A lot of times, yeah. From a Baltimore political family, she probably learned that before she got her driver's license.ETA: Emily, yes, in theory, it's great that everybody gets a voice. I love this and believe in it, but not as much as I used to before going to meetings run by a hippie. We were always late, nobody was too crazy to give half an hour to, and the conservatives think we're punk-ass bitches.

I think Warren was chosen because he HAS moved on issuesm unlike most of the rest of his ilk. He became a vocal and active worker on behalf of AIDS sufferers and took the whole Evangelical movement to task for focusing on things like fighting gay rights rather than on poverty and the environment. Clearly, he is still hard right on a lot of issues, abortion and gay rights among them, but he IS a right-winger who has moved left in some substantial areas.

The thing is, he is still hard right in some incredibly important ways and that's a problem.

Saddleback Church is enormous, though, isn't it? Isn't he already mainstreamed?

I actually met some people who attended Saddleback when I was on the cruise. they were actually very nice people and not crazy or evangelical. In their church, there's a "life sized" screen in the front of the church and they watch the Warren sermon in simulcast. This, to me, kind of defeats the purpose. Might as well stay at home and watch the 700 Club.

I can tell you that Warren *is* considered very liberal by my friends/family who attend a non-denominatal church. Actually, they don't attend the church, they run it. My uncle's ex-wife (who raised me *after* their divorce, and is an example of everything I like about Christianity - the part about love and really doing well unto others), who is a missionary in Africa, comes from a family of pastors. Anyway, I bring it up because though Warren has made some asinine and hateful comparisons about abortion and homosexuality, he's widely regarded as "liberal" because of his stance on global environmental issues and his work against the spreading of AIDS.

I'm an avowed Atheist, and I was honored to serve as Best Person when my cousin Buffy married her wife over Labor Day. I would rather not have the Inauguration (or court proceedings or my money) mention god at all but I realize that most Americans do not feel that way.

We were talking about Neti pots here, right? I just tried one, and it did make my sinuses feel a whole lot better, but I also kept getting some of the salt water dripping down into the back of my throat. Any way to prevent this? I was also getting some (gross font) bloody stuff coming out, but since part of the reason I started using it was that I was getting nosebleeds, I figure that's maybe to be expected.

re: the whitefont, Hil, it's probably traces of previous events.

I'm reading that HBO didn't choose to cut Bishop Robinson's prayer- they were told by the Obama team to cut it. I'm looking for more solid evidence to support this, so far I'm only finding it on blogs. I haven't watched this yet since I'm at work but it should be video of the prayer.

Hil, it took a couple of tries for me to get the neti pot breathing right. If you keep on breathing in and out through your mouth while pouring the water from the pot through your nasal passages, you can pretty much keep the water from going down your throat. It's when I breath in and stop before breathing out (or out, stop, and in) that the water tends to take unwanted paths.

pouring the water from the pot through your nasal passages, you can pretty much keep the water from going down your throat.

Where is it supposed to go?

Also, gah! I'm afraid a neti pot is not in my future.

Hil, you have to get the right angle to hold your head, which is not just to the side, but also sort of -- slightly -- forward, which also avoids getting water in your throat.

It's icky if you get it in your throat, but you can just spit it out. Apparently there's an "advanced" neti pot technique that involves this very thing.