I'm supposed to be blogging over at Dean's World, but we're having technical difficulties. This actually makes for some anxiety, since my "shift" started several hours ago. I got home late after work and another commitment, and was raring to go. Instead, I'll have to wait until we get the whole "logging in" thing sorted out.

In the meantime, I'll blog here about all the things that jumped into my mind when I found out I'd be guest-blogging for Dean. Because of course the thing that enters your mind when you find out you'll be guesting at a high-traffic blog is, "I'll have to make an extra good impression. Maybe I'll try being ladylike this time."

As if it's a sort of job interview. And what, pray tell, is the electronic equivalent of wearing a turquoise microfiber suit with nude-colored pantyhose? (Interviews are the only time/place you'll see me in hose, BTW--otherwise, it's tights. But it's a damned snappy suit, if I do say so myself.)

I believe it's coming up with some sort of nude-colored pantyhose post. Something innocuous that won't offend people. One starts to make a mental list: mustn't blog about sex. Or roadkill. Or fire. No excrement. No menstrual blood.

Of course, someone who wants to hear from a chick named Little Miss Attila is probably expecting to hear about some or all of these things.

The shit and menstrual blood will have to wait. In the meantime, here's my Roadkill Post. more...

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Rosemary Esmay (aka The Queen of All Evil) now has her own blog. She'll no longer have to content herself with posting on hubby's website.

Stop in and check out her new digs.

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From Men's Health, 100 tips--some contradictory, some impractical, but all interesting--on how to keep your heart going as long as possible.

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According to Drudge, when The Memory Hole filed an FOIA request for photos of caskets arriving at Dover, they did not realize that the CD given included more than merely War in Iraq/War on Terror dead. Consequently, more than 70 photos run on their site as Iraqi dead were actually images of the seven killed in the Columbia shuttle disaster a year ago February.

AP, The Washington Post, Reuters and CNN picked up the story without doing any independent verification whatsoever. So far only The Washington Post has run a retraction.

Via the deliciously named Barking Moonbat Early Warning System.

The actual Memory Hole story with the photos.

Also, see this article for a roundup of editorials around the nation that demand such pictures be made available to the public. Everyone says we would be honoring the dead and giving the families better closure in so doing, and I'm sure two or three of these people are actually sincere. I'd so love to think we could make these images available as a regular thing and not have them exploited by the anti-war left. But I'm afraid I know what the primary motivation is for most of these editorial writers.

Posted by: Attila at 02:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Thanks to Right Wing News for the sidebar link, left up over a few days' time. As if the Hawkins-alanche weren't enough, Blogdex has had me at number 22 for the past day or so, and my traffic is through the roof: there's a sort of snowball effect in place there. I'm talking about a more than fivefold increase.

In related events, I'm now past 15,000 on unique visits (closer to 20,000 on page views). Not bad for a tiny blog. These milestones are starting to go by much more quickly. Thanks to all for stopping by.

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Penn & Teller have a new television show that airs here in the U.S. on Thursday nights. It's called Bullshit! and it exposes various frauds and fallacies--commercial, cultural, and political.

It is not a family show (that's why it's on at 10:00 p.m.). The language is probably a bit strong for some people. But it's an excellent show, so try to watch a few even if you're sensitive to language issues.

It's essentially a shorter, snappier version of the John Stossel specials on ABC: a whole lotta de-bunking going on.

The whole season is also available on DVD as well. So there are no excuses for those without Showtime.

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There's a spirited discussion going on in the comments pertaining to John Hawkins' last post on sexism. Most of it is fluff and bullshit (as with most comment threads), but there are a few interesting remarks, including one from a woman who maintains that female bloggers are more inclined to be prey to stalkers or harrassers than male bloggers.

This may or may not be true, but many more females than males feel they need to blog under a pseudonym (e.g., "Attila Girl") because there is the danger not so much of someone thinking we're right-wing blowhards, but of actually trying to do us harm.

Does the fact that many of us use "pen names" detach us more from our online writing? After all, nothing I write here is much of a resume builder in the outside world. That extra layer of protection can end up harming us.

Discuss.

Posted by: Attila at 06:10 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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. . . others have made, can you fail to make one as well?

I'm not trying to guilt-trip you so much as, um, make you feel guilty enough to send a contribution to the Spirit of America.

At present, it's time for us to implement our secret plan for sudden success. Of course it's secret, but you guys know what you need to do: pawn your favorite thing, and send that exact amount to the Marines trying to do Massive Good Works in Iraq. (Let's hope that favorite thing is your car.)

As things stand:

Castle Argghhh!/Fighting Fusileers for Freedom!=$10,755.5

The Victory Coalition (Kevin of Wizbang! and Michele of A Small Victory)=$7718

Liberty Alliance (the bestest, coolest group)=$3314

So it's definitely time for us to kick it up a notch; we only have through the end of the day this coming Wednesday. Seriously--I'll bet with a concerted effort we could at least catch up with the Victory Coalition.

Let's do it--we can catch those suckers. We can.

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The Command Post has an excellent roundup of stories on Pat Tillman's life, and the decision he made to lay it down for us instead of continuing to play football. There are pictures of him in both uniforms he wore, and at the end an appeal by those who are campaigning to have the number 40 retired permanently in his honor.

Apparently, the comments about Tillman became so disrespectful and inappropriate that for the first time in its history TCP was obliged to shut down the comments entirely. This incident proved the breaking point, and Alan and Michele have a new commenting policy, hinging on the words "respectability and civility."

And don't forget the piece Peggy Noonan wrote at the time Tillman made his extraordinary decision. I remember thinking then that he was one of a new breed in this country I wasn't even sure--in my darker moments--we deserved. Now I know we do.

Many have pointed out that Tillman gave up no more or less than the hundreds of other young men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. And I think we all know human life is far more important than any dollar amount.

But Tillman bucked the tide to do what he felt was right. At that young age he already felt America had done so much for him that he needed to "pay it back." He was smarter and wiser than I am at almost twice his age, and I'll spend the rest of my life working to justify by my deeds the sacrifices these kids have made for our freedom.

Feeling weepy; gotta go.

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Michael J. Totten on why he's going to hold his nose and vote for Bush.

(If the display is weird, it's the archiving function. Go back to his main page [delete the word "archive" and everything after it on your browser window] and scroll down to "Bush's Ironic Bounce.")

Personally, I think our friends in the Old Media have been playing up the Iraq conflict, hoping they could Vietnamize it. Instead, they've reminded everyone that there's a war going on, and if we don't want to cut and run at the worst possible time we should re-elect the President.

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Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal who turned down an NFL contract to join the Army Rangers, was killed in Afghanistan, hunting for Osama bin Laden with the Army Special Forces.

Previously, he was stationed with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in southern Iraq.

What a man. Pray for him.

Via I Love Jet Noise.

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If you really don't want to read the history of this particular blogwar, skip down to What I Think for my current "wisdom" on relations between the sexes.

The Background

Apparently two minor blogfeuds have erupted into a general free-for-all. Everyone wants to talk about whether the Blogosphere is sexist, or isn't, or whether female bloggers have an advantage, or don't, or whether sexual banter is okay, or isn't.

As I understand it, one of the skirmishes that spawned this began with Michele musing about why Wonkette is so successful. A lot of us have wondered that too, since for a number of us the sizzle-to-steak ratio at Wonkette seems rather high. But of course I had those feelings about Tina Brown as well. I think Wonkette's success can be explained by three things:
1) an awful lot of people like gossip;
2) Glenn Reynolds made it a point to link her a lot, and
3) She's got Conde Nast money behind her, which leads to a lot of the non-sphere attention she gets (such as TV interviews and articles in the NYT).

The fact is, it's hard for anyone who's slogging away in the vineyards day after day to watch others compete in what they consider an unfair way. And being broke doesn't bring out the best in any of us--especially bloggers, most of whom are still doing their thang "for fun and for free." Won't it be great when we all figure out how to make it pay? Until then, we'll be tense every now and again. Breathe.

John Hawkins wrote a post about which bloggers he'd like to be marooned with on a desert island. In what I regarded as a bit of affirmative action, he broke it down into half women, and half men. With a comment or two about the females being attractive, he earned Meryl Yourish's wrath, and she produced a counter-list of her own, couched specifically in terms of whether or not she'd sleep with the men in question.

Now all hell has broken loose, with Hawkins responding to Michelle's original post about the Mystery of Wonkette, and Ilyka writing a thoughtful piece that tries to explain why some women are a little sensitive about the prospect of being regarded as a walking pair of tits (as well as linking yours truly--thank you so much!). Then James penned an equally insightful article on why men might truly have an edge in writing about politics--and giving credit to the superstars in that arena, such as Kathy Kinsley, Megan McArdle, and Virginia Postrel. Baldilocks suggested that men and women are different, and that this is okay. Hawkins weighed in one more time. Spoons chimed in as well, leading Xrlq to comment:

Spoons gets a lot more traffic than I do, even though I outrank him in the Ecosystem. It's not fair! Either the Blogosphere is biased in favor of bloggers named after kitchen utensils, or it's biased against bloggers with unpronounceable names. Or maybe it's biased in favor of people willing to live in ... shudder ... Illinois. I don't know. All I know is that I'm being cheated somehow.

Which pretty well sums it up.

Now Meryl feels a "feminist rant" coming on, which should be interesting. I'll read it.

What I Think

Look, boys and girls. I don't feel that I have either an edge or a disadvantage here by virtue of my two X Chromosomes. And I don't like any set of exchanges that purports to tell me what my blog is about based on whether I've ever posted a picture of myself (yes--twice) or mentioned my boobs (yes--several times over the past 13 months).

If you want to know the truth, I don't think the major divisions in the Blogosphere have to do with whether we're male or female, right or left so much as they pertain to whether we're smart, and decent writers. The fact is, most people aren't that bright. When a straight guy reads something by a woman that gets him to really think, he's likely to feel a glimmering of attraction, because it's probably a rare experience ("this person is an exceptional thinker--and it's a chick! So what if she isn't a slender brunette! Hello, hormones"). For a lot of men out there--at least when they are reading blogs--the impulse goes from his brain to his crotch. Not the other way around. (Do not try to get them to admit this.)

Besides, in some cases (I think I'm one) the reality of the picture doesn't quite match the fantasy of however the male reader imagined the woman to be. I think I got more sexy mail from males before I posted the pix than I did afterward. And this is fine, too. I'm here to write. If you think I'm cute, good for you--you have rare and discerning taste.

Most good blogs are magazines. Most of the best political blogs have at least some personal content, whether it's James talking about his cats (or his commute), Laurence discussing the baking of bread, or Stephen Green writing about which car he finally bought. It's all good.

I used to use the word "feminist," back in the days before the movement became a duck blind for shamelessly exploitive philanderers. Now I'm a Whatever Works.

Let's all do our breathing. Stretch a little. Have a martini, if you're that kind of blogger. Or some good herbal tea if you're not. Do your yoga. Have a muffin.

And let's get back into the arena of ideas.

Posted by: Attila at 06:45 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I have more from the English Al-Jazeera site. Once more, we must remember that they tone down their rhetoric drastically for their English readers. Everything I've heard about the Arabic versions of their stories is that it's many degrees more virulent and anti-Western. I'm sure you've seen the direct quotes about how American soldiers are known to be "trigger happy."

Against this backdrop, real Marines are in Iraq dodging real bullets during their shifts, only to turn around and work even harder for the Iraqis in their off-hours, building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Now they are setting up Iraqi television stations in the hope of getting unbiased information out to the people and combatting the obscenely one-sided version of events Al-Jazeera puts out there.

It's especially interesting to me that one cannot do any kind of a cut-and-paste from the Al-Jazeera English-language site. Any time I try to highlight text, I'm simply bounced to the top of the same page. They apparently do not want to be quoted.

more...

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1 It's especially interesting to me that one cannot do any kind of a cut-and-paste from the Al-Jazeera English-language site. Any time I try to highlight text, I'm simply bounced to the top of the same page. They apparently do not want to be quoted. Works fine for me. You might try "View Source."

Posted by: Christophe at April 22, 2004 05:03 PM (2rBIo)

2 Perhaps they only want power users to quote them; maybe they're just snobs.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 23, 2004 12:31 AM (q85Vj)

3 hiya, you may wanna try, highlighting the text, then go up to Edit, Copy. seems to work on some sites. good luck tony lavanway south haven, mi

Posted by: tony lavanway at April 25, 2004 07:09 PM (yJrQ5)

4 That's what I was doing: trying to highlight the damned text. It wouldn't let me.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 25, 2004 11:22 PM (q85Vj)

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Last night I went to my second meeting of Clutterers Anonymous. It was slightly less awful than last time, and I certainly started to feel like I might belong. I feel a huge resistance to this program in a way I don't to Debtors Anonymous, probably because DA (a larger group, to be sure) is full of bright, apparently with-it people who are generally achievers (and most of the women are beautifully accessorized, oddly enough). more...

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As you will recall, we're trying to raise money for the Spirit of America, which is now focusing on providing the Iraqi people with something like unbiased media coverage. Many of you are aware that some Iraqi stations are still under-equipped and unable to broadcast just yet. Those that are functioning are in need of more programming and forced at times to air Al-Jazeera's propoganda simply to fill the airtime.

We who speak English can only see through a glass darkly, here, because Al-Jazeera tones down its English "translations" of what amounts to continual anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-coalition propaganda. But here is a sample from their English-language site. It's worth noting that the figures of Iraqis dead from the war are given without any balance or context: at no point is a comparison made with how many Iraqis would have died during that same time period had Saddam stayed in power. The massive casualties from Saddam's regime and his wars are not even mentioned in passing! The figures on the dead are simply presented as evidence of American evildoing.

Before the handover in June, the Iraqis must be given access to information that includes the reasoning behind the coalition point of view. Citizens cannot make intelligent choices when they are forced to listen to apologists for terror.

Click here to give; thank you.

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. . . is confused. I mentioned, in passing, that I probably have more guns than him and his fundraising rabble put together. Now, of course this is true, on the face of it: girlie men don't have real guns, 'cause no respectable gunshop--no one with an FFL, period--would sell real guns to people whose DNA has wimpiness built into it. You can spot 'em right away, and the gun dealer will just claim he's fresh out that day, and could you maybe come back tomorrow. Very hard for wimps to get guns.

He sent me a few pictures of some cap guns and cheap plastic reproductions of vintage miliary stuff, challenging me to prove that I had more ordnance than he does. Very silly.

I mean, I could take the bet, but I'd be taking advantage of the befuddled. I'm sure if he or any of his cohorts have real, working firearms, they're probably .22s. Or maybe .32s, max. Probably most of 'em have cap guns, or guns that shoot out little flags with the legend "bang!" on them. And, of course, Kevin and Michele's groups all have autographed pictures of Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and Sarah Brady in their homes; we've proven this scientifically.

If they do have real, working firearms, there's only one way for them to prove it, and I don't mean taking pictures from local museums and pretending they're photos of your basement.

They'll have to open their wallets and give to the Spirit of America. To make things easier, I'm providing a link here wherein they can easily do this. One's armory should always be judged by one's fundraising prowess, after all.

May the best-armed group win.

Posted by: Attila at 05:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Starting Wednesday morning--in the wee hours in the Pacific Time Zone--the Heroes of the Blogosphere Challenge begins. A group of private backers and U.S. Marines is forming what The Wall Street Journal calls "a coalition of the Can-Do" to get defunct Iraqi TV stations up and running, and thereby give the Iraqi people an alternative to the tripe being broadcast on Al-Jazeera.

Dean's World, Michele & Kevin, and John of Argghh! have created individual alliances that will be competing against each other to raise funds for this project, entitled The Spirit of America and run by Jim Hake (who headed earlier efforts to send toys, medical equipment and school supplies to Iraq).

Please give early and often; this entire fundraising project will only last for eight days, because it is imperative that all the video/editing equipment be purchased and at Camp Pendleton by May 7. We must get the new TV stations up and running before the new Iraqi government starts up on June 30: multiple sources of information are essential to democracy.

The only two conditions that will be placed on the Iraqi owners of the stations: 1) do not actually lie on behalf of the terrorists (legitimate criticism of the government and/or the Americans is fine), and 2) allow the Marines to purchase television time to get their own viewpoint across to the masses.

I would encourage you to give if any of the following applies:

1) you like my blog;
2) you hate my blog;
3) you like my writing but hate my politics;
4) you like my politics but hate my writing;
5) you're hoping I'll post a picture of my breasts someday;
6) you prefer leggy brunettes to round blondes, thank you very much;
7) you're gay;
you're bisexual;
9) you're transgendered;
10) you're asexual;
11) you're married;
12) you're divorced;
13) you're single;
14) you walk on your hind legs;
15) you're paraplegic;
16) you have a pulse.

The shorthand?--I'm a fundraising 'ho. I'm perfectly happy to have you on board for this worthy a cause. Hell--you can even troll my comments, for the right price.

We have eight days to raise funds, people. Make this the one time you gave money over the internet: the cause could not be more important. Click here to give.

Thank you.

Posted by: Attila at 03:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I used to lose sleep at night wondering about this:

You're Leggy Bettie...you may be tall or short but
either way you seem to make the guys swoon and
the girls jealous and girls think of you as a
"slut" or "bitch." Again,
you're beautiful, they're not...right?


Which Bettie Page Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

What a load off my mind. I'm pretending not to see the grammatical mistake, unless Quizilla wants to send me money to fix it.

The fact is, I have incredible legs for someone my age, and I'm glad a computer robot located somehere hundreds or thousands of miles away is recognizing that fact.

Via Miss Apropos, who reminds me of someone I once knew.

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. . . which is hard to write about because the details are still so sketchy. UPI's also got it:

BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 16 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida planned to attack Jordan's intelligence headquarters in Amman with chemical weapons and the U.S. embassy with poisonous gas, reports said.

The Saudi daily al-Hayat, monitored in Beirut, Friday quoted official Jordanian sources as saying al-Qaida operative Abu Misaab al-Zirqawi, a Jordanian, sought to destroy the intelligence building with "a highly-destructive" chemical bomb that would have killed as many as 20,000 people.

The sources said Jordanian security arrested two al-Qaida members connected to al-Zirqawi and confiscated a car laden with explosives and arms which was smuggled into Jordan through the Syrian border.

The car, intercepted some 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Syrian border, carried explosives, a chemical bomb and poisonous gas.

The sources said the terrorists planned to use the gas in attacks against the U.S. embassy in Amman and the seat of the Jordanian government.

Al-Zirqawi, who is wanted by Washington and the Jordanian authorities, is believed to be operating in Iraq.

The Jordanian king, according to some reports I've read, confirms that the chemical agents were from Syria, but that he's sure the Syrian premier didn't know this. Hm.

As the story becomes more widespread, you and your liberal friends might just swap places. Instead of them hissing the acronym "WMD!" at you, it could be you dropping the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" into the conversation now and again, here and there--and watching them blush.

Their whole theme song lately has been based on a supposition that is likely to be proven false.

Of course, we're all still waiting to see how this chemical agent could have killed 20,000 people, but they say we'll get more data over the course of the week.

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The only good terrorist . . .

Per Laurence at TCP, Hamas leaders are irked about Rantissi's death, and are planning "earthquakes of revenge."

Apparently, they are mad enough that they might start killing innocent men, women, and children. Oh, wait . . .

If, every time there is a terrorist act in Israel, the Israelis take out another terrorist leader, we will shortly start to see fewer and fewer attacks. After all, these old guys don't want to die: they want to send young men (and women) out to die for them, with false promises of paradise after death.

That's the thing I admire about the Israelis: they don't fuck around. They aren't barbarians like a lot of their neighbors, but they do not fuck around when it comes to their survival. They will do what it takes to stay on the map.

Deal with it, boys and girls.

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