Since Obama got elected, we’ve been reading this story every month or so, with slight variations:

Smith & Wesson is expecting sales to rise by 30 per cent to $102 million in the first quarter of the next financial year, after growing by more than 13 per cent this year to $335 million.

At Sturm and Ruger, sales for the third quarter hit $71.2 million, up 70 per cent from the same period last year. At Glock, the leader in law enforcement markets, pistol sales rose by 71 per cent in the first quarter of the financial year for 2010, in comparison with the same period last year.

Now the FBI says there’s been a drop in the crime rate, and ABC News thinks it’s because of…

Cops with computers:

Professor James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, said police have been more targeted in recent years on repeat offenders and high-crime areas, often using computers.

Yeah, sure, it’s all about the SCMODS.

Since they’re not going to connect the dots, I’ll just toss off some half-assed suggestions as to why crime may have dipped. And, stupid as they are, they’re STILL better guesses than what the torpid teleprompter-readers at ABC threw out there:

Is America safe for kittens again?

• Criminals imagine that by doing nothing, they could win a Nobel Peace Prize, just like Obama.
• Can’t get to the liquor store to rob it because the streets are packed with two feet of Gore Effect Global Warming.
• Shortage of criminals due to a vast swath of them “going legit” as Obama’s Czars.
• Obama must’ve passed a bill designed to increase crime.
• ACORN lost its funding.
• Crime now uncool since iPhone doesn’t have an app for that.
• Death of Michael Jackson to blame for decrease in number of Smooth Criminals.
• Combination of the popularity of the Snuggie, and the fact that it has no pocket for your gun.
• Illegal activity is no longer counted as a “crime”, it’s counted as “creating or saving a cop’s job”.
• It’s not going down! It’s going up! We have the hockey-stick graph to prove it! Global Criming is REAL!

So tell me… why do YOU think crime is down?

Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!:

The Vatican said it will make it far easier for disgruntled Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, in one of Rome’s most sweeping gestures to a Protestant church since the Reformation.

A newly created set of canon laws, known as an “Apostolic Constitution,” will clear the way for entire congregations of Anglican faithful to join the Catholic Church.

This is just crazy. Unless the Pope is going to reverse his position on quickie divorces for English Kings, I don’t see how this can work.

I mean, come on… what’s next on the “improbable mash-ups” list?:

* IMAO & Daily Kos

* Irresistable Forces & Immovable Objects

* Fred Thompson & John Edwards

* Rush Limbaugh & Nancy Pelosi

* Smooth & Chunky peanut butter – It’s SMUNKY!

* Obama & decisive action

* Anita Dunn & Ayn Rand

* Barney Frank & Ann Coulter

* McDonalds & The Louvre… oh, wait…

* Michelle Obama & fashion sense

* Sausage McMuffins & donuts

What’s on YOUR list?

Everyone knows that real peace only comes through strength.

Or possibly superior firepower.

Careful aim helps, too.

Anyway, these fine folks put the bitch-slap on the forces of mayhem and chaos, so I’m nominating them for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize:

Name: James Pickett
Headline: 80-Year-Old John Wayne Fan Puts Attacker In Hospital
Money Quote: “I think I’m a ten times better shot than and he is… But they best not come back,” said Pickett.

*****

Name: August Peters
Headline: Man, 74, Shoots Carjacker, 18
Money Quote: Baltazar, wearing a ski mask, put a knife to Peters’ throat and told the man to hand over his keys. Peters got back in his car, pulled out a gun and and fired twice — hitting Baltazar once in the stomach.

*****

Name: Bradley Harvell
Headline: 82-year-old Man Kills Home Invasion Suspect
Money Quote: “I reached down […] and got a pistol that I had down there. A 357 magnum pistol that I’ve had for years and I brought it out and I shot him,” said Harvell.

*****

Name: Willie Lee Hill
Headline: Man, 93, Shoots Violent Robber
Money Quote: Covered in blood, Hill regained consciousness a short time later and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on his attacker. The suspect, Douglas B. Williams Jr., saw the gun and charged the man, who fired a bullet that struck Williams in the throat, police said.

*****

Name: Willie Hancox
Headline: 84-Year-Old Homeowner Shoots Intruder
Money Quote: “He said if they come in the door, I’m not gonna let them kill me and he meant that,” says neighbor, Dorothy Dickerson.

*****

Name: Gayle Martin
Headline: 79-Year-Old Shoots Two Intruders, Police Say: Homeowner Says Men Kicked In His Back Door At 5 A.M.
Money Quote: “He’s old school,” Lisa Garner said of her neighbor. “My grandfather would have done the same thing.”

*****

Name: Carter Westfall
Headline: Man Shoots Intruders/ 18-Year-Old Killed, Two Other Teens Wounded
Money Quote: Under Colorado law, a person may use deadly force against an intruder into a dwelling who he believes may use force or commit a crime within the dwelling. This is commonly referred to as the “Make My Day” law.

*****

Name: Florentino Jauregui
Headline: 85-Year-Old Man Shoots Robbery Suspect
Money Quote: “I’m proud of my father. He is a good person,” said Pedro Jauregui.

*****

Name: Monte Rompal
Headline: Chiloquin Man Shoots Intruder
Money Quote: Deputies later found Brown at a nearby house – asleep and drunk with a bullet wound to his left upper arm.

*****

Name: Michael Mah
Headline: Concealed Carry Permit Holder Shoots Suspect
Money Quote: “The bad guys… better be careful who they pick on,” said Troy Powell, a retired cop who recently moved here from Texas.

*****

Name: Charles (Gus) Augusto
Headline: Blue Flame Owner Kills Two: Harlem’s Restaurant Supply Owner Shoots Two Dead After Botched Robbery
Money Quote: “They ran into some tough stuff today,” witness Vernon McKenzie, 48, said of the stickup men, including one whose bloody corpse was splayed on the sidewalk.

Sadly, I couldn’t find this next guy’s name, but if anyone knows it, please forward it to the nominating committee:

Name: Unknown (and despite rumors to the contrary, it wasn’t me)
Headline: Man Shoots At Rappers Over “Cranky Old Man” Lyrics
Money Quote: “The elderly gentleman felt that these young people were insulting him in their songs,” the officer added.

So after being told over & over again that Iran is completely harmless, it turns out that they’ll be hitting us with nukes as soon as they stockpile enough Mentos & Diet Coke to fuel their rockets.

I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist… well, ok, yeah, I joined the Round-Earthers back in college, but it was just to get into Brenda Dunwitty’s pants, so that doesn’t really count.

The point is – what other shocking discoveries am I in for this year?

I speculate wildly thus:

Hugo Chavez is actually the dread pirate Long Juan Silver

* Michelle Obama was actually BORN a woman.

* As was Frank J.

* Not so, Nancy Pelosi

* The Swedish Chef found religion after the Muppet Show ended.

* Moon landing fake.

* Shamwow real.

* David Hasselhoff – vegetarian

* Harry Reid – not just his name, but also his wife’s nickname for his equipment.

* Barack Obama – Sith apprentice

* Michael Moore is just Rush Limbaugh in a fat suit. Have you EVER seen them together?

What’s YOUR nightmare scenario of a shocking revelation?

Hart of That Hero muses on the few remaining techniques available to the CIA now that guns, power drills, and family death threats are off the table for interrogating terrorists.

The thing is, direct inquiry isn’t the ONLY way to get people to give up secrets they shouldn’t. Consider some other possibilities:

“The comfy chair?”

* “I’m from the New York Times, and this is totally off the record.”

* Nigerian spam scam

* Ebay/PayPal spoofs

* Reality show “confession booths”

* Your “anonymous” blog

* $3 discount bin diaries with “locks” on them that pop open if you look at them cross-eyed

* “We’ll just make this video for ‘fun’. No one else will ever see it, and I *promise* to erase it tomorrow”.

* A bottle of MD 20/20 & a harmless game of “Truth or Dare”.

* “Don’t worry. Our ‘privacy policy’ strictly prohibits sharing of information with third parties. You COULD read the whole boring thing if you want, or just click ‘I agree'”.

* Victoria’s Secret 44DD underwire digital mp3 recorder.

Any other ideas for information extraction?

Thanks to the ACLU, the whole world now knows what “torture” means in the United States. Here’s a partial list:

Sleep deprivation
“insult slaps”
water dousing
“walling” (slamming a detainee’s head against a wall)

Apparently, American-style torture consists of attending a frat party.

Still, there’s got to be MORE stuff they use for when these “hard-core” techniques aren’t enough. But until my Freedom of Information Act request comes back, I’m left to speculate thusly:

Switch busted in the “on” position.

* “buzz buzz buzz” – Locking the subject in a room full of breakable objects with a fly and no flyswatter.

* “shinning” – making subject walk through a pitch-black room full of shin-level coffee tables.

* “Lego walk” – same as above, but subject is barefoot and the floor is scattered with Lego pieces.

* “whiffy cat” – subject gets a cat for a “companion”, but is never allowed to clean the litter box.

* “talkin’ corn” – 6 hour drive through Nebraska with nothing but an AM radio.

* “broken glass, sudsy water” – do my dishes, bitch.

* “Nevergizer” – dead batteries in the subject’s remote.

* “South of the Border” – habanero toilet paper.

* “bottomless cup” – re-filling the subject’s half-finished coffee, thus making it impossible to restore the proper cream/sugar ratio to the beverage.

* “beep beep” – a viewing of Eddie Murphy’s “Raw“, edited for television.

What do YOU have that would crack a terrorist?

In 2001, Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, said:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Embarrassed by the unspinnably blatant racial prejudice contained in the remark, Obama did his best damage control by claiming “I’m sure she would have restated it” if she had it to redo.

Which is fine. Everyone misspeaks from time to time.

But that begs the question: “What did she mean to say?”

I speculate thusly:

“White men can’t judge.”

* “Did I say ‘better’? I meant ‘racister'”

* “White men is stupid, y’all! Can I get a HELL YEAH?”

* “I was a white man before the surgery, and I learned a lot from the experience.”

* “I. Have. Issues.”

* “You have not experienced Black’s Law Dictionary until you have read it in the original Spanish.”

* “Sonia, Sonia, Uber Alles… everybody sing!”

* “I get overturned by the Supreme Court 60% of the time. Basically you could replace me with a brown Magic 8 Ball and come out ahead.”

* “Para Espanol, oprima numero dos.”

* “When you got a tan, you ain’t The Man.”

* “My decisions are based on the plain meaning of the written law. My job as a judge is to set aside my personal biases and make the decision that the law demands. If the politicians don’t like it, they’re free to write a new law, but that’s THEIR job, not mine.”

Any other possibilities?

Fox News got bored and asked a bunch of marketing weenies whether they thought that Gitmo could be “rebranded” so that liberals wouldn’t reflexively scream “TORTURE!” every time they heard it’s name.

Sadly, the best yonder marketing weenies could come up with for a new name was “Offshore Holding Facility”.

Let’s see if we can do better:

* Waves & Waterboards

* Tribunal Town

* Club Splodey

* Misfired Martyrs Motel

* Cuban Clown College

* Korandemonium!

* Interrogation Island

* Jihadi Jamaica

* Allaholics Anonymous

* Viva la Incarceracion!

Any other suggestions?