“The International Bible Society said Monday that America’s best-selling modern Bible is about to get an update using gender-neutral wording, despite past criticism of that idea from conservatives,” Newsday reports. “The revision will be called ‘Today’s New International Version,’ or TNIV. The original ‘New International Version,’ which has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide since 1978, will remain on the market. The New Testament of the latest version goes

Matt Drudge reports: “Fed up with having his picture taken during events in the Justice Department’s Great Hall in front of semi-nude statues, Attorney General John Ashcroft has reportedly ordered massive draperies to conceal the offending figures — which have been displayed since the 1930s!” The draperies themselves, according to ABCNEWS.com’s Beverly Lumpkin, cost just over $8000.00, and are designed to cover the Spirit of Justice’s enormous aluminum breast —

If you live in the San Joaquin Valley, “You might not be able to light the yule log in your fireplace next Christmas,” The Modesto Bee reports. Reached for comment at his home in the North Pole, Santa Claus said, “Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this silliness. In fact, I’ve always found the visibility over Bakersfield quite satisfactory.”

“The great political affliction of the 20th century,” notes Thomas Sowell in a recent colum, “was putting abstractions ahead of flesh-and-blood human beings, especially in ideological totalitarian states under Nazism and Communism.” Yet even today, Sowell opines, there are large and growing numbers of people — especially among the intelligentsia — whose starting point is some abstraction that they wish to apply to reality. For example, even in the face

“Detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been caught hiding stones in their cages for possible use as weapons against military guards, senior US army officers have revealed. “The details of the potential dangers presented by the captives further undermined the position of Gen Colin Powell, the secretary of state, who has argued that they should be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention,” The Telegraph

“The General Accounting Office plans to file a lawsuit this week if the White House doesn’t provide information about Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings with energy industry executives,” Newsday is reporting. “The suit, which would seek to force Cheney to provide details about his energy task force, would be the first legal action of its kind between the legislative and executive branches of government. The ultimatum comes as lawmakers seek

I love that actor/comedian Larry Miller is writing hawkish columns for The Weekly Standard. I haven’t a clue why this pleases me so much, and yet I feel so at peace. Here’s a bit from his latest column, “Won’t You Come Home, John Walker?”: Of course, many Americans on the call-in shows are rationalizing what he did. One mental giant reflected, ‘Let’s not judge him too quickly. I did some

In an interesting (political) analysis of the Enron fallout, The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber argues that any campaign finance reform that doesn’t take into account lobbying practices is destined to fail: John McCain, for one, seems well aware of the role of lobbyists in corrupting the political system. On the campaign trail in 2000 the Arizona senator was fond of promising to ‘break the iron triangle of big money, lobbyists

US News and World Reports’ Michael Barone, using the recent “missing lynx*” controversy as his starting point, examines the questionable way some in the media cover environmental stories: The story about the lynx hair fakery was broken in the conservative-leaning Washington Times,** and stories on the subject appeared in the Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., the Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., and the Christian Science Monitor. A

“It’s a bankruptcy of mammoth proportions. Thousands of people could see their life savings wiped out, hundreds of thousands will feel the pain, and tens of millions will have their lives seriously affected.” “Of course,” David Brooks quips in The Weekly Standard, “I’m talking about Kmart’s decision to file Chapter 11.” In “Requiem for a Blue Light,” Brooks argues that, while the Enron story is “interesting,” it is but “a