American anti-terrorism measures stop terrorist

After years of systematic discrimination scrutiny, the United States Department of Counter-Terrorism has finally caught a terrorist.

John McCorrin, whom the media have dubbed Mohammed Al Shazir Al-Habar Muhammed Mahalamoud, was caught trying to enter the country yesterday afternoon with almost 1 kilogram of explosives. 

"The man was apprehended at Los Angeles airport with a bag of explosives in his luggage," said DCT spokesperson Miss Repree Zentation. "We can neither confirm nor deny yet whether or not the material was nuclear, but we can tell you that they all came in packages with frightening codenames."

Among the explosives found were small bombs codenamed "Roman Candles".
 
"We also found a small amount of projectname 'Tom Thumbs' and a few insidious-sounding 'Birthday Sparklers'. While we're not sure of the significance of these names, we can only assume they have something to do with rampant Islamic militant violence and democracy-hating right-wing religious facism,"  said Zentation.

Their suspicions were first raised when an alert came through on their global telecommunications monitoring network. According to senior analysts, the message sent between Mahalamoud and an as-yet unnamed accomplice was spine-tinglingly chilling. 

"I've got everything we need to finish off tomorrow night with a bang," the message read. "We're going to drop a lot of jaws with our little show. I'll see you soon, brother. Allah hu Akbar."

The system, which has been coded to pick up keywords like "bomb", "terrorist", "nuclear" and "muslim", been illegally monitoring calls, smses, and emails since before 2001. According to head of the project, Ian Ternet, this is the first time the system has picked up a media-branded confirmed terrorist.

"We usually a lot of false pings, like from any message talking about basically any video, internet post, movie or television show that has a muslim in it. We also get a lot of false hits from Star Wars," said Ternet.
 

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet

"You know, movies show us that terrorist carry around AK-47s, have turbans and scowling dark faces and inevitably scream "allah who allackbar" in crowded airports. It turns out that this isn't really the case all the time," said LAX arresting officer Ray Sist.

According to Sist, Mahalamoud almost snuck by airport staff by using an extremely cunning disguise. "To the untrained eye, he almost looked like an innocent, law-abiding citizen: no giant beard, no burkha, nothing. He almost got away," said Sist.

It was only after frisking twenty men who didn't have names like "Brett", "Kyle" and "Dylan" that their suspicions were aroused. "He had a very funny accent," said Sist. According to current security policy, funny accents are ground enough for a full cavity search.

However, Mahalamoud has been quick to defend himself. 

"I'm not a terrorist, for pete's sakes! I'm an architect living in Florida!" he said in an interview with those bastards from the loose, bleeding-heart, America-hating liberal leftist press.

Mahalamoud is expected to go on trial next month, with movie production for the series of events already underway. The movie, entitled "America fucks up another terrorist, booya" and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone, will hit god-fearing, gun-loving cinemas in early May.

Admiral Ackbar's name is often confused with praise to Allah, says Ternet

Name-change committee to present decision

According to a press release given out today, the committee charged with deliberating on the decision whether or not to rename Grahamstown will present its final decision tomorrow morning.

However, according to head of the committee, Will Renaimit, the decision has not been so clear-cut as many would at first believe.

"There are many issues facing Grahamstown today, such as the water problem, robbery, assault, rape and murder, but these are all subordinated to this new debate. After all, who can care about violent crime and extreme social issues - let alone do anything about it - when you can't agree on where, exactly, it happened?" he told reporters this morning.

Renaimit went on to outline the several options that the committee members have been deliberating since the name-change issue first arose.

"At first we toyed with the idea of just naming it Nelsontown, or Mandelaville, or even Madibasfontein, but we realised that might get our town confused with every street, road, stadium, shopping complex, bridge, highway, office block, university and town square that uses that overused much-loved moniker," said Renaimit.

This easy option out the window, the committee was forced to consider other alternatives.

"There's a Welsh man in our committee, and we know how fond they are of long, complicated names. He suggested that we just throw every option together, and please everyone," he said. However, after some trial runs and tests on official documents, maps and road signs, the committee decided not to rename the City of Saints, ""GrahamskanamakandhaeRhinijozingotownsbergsvillesfontein," he said.

The template for one of Grahamstown ???stown's new name

Soon after this development, tensions were high.

"We were at our wits' end," said another committee member, Rex Consile. "And then someone came up with a brilliant idea: if we choose one name above the rest, we'll only make one group happy, and everyone else unhappy. So why don't we just make everyone equally happy by making them all equally miserable with us?" According to Consile, this move came straight out of a post-2000 ANC Ministerial behaviour guidebook.

So, after almost a year of debates, fights and angry letters, the decision has been made.

"We'll make the announcement early tomorrow morning," said Consile. "We just hope that everyone's happy with the name 'ThetownthatusedtobecalledGrahamstown-town'."

*This article first appeared in Grocott's Mail under the title "A name that might stick..."

Rhodes Gym secrets finally uncovered

After years of being shrouded in mystery, the secrets of correct and effective gymming at the Rhodes University Gym have been thrust into the light by a team of researchers from the Institute of Health Science.

"At first glance, it would seem that it's just a room of people sweating and working out," said head researching Bray K. Swet. "But upon closer inspection, we can see that much of what goes on is actually scientifically formulated to increase strength and power."

With these latest discoveries, looking like this is no longer a roid-fuelled pipe dream.

According to Swet, the list of gym power-boosters is extensive - almost as long, even, as the queue for treadmills.

"Take for example the mirrors," said Swet. "By flexing your massive guns in the mirror and staring at your own biceps for at least ten minutes between sets, you can add almost 15% recovery turnover lactic acid reduction to your workout."

Swet says that this recovery boost is increased by many other aspects of gym, such as how much weight is put on the lifting bar. 

"The trick is to try a few reps at about 100kg above your maximum, just to get your muscles boosted to above-normal capacity," he said. "Terrible technique and doing the exercise in an awkward area that forces everyone to walk around you only adds to the bonus calorific-consumption boost."

The study has shown that this guy is on his way to being the next Scwarzenegger.

The study, which hit universities across the globe yesterday, has been dropping the jaws of respected sports academics around the world. Since its introduction, much light has been cast on the intricacies of repeatedly lifting heavy stuff. Ghey's Law is just one of these advances. 

This law explains the relationship between area of cotton used in clothes and strength of the wearer. 

Ghey's law explained

"In general, the relationship is inversely proportionate," explained leading sports scientist Nim Toakes. "Science, china boet my kiff bru, has shown us that the less clothes there are on your body, the more oxygen and schweet sweat your skin absorbs. However, this only goes so far: as soon as a nipple shows, the relationship bottoms out."

Ghey's Law of Inverse Proportionality shows that, thanks to optimal cotton area, this oke is going to get HUGE.

This strength boost is furthered by the presence of terrible rap music or Katy Perry remixes, and the ingestion of lengthily-named protein shakes containing unpronounceable ingredients, Toakes said. 

One example would be USN Anhydrous Monocreaload ultra extremo deep-stack H-colloid dual-action prime-layering muscle boost fuel x4000 ultra boost maxload Extreme Whey 100SLR slow-release Gleutrinoxitnyloaminide.

Even noise plays a part in the intricate and complex process of repeatedly lifting a heavy thing to make your muscles big. Dropping a weight on the ground increases stamina in relation to how high it was when you dropped it, while corresponding studies have shown that hissing like a snake throughout your workout, and then adding a little shout every now and then boosts the muscle action.

"The important thing is not that you are working out. You already know that. You need to prove it to everyone else," said Toakes.

The scientific advances are almost too numerous to count. Further studies are even suggesting that things like pretending to read reading a book or doing one rep of exercise between ten-minute BBM sessions can burn almost 2000 calories per hour.

However, Toakes stressed the importance of focusing on certain muscle groups.

"No one can see your legs, heart or lungs in Friars, so avoid things like squats and spinning. Besides, if I wanted someone screaming at me while I pedalled as fast as I can, I'd just steal a bicycle."

Traces of beef found in South African meat

Citizens across South Africa have been rocked with the sudden and shocking news that traces of beef have been found in their chicken-pork-donkey-horse meat.

Chidonporcorse, as the meat has been known for decades, is a staple in butcheries across South African. According to new research, this meat may be more beef than you think.

According to a study released by the Newman Association of Gastronomics (NAG), South African meat products on shelves in abbatoirs, butcheries and supermarkets across the country may have almost 10% beef in them. This development comes in light of parallel and equally controversial discoveries across Europe and the United Kingdom.

Earlier this week, scientists across the European continent found their horse meat to be almost 14% beef.

"We were shocked when we heard the news," said Irish construction worker Patty O'Bryan, who, let's be honest, kind of deserved it for buying mincemeat at R10 a kg.

European food scientists have decried the usage of beef as a filling meat, citing its far too-high fat and muscle content as harmful to consumers.

New research indicates that cows might have been polluting our meat for the last three decades.

"When we heard the news from our partners in similar organisations across the pond, we decided to act immediately," said head researcher behind the association's tests, Khanya Belevit. "Our findings were shocking. Over half the donkey meat sold to university residences and the lower classes of South Africa has been contaminated by pure, prime, aged fillet steak."

According to Belevit, his suspicions were first raised when he ate last Wednesday's braised club steak in Nelson Mandela Dining Hall. "You see, there's a reason braised club steak tasted like ass. Because that's what it's made of. As soon as I tasted the meat and thought, 'hmm, this isn't actually that bad', I knew something was terribly wrong."

However, beef farmers and abbatoirs have been quick to blame rising demand for their actions. It is now estimated that tens of thousands of innocent cows are slaughtered every year just to keep meat supply at a break-even level.

"It's not our fault," lied meat farmer James Slauta.

According to another Grahamstown resident and cattle farmer, Ray Zinkatil, the problems started for him with a mass migration of donkeys to the street between Bathhurst and Beauford street.

"You see, we have all these pesky cows on our farms, and a massive shortage of our usual meat-bearing donkeys. What were we supposed to do?" he asked. "We were getting tired of force-feeding all these cattle a disproportionate amount of corn that could be used to feed a far higher number of people, injecting them with harmful antibiotics, forcing them into small cages and blowing their brains out with a tiny hammer, just to get a tiny bit of meat."

Government has since launched plans to more carefully control the production of meat, with the newly formed Department of An Excuse to Spend More Public Funds Unnecessarily Meat Control releasing documents outlining their course of action.

"Our plans include plans to make plans for the future planning of planning committees that will plan to plan on initial plans for plans. Kind of like with the education crisis."

SRC reopens poster design contest

In a move that has been met with widespread approval, the Student Representative Council of Rhodes University has today reopened its infamous yearly competition for poster design, also known as an "election".

“Starting today, we’re opening up the competition for entries,” said SRC Competitions Councillor Lota Ree. “We’ve already had three entrants, and the competition is heating up! May the best poster win!”

The competition, which runs every year, judges contestants off a stringent set of criteria. However, the competition completely breaks established convention in that the judges are the students themselves.

Last year saw a flurry of big contenders who really pushed the limits on good design.

"We put all the posters up around campus for a few weeks, clog up their facebook feeds with our designs, and then we have a big campus-wide election voting process where students themselves decide which poster they love best," said Ree.

The competition has, in the past, been marred by low voter numbers. 

"Sometimes we have to run the competition two or three times a year," said Ree.

According to Ree, the panel takes into consideration where the pictures are posted and how many times they are stuck up. 

"The best contenders are often stuck up in the most obnoxious, in-your-face places, with the big-league competitors being pasted up as much as five times in a row. You know, just in case you didn't read the incorrect spellings of 'accountability' and 'Councillor' and how they're the candidate who will change the whole world the first four times," she said.

...by leaving res and resigning.

According to inside information, especially powerful submissions are those that make use of REALLY LOUD AND AGGRESSIVE BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS EVERYWHERE BECAUSE IT REALLY MAKES PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING.

Our insider, who we made up because we can't be bothered going out on a Saturday and finding real sources to interview, also said that models in suits and short pink dresses pulling sexy or quasi-confident, pseudo-impressive power poses are a powerful tool in the competition.
"The judges also look for certain Key Words, such as 'accountability', 'honesty', 'transparency', 'change' and 'transformation'. Bad spelling and a horrific and utter disregard for grammar is a plus," he said.

Pink worked in 2012 - some students speculate that it'll be just as effective in Round Two. or Three. Or whatever.

The competition will award each of the winners with a slot in the SRC. First prize is the title of Media Councillor, with second and third being awarded Student Benefits and Residences Councillors respectively.

Due to its lack of bright colours, stupid typeface, bold lettering, Key Words, and its usage of clean photo-cropping and good layout, Sekele's poster was immediately discounted from the entries.

Unfortunately, professional designers and design students are not allowed to enter. The posters submitted are also restricted to being made with only Microsoft Paint and terrible Photoshop, with some small allowances for windows word-art and poorly cropped photos.

According to Will Bhevhoting, a first-year Bachelor of Arts student, the decision for this year’s winner is harder than ever. 

“One makes me feel like my eyes have been maced with a mixture razor blades and Autumn Harvest Crackling, and the other makes me want to vomit until I die. They really went all out this time,” he said.

Voting starts next week.

Societies sign-ups a smashing success

Societies sign-ups held on the Rhodes University Great Field last night were a smashing success, says hasn't-resigned-yet SRC Societies Councillor Noah Budgets.

The event saw a host of different societies trying to coax students into joining their ranks, including many newly formed clubs that shamelessly promoted themselves.

One of these new additions was TruthSoc, which is based on giving students the real society experience at a minimal cost.

"We're very excited!" said President of the society Robin Hugh. "When you sign up, we give you a handful of badly designed fliers, a cheap pen and a cupcake. We have big plans for this year: we're going to send too many emails to our members until March, and then fall completely silent and not email a soul. Then, after a few months of buying committee shirts, we'll host one desperate, last-ditch event at the end of the year just before SWOT week. Which is okay, you know, because we'll probably only get our funding then, if last year is anything to go by."

Pictured: a first-year standing between three society booths.

Also new to the scene was the Student Representative Council Society. The club is being introduced for the first time at Rhodes University, and already has a huge number of members. However, this will probably be short-lived, as student political analysts say that most of these members will submit their resignations before the end of the month.

The usual, old-timer societies also showed face at sign-up. One of these was the Hellenic Society. This society has a rich heritage of being the biggest party club on campus Greek culture.

"We have a hectic year ahead of us," said Events Coordinator for the society, Getty Nyadrunc. "For example, we have a few toga parties every now and then, and there's nothing more Roman Greek than a toga. Also, here's a free shot of Zorba. You can't get more Greek than that."

The event did not come without its hitches, however, and for a while during setup, there were fears that the entire evening would collapse.

"Tensions were high," recalls Matthew Johnson, the President of the Society for People Whose Name Starts with an 'M'. "There were fights for spaces and desks and pieces of ground, and there wasn't enough power to go around. It was like post-2000 Zimbabwe, really."

Some societies almost came to blows, until Zimbabwean student Tsvangin Morgirai worked out a power-sharing deal. 

"He came out of nowhere with some 30m extension cables, and everyone was happy," said Johnson. Morgirai is on the committee for a newly formed political society, but they are still arguing the terms of their constitution.

There were also many complaints that the event had been not been held in the Great Hall, because, you know, it was flippin' freezing last night. However, some students thought the decision fitting.

"The stars were out, and there was free wine and delicious cakes being handed out," said first-year Tanya Jameson. "Seeing how in three weeks my dad I will have to pay exorbinant subscriptions, I like to be courted and given gifts before I get screwed."

SRC hit by councillor resignations

In a frankly unsurprising sudden shock development yesterday the Student Representative Council for Rhodes University lost three of its key members in the space of a week. The sudden resignations have left gaping holes in the Council, with the remaining members scrambling to restore order.

“We’re doing everything we can,” said hopefully not temporary Student Relations Councillor Will Mysguideu. “We should be back to our old self in no time at all.”

The council now has just four members, making it the largest working SRC since the infamous 1948 SRC that had four members and one guy who sort of did his job, kind of.

The first announcement came forward when Student Benefits Councillor Gohta Newjob and Kanpullout Firi, the Residence Councillor, both submitted their resignations. According to Noah Moorapathy, a third-year student who went to one grazzle and a student body meeting (thereby making him a relative expert among his peers), the move was not well received. 

“Miss Firi announced that she was not in residence anymore, which was strange because that’s kind of the whole the point of the job she took on  last year, isn’t it?” he said. Sources close to the ex-Councillor have pointed fingers at Tuesday's braised club steak for the sudden dramatic turn of events, citing its gross unchewability as the cause for her move.

“What with that hard meat being served with a gooey sauce over hard potatoes, I don’t see how the SRC could have avoided this catastrophe,” said Jerick Hoffay, who asked not to be named but screw him because he didn’t reply to our emails quickly enough.

The two resignations were almost immediately followed by the resignation of the council’s Media Councillor. In 2012, she ran a campaign aimed at trying to convince everyone that she could do the job, no problems. Yesterday an apology was posted by the ex-Councillor, saying that she didn’t know the job of Media Councillor involved such a heavy media focus.

She has since reportedly been nominated for the prestigious Sod Murphy prize for irony.

Upon learning that there is no Interacting With Students On A Personal Basis, Not Virtually Via Facebook, Twitter, Etc Councillor position, she decided to take the position of Student Benefits.

However, the SRC has been quick to assure fretful students that they needn’t worry. In what is being called the quickest SRC post ever on the SRC’s facebook page that totally hasn’t been hijacked by people looking to buy textbooks for their various courses, SRC President Willhyre Anybahdi reacted to student outcry by saying that the SRC was immediately looking to fill in the positions.

“After the grazzle, voting process, failed voting process, renominations and resubmissions of manifestos, second grazzle and second voting process that only just makes quorum, we should have a full SRC in time to wish us all a merry Christmas,” he said. Student Politics commentators have responded by calling it the boldest plan of the SRC since getting Jack Parow to Tri-Var, which, let's just be honest, was flippin' awesome.

One small dubstep for man...

Many of us have at one stage in our life danced to what sounds like four robots having a seizure inside an oversized industrial garbage compacter, but there are very few who are clued up as to how this musical genre became a clubbing staple. Thanks to startling new evidence uncovered by researchers at the Department of Research in Underground Music and the Bachman Association for Statistical Studies, the true origins of this musical form have been thrust into the spotlight.

“It all started in early 2003,” says Head Researcher for the teams from DRUM and BASS, Rone Exskill. “According to a diary entry by a smalltime DJ at a small indie event in California, he spilt his drink on the soundboard, causing it to malfunction. Being a student, he couldn’t afford the repairs to the expensive hardware, and so he just kept acting like he was DJ’ing.”

The ploy worked, and slowly the secret spread. By Spring of 2005, Disc Jockeys across the country had their own busted equipment. 

Some of the early equipment is now housed in the Museum of Dubstep.

“It was a golden era, man,” recalls ex-DJ LooseKable. “I remember we’d all go around old tips and to Cash Crusaders and buy up all their crappy equipment. The more pops, squeaks and feedback we could get, the better. Sometimes we’d put all of our CDs and equipment onto one wooden base and throw it off a building – hence the expression, ‘dropping the base’. And best of all is that the people didn’t even notice. Hell, we were praised as geniuses.”

Dubstep DJs became more and more creative and bold with their music mixing, making more and more complex tracks to dance to, or rather, to shake your body back and forth like a velociraptor to while you reel around drunk, a cigarette in your hand that you’re not even smoking.

“We started playing around with all kinds of completely effed music,” tells LooseKable. “Broken CDs, cracked vinyls… even a few Nickleback albums.”

It wasn’t to last, however. Soon, the secret methods behind early dubstep had reached ears further to the East coast. New and more creative forms of dubstep coming from emerging talent forced the old stuff into obsolescence.

“After early 2006, things just weren’t the same again,” recall ex-DJs PoppedWoofer and WhiteNoiz. “A whole new bunch of DJs swept in and changed the whole game. Ever since Skrillex dropped his phone into a blender whilst Transformers 3 was playing on a broken television in the background, there’s been a lot of fierce competition.”

The early pioneers of the music genre were soon left without a crowd. “They moved on quickly,” said WhiteNoiz. He now works in Debonairs – the only place, he says, where he can still drop the base from time to time, even if his manager threatens to fire him after each offence.

When asked whether he’ll ever touch his decks again, WhiteNoiz smiles. “I’ve been playing around with a new form of dubstep: live dubstep. I’ve had marginal success with forcing a bunch of cats and a screwy microphone into a bag and beating it against a sheet of tin, but we’ll just have to see where it goes from here.”

Global shortages could destroy Valentine’s

Massive shortages of many of the traditional gifts exchanged on Valentine’s Day have swept across the world, sending many would-be wooers into frenzies of anxiety.

“I can’t buy roses, chocolate, champagne, lingerie or crappily-made, vomit-inducing slogan-wearing teddy bears – how will I ever show my date that I truly care about her?” said an enraged lover, Givemore M.T Jestures.

Since the days of the Classical Greek Period, Valentine’s Day has been celebrated with cheap roses and tacky, too-expensive gifts. With this strong tradition rocked to its core, many are expressing concerns over whether the day will work at all.

“In the earliest of Greek mythological texts, Cupid is portrayed as having a magical bow and arrow that he used to make famous romantic figures fall in love. However, a new text unearthed and translated by the Woolworth’s Ancient Text Translation Division has shown that it was the fluffy cotton puppy (R895) and matching his-hers red heart-covered towels (R12 560) that sealed the deal,” said historian and sales rep Dusty Toams.

With gifts like these unavailable, statisticians across the world have predicted a 100000% rise in the divorce rate

Thousands of woman across the globe are expressing concerns that these shortages will affect the purity of this traditional day of romance.

“Up until yesterday, when Woolworth’s still had fluffy hearts and overpriced chocolates in small, red, heart-shaped tins, I was certain that my husband loved me deeply,” said one wife. “Now that there’s nothing to get tomorrow morning, how can I be sure that he still does?”

Many of the Valentine’s celebrators are steeling themselves for the day, preparing for the worst.

“I’ve already called my lawyer and had the divorce papers pre-signed and waiting in a DHL RushXpress box,” tells 28-year-old Janice Koldhaart. “I haven’t been able to get my husband anything yet – I just know he has divorce papers of his own squirreled away somewhere.”

However, international suppliers of sweat-shop handmade fluffy toys and unfair child labour intensively-produced red roses have issued statements saying that contingencies are falling into place and that customers should not be worried.

“We’re working as hard as we can to right the wrongs and end these severe shortages. We care very deeply about our customers, and would hate to inconvenience them,” said spokesperson for international rose supplier C&K Jones. “Also, if this day doesn’t happen, we’ll lose millions.”

Customers have reacted to this news with savage relief.

“I don’t know what I’d have done,” said 22-year-old student James Mooney. “Imagine if I’d had to do something… dare I say the word… meaningful? Eugh!”