Dumbest Cop In The Nation Shoots Self In Foot

Jesus. We're sympathetic to police officers, but this guy takes the cake,...and then he actually tried to sue the DEA over the release of this 2004 video? Damn.

Oh well, at least the kids seemed to have learned a lesson.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

We're All Smarter Than David Brooks

"David Brooks is a useless son of a bitch."

-- Robert Stacy McCain (above) reacting to the NYT's David Brooks admission that "Barack Obama is not who we thought he was", which might confuse Brooks since Robert Stacy McCain is also The Other McCain.

Something About The Truth (Makes It All Better)

"I'm guilty for a lot of things. I'm guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions."

-- Alex Rodriguez, with his ex-wife, Cynthia, by his side, admitting he took steroids - but using words that could just as easily apply to his affair with Madonna and Kabbalah - both of which were nowhere to be found now that he has to face the truth of his actions, on ESPN.

Everything Comes From Within (But You're Out)

"Among the set of concerns (let's call them) that led me to start Mystic Bourgeoisie, was the question of why certain New Age types -- especially those who most vehemently deny that's what they are -- seem to believe that the answers to all life's most profound questions are to be found, you know...

{{{ WITHIN }}}

Even if your literary masochism amounts to but a fraction of my own, you can't avoid running into this bizarre concept if you read anything in this genre. Look within, my child, and your questions shall be answered!

I strongly suspect that heading the FAQ Hit Parade in this regard would be:

'Who's the fairest of them all?'

And the #1 most popular corresponding answer:

'Why, you are, Queenie!'

I got thinking about this again today because a reader kindly sent me a link to an interesting post titled Folk Theories Of Guru-Based Spirituality, which included such items as...

• The folk theory of everything being connected
• The folk theory of ancient wisdom
• The folk theory that only the heart knows what is true
• The folk theory that the mind is an enemy of the spirit

In the comments, someone added one of my all-time favorites...

• The folk theory that the Universe has a plan for Your Life"

-- Chris Locke, pondering those really-big-things-to-ponder (as always) and giving TMR a chance to link to him and Guruphiliac at once - which counts as an anti-cult triple play - on the Mystic Bourgeoisie.

She's Giving Us Her Word This Time (Ha-Ha)

"I can no longer seduce because I love my husband. I don't want to hurt him. I am no longer a man-eater."

-- Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, sending a signal the men of the world have been desperately waiting for - Nicolas Sarkozy's wife will, finally, allow us to live in peace - through the Telegraph.UK.

The Macho Response: Mark Halperin

"Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.



'It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,' Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. 'It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.' 



Halperin, who maintains Time's political site 'The Page,' cited two New York Times articles as examples of the divergent coverage of the two candidates.



'The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies,' Halperin said. 'The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it cast her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her.'

The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was 'like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is,' according to Halperin.

...Halperin's general point met with little resistance.



'I think it's incumbent upon people in our business to make sure that we're being fair,' he said. 'The daily output was the most disparate of any campaign I've ever covered, by far.'"

-- Alexander Burns, covering one of the few reporters who wasn't totally "in the tank" for Obama (and, thus, was almost alone in continuing to do his job) as covered on Politico.com.

The Cultish Madgeness Of Cultism

Her irrational food fads and increasingly bizarre attempts to hold back time - via surgery, exercise and every therapy going - certainly helped to doom their marriage.

How could anyone expect Ritchie, a macho man who is fond of the pub and likes to shoot pheasant, to dine contentedly every night on quinoa grains and organic vegetable dumplings?

And how was he supposed to react when his wife took to retiring at night slathered in £500-a-pot cream and covered in a plastic body-suit to hold back the signs of ageing?

It now emerges that every aspect of life at the Ritchie residence in London was dictated by the lady of the house. Madonna, who embraced a macrobiotic diet in the early 1990s, told her chefs what was permitted: she chose the precise blend of Colombian coffee and tutted over the exact provenance of air-freighted Canadian blueberries.

Guy, then, has allegedly had to endure a life married to a 5ft 4in domestic tyrant whose rules apparently included no TV, no newspapers, and no welcome for his 'London' friends - sustained on a diet which would make a Hollywood starlet feel faint.

...Guy apparently used to complain that she was giving her children an unhealthy attitude towards food: she banned sugar entirely, which made biscuits, ice creams and cakes objects of almost otherworldly fascination for her daughter Lourdes and their son Rocco. She also banned cheese, cream, salt and preservatives.

...'If you were to use the word controlling, you would not even be coming close to describing the way she is about food.'

...So she would sit with a glass of water as Guy wolfed down his meal. The topic of discussion, chosen by Madonna, was generally the kabbalah, or an earnest exposition about President Bush. It wasn't fun.

— Alison Boshoff, describing a situation no one could call sane - or a marriage - no matter how kind the man was, in The Daily Mail