It turns out that the Bush administration is moving to reclassify information that has not been classified before. What kind of information? Historical information about how many different kinds of strategic nuclear missles we used to have. For example:

Bush today, very predictably, denounced the federal court ruling that the NSA spying program was unconstitutional, saying:

"This country of ours is at war," Bush said. "And we must give those whose responsibility it is to protect the United States the tools necessary to protect this country in a time of war."

Luckily, I am not flying anytime soon. I was cooking dinner last night, and listening to the news. I hadn't actually been keeping very close track on much of anything in the last few days. So I find out about the people the Brits arrested for plotting to blow up planes.

I never liked Joe Lieberman. I didn't like his positions on most things, and I hated that he supported Bush around the Iraq war. I thought that he liked his job in the Senate too much when he decided to run for Senate at the same time as he was the VP candidate in 2000. Well, I guess he likes his job way more than he likes his party. He lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont and now he is going to run as an independent.

Today, one of my favorite organizations, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (because I love data, if you hadn't figured that out already) came out with an interesting new study. It's worth a look. They looked at the "hotbutton" social issues of our time, such as abortion, stem cell research, and gay marriage. What they found is, in some ways unsurprisingly, that most Americans are pretty middle-of-the-road about those issues.

As you know, I don't comment a whole lot on the gay marriage issue, for a variety of reasons. However, there is an op-ed in todays New York Times by Dan Savage, about the recent court decisions in Washington State and New York, that is just amazing. Salient quotes:

As the events of Israel's war in Lebanon, as well as the US war in Iraq, and interest in Iran and Syria play out, and the rhetoric of "war on terror", or "sectarian violence" get bandied about by just about everyone, it is critically important that we understand something. The major underlying factor in all of this, really, is the conflict for dwindling, but essential resources.

One of the weird things about travelling cross country with someone else that doesn't watch TV is that you hear about the things happening in the world through either brief looks at news on the web, or a background TV in a restaurant or truck stop. The invasion by Israel of Lebanon was hard for me to believe at first. I heard a little snippet at a restaurant last weekend when I was in New Jersey, but I figured I was mis-hearing. It turns out, I wasn't mishearing at all.

I'm sitting in the lobby of the conference hotel, waiting for the action to start. Well, I'm not waiting for the action to start, really, I'm waiting for my organizational compatriot for the Sunday Christian service to meet for lunch and a planning session because one of the three of us got stuck on the other side of the pond, and can't come. So we have to make due. Which will be fine after I finish freaking out.

I've been reading a lot of the blog coverage of the Barak Obama speech, and it's fallout. On the right, is Al Mohler and others, blasting Obama for "secularism with a smile." On the left are people blasting Obama for falling into the right's arguments. Some of us are in the middle. And these are simply manifestations of the deep divisions we have in this country about the role of religion in public life.