Obama's Wilmington Whistle Stop

I got a chance to go to President-elect Obama's whistle stop in Wilmington today. It was pretty cool (and very cold out). There was a nice presentation by the Kuumba Academy Charter school and introductions by Gov.-elect Markell, the mayor of Wilmington and even by Joe Biden himself. Obama's remarks took about 10 minutes, but it was a pretty cool experience. One thing that was pretty neat was when he started by saying it was (First Lady) Michelle's birthday, and people started singing happy birthday to her.



There is a video on YouTube with the first half of the speech, and the text is posted by the News Journal site. There are also a couple of videos of him arriving and also leaving the Wilmington Station.

Overall, it was pretty cool and something I'll remember for a long while. Right now, the majority of the country has a lot of optimism about things turning around - I hope that they are right.

Tags: obama visits wilmington, obama inauguration 2009

Using Facebook to stop crime

The state is always looking for ways to cut costs and save money, and often ideas come from the most unlikely sources. Take the text messaging tips for example. That probably came from some officer or higher up whose kid's text messaging habit resulted in a huge phone bill one day.

Here is a similar technological idea that could be used to identify potential threats: Use Facebook. The police in New Zealand are experimenting with the idea with some immediate success; it may be something the Wilmington or other city departments (or state) looks into. Cost to the budget: $0.

Tags: facebook, police using facebook

Drudge gives the button movie some much needed publicity

I think I may have been at the theater at the same time as Sen. Biden to try and watch the Benjamin Button movie. I got in; he did not. Of course, that theater holds like 70 people, so it's no wonder it sells out all the time. For $10.25/ticket, you're almost better off going to the Bridge in Philly for just a couple dollars more ($12.50) and get a much better experience in a much nicer theater. You can even pick out your seats in advance.

It was sort of funny to read the headline Drudge put out about this rather mundane story: "CURIOUS CASE OF JOE BIDEN: No one notices VP-elect at sold out movie; Refused entrance..." Well, I think "refused entrance" is a bit over the top - the movie was sold out and so he would have had to see another show, see the show at another time, or go and do something else. And this is Delaware, we see famous people all the time and nobody cares. This city is like the New York of the east coast, give me a break. I chalk this one up to the "who cares" category right along with that sketch of people who couldn't remember what year was September 11. FYI, the answer (even without the sketch) is sadly pretty low.

Actual population of Delaware and a bad idea about taxing mileage

Although the census is still a couple of years away, I saw that the Census Bureau released some estimates recently.

Delaware's population estimate from the census bureau is 873,092 on July 1, 2008, up from 783,595 on April 1, 2000, an increase of 89,497 or 11.4%. By comparison, my own estimate a couple months earlier was slightly higher, 876,688. Either way, I was pretty close.

So, Delaware's population of 873,092 in July 2008 remains well under 1 million. Now if only each of those people paid $1000 each in taxes and we'd have no budget problems.

Speaking of budget problems, I saw in the paper the other day that the state is again toying with various tax ideas, and threw out the fact that Oregon is experimenting with a mileage tax.

I tend to agree that this sort of approach, while outside of the box, is a bad idea, and many of the comments in this article explain why Delaware should not move in this direction. Apparently, Oregon is also rethinking this, and hopefully Delaware doesn't jump blindly into the foray just to realize how explosively bad this idea is.

Tags: population of delaware, taxing gas mileage, fuel surcharge taxes