So, we've got some good news and some bad news about the Swine Flu, or the H1N1 flu, as people who are afraid of saying "Swine Flu" call it.

The good news is that one day there will probably be some good news about it. The bad news is that we're all gonna die…

President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the "rapid increase in illness" from the H1N1 influenza virus.

"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Obama said in a statement.

Politicians! Always sugar-coating everything.

But, really, this is all much worse than it sounds. (Unless you're dead already, in which case it probably doesn't sound like anything.) Look, see! You might maybe one day get to have a vaccine hopefully…

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said the vaccine is coming off the production lines slower than the administration would like, but that there will eventually be enough vaccine for everyone.

Yeah, because once the first dozen or so million people have already succumbed to the virus and been placed in one of the neat piles of corpses that will be erected outside all our major cities, the demand for a vaccine should really taper off and reach a level closer to the actual amount of vaccine shots available.

And then deciding who gets those will be a simple matter of fighting it out inside the Thunderdome.

You didn't really think the government was ill-prepared for this, did you?

Congratulations, town hall patriots, your reasoned debate against health care reform seems to be working: over the weekend members of the Obama administration backed away from their commitment to a government-run health insurance plan, also known as the "public option" or "giving Nancy Pelosi a license to practice Socialized medicine"…

Both Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Sunday talk shows that a government insurance option was not essential — one day after President Obama himself said as much.

Absent a public option, Congress is likely to focus on insurance co-ops and exchanges to cover the nation's 46 million uninsured and to control rising healthcare costs. Under one such system in discussion, all uninsured Americans would be required to buy insurance, with poor consumers receiving government subsidies.

In other words, instead of creating a plan to compete with the private health insurance industry, which helped create the health care crisis in the first place, the government will simply have us pour billions of dollars into the private health insurance industry. Genius!

Republicans, of course, are thrilled with this victory for the free market. And I'm sure their next move will be to commission a fleet of time-traveling DeLoreans, so they can zip back to 2008 and be retroactively thrilled about the decision to solve the economic crisis by pouring billions of dollars into the banking industry, which helped create the economic crisis in the first place. Genius!

We're running out of time to spread rumors about Barack Obama's veep pick, so let's smear these latest clues across the internet as quickly as possible.

Obama's making an appearance with his running mate in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday. That much we know. So, um, Joe Biden, where are you going to be on Saturday?

Biden replied, "Here" and pointed down to his driveway [which is located in Delaware].

As he pulled out of the driveway in the driver's seat of his car he then said to the press gathered near his gate, "You guys have better things to do. I'm not the guy."

That certainly sounds like an upfront admission of Biden's non-veepiness, but a) he could be lying, or b) Obama's Springfield advance teams are a cover-up for a major event taking place in Joe Biden's driveway. Assuming c), he's telling the truth… oh my god! Is Obama going to pick Hillary after all? Or another high-ranking woman, like Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas?

No, because Barack Obama's disdain for women prevents him from keeping his New England colleges straight…

[Obama] used the word "he" to describe his choice rather than the phrase "he or she," which would appear to exclude potential female running mates such as Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

A senior Obama strategist, Robert Gibbs, said that reporters shouldn't "read anything into" Obama use of the masculine pronoun.

An earlier comment from Obama, though, also made it seem unlikely that he'd pick Clinton. He told a woman in the town hall audience that he gets Wellesley College, a women's college outside Boston where Clinton was the student commencement speaker in 1969, confused with co-ed Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Good goddess! Why does Obama have such scorn for poor Hillary Clinton that he can't remember where she gave her commencement speech?

For that matter, why can't he remember the commencement speech he gave at Wesleyan three months ago?

All these hints add up to one logical answer: Evan Bayh really will be Obama's running mate.

Or, you know, not.

Two weeks ago, we gave you our Official Vegas Odds on potential running mates for John McCain, and darn if that didn't send shock waves through his campaign! It is now our pleasure to extend the same service to Barack Obama gamblers:

As John McCain and Barack Obama get closer to picking their running mates, we're sure we know what's on their minds: "Which Batman villain matches most closely to the person I'm considering as my running mate?" After all, that's how presidential candidates have been picking vice presidents since 1939. Well, we thought we'd make it easy for them with this handy chart:

VPs for John McCain:

Mitt Romney = Two-Face
Romney's stances on the issues switch so much it's as if he's making ideological decisions based on coin flips. And you should see what his face looks like under the skin graft. Nothing but metal and wires.

Tim Pawlenty = Two-Face
Pawlenty had been rocking a mullet for a while, but now that he's getting close to being a contender, he cuts it off? Sounds pretty two-faced to us!

VPs for Barack Obama:

Mike Bloomberg = Two-Face
The self-made billionaire and NYC mayor is a Democrat turned Republican turned Independent. Plus, if the rumors of his adolescent womanizing are at least partially true, we assume he used to be taller than four-foot-eight and didn't talk like a cabaret singer.

Kathleen Sebelius = Two-Face
As the Democratic governor of a red state, she's had to pretend to hate things like gays and abortions in private while loving them in public. Plus, if she side-steps Hillary Clinton to become the first woman to win on a presidential ticket, expect to see donations to Hillary Clinton Supporters for Throwing Sulfuric Acid in Kathleen Sebelius' Face go through the roof.

Bill Richardson = Catwoman
So limber that cats in New Mexico are often described as, "lithe as a Richardson."

So, who's this lady giving a soft-spoken response to President Bush's State of the Snoozion? She's Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of red-state Kansas.

After '04, she was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination in '08 and has since been discussed as one of the top contenders for the Dem veep slot. She'll be endorsing Barack Obama tomorrow. Most importantly though, she kind of looks like the mom from Growing Pains.