I made Malkin's blogroll, despite our differences of opinion on how to fix the illegal immigration problem.

She even linked me a few weeks back.

Is this significant beyond my link-whorish existence? Maybe, in a certain symbolic sense: I wondered, after the last Presidential election, whether the neocons, more traditional conservatives, and libertarians who came together to re-elect President Bush would be able to get along at all after the task at hand was finished.

I've had a few spirited discussions lately on hot topics (medical marijuana, gays in the military) with some of the more traditional conservative bloggers and commenters out there, and I've been very encouraged by how rarely these talks degenerate into name-calling. It seems that most of us who would like to see the War on Terror won have been able to keep in mind how important that is, and focus in on it. We do need to hash these other issues out, and engage in the debates we are having now—but it needs to be done right.

Yes, I'll be doing more reading on the immigration issue. And I do agree that the existing "system" isn't any such thing, and is dangerous. So far, I'm pretty libertarian on the issue, and feel that a willing seller of labor and a willing buyer should be able to get together with as few restrictions as possible. (I believe people like me are called "Wall Street Journal" types, and there's usually some implication that we're blinded by our corporate financial interests, which I would desperately love to acquire—gas money for this month would be a nice start.)

But I'm willing to read and learn, and I'll certainly begin with Malkin's primers.

Posted by: Attila at 11:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Parents are upset that their local Catholic school is accepting as students the sons of a gay couple.

So a Roman Catholic education is "an advantage for life," but it's worth denying it to two boys because the adults in their household are gay? Presumably that's not the "fault" of the boys themselves.

The school administrators point out that if they aren't supposed to accept students whose parents don't follow Church teachings, then they shouldn't accept the sons and daughters of divorced people, either—or those who use birth control.

How do these parents sleep at night, knowing they are willing to let children suffer for "the sins of their fathers"? Literally?

Un-freakin'-believable.

Hat tip to Kay.

Posted by: Attila at 11:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Blackfive has an amazing story about a male Marine who accidentally got a care package meant for a female, and how it ended up saving another Marine's life.

Apparently, the fact that tampons expand helps them to stop the bleeding when they are inserted into certain types of wounds. Now the other guys have started carrying tampons around with them, just in case.

Superabsorbent fibers, individual packaging that keeps 'em clean—I can see it, and I wonder why we didn't think of it before.

Read the whole thing, though: it's told from the point of view of the Marine Mom who coordinated the sending of packages, and how her initial embarrassment about the mixup turned to pride in American ingenuity.

Via McGehee.

Posted by: Attila at 10:09 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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. . . Though, in all fairness, I must admit I hope it doesn't happen quite this way. Not in every particular, at least. (The film is supposedly eight minutes long, but it felt like 4-5. They say if you give it two minutes, you'll stay for the whole eight.)

Via the Commissar, who's declared himself a "light blogger" for the indefinite future. The Ghost of Allah, I believe, is whispering in bloggers' ears: "if it doesn't pay enough to be a job, are you enjoying it enough to make it a hobby?" Don't listen: he'll drive you mad.

Posted by: Attila at 02:07 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Via Tulip Girl, I just ran across the most amazing set of blog awards for 2004. Voting is open for the first two weeks of 2005, but you'll need a lot of time, since virtually none of the blogs is the least bit well-known (with the possible exception of Tulip Girl herself). It's called the "Best of Blog" (or BoB/Bob) awards.

The concept is fascinating, and the entire enterprise is designed to 1) highlight smaller blogs that may not get too much traffic, and 2) steer away from political bloggers and toward those who focus on such concerns as knitting, writing, homeschooling (Tulip Girl's category), cooking, fitness, parenting, and sex.

It's a truly charming concept, and was put together by a group of panelists who made the sacrifice of exempting themselves from their respective categories. (And, no—I hadn't heard of any of them, either.)

Those of us who take the blogosphere seriously as a full-spectrum entertainment arena should check some of these "personal bloggers" out. (My own favorite on a few of those subjects is Angelweave, though Heather's blogging's been light lately and she keeps forgetting to set MT so that it shows the last several posts, rather than the last several days' worth of posts. The secret? Go to her main site, find the "recent entries" on her sidebar, and simply click on those one by one. That'll work until she fixes the display issue. She is the queen of fitness and nutrition bloggers, so stay and peruse the archives, too.)

It's also nice to remember that there's more to life than whatever political point of view we're respectively pushing (those of us who have a political bent, that is—and if you figure out what my own political orientation is, please do let me know). Don't our near and dear keep telling us we should "get out more"? Well, this is "getting out," without having to shed our pyjamas. Everyone wins.

Posted by: Attila at 12:44 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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People are doing all sorts of things to help the Tsunami victims in Asia.

Via Kay.

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. . . I'm being accused of having dirty boobs. I don't think I do, because I'm positive my husband would have let me know. He's always checking them, and it was never before clear what he was checking for, exactly, but now I understand that it must have been dirt.

So I'm pretty sure that the quick-swipe-with-a-bar-of-soap-on-the-underside system works, and it takes 10 seconds, incuding rinse time. But just to be sure, I'll have my husband check 'em again. Because who wants to walk around with dirty boobs? Not me.

Posted by: Attila at 02:01 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I have to admit that I sort of held my breath until it was truly over.

And now Ukraine was one of the few countries in the world that simply couldn't celebrate the New Year under the dark cloud of the Asian crisis: it's too happy an occasion for them. Le Sabot Post-Moderne has pix of the festivities, for which Ukranians gathered in Independence Square as if they lived in New York; the snow started falling at midnight, and it was perfect.

Posted by: Attila at 05:25 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I keep forgetting to check in with The Diplomad daily; there are terrific on-the-ground reports there on Tsunami Relief.

As usual, the U.N. is shown to be talking, much more than walking:

[From the U.N. website] Mr. Egeland: Our main problems now are in northern Sumatra and Aceh.
<...> In Aceh, today 50 trucks of relief supplies are arriving. <...> Tomorrow, we will have eight full airplanes arriving. I discussed today with Washington whether we can draw on some assets on their side, after consultations with the Indonesian Government, to set up what we call an “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh.

Tomorrow, we will have to set up a camp for relief workers – 90 of them – which is fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything, because they have nowhere to stay and we don't want them to be an additional burden on the people there.

I provided this to some USAID colleagues working in Indonesia and their heads nearly exploded. The first paragraph is quite simply a lie. The UN is taking credit for things that hard-working, street savvy USAID folks have done. It was USAID working with their amazing network of local contacts who scrounged up trucks, drivers, and fuel; organized the convoy and sent it off to deliver critical supplies.

A UN “air-freight handling centre” in Aceh? Bull! It's the Aussies and the Yanks who are running the air ops into Aceh. We have people working and sleeping on the tarmac in Aceh, surrounded by bugs, mud, stench and death, who every day bring in the US and Aussie C-130s and the US choppers; unload, load, send them off. We have no fancy aid workers' retreat -- notice the priorities of the UN? People are dying and what's the first thing the UN wants to do? Set up "a camp for relief workers" one that would be "fully self-contained, with kitchen, food, lodging, everything."

So I withdraw my implication that USAID might just be "another pretty NGO," and admire all those who are dealing with the stench of death, delivering food and water. And I spit in the general direction of the U.N.

Over and out.

Posted by: Attila at 05:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Attila Girl: How's the game going?

Attila Hub: Pretty good, actually.

Attila Girl: Why do those guys wear so much?

Attila Hub: Um . . . what?

Attila Girl: I mean, they've got these should pads and helmets and knee pads and everything. It really distorts the male form, you know.

Attila Hub: Well, you know, if they didn't wear the protective gear, they might get hurt. Matter of fact, they sometimes get hurt anyway.

Attila Girl: But, you know, if they wore outfits that showed a little more skin, people would watch these, um, these ball games. I mean, this could really be a popular sport.

[Commercial ends. Attila the Hub looks intently at the television, as if to suggest that this would be a good time for the conversation to end. Attila Girl goes sadly upstairs, feeling that her brilliant idea hasn't really been understood for the breakthrough it is.]

Posted by: Attila at 01:55 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 But then men would tune out, and switch over to the Lingerie Bowl.

Posted by: William Teach at January 01, 2005 07:05 AM (HxpPK)

2 They wear pads cause they are sissys :p. Watch rugby instead.

Posted by: the Pirate at January 01, 2005 10:52 AM (V9zOS)

3 That's why I prefer soccer

Posted by: jeff at January 01, 2005 01:22 PM (L67Ib)

4 Soccer and basketball are great games: easy to understand what's going on (no complicated plays) and the guys are in shorts. What's not to like?

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 01, 2005 01:35 PM (SuJa4)

5 Guys wearing shorts. Now, if the NHL was women in bikini's, the ratings would be thru the roof.

Posted by: William Teach at January 01, 2005 03:58 PM (HxpPK)

6 Wow that would be cold.........

Posted by: the Pirate at January 01, 2005 05:16 PM (u4v+M)

7 Yes, but the one thing that turns me away from basketball are all those sweaty armpit shots. I mean dear lord in heaven, can't they choose a better camera angle?!

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 02, 2005 09:39 AM (c8BHE)

8

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 02, 2005 06:50 PM (SuJa4)

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In my household we were cautious about how we gave, because UNICEF is—of course—loosely tied to those who took food out of Iraqi children's mouths to line their own pockets. And the Red Cross has been actively undermining U.S. policy in any number of ways. Even USAID has an agenda we have deep ambivalence about (they may be "progressive," but they do some fine work in Southeast Asia).

I'm sure any of those agencies would have spent carefully any funds earmarked for Tsunami relief, but we wanted to be absolutely certain that none of our contribution would be diluted by a very large bureaucracy, so we opted to go with Catholic Relief Services, reasoning that any of the church groups would be staffed with a higher number of volunteers (and near-volunteers), and our money would go further.

I'm working on contributing a Blogad to one or more of the groups that are collecting funds, but I'm also going to bend the rules and point out that my Google ads very often link to disaster-relief efforts, so they might also be a good resource (ordinarily, I'm not supposed to call attention to the Google ads, lest I campaign for clicks to 'em). Remember, also, to visit the Command Post Master List of Tsunami charities, which has some breakdowns in terms of countries (for those who want to target their contributions in that way).

Posted by: Attila at 01:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Power Line, Chuck Simmons' current tally of privately funded Tsunami relief stands at $169 million. That's not counting the $350 million we're giving via the Federal government, nor the relief administered by our military (which is there on the scene right now, handing out blankets, water and food).

Nor, of course, does it count the fact that many other Western nations can afford to be more generous because they spend precious little on defense—after all, Dad will beat up anyone who picks on them. (And we always do. We probably always will. Though at this point I'd like to bring our dead home from France; I really would.)

Posted by: Attila at 01:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . will be moving into the new pad as we begin 2005.

(I don't know if I'm supposed to link it, but I just did—so I suppose I'll find out.)

Posted by: Attila at 12:40 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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