Author: Bryan McBournie

A new year, a new threat, America. It seems the British are going to live longer than we thought, and that leaves us open to attack.

The British government said that it will have more than half a million citizens living to be over 100 years old. That means there will be more of them around to invade our land and impose taxes on tea. While some un-American types would have you believe that the Brits are our allies, let us remember that we have been at war with the English since 1775.

Here in America, not only do we believe in freedom from tyrannical figurehead monarchs, but we also choose to die earlier than the limeys through cheeseburger-related means–and we’re damn proud of it.

A wise man, I believe it was Ben Franklin, once said that no matter how silly it is to us Americans to have queen, we must respect others’ cultures. So when we make fun of people who care about a man currently known as a prince getting engaged to what appears to be a flat-nosed demon, we take it in stride for the sake of our limey allies.

But now, it appears Lady Katherine Middleton, a commoner, mist wait until her wedding vows are said and done before she can join her waxen in-laws in Madame Tussaud’s in London. That means we have to wait at least a year to have out pictures taken with the bride-to-be whose likeness has just a hint off enough to make her look creepy, like everyone else in the building.

You can’t stop progress, despite what the hippies say. Just look at how we ourselves went from an agrarian society to working in skyscrapers in just a few generations. It seems now that progress moves even faster than that.

Farmers are once again being pushed off their land by urban sprawl, as the Facebook game “CityVille” has overtaken the annoying “FarmVille” as the most popular app on the social network. And it only needed a month to do it. Let’s face it, no one was surprised when FrontierVille was tamed as the westward expansion continued, but FarmVille being knocked off as number one suggests a major economic shift in EconomyVille.

And if history has taught us anything, that means get ready for federal subsidies, FarmVillers.

It’s cold outside, but as I am told, that is completely normal for the winter. What are not normal are guerrilla artists, you know, those people who think graffiti can be pretty, or that your local mail box should really look like R2-D2.

Recently, one such guerrilla artist covered the “Charging Bull” on Wall Street in a crocheted cozy. Why? Because they had a lot of free time, and who isn’t tired of seeing pictures of people cupping the bull’s huevos? Let’s see them try to crochet all over Lady Liberty!

Every few months we get some sort of a rock concert-PowerPoint presentation-type announcement from Steve Jobs about the latest and greatest Apple products. One thing we are sure not to hear about are the iPhone’s restaurant-robbing abilities.

A man walked into a restaurant in Connecticut, holding what appeared to be a gun and demanding money. When the cooks grabbed knives to defend themselves and the man took off. Police found him later, and they found that the man actually only had an iPhone on him.

All this, and not a single “app for that” joke.

Recently, my office held its Christmas holiday party at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, it was pretty cool. We got to see Bonny and Clyde’s shot-up car, some famous criminals’ guns, and even an electric chair that was used for decades in Tennessee.

Now, it seems, capital punishment isn’t what it used to be. In fact, there were fewer executions in 2010 than their were a year earlier, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Has the U.S. undergone some sort of shift in its views on the death penalty? Is crime going down? Nope, it all comes down to money.

States avoided using the death penalty because it costs a lot to kill an inmate, unless you shank them. Also, there’s a shortage of the drugs they use for lethal injections. Also, in an economy this tight, does it really make any sense to kill another taxpayer?