My search traffic has been up for weeks, but now it's increasing even more. Along with a handful of other bloggers, I'm noticing an overall increase, and an increase in traffic from Google images as well.

Anyone know what gives?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:33 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I think someone in the Cotillion sweet talked them Google people!

Posted by: Greta (Hooah Wife) at April 30, 2007 03:20 AM (Xl4tG)

2 Maybe they think you're left wing, and so they're sending more traffic your way.

Posted by: John at April 30, 2007 01:37 PM (7C8kd)

3 I saw a similar spike in Google image searches recently. But I see this as mostly junk traffic, siphoning bandwidth while most of my actual content gets ignored. I've deleted a couple images that were generating huge volumes of worthless traffic.

Posted by: Desert Cat at April 30, 2007 09:00 PM (ogl5V)

4 I think one reason could be that there has been a change in the Yahoo searches. It used to be that they would have those links to the sites within a certain category, such as "LA Dodgers" or "San Francisco Steroids." Now, nada. It might be pushing people to use Google more. Or, I could be full of what Harry Reid is.

Posted by: William Teach at May 01, 2007 01:36 PM (IRsCk)

5 I've noticed a lot of worthless zero-second visits from google image searches. Very annoying.

Posted by: Sissy Willis at May 01, 2007 03:58 PM (Q6JEL)

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I'm working on my motive, and doing character sketches. Sorry! But my deadline is a scary one, so blogging and housework are the first things to go. Be thankful you don't live with me.

My sidebar is your friend, and with any luck I'll be back later tonight, or first thing in the morning. After all, I still have some writing to do on Senator McCain.

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You should, too.

Fortunately, he's gotten rid of the dreadful British/scientific style punctuation the manuscript sported. Or, rather, his copyeditor has.

I hadn't remembered quite so much science in the first chapter, but a bit of that is to be expected, and I know there's a lot of juicy stuff about sex later on. The volume could, however, use more dialogue. Or perhaps a dismembered corpse: you can never go wrong with dead bodies.

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Off I go to read. When you speak of me, speak of one who blogged not wisely, but too well.

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"No, this section is fine," Bridget tells me. "But we need to know more about these people before we find the body."

"I can do that," I reply.

"Um, what do these people do for a living?" Maria pipes up. "I mean, they seem to spend a lot of time drinking coffee and finding corpses."

"Well," I answer, slowly, "I could give them jobs, of course. But that might cut into the time they have for solving crimes."

"If you want them to be independently wealthy, there are ways to accomplish that," Fred points out.

"Hell, no. I don't want them to sustain that kind of damage," I respond. "Fine. I'll get 'em jobs."

These stupid people in writer's group and their un-fucking-reasonable demands . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I found out on Friday night that I truly was expected to show up at yet another fundraiser today, and man the literature booth. And since it fell under the rubric of my paid functions, I felt that I should do it.

So I got through the day, participated on my panel, and billed the organization for the rest of the time I spent on the event. Next year, I'll make sure they make a decision much further in advance about how they want to handle this.

This year, I said some smart-sounding bullshit, sold some literature, and got through the day without either bursting into tears or cussing anyone out.

This is not, by the way, about my being some sort of victim in any sense. It is about my being a complete nut.

There's a difference.

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. . .we never talk about transexualism?

It's important, I think. Scripture says not one word about it, of course.

Thoughts?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:59 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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As usual, McCain was great today on the Bloggers' Conference Call. We got a bit beyond Iraq, which had been the focus of the first Call I participated in.

I like the fact that he feels the GOP has to get California back in play, and/or at least actively campaign there. He's right: not communicating here only perpetuates the problem. He maintains that he can make a difference here, that he can talk to us as a fellow Westerner. Maybe. The problem is, he's never done that well with libertarians, and most of us who fall right-of-center here have strong libertarian leanings. We'll see how it goes.

It was nice to see him discuss domestic issues such as tax reform, pork spending, revamping Social Security and Medicare, at the same time he's as well-versed in military matters as he ever was.

More later.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Much as one doesn't want to like Senator McCain, the politician (for we all love John McCain, the hero—and that's as it should be), sometimes it's impossible not to. I know that a lot of us have resistance to McCain's candidacy for two very good reasons:

1) McCain-Feingold;
2) the mainstream media's lionizing him as a maverick.

But the media no longer regard him as their darling; they no longer need him as a counter-balance to Bush. And he is an educated voice standing up for the necessity of finishing the action in Iraq properly, rather than abandoning good people to repression and mass murder, like we did with—say—the Vietnamese and the Cambodians.

He is also willing to educate the public about how to do what is required to win, and that makes him, frankly, a bit seductive. It's no secret that the major failure on the part of the Bush Administration in the conduct of this war has been on the public relations side. There is plenty to "sell" in terms of standing up to tyranny and making an example of one country, so others in the region will understand that the U.S. is still capable of playing for keeps. But neither Bush nor anyone on his team has really been out there, making that case, over the past four years.

For all my quarrels with him, I think McCain would.

Anyway, I'll be on a conference call with him tomorrow on the heels of his recent official announcement. (Yeah, like that was news. I'm sorry: Fred Thompson announcing a candidacy will be news. McCain announcing his? Dog bites man.) I'll be sharing my impressions briefly, before I head out to work, and then in a more extensive form later in the weekend.

[Copyeditor alert: I know that title case doesn't require the definite articles in my headline to be capitalized. But it just didn't look right the other way. I claim poetic license, and the fact that this is my blog. It turns out that the house style of Little Miss Attila requires capitalization of "the" when its editrix so mandates.]

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I still had some of the old Blogads code lingering in my template. I thought I had removed the cancer, but—alas!—more surgery was required.

The person responsible was harshly reprimanded, and then treated to a dirty martini. (Kind of a good cop/bad cop approach to behavior mod.)

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I'm polishing chapter 2 of book 2 to present at writer's group tomorrow night. And I have to put some time in for a client tomorrow, so the work has to be done now—which is really my least favorite word.

Go read Hackbarth's meditation on the difference between mental illness and evil as it relates to Seung Hui Cho.

Or check out Goldstein's thoughts on why Rosie O'Donnell makes Democrats nervous, at the same time they just can't take their eyes off of her.

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Rusty has the scoop on six radical Islamists arrested for charges of incitement.

I know that sometimes law enforcement/intel on both sides of the Atlantic prefers to monitor those it could arrest for "incitement," so they can get to bigger fish, but I hope they cooperate with each other, and remember that combatting terrorism is not like fighting organized crime: the "broken window" principle requires that at some point these people be brought in. Threats against people and property are crimes here, and they should most certainly be crimes in a country that has essentially decided there is no universal right to self-defense.

(As usual, I skimmed the comments section for a moment. Alas, Rusty's comments are still as chock-full of the "all Muslims are terrorists" sentiment as the generally are with the "homosexuals are out to destroy the family" nonsense. And, as usual, I fear that he comes awfully close to endorsing both positions in his posts. But he is a good source of information on Islamic terrorism, and despite his myopia in those arenas, a genuinely nice guy.)

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***Your Email Address Have Won*** Inbox
Lotteria Lotto Management

Sir/Madam,

You have been selected as victorious via your email address. Click here to
see how much you have won:http://claiming.rules.i8.com/index.html or paste
it in your browser.This must be claimed not later than the 9th of May 2007 .
You must read the rules and understand them before responding.
We are required to disburse the award to the correct recipient, but we must
verify that you are the owner of the selected email address before we can
send this money to you.

Contact us with reference number: OBM/AERAL/2007.

Contact person: Enrico Mancini
claimmancini@libero.it

Lotteria Italia
Venezia.

It looks like my ship has finally come in.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:57 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 What a coincidence! I won 2 million Pounds Sterling just a coupe of weeks ago! Who knew these email lotteries could be sooooo lucrative! I'll buy you a car after I receive my deposit. I'm sure you will do likewise??? Happy days are here again! COVENTRY PROMOTIONS National Office, 157-197 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, London SW1W 9SPSerial Number: xxx-xxx Batch number AT-xxxxx.xx. TO WINNERS IN OUR PROGRAM We wish to congratulate you over your success in our computer balloting sweepstake held on 9th. April. 2007. This is a millennium scientific computer game in which email addresses were used. It is a promotional program aimed at encouraging internet users; therefore you do not need to buy ticket to enter for the game. However, your email address was attached to ticket number xxx xxxxx; with serial number xxx-xxx draw the lucky numbers 06-09-13-15-40-43-02, which eventually won the lottery in the first category of the draws. Therefore, you have won a lottery jackpot prize awards of £2,000,000.00 (Two million pounds Sterling Only) This is from total prize money of US$30,000,000.00 distributed to winners from 1st to 3rd categories. Note that this program was largely promoted and sponsored by a group of philanthropist, industrialists from the internet ware industry and some other big multinational firms who wish to be anonymous. You may wish to establish contact via e-mail with the particulars presented below citing the batch and reference numbers to this letter. Telephone lines are open between the hours of 8.00am - 7.30pm on Monday through FridayCustomer Service Unit,Tel/Fax No: +44-702 406 3701 +44-702 406 3971Email: process.claimsagent1@yahoo.co.ukContact person: MR. DANIEL WALLACEProviding him with the information stated below

Posted by: Darrell at April 24, 2007 08:14 PM (s1jT/)

2 Hey! Even I received the same email today! Sir/Madam, You have been selected as victorious via your email address. Click here to see how much you have won:http://lotteriaclaimrules.5u.com/index.html or paste it in your browser.This must be claimed not later than the 11th of May 2007 . You must read the rules and understand them before responding. We are required to disburse the award to the correct recipient, but we must verify that you are the owner of the selected email address before we can send this money to you. Contact us with reference number: OBM/AERAL/2007. Contact person: Enrico Mancini claimmancini@libero.it Lotteria Italia Venezia. Do you think these guys are for real? Did you reply back!

Posted by: Ankita at April 27, 2007 08:12 PM (0okU1)

3 Real? As real as fake can be! At worst, they will "need" your bank account info. so that they can "deposit" your "winnings". At best, they will say you need to pay a fee to their lawyers for the transfer. In between, they now have your email address. You'll have to beware any emails with attachments/viruses/spyware coming your way in the future. That way they will mine for your personal information themselves. Lucky you!

Posted by: Darrell at April 28, 2007 08:16 PM (ZQyAP)

4 yea i got it 2 funny when i googled the address it comes up as the depertament of aduiting in london so i mailed em and told em that there address was used in a scam Maybe ill get a pay out from them in stead well heres hoping lol i did replay and gave these details name I C Wierer address A real place unlike u phone number 1-800-Kiss-my-ass sort code 666666666 account number 99898738746234287364762354872164872364876328 i could go on so if u read this its a scam u dont get something 4 nothing theres always a catch although i could of used the $$$$$$

Posted by: Dman at May 03, 2007 01:25 PM (eK7/V)

5 Haha.. I wish I would have been that creative and replied but I just didn't reply back .. Well.. so much for becoming a millionare.. with a million spam mails!

Posted by: Ankita at May 09, 2007 08:26 PM (HMD8U)

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On the current Democratic Party train wreck:

Reid: Bush [is] in denial. This from a member of the Democratic leadership that is pushing a symbolic retreat plan he knows wonÂ’t survive a veto, simply to make the petulant point.

More on what he calls "the non-plan that is going nowhere":

Troop withdrawal begins Oct. 1, with the bulk of the troops out by April 1. It sets strict standards for resting, training and equipping troops, though itÂ’s not clear why Democrats want to waste money on that, if they donÂ’t plan to use them. It also sets benchmarks for the Iraqi government to reach on dealing with militias, re-Baathify, share oil revenues, etc. Not clear what incentive the Iraqi government has to meet any benchmarks, because all that is going out the window with the current government once open season starts, and any Iraqi official with half a brain is going to be actively working on an individual survival plan.

Meanwhile, my mother continues to insist that we should have "finished Afghanistan," before "starting in Iraq." Just like we finished Germany, before starting in Japan. Oh, wait . . .

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Bidinotto has a nice roundup on the Crow Crap issue. (I shouldn't say that, perhaps: I do like her music. But when will singers, actors, and directors realize that when we like their creative work, it doesn't mean we find their ill-informed policy prescriptions less annoying—it means we find them more annoying.)

As for Sheryl herself, I would like to point out that there are important issues, and very important issues. I can argue all day with my lefty friends about whether the Important Issue of the day is the environment, or women's rights and classical liberalism being under threat from radical Islam. But the Very Important Issue of the day is oral sex, and Sheryl Crow is not doing her part in that arena . . .

Okay. Seriously, I do believe that the single square of toilet paper proposal was a joke. It does seem, however, that both Sheryl Crow and Laurie David have are guilty of the same sort of slipperiness that Jim Treacher once busted Jon Stewart on: now I'm serious, now it's a joke.

"If I want to preach, it's serious. If you call me on my intellectual shortfalls, it's a joke." Or, in the cases of Crow and David, we will preach at you. But if you challenge us on the science, we'll say "blah blah blah" and refuse to engage (David), or make silly jokes about toilet paper (Crow).

And if you point out the disconnect between the way we live, we'll explain that it's okay, because we're "doing our part," despite our music tours (Crow) and our use of private jets to support a bicoastal lifestyle (David).

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It kept asking me either/or questions. Some of them were obvious: after all, of course geometry is better than algebra, and of course it's better to navigate via intuition than to actually get out a map (cheater, cheater!).

But "do I have my best ideas sitting up, or lying down?" Well, which kinds of ideas, for crying out loud? I do editing and expository writing sitting up; I do better fiction writing when I'm lying down (preferably with my eyes closed, so I can't read what I write as I go along).

It was ultimately a rather stupid test: its designers wanted to conflate my intellect with my personality. They are, of course, different things.

You Are 40% Left Brained, 60% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Via Virginia Postrel, who is apparently way more logical than I.

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Laurie David is all over the news.

Wow. Where does one start with this? She concedes that she's "confrontational" with respect to others' eco-crimes, but when presented with her own, she explains it all away: "Everybody has to strike their own balance between how they want to live and how they can reduce their impact." Everybody, that is, who can afford to drive a hybrid.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As far as I'm concerned, the day was a success: I scaled back on my emotional commitment, and got through the entire event without going off on anyone.

B. is concerned that our group didn't appear to make as much money this year as we did last year. I don't know whether that's true, though: when one takes into account the fact that neither he nor I subsidized the event in the way we did last year, I think we did just fine. After all, part of the point of throwing this annual party is to be of service, and show people—especially "creative types"—how to run businesses in a sober fashion.

I. didn't follow through on her commitment to handle the food, so it would have been an utter disaster if I'd counted on her—or if I'd been more than my requisite 15 minutes late. As it was, there were just enough of us to make the event successful. We could have used one more pair of hands (though not the perfectionistic gal with the catering background), yet we pulled it off.

And now I'm blogging and dozing and getting ready to go back to work tomorrow.

Life works better when one follows through, but doesn't over-invest. I've been telling people all about that for several years now, so it's rather delightful to learn how to do it myself.

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Well, I got through the day yesterday without freaking out: mostly, I did it by imposing on my mother. I crashed at her place on Friday night so I could get some stuff done in the office where I do my nonprofit work, and she fed me oatmeal and tea on Saturday morning before I washed up, changed clothes, and went in for Meeting Day.

I knew I'd be receiving some [well-deserved] criticism at the Board for some of the paid work I do for them, but I also came under [undeserved] fire afterward for the volunteer side of my activities there. And I handled both just fine. In the first case, I admitted to the problem ("yes, I do have a tendancy to misplace receipts—which I must stop doing"), and in the second case, I was feisty-but-ultimately-accommodating ("I'm sorry you don't find our system for doing this convenient, but we are a volunteer-run organization. Here's my contact information; sometimes we can very likely find a way to make things easier for you, but I'm not promising anything.")

Today will be even harder, but B. removed me from the food committee and instead had me negotiate a better rate for the room we'll be using. So my role in setting up today's event will be more on the support side, which suits me fine. I haul the supplies in. I help with the setup. I put out fires. I avoid taking control, and I don't let myself get so wound up that I snap at anyone.

(Last year, I didn't go off until the event was over, and it was because two cops saw me loading supplies into my car, which was parked in the handicapped zone. We exchanged eye contact, and I figured they were going to give me five minutes to finish loading the organization's stuff. But when I came back out with my arms full of supplies, they were ticketing my car. We had a rather spirited discussion in which a friend of mine tried to intervene on my behalf, and I eventually told her loudly that it was no use trying to get them to change their minds, since both cops were "assholes." Thirty years ago, that might have got me arrested. This time, I hope it gave them some pause about how they are getting along with the community they supposedly "serve.")

And there's an event next weekend, too. May can't come fast enough.

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We're shopping for a car, and I'm behind on my pages for the Arizona mystery. See you tomorrow (or whenever)!

The house recommends: The cotillion blogroll on my sidebar.

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