El Somnambulo

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DL Open Thread: Monday, November 24, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 24, 2025 12 Comments

Births And Deaths By The Numbers: A statistician’s treasure trove.  The good news?  White births can’t keep up with white deaths: It’s a winter phenomenon because births tend to surge in August and slow to a crawl in February, while deaths — as we’ve previously found — soar in winter and slump in summer. But […]

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DL Open Thread Sunday Magazine: November 23, 2025

Filed in Arts and Entertainment, Featured, Open Thread by on November 23, 2025 11 Comments

Long-time readers know that I am a Sondheim fanatic.  I think he’s our Shakespeare.  He is the first among equals on my musical Mt. Rushmore (along with Curtis Mayfield, Joni Mitchell and Thelonious Monk).  I plead guilty to proselytizing on his behalf on this blog.  Why?  Because I think that people would love his work […]

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DL Open Thread: Saturday, November 22, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 22, 2025 3 Comments

You Didn’t Think The Supreme Court Would Stop That Texas Gerrymander, Did You? The Supreme Court on Friday evening temporarily allowed Texas to use its newly redrawn, Republican-friendly congressional voting map for the 2026 midterm elections. The decision blocked, for now, a lower-court ruling that had said Texas could not use the map. Justice Samuel […]

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DL Open Thread: Friday, November 21, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 21, 2025 6 Comments

AYFKM?  Delaware River And Bay Propping Up ICE Airlines?  Once again, Brianna Hill has written a story that makes me angry: Public money is quietly funding a half-million-dollar annual marketing campaign for Avelo Airlines’ Delaware operations, even as the company faces mounting criticism in the state and nationally for operating deportation flights for the Trump […]

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Delaware Political Weekly: Week Ending November 20, 2025

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on November 21, 2025 11 Comments

“We are kings of our bikes. So, we are again really lucky to live in Rehoboth, when we park a car, we have to get back into the car. We can hop on our bikes and our ritual is that we are always biking from our home to L(ewe)s. We do a little bit of […]

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DL Open Thread: Thursday, November 20, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 20, 2025 6 Comments

Absolute Corruption: Kyle Lutnick, the 29-year-old scion of his family’s real estate business, traveled in July to Amarillo, Texas, to walk a dusty tract of land with the head of an artificial intelligence start-up called Fermi America. He was touring the site of a future data center with Toby Neugebauer, a billionaire who is building […]

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DL Open Thread: Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Filed in Delaware, Featured, Open Thread by on November 19, 2025 8 Comments

Welcome To Avelo, ‘America’s Most Famous Deportation Airline’.  Apparently, also America’s most dangerous deportation airline: In a memo to staff on October 30, Avelo Airlines’ head of flight operations Scott Hall painted a rosy, if defensive, picture of the company’s future. Avelo’s financial strategy was working, he said. The company had a big contract from […]

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Don’t Be A Sucker–Trump’s Not Folding On Epstein Files

Filed in Featured, National by on November 18, 2025 1 Comment

Not by a long shot.  Here’s his latest ‘out’: But here’s the thing: Even if Trump is forced to sign it to keep up the appearance of having dodged a stinging defeat, there’s no reason to think the Justice Department will release anything damaging about Trump. In the short term, no enforcing mechanism exists that […]

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State Treasurer’s Office–Ready, Willing…And ABLE?

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on November 18, 2025 2 Comments

ABLE are savings accounts to enable people with disabilities to save money without jeopardizing state and Federal means tested benefits (Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, etc), according to those familiar with the program. The program is under the purview of the State Treasurer, who, according to concerned parties, should be promoting the program, but isn’t, and growth […]

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DL Open Thread: Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 18, 2025 5 Comments

NCC Council Debates Dueling Data Center Proposals.  Featuring ‘Kilpatrick’s Revenge’: The New Castle County Council now faces competing proposals to regulate the emerging data center industry. On Monday, Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick introduced legislation that would defang many of the rules proposed within a pending data center ordinance, including those around noise and energy efficiency. The […]

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DL Open Thread: Monday, November 17, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 17, 2025 5 Comments

Ya Wanna Be The Senate Democratic Leader?  You say things like this every day: Sen. Chris Murphy: “He wouldn’t be acting this way if he wasn’t so deeply worried about what sits in those files…Clearly, Donald Trump was at the center of a child sex ring.” That is heartbreaking—that the president of the United States […]

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DL Open Thread Sunday Magazine: November 16, 2025

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on November 16, 2025 0 Comments

Big Tech Wants Your Brain.  Meaning, yes, Elon Musk wants your brain: Advances in optogenetics, a scientific technique that uses light to stimulate or suppress individual, genetically modified neurons, could allow scientists to “write” the brain as well, potentially altering human understanding and behavior. Optogenetic implants are already able to partially restore vision to patients […]

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BREAKING!! Pam Salaam Announces Candidacy For RD 16

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on November 15, 2025 1 Comment

The incumbent is the irredeemable ex-cop Franklin Cooke.  His only legislative ‘accomplishment’ of note is/was destroying legitimate LEOBOR reform,  Which, to be fair, is precisely why fellow ex-cop and then-Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf placed Cooke in a position to do so. Pam Salaam is a beloved figure in the Southbridge community, a community that has both been overlooked […]

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