Healthcare Fines & Shorter Wal-Mart Lines

Ah, I needed that extended vacation weekend. Let me just check here to see if comedy has been drained from the world's news... nope, we're still good to go. Shall we continue?

1. On Tuesday, Minnesota Republican Representative Michele Bachmann attempted to draw a connection between major flu outbreaks in the U.S. and the Democratic presidents in office at the time. As news organizations have already pointed out, Republican President Ford was president during the last flu outbreak. But you can hardly let Obama off the hook completely; after all he is President while this Michele Bachmann is going around.

2. Archeologists are marveling at an enormous 3,700 year old wall that was discovered in Jerusalem recently. Thought to have been built by the Canaanites, the uncovered section is 8 meters high and about 24 meters long. Local Muslims and Jews quickly claimed their respective sides of the wall so the shooting and rocket fire could begin.

3. Last week, a woman was beaten to death by employees of a Beijing Wal-Mart after she was suspected of shoplifting. The employees followed the woman to the street and demanded to see her receipt, but the woman refused. Wal-Mart's workforce rivals the population of some small countries, and now it looks as though their annual death rate will as well.

4. Caster Semenya, the South African female track star who some critics believe is actually a man, appeared on the cover of You Magazine this month with a feminine makeover to silence her antagonists. "I'd like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance," said Semenya. "Plus, it's hard to wear dresses when you have a really big tail growing out of your pelvis."

5. Under a new plan proposed by Montana Senator Max Baucus, American families who don't purchase health insurance would be fined up to $3,800/year, with a minimum fine of $1,500/year. Because if there's anything that high school Economics taught us: if a family can't afford to buy healthcare, it probably just means they're stashing the money away to pay the fines for not buying healthcare.

High five.