The impressive way Khagendra Thapa Magar was handling himself at the pre-departure press conference before flying off to Italy to stake his claim to be the planet's smallest man, most hacks present wanted to nominate The Little Big Man as Nepal's next prime minister. As the littlest man in the world, he has a bright political future ahead of him because he understands the problems of Nepal's small people. And look at it this way, even if Girjau doesn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, Khagendra will have made the nation proud by being in the Guinness Book.

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Hounded by the Financial Ministry over the Rs16 million expense claim for her Singapore trip and an even bigger request for her forthcoming Europe tour, SuzieQ is now so impatient to have the PM lollipop that she is tugging at Daddy's labeda and throwing a tantrum. After trying to cream the MRP deal, Sooj and Sood seem to have patched up and the FM is now solidly behind the $4 Indian MRP proposal even though the Indonesians have offered the same quality for a few dollars less. The Ass's assessment is that whoever gets the databases for Nepali passports must give us a hefty discount.

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GPK summoned MKN to Presidentganj this week and Makunay took KPO along for moral support. For someone who had been blackguarding the prime minister at every instance lately, GPK suddenly seemed very accommodative, according to the mule's mole who was present. All this made the Dotter lose heart, so off she went to Chhatara for some divine support from The Godman. Yes, the same one whose feet Awesome touched and was told he had to appease the Planet Saturn (see last Ass). It appears Suzie's also has a situation vis-a-vis Saturn, so she worshipped the same buffalo PKD had sought blessings from. The lack of Indian backing for the Koirala-Dahal alliance doesn't seem to worry the two because they have now gone to a higher-up authority and received heavenly blessings.

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Seeking solace in the opiate of the masses and realigning Saturn by getting a buffalo to intervene, PKD has gone from Stalinism to Saturnism. He also started telling the truth by admitting finally that the main agenda of the High Level Meccano is to come up with a power sharing agreement, and then threatening that the constitution will not be written unless the Maoists lead the government.

Whenever the Baddies start making a mountain out of a molehill you know there are serious rifts within the party. It wasn't surprising that the comrades started raiding APF trucks in Baireni the day after the fracas at Kharipati in which the Jamakattel faction attacked rival comrades and cracked a few ribs.

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After Gairidhara had leaned on Baluwatar to cancel the president's participation at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Shechen monastery, Shit-all Nibas chickened out and cancelled the visit. But somehow the word hadn't got out to the Foreigner Minister and the Cultured Minister. The two were en route to Boudha in a convoy when the call came from Baluwatar: Abort! Abort! Suzie and Minendra did an abrupt about turn and headed back barely 100 metres from the gates to the monstery. From the way they are spooked by Buddhism, it seems they believe power comes not from the barrel of a gun but from the turning of a prayer wheel.

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So the Tarai Madhesh Loot-tantra Party has 'recalled' education minister Ram Chandra Kushwahahaha and replaced him with another apparatchik. But not before the minister had already pocketed two laks for each teacher appointment for 1,000 schools. Kushwahahaha must be laughing all the way to the bank cuz all he got was a slap in the wrist for embezzling an amount that won't even register in the Ass's calculator because multiplying 200,000 x 1,000, the total is too large. The beauty of this scam is that Ghusuwaha doesn?t have to return the money, he ain't going to jail, and what's more the man is totally unrepentant.

His remark after being removed from office this week has been unanimously declared the Donkey's Quote of the Week: A fish swimming in the ocean can't help drink the water.

ass(at)nepalitimes.com