I'll pray for you

I am quite confused about the concept of praying to a higher power for something or another. Take for example the thousands of people who were 'praying for' Hurricane Katrina victims. While this is a nice gesture, has anyone thought about why this would be neccesary? Does God, widely believed to be both benevolent and omniscient, require people to tell Him in order to know that a disaster has occurred (thus not omniscient)? Or will He simply not help them unless other people ask Him to (thus neither benevolent or merciful)? Or does He simply not desire to help them, in which case praying is a futile act anyway?

Wouldn't a Supreme Being know the thoughts in your head before you even utter them, thus making the voicing of those thoughts rather redundant? If one is going to believe in myths at least make them somewhat logical.

Capital "M" please..

I think I'm going to scream if I read one more instance of the word 'marine'. 'Marine' is always capitalized, and for a quite simple and logical reason that has nothing to do with ego: it is part of the name of our service, United States Marine Corps, which is capitalized.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, it seems the fashion now is to also capitalize 'soldier', 'sailor', and 'airman', but this is quite incorrect because there is no service called United States Soldiers, U.S. Sailor Corps, or Department of the Airmen. If there was, then these terms would be capitalized, but there's not, so let's not let our little inferiority complex or political correctness override proper usage, k?

Got gifts?

With Valentine's day coming up, I have to put in a plug for my friend Donna's website, http://www.donnadiane.com . Her jewelry is truly beautiful and you can't beat the prices or service. The jewelry is handmade, the profits go toward care packages for troops deployed overseas, and you'll never order from a nicer lady.

Get your brownie points now and order something from Donna Diane!

In 'ertford, 'ereford and 'ampshire....

Please pronounce the 'h' in 'herb'. I don't care what the dictionary says about French and Romance languages, it sounds like a ridiculous affectation and our 31st President wasn't Erbert Oover. Or at least be consistent - don't drop the 'h' in 'herb' and 'herbal', then turn around and pronounce it in 'herbaceous', 'herbicide', and 'herbivore'. And for God's sake, don't don't say things like "an historical account"...what is up with this - the "h" is pronounced but somehow kind of nebulous?

Unless you're Cockney..then feel free to drop whatever letters you like.

"Jarhead" is a steaming pile.

You would think something directed by Sam Mendez ('American Beauty') would be worth watching, but 'Jarhead' is the most boring, pointless waste of celluloid I've seen in a long time. Even more than boring and pointless, it is more like an anti-Marine Corps propaganda flick than anything else...so much so that I can hardly believe Swofford was actually a Marine. About the only thing he did nail was the way jealousy can work on a person's mind when deployed for a long time...if they let it. The subtitle on the movie - "Life in the Suck" speaks volumes too, as this now-defunct late 80's- early 90's derogatory term for the Corps was used exclusively by shitbags.

The story follows Swofford in a meandering, pointless sort of way from boot camp through Desert Storm with zero action, more gay behavior than 'Brokeback Mountain', shallow caricature-Marine characters, and mind-numbingly tedious commentary in the background throughout, mostly about masturbation.

It seems to try to be 'Full Metal Jacket', but fails miserably since a Garfield comic strip has more of a plot. Apart from the shockingly crappy script and total lack of character depth, it also blows hard due to the fact that unlike Vietnam, WW2, or even the current war in Iraq, there simply isn't that much material you could put in a book or movie from one man in the field's point of view because the ground war only lasted 100 friggin' hours before Saddam's poorly trained, poorly equipped, and wholly unmotivated rabble fell apart like a house of cards. So the movie is padded with a bunch of pointless, boring shit instead. I mean, the whole ground war only lasted 50 times as long as the movie does, and there wasn't even a cinematically interesting enemy to use as a foil - the majority of whom didn't want to be in the Iraqi army in the first place and promptly gave up or retreated in droves. The very base I am writing this from now surrendered to a handful of Aussies.

Not discounting the outstanding job our troops did during the war, or belittling the ultimate sacrifice made by the 147 U.S. troops that died in battle, but the short duration and mediocre resistance encountered makes the "we are all still in the desert" commentary at the end sound whiny and wildly melodramatic, especially as about the only time I saw Swofford even fire his rifle in the movie was into the air while he and his comrades were busy acting like a bunch of undisciplined idiots. Actually, come to think of it, nearly all the background commentary throughout the film was whiny and overwrought, when it wasn't simply childish and annoying. I'm afaid I just can't feel especially sorry for you because you have to jack off all the time and endure vapid conversation when in the back of my mind I'm thinking of the one thousand five hundred U.S. troops killed in action over the course of six months taking Guadalcanal - a single battle. I've spent more time in crappers in Iraq than the whole duration of Desert Storm, so spare me the barechested clownish antics and crybaby bullshit.

Save your money and go see Saw II or an 'I Married Joan' retrospective or something. "Jarhead" sucks, and if you already paid the exhorbitant amount a movie ticket costs these days to see it you should be pissed off. Maybe the book's better...

Public Toilets: The Darwin Connection

For those of you who have read www.darwinawards.com, have you ever caught yourself thinking: "Golly, how could that guy have been so stupid?"

Well, actually if any of your thoughts include the word "golly" you're quite possibly a choad, but the answer is quite plain. Most people are stupid, and this is clearly evident to anyone who has used a Port-a-Jon or public restroom.

There seem to be battalions of people who don't know how to tell if someone is in the stall. Neither illiteracy nor color blindness explains it, as it doesn't matter what sort of lock it has, whether it reads "OCCUPIED" when it's locked or if it simply shows a little red indicator when it's locked - dumbasses will still try to come in. These simply have to be the exact same people who set running chainsaws down on their thighs and accidentally walk into freight trains, because it takes all of half a second to glance down to see if the thing is locked, and thus occupied.

It wouldn't even be so bad if they gave the door a gentle tug, then having ascertained that it's locked, left and took their rampant stupidity elsewhere. No, they will actually pull it again harder - apparently to try to pull the door off the hinges..the exact same mindset that causes mental dwarves worldwide to wire their electric toothbrushes into car batteries and modify plastic cap guns to fire 12 ga. shotgun slugs.

For any of you infrahumans that may be reading this, I have included the following instructions:

1. It looks at the lock. On the picture above you will see that coincidentally this is located right where you put your dickskinner to pull the door open.

2. If the little indicator says "occupied", is red, has a little picture of a dude taking a crap, or otherwise would lead one to believe that someone is in there...well, someone's in there, so go away.

3. If the little indicator is green, nobody is likely in there. If it says "vacant", it is aware of your mental state. Feel free to go on in and do whatever it is that morons do when they are in the toilet.

Baby steps...