Florida lawmakers debate offering a Christian license plate:

I raise three questions:

(1) Do you think the state should approve this as an optional design, if people want to pay for it?

(2) Why do Christians today, when they finally DO get interested in expressing their faith through an artistic medium, have such a fondness for not the sublime or the beautiful but the tacky or banal?

(3) But wouldn’t this license plate be a witness tool, so that someone seeing the message as your car tears past them might get converted? (Hint: The answer is no. Explain why.)

The movie version of “The Hobbit” is getting under way. Here are some details:

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was named on Thursday to direct two movies based on the J.R.R. Tolkien book “The Hobbit” to build on the blockbuster success of “The Lord of the Rings” series.

Plans to make a two-part precursor to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, based on Tolkien’s three-volume follow-up to his “Hobbit” story, were announced in December after settlement of a bitter legal dispute cleared the way for the project.

Del Toro, whose credits include “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Blade II,” will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work on both “Hobbit” films with executive producer Peter Jackson, who directed all three “The Lord of the Rings” movies, according to New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

The studios have said that filming will begin in 2009, with tentative release dates set of 2010 for the first film and 2011 for the sequel.

The plans call for del Toro to work back-to-back on “The Hobbit” and its sequel, which will deal with the 60-year period between that story and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the studios said.

Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” was a pretty remarkable fantasy movie, however creepy and depressing, so he should be OK. Jackson, who did such a good job with the trilogy, will be in charge. That this two-movie arrangement will include not just “The Hobbit” but will cover the 60 years before “The Fellowship of the Ring” is interesting, indeed. I guess that means that filmmakers will be taking on at least part of “The Silmarilion.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been taking every opportunity to share her favorite Bible passage:

“The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’ On this Earth Day, and every day, let us honor the earth and our future generations with a commitment to fight climate change.”

Apparently, it’s a favorite verse of hers. She has used it in official statements on global warming, the budget, Martin Luther King Day, Christmas, and why she’s a Democrat.

Padre Pio was an Italian monk who apparently bore the stigmata, the bleeding wounds of Christ in his hands and feet. Forty years ago, he died and was soon proclaimed a saint by the Roman Catholic church. Now his body has been exhumed and put on display for veneration. His body, of course, had decayed–which was doubtless a disappointment to those looking for that miraculous sign of sanctity, a body that did not decompose–but a lifelike silicon mask and other reconstruction has made the body presentable. See Thousands flock to exhumed body of saint Padre Pio , which includes this sad sentence:
“A poll in 2006 by Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana found that more Italian Catholics prayed to Padre Pio than to any other figure, including the Virgin Mary or Jesus.”