Dael Norwood
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dael.bsky.social
Dael Norwood
@dael.bsky.social
3.5K followers 560 following 10K posts
Historian of America's old, weird political economy. Unincorporated but proudly unionized citizen of Delaware. Adding “levity to discussions of financing and high politics” since 2022. Wrote Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America.
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dael.bsky.social
I did not know about this pedagogy. But my goodness, in the description in the linked article, it sure seems like is a way of teaching children to read in a manner similar to how an LLM "thinks" - no wonder it doesn't work!
The theory is known as "three cueing." The name comes from the notion that readers use three different kinds of information — or "cues" — to identify words as they are reading. The theory was first proposed in 1967, when an education professor named Ken Goodman presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City. In the paper,5 Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues: graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?) syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?) semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?)
November 11, 2025 at 7:06 PM
dael.bsky.social
This person’s shop is primarily Civil War Era inspired Wide Awake merch, but this is pretty good too

www.etsy.com/listing/4299...
November 11, 2025 at 3:15 AM
dael.bsky.social
Some wild stuff on offer Reconstruction-era Atlanta (from the Atlanta Daily Constitution, December 7, 1876, p4)
November 10, 2025 at 9:48 PM
dael.bsky.social
Boy has the tune of the business lobby changed since last February! Back then, massive changes to DE law were *URGENTLY* necessary, despite no evidence of revenue drops from "DExit".

But now? Taking action to remedy real holes in the F26 or F27 budgets would be "precipitous and hasty action."
November 10, 2025 at 5:17 PM
dael.bsky.social
Hey remember how I predicted that the DelDems move to answer a predicted budget shortfall by "decoupling" DE corporate tax law from the Feds wld create blowback from their primary supporters, the DE biz lobby?

Well, surprise! Delaware State Chamber of Commerce announced vociferous opposition today.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT November 10, 2025 The State of Delaware has an operating budget of roughly $6.5 billion. The latest state economic forecast identifies a slowdown in revenue to the tune of $73.8 million, yet the same forecast projects growth of 3% to 5% in our next fiscal year. I don’t envy economists right now, because the federal government shutdown and tariff policies that change weekly make gathering accurate data a real challenge. That said, it seems odd to me that we would rush to adjust our tax code (that is being considered) or deeply slash budgets (that’s not on the table) in response to a reasonably small revenue shortfall. In a letter we sent to members of the Delaware House Administration Committee last week, we noted that if the state is running a shortfall of $73.8 million for FY26, other options exist to close this gap — options that have been used by Delaware governors and state finance officials over the years. Viable options include the targeted slowing of previously authorized expenditures like hiring and contractual services, General Fund reversions (which DEFAC estimates are $25 million), reverting unused appropriations from one-time supplemental bills, and cash to the Bond Bill. The tax legislation, HB 255, passed out of committee and will be up for a vote by the entire House later this week. The impacts of this “decoupling” tax legislation are enormous, especially for the very businesses Governor Matt Meyer, the State Chamber, the Delaware Business Roundtable, and others have openly expressed support for. Startup and small life sciences and technology companies in particular make extensive use of the R&D expensing provisions that this bill seeks to eliminate. These are the very businesses the governor talked about in August when he added a new pillar to the state’s economic development organization, the Delaware Prosperity Partnership. The tax legislation, HB 255, passed out of committee and will be up for a vote by the entire House later this week. The impacts of this “decoupling” tax legislation are enormous, especially for the very businesses Governor Matt Meyer, the State Chamber, the Delaware Business Roundtable, and others have openly expressed support for. Startup and small life sciences and technology companies in particular make extensive use of the R&D expensing provisions that this bill seeks to eliminate. These are the very businesses the governor talked about in August when he added a new pillar to the state’s economic development organization, the Delaware Prosperity Partnership. In short, we’re making success or operating viability for these small or startup businesses much more difficult by passing a bill like HB 255. It’s the wrong thing to do. Please call or email your state representative and ask them to oppose this bill. And if any of them can accurately explain R&D tax credit expensing and the impacts this will have on small businesses, I’ll buy you dinner!
November 10, 2025 at 5:10 PM
dael.bsky.social
Georgism intensifies
November 9, 2025 at 5:45 PM
dael.bsky.social
Here's the critical bit.

NB: The article is from August; I think this particular guy has gone much more sour on AI since.
November 9, 2025 at 1:50 AM
dael.bsky.social
This is a v. funny factoid to include in an otherwise sensible jeremiad.

Prior to usury laws' repeal & the creation of the Fed (both in early 20th-century) interest rates hovered between 4-7% for literally centuries, bc merchants though something ~6% was the "natural" rate of return on capital.
The prevailing interest rate was around 5 percent, as it is today. And as with today, masses of Americans took advantage of easy credit and ubiquitous stock brokerages to speculate in finance. In 1929, a New York Times editor quoted a major newspaper’s financial expert who said that the “huge army that daily gambles in the stock market” had come to include, in the editor’s words, “the woman nonprofessional speculator,” whose share of market trading grew by one estimate from less than 2 percent to 35 percent. That influx of buying from 1919 to 1929 drove the stock market up more than sixfold over the decade — a growth rate our market has actually surpassed over the past three years.
November 9, 2025 at 12:45 AM
dael.bsky.social
I'm having fun
November 8, 2025 at 10:21 PM
dael.bsky.social
The essay is nonsense, but it‘s also audacious: their core recommendation is that the US govt should appropriate the wealth of tech companies and use it to fund higher education.

Think about that: they’re saying they should confiscate Sam Altman’s wealth! To take it, like the US did native land!
Funding the Future When Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, land sales financed a new higher-education system. Today, the equivalent “land” is cyberspace. The internet, built on taxpayer-funded research, has generated extraordinary wealth for technology and social media companies. It is only fair that a portion of this wealth, a digital dividend, be reinvested to prepare the workforce for the AI age. An education tax on companies that profit from cyberspace, much like taxes on gambling or alcohol, would provide the resources needed for this generational project.
November 8, 2025 at 3:14 PM
dael.bsky.social
Not a coincidence that all the brain geniuses who crafted that idiotic op-ed in Fortune today - the one arguing for a redo of 1862’s land grant land grab with AI- are bosses, first, and scholars distantly second.

(Including one particularly unsuccessful former president of UD, hilariously).
November 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
dael.bsky.social
in a surprise move, @spotlightdelaware.bsky.social announces in the summary of this KBaker article that fees levied on corporations by the government are not taxes, & corporations are not taxpayers — contradicting (I believe) all prior authorities on taxes, law, corporations, or political theory.
November 7, 2025 at 4:21 PM
dael.bsky.social
The thing that is killing me about Mr. President of the Business Roundtable’s oped is that it mirrors – exactly – all the arguments made by folks who opposed March 2025’s disastrous billionaires bill, viz., that there is no need to panic, bc the data doesn’t support claims of immediate fiscal ruin
Delaware has long forged its success on a simple, powerful formula: fiscal prudence paired with a pro-growth, pro-innovation approach. That hard-won balance is now at risk. At next week’s special session, lawmakers are set to consider HB 255, a partial “decoupling” from the federal tax code targeting essential business investments. This bill is being framed as an emergency response to a seemingly torrential forecast change, but if storm clouds are gathering, it is by our own hand, not external forces. No Crisis, Just Poor Financial Judgment Let’s start with the facts: Delaware does not have a budget crisis. There is, in fact, no problem here that solid financial management with available tools can’t solve. The October DEFAC revision trimmed FY26 resources by a net of $73.8 million—about one percent of the prior year—precisely the kind of fluctuation the 98 percent budget rule anticipates. FY27 is still slated for 3 to 5% growth.
November 7, 2025 at 2:34 PM
dael.bsky.social
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer got his start as a businessman while working for the US government as an economic advisor in Iraq.

www.delawareonline.com/story/news/l...
Delaware online article noting Gov Matt Meyer decided to fly flags at half mast to honor Dick Cheney.
November 6, 2025 at 3:25 PM
dael.bsky.social
Unexpectedly privy to a great becoming just before the evening's final Zoom meeting
A zoom version update screen, showing the installation of version 6.6.6
November 6, 2025 at 1:47 AM
dael.bsky.social
The official position of the Trump govt re: its employees at US military bases abroad is now indistinguishable from Walmart's or Amazon's approach: work while you starve.
The White House has kept paying America’s troops during the shut down, but not without struggle. At the end of October, the Trump administration accepted a $130 million donation from the billionaire Timothy Mellon to help keep America’s military paid. Though initially anonymous, The New York Times revealed Mellon’s identity. This donation only covered some of the costs,, however, and the White House has had to move money between accounts to keep the cash flowing to its troops. But the US military isn’t just its soldiers, sailors, Marines, Guardians, and airmen. Every military base is staffed by thousands of civilian workers, many of them veterans, who do all the jobs that keep a base running. In Bavaria, those workers are a mix of German locals and Americans. The German government has approved a $50 million support package to cover the paychecks of its citizens affected by the shutdown. Any non-troop American working on those military bases is a federal employee, however, and they aren’t getting paid at all.
November 5, 2025 at 11:03 PM
dael.bsky.social
Stuart tyranny intensifies...
November 5, 2025 at 7:32 PM
dael.bsky.social
E.g.
A 35-foot-high leg display advertising nylon in Los Angeles, California. The leg was modeled by movie star Marie Wilson, shown suspended from the crane. https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/nylon-a-revolution-in-textiles/
November 4, 2025 at 10:23 PM
dael.bsky.social
On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.In his final speech from the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that an arms race would take resources from other areas -- such as building schools and hospitals.
November 4, 2025 at 10:17 PM
dael.bsky.social
Shrecker publishes that in 1986. In 1983? Michael Mann's THE KEEP, a stylish horror meditation about what happens when nazis unleash supernatural evils by messing around in towers
November 4, 2025 at 7:08 PM
dael.bsky.social
I had not realized that book had one of the all-time jacket cover designs too
November 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
dael.bsky.social
That we’re getting a “K-shaped economy” under a government whose main slogan is ripped straight from the 1920s Klan feels a *little* on the nose, no?

The hack writer authoring our timeline needs to take a break…
November 3, 2025 at 6:51 PM
dael.bsky.social
Gratiuious soup update.

(Really more of a cheugy purée: roasted butternut and acorn squash, w/ roasted apples and onions, in a chicken stock, with ginger & garlic, and spiced with pumpkin spice blend and a significant amount of cayenne)
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 AM
dael.bsky.social
Musical accompaniment to tonight's grading (with intermittent baseball)
November 2, 2025 at 1:37 AM
dael.bsky.social
My Congressional rep.'s newsletter contains some historical untruths, today.

Thomas Garrett was courageous, but not quiet. He helped smuggle ppl to freedom – and when caught, went to court, & used his time in a public forum (Chief Justice Roger B. Taney presiding!!) – to *loudly* denounce slavery.
October 31, 2025 at 6:02 PM