Rolling Stone, which is one of my all-time favorite magazines, says it won’t carry an ad for a new version of the Bible being published by HarperCollins. The ad would have pictured a man gazing at the sky and these words:

“In a world of almost endless media noise and political spin, you wonder where you can find real truth. Well, now there's a source that's accurate, clear and reliable. It's the TNIV -- Today's New International Version of the Bible. It's written in today's language, for today's times -- and it makes more sense than ever.“

I’m sure Rolling Stone’s decision had to do with its overall format. An issue of Rolling Stone typically runs ads for new music, technology, fashion and adult products, among other things. So how would an ad for a Bible fit Rolling Stone?

Music is described by many people as a nearly religious experience. It is ecstatic and passionate and even at times inspires questions of belief. Many artists in their music and as they are quoted in Rolling Stone do make references to God, spirituality, faith, biblical texts and so on.

Such an ad would simply show a product to people who may very well want to know more about the Bible. It’s not proselytizing. It’s just an idea. Rolling Stone, in its vocabulary and subjects, has long been on the forefront of free expression. This, however, is a step backward.

Art and music often enough bring up questions of faith. They’re just questions, and attempts to address those questions should not be censored. I am disappointed that Rolling Stone won’t run this ad.

--E.K.

BUSH AND FIRST WIFEY TODAY IN CHURCH (FOR A CHANGE). DO THEY LOOK JUST A LITTLE OVERSTRESSED?

--E.K.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

--Pericles, 430 B.C.

Reaches out to ruin George W. Bush's inauguration.

Update: Although this is not Indiana Jones level biblical wreaking, it at least qualifies as a sign from God.

Last week Slate's Charles Pierce wasted nearly 1200 words ripping the career and retirement of Michael Jordan.  Why were his words a waste?  Because the real story of the NBA is turning out to be the Chicago Bulls.  Not a misprint, the Bulls.  The young team from the West Side started out the season a pathetic 0-9.  But once they started winning, they started winning.  They are now 17-18.  That's 17-9 in their last 25 games.  They won their seventh in a row this evening in Madison Square Garden.  That makes them the hottest team in the NBA.

And not a moment too soon.  The secret?  Like the Bulls of old, it is defense and plenty of it.  The Bulls lead the league in opponent's field goal percentage and haven't given up 100 for 21 games.

“We're a good team” remarked Bulls' point guard and new star Kirk Hinrich.  This Chicagoan hopes it continues.

During the Watergate scandal, the two reporters at the center of the storm, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein coined a term for any Administration denial of facts which did not come out and say the story was abjectly false: the “Non-denial denial.”  When you get one of these in response to a story, you know you are on to something.

Case in point--Sy Hersh's new piece in the New Yorker magazine which claims that U.S. Special Forces have been operating within Iran in preparation for taking out Iranian nuclear production facilities.  Our old buddy Larry DiRita, who last graced the Iron Mouth during the Al Qaa Qaa scandal responded today to Hersh's piece:

Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said.

Hersh reported that President Bush (news - web sites) had signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces military units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

DiRita did not comment on that assertion.

Instead, he said, Hersh's sources fed him "rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist and statements by officials that were never made."

Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

Looks like it will be a long three years before the impeachment proceedings.

The European Space Agency has just announced that its Huygens probe has landed on the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and was still transmitting at least two hours after landing.  This means that it landed on dry land and was not destroyed on landing or by Titan's atmosphere. 

Follow more here and here.

Scientists confirm that any life on Titan is liable to be smarter than George W. Bush.

Really?

During a round-table interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, Bush acknowledged that his tough language "had an unintended consequence."

“Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Recalling that remark, Bush said Thursday: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it” 

No shit.

Dear Tony:

I see that the Bush Administration refuses to foot the bill for security and other parts of Bush's own inauguration.  Now I know that you must provide security for everyone--you can't protest by skimping on that.  But they also want you to spend $3 million on reviewing stands.  I sure think it would be funny if all of those Republican bigwigs had to stand on the sidewalk like the rest of us little people.

Sincerely,

The Iron Mouth

From the Comments section of Grammar Police, J. Scott Barnard offers up a terrifying view of moral ambivalence in a discussion of the “Death Squads“ option now being put on the table by the Pentagon: 

Negroponte is a hero of the Americas for his contributions in the struggle against murderous marxists. And if his contributions against terrorists are as effective, we'll all be safer because of his involvement in the middleeast.

I don't want to live in a world where communists who murder Mosqito indians indiscriminately or islamists who blow up men standing in line for a job are coddled by guilt-ridden liberals from the security of their desktops.

Negroponte. American Hero.

I reply with a rant:

J. Scott: I see you read Instapundit. Iran-Contra has everything to do with it. First off, the background briefer was the person connecting El Salvador to the new plans being thrown around.

As I'm sure you know, the death-squads program operated in both Honduras and El Salvador. Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras during this period. Honduras was where the Contras were being trained and where the money from Iran-Contra was going.

The problem with the program is that it doesn't work and pours gasoline on the fire. As we have already seen, locals "informing" on suspected insurgents in both Afghanistan and Iraq have used the U.S. military as an unwitting tool of revenge against people they don't like. Nothing will increase this problem like a Phoenix Project-style assassination squad program designed to eliminate suspected insurgents in Iraq.

Needless to say this doesn't help us combat what the Iraqi Interior Minister described this week as a 40,000 strong insurgency supported by 160,000 helpers, not to mention the many tens of thousands of others who look the other way.

Like all moral questions, at bottom it isn't in our interest to behave like the terrorists who attack Americans and Iraqis. This is exactly what they want: moral equivalence between themselves and the Americans. Then the argument gets real simple for them: "We may use bad methods, but so do they and they are foreign devils." We can't win against that argument. Ever. And if we don't have the support of the populace in Iraq, we cannot win. For all of your yapping about "guilt-ridden liberals," you fail to ask the first question needed: Will this work? The answer, of course, is no.

Finally, however we have to ask ourselves: Is it morally right to engage in torture and semi-random killing in order to reach our goals? Are we to be completely unmoored from our own values in order to subjugate another country? At some point, we must either acknowledge and follow our professed values or frankly admit that they are no longer the principles we follow.

Conservatism used to provide the country with important moral reminders about the fact that our exercise of power at home and abroad must be tempered with a thorough understanding of how good intentions can result in a human disaster. Now it merely consists of Liddy-style posturing to soothe the anxieties of those who dislike change and bad news.

I see now that J. Scott is heaping more effusive praise on the masthead of his blog, Burton Terrace.

Here they come, the parade of former Republican Hawks who are now saying that the war is unwinnable: 

Start with one Andrew Sullivan, who heaped bile and scorn on those of us who opposed the war from the start.  Now Andrew is posting snippets from Stratfor, (Subscription) “Your Source For Actionable Intelligence” which now tell us that the war is lost.

According to Andrew:

We have to hope and pray that a democratic miracle really will emerge. There have been darknesses before dawn in history before. And then there have just been darknesses.

Try “I was wrong.“  Works a lot better than the Lord of the Rings speech.

Following Andrew is Rep. Howard Coble, a former GOP hawk, now calling for a pullout:

Coble voted to grant Bush the sweeping war-making powers believing that the administration had a "post-invasion strategy." Apparently, there was none, he said.

"If there was, I wish someone would tell me what it is or show it to me," he said. "I'd like to see it."

Coble said that if he had known there was no post-invasion strategy at the time of the vote on the war-powers resolution he would have "insisted that we keep our powder dry while we do some probing and planning."

Coble said he simply assumed that the administration had a post-invasion plan.

Isn't it the place of pundits like Sullivan and Congressmen like Coble to ask the right questions before the war?  Guess not.

Death Squads.  That's right, Rumsfeld's newest solution to the Iraq problem are “Salvadoran“ style death squads.  Crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theories from nutjob leftist websites?  No, its straight from Pentagon background briefers to the pages of Newsweek:

[O]ne Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

Desperation at work.  The Phoenix Project, redux.  That program really worked well as well.

I'd start setting up the cameras pointing at the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad right now for the shot of the last U.S. helicopter out.

From blogger The Conservative Cajun:

I've never been afraid to admit when I've misjudged or have been wrong about a situation, and the Iraq War is no different. Now, I'm not saying I was wrong about going there in the first place. We needed to take out Saddam Hussein, and we did. We needed to take out his barbaric and disgusting sons, and we did. We needed to go in there and eliminate any current WMD program. I believed that Saddam did have an existing WMD program, so did Bush, so did Clinton, so did Tony Blair and Putin. Who really knows if I, and the other mentioned men, we wrong? Who's to say Saddam didn't destroy the programs or move some across the border during the build up to the war?

Whose to say?  Everyone in touch with reality.