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iraq war

Hogwarts Revisited

It was great news to hear that Ali Ismail Abbas has been flown to Kuwait and is receiving proper medical care. On a more cynical note, how good it was of Mr. Blair to condescend to ‘comment’ on the situation. But I’m not going to have another war rant…

Monday, I went to buy the video of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. A bit of extra money came our way, and since this counts as extravagance in our current impoverished state, what the hell! We watched it Monday night.

I thought the first HP movie was just okay. This one was a huge improvement, although as each of the books is longer than the last, there was much more condensing. Arguably, the plots also get better, so perhaps a stronger plot suffers less from omission. It was fast-moving and slick. The younger cast were much more polished. Robbie Coltrane was his usual awesome self. The FX were much better, in particular Dobby the house elf… I thought they might mess him up, but he was a wonderful CGI creation, furnished with a wide range of extremely realistic and endearing mannerisms.

Harry Potter 2002
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Death on the Nile

Or, is the war over? (Same link as yesterday—current Middle East news from BBC—so if you’re reading this in 2004, it will likely be irrelevant!) Okay, okay, enough about the damned war!

Having mentioned the new David Suchet Poirot episodes the other day, I thought I might as well give a link to the story here. The first (of at least three) will be Death on the Nile. I can’t wait!
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Bombing for Freedom

Today’s war news: the coalition aces have bombed Mansour, because Saddam ‘might’ have been there, and blitzed the Palestine Hotel where numerous journalists were based. We don’t know if they got Saddam or not, of course, but we do know they blasted another bunch of civilians (you know, the ones they’re ‘liberating’) into the next world based on their so-called ‘intelligence.’

I’ve said it before: I just want it to end…
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Movies & Stuff

Movies. We have watched movies. Which was nice.

Thursday night, we finally got round to seeing From Hell. The original Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel was one of the few recent comics I’d fancied reading, but I never got round to that either. I don’t know how faithful the movie is. But there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp’s cod Michael Caine accent was perhaps questionable, but who cares? The Deppster is Godlike. *sigh* Acting-wise, I guess the invincible Robbie Coltrane stole the show. I love Robbie.
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To Blog or Not To Blog?

Well, now the April Foolery is over with, we can reasonably expect that our media friends will be giving us strictly legitimate reportage. Right? Uh, yeah. So Saddam is dead or wounded (obviously; in fact, I’m surprised he didn’t stand in open desert with a target stuck on his chest) and coalition victory is nearing. Let’s all give a jolly good cheer for Our Lads™, and let’s not spend another negative moment pondering the avoidable deaths! Bravo, democracy.

Today, mom and I were actually talking about stuff to do when this interminable move is finally settled. A holiday was even mentioned! Hey, I’m up for that… I’ve had occasional breaks, but not a real holiday since I was a kid. A lot of neat things can come out of resolving this situation, but I still think getting there is gonna be a lot of stress.
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The Academy Award for Tackiness Goes to…

The war trundles on. Did I say war? That should be invasion, right? Even a couple of journos are using the term lately.

Nothing to add, really, except—if you haven’t already seen it (it’s being linked to a lot), go here to read a blog by an Iraqi, right on the spot in Baghdad, seeing some of this stuff first-hand. Some people have doubted its veracity, but I’m willing to take it at face value. Anyway…

Don’t mention the war! I did once, but I think I got away with it.

I stayed up watching the Oscars last night. Hell, my sleeping patterns are screwed anyway (see time for this entry). Of course, it was a load of rubbish—business as usual, then. Even so, their giving an award to Roman Polanski was surprising and rather pleasing. Rather less pleasing was all the kudos given to Chicago, which strikes me as a frankly tacky pile of bilge. But what do I know.
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I Can’t Support the War

So the war atrocities are well underway. I would prefer to not even think about it, let alone rant about it, but there it is on the box incessantly.

Blair wants us to give our support to this sordid affair. His ‘address’ last night was even less convincing than usual, because he didn’t even seem able to muster his usual wild-eyed fervour. F**k you, Mr. Blair. Whether Saddam Hussein is stockpiling chemical weapons or not, we are the aggressor in this instance—we’re causing innocent deaths, the number of which our official propaganda will never disseminate. I can’t/won’t ‘support’ a cause that produces the hideous carnage we’re seeing all over our screens. I will sympathise with the troops who have do this filthy work; I hope most of them come out of it in one piece.
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