Around the Horn Friday
A quiet week with the General Assembly being on recess until June 2. We have reactions to the two party state conventions held on Saturday, and a host of other issues….
RSmitty delves into his past advice for the Republican Party. They still haven’t listened, Smitty.
Shields reports on Seaford’s attempt to by pass its citizen’s approval when it comes to annexation.
Michael Fleming was elected the new New Castle County GOP Chairman. We last saw Fleming lose to the Son of Clatworthy in the GOP Primary for the 4th SD.
David Anderson says Mike Castle kills babies and helpless embryos, yet would be an improvement in the Senate. What is the point in being ideologicaly pure and absolutist when you in fact are not. Welcome to Compromise, David.
RSmitty’s take on the GOP convention.
Dana Garrett thinks John Daniello should not be too comfortable with his victory on Saturday. We here at DL dispute his numbers (we think there were many more votes based on our observation) but Dana’s point stands.
Burris feels vindicated because the News Journal reported on state government’s wasteful and inefficient spending. Tell me, did Burris vote for Markell? Because reforming the state’s spending was a hallmark of the Markell campaign. Welcome to the Markell campaign, Dave! Mike Matthews backs me and calls Copeland on the same issue.
Burris’ take on the GOP convention, his comparisions to the Dem convention, and his aura of good feelings.
Mike Mahaffie challenges Jud Bennett to get his own blog rather than filing the inboxes of other bloggers with his rants.
Mike Matthews notes the hypocrisy of the GOP’s criticism of Jack Markell’s proposed 8% pay cut: the GOP would fire those workers. That is a 100% pay cut, last time I checked.
Earlier this week, I heard and felt an explosion. I thought it was an earthquake. No, it was just a chemical explosion at a Marcus Hook refinery. Tyler Nixon details the various industrial accidents that occur DAILY in and around Delaware.
Tommywonk rebuts David Anderson on fuel efficiency standards.
I agree. This pic is quite awesome. Congrats Mike!
Tyler wants to modify the Pledge of Allegiance. I wholeheartedly agree.
Dana Garrett, Steve Newton, all give their takes on the Bell to Bell protest by Delaware’s teachers.
Kavips suffers a stroke when Nancy Cook offers up this rationale for closed door government:
“For practical reasons we have to meet behind closed doors. If the public knew how we traded contracts and made deals between legislators to get other legislation passed, they would be outraged… Why should you take and waste all our money they would wonder? Closed door sessions are a neccesity for efficient functioning of democratic government.”
That is the fucking point for open government: that you bastards will stop doing things that will outrage us!!!!
Markell proposes that Delaware enter the 21st century with video conferencing.
Brian observes that the grass is not being cut on Rt. 13. I just love how once governmental services stop, those who rail against the government take notice and complain. I am sure some libertarian citizen will cut it soon for the common good. Right? Bueller?
John Kowalko calls out the News Journal for misquoting him.
Burris presents the GOP Budget Plan. The hilarity of it is that it raises taxes. Ha!
The bloggers at Common Sense Political Thought realize that their name does not accurately describe what is posted there, so they are having a name change contest.
Matthews liveblogs the first Red Clay meeting after the elections.
Tommywonk again rebuts David Anderson on environmental regulations. It is just too easy, isn’t it Tom?
That’s all for now. Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!
Sadly, there was a fatal car accident within a mile from my house where the tall grass *may* have been a contributing factor. The next day the whole highway was cut from home to where ever I was going.
I would have been out there if I owned any equipment that was capable of handling it, but the little push mower I use to trim my postage stamp of a trailer park yard wasn’t going to cut it.
Shoot, Brian. Was that the one where the late-teen was said to have blown the stop sign on 13 and the other teen passenger was killed from the resulting t-bone? I emphasize “said” because I know of an old case where an “older” driver claimed a teen driver did something other than what actually happened, but the teen got the ticket, likely because it was “older” person’s word vs teen. Anyway, if that was the accident, then this makes me want someone to think harder about what actually happened. It certainly opens the door to the possibility that the tall grass was a factor.
FTR, DD (et al), I know it’s easy to blast anti-spenders via saying that they want no services, but I can vouch that isn’t the case with all of them. Most generally accept there are functions that really can’t be tossed to the curb (such as highway maintenance, which includes grass cutting in and around the roadways).
Yes, not only that, the Seaford Star reported that the vehicle traveling up Rt 13 was a 2009 Chevy Suburban, and was driven by a 50 YO woman named Hertrick.
My SIL knows the dead guy and his brother. Says the pair are either “slow adults, or officially retarded” (her words). The driver has a 20+ point accident history, and is currently worried about popping positive on a drug test, getting charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter because the guy in the passenger seat died.
So, it could go either way. I do know that 2 foot tall grass in the median would impair the oncoming driver’s visibility and reaction time. The day before I made that post I realized I was inching closer and closer into traffic for visibility of the oncoming vehicles.
For the record, I never complained about it, I said it was “interesting” that there might have been a correlation between the uncut grass and the 8%.
It seems mighty odd that the exact day after a fatal accident the grass is cut. Not just being cut, but cut like a swarm of mowers attacked it, because at least 30 miles were done virtually overnight from what I saw.
I think that DelDot took their protest too far.
Well, first, we don’t know if it was a protest. The grass around here on Churchman’s Road by Route 1 and on Governor Printz Blvd is incredibly high as well. I think they have limited resources and are cutting (no pun intended) back on cutting the grass.
My point in the post was not to lay blame on you, Brian or on DelDOT, but rather to make a point that government services are needed and missed when absent.
And let us not forget that with two weeks of constant rain a lot of grass in this state grew very tall. I suppose that there are only so many mowers that can cut all of that grass when the rain stops falling.