Recent Articles

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., Jan. 26, 2022

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on January 26, 2022 22 Comments

Get yer coffee and set yerselves down to watch a committee meeting or two this morning.  They’re starting early.  With two major bills being considered. Paid Family & Medical Leave. 10 AM.  The bill will clear committee since all D senators are sponsors or co-sponsors on the bill.  The bill will not be run in […]

Continue Reading »

DL Open Thread Wednesday January 26 2022

Filed in National by on January 26, 2022 14 Comments
DL Open Thread Wednesday January 26 2022

Ukraine continues to dominate the little bit of news I consume. There’s lots of reason to believe that Russia quite seriously intends to use a mechanized offensive along several lines of attack to cut off parts of Ukraine and install a new government in Kiev. – VIA LGM I hear something like that and think, […]

Continue Reading »

Rep. Brady Arrested For Shoplifting Incidents

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on January 25, 2022 8 Comments

This is just sad.  He got away with the first one.  He got caught the second time.  Left a store with about $200 in groceries twice w/o paying for them.  Was caught the second time. Refused to pay for the items and left.  Car had his legislative tag on it: According to Newark Police, Brady […]

Continue Reading »

Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., January 25, 2022

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on January 25, 2022 3 Comments

A nothing-burger of a day.  Senate’s not even holding committee meetings.  House has only a few. The good news? Two of this session’s most important bills will be considered in committee on Wednesday. Specifically, SS1/SB 1, the paid family leave bill, will be considered in the Senate Health & Social Services Committee tomorrow. 10 am.  […]

Continue Reading »

Song of the Day 1/25: Arcade Fire, “Games Without Frontiers”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 25, 2022 0 Comments

I have featured Peter Gabriel’s song about international diplomacy before, but it seems apt today in light of all the recent media saber-rattling. Besides, I had forgotten about this cover Arcade Fire recorded for 2013’s “And I’ll Scratch Yours,” a Gabriel-commissioned project featuring artists whose songs he covered on “Scratch My Back.” The recurrent phrase […]

Continue Reading »

DL Open Thread Tuesday January 25 2022

Filed in National by on January 25, 2022 1 Comment
DL Open Thread Tuesday January 25 2022

Continue Reading »

What does Putin want?

Filed in National by on January 24, 2022 40 Comments

If you think that Putin isn’t deploying 100,000 troops, short-range ballistic missiles, and elite spetsnaz operators on the Ukranian border for nothing, this explanation of what Putin actually wants makes sense. We continue not to know what Vladimir Putin intends nor wants with his massive military buildup around Ukraine, accompanied by diplomatic demands, primarily on […]

Continue Reading »

Song of the Day 1/24: Smith, “Baby It’s You”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 24, 2022 0 Comments

“Baby It’s You” was released as a single by first-ballot Hall of Fame groups the Shirelles and the Beatles. But the band who scored the biggest hit with the Burt Bacharach composition (with lyrics by Mack David, Hal’s older brother) was a now-forgotten group called Smith. The band was playing in a Los Angeles bar […]

Continue Reading »

DL Open Thread Monday January 24th 2022

Filed in National by on January 24, 2022 8 Comments
DL Open Thread Monday January 24th 2022

I listened to football this Sunday.  A good radio play by play announcer is an artist.  These games didn’t need a good play by play announcer to be interesting.  Bills/Chiefs was probably the best football game I have ever listened to.  But a playoff game shouldn’t be decided by a coin flip.  Allow both teams […]

Continue Reading »

We can’t fix shit

Filed in National by on January 23, 2022 5 Comments

When I was in my 20’s the United States of America was still widely admired around the world. Sure the CIA got involved in some bad shit, but the country’s heart was always in the right place, and when it decided to do something (like defeat Nazi Germany, go to the moon, or eradicate polio) by God that shit got done. Now we suck. Can’t get anything done, AND our heart is in the wrong place.

…The endless cycles of one step forward, two steps back, on numerous issues takes its toll. Brief windows open up and then the powerful backlash forces step in.
Fanatical devotion to the status quo is, sadly, considered to be the height of seriousness in The Discourse. I’d even be more accepting of this if it was merely, “the status quo, but a bit more convenient,” but often it is impossible to stare down even the trivial forces that impose large burdens on the rest of us.

I mean, “we” can’t even fix spam calls. There are also the related cycles of, “YOUNG PEOPLE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR WILL SAVE US,” followed immediately by, “oh no, not like that.”

Continue Reading »

Song of the Day 1/23: Laura Nyro, “And When I Die”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 23, 2022 2 Comments

Readers following the thread spawned by Wednesday’s Song of the Day know that El Somnambulo has no love for the second Blood, Sweat and Tears LP, which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and spawned three No. 2 singles, including this tune, written by a 17-year-old Laura Nyro. Nyro wasn’t […]

Continue Reading »

DL Open Thread: Sunday, January 23, 2022

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on January 23, 2022 9 Comments

Eff You, Aaron Rodgers!  Cue Peaches And Herb: Schadenfreude And it feels so good. Vocal anti-vaxxer (and Green Bay QB) took time out from his prep for the playoff game with SF to blister Biden for his vaccine mandates. Played one of the worst games of his career.  Social media was–not kind: ‘Aaron Rodgers thwarted […]

Continue Reading »

Slow Motion General Strike Continues Apace in The UK

Filed in National by on January 22, 2022 6 Comments
Slow Motion General Strike Continues Apace in The UK

Workers pushing back against the abuses of late stage capitalism is officially a thing.   Which means it is only a matter of time until capital organizes its assholes and lackeys (like Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) for example) to introduce some sort of bipartisan bills making it illegal to quit your suck-ass job.

Brits are quitting their jobs at a rate not seen in over a decade, new data shows, highlighting the struggles companies are facing when it comes to staff.

Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said analysis of official data suggests people are resigning at the highest rate since 2009 with “historically elevated levels of workers leaving the labour market entirely”.

The data shows that the so-called “Great Resignation” happening around the world in the wake of the pandemic is not just anecdotal. In the US, where the government produces official data on the so-called ‘quit rate’, a record 4.5 million people resigned in November.

Employers across the UK complain of struggling to both hang on to and recruit staff.  Redundancies in the UK are at their lowest level since the mid-1990s, while the level of open vacancies is the highest on record.

Continue Reading »