We Coulda Been A Contender

We're coming to you today from the Department Of Not Thinking. DONT is a division of the No One Could Have Foreseen Corporation in partnership with But There Should Be Ponies, LLC.

It's Monday. It's cold and there's a butt load of snow coming, so we're just going to give it to you straight.

You get the country you ask for, not the one you want. To wit:


Compassion:

Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law. With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.

Acumen:

New Republican legislation in the House and Senate would force the U.S. government to reroute huge amounts of money to China and other creditors in the event that Congress fails to raise its debt ceiling. If passed, Toomey's plan would require the government to cut large checks to foreign countries, and major financial institutions, before paying off its obligations to Social Security beneficiaries and other citizens owed money by the Treasury.

Vision:

U.S. researchers will soon abandon their search for the most coveted particle in high-energy physics because of a lack of funding. Researchers working at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, had wanted to run their 25-year-old atom smasher, the Tevatron, through 2014 in hopes of spotting the so-called Higgs boson before their European counterparts could discover it with their newer, more powerful atom smasher. But officials at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which funds Fermilab, informed lab officials this week that DOE cannot come up with the extra $35 million per year to keep the Tevatron going beyond September.

Pretty depressing. We mean, when it comes to empires, 240 some years is pretty bush league. Heck, even the Carthaginians managed 475 years before the Romans kicked their elephant riding behinds. And it took them three wars to do it. Round here you ask for a Hannibal you're liable to get a Hannibal Lecter.