The "good war"

On DailyKOS today:

Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake.

The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived.

There is no good war, people. The United States is a terrorist organization and nothing will get better for anyone until that changes. (And just think what the US would do if another country killed our children like this. You know what we'd do.)

OMD! It's Word Derivation Day.

Today, three lovely word derivation mysteries will be solved. As usual, the text you read below comes from The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson.

Intestinal fortitude.

Popey guy cool with the Jews

I won't even link to the story, because really, who cares what the old twit says. But just to recount the irony, I'll dive in for a casual paragraph or two.

So let's see. Yesterday, the popey guy said the Jews were definitely not responsible for the death of Christ -- (and then rambled on to say, well, maybe a few were, but never mind). Basically his statement is that the entirety of Jews did not cause the death of jeebus. Was that big of him, or what? I mean, the entirety of any people never caused anything because entire peoples do not take actions. So what did he really say? Sort of nothing, while still blaming a few Jews here and there for causing jeebus' death.

Meanwhile, the damned Vatican caused the Holocaust by spreading this idea that "the Jews killed Christ". This has been the church's line forever. So isn't it sweet of the popey guy to try to take it back now? So let's see, this apology took over two thousand years to come about . . . and in the meantime six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Thanks, popey guy! You're a big help, as always. Go stick your head in a toilet bowl.

Note Carmine's black popey guy picture. Eerie and evil. I like it!

It's good to have dirt on people

Sometimes people tell you things that can be useful later on, when they act up. For instance, I was washing dishes in my kitchen recently while a friend visited. When I walked away from the sink to clean a counter or two with a sponge -- and didn't shut off the water -- she said, "You're wasting water! That harms the environment, you know."

I slipped instantly into my best Bea Arthur voice and said, "You throw TVs down canyons."

She said, "Oh. Yeah." And that was that. As I say, it's good to have dirt on people.

I love hauling out my Bea Arthur voice, even without ammunition. Just the other day in a drug store, I asked a woman behind the counter for a decongestant, and she said, "Without drowsiness?"

I slipped into my best Bea and replied, "No. With."

Hard to say which was more fun but I lean toward throwing TVs down canyons. Got any of these? Had a snappy rejoinder for someone? Do tell.

Weird movies that I like

Bringing Eraserhead up the other day reminded me of weird movies I've enjoyed. Here's my hastily assembled list: 

The Honeymoon Killers. There's something wonderfully deadening about this movie. I laugh through the whole thing. It's ill in so many ways -- and the terrible acting is fabulous!

Sisters is also a phenomenally bad movie. The best thing is Margo Kidder's atrocious acting and accent, but the whole movie is fun. It's just idiotic. Hard to believe it's a Brian de Palma movie.

Obviously, Pink Flamingos has to be on any good, weird movie list. I love everything about this movie.

And I'm compelled to include Barbarella on my list, even though I find it irritating while I'm enjoying it. It's so bad you can't believe someone made it.

This list is a work in progress. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

Which movies did you watch the most times?

Let's do our top three. For me, the movies I've watched more times than any other are:

• The Big Chill
• Alien
• American Werewolf in London

This doesn't mean these are my three favorite movies. It's just that I watched them more times than others. What are your most often-viewed movies?

Religion is selfish

Religious people are so selfish that they are ghastly to look upon. They are abominations.

Think about it. It's all about them and their "salvation", isn't it? Nothing else in the universe matters except that they persist like the most virulent virus, all the way into eternity. Consider how repulsively self-important this endeavor is.

And all the people who don't believe in their little cult? They can go to hell, literally. So the religious not only get to go to heaven, they also get the thrill of knowing that everyone else will burn in agony for all eternity. Kids, too! Anyone can be thrown into hell. It's an equal opportunity kind of place. So it's a win-win thing for the religious -- splendor for them; suffering for eternity for everyone else. Oh, and their god is "love". Sweet, huh?

No, it isn't. It's sickening. These religious fools think the entire universe -- and the multiverse, should it exist -- revolves around them. Nothing matters except that they snag the grand prize. Reality is just a big mirror for these folks -- there's nothing but them and their goddamned salvation.

And when they finally do claw their way into heaven, they will live forever, alongside other, brain-dead beings just like them, folks who followed the same, pinhead path and never allowed one new idea to enter their brains. And for this selfish, dimwitted philosophy, they demand our respect -- and eternity.

Religious people are disgusting.