This woman got covered in it - metaphorically speaking.

45 year old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas after a mechanic reported to police that 18 packets of marijuana were packed in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the mechanic for an oil change. According to police Brasher later said that she didn’t realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood to change the oil.

A policeman was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman’s credibility…

Q: ‘Officer — did you see my client fleeing the scene?’
A: ‘No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.’

Q: ‘Officer — who provided this description?’
A: ‘The officer who responded to the scene.’

Q: ‘A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?’
A: ‘Yes, sir. With my life.’

Q: ‘With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?’
A: ‘Yes sir, we do!’

Q: ‘And do you have a locker in the room?’
A: ‘Yes

sir, I do.’

Q: ‘And do you have a lock on your locker?’
A: ‘Yes sir.’
Q: ‘Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a

room you share with these same officers?’
A: ‘You see, sir — we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.’

Apparently in the summer of 1958, a group of overworked, exhausted CIA spies were relaxing during the wedding of a comrade, between crisis situations in Berlin. They ate, drank and posed for pictures. Later, when one of the fellows asked the groom for copies of the wedding pictures, the groom replied, ‘We didn’t hire a photographer.”

·         The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison,” and he said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

      ·         A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.” “That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”

·         “He had delusions of adequacy.” - Walter Kerr

·         “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” - Winston Churchill

·         “A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” - Winston Churchill

·         “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow

·         “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

·         “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

·         “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” - Moses Hadas

·         “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” - Abraham Lincoln

·         “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” - Mark Twain

·         “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” - Oscar Wilde

·         “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.” - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

·         “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” - Winston Churchill, in response.

·         “I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” - Stephen Bishop

·         “He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” - John Bright

·         “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” - Irvin S. Cobb

·         “He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.” - Samuel Johnson

·         “He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” - Paul Keating

·         “There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” - Jack E. Leonard

·         “He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” - Robert Redford

·         “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” - Thomas Brackett Reed

·         “In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” - Charles, Count Talleyrand

·         “He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” - Forrest Tucker

·         “Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” - Mark Twain

·         “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” - Mae West

·         “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” - Oscar Wilde

·         “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support
rather than illumination.” - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

·         “He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” - Billy Wilder

·         “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” - Groucho Marx

Two of my favorite subjects, mysterys and metaphysics. Those these days the metaphysics is getting top billing. That’s another reason to love the word ‘mystery’ - it can mean so many things. And everything is better when it’s mixed with humour. Thank you Steven Wright; you are one of the funniest!

“I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”

- Steven Wright

This picture, if it works out and I can actually post it, goes with the post which follows it. Clear as mud.

In the late 1860’s, when mystery novels were still relatively new, Wilkie Collins challenged his friend Charles Dickens to turn his pen in that direction. Taking up the challenge, Dickens began his first and only mystery story, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The novel was to be serialized in twelve monthly instalments by a magazine; published in Britian and shipped across the Atlantic to America. Unfortunately Dickens died halfway through the fascinating story. Oddly, it was the only time in his writing career that the writer had insisted on a contract stating that his heirs would be paid for the work should he die before it was finished.

Three years later, a young gadabout named Thomas James checked into a boarding house in Vermont, intent on avoiding anything resembling work. Shortly after, James announced to his landlady, a spiritualist, that he had been contacted by the spirit of Charles Dickens, who wished James to finish Edwin Drood. Eager to help out, the landlady offered him free room and board until the task was completed. Witnesses testified that James would go into long trances and write furiously as Dickens dictated the remainder of the novel. As word got out, James was accused of fraud and failure. However the book, attributed to ‘the spirit pen of Charles Dickens’ made an appearance in the bookstalls on Hallowe’en of 1873.

Controversy over the ‘genuine’ outcome of the story and the identity of the villain of Edwin Drood circulated among the early scholars, based on the working notes left behind by Dickens and the vignettes on the cover of the monthly instalments. The case was investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle insisted that Thomas James did not have a literary bone in his body and was incapable of creating the prose of Edwin Drood without assistance of some kind.

The title is twofold - without a cow story in the news for the last few weeks I feel uninspired AND ‘Where’s my Cow’ is the title of a children’s book in a fabulous murder mystery by Terry Pratchet called ‘Thud’. A late comer to Terry Pratchet’s work, I find his my recent books much more readable than his first which were too, um, well, vague in a way but he is definately an author worth taking to bed - if you don’t plan on getting much sleep - oh wait - I mean because you are up all night reading.

In any case, Terry Pratchet is a man who sees behind the veil of consensus reality and if you want read a real manual on magic read his children’s book - ‘The Wee Free Men.’ The BEST! All of his books contain references to ‘higher knowledge’ for those with the ‘ears to hear’ and all that esoteric stuff. The man is frickin brilliant! And now I must go look for my cow.

OMG!  They’re taking over the world!  This article stolen from the Boston Channel. I’d put in a link but I don’t know how.

After Accident Woman Finds Cow In Car

Cow Lands In Back Seat

POSTED: 7:50 am EST February 2, 2008

UPDATED: 2:42 pm EST February 2, 2008

REHOBOTH, Mass. — Holy Cow! A Seekonk woman suddenly found an unexpected passenger in her back seat while driving home with her daughter after running a simple errand. Tonya Coccia, 46, said the street was dark when she suddenly saw cows that had wandered out onto the road from a nearby farm. She swerved, but hit two of them. One was a massive Black Angus. “I only saw it for a split second before it came up it into my windshield,” Coccia said.

One of the cows had gone airborne.

“There was airbags and smoke and me and my daughter was losing it. I thought that was it, but I felt my car start shaking.”

The cow had flipped over the roof of the car, gone through the back window and landed in the back seat.

“I didn’t really want to see what was there, but I saw a black cow head in my back window. My daughter turned this way and said ‘Mom there’s a cow in the back seat!’ And we just took off,” Coccia said.

The car’s hood and roof were crushed and the windshield was smashed.

Coccia said she realized there were bound be jokes. The cow in the back seat was not seriously injured, but the second cow did not survive.

“It could have just as easily gone through the windshield and we’d be talking about very serious injuries or possibly death,” said Rehoboth police Sgt. Richard Shailor.

The cow was frightened and agitated. Firefighters and police had to tie it down so it wouldn’t move inside the car. They towed the car to the farm and let it out.

Both Coccia and her daughter Haley, 14, suffered minor injuries. Her car was a total loss.

Thanks to the Canadian / Associated Press for continuing to bring us these juicy bits of ineptness from around the world. Who said all news was serious? Unfortunately it is listed under ‘diversions’ most of the time, but media reality is subjective in any case as this quote so wittily states:

“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. ” Ben Hecht

But back to the story …

German robber nabbed after leaving behind telltale DNA on salami chunk

Published: Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 10:26 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN - German police have charged a robbery suspect after matching his DNA to that found on a piece of salami spat out at a crime scene.

The bitten-off chunk of the telltale sausage was discovered at a building that had been broken in to in the southern city of Darmstadt in April.

Police say the 37-year-old man was taken into custody in early January after police ran his name through their computers at a highway spot-check and found he was wanted for several other crimes.

Once in custody, he was linked to the Darmstadt break-and-enter through the DNA sample on the salami and charged.

But it seems the rejected meat was not the robber’s only slip up: he has been charged with a total of 19 break-ins after other links were found.

The man, whose name was not released, remains in custody while police investigate.