A beacon of hope, worth a fair chunk of change, and not at all vain

Ashgabat - Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedov, (the actual name of the) President of the Central Asian nation Turkmenistan, hailed United Nations condemnation of human rights practices in his country early Sunday as “long-overdue recognition of our national sport.”

Mr. Berdimuhammedov, a one-time dentist who rapidly ascended to power following the 2006 death of then-Turkmenbashi (”leader of all Turkmen”) Saparmurat Niyazov, has largely continued what he describes as the “uniquely Turkmen” nature of his predecessor’s policies. According to multiple sources, these policies included bans on video games, listening to car radios, performing opera and ballet, smoking in public, long hair on men, and even growing facial hair.

During his rule, Niyazov ordered the closure of all libraries outside the capital of Ashgabat in the belief that all Turkmen are illiterate. He reportedly also closed many hospitals outside of the capital, forced physicians to swear an oath to himself and the Ruhnama instead of swearing the Hippocratic Oath, and cut pensions to a third of the country’s elderly population. News anchors, both men and women, were prevented from wearing any sort of makeup after Niyazov discovered he was unable to tell the difference between them when the presenters wore it (ed: This entire paragraph is courtesy of Wikipedia; Incredibly, all of it is actually true).

When asked what he was planning to do about these funnier-than-Kim-Jong-Il policies, Mr. Berdimuhammedov shrugged, “I guess I’m just going to keep the ones that are currently in place, though I do see an increased need for a total ban on the internets, given the libellous content which spews like Zimbabwean sewage from websites such as bbc.co.uk and Cultsha.com” (ed: Thanks for the plug, Gurbanguly… Can we call you Gurby? No? Guly? No? Ok, we’ll stick with Mr. Berdimuhammedov).