PSoTD

Just curious is there's anything competitive to the Congressional and state legislator contact service Capwiz, particularly that offers the ability to plug into a web site:

Email, fax, or mail constituent letters to elected officials

zip code-to-district matching and legislative data matching, so that constituents can determine online which legislators/members of Congress to contact.

Federal and state vote scorecards and bill Information

I know some have problems with the selection of Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Here's a bit of a surprise: Dr. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will give the formal invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. The good pro-life theologian first met Obama in 2006 at a Saddleback AIDS forum in California. Obama used the occasion to press the evangelical pastors present to embrace "realism" when they considered the issue; preach abstience, yes, but preaching against contraception can kill. (Here's some of what Obama said that day: "I know that there are those who, out of sincere religious conviction, oppose such measures. And with these folks, I must respectfully but unequivocally disagree. I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence.")

My problem isn't the selection of Warren specifically, it's the choice of having an invocation, period. I don't believe there should be any faith-based invocation in the first place, I don't think it has much business in the formal swearing in of a President. I don't believe that selecting a religion to do this is appropriate, and when you select the religious leader, you select the religion. And being agnostic, I really don't have much interest in what Rick Warren has to say on such an occasion - I care what Barack Obama has to say.

It's not that I'm not opposed to some of Warren's public statements, because I am. But being agnostic about God puts me in the position of not feeling particularly interested in either the process of the invocation or the person chosen to deliver it. It's not much different than if somebody had been chosen to provide historical professional golf statistics as part of the inauguration - it has no application to me.

Have all Presidents had a religious leader of some sort speak at their inauguration? If not, I think that's a fact that deserves some public visibility. What did Jefferson do?

They ought to lock in George W. Bush for a worldwide tour of their locations before Payless Shoe Source does. I bet sales go through the roof! (or at least, maybe through the windows, if Bush is standing near them...)

It seems to me that somebody in the news media might be able to write an interesting story on the traffic trends of the federal government web site USAJOBS.gov....

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 61 degrees, so I think I'll practice throwing shoes at a head sized target for a while.

In this particular case, I do not understand why the individual's decision is not being respected by non-governing institutions questioning the wisdom of his actions. That position - the disrespect by non-governing institutions for the individual choice - is not worthy of respect itself. If death is inevitable within a short period of time, why can't the person dying try to figure out the best way to do it for all involved?