Biden steals Biden's identity

Do any Delawareans out there see the strong irony in Beau Biden promising to create an identity theft task force if he is elected attorney general of Delaware in November?

I hope he isn't using his father's credit cards or social security number, because that would be a big problem.

tags: Delaware, election, Beau Biden

Getting the devil out of politics and onto license plates

Whenever the number 666 appears somewhere intentionally, one must wonder what the messenger wants to say. There is always the possibility that there are 665 cars out there with licenses BIG001 through BIG665, but I have to think this personalized plate was chosen on purpose.

Whether you think this 666, number of the beast, refers to the Emperor Nero, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the Pope or any other fantastic numerically conjured figment of your imagination, this license plate has something for everybody.

It certainly goes well with the current propensity for politicians to call their opponents the devil. Hugo Chavez famously called George Bush the Devil during his UN speech.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling
President Bush "the devil." "The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said. "He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world."

Not to be outdone, Jerry Fallwell yesterday said that the only thing that would galvanize evangelicals more than Hillary Clinton running for president would be if Lucifer did so.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, looked ahead to 2008 and the possibility that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton might be the Democratic presidential candidate. Ms. Clinton's nomination, Mr. Falwell said to laughs, would arouse even more evangelical opposition than Lucifer's.

I think in this day and age we need less diabolical, apocalyptic rhetoric rather than more. I guess I can try to be ready if need be.

tags: devil, Lucifer, license plate, Apocalypse Team, Hugo Chavez, George Bush, Jerry Falwell, Hillary Clinton

Demolition derby on Washington Street in Wilmington

I actually saw the aftermath of this crash around 3pm before the rescue crews got there. It looked like one car had hit the other so hard it flipped on its side. Unfortunately I didn't stop to take pictures, I just tried to avoid the accident scene.

Conveniently, the News Journal was there and it made it into Sunday's police report. The report is too vague. It describes the injuries of the victims but doesn't say who caused the accident or its circumstances. Was the unflipped car speeding through the intersection (a block after Concord and Washington)? We know that never happens on that part of Washington Street. Did the SUV blow through a stop sign?

tags: Delaware, Wilmington, car crash

St. James the Buddhist?

Today's second reading was once again from the letter of St. James. One of the lines and the whole reading put me in mind of an eastern philosophy instead of the western ideas that history has built on the Bible.




St. James asks:

"Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions..."

This sounds suspiciously like a tenet of Buddhism that says:

"Desire is the cause of all suffering."

...which I learned on the Simspons episode "She of Little Faith" in which Lisa Simspon is converted to, or realizes she was already, a Buddhist. Was St. James a Buddhist too? Or is it that two different religious traditions can sometimes stumble onto the same wisdom?

tags: St. James, Buddhism, Simpsons

This guy really loves America

Look not just at the license plate, but closely at the flag colored license plate frame and the corner Statue of Liberty.







With bonus magnetic ribbons.




tags: license plates, USA, ribbon magnet

Golf advice on license plate

Since your ball is farthest from the hole, please go ahead and putt. Coincidentally noticed when I was away from home.

tags: license plates, golf, travel

Locked ladies leave locals laughing

Don't laugh, these ladies could be your parents or you someday. Two elderly women were trapped in their car when the battery went dead and they couldn't use the automatic door locks to open the doors. They tried to get the attention of people passing by for assistance and were finally "saved" when a window was broken to get them out. They apparently did not know how to use the manual door locks.

I am immediately reminded of Peter Griffin in the Family Guy episode Petarded:

Lois: Well, now that the mess is all cleaned up and we're back from the emergency room, it's time for the last game of the night, Trivial Pursuit.

Peter: Oh, man. I hate Trivial Pursuit. Always makes me feel so stupid.

Brian: More stupid than that time you locked your keys out of the car?

(flashback, showing Peter sitting in his car):

Peter: Damn it. Hey, hey! Somebody! Hey! (a man walks by the car) Hey, sir! Sir, you see those keys there? Sir? Oh, screw you! (shifts a bent piece of a hanger out of the window. He manages to hook his keys onto it, but the hanger falls off and out of the car. Peter cries)

Here is the scene clip at youtube.

This is life imitating art.

(via Fark and everywhere)

tags: humor, geriatrics, Family Guy

Fabulous Fireworks at Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens fireworks and fountain display has reached new heights this year. We saw them a few weeks ago, and I was a able to take some pictures with my crappy Treo camera. They seemed to take extra care and artistry this year in timing both the flash and the sounds of the fireworks with the music. The fountains looks ethereal as always, and appeared to have added colors.

One of the most moving parts of the evening was when the fireworks were accompanied by a tune that you might recall from the movie Babe. The main 'theme' (heard in "If I Had Words") from the film is taken from the Maestoso movement in Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 for Organ.

Remember James Cromwell singing to Babe, the pig, when he nursed Babe back to health. That was the song. James Cromwell was nominated for best supporting actor for his role in that film. Best supporting actor to a pig! He also studied acting at Carnegie Mellon, my alma mater.

tags: Longwood Gardens, fireworks, Babe, Saint-Saens

License Plates are the new spiritual message medium

Here is yet another attempt at proselytizing by license plate. This license plate, BYGRACE, references an important protestant Christian philosophy called sola fide. Sola fide or faith alone asserts that it is solely on the basis of God's grace through the believer's faith alone that believers are forgiven their transgressions of the Law of God.

I have always thought that the problem with this is that you could have faith and do nothing and supposedly you are saved and going to heaven. Logically and philosophically the issue is how do you know that someone has faith, and how can it have any impact on our lives.

Today's second reading at church was from James letter, and has one of the best lines in scripture: "What good is it...if someone says he has faith but does not have works". Some concrete advice for people of faith, go do some works! I like that better because then your works, because you have faith, provide some evidence of goodness. Even better, some actual good works occur and the world is a better place.

For some reason the bible needs to contain these two almost completely opposite phrases: faith without works is empty, saved by grace alone and not by works. It is certainly a more interesting apparent contradiction than the tired Old Testament harshness vs. New Testament peacefulness controversies.

So don't take your confidence in works too far, you can't buy your way into heaven with good works either. As in all things, moderation between the positions is the appropriate route. Good works show faith, faith causes us to do good works, and around and around again.

tags: license plates, proselytize, sola fide

Bender the Robot on emotions

What does Bender the Robot from Futurama have to say about his emotions?

"Being a robot is great, but we don't have emotions, and sometimes that makes me sad."

tags: futurama