DL Open Thread: Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Suxco Council Rejects Mega-Development.  I did not expect this:

The Sussex County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to deny a rezoning needed for Atlantic Fields, a major retail project that would have brought a Costco, Target and Whole Foods to Delaware’s beach corridor, but has also raised concerns over traffic.

The shopping center, proposed by Baltimore-based developer Southside Investment Partners, would include 665,000 square feet of retail space, making it about half the size of the Christiana Mall. It would be located about 5 miles from Delaware’s beaches and a mile southwest of Route 1.

A Costco, Target and Whole Foods??  No way the roads could ever have handled that.  But, I digress:

Nearby resident Gary Vorsheim, who has lobbied against the project with resident group Route 24 Alliance, told Spotlight Delaware he thought the unanimous council vote was “absolutely amazing.”

“I mean, we were hoping that it would be denied, but a 5-0 result is just incredible,” Vorsheim said.

Still, hope is not lost for a Costco in Southern Delaware.

The developer of a new proposed retail project off Route 1 near Milton, called Ocean One, told Spotlight Delaware that he has tried to persuade Costco representatives to relocate to his development. They have not yet responded, he said.

A week earlier, the Sussex County Council approved a mixed-use plaza just west of where Atlantic Fields was proposed to be built. That project, named Belle Mead, also drew local opposition but ultimately earned a 3-2 approval by, in part, offering long-needed affordable housing units as part of its plan.

I think the Sussex County Council did the right thing.  In both instances.  One way to mitigate excessive traffic is to create housing nearby for potential shoppers.  One proposal does that, the other one didn’t.

ICE Goons’ Private Information Leaked.  One way of unmasking these Nazis:

Sensitive details of around 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees—including almost 2,000 agents working in frontline enforcement—have allegedly been released by a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower following last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good.

The Jan. 7 killing of the mother by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sparked nationwide protests and worldwide outrage, including among some DHS employees.

The alleged leak to ICE List, a self-styled “accountability initiative,” is believed to be the largest ever breach of DHS staff data. It appears to include names, work emails, telephone numbers, roles, and some resumé data, including previous jobs of federal immigration staff.

Department of Homeland Security officials are not happy.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast that its “law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists,” but that “thanks to the malicious rhetoric of sanctuary politicians, they are under constant threat from violent agitators.”

She added: “Publicizing their identities puts their lives and the lives of their families at serious risk.”

That shit ain’t flyin’ any more.  America knows that it’s ICE that putting the lives of people and their families at risk.

On Cue, ICE Brutalizes Kid In Cali.  There’s video, if you can stomach it.

Why Democrats Suck.  Tip-toeing on ICE budget.  If Senate Democrats won’t take a strong united stand against ICE to the point of, yes, causing another government shutdown, they should all get the hell out of Washington.

Jesus Returning–To Iran?:

But for some Christians, the Iranian protests are more than just a popular uprising; they are the fulfillment of ancient Biblical prophecies that foretell the second coming of the Messiah. Last June, shortly after the United States bombed Iran, I wrote about the US evangelicals who were cheering that move:

Broadly speaking—though there are certainly exceptions—many of the most ardent supporters of Trump’s decision to bomb Iran identify as Christian Zionists, a group that believes that Israel and the Jewish people will play a key role in bringing about the second coming of the Messiah. As Christians, they are called to hasten this scenario, says Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore and author of The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy. “The mission, so to speak, is to get the Jews back to Israel and to establish themselves within Israel,” he says. “Then you fulfill the preconditions, or one of the preconditions, for the second coming.”

The dark side of this theology, Taylor added, is that in this version of the end times, once the Messiah comes, the Jews will either convert to Christianity or perish.

Jesus couldn’t be reached for comment.  Various sources indicate that he’s struggling over whether to  ‘cut the cord’ or not.  So am I.

Trump ReallyReally Needs Greenland:

Donald Trump has said it would be “unacceptable” for Greenland to be “in the hands” of any country other than the US, reiterating his demand to take over the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, hours before high-stakes talks on its future.

“The US needs Greenland for the purpose of national security. Nato should be leading the way for us to get it,” the US president said on social media. The alliance “becomes far more formidable and effective” with the territory under US control, he said.

“It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building,” he said, referring to a proposed missile defence system.

Wonder what Senate Minority Leader Neville Chamberlain has to say about that.

DOJ Prosecutors Resign In Protest Of FBI Whitewashing Of The Murder Of Renee Good:

Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision.

Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office and oversaw a sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled Minnesota’s political landscape, was among those who quit on Tuesday, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.

Mr. Thompson’s resignation came after senior Justice Department officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday.

Mr. Thompson, 47, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful, the people familiar with his decision said.

What do you want to talk about?

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Wednesday, January 14, 2026

There were no surprises in either the House or Senate today.  The House unanimously passed SB 106 (Buckson), which requires school districts to craft cell phone policies for students. Because the bill didn’t pass the House last year, an amendment changing the effective date was added to the bill.  The Senate will no doubt pass it in the next day or so.

Time for a brief detour:  I’m pretty sure that Buckson has aspirations beyond the General Assembly.  He has positioned himself as a more traditional R as opposed to an RWNJ naysayer.  Yes, I find his tendency to pontificate at length on every issue annoying.  Very annoying, in fact.  However, I think that, if the Rethuglican Party wants to once again become competitive in Delaware (and to shed the monicker ‘Rethuglican’), they’ll need to move in the direction that Buckson is taking.  Spoiler Alert:  I don’t think they will.

One more example of what Buckson is doing can be found in the roll call on SB 26 (Brown), a pro-labor bill.  I had expected a straight party line vote.  But Buckson voted with the D’s, the only R to do so.  The bill passed, 16-5.

Speaking of RWNJ naysayers, the Senate rejected a bubble-headed SCR from Sen. Richardson calling for a national constitutional covention.  An excerpt should give you a taste:

WHEREAS, the Founders of our Constitution empowered State Legislators to be guardians of liberty against future abuses of power by the federal government; and

WHEREAS, the federal government has created a crushing national debt through improper and imprudent spending; and

WHEREAS, the federal government has invaded the legitimate roles of the states through the manipulative process of federal mandates, most of which are unfunded to a great extent; and

WHEREAS, the federal government has ceased to live under a proper interpretation of the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, it is the solemn duty of the States to protect the liberty of our people – particularly for the generations to come – by proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States through a Convention of the States under Article V for the purpose of restraining these and related abuses of power…

Blahblahblah.  For some reason that she can perhaps explain, Sen. Stephanie Hansen voted yes.  I’m guessing because she was making a statement about the Trump Administration, but I don’t know.  Do you?

Here’s the entire Session Activity Report from yesterday.

Let’s take a look at today’s scheduled committee highlights, starting with the House:

Hopefully HS1/HB 183 (Gorman) is ready for prime time. The bill would essentially require primaries to select candidates for special elections, thus ending the anti-democratic process that gave us Rehoboth’s Dan Cruce and Christiana Care’s Ray Siegfried.  Two R’s, Buckson and the Original Michael Smith, are on the bill.  Not that many D sponsors, though.  I hereby call on Democratic State Chair Evelyn Brady to endorse this bill.  BTW, very happy to see Rep. Alonna Berry, who was a beneficiary of the current system, on the bill as a sponsor.  Elections & Government Affairs.

HB 151 (Gorman) ‘prohibits the operation of private detention facilities in the State of Delaware’.  Good.  I’d personally like to see either this bill or another bill prohibit Delaware from transferring prisoners to private detention facilities in other states.  You know, like John Carney, with the encouragement of then-Corrections Czar Claire DeMatteis,  did when he was Governor.  Judiciary.

HB 141 (K. Williams): ‘ This Act directs the Department of Safety and Homeland Security (DSHS) to develop a Firearm Responsibilities Notice for distribution to gun purchasers to ensure dissemination of important information relating to safe and lawful handling of firearms…The purpose of the Firearm Responsibilities Notice is to deter straw purchases and other illegal transfer of firearms, to ensure awareness of Delaware’s gun safety laws, and to increase the reporting of lost or stolen firearms’.  Judiciary.

HB 201 (K. Williams):  ‘(S)trengthens essential protections for victims of human trafficking by removing practical barriers that prevent victims from getting convictions or juvenile delinquency adjudications obtained as a result of being a victim of human trafficking vacated and the related criminal or juvenile records expunged’.  Judiciary.

Today’s Senate Committee highlights:

SB 210 (Hansen) ‘…amends the definition of “Community-owned energy generating facility”…by adding the requirement that the point of interconnection be located in the service area of a utility under the regulation of the Public Service Commission.  Environment, Energy & Transportation.

SB 213 (Townsend) is the so-called ‘compromise’ between the State of Delaware and Christiana Care.   Resulting, of course, in far less accountability for Christiana Care. I guess that means that they will continue to provide less care for the needy while increasing their margins.  Executive.

The Executive Committee will also consider several appointments and reappointments.

As (almost) always, the House has no agenda today, as Wednesdays are reserved for committee meetings.  Even when not many committees are meeting.  The Senate Agenda features one notable bill as well as a few nominations to consider.  The one notable bill:

SB 17 (Brown): ‘… establishes the Office of New Americans to help improve the lives and economic prosperity of new Americans who come to Delaware and of all Delawareans generally.’

One final note before I close out:  It’s generally pretty rare to have nine full session days scheduled in January.  However, the calendar (and the fact that this is the second year of this session) has granted us that dubious honor this year.  Let’s see if work expands to fill time allotted.

See you tomorrow.

Song of the Day 1/13: The Moody Blues, “Isn’t Life Strange”

Scanning one of those People We Lost in 2025 lists the other day, I realized I missed memorializing John Lodge, bassist for the Moody Blues, back when he died in October at age 82.

Lodge wasn’t an original member of the band. He joined along with guitarist Justin Hayward in 1966, after its first lineup fell apart with the departure of lead singer Denny Laine. In a band never known for hell-raising, Lodge was the most straight-laced member: When the Moodies, the mildest of rock’s ’60s drug experimenters, all took an acid trip together, Lodge, a lifelong Christian, abstained.

Being the hardest-rocking member of the Moody Blues is a sort of tallest-midget honor, but in a band where everyone wrote and the general vibe was New Age hippie-dippy, his songs like “Ride My See-Saw” and “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” were often the hard-driving highlights of their string of hit albums from the late ’60s through the ’70s.

He had a milder side, too. “Isn’t Life Strange,” from the 1972 album “Seventh Sojourn,” is a good example. What sounds like an orchestra is Mike Pinder’s customized Mellotron, and the soaring chorus Lodge shares with Hayward put it on PopMatters’ list of 100 greatest prog rock songs. Though the Moodies were always an album band, this was one of their higher-charting singles – No. 13 in the UK, No. 29 in America.

Lodge’s death leaves Hayward the last living member of the band’s classic lineup. Flautist Ray Thomas died in 2018, keyboard player Mike Pinder in 2024 and drummer Graeme Edge in 2021. Here they are in 1968 lip-synching “Ride My See-Saw.”

 

DL Open Thread: Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Another Day, More Trump Shit You Never Thought Would Happen. Like:

Yet Another War Crime:

The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.

The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it — tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive — that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.

EPA Will No Longer Consider People’s Health.  Which, of course, was why the EPA was created:

The Trump administration plans to stop calculating the monetary value of the public health benefits from reducing air pollution and instead focus exclusively on the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, the New York Times reported Monday.

Intragency emails and other documents reviewed by the Times revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to stop tallying the financial value of health benefits caused by limiting fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone when regulating polluting industries.

“This policy will cause more deaths of vulnerable Americans, like infants and the elderly,” American University School of Public Affairs professor Claudia Persico said on X Monday. “Also, it appears to be a violation of the Clean Air Act. This is incredibly foolish.”

The EPA proposal would mark a stark reversal of decades of policy under which the agency cited the estimated cost of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to support stronger clean air rules. The change is likely to make it easier to roll back limits on PM2.5 and ozone from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other polluting facilities.

FBI Digs Deep To ‘Blame The Victim’.  Or, more accurately, Kash Patel does:

Federal investigators assigned to the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman are looking into her possible connections to activist groups protesting the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, in addition to the actions of the federal agent who killed her, people familiar with the situation said.

It seems increasingly unlikely that the agent who fired three times at the unarmed woman, Renee Nicole Good, will face criminal charges, although that could change as investigators collect new evidence, the people added.

On Sunday, President Trump described Ms. Good and her wife, Becca Good, as being “professional agitators,” adding that the authorities would “find out who’s paying for it.” He offered no evidence to support his claims.

The decision by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department to scrutinize Ms. Good’s activities and her potential connections to local activists is in line with the White House’s strategy of deflecting blame for the shooting away from federal law enforcement and toward opponents they have described as domestic terrorists, often without providing evidence.

Justice Department officials under Mr. Trump have long maintained that investigating and punishing protesters who organized efforts to physically obstruct or disrupt immigration enforcement is a legitimate subject of federal inquiries. But casting a broad net over the activist community in Minneapolis, former department officials and critics of the administration said, raises the specter that forms of political protest traditionally protected by the First Amendment could be criminalized.

Finally, Minneapolis is under siege by ICE and the Feds:

“I’m at a complete loss for the lack of mainstream media coverage of what is going on right now in Minneapolis. The entire city is being invaded and terrorized by a badgeless police force. Who is going to do literally anything about it?? Horrifying.

They’re literally ramming their cars into people and then arresting them all over the Twin Cities. No one is safe. And, they won’t stop here, your city is next.”

A Marine vet responds to her arrest at the hands of ICE:

My hands are fucked up….

So first off, I’m a United States Marine veteran. They —

We were following them from a safe distance…following ICE agents. They tried — they stopped in the middle of the road and reversed, on 62. They tried to ram our car. They tried to get us into a bottleneck. Once I saw a police officer from Minota Heights. I tried to wave them down, and they funneled us straight into ICE’S hands.

(deep breath)

Once in ICE’s hands, they broke my window, they yanked me out by my neck, they threw me to the ground, they stomped on me, they pushed my face into the ground. They put the cuffs on as tight as possible, to the point where it took six agents to try to get them off…

REPORTER: As they’re doing this are they saying anything?

Yeah, they’re calling me a bunch of derogatory names, calling me “it.”

They tried to break my ankle. When he turned my ankle all the way around, I screamed, and he said, “Yeah, I bet you fucking like that, don’t you?

(snip)

They’re enjoying it. They’re 100% absolutely enjoying it.

They literally said in there [Whipple], they said, “Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch.” You think they feel sorry about that at all?

I know.  It’s all that I can take for one day as well.

What do you want to talk about?

Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, January 13, 2026

This is the hors d’oeuvre portion of the legislative session–in for just three weeks, get those few ‘must-pass’ bills done by the end of the month, listen to the Governor’s State Of The State Address, then clear out for six weeks of Joint Finance Committee hearings.  We’ll soon learn what those ‘must-pass’ bills are.  There’s usually a mini-budget bill and a mini-bond bill where some funds get reallocated.

Let’s see what’s on today’s docket.

Today’s House Agenda contains one, and only one, bill–SB 106 (Buckson), which ‘requires each school district and charter school to adopt a policy, with educator input, about cell phone use by students during school hours.’  The bill passed the Senate unanimously.  Look for a similar result in the House.

Today’s Senate Agenda features SB 26 (Brown), which is a pro-labor bill, that ‘changes the law to allow an employee who is subject to a labor dispute, other than a lockout, to collect unemployment benefits after a 2-week waiting period, if the employee meets all the eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits, including being able and available for work and completing weekly job requirements.’  Going out on a limb here–look for all D’s to vote yes, all R’s to vote no. 

The agenda also features a bill that ‘clarifies that the law-enforcement agency practice of purchasing firearms for that agency’s law-enforcement officers for use by the officers in their official duties is exempted from the requirements under our State’s permit to purchase firearms laws’.  One hopes that ICE thugs aren’t exempt from permit to purchase. (Just kidding, they’re not.)

For newbies and forgetful ‘oldies’ to this feature, Wednesdays in the House are set aside for committee meetings.  However, we have one committee meeting today, and it features what might well become my favorite bill (to make fun of) for the entire year.  I shall call it the ‘Are We Human, Or Are We Doctor?’ Act Of 2026.  A classic solution-in-search-of-a-problem bill, sponsored by  Speaker Mimi Minor-Brown.

HB 191 ‘clarifies that a nonhuman entity, including an agent powered by AI, may not be licensed as a professional nurse, APRN, practical nurse, physician, or physician assistant. It further clarifies that a nonhuman entity may not use any of the foregoing professional titles’.

Who will speak for the discriminated-against nonhumans?  Not even sure Tom Neuberger would take that case.  (Betcha that ‘The Honorable’ Ronald G. Poliquin would, though.)  What nonhuman would be the aggrieved party in such a legal action?

One reason why I prefer the second session of a General Assembly over the first is b/c we’re not starting over.  Meaning, we have a decent slate of committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday.  A couple of intriguing bills await.  Be back tomorrow with a preview.  And, of course, a Post-Game Wrap-Up.

Song of the Day 1/12: The Grateful Dead, “Playing in the Band”

Bob Weir, the co-founder of the Grateful Dead who died Saturday at 78, was the subject of countless Deadhead debates over the years. Was he an essential member of the band, or totally extraneous? Did he add to their jams or gum them up? Did his songs help structure their sprawling concerts or interrupt the flow?

Weir was sort of like the team’s utility infielder. He wasn’t their best guitar player, or singer, or songwriter – that was Jerry Garcia’s role. But Weir added balance to their ethereal sound. He was called a rhythm guitarist, but he didn’t strum the instrument on the beat. He provided riffs and fills in unusual voicings and rhythms, forming a bridge between the dueling improvisations of Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh. And after Garcia died, Weir, like a good utility man, stepped up to keep the Dead music and ethos alive through a succession of spin-off bands.

Garcia’s roots were in bluegrass, and Lesh brought jazz to Dead’s house blend. Weir’s influences were folk and country, but he kept it interesting by composing in unusual time signatures. “Playing in the Band” is a good example. It’s in 10/4, which is why it feels a little odd when you try to dance to it.

As Weir told the story at a Wolf Bros concert in 2021, Weir and other members of the band were jamming with David Crosby, who came up with the guitar riff that serves as the song’s intro. Drummer Mickey Hart suggested Weir write a song using it, and the next day Weir had the music composed. The lyrics are by longtime Dead wordsmith Robert Hunter. Its first official release was on the 1971 live Skull and Roses double album.

Weir cleaned it up in the studio the next year for his solo album “Ace.”

For those who are fans, the song is notable because in concert the middle section would invariably lead to long improvisational jam. This recording from April 22, 1977, at Philadelphia’s Spectrum is considered among the best. Or maybe not, I can’t tell. Deadheads like nothing better than arguing over stuff like that. But maybe now they can all agree it wouldn’t have been the Grateful Dead without Bobby Weir.

DL Open Thread: Monday, January 12, 2026

Starting tomorrow–the General Assembly returns.  My favorite time of year.  Also my busiest.

More Trump Corruption:

The Department Of Injustice Targets Fed Chair.  You all know why:

The U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and whether Mr. Powell lied to Congress about the scope of the project, according to officials briefed on the situation.

The inquiry, which includes an analysis of Mr. Powell’s public statements and an examination of spending records, was approved in November by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of President Trump who was appointed to run the office last year, the officials said.

The investigation escalates Mr. Trump’s long-running feud with Mr. Powell, whom the president has continually attacked for resisting his demands to slash interest rates significantly. The president has threatened to fire the Fed chair — even though he nominated Mr. Powell for the position in 2017 — and raised the prospect of a lawsuit against him related to the $2.5 billion renovation, citing “incompetence.”

Mr. Powell, in a rare video message released by the Fed, acknowledged on Sunday that the Justice Department had served the central bank with grand jury subpoenas days earlier. He described the investigation as “unprecedented” and questioned the motivation for the move, even as he affirmed that he carried out his duties as chair “without political fear or favor.”

No need to question the motivation.  The name Jeanine Pirro says it all.

Greg Bovino Can’t Even Pee/Poop In Peace.  Sad:

https://x.com/FordFischer/status/2010444145597509814

Dems Land Top Recruit For Senate Race.  Unlike Schumer’s other preferred candidates, she’s not in his age demographic:

Former Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska announced Monday morning she would challenge incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan in the 2026 midterms, a decision placing the last frontier at the center of the battle for the Senate.

Peltola, who won Alaska’s lone House seat in a 2022 special election and held it before losing in 2024, has a record of winning over voters in her state that no other Democrats can. She first won the seat by running with the motto “Fish, Family, Freedom,” and has performed strongly with the state’s fishing and indigenous communities. Even in her loss, Peltola convinced 7% of Alaskan voters to split their ballots between her and President Donald Trump.

“Growing up, Alaska was a place of abundance,” she said. “Now, we have scarcity. The salmon, large game and migratory birds that used to fill our freezers are harder to find. So we buy more groceries, with crushing prices. It’s not just that politicians in D.C. don’t care that we’re paying $17 a gallon for milk in rural Alaska; they don’t even believe us. They’re more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts.”

Trump Vs. Exxon Mobil?  Just more tin-horn dictator shit:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he might block Exxon Mobil from investing in Venezuela after the oil major’s CEO called the country “uninvestable” during a White House meeting last week.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Trump that Venezuela would need to change its laws before it could be an attractive investment opportunity, during the high-profile meeting on Friday with at least 17 other oil executives.

Woods’ skeptical remarks quickly emerged as the dominant headline, undercutting the White House’s hopes of building momentum from its engagement with the world’s most prominent oil executives.

“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington on Sunday. “I’ll probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute.”

So Trump’s gonna bar Exxon from investing in a country it deems ‘uninvestable’?  Ouch. That’ll leave a mark.  Not.

Charter Student Creates Access To STEM Education Worldwide.  This blows my mind:

For many students, academic enrichment — especially in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM fields — depends on access. Access to tutors, expensive textbooks, competition fees and even awareness that opportunities exist. For students without those resources, curiosity can stall before it ever has a chance to grow.

That inequity is what pushed Satya Kokonda, a sophomore at the Charter School of Wilmington, to create CompetifyHub. The student-run nonprofit provides free academic competition resources to students worldwide.

“Back in middle school, I was more invested in math competitions and I saw many of my peers, one of my friends particularly, was extremely bright, but didn’t really have access to these competition resources for math that seemed almost standard in these really high-level competitions,” Kokonda said. “That did set him back, and I felt that that wasn’t really fair because they loved math. They had a very obvious passion.”

What began as a small, informal Discord group has since grown into a global nonprofit reaching tens of thousands of students, a rapid expansion far exceeding Kokonda’s expectations.

CompetifyHub officially published its free textbooks in November 2024. While Kokonda said the organization had already been distributing resources through various partnerships before the launch, growth accelerated rapidly after the platform’s official release.

In its first month, 306 students used CompetifyHub’s math textbooks. That number grew to 3,511 within three months, reached roughly 13,000 by six months, and, as of early January 2026, Kokonda said 57,751 students worldwide have used the platform’s materials.

One of the organization’s guiding principles is free access, a deliberate choice rooted in what Kokonda learned about barriers faced by students globally.

Just–wow.

There’s No Crying In Gun Purchases.  Well, yes, there is:

Delaware’s newly-implemented restrictions on purchasing firearms have so far missed the mark, many gun shop owners say.

Since going into effect in November, statewide computer systems that are needed to enforce Delaware’s permit to purchase firearms law – which requires prospective gun owners to go through an eight-hour live firearm training course, get fingerprinted, and pass both local and federal background checks in order to obtain a permit to buy a handgun – have yet to come online.

This delay, gun shop owners say, means they must call the Delaware State Police Bureau of Identification each time a customer comes into their store with a permit to buy a gun to confirm that it is legitimate.  (The HORROR.)

Tyler Wright, a spokesperson for the Delaware State Police, said he does not consider the permit to purchase program to have had any implementation delays because the state was able to begin issuing permits before the Nov. 16 launch date, through the call-in system.

Wright also said the state police have been processing permit to purchase applications within three days, on average – substantially faster than the 30-day processing period granted by the law.

B-but, the gun store owners have to make a call!  Sounds like a Second Amendment violation to me…

What do you want to talk about?

Song of the Day 1/11: Bob Dylan, “Barbara Allen”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

“Barbara Allen” is the best known of all the old ballads, its different versions collected more than any other folk song by preservers of the past. Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson, felt “perfect pleasure” when he heard a young woman sing it at a New Years Eve party in 1666. Greenwich Village hipsters heard Bob Dylan sing it at the Gaslight Cafe in 1962 and knew the kid had something going on.

The Anglo-Scottish tune was first printed in this country in 1836. Rural folks in Appalachia embraced it as their own. “It traveled west in every wagon,” folklorist Alan Lomax said.

Jean Ritchie, an Appalachia native who spread the old ballads to New York, recorded a version in 1961. Joan Baez sang it more or less the same way later that year, just before Dylan’s Gaslight performance, and it became an icon of the era’s folk revival.

Dylan had recently returned from a visit to England, where he picked up pointers from Martin Carthy and other folk singers. It became a significant part of his stage repertoire over the years. “Without ‘Barbara Allen’ there’d be no ‘Girl From the North Country,” he once said.

It’s a pretty song but not a gentle one. Two young people die. Barbara Allen rejects the affections of Sweet William on his deathbed. The song was male-centric as things usually were then. A single kiss would save him, he says (whines). After rejecting him she’s wracked by guilt and also dies. An early alternate title was “Cruel Barbara Allen.”

At the end of most versions, a rose grows from his grave, a briar from hers. They become entwined. That kind of imagery appealed to Dylan.

Traditional music “comes about from legends, bibles, plagues, and it revolves around vegetables and death,” he has famously said. “All these songs about roses growing from peoples’ brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels, they’re not going to die.”

The list of those have recorded it is long. It includes Art Garfunkel, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, Richie Blackmore’s Blackmore’s Night, the Everly Brothers, Jim Moray, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, June Tabor, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Emmylou Harris, the King’s Singers, Lucy Wainwright, the Mary Wallopers and even John Travolta and Doris Day. It plays a featured role on the soundtrack of “Scrooge,” the classic 1951 film based on “A Christmas Carol.”

Here’s Bob Dylan’s performance in 1962. It anticipated the long narrative songs of his own that he would record throughout his career. He was recording his breakthrough album “Freewheelin’” at the same time.

Emmylou Harris sang a more modern version with a mellow bluegrass flavor for the 2000 movie “Songcatcher.”

Art Garfunkel was typically angelic.

Here’s the “Christmas Carol” scene with Alastair Sim where a reformed Scrooge visits his nephew as the song plays in the background.

DL Open Thread Sunday Magazine: January 11, 2026

Any ‘Mincefluencers’ Here?  An obsessive fan tries to understand her obsession.  My fave piece of the week:

Maybe if I start from the beginning, I can make sense of it.

Last March, I went to a press preview for the new Broadway musical “Operation Mincemeat.” Two weeks later, a friend came to town from Los Angeles and asked what she should see, so I told her about the show and offered to go see it again with her.

Just a week after that, on a Wednesday morning when one of my sons was feeling a little blue, I went to the office but then stood up in the middle of the workday — I never leave my desk in the middle of a workday — bought two tickets and called his school to say he had an appointment, allowing them through a lie of omission to believe that it might be medical (and I am sorry for that). I picked him up in a cab and took him to the matinee.

Then, after my family was talking about how odd it was for me, who is famously (famously, in my family) always griping about my relative lack of time and money, to see a show three times, I decided that what my other son was actually saying was that he felt that I had been negligent in not taking him. So later that week I woke him up on Wednesday and told him to meet me at the theater for the matinee.

Here my memory becomes a blur. There were planned trips; there were spontaneous ones. There was at least once when I found myself at the theater with no real recollection of having made the decision to go. There were the more than a couple of times I went with a friend’s 8-year-old child I’ll call B here (anonymized because B is not old enough to consent to being in this ridiculous story and I don’t want to have to apologize to them later), because I’d seen B there once and learned that it was neither of our first times, nor even our second.

There was a big trip on Father’s Day so that my husband, who did not feel left out, wouldn’t feel left out. There was what I would not call lying to my family but obfuscating about where I was and what I was doing, as if I were having an affair. (An affair would have been easier to explain.) One night, The Times’s theater reporter offered me his plus-one to a different show, but I told him that I already had tickets to see “Operation Mincemeat” again. It would be my ninth time.

“Oh, dear,” he said.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said.

“You’re a fan,” he said. “This is what it is to be a fan.” He said it so kindly, the way a doctor talks to a mental patient in the movies.

That’s just the beginning.  Following the writer down the rabbit hole will make your day.

Oh, if you want to hear how it took the cast six years to create the opening number, here you go:

Serendipity: Its origin, and why it’s not about luck:

Since the word was coined in the 18th century, “serendipity” has been used to describe all kinds of scientific and technological breakthroughs, including penicillin, the microwave oven and Velcro. (More on these below.)

The whimsical term has also been the title of countless poems, songs and books about remarkable coincidences or eureka moments. And let’s not forget that it was the name of the charming 2001 romantic comedy about two strangers — played by John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale — meeting and reuniting during chance encounters.

“Serendipity” — as the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it — is “the ability to find valuable or agreeable things not sought for” or “luck that takes the form of such finding.”

The term was introduced by English politician and writer Horace Walpole in a letter dated Jan. 28, 1754. Walpole is widely credited with writing the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, but he was also the inventor of dozens of words in the English language, including “souvenir” and “nuance,” along with less common terms like “balloonomania,” referring to an 18th-century craze for hot air balloons, and “robberaceously,” meaning a robber-like manner.

“I think often now people will use it in a bit more of a generic sense to mean a positive thing that happened by chance,” Gorrie said. “ It’s the same basic meaning, but it’s less to do with finding and more just to do with happening.”

However, to Sanda Erdelez, a professor at the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University, serendipity involves more than just being at the right place at the right time.

“ What matters is not just chance, but how people recognize this opportunity and then how they act on that opportunity,” she said. “There is actually an element of human agency in it.”

In her research, Erdelez focused on how people come across information important to them either unexpectedly or when they are not actively looking for it. She called them “super-encounterers.”

“These are people who have a high level of curiosity,” Erdelez said. “[They] have either a number of hobbies or interest areas so they can see connections between various things.”

Erdelez added that super-encounterers were skilled in the art of noticing. That was a key step in many famous instances of serendipity.

You (I) just learned something new today.

Genius Dogs–Of Which Our Dog Is Not One:

If you’ve ever had to spell out words like W-A-L-K or T-R-E-A-T around a dog, you know that some dogs listen in to humans’ chitchat and can pick out certain key words.

Well, it turns out that some genius dogs can learn a brand new word, like the name of an unfamiliar toy, by just overhearing brief interactions between two people.

What’s more, these “gifted” dogs can learn the name of a new toy even if they first hear this word when the toy is out of sight — as long as their favorite human is looking at the spot where the toy is hidden. That’s according to a new study in the journal Science.

“What we found in this study is that the dogs are using social communication. They’re using these social cues to understand what the owners are talking about,” says cognitive scientist Shany Dror of Eötvös Loránd University and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

And while dogs may learn that a command like “fetch” means you want them to bring you something, says Dror, they generally are flummoxed by the difference between “fetch the ball” and “fetch the frisbee.”

“There’s only a very small group of dogs that are able to learn this differentiation and then can learn that certain labels refer to specific objects,” she says. “It’s quite hard to train this and some dogs seem to just be able to do it.”

The Ethos Of Bob Weir:

“They’re going to see how we get the job done. They’re going to see us state a theme and take it for a walk in the woods,” Weir told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2010. “If I were playing a note-for-note set every night for all these years, I think I would have put a gun to my head. If we’re not having fun, we’re not doing our job.”

Let’s let Bobby Weir and The Grateful Dead sing us out one last time:

DL Open Thread: Saturday, January 10, 2026

Venezuela’s Oil: ‘Uninvestable’:

President Trump has put a number on how much he wants the biggest U.S. and European oil giants to pour into Venezuela: at least $100 billion.

During a meeting at the White House on Friday afternoon, oil executives made it clear that they were not yet prepared to follow through.

Darren Woods, who leads the largest U.S. oil company, Exxon Mobil, was especially blunt during a televised portion of the meeting.

“We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes,” he said. “Today it’s uninvestable.”

HER: ‘I’M NOT MAD AT YOU’.  HIM: ‘FUCKING BITCH’ :   Did ICE shoot the nicest person in the US?:
The clip shows Good telling Ross as he approaches her car, “It’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you,” as her wife, standing on the road outside the car, appears to film Ross, telling him, “We don’t change our plates every morning. It’ll be the same plates when you come talk to us later” ― an apparent reference to ICE agents reportedly changing or removing their license plates in violation of state law.

“You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy,” said Good’s wife, who shared Friday that the two had stopped on the street that day to “support our neighbors.”

The camera pans up to the sky as Good drives away and Ross fatally shoots the 37-year-old mother. It remains unclear from the footage whether Good’s car made contact with Ross, but previously released footage showed her angling her car away from him when she began driving. It also showed Ross walking away from the scene after he shot her.

The new video includes audio of someone saying, “Fucking bitch,” seconds after Ross shot Good.

ICE Out For Good Protests In Delaware Today And Tomorrow:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 10

Rehoboth Beach:

Who: Indivisible Southern Delaware

When: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Where: Northbound Route 1 at Giant

Rehoboth Beach:

Who: Indivisible Southern Delaware

When: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Where: Southbound Route 1 at Thompson Island

Milford:

Who: Indivisible Southern Delaware

When: 9:00 AM – 11:00 PM

Where: 698 N Dupont Blvd, Milford, DE 19963

Rehoboth Beach:

Who: Indivisible Southern Delaware

When: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Where: Garfield Pkwy, Rt 26 between Tingle and Hudson, Bethany Beach, DE 19930

DOVER:

Who: Indivisible Central Delaware

When: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Where: Sidewalk in front of Lowe’s (1450 N Dupont Hwy, Dover, DE)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 11

NEWARK:

Who: Indivisible Newark DE

When: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Where: Intersection of S. College Ave and W. Main St

WILMINGTON:

Who: Indivisible Highlands and Beyond

When: 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM

Where: Along Concord Pike near First Unitarian Church of Wilmington (730 Halstead Road)

REHOBOTH BEACH (Car Parade):

Who: Indivisible Southern Delaware

When: 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM

Where: Car parade through Rehoboth to the beach

CLAYMONT:

Who: Indivisible Highlands and Beyond

When: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM

Where: I-95 Pedestrian Overpass

The Somali Day Care Panic.  Here’s who caused it:

YouTube influencer Nick Shirley, whose viral video alleging fraud by daycare centers servicing Minneapolis’s Somali American community came days ahead of the Trump administration’s declaration of a national funding freeze, has for years published conspiracy-minded takes on hot-button rightwing issues.

He also has close ties to the White House, Republicans, and to representatives of an earlier generation of rightwing partisan “ambush journalists” such as James O’Keefe. He worked with Minnesota Republicans to produce the viral video on Somali-run daycares.

Shirley has collaborated closely with his mother and fellow influencer Brooke Shirley, with the pair traveling together to flashpoints elevated by rightwing discourse online and in conservative media, and publishing across platforms including TikTok and YouTube.

Shirley’s 26 December video, which targeted Minnesota’s Somali community with allegations of widespread fraud, became the basis for a torrent of anti-immigrant and anti-Somali content across social media, including in Truth Social posts by Donald Trump.

Follow-up reporting by local outlets including CBS Minnesota and the Minnesota Star-Tribune, has found little factual basis for Shirley’s claims that daycare centers were claiming federal funding without caring for any children.

Nevertheless, it served as the fig leaf for Trump to send the ICEstapo into Minneapolis.  Now you know.

What do you want to talk about?

Remember Lymond Moses

The Trump cabal rightfully is catching shit for maintaining that Renee Good was driving at ICE agent Jonathan Ross despite multiple videos showing that’s not true. That unimaginative response has been the LEO standard for decades. Anytime they shoot someone in a vehicle, they claim the officer feared for his life because the victim was aiming the vehicle at them.

It is very often a lie.

Anybody remember the Lymond Moses killing by New Castle County police in 2021? Same excuse offered, that he drove at officers, same video debunking the claim when body cam footage showed he was driving around them, not at them.

The county paid more than $1 million to settle the lawsuit.

The big new wrinkle in the Trump response: They’re maintaining the lie even though everyone can see they’re lying. The amazing part: Many of these MAGAts claim it’s true even as they watch the videos showing it’s not. Of course, we can’t tell how many of those online MAGAts are real people or live in the U.S., but I think most people dislike having their intelligence insulted.

DL Open Thread: Friday, January 9, 2026

Instruction To All ICE Agents:

1.  Stand in front of vehicle.

2. Detect, or claim to detect, the slightest hint of movement.

3.  Shoot to kill.

4. Claim you were in fear of your life.

5. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Lemme ask you a question: If a bunch of armed goons surrounded your car, would you or would you not be in fear for your life?  ICE agents are committing murder, which is being covered up by the Federal enforcement agencies who used to investigate such things.  Take Minneapolis:

Disputes between Minnesota officials and the Trump administration intensified Thursday over a federal agent’s fatal shooting of a woman, after the state withdrew from the investigation into the incident because federal officials had denied it access to evidence.

Documents obtained by The New York Times suggested that at least 100 more federal agents were being deployed to Minnesota.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in an interview on Thursday that the Trump administration would use any chaos as an opportunity to “occupy Minneapolis in some form.”

State officials initially said they would investigate the killing. But Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said on Thursday that the agency had withdrawn because it had been denied access to evidence.

Mr. Walz said at a news conference on Thursday that “Minnesota must be part of this investigation.”

“I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment,” Mr. Walz added. He said that some of the federal government’s statements regarding the circumstances of the shooting had been “verifiably false.”

At a news conference in New York City on Thursday, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said that Minnesota and Minneapolis officials had failed to maintain order.

“They have not been cut out,” Ms. Noem told a reporter who had asked about state investigators. “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”

Yo, Dems: The federal government has declared war against Minnesota.  Gonna do or say anything?

They were already at war with Portland:

U.S. Border Patrol agents shot two people during an attempted traffic stop in East Portland on Thursday afternoon. Police found a man and a woman injured after they drove away from the scene of the shooting and someone called for help.

According to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau, officers responded at 2:18 p.m. to Southeast Main Street near I-205, the location of Adventist Health Portland, for a report of the shooting. Officers confirmed at the scene that federal agents were involved in the shooting, which happened in the hospital parking lot.

In both instances, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that the drivers tried to harm federal law enforcement officers with their vehicles.

Minutes later, Mayor Keith Wilson put out a statement, saying in part:

“We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts. Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences. As Mayor, I call on ICE to end all operations in Portland until a full investigation can be completed.

A ‘targeted traffic stop’ at a hospital.  In other words, target practice.

Trump Proudly Proclaims There Are No Limits On What He Does:

Donald Trump has insisted he doesn’t need to abide by international law and the only constraint keeping his power in check is his own morality.

In a wide-ranging defence of a week of global provocation, the U.S. president laid out the motivation behind his actions.

In the last six days alone, he has launched strikes on Venezuela and captured its president Nicolas Maduro, repeatedly voiced his intention to take over Greenland and claimed that Colombia could be next on his list.

“I don’t need international law,” Trump told The New York Times in an interview in the Oval Office. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has successfully tested many of the constitutional and legal limits to his authority – firing the heads of independent agencies, attempting to rewrite the 14th Amendment and punishing federal judges who insist on giving immigrants due process.

When asked if there were limits to his power, Trump replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

He is America’s Hitler.  Full stop.

Delaware Building Trades Re-enter Political Wars.  You know why: Data centers:

The Delaware Building Trades Council, a once-dominant political force at the state level, is asserting itself into the electoral politics of New Castle County with two of its local leaders announcing last month they will run for seats on the County Council.

The announcements follow an aggressive campaign by the labor group in recent months to push the county to embrace a nationwide boom in the development of the data centers that power the rapidly growing artificial intelligence industry.

Led by its outspoken, and often indelicate, president James Maravelias, the Delaware Building Trades emerged last fall as the most vocal supporter of a proposal to build an energy-hungry data center near Delaware City, while also opposing a county ordinance that would levy new regulations onto the broader industry.

What followed were weeks of hostile debates within the New Castle County Council, with union members often packing the council’s chambers during meetings. During one widely reported episode, Councilman Timothy Sheldon – a former member of the Delaware Building Trades – flashed a middle finger at data center critic Councilman Kevin Caneco before walking out of a meeting.

By early December, the sponsor of the proposed data center regulations – New Castle County Councilman Dave Carter – called for a pause to his ordinance in order to offer the county a “cooling off period.”

Days later, Maravelias announced on the Delaware Building Trades Facebook page that Chris Muntz, a business manager for a plumbers and pipefitters union, would challenge Carter for his spot on the New Castle County Council. 

The previous week, Maravelias similarly announced on Facebook that Curtis Linton, a rising star within the Delaware Building Trades coalition, would vie for a seat currently held by outgoing New Castle County Councilman Penrose Hollins. In the post, Maravelias encouraged members of the Building Trades to support Linton by sending him a maximum individual campaign contribution of $600 before the end of the year.

In his social media post, Maravelias stated in his brash manner, ”We have been taken as fools and disrespected long enough.”

A skeptic might suggest that Maravelias has been taken as a fool because he pisses so much of his members’ money down the drain in losing causes.  But you’d have to ask a skeptic to be certain.

There’s lots more as Karl Baker recounts the history of the Building Trades in recent Delaware elections.  He’s also just fun to read.

What do you want to talk about?