Actually the www caution has been in effect for a long time. The last update was March 8, 2005 and now it's been updated again.
As for the timing of the update; yep, that's interesting.
All the warnings are for overseas, though. Europe is facing a deadline of August 18-20 for getting out of Iraq, but I believe the U.S. was cleared by spiritual authorities last year for "open season" attacks, so I'm still preparing for the August 5-8 window.