Adrift in a Swelling Sea

For the first time ever, the Schlow library's receiving room is not all hustly bustly with children's books and romance novels. I had feared that the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts would have lured people to return their items, but that seems not to be the case. Right now I'm just wandering online reading some news articles, and one about a murder trial is making me swoon with quotes from the judge:

Saying he sought "a modicum of truth adrift in a swelling sea of mendacity," an Allegheny County judge yesterday said a key witness in a murder trial was never hypnotized and that neither he nor his mother has any credibility.

A modicum of truth! A swelling sea of mendacity! How do you craft a statement more elegant than that? I'm wondering if the guy had created this gem beforehand or if it was completely on the fly. If so, nicely played.

He dishes out the insults left and right, saying that Matthew Henkel's

"numerous contradictory, and diametrically inconsistent statements, affidavit, and testimony under oath, mark him as no more worthy of belief than his mother," Judge Manning wrote.

Burn!