I'll Give You Indiana For Pensylvania And A First Round Draft Pick

Aw man, after all the work we did to elect the first black islamofascist socialist Kenyan terrorist and his Black Panther party wife, now we find out it really doesn't matter because America is going to fall apart.

Dang. We hate it when that happens.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. "And I don't mean just because the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000," Panarin told reporters.

Professor Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations. "I'm the freaking Sean Hannity of Russia," he said.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire. "There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "On the bright side," he added. "When you have an economy like theirs and the biggest story of the year is Britney losing custody of her kids, if the country does fall apart most citizens won't notice."

Mr. Panarin posits, after the data collected from 2874 games of Risk, around the end of June 2010, or early July the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control. "I may have to reevaluate that last part. I wasn't aware that Governor Palin could see us from her porch," he said. "We may have to go the Ebay route, rather than direct takeover."

He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states like Alabama and Tennessee will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow due to the cancelling of Super Bowl XLIV. The U.S. will then split along AFC NFC lines, and foreign powers will move in. "I say that because, lord knows there's nothing foreign powers--with troubles of their own--like better than taking over another country in the dumpster."

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China.

When shown Professor Panarin's map, California governor Schwarzenegger commented that Arizona and Nevada are fine, "but there's no way we want those whackos in Utah." Mexican president Felipe De Jesus Calderon Hinojosa said he would be happy with Texas, but would probably trade Alabama and Mississippi to the Cubans for "a good left hander and a couple of switch hitting infielders." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not return calls for comment, but a spokesperson for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (the only office that would return reporters' phone calls) said they might be interested in Minnesota and perhaps the upper peninsula of Michigan, but beyond that "we've got enough problems." Finally, European Union President José Manuel Barroso said having part of American in the European Union "would be like, how do you Americans say it? Bringing a ham sandwich to a banquet?"

We here in the marbled halls of IM Central would welcome our Canadian overlords and would willingly learn to ice skate, drink Labatts and say aboot.