When public services aren't

The National Archives has been hosting censorship for years, with previously declassified documents getting pulled off the shelves, the Associated Press reports. Even worse than the censorship of previously "open" documents is the fact that the National Archives agreed to keep the censorship quiet -- to the point that the agency won't even say which OGAs, other government agencies, are pushing for this:

"It is in the interest of both (unnamed agency) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to avoid the attention and researcher complaints that may arise from removing material that has already been available publicly from the open shelves for extended periods of time," the agreement said.

And clearly, these are relevant, current threats to national security:

The number of documents that have been removed from public view has soared since President Bush took office in 2001 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred. The reclassified documents, which include 55,000 pages within 10,000 documents, deal with subjects ranging from information about 1948 anti-American riots in Colombia to a 1962 telegram containing a translation of a Belgrade news article about China's nuclear capabilities.

In other news, found by a brother-in-law, one public service quit being quite so public after a church decided to discriminate in its social-service agency -- and now is complaining about budget shortfalls because they're not getting additional clients that would bring in more public money. This blog post offers commentary on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune story about a person with a sex-change operation. The church didn't lovingly see her as a sinner in need of support:

What she has done, Maxfield said, runs totally "contrary to God's revealed will."