Think For Yourself

Morning, Psychonauts!

And what a glorious morning it is. Today, with this post, I mark the first full month that I was able to bring you a post every day without having to apologize for flaking out and missing one on you. That's right. If you look on the sidebar there for June, you will see the number 30 parenthetically referenced next to the month, proving my accomplishment. And I'm damn proud.

By this point you're probably asking, what does he have in store for us today for such an important milestone? Well, friends, I was sitting at my keyboard floundering for a proper story to tell. First, I came upon this giggle-inspiring blurb from barstoolsports.com entitled "Best Headline Ever", telling of how NBC Nightline's To Catch A Predator host had been caught in a hidden camera operation having an affair with a woman 20 years his junior. I started the bit, but it just wasn't flowing right, so it got axed.

Then, I started surfing disinfo.com, my usual go-to website for interesting and relevant news to poke fun at. Again, I quickly stumbled upon a pair of promising candidates. The first, a news story from the Hindustan Times describing the growing trend of Indian parents forcing their children to undergo a transsexual surgical procedure, changing them from girls to boys to cater to the national fetish of having a son. Or, for something a little lighter, I could have chosen the story from Ohio in which a woman was arrested after spraying police with her breast milk in an unruly fashion. Again, certainly a proper piece of subject matter for this pit of general filth, but something just didn't feel right as I started to flesh out the post. So once again it was scrapped and deleted.

I worriedly turned to an associate of mine, moaning that I was concerned I wouldn't be able to provide a quality piece on today's important post. I was stuck, and the last thing I wanted to do was throw up another cop-out post of a song and say "Have a good day". That simply just would not have done at all.

And then, FLASH! Inspiration!

Where the hell did the term "cop-out" come from, anyway? We use the term today to describe an avoidance of a responsibility, or a general lack of effort in a task. But had it always been this way? When did the word "cop" become synonymous with unscrupulous behavior? And for the answer, I went to WorldWideWords.org, a British site devoted to etymology.

And here is what I found.

A fully American invention, according to the source, "cop-out" originated at the turn of the 20th Century, originally meaning to steal or take for one's self. The site provides a quote from The Fortune Hunter by Louis Joseph Vance (1910):

He simply can’t lose, can’t fail to cop out the best-looking girl with the biggest bank-roll in town.

It wasn't until the 1930s that "cop-out" began to take on the meaning which is associated with the police, when it evolved into a slang term which meant to plea-bargain or confess to the police. It was with this connotational evolution that "cop-out" began to be used to describe an individual giving up on the criminal life-style, apparently beginning in the 1950s.

By the 1960s, "cop-out" had effectively completed its metamorphosis to the phrase we know and love today, meaning "an excuse, a pretext, a going back on your responsibilities to avoid trouble, a cowardly or feeble evasion."

And with that, time to put the beast out to pasture. I'm done with this post, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. And never let it be said that I "copped-out" on you for this important milestone.



Enjoy the day, freaks and freak-ettes. Love ya

Prayers were ah struck by ah rightring!!

Translation: Players were struck by lightning!

Yes, I'm horribly offensive and politically incorrect. Still rubbing sleep out of my eyes, leave me alone.

From Yahoo!: North Korea blame loss to U.S. on players getting struck by lightning

All praise and glory to the Dear Leader, and through him the rapturous talents of the North Korean Women's soccer (sorry, football) team! Though they faced disgrace, and likely execution, after their loss to the American Women's soccer team, at least they know they performed to the best of their ability in the face of the open scorn of mother nature.

In a press statement released to the BBC, Korean coach Kwang Min Kim claimed that the reason for his team's loss was not the superior abilities of the American team, but rather that several of his players, including the goal tender, had been struck by lightning during a practice. The team physicians had ruled that the players were medically unfit to take the field, but the fervor and glory of the World Cup is such that they disregarded the warnings of their doctors to take on the Western heathens on the field.

Fortunately for the North Koreans, this loss has absolutely no effect on the Dear Leader's dreams of world domination.



He's a very, very busy boy.

"They're not seeing Pink Elephants, folks!"

This video really just speaks for itself. So I'm going to let it do just that.



The only comment I'm going to make here is that a red flag should have been thrown up for all of you at Jones' repeated assertions that he never has, nor ever will try the substance he is talking about so vociferously. Educate yourselves people, take nothing on face value.

Enjoy the day.

This Aggresion Will NOT Stand, Man!

Or maybe it will. Something tells me that if we as a nation don't stand up in outrage at this one, nothing is going to stop the TSA.

From CNN: TSA stands by officers after pat-down of elderly woman in Florida

The TSA has gone just a little too far, this time. The article above tells the story of a recent encounter between the TSA and an elderly woman at the Northwestern Florida Regional Airport just over a week ago. The 95 year old woman, frail and bound to a wheel chair, was on her way to Michigan to live with family for a short period of time before she was placed in an assisted living complex to live out what was left of her life with as much dignity as she had remaining.

And that dignity was cast to the wind when she was forced by TSA officials to remove her adult diaper as part of her security screening.

The woman was forced to undergo the now well known TSA procedure of a "thorough" pat-down. During the pat-down TSA workers discovered that her adult-sized Depends was "wet and firm", and that the diaper needed to be removed in order to ensure the safety of all the other passengers.

What. The. Fuck.

Now, in all honesty, I realize that the economy is in dire straits at the moment, and that finding good work is hard to come by. But at what point in your career with the TSA do you wake up on morning and finally say "enough is enough"? I mean fuck, the day I show up to work as a glorified mall cop and have to start digging through adult diapers, I'm fucking quitting. Your paycheck isn't worth that much, no matter what number you're writing on it.

But as ridiculous as the crux of this story is, it's the details that drive me wild. Like the fact that the woman's daughter was forced to undergo a physical pat-down because she started crying in the security line as she witnessed the disgraceful treatment of her mother. Or the quick aside mentioning how a 6 year-old was forced to go through the same pat-down last April because she had moved while in the full-body scanner, invalidating her scan and forcing a more "intimate" investigation.

All I'm saying is, thank god I'm fucking broke. Because if I was of a station in life that required me to be subjected to these modern day bridge-trolls on even a quasi-regular basis, suffice to say I'd likely be arrested for casting obscenity into the wind every time I crossed a check point.



And all this is going on while these two maniacs are free to run around the airport terminal without being approached once by security. Obviously a 95 year old leukemia patient is much more of a threat.

Time to get the fuck out of Kansas, Toto

The hill people have risen up. And apparently, not only do the hills have eyes, but they also have valid voter registration cards.

From Mother Jones: Kansas: The First Abortion-Free State?

And the Merry Dance continues.

So, according to this article, the staunchly pro-life state government of Kansas has enacted a series of new regulations which will effectively force the closing of the three remaining abortion clinics in the state. These new regulations, which were put into place June 17th of this year, not only give regulatory commissions more power in fining and shutting down these establishments, but also require that all clinics comply with the new standards by July 1st of this year, effectively giving them 10 business days to change their operations.

What kind of regulatory changes, you ask? Well, for example, all three clinics would be required to expand just about every room in their facility, from waiting rooms to recovery rooms, even including the janitor's closet. They're also being required to add brand new restrooms facilities. And in case the dramatic physical facelift isn't enough for you, all facilities are now required to obtain a new state certification, a process which can take 3 to 4 months. Making it completely impossible for these clinics to comply by the deadline imposed by the state.

Coming down on the clinics isn't the only way Kansas is trying to oust abortions, though. They're also attacking those who would be receiving them, restricting regulations on eligible abortions, and tightening private insurance coverage for the procedure.

While there is likely to be a long, drawn out court debate in the coming months, anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue are already claiming victory in the fight.

Oh well, fuck it. It's just Kansas. I have a feeling this problem will completely sort itself out. Perhaps from widespread national news coverage of the snowballing epidemic of women receiving back-alley abortions in clinics stocked with nothing more than burnt-out light bulbs and rusty clothes hangers. Or even better, maybe the entire state infrastructure of Kansas will just collapse after at a generation of it's citizens are denied abortion rights and they become plagued with legions of genetically muddied nightmares that can only come from years of incestuous rutting in Wal-Mart parking lots under the harvest moon.



Either way, pop some corn and get ready for the fireworks. This should be good.

New Yorkers are FABULOUSSSSSS!!!

/lisp

That's right boys and girls, the vote to approve gay marriage in the great, progressive state of New York has passed. And limp-wristed celebrants are cavorting in the streets. Truly a happy day to be a New Yorker.

OK, who picked up the sarcasm there? Good job. Gold star for you.

Now, for bonus points, who can guess the cause for my sarcasm? Did you guess it's because I'm against gay marriage? Wrong. Give me that star back, dunce.

I just feel it's a little sad that we're celebrating this heartily for a vote which in my mind should have been a no-brainer. In this nation which which was founded on personal freedoms and the right to the democratic process, which established early the separation of church and state, it truly is a tragic notion that same-sex marriages were not given the go-ahead in what is globally considered to be one of the most progressive states in the country until 2011.

For those of you against gay marriages, do me a favor. Just leave the fucking country. Get out, and stop throwing your inbred, drive-in movie sized foreheads into the gears of progress. You're fucking up the party.

That's right, I'm switching the tables on you redneck fucks. I'm sick and tired of these bible-thumping troglodytes being the only people that get to go around screaming "This is America! And if you don't like America then you can just get out!" Fuck you assholes.

In my opinion, anything and everything should be legal as long as you're not causing harm to, or infringing upon the liberties of another person. The fact of the matter is, no matter what your religious convictions may be, no one is doing you a whit of harm by throwing some dick in the back whole and getting some same sex lovin'. In fact, same sex marriages and those engaged in same sex relationships by and large are more considerate of the long term prosperity of this country than these hill people that are clamoring against their union. At least they're not poisoning the population with droves of buck-toothed spawn, decimating our supply of resources and further complicating and entrenching our drain upon the planet. In the words of Doug Stanhope, "sodomy is eco-friendly". And what is more American than ensuring that there is in fact an America for our children to inherit some day?

It's times like this where a part of me honestly wishes for a Huxley-esque dystopia in which we can regulate these savage animals that feel the inherent need to get up and protest every time something comes across the state house floor that has absolutely no bearing on their lives whatsoever. Heavy doses of soma for all of you. Pipe the fuck down.

And in closing, here's an interesting little fact for those of you planning to walk on Albany Monday morning to start the protest frenzy under the guise of protecting the moral integrity of this great nation, to preserve the ideals of our founding fathers who made this the land of freedom and opportunity that it is. Ready?

In 1973 Maryland became the first state in this country to ban same-sex marriages. That's right! Until that point there was no law or statute on the books defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman in any state in the country. Granted, same sex marriages were far from encouraged, but it just wasn't something that came up enough and raised enough ire that it needed to be legislated. Isn't that a nice image of America? A place that has so much freedom that your liberty doesn't need to be marked and tallied in a giant tome of oppression and contrition?

Wake the fuck up people. We don't need laws telling us that we can do these things. Liberty is not having a list of things you're allowed to do. Liberty is having the freedom to just do them. We just need to stop being cunts and getting all up in other people's business, trying to tell them how to run their lives behind closed doors.

"We can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love."
--Bill Hicks



Who the fuck wants to get married, anyway? Jesus, if I ever ended up locked into wedlock with this maniac, I'd probably want the to be free to check out the other side, too.

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile

Morning Psychonauts!

Do I have a story for you. In all honesty right now, I am grinning from ear to ear like some mongoloid foreigner who doesn't realize the INS man at the door isn't his friend. There is just so much awesomeness packed into this one article. And yes, awesomeness is a word. Fuck you. If you couldn't have guessed this post was going to be about Shakespeare by reading the title, then you have no grounds to criticize me for walking in his footprints and making up my own words to fit my needs.

From Metro.com: Shakespeare's body could be dug up to unearth the bard's 'cannabis habit'

Grinning yet? Because I still can't stop smirking and chortling.

So, apparently some South African professor of paleontology, Francis Thakeray, has decided that he needs to put to rest once and for all the debate about whether or not old man Bill got down on the herb. Weird thing is, after my years as an English major who spent a goodly amount of time studying The Bard, I had no idea this was even up for debate.

According to the article, Thakeray is claiming that previous studies on Shakespeare's personal effects have revealed trace residues of cannabis in his collection of pipes, even all these centuries later. To prove his drug usage beyond a doubt, the professor wants to exhume Shakespeare's corpse for some more conclusive tests.

Thakeray has also promised to use this opportunity, should permission be granted to continue with the project, to complete a 3D imaging scan on the remains to get a better idea of what Shakespeare really looked like.

Now, here's where it gets even better. Again, this is a joyous little snippet of information that I was completely unaware of until I read this article. Apparently, there's a bit of a medieval urban legend surrounding the final resting place of Billy S.

The epitaph on his tomb in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the town where Shakespeare was born, reads as follows:

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed here
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

That's right! The man has an old school Egyptian style curse threatening those who would disrupt his eternal rest! How bad ass is that?!

Now, in answer to the supposed curse, Thakeray has gone on record saying he is fully confident that he can complete his work without disturbing a single bone. But come on. How awesome would it be if you turned on the news a few months from now and saw reports on a mummified Shakespeare terrorizing London? I wonder if he'd take the time to go take in a showing of The Book of Mormon on Broadway? Twist something up and see how his torch is being carried in the modern age.

But in all seriousness here folks, who honestly gives a fuck about whether or not William Shakespeare liked to get high? As much of a supporter as I am of the use of cannabis, and as big of a fan as I am of the works of Shakespeare (and especially as much as I enjoy the two in combination), I have to say that this is just one piece of history that I think would better serve mankind as a source of pointless and unprovable coffee table debate. Do we really need to go out and settle this one way or another, rendering Shakespeare's marijuana habits just another useless fact floating in the expansive ether of Google?



O! Brave New World, that has such people in it!