Say what you want about Halley’s comments on “girlism,” they sure hit the mark in describing our 17-year-old daughter: She assumes the truths of feminism but is totally into being a girl.

From Betty Friedan to Buffy the Vampire Slayer…

For what others are saying about “girlism,” you can jump into a blogthread here where you’ll find Shelley Powers, Mike Golby and Jeneane “NY Times” Sessum engaged in a discussion of Halley’s original post … a discussion as difficult as its topic deserves.

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“What would Jesus drive?“?? While I like to see the religiously-motivated jump in on the right side of the environment debate (and can someone remind me why we have to debate this at all), this phrase smacks of the Offensiveness of Marketing we’ve come to take for granted. So…

Top Ten Questions Not to Ask Jesus:

1. How many clowns would have to come out of the car before Jesus would say “How the heck do they do that?”

2. Can we assume that Jesus’ favorite Beatle is the one that dies last?

3. If Jesus were still a carpenter, would He measure twice and cut once or just go ahead and cut?

4, How long could Jesus stay married to JLo?

5. If Jesus were dieting, would he cheat on his birthday?

6. Who would be Jesus’ favorite post-WWII US president (besides Jimmy Carter, of course)?

7. If Jesus were gay — not that He is, of course. I’m just asking if — which of the N’Sync guys would He find the hottest?

8. If Jesus and Superman fought, who would win?

9. What would Jesus choose as His PIN?

10. Mac or Linux?

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Prime Minister Chrétien has publicly announced that in his opinion Bush is not a moron.

We will report the results of the poll as other world leaders weigh in.

[Thanks to Gary Laughing Stock for the link.]

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We have confirmation.

I blogged about the difficulty of learning from history, prompting some people to contribute relevant quotations to the blog discussion:

“History teaches us that man learns nothing from history” (Hegel, contributed by JLaw)

“Large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must.” (Thucydides, contributed by Vergil Iliescu)

And today’s Boston Globe reports that Bush is lecturing our European allies about what we should have learned from the policy of appeasement, leaving out the small disanalogy that Hitler was breaking off bits of Europe one at a time whereas Hussein has been successfully contained ever since the Gulf War. Appeasement doesn’t apply here.

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The new satiric newsletter from Hank Blakely is out. As always, I like his weekly sends announcing the new issue. In this one, for example, he writes:

We have nothing to fear but fear itself, which, it turns out, is more than sufficient…

And from the It’s Not Supposed to Be Funny, It’s Just Easier to Laugh than Shit Your Pants in Fear Dept. comes this quote from W as reported in the new Woodward book:

“I do not need to explain why I say things. — That’s the interesting thing about being the President. — Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

(Thanks to Michael Finley for passing along this link to Xanga.)

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Vergial Iliescu points us to an interactive Flash (i.e., move your damn mouse) that features pointless but amusing morphings and the like:

http://www.foulds2000.freeserve.co.uk/bushv6.htm

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David Stephenson has an op-ed in Government Computer News about what the Homeland Security web site could learn from Amazon and eBay.

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The US Senate is going to pass the Homeland Security Bill today unless there is an outpouring of protest. This is a hideous bill that will make civil liberties feel like a thing of the past. CALL YOUR SENATOR THIS MORNING!

(Senator Kennedy’s office says they’re getting lots of calls this morning. Good!)

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I’ve just installed StumbleUpon.com, a tool bar that lets your rate pages and see pages others like you have enjoyed. I gave it some minimal information about the subjects I’m interested in, and the very first page it recommended was Common Dreams, a site Jock Gill (technologist, activist and photographer extraordinaire) had recommended to me last night. Common Dreams’ tagline describes it well:

Breaing News and Views for the Progressive Community

Here are its headlines this morning:

Baghdad Warns That a US Strike Will Lead It To Hit Back at Israel…

Pelosi Vows to Back Bush if War Comes with Iraq…

‘Green Pope’ Warns of Worldwide Catastrophe Over New Gulf War…

Californian Women Strip for Peace…

Jimmy Carter Slams ‘Arrogant’ US Foreign Policy…

Big Write-In Vote for Massachusetts Anti-War Activist…

US May Punish Colombia Air Force…

The commentary looks lively also. So, so far StumbleUpon is one for one. I’ll write a better report on it after I’ve been using it for more than 5 minutes…

By the way, I only installed if after being personally assured by the service’s Garrett Camp that:

The only information we collect is the URL and associated rating when you click bad, good or great. The history of sites you have stumbled upon is also recorded, but only on the client so we don’t show you the same sites twice. Even though you can remain an anonymous user if you wish, you can enter you name and website on the “Your info” page so that you can bring traffic to your homepage. If you wind up the first rater for alot of good sites, a significant number of people will end up looking at your profile and visiting your website. Best of all, they will be people who like what you do, so its one of the best ways to get like-minded people reading your blog.

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With regard to the photo of Bush and the lens caps, Jim Winstead writes:

don’t dismiss it as a fake quite so quickly (snopes certainly didn’t call it a fake — just a possible fake). i contacted contact press images (from the credit at the bottom of the photo) via [email protected], and a jeffrey there replied that the photo was indeed legit.

but as snopes points out, it’s a pretty trivial thing. (i’ve forwarded the confirmation on to them. hopefully they’ll work their magic to confirm it beyond my simple email to the public contact address.)

(wired also has a related article about the increase of faked photos here.)

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