Maybe I'll have to re-take the test to get the results I want:

Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading

You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. You understand people better than they would like to be understood. Highly sensitive, you are good at putting together seemingly irrelevant details. You figure out what's going on before anyone knows that anything is going on! Why you would be a good superhero: You don't care what people think, and you'd do whatever needed to be done Your biggest problem as a superhero: Feeling even more isolated than you do now

'Cause let's face it: I can practically read minds as it is. Nothing very exotic about that.

Via Zoey, who gets to have electrical superpowers. I have those too, if you count what happens when I walk on the carpet too much, wearing the wrong shoes.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 163 words, total size 2 kb.

Yay!

I'd like to live on a farm, too. But not if I had to work on it when I wasn't in the mood. I'm afraid that my attention span makes it difficult even to look after house plants.

We should move onto someone else's farm, and be the writers-in-residence. I'll cook and do the laundry and stay up at night scrubbing the bathtubs.

I do want a horse, though. Maybe just one of those dog-size horses. When we lived in those other hills (the more suburban ones, without all the wildlife) in Glendale, one of the neighbors had a little horse, and used to walk it along with the dog.

I understand that it might be difficult to look after a horse in the condo, but certainly where there's a will, there's a way.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:21 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 145 words, total size 1 kb.

Has all her LOL Pet pix in one place, for handy reference.

I don't usually go for anything cute, but LOL Animals are a guilty pleasure of mine, like Mary Engelbreit's artwork. Just can't help it.

Back to Rachel; love her, love her, love her. She's yang to my yin, and she likes guns. And dogs. So she's perfect, except that neither of her dogs is a pit bull. (Of course, none of my dogs are pit bulls either, but that's because they don't exist. Naturally, I claim the mom's Mandy as my own when she is behaving. When she is naughty, she instantly and miraculously becomes my mother's exclusively. Isn't that odd?)

And this kind of thing happens more than, ahem, one might think:

I began to wail like a little baby and actually slumped to the floor on my knees in despair. I just want my fucking sunglasses! Is that too much to ask, God?! Heeeeelllpppp meeeeee!!!!
This brought the dogs nearby, wondering why Human was on the floor screaming. They both came sidling up, wagging their tails comfortingly, and sniffed my head. Sunny gave me a lick on my cheek and Maggie smashed her body up against me as though to be my rock. I sobbed out loud to them something like, “Sweet girls, sweet sweet girls, I wish you could sniff out sunglasses God has hidden from me as punishment for being a heathen.” They stared at me in confusion.

At that moment, I finally decided to just get my shit together and go, even without sunglasses. So I stood up and went to the bathroom to blow my nose. I looked in the mirror at the same time I reached up to my eyes to wipe tears away.

I saw the sunglasses on my face just as my fingers smashed up against them instead of my eye.

That shit is a sign of genius, yo.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 324 words, total size 2 kb.

I forgot to link to the John Hawkins interview with Carol Platt-Liebau a few days ago, but here it is. Her book is entitled Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!). The Anchoress discusses the book, quotes excerpts from the interview, and talks about what Platt-Liebau calls "do-me feminism."

I don't know exactly how to a take the ultra-pro-chastity lobby; they obviously have their points, but it's hard not to see their beliefs as part of the sexual double standard. I mean, I do get that the sexes aren't "equal" as regards sex, and never will be. After all—

- men don't get pregnant;
- men aren't as suceptible to STDs from women as women are to STDs from men;
- it is a simple matter for a woman to satisfy a man, and—relatively speaking—a challenge for a man to satisfy a woman;
- there really isn't much for a woman in casual sex. That is, there is even less for a woman in same than for a man.

On the other hand, I'm not too excited about the double standard, and the idea that woman are somehow "polluted" by sex in a way that men are not. There is that silly notion out there that a woman who has a lot of sex is a "slut," but that a man who is sexually weak is actually . . . strong. As I understand it, this idea was constructed by . . . oh, right. By men.

After all, men aren't "slutty." They are "virile."

I don't mind the fact that teenage girls are told that one might as well wait a bit for sex, just as one might wait a bit to tackle Russian novels. And the sex-saturated culture of the 1970s was downright abusive. What I don't like, however, is that one is very seldom told what a genuinely sober, thoughtful approach to long-term human sexuality is. Most SoCons seem more concerned with the notion of what it isn't.

It is as if one were told to avoid to the quicksand, but not how to ascend to the mountaintop. And the mountaintop is shrouded in mist, nearly invisible. Those who haven't seen it wave their hands and assure you that it's there. Those who have seen it simply tell you to "follow the signs." But the signs were destroyed by storms long ago; those of us who want to reach the peak are navigating by feeling around for moss on tree trunks, tracking the sun, and leaving Boy Scout-style landmarks for ourselves, so we'll know where we've already been.

There is no map; only a list of "must-nots." And a lot of second-hand testimony about long-term bliss that no one has actually seen, but everyone assures you exists.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 471 words, total size 3 kb.

there's fire. But not the converse.

Right now there isn't any smoke out in the hills, so I'm assuming things are somewhat contained in Sierra Madre.

But it's ninety degrees out there, and there's a bit of a wind. Bad combo, so please be careful with those cigarettes, okay?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 61 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . Jeff G. decided to show up for work today.

(Oh, for Pete's sake, people. No, rape isn't funny, but white guilt can be hilarious. And these days those who think black men are more sexual than white men—or better in bed, or whatnot—don't know very many men of any race.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 63 words, total size 1 kb.

found a cute regionalist "analysis" by Newsweek's Michael Hirsh (Stacy M's scare quotes—but they fit) that explains how Americans have been moving South and West, and this has been a Bad Thing. Because Southerners are bad. And Westerners are . . . well, Westerners don't really exist. Beyond the Continental Divide, there be monsters.

Because if one were to actually include the Southwest in extrapolating from these demographic trends, one might be forced to look at the ultimate Southwestern "state"—Southern California.

Which is not "red" at all, conservative Orange County and mixed/centrist San Diego notwithstanding. The three "Californias" are, top-to-bottom, blue, red (central California, where our agriculture is, along with a lot of our small towns), and blue.

Though those who maintain that California will never again get "into play" should look at the careers of our current governor, as well as Richard Riordan, L.A.'s mayor not too long ago. (Riordan was the first Republican I ever voted for.)

The entire Newsweek piece smacks of East Coast jingoism, and includes this choice bit of self-parody: "We have become an intolerant nation, and that's what gets you elected."

And Hirsh knows his intolerance. But he shouldn't be writing for Newsweek; he should be writing for The Onion.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 216 words, total size 2 kb.

Via Insty. I love this sort of thing. Actually, the solution to being creative in the kitchen seems to be finding either the right cookin' music on iTunes, or hanging out with the kind of people who like to talk to you while you cook. Some people have tiny televisions in their kitchens, and watch old movies while they make soup: I'll bet that works, too.

Also, on Sunday nights I'll sometimes make a sign for the fridge door (or use a tiny whiteboard) to list what the very best leftovers are, so we'll remember to have them for lunch that week ("Beef ravioli in the round container, first shelf!" "Stroganoff, blue container, second shelf!")

I still think the better solution to rising world food shortages is to use algae and switchgrass for our biofuels, and turn the world on to democracy / free markets, but in the meantime we can refrain from hoarding food, and experiment with cheap eating (I do this every several years, and since every time I look at Ralph's it costs me $100, it might be time to re-examine it).

The cheap food thread discusses Ramen a lot. The fact is, I simply cannot buy the cheapest brands of Ramen: I get "oriental" flavored stuff in the Asian-foods section, and it costs a lot more—like 50-75 cents a package. I also add chili-garlic paste to it, and a bit of sesame oil. At that point it's ready, though I sometimes look through the refrigerator for other leftovers to put on top: it's great for stray bits of veggies.

The second bowl in that batch of Ramen gets placed in the fridge, and eaten the next day. By then the noodles are fatter and there's less liquid. So it seems to want to be spiked with another dose of sesame oil by then.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 319 words, total size 2 kb.

This one on the insanity with which we are approaching biofuels, which should be a straightforward matter (not simple—but straightforward):

The problem with ethanol is a government-subsidy problem, and a trade-barrier problem. It's not a problem with ethanol itself. Make it out of something other than food, and lower the barrier to Brazilian ethanol imports, and it would help our current situation a lot. We're not doing that because of farm-subsidy politics. The problem is, basically, the Iowa caucuses and the pandering that results. But simply bashing all biofuels uncritically is dumb.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the new farm bill demonstrates that Congress is dumber:

We have a program that makes us overpay for sugar, and now we're going to start a new program to subsidize the ethanol we create from it — because without the subsidy, the inflated sugar price we've created will make the ethanol unprofitable.

Upside: Everybody involved has an incentive to pay off some Senators.

Well, now, let's be fair: biofuels are too important to leave pricing up to the market.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:36 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 190 words, total size 1 kb.

Glenn Reynolds has a pic up of a pretty creature; I'm pretty sure it's a Pittie. Check it out!

They are always smiling, and their tails are always wagging. Pitties are the best.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.

We're moving in a month, and I still have to:

(1) Catch up on laundry. (I sucked it up and got the washer fixed yesterday morning—it took the repair guy three minutes to figure out what was wrong, whereas I would have spent seven hours on it).

(2) Check on flooring costs tomorrow (I have a bad feeling about this, but I shall forge ahead. Yesterday I told my husband that my mother recommends we keep the existing carpeting, and simply have it cleaned despite the rust stains and the mold. "But it makes you sick," A the H reminded me.

"Maybe it's psycho-somatic," I remarked. "My mother didn't notice it."

"Your mother doesn't have allergies," he replied. "Also, you lied to her about the fungal content of the carpet, because you didn't want her going into some kind of 'black mold psychosis' on you."

"Oh, right." I was over there this morning, and, sure enough: I was on the verge of sneezing the entire time. And all methods of carpet cleaning on-site involve water, which does not cut down on mold and mildew.)

(3) Pick out a new headboard for the bed / television / entertainment center, and some of that "6-12 months down the line" furniture: smaller bedside tables, new entertainment center, a room divider for my study area.

Every cent we have right now should go into food, moving, and the essential elements of the condo revamp.

So with any luck I'll have something interesting and witty to say in the morning. Right now, I'm headed to the all-night drugstore to find out what sorts of deals are available on OTC antihistamines.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:29 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 283 words, total size 2 kb.

is watchin' TV so I don't have to. (Actually, I couldn't bear more than 15-20 seconds of most of these clips, even if my computer were in the mood to let me have any more, which it isn't).

I'm a bit torn on The View. Partly, I'm gratified and surprised that there is one classical liberal / libertarian / center-right voice on that show. Partly, I'm disappointed to see yet another roundtable with one! count them! one! conservative voice; shades of the Sunday political talk shows with a cast of thousands of liberals—but also, George Will!

Actually, the few times I've seen that show, I've liked Goldberg, even though I don't agree with her very much. I haven't liked her as an Oscar host at all, but I dig nearly everything else she does.

And I know everyone is going to get mad at me, but that scene in The Player that has her twirling a tampon around in the Pasadena PD office? Fucking genius.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 175 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . Sends the following snippet of Stevie Smith's poetry:

I long for the Person from Porlock
To bring my thoughts to an end,
I am becoming impatient to see him
I think of him as a friend,

Often I look out of the window
Often I run to the gate
I think, He will come this evening,
I think it is rather late.

I am hungry to be interrupted
For ever and ever amen
O Person from Porlock come quickly
And bring my thoughts to an end.

Personally, I have the Internet from Porlock, though I hear the Television Show from Porlock is also popular.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:20 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

1 ;-) American Porlock! My Name is Porlock! CSI: Porlock! Law and Porlock! Two and a Half Porlocks! ooh, something shiny! it's so porlocky!

Posted by: Rin at April 24, 2008 05:31 PM (pzH6j)

2 Editor/English majors are so weird! And you make fun of engineers? Porlock is a quiet coastal village in Somerset, England, situated in a deep hollow below Exmoor, five miles west of Minehead. The Person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge who called by during his composition of the oriental poem Kubla Khan Humor? Or does it involve shaving the pubes again?

Posted by: Darrell at April 24, 2008 09:19 PM (o2iua)

3 ^s...Editors!

Posted by: Darrell at April 24, 2008 09:21 PM (o2iua)

4 D, you must remember that engineers are weird, whereas English lit types are merely . . . eccentric. Now that you've mentioned The Poem by name, I shall spend the rest of the night wondering how much of it I can recite by memory. Oddly, it's easier than "The Highwayman" or "The Kubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," because it changes tempo midway, but I think I only have 90% of it these days. Maybe 80%. But my favorite part is right after the damsel with the dulcimer. Weave a circle 'round me thrice, And close your eyes in holy dread, For I on honeydew have fed, And drunk the milk of . . . Hey! It's SWEEPS WEEK!

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 24, 2008 09:35 PM (Hgnbj)

5 "Hey! It's SWEEPS WEEK!" After the pube shaving/trimming? Everything is funnier after a few G&Ts, isn't it?

Posted by: Darrell at April 24, 2008 09:55 PM (o2iua)

6 I think I get it, btw. A cheap attempt at making your poem a classic? "Dark and stormy night" stuff?

Posted by: Darrell at April 24, 2008 09:56 PM (o2iua)

7 I will have you know that one of the best books of all time, A Wrinkle in Time, begins with what Madeleine L'Engle calls "that old war horse." And, you know: it's always a dark and stormy night in the soul of a drama queen.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 24, 2008 11:08 PM (Hgnbj)

8 Please note not only Rin's allusions to various television titles, but also her "something shiny" reference to the ADD personality/culture. Gotta go. I'm composing a brilliant poem entitled "The Love Song of J. Alfred Porlock.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 25, 2008 12:31 AM (Hgnbj)

9 I have measured out my life in interruptions. ps, why is Darrell so obsessed with your pubes, and with the putative or proleptic shaving thereof?

Posted by: Rin at April 25, 2008 01:19 PM (bSHZa)

10 Worry not; it's a callback to the Playboy thread.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 25, 2008 02:03 PM (Hgnbj)

11 And to the martial arts thread.

Posted by: Darrell at April 25, 2008 09:31 PM (2+qe5)

12 You've been EAVESDROPPING on my flirting with Wendy? I thought that was between her, her husband, me, Matt, Sean, Stacy, and a bottle of clear, high-end, citrus-flavored tequila. Oh--and the World Wide Web. But as I understand it, those people are very discreet, so there's certainly nothing to worry about THERE.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 25, 2008 09:37 PM (Hgnbj)

13 Sorry! Next time hang the "Do NOT Disturb" sign.

Posted by: Darrell at April 25, 2008 10:31 PM (2+qe5)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I've avoided commenting on that case, because it cuts a bit too close to the bone. I was, in fact, in a cult for two and a half years—when I was young. I was underage, in case you were wondering. And, yes: I was sexually abused.

But during the entire I was in that "church," I was a human being. The degree to which I had Fourth Amendment rights can certainly be debated, but the adults around me had Fourth Amendment rights. To see those rights trampled upon up close and personal would have been traumatic, and would have spoiled me forever on the State. I'm not sure that either I or the nominal "adults" in R.L. Hymers' church (those over 1 would ever have recovered, had there been a "raid" on our Christian houses.

Stacy McCain:

A kind of Manichean mindset appears to be affecting perceptions of this case. Some people seem to think it's an either-or proposition, and that we must choose to believe one of two things:

The FLDS are harmless and innocent religious eccentrics whose practices are beyond criticism.

... or ...

The FLDS are vicious and dangerous abusers whose practices justify even the most extreme measures by law enforcement.

In other words, this Manichean approach means that our judgment on the actions of Texas officials is made contingent on our opinions of the FLDS. If we think the FLDS are good, then raiding them is bad, and vice-versa.
I reject that approach. Regardless of whether the FLDS are good or evil, they are human beings who have—what was Jefferson's phrase?—"certain unalienable rights." Our rights are not dependent on our popularity; the fat geek has the same rights as the homecoming queen. And freaky religious cultists have the same rights as boring Methodists.

I believe what he's suggesting is that the Bill of Rights doesn't only apply to people we like.

It is a thought to remember.

ALSO: Dr. Shackleford's bogusness detector has been going off. And rightly so.

(Though of course those boring Unitarians might have fewer rights than the rest of us—that's handled in an appendix to the Bill of Rights that few people read any more.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:09 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 379 words, total size 2 kb.

not very different at all:

Kind of a remote-submission hold. In a way.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 95 words, total size 2 kb.

Strategy Page: Al Qaeda Decapitated in Iraq

April 22, 2008: Between mid-March and mid-April, al Qaeda suffered major losses in Iraq. American and Iraqi troops killed or captured 53 al Qaeda leaders. These include men in charge of entire cities (or portions of large cities like Mosul or Baghdad), as well as men in charge of various aspects of terror operations (making bombs, placing them or minding the bombers). Most important, nine of the ten most senior men involved, were captured, and interrogated. This led to locating more al Qaeda staff, and assets. Hundreds of weapons and explosives caches have been discovered this year, as a result of interrogating captured terrorists. The result has been a sharp fall in suicide bomber attacks, and the ones still carried out are against soft targets (civilians), including the recent funeral of two men earlier killed by terrorists. This was part of an al Qaeda campaign to force Sunni Arabs to switch sides again and support terrorism. But these attacks have the opposite effect, causing more hatred for al Qaeda.

It's almost like the Iraqis want to go to the market without the risk of getting blown up by an IED; what an odd little nation.

VodkaPundit wants to know why it is that "only blogs report these stories," but concedes in his own headline that it's a "dumb question."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 238 words, total size 2 kb.

Glenn Reynolds: "I wish people would make up their minds. I don't know what to wear."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 30 words, total size 1 kb.

Cool. I really dig Patraeus; he's a sharp cookie.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

I wish these freakin' immigrants would assimilate, BTW.

The apparent front-runner has a lot of work to do before he can count on the support of the old-fashioned households who care about guns, values, churches and other keywords and code words that Mrs Clinton can exploit with more conviction than he can.

Continuing with my obsession with a favorite statistic, I note that 17 per cent of Obama voters say that they would prefer John McCain in the general election, and that 12 per cent of them say that they would remain at home rather than vote for Mrs Clinton. No doubt the equivalent figures on the other side are at least as venomous.

And I could not help but notice that Obama’s televised podium of supporters was exclusively white last night in Indiana, whereas his belief that he will win in North Carolina is based almost entirely on his anticipated command of the large “black” vote in that state.

And this will be—always assuming that other voters are predictable and unaffected—his revenge for Pennsylvania.

So really, what is all this about a “post-racial” election? The true venom—racial and social and personal and political—is still to come.

Yeah, well. I doubt that Senator Clinton will be asked to be Obama's VP. Or, should it come down to it, vice versa.

Did I mention that I finished god Is Not Great a few days ago? It was every bit as adorable as I expected it to be, and more seductive. I haven't read every athiest anthem out there, but this is a damn fine one.

Via Hot Air.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:08 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 283 words, total size 2 kb.

Are you sure?

If the target were Hustler, I wouldn't be too upset: after all, it's kind of a degrading magazine, and it makes sex/the human body look gross and ugly. But Playboy and Penthouse? Get real.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:04 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.