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These days it isn't news that America's in the red. With a national debt totaling more than $12.3 trillion, it's time to go back to the ledger and REALLY take a look at what we can do without.

Now, let's start with Alaska. Sure, there are plenty of resources--but the tree-huggers won't really let us in to use them. Sure, it's a strategic northern strike point on all of NE Asia, but that's why we have Hawaii. So hell...let's sell it back to the Russians. They don't let their people stop them from getting value from the land, and they know how to market that value to monopolistic profit, so it's gotta be worth a shit ton of money to them.

Come on, people, this is Alaska we're talking about. I know we built that big highway up there, but this is the state that brought us Sarah Palin and the same state that agreed to harbor Jewel when we exiled her from the Lower 48. Come on. Let's let Russia deal with those issues--I have no doubt they'd be willing to pay a good chunk of change for control over the Bering Strait in the soon-to-be ice-free Arctic Ocean.

Next, the Canadian Reacquisition. I suggest we return, with the exception of Washington and Northern Oregon, all land above the 45th N Parallel to Canada. Not for free, of course. Our asking price will be a super-cheap one trillion dollars. Think of all that production, Canada! Think of all that nice land that could be yours, for Country and for Commonwealth. One easy down payment of $91 billion down, and 30 annual payments of $30 billion thereafter.

Moving south, we come to the Californian Coast. This place is a mess, people. Keeping Cali's debt in check has been impossible lately...but it's not all of California that's the issue. It's really just the highly developed urban and coastal areas. My idea? Sell it to capital-flush China. It's valuable land; we're handing them Silicon Valley and the rest of the bay area for the giveaway price of $5 trillion. (We'll need a 20% down payment up-front, but that's no problem. Beijing is the Jay-Z of the Geopolitical Game.)

Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico can be ceded back to the Republic of Mexico for another trillion dollars. It sounds a little steep for Mexico to handle, but once the Republic is administering Los Angeles and San Diego, they should have all the tax revenue they need to keep up the mortgage. You're welcome, you guys. We know it's not all the land we took from you, but it's the least we could do for now.

I have a plan for Utah, too: sell it to the Latter Day Saints. They can have their promised land--the entirety of the state--for just $500 billion. Sweet, right? The whole of the Western Hemisphere benefits as well...we'd finally have our own honest-to-goodness theocracy!

Texas may remove themselves from the Union and form their own nation without threat of reprisal from the remaining United States. For free. That's a 170-year headache we'll be happy to give away.

We promised the Native Americans Oklahoma once, but then we just said "fuck it" and made it a state anyway. Well, let's give it back again. For free. And this time, let's leave those people alone for once. Damn.

Since it's only a matter of time before it's theirs anyway, let's offer up Southern Florida to the Israelites for the red-tag sale price of $1.5 trillion. (If they want to barter, our BOTTOM offer is $1.2, but work them down to it--don't start there.)

After this month's devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince, we really need to give, and give big. Let's offer Miami-Dade County to the Haitians for absolutely free. As far as life in Miami-Dade is concerned, not much will change.

Vermont made a stink about secession a couple of years ago, something they have in common with Québec, their neighbor to the north. Well, is there some mutual respect there? A little mutual interest, maybe? I mean, in Vermont and Québec, there's really only two kinds of people--big burly guys in flannel chopping down trees, hunting and drinking, and stuck-up intellectuals who are too smart for both you and their own good. So let's endorse Québec's independence. When they achieve it, we'll sell them Vermont and Lake Champlain for less than half a trill'.

Now then...5 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1.5 + .5 + .4...that's $12.4 TRILLION! Look at that, we even get a windfall profit of almost $100 Billion! If we simply follow my plan, our debts will be gone in no time! We'd even get to keep Boston, NY, Philly, DC, Portland, Seattle, and Hawaii. Think about it, America...

{{EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Reptilia was forcably removed from our offices following the insensitive post. The chimpanzee pictured was actually a Cambridge and Maynooth Scholar, and had some very powerful friends. In the interest of transparency, we are leaving this post as is, because it is a valuable teachable moment for both our readers and the remaining staff here at ProfessionallyCatchy.com. In the meantime, rest assured that Mr. Reptilia will no longer be welcome in our offices, or on the street out front, where he has been known to hurl feces at other staff members.}} 

I suppose I'm just confused as to why people weren't protesting outside the white house calling for the shutdown of the Executive Branch, or at least calling for public speaking opportunities to boycott President Obama's mouth. After all, we learned how to properly react to these types of situations from the New York Post incident, didn't we? One was a misunderstanding, the other was a slip of the tongue. Which is less offensive?*

Congratulations, Rose Kate!

Golden Globe Winner, Actress/Drama

Despite the fact that President-Elect Obama and Gaffe-master Joe Biden claimed a crushing victory on the bruising path to the white house, Sarah Palin has taken part in a FOX NEWS analog to Al Gore's masterpeice whine-fest, An Inconvenient Truth. In this documentary, Al Gore exerts a poor effort appealing to the public to show concern for their environment, probably due to his attempt to frame his evangelical-style ecomongering as the big-picture reason he "should have won" in 2000.

But come on, Mrs. Palin, at least Mr. Gore almost won. And if he HAD won, at least he would have been President. But you had to do it, having failed to learn your lesson: STAY AWAY from the video cameras. In Governor Sarah Palin: An American Woman, Palin assails the media for their coverage of her personal affairs. I know this crazy hyper-communicating high-technology world must be tough for you arctic dwellers, but please try and understand that BECOMING THE VICE PRESIDENT means that people are going to analyze you, your motives, your actions, your personal life, your family--everything. That's why we call the position "public office". I'm sorry for the stress we all put on you. It's probably a good thing you didn't win, because you proved our greatest fear right: you can't handle the pressure.

And what have we really learned from the past 8 years? For one thing, we learned that John Kerry wasn't as shifty as he seemed on the stage. We thought we couldn't ever trust the man, which is ironic when you consider that he was the only loser that actually had a fair post-mortem documentary assessment of exactly why he lost to a ruinous fool of an incumbent. With in-fighting, power grubbing campaigners, competing interests and the Republican Party retaining most of their zombie-like unquestioning supporters for Bush in 2004, Kerry's loss was guaranteed. Inside the Bubble gave us some insight to the specifics.

Having a loser make a long, drawn out, reality-television style statement about why they lost the presidential election is a relatively new tactic. Quayle wrote a book, I think. The unfortunate part about this is that there are plenty of interesting losers throughout history who could have capitalized on their life experiences even better than people like Gore and Palin.

Examples? Well, let's talk about Jack Kemp: All American.

Yes, Jack Kemp was an All-American who shortly played in the NFL (when there was still an AFL!) He ran on Dole's ticket in 1996. But there's an even better historical example of an extremely successful loser, a more seasoned loser, a real "no holds barred" loser.