moveable type is not like this!

  posted by Cinerina @ 11:31 PM

 
I don't have the time or the lack of tendonitis in my hands to blog as often as my cleverer friends rich and matt; but:
Robbins: 'Chill Wind is Blowing'
Apr 16, 5:46 AM EST

(Associated Press) -- One casualty of the war with Iraq is the First
Amendment right to oppose it, actor Tim Robbins says.

Robbins and longtime companion actress Susan Sarandon are war opponents
whose scheduled appearance at baseball's Hall of Fame was canceled last week
by former Reagan administration aide Dale Petroskey, now the hall's
president.

"A chill wind is blowing in this nation," Robbins told a National Press Club
luncheon Tuesday. "Every day the airwaves are filled with warnings, veiled
and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of
dissent."

Robbins, 44, said he didn't regret supporting the 2000 presidential campaign
of consumer activist Ralph Nader, who has been blamed for taking enough
votes away from Al Gore to enable George W. Bush to win the White House. He
said he hadn't decided whom to support in 2004.

Petroskey sent a letter to Robbins and Sarandon, telling them the
15th-anniversary celebration of "Bull Durham" set for April 26-27 at
Cooperstown, N.Y., had been called off. Robbins and Sarandon co-starred in
the 1988 baseball film.

  posted by Cinerina @ 3:03 PM

 
I have nothing to say that this guy doesn't say better: sorry so derivative. Mille the bug is very cute, for the record.
Things to Come
By PAUL KRUGMAN


Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease. I'm not a
military expert, but I can do the numbers: the most recent U.S. military
budget was $400 billion, while Iraq spent only $1.4 billion.

What frightens me is the aftermath — and I'm not just talking about the
problems of postwar occupation. I'm worried about what will happen beyond
Iraq — in the world at large, and here at home.

The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will
they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that
other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis
welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world
(not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're
wrong on all counts.

Victory in Iraq won't end the world's distrust of the United States because
the Bush administration has made it clear, over and over again, that it
doesn't play by the rules. Remember: this administration told Europe to take
a hike on global warming, told Russia to take a hike on missile defense,
told developing countries to take a hike on trade in lifesaving
pharmaceuticals, told Mexico to take a hike on immigration, mortally
insulted the Turks and pulled out of the International Criminal Court — all
in just two years.

Nor, as we've just seen, is military power a substitute for trust.
Apparently the Bush administration thought it could bully the U.N. Security
Council into going along with its plans; it learned otherwise. "What can the
Americans do to us?" one African official asked. "Are they going to bomb us?
Invade us?"

Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment
to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget
deficit will become much harder to finance — and there are already signs
that the flow of foreign investment is drying up, just when it seems that
America may be about to fight a whole series of wars.

It's a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the
brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a
pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told
Newsweek: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran."
In February 2003, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under
Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating
Iraq the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Will Iraq really be the first of many? It seems all too likely — and not
only because the "Bush doctrine" seems to call for a series of wars. Regimes
that have been targeted, or think they may have been targeted, aren't likely
to sit quietly and wait their turn: they're going to arm themselves to the
teeth, and perhaps strike first. People who really know what they are
talking about have the heebie-jeebies over North Korea's nuclear program,
and view war on the Korean peninsula as something that could happen at any
moment. And at the rate things are going, it seems we will fight that war,
or the war with Iran, or both at once, all by ourselves.

What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war
happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an
exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998.
But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got
assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or
faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people
inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial
embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most
Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush
administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud
chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.

So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims,
without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber
rattling gains it votes and silences opposition. Maybe it will honorably
refuse to act on this dangerous knowledge. But I can't help worrying that in
domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been
the shape of things to come.


  posted by Cinerina @ 4:12 PM

 
Big news but sad news - Gromit's last night on this earth is tonight. I have been making a gift for Kevin and crying. I wish I could be there. I just needed to say that. My posting problem is apparently not worthy of response from the help team so my posts will be brief and lame as you have come to expect.
For anyone who loved a kitty who was dumb and sweet, lift a glass for the Boy; his pain is ended.

  posted by Cinerina @ 4:20 PM

 
Big news:

Noelle is pregnant! Due 9/1 or so. Jesus! She's the glamourous one, too. I suggested some names, my favorite of which (if it's a girl) is Spanky Clydesdale.

Also I am so desperate for a Mini Cooper I am considering getting another job.
But I *should* get a Honda Civic Hybrid to counteract all the dicksucking SUV drivers out there. Shits.

  posted by Cinerina @ 9:54 PM

 
Grammatical pet peeves du jour:

"I should of done that" instead of "should have" or even "should've"
(Similar sins are "would of" "could of" and any other past participle properly using HAVE

Obviously, "your welcome" drives me absolutely batshit. YOU ARE = you're, is it that difficult?

Drownded. He will drown. He has drowned. He is drowning. That's all. No other forms of drown. Is it because they are thinking of a flounder? Or someone having founded an association to kill stupid people

I haven't been privileged enough to be able to complain about gerund misusage or anything truly nitpicky because of the people I surround myself with. But I enjoy their shooting themselves in the foot.


  posted by Cinerina @ 5:03 PM

 
Even with the new browser update the buttons still disappear. Now this blog is to complain about Blogger! I am being typecast as an increasingly negative person (hmmm maybe it's because NOTHING in my life is going right and maybe I am tired of pretending to be chipper when I have to do it all day at work) but what works for the gander (rich) apparently does not work for the goose (moi) so fuck the double standard. I could just rant about joe millionaire but US Magazine does such a better job of it.
Also Slim Fast made me gain 20 lbs in two months! It can pork you out too!

  posted by Cinerina @ 1:07 PM

 
Oh for fucks sake! i typed past the line where I can see the publish button and of course lost it all. what the FUCK!
I don't remember what it said because it was a great rant which was how I got over the line about how dr pepper is a less-evil form of caffeine and yet the carbs and all that and diet blows because of the taste, same # of carbs and also mind-fucking aspartame, why don't I just mainline MSG and go into a coma. you just had to be there, sorry this browser window won't let me. singing in the car makes me feel better as does playing my music in the house and dancing around which of course I can't do when rob is here (though the piano can go at all hours but that is different) so I really need my own study.

  posted by Cinerina @ 12:42 PM

 
what's totally vexing is my inability to blog more than 10 lines (and the entry lines end right here*******)
without the stupid Publish button disappearing, so i can't really go off on a tear like i'd like. but blogs were built for PMS, don't you think? cuz everything sux, right? anyway so now I have to watch my carbs, which after one day of close scrutiny it appears that EVERY SINGLE FOOD ITEM including the healthy ones have carbs in them, and fish has mercury and produce has pesticides and dairy makes me fart and it's all a disgusting mess. why don't we just eat rice cakes and vitamin pills? because I am sure One A Day plus Iron is high in cholesterol or in xenophobia-inducing steroids. readers may notice I have not written any reviews and it's because I can't stand to sit at the computer while the piano is going or after a day of sitting at the computer and my social life is exhausting me and I just want to be happy is that so much to ask???????????


  posted by Cinerina @ 12:34 PM

 
Only 51 days until the Oscars! I am never going to be ready.
Oh yeah, and the Chicago book didn't come out when the CD did.

this is how crappy Celia's new home town is: not only do they themselves not have a movie theatre (or for that matter, direct postal delivery to the home), the closest one is 30-45 minutes away, and STILL Chicago has not yet opened *there* - or in Atlanta (90 min away) at all! Jeez!

On a somber note, sucks about the Columbia! I remember it's maiden voyage, all the fervor and excitement. It was 1980, and I was still allowed up in the main house, and I was watching it on TV in the dining room (sitting on the floor by the window) and I was very moved, despite the "on the road again" tuned "SS Columbia" song playing as it went up.

  posted by Cinerina @ 4:43 PM