There’s no way my one single vote would even affect the outcome of the elections.”

Voating – and many, many others – defended their choice.

Voats is just one of millions of people who
prove that elections for a representative
democracy is a totally flawed system. 

“All throughout history, there have been courageous, inspiring men and women – such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr - who have fought tirelessly for the rights of citizens to cast their vote and have a say in their country’s future,” said Voating. “But they also fought for the right for citizens to spit in the face of that legacy and just opt out like a teenager in a particularly ugly family argument.”

He elaborated on his political apathy.

“Voting for a man and a party that has thousands of workers, volunteers and committed people behind it is not a way to fix all the problems in our country,” he said. “We all know that there’s only one way to fix these massive problems: by complaining about it endlessly on the internet.”

Voating has since started a petition to change the electoral system in South Africa.

“ Casting your ballot changes nothing,” reads the document. “That’s why we have this petition to do away with it. All you have to do is show up at the special petition show-of-support booths we’re going to set up in town halls across the country.”

And putting your name behind the petition could not be simpler, he says.

“All you need to do is register to give your support for the petition. Then you go down and just sign your name on a piece of paper and put it in the boxes we’ve set up. We count the number of people who want this petition, and if enough people support it, it will be used to change everything and do away with impractical, retrogressive voting.”

But getting numbers could still be tricky.

“I dunno,” said one citizen. “It sounds like I’d have to read the petition, make an informed decision and then walk all the way down there – and for what, just to change our country for the better? Nah, sounds like too much effort.”

New SA Zoo popularity soars

A new zoo has hit the South African big-time, after video footage of a savage battle between the different members of this private enclosure went viral online.

“This zoo has been around forever,” said media analyst Wile D’animo, “but recently its popularity has soared through the roof – all because of a massive and fierce fight between the various specimens in this small space. There was howling. There was yammering. There was hissing and roaring. It was true primal savagery, the likes of which we have never seen before - even in the far calmer, far less bloodthirsty Kruger [National Park].”

Though many experts are baffled by the sudden interest in this beastly, chaotic slice of nature’s true ugliness and disorder, some believe it is due to the sudden remarketing of a brand fraught with misguided preconceptions.

“This particular enclosure is only one of many similar hundreds across the world,” said one zoological specialist. “However, where most iterations of this zoo in other countries are boring, calm, quiet and peaceful zones where battles between the various species inside its walls are short and almost cordial, this one broke the mould. It was chaos. Like staring into the black, abyssal heart of Mother Nature’s dark side.”

The zoo, which is maintained by tax payers’ dollars and is known only as the PoRSA, has captured the public's attention with its wild spats and blood-thirsty struggles between opposing beasts.

"Where else in the animal kingdom can you see the mighty Ayencius Phumelele Stone Sizani locked in mortal struggle against its archnemisis Deeyayus Mmusi Maimane, or embroiled in a life-or-death brawl with Iyeffeffius Malemia Julius?" asked one Youtube commentator who differed from the rest in that they didn't use the footage as the basis for a lengthy thesis arguing smugly in favour of white supremacy. "There is just something about watching these animals fighting over the rotting and slowly festering remains of that favoured prey, Kountree Southus Africensis, the you just can't look away from. It's like nature's car crash."

Other media analysts, however, say that the popularity will be short lived.

“Really, they’ve ravaged all the best parts of what is left of the lifeless, devoured carcass, and now they’re locked in a tooth and claw battle over the last few bones,” said Johnathan von Johnathanson. "It's only a matter of time until something gives."

And though visitors can hope for a sighting of the rare and reclusive Ayencius Zumus Jacob, zoological experts says they shouldn’t get their hopes up.

“There have been many pleas and calls by thousands of visitors and fans of the zoo to have this animal finally make an appearance, you know, actually be visible in this enclosure,” they said, “but they shouldn’t get their hopes up. The King of the Beasts rarely ventures out of his large Private Enclosure, and prefers to remains in his preferred natural habitat of gold and green".

Pics (edited): Hyena by Joanne Goldby, Vulture by Jerry Pank, Lion from Rochkind, and Olive Baboon from Nevit Dilmen