ET CETERAS.

There will always be an England n British Prime Minister Tony Blair is soon expected to call elections. To energize working-class Labor Party members, he introduced a bill banning fox hunting with hounds, a leisure-time activity of the gentry, indeed, of the queen herself. The measure, long supported by the Left and animal-rights groups, will give an air of class struggle to the campaign. The House of Commons passed the measure 387-174; it will go to the House of Lords where there will be fierce but meaningless debate since the Lords can no longer veto legislation.

A blue-ribbon commission, in examining claims that hunting helped control an oversized fox population, found that--according to a report in the Washington Post (January 18)--"hunting with hounds is the cruelest of all control mechanisms....After noting that packs of dogs chase the fox until it drops from exhaustion and then rip the animal apart limb by limb, the commission concluded that 'this experience seriously compromises the welfare of the fox.'" The legislation also bans hunting rabbits, deer, and mink with hounds.

Apparently there will always be an England, class struggle, and Reynard the Fox and Peter Rabbit too.

Hot or not? * "How hot am I?" If you've ever asked yourself that question, here's a Web site for you: www.AmIHotOrNot.com. You can upload pictures of yourself and be rated by visitors to the site. When the home page appears you are greeted with an image of a man or a woman underneath a beauty ballot. Your attractiveness will be rated on a scale of one to ten--ten for hot, one for not. A plea beneath the photo reads "Please help keep this site fun, clean, and real."

AmIHot.com, a similar site, has personal ads with each photo. One member lists among her hobbies "drinking/getting drunk," "wrestling," and "building sand castles." What a woman.

The site has inspired copycats of several varieties. AmIGeekOrNot.com asks "How much of a geek are you? Submit your picture and find out!" Others range from political satire ("Am I President or not?") to the philosophical ("Am I an existentialist or not?"). Some, like "Am I capable of understanding basic logic or not?" are nasty--a Bush/Cheney campaign poster is the first image you see--while others are plain bizarre ("Am I interested in weather shielding for my brickwork or not?"). Even nihilists can find a home in cyberspace at the Web site "Am I not or not?"

AmICatholicOrNot.com hasn't yet emerged. Sources close to the curia claim the Vatican is in talks with AOL/Time Warner to develop a site. In the coming months, look for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to issue norms for a Catholic Internet rating system, tentatively titled Ex corde Webesiae.