Two friends were walking along a path through the woods one day when they suddenly stumbled upon a grizzly bear.

“Run!” shouted one friend as he turned around and flee. The other friend quickly followed behind, and when he looked back, he saw the bear was already approaching fast towards them.

“The bear is coming for us!” shouted the friend at the back. “We’ll never be able to outrun it. Quick, find a tree to climb!”

The friend at the front heard him, ran towards the nearest tree and quickly climbed up 15 feet and rested on a strong bough. The other friend, however, was half way up a tree when he slipped and fell to ground on his back. He wanted to get up, but it was too late; the bear was already over him, sniffing his face.

The friend in the tree saw his troubled friend. “Stay still and play dead,” he shouted from atop the tree, “I heard bears don’t maul you when they think you’re dead.”

The friend on the ground already knew this, and he lay still and held his breath. The bear prodded his body with his paws for about several seconds before his nostrils came to the friend’s ear. The friend on the treetop saw that the bear seemed to be whispering something to the friend on the ground.

After a short moment, the bear left and disappeared into the woods, leaving the friend on the ground unharmed. The friend on the treetop quickly descended and rushed towards his friend, who was slowly getting up while brushing off dirt from his pants.

“I’m very sorry,” said the friend from the tree in an apologizing tone, “I know I shouldn’t have left you on the ground just now. The bear was right; as a friend, I should have come down and helped you anyways.”

“What do you mean?” said the other friend, puzzled.

“The bear,” said the other friend, “I saw it whispered into you ear. I’m guessing it spoke to you about being careful with choosing friends, especially ones who will leave you behind during troubled times, am I right?”

“No, not at all,” said the friend, laughing a bit as he placed an arm on his partner’s shoulder. “That wasn’t what he said at all, and I fully understood what you had to do back then; even if you came down, you’d have been mauled anyway. And I wouldn’t want my friend to be mauled just to save me, now would I?”

“But, if the bear didn’t say what I though it had said, what exactly did he say?”

“Owh, that,” replied the friend, smiling towards his puzzled friend. “The bear said that he was really a vegetarian, and that we shouldn’t have feared him. He whispered this to me because he was afraid other carnivorous bears nearby might hear and make fun of him.”

The other friend was speechless.

“Owh and one more thing,” continued the smiling friend, “the bear also said that, contrary to popular belief, the playing-possum trick doesn’t work against bears, because they’re generally too smart to fall for it.”

THE END

KUALA LUMPUR - P. Balasubramaniam, a private investigator who had actively made statements in the past about Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s alleged involvement with the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, shocked everyone yesterday when he retracted all of his statements against Najib, member of the nation’s think tanks and a powerful member of the Royal Family, saying that ‘it was all just a big stupid mistake on my part, my stupid, stupid god-awful mistake.’

“I wish to retract the entire contents of my statutory declaration dated July 1 2008,” said Balasubramaniam with an unnaturally throaty voice, which probably had nothing to do with his larynx having been crushed by a boot pressing down against his neck. “I…uh…had way too much Heineken that day and I…uh…I think my head bumped against…something, leading me to declare wild accusations against the great and infallible highness, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.”

Balasubramaniam, who came to the conference in a shirt that didn’t quite hide the mysterious bruise marks on various parts of his body, was represented by his lawyer, M. Arulampalam. Arulampalam told the reporters that in no way was he physically pressured and harassed by unknown groups to turn his statements around, and that he retracted his statements of his own free will.

“My client is a reasonable and honest man who would never tell a single lie at all,” said M. Arulampalam while holding Balasubramaniam from keeling over, very unlikely due to a dislodged kidney or a fractured rib as a result of blunt-force-trauma from a metallic weapon such as a wrench or a crowbar. “He knew he had made a mistake of accusing The Great Najib of such heinous crimes, and now he is very, very, very sorry that he did that. Please have mercy on him.”

When questioned about the various bruises and deep cuts on his body along with his disjointed left leg, Balasubramaniam seemed to pretend that the injuries didn’t exist at first, saying “Wounds? What wounds?” When reporters pointed out the iron-shaped burn marks on his arm, Balasubramaniam said, “Ooooooh, that wound. Well, I…I…my wife hit me. And then I fell down the stairs. And my arm landed on a lit cigarette on the ground. Yup, that’ it, a lit cigarette.”

Despite Balasubramaniam’s claim, certain parties felt that there are darker, insidious forces at work behind Balasubramaniam’s decision to retract his statements, which is ludicrous because everyone knows how Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is such a fine example of a nice man who wouldn’t even hurt a fly.

“As I am familiar with the character of Balasubramaniam, having spent hours with him recording his statement, I am very skeptical that he has signed the second statutory declaration of his own free will,” said Americk Singh Sidu, his former lawyer who also happened to be Captain Obvious. “I am convinced he has been intimidated to do so by either threats or promises, as I can think of no other reason.”

M. Arulampalam stayed throughout the conference and answered further questions while Balasubramaniam left in his car, which was dented and scratched in all places with a hole about the size of a brick in the windshield. The car then blew up into a million pieces, with Balasubramaniam in it, obviously due to a faulty gas tank instead of a bomb planted on the underside of the car.

“THAT is, of course, a coincidental accident and has absolutely no connection at all with the murder trial,” explained M. Arulampalam about the unexpected car explosion.

BEVERLY HILLS - Area hunk, Rick Astley, has sworn that he will ‘never gonna give you up, let you down, run around, and desert you’, the ‘you’ possibly referring to his anonymous female love interest.

“Her and me, we’re no strangers to love, and we both know the rules,” said Astley while awkwardly swaying his body left to right and slowly swinging his hands in random directions, as if trying to imitate some poor dance routine. “A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of, and you wouldn’t get that from too many guys.”

Reporters met him the first time at a parking lot during the later part of morning, and he was wearing a blue long sleeve shirt with huge shades when they interviewed him. “I just want to tell y’all how I’m feeling,” said Astley, trying to make the reporters understand.

“The’ve known each other for very long,” said a local bartender, who happens to be Astley’s close friend. “Her heart’s been aching for Astley, and all this long she’s been too shy to admit it. It’s great that both of them have realized what’s going on, and that they’re finally gonna play the game.” Promptly after giving his comment, the bartender spun around three times and continued to do a number of fantastic acrobatic feats while two female dancers danced on the bar stage to some sort of 80s song.

Reporters met Astley a second time later that night at the poolside of his house, and he was wearing a black shirt over a large white overcoat. When reporters asked Astley on how he was currently feeling about the relationship, he only replied “don’t tell me you’re too blind to see.”

A pair of his friends, male and female, was also at the poolside. Reporters tried to interview them, but they were busy engaging in some sort of gay interpretive dancing. The bartender friend was also there, wearing very tight short shorts, and he was back-flipping all over the place.

Before reporters left, Astley added that he will also ‘never gonna make you cry, say goodbye, tell a lie, and hurt you,” the ‘you’ again possibly referring to his anonymous female love interest.

KUALA LUMPUR - A recent research conducted by The Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Thinking revealed that the former Prime Minister of Malaysia possesses a 12th level intelligence, the highest degree of intellect that far surpasses any mortal being.

In comparison, an average chimpanzee has an intelligence level of 2, while great minds such as Stephen Hawking, Einstein, and Tesla are within the level 8 league. An average human is around 5.

“This revelation totally blew us away,” said Said Shahri, one of the members tasked with conducting the important research. “We had professors who came all the way from New Zealand just to examine an exact virtual model of Mahathir’s incredible brain. It took only a few minutes of observation before they came to doubt if Mahathir was ever human.”

“Yes, it is true that I have superhuman intelligence,” admitted Dr. Mahathir, who is now known as Mahathir Prime, who communicated with our reporters using high-level telepathy. “And I must admit that all of my actions during the 20 years of my term as Prime Minister were meant to steer Malaysians into the next evolutionary state of consciousness, thus creating a society comprised of meta-humans. Evidently though, I’ve discovered that you can’t turn monkeys into Da Vincis in one fifths of a century.”

It is widely believed that this is the very reason he left Barisan National only recently. The small and shallow mindset of the party must have been too constricting for his unimaginably vast understanding of the universe. “I had visions, VISIONS I tell you, that would have taken Malaysia to the next evolutionary step,” clarified Mahathir Prime, “but the neanderthals down at the hall of Barisan National were holding me back. The consequence? Oil-prices went up, ministers caught in sex tapes, mongolian women being blown up to bits, 8-year-old girls going missing every month, and Akademi Fantasia still getting air time.”

One reporter from another news agency questioned him about the infamous allegations of rigging judiciary appointments to his favor. Mahathir Prime disapprovingly stared deep into the reporter’s eyes, petrifying him for a brief moment before he dropped on all fours and started to make goat sounds. “Puny mortals such as him do not deserve to have human intelligence,” remarked Mahathir Prime as the brainwashed reporter ran out of the conference hall and shat into a flower pot right next to the elevator.

If this is true, then it explains how a third-world nation such as Malaysia rose from its humble roots as a backwater third-world country that nobody cares about to a modernized, developing country that still nobody cares about. It was Mahathir Prime’s 20 years of unparalleled leadership that transformed this nation from being completely unrecognized by the world into a nation that is at least vaguely recognizable and is often related by foreigners as ‘the large country just north of Singapore.’

According to The Institute’s Chairman, Professor Ivy Tan, Mahathir Prime has proven the sheer awesomeness of his intelligence in more than one occasion. “His mind is so powerful, he once shot his own brainwaves back in time and right into the late Tunku Abdul Rahman’s mind, bestowing him the idea of an independent nation in the first place.”

“During the Asian financial crisis of 1997,” added Professor Ivy Tan, “he almost strained his brain just to hold down the market inflation by sheer telekinesis alone.” Our reporters tried to confirm with Mahathir Prime on whether or not he really did accomplish those feats, but our questions were unheeded; our primitive human voice must have sounded like growling animal sounds to his vastly superior consciousness.

Despite his 12th level intellect, Mahathir Prime is a few points short of beating Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore who currently possesses a 13th level Ultra-mind.

DE_DUST - A counter-terrorist team has successfully brought down a group of terrorists after 5 minutes of violent gunfight in the middle-eastern ruins of De_Dust. It was believed that the terrorists were planning to plant a bomb at a secluded section of the area which was filled with unimportant-looking crates and boxes; the reason for this is still unknown. The terrorists comprised of five members; each wearing different attire representing 5 different terrorist cells from across the globe.

“It was a close call,” quoted Sergeant Sh4aRp_Sh00ta, the commanding officer of the counter-terrorist team, “when Lieutenant S3xorz shot the last terrorist in the head from behind a brick wall, the bomb was already planted and was at 60 seconds and counting. Luckily, Private D3agle had the foresight to buy a bomb defusing kit and managed to disarm the bomb at the last second.”

Ahmed 3leCtrofvnk, one of the terrorists who survived the confrontation and is now held in custody, disapproved of the counter-terrorist team’s method of attack. “They were all AWP sniper whores, and I’m pretty sure that one of the infidel cowards was using wall-hack technology.” Furthermore, there have been unconfirmed reports that some of the counter-terrorist members were camping, a tactic that is frowned upon by military bodies the world over and is banned by the United Server Admins Council.

Despite of the counter-terrorist team’s questionable acts, it is unanimously believed that the terrorists lost the battle because they were all a bunch of n00bs. “There was this one terrorist guy who tried to engage me in a frontal assault using merely his combat knife, while I was clearly holding an M4 Carbine,” commented the Sergeant on the terrorist team’s lack of skillz. “Another team member told me that one of the terrorists tried to throw a HE grenade at him, only to have it bounce off a wall and right back at the terrorist, taking himself out.

However, the n00bness does not fall squarely on the terrorists, as the Sergeant revealed that his counter-terrorist team had one black sheep. “We had this ‘tard early in who kept throwing flash-bang grenades at our faces. Later, he repeatedly shot his other team mates while calling them ‘FAGS’ out loud. He was acting like a real a dick.” There is no need for worry however, for the rogue individual’s misconduct has already been reported to the proper authorities and has earned him a permanent ban from the United Server Admins Council.

“We’ve won the battle, but we’ve still got the rest of the war to fight,” said the anxious Sergeant. “Next week we’re going to De_Aztec, an archeological ruin site in a South American jungle. We received a tip that terrorists are going to blow up a section of the area filled with unimportant crates there, the same as it was here.” When asked of their plans on the imminent attack, the counter-terrorist team explained that instead of taking pre-emptive measures such as red taping the whole place or conduct raids raiding the terrorist camp first, they will engage the terrorist the very second they arrive at De_Aztec, and both the terrorist and the counter-terrorist teams will start on zones furthest from each other where they will spend about five seconds buying weapons and equipment before the fight starts.

Finally, the Sergeant was quoted as saying: “Counter-terrorists win.”

- Reuters

GULMIRA - The peaceful people of the middle-eastern village of Gulmira were saved from being massacred by a well known terrorist group yesterday when an unknown individual appeared from out of nowhere clad in a hi-tech suit of armor and promptly ended the bloody conflict by neutralizing the terrorists.

“We have no idea who that guy was,” quoted a high-ranking US Army officer who wishes to be anonymous. “But we really owe him for this one. Gulmira was way out of our jurisdiction, so our forces can’t do squat about the terrorist conflict. I guess that guy in the suit knew about this and did the business for us.”

When interviewed, the villagers described the mysterious vigilante as ‘an angel who descended from the heavens in a red-and-gold scheme suit of armor.’ The suit was reportedly highly resistant to ballistic damage and was equipped with hi-tech weaponry, as witnesses claimed that the vigilante dispatched the terrorists using what appeared to be ‘energy bursts’ that came right out of the vigilante’s palms. According to eye-witness accounts, other armaments include a small missile that was launched from his suit’s forearm that took out a terrorist tank, and two shoulder-mounted cannons that were used in a hostage situation.

After the last of the subdued terrorists was handed to the local residents, the vigilante flew away on what eye-witnesses described as rocket-powered boots. “When I grow up, I want to be just like that nice man in the cool armor,” quoted Ahmed, age 9, who lost his both his parents in the conflict.

When pressed for details, Tony Stark, chairman of Stark Enterprises, the worlds largest developer of hi-tech weaponry, had this to say: “On behalf of Stark Enterprises and Associates, I would like to declare that we have no knowledge and connection with this ‘Iron Man’ character. However, personally, I would like to say that whoever it was flying in that shiny suit was a pretty nice guy, and a charming one to boot.”

In unrelated news, there have been unconfirmed sightings of a large, green humanoid creature wreaking havoc in several areas within New Mexico. General Thaddeus Ross of the U.S. army was unable for comment.

- AP

GERMANY – Scientists from all over the world gathered at the Zas Wilch International University of Modern Sciences yesterday to discuss the taxonomy of the world’s all-time favourite superhero, Superman. So far, it is largely accepted that Superman’s taxonomic classification is either ‘Bird’ or ‘Plane’, the choice between the two being a complicated topic that has been lingering in the scientific community for years.

“According to my long years of research in a myriad of avian species, I very much believe that Superman can safely be dropped in the ‘Bird’ box,” said Professor Ivan McSweeney, while pointing at a video footage of Superman flying through the blue skies of Metropolis. “See that red cape flapping in the wind? It’s movements appear to be similar to the wing movements of the South Brazillian Flying Cockatee.”

“I have to disagree on the ‘Bird’ hypothesis,” said Carl Limburgher, world-reknowned avionics engineer. “Superman looks nothing like a bird, unless you squint really, really hard. Seriously, the way his cape reacts to wind pressure as he flies in the air proves that he is more of a ‘Plane’ rather than a ‘Bird’.

Scientific opinion seems to fall evenly between the two ideas, with some claiming that The Man of Steel is both ‘Bird’ and ‘Plane’.

“I feel that there is no need to categorize Superman in any one of the two classes,” said Professor Beardy Tartakovsky. “Is it too much to accept that he might just be both ‘Bird’ and ‘Plane’?”

“Superman may have a lot of superpowers such as super-strength and heat vision, but being two things at once certainly isn’t one of them,” said Professor Ivan McSweeny. “Remember Schroeder’s Cat? This is the same thing.”

Despite ‘Bird’ or ‘Plane’ being the two most prominent hypotheses, there are several wild theories that attemp to explain Superman’s true class as a species. For example, one theory states that Superman is actually a Kryptonian, since he was born in the ill-fated planet Krypton before he landed on Earth. Most scientists seem to disregard this idea however, believing that such a fanciful theory is stepping out of the bounds of the scientific method and into the realm of pseudoscience.

“Superman, an extraterrestrial?Are we going to believe in alien UFO mumbo jumbo now? Zheeeesh,” commented Professor Chang Long Wang.

Finally, Professor Charlston McNamara, a renowned figure in the scientific community, had this to say: “Maybe, just maybe, Superman is neither a bird nor a plane, and that he is simply Superman.”

- AP