I Wanted To Kick Back, Really I Did

     ...but some stories are just too good not to share:

     Marlon Jensen, 36, was arrested a Sunday morning when NYPD stormed his home. NYPD received calls from the fraud victims that someone had sold them “Bitcoins”, only to find out there actually was no tangible bitcoin currency available. NYPD found $1.1 Million of cash inside Marlons home. According to police, Marlon had scratched off most of the Chuck E. Cheese engravements on the coins, and would write “B” on each coin with permanent marker.

     A lot of people got a big, righteous jolt out of that story...but the Huzlers.com site where it originated is a purveyor of made-up funny stories – it bills its offerings as “Trending Fauxtire and Satire Entertainment” – and this is a first-class example.

     What makes this memorable is my favorite, albeit unconfirmed, story about the origin of the common term bogus as meaning fake or counterfeit. According to that story, in the early Nineteenth Century, when there was still a certain laxity about American currency, in the western territories a man named John Bogus contrived a machine to produce "dollars." After he had used his “dollars” to make purchases from some exceptionally naive fellow citizens, he was arrested and hauled before a court. The judge that presided held Bogus harmless, on the grounds that his “dollars” bore so little resemblance to the real thing that any sensible person should know them to be counterfeits without having to be told so by some “authority.” (From MORE: The Rediscovery of American Common Sense, by Armington and Ellis.)

     If this story is historically accurate, at that time the courts did not consider themselves the protectors of idiots or fools.

     With that, it’s back to my previously scheduled agonies. Have a nice day.

     UPDATE: Having thought about the above for about 5 picoseconds, I have decided to make an offering of my own. How would you like to own the original, often imitated but never duplicated:

The Holy Grail!

     Yes, friends, this is it: the very cup with which Christ offered His Precious Blood to the original twelve Apostles. Certified genuine by the Fraudlein Mint! And it can be yours for only $1,000,000,000!

     Don’t miss this opportunity to own the most treasured relic in all of world history, God’s own Passover goblet which once contained His Blood!

     “Yes, I’ve been dead for almost two thousand years, but this not-to-be-repeated offer is so spectacular I just had to come back and tell you: Don’t miss out!” – Pope Peter, originally Simon the fisherman from Galilee.

     Operators are standing by for your call. Cash only, please. (Bitcoin not accepted.)