Having previously allowed Megan McArdle to rent out her column to the likes of the  Koch Brothers  in return for Crate & Barrel gift cards, The Atlantic has now cut out the middleman and is just whoring themselves out to any bugfuck crazy cult that stops you on the street.

Obviously this is a preemptive strike before Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief drops later this week.  Kudos to Jeffrey Goldberg for sticking his thumb in the eye of his bosses.

“The Looming Tower,” of course, is one of the greatest works of narrative non-fiction published in the past several decades, but all of his work on religion — he’s an unparalleled spelunker of the religious mind — is very much worth reading. Which is why I’m so particularly excited this week to read his just-published investigation of the Church of Scientology, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.”

In related news, Tom Cruise is going to save us all:

Superstar actor and Church of Scientology member Tom Cruise is a high-ranking Church official and he’s on a mission to save people from the aliens that live inside of all of us, according to a new book.

The claims come from a new book by Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright who alleges that Cruise has focused on bringing non-believers into the fold in order to bring salvation to Earth from thetans.

In Scientology doctrine, thetans are the alien life forms that inhabit humans and have destroyed the planet in the past.

Who would have thought that Earth was going to be saved by a five-foot three closet case?

Not me.

(Obligatory Pauline Kael remembrance of her describing Cruise as a “nautilized dinky thing“.)

(UPDATE) Apparently The Atlantic can be embarrassed

It is an article of faith amongst the gunneratti that bad guys and evildoers (by which they mean people of the dusky hue) will avoid residences where the homeowner is known to be packing heat because having Bubba “stand his ground” while you’re boosting his flatscreen is an unacceptable occupational hazard. That is why Tree of Liberty Watering Enthusiasts see “gun free zones” as an invitation to mayhem, government tyranny or, worst of all: the loss of priceless irreplaceable heirlooms.

So one would think that when the Journal News published a list of gun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties, the bad guys would stick to breaking into the homes of the pansy gun-phobic liberals where the worst that could happen would be the threat of being crushed beneath a toppled stack of New Republic back issues or maybe an invitation to stay for quinoa and kale dinner casserole.

Shudder.

But, no. Apparently the threat of having someone pop a cap in your ass isn’t quite the deterrent that  it has been made out to be:

A White Plains residence pinpointed on a controversial handgun permit database was burglarized Saturday, and the burglars’ target was the homeowner’s gun safe.

At least two burglars broke into a home on Davis Avenue at 9:30 p.m. Saturday but were unsuccessful in an attempt to open the safe, which contained legally owned weapons, according to a law enforcement source. One suspect was taken into custody, the source said.

The gun owner was not home when the burglary occurred, the source said. The victim, who is in his 70s, told Newsday on Sunday that he did not want to comment while the police investigation continues.

[...]

Although some good-government groups have come to the defense of the White Plains-based newspaper, some elected officials, including State Sen. Greg Ball (R-Patterson, have complained the permit map could aid criminals.

“If the connection is proven, this is further proof that these maps are not only an invasion of privacy but that they present a clear and present danger to law-abiding, private citizens,” Ball said Sunday in a statement.

Of course the proper NRA response to this would be: the only way to protect your guns is …. buy more guns.

Because that is the only possible response.

To everything…

If you are a limp-wristed, man-purse-carrying, skinny-jean-wearing, latte-sipping, Prius-driving, morally relativistic, guilt-stricken, politically-correct, nanny-state-enabling, gun-fearing, humorless bleeding heart vegan metrosexual gay-boy Post Modern beta male … it is comforting to know that there is still someone lower on the food chain who feels that you are totally bullying the shit out of him: