I don’t know much about the substance of this rift other than what’s been reported in the papers, but part of this strikes me as strange:

The Southern Baptist Convention voted today to quit the Baptist World Alliance following complaints that some members of the loose, global association had adopted liberal theology and “anti-American” thinking.

I can understand disputes regarding “liberal” versus “conservative” theology. But what’s this about the religious organization being “anti-American”? Exactly where in the Bible are the tenets of “American” Christianity founded? Is Jesus an American? Have I missed something?

James Bamford spills the beans on the President Vice President Cheney’s “undisclosed” location:

[T]he undisclosed location known as Site R, an underground bunker on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border where the Vice President spent much of his time in 2001. Deep under Raven Rock Mountain, Site R “is a secret world of five buildings, each three stories tall, computer filled caverns and a subterranean water reservoir.” It is just 7 miles from Camp David.

The revelation comes in Bamford’s book, A Pretext for War, which looks at the CIA’s recent shortcomings and how it caved in to the administration pressure to go along with the trumped up case for war against Iraq.
An interesting, though not surprising, nugget from Time’s book review:

The Bush hard-liners had long believed that stability could come to the Middle East and Israel � only if Saddam Hussein was overthrown and Iraq converted into a stable democracy. Led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, they were installed at various national-security choke points in the government, and nothing moved without their O.K. Bamford comes very close to stating that the hard-liners were wittingly or unwittingly acting as agents of Israel’s hard-line Likud Party, which believed Israel should operate with impunity in the region and dictate terms to its neighbors. Such a world view, Bamford argues, was simply repotted by the hard-liners into U.S. foreign policy in the early Bush years, with the war in Iraq as its ultimate goal. Bamford asserts that the backgrounds, political philosophies and experiences of many of the hard-liners helped to hardwire the pro-Israel mind-set in the Bush inner circle and suggests that Washington mistook Israel’s interests for its own when it pre-emptively invaded Iraq last year.

One is lead to believe that U.S./Israeli interests are virtually one and the same when you look at the recent American stance during the so-called Mideast peace process.
At any rate, this looks like an interesting book.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture discovers a new “fresh vegetable” to go along with your ketchup: instant salad!
And people wonder why we’re a nation of fatties.

Columnist Paul Krugman offers a not-so-favorable glance at Attorney General John Ashcroft. One of his points:

Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who found the timing a little suspicious yesterday when Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference to announce that the government has been holding a suspect since last November for immigration violations and allegedly having discussions about blowing up a mall.
Funny how that announcement just happened to come the day after the Washington Post reported on the August 1, 2002, torture “may be justified” memo.
I’m not much of a gambler, but I’m betting our Attorney General has a few more terrorist suspects up his sleeve who he’s waiting for just the “right” moment to let us know about.

The Supreme Court dodges a political/constitutional minefield by ruling that a California father did not have standing to challenge the phrase “one nation, under God,” in the Pledge of Allegiance. The decision overturns a Court of Appeals ruling that the phrase is unconstitutional.
I didn’t follow the oral arguments to this case real carefully, and of course the coverage may not have been very thorough. But I don’t recall much discussion at the time the case was heard on whether or not the father had the right to sue. This was a convenient way for the court to avoid taking on the issue.
Interestingly, three–but only three–justices wrote separately to say they thought the phrase was constitutional. We can’t read too much into that, but apparently a five justice majority would have at least considered affirming the lower court’s ruling.