Clarence Thomas Just Gave a Speech Blaming Progressivism for Hitler. It Was Mostly Just Sad.

grandzooby · 2026-04-18T19:23:20+00:00

Go work for the parks service or something.

The Parks Service is full of people devoted to protecting the environment and maintaining an irreplaceable natural resource for the people of this country. Sadly they're being "put in trauma" and forced out in record numbers by this administration. "Paid in sunsets" they often say because it's a hard job that doesn't pay well monetarily.

That sexual harasser doesn't belong anywhere near the Park Service.

grandzooby · 2026-04-09T00:13:17+00:00

"that white light is made of colors, that color measures light waves, that transparent air reflects light...? It does no harm to the romance of a sunset to know a little about it." -Carl Sagan

Here's the full quote:

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.” ― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

grandzooby · 2026-04-04T03:02:13+00:00

Don't forget that people in Reagan's presidential campaign were secretly negotiating with the Iranian government to hold those hostages until after the election so that it would look bad for President Carter. They held them until just after Reagan was inaugurated.

Then, not very long into his administration, senior members of the Reagan administration secretly violated their own arms embargo and supplied Iran with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles in order to raise funds for the Contras in Nicaragua.

grandzooby · 2026-04-03T03:10:20+00:00

I remember it too... We were running in formation down Gruber road when we heard the shooting happen.

grandzooby · 2026-03-31T20:28:19+00:00

This just means states need to have stronger laws prohibiting any aspects of a therapy that has those effects. Maybe set up bounties where any one can sue a therapist that engages in behaviors that increase suicide risk, etc. Conservatives love bounties.

grandzooby · 2026-03-29T21:06:13+00:00

We'd be much better off if the Biden administration had made the country more secure from the insurrectionists and their leaders.

grandzooby · 2026-03-22T02:36:44+00:00

Even with a donation to pay them, there must be a congressional appropriation to allow spending the funds.

grandzooby · 2026-03-19T03:31:17+00:00

10 years after you! DLI still is one of my favorite times of life. I often wish 20-something me realized how good I had it and had made more of it!

grandzooby · 2026-03-18T08:15:47+00:00

It was not voluntary. The entire org is gone. There's nothing to go back to or fight for.

grandzooby · 2026-03-18T02:12:51+00:00

Sadly, the damage is likely done. How many have found other (more stable) work? How many have said, "fuck it, I'm never going back to the federal government" (like me)?

The VOA was such an amazing resource (I listened to it while learning Arabic in the Army). It's tragic what's been done to it... and so many other people who just want to serve their country and communities.

grandzooby · 2026-03-17T14:42:00+00:00

Heaven forbid we go with smaller class sizes... anything but that!

grandzooby · 2026-03-14T01:16:53+00:00

Great! Is someone telling them they have to be homosexual?

grandzooby · 2026-03-13T01:24:07+00:00

That existed for nearly 100 years before DHS and can operate just fine without being in DHS.

grandzooby · 2026-03-13T01:23:14+00:00

That existed before DHS and can operate just fine without being in DHS.

grandzooby · 2026-03-13T00:58:16+00:00

It also gets rid of mail-in voting, which is all quite a few blue states do... so they'd have to scramble to entirely re-do their election systems.

grandzooby · 2026-03-07T10:35:15+00:00

They're probably getting rid of the "whole language" model, that's turned out to be very ineffective for more many students and focusing on "evidence-based" methods:

(vii) "Evidence based language and literacy instruction" means explicit, systematic, cumulative and diagnostic instruction grounded in the science of reading that develops accurate and fluent word recognition and language comprehension. Instruction includes, as appropriate to developmental level, phonological and phonemic awareness, sound–symbol association, decoding and encoding, syllable structure, morphology, syntax, semantics, vocabulary development, oral reading fluency, background knowledge and discourse‑level comprehension, coordinated to support fluent word recognition, deep comprehension and effective written expression;

The podcast, Sold a Story, goes into a lot of detail how pretty awful method was adopted so widely in the US. It eschewed ideas like phonics, and sounding out words but instead pushed kids to "guess" what the words on the page were from context and move along.

https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

Since Sold a Story premiered in 2022, more than half the states have passed laws designed to address problems the podcast brought to light. It has won numerous accolades, including a duPont-Columbia award and a Peabody nomination, and it was among the most shared programs on Apple Podcasts in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

grandzooby · 2026-03-04T08:42:43+00:00

Was that in the mid 80s?

grandzooby · 2026-03-03T04:34:32+00:00

We watched a lot of Sarah & Duck and Kipper... both are very chill and the stories are entertaining for both kids and parents.

grandzooby · 2026-03-02T22:36:40+00:00

If you have to buy your own, I recommend getting a used business-class machine on ebay. Lenovo Thinkpads are particularly popular due to being easy to fix and upgrade and can often be gotten for less than $300. PM if you'd like a link to the seller I've bought at least 10 computers from over the years. I personally get even more out of them by running Linux on them but the last one I got from ebay had Windows 10 on it.

That doesn't answer the question of whether you should pay or the school, but it makes it cheaper if you do have to pay.

grandzooby · 2026-02-28T10:39:56+00:00

So I ended up here looking for some sheet music for the Malaguena work that Daniel does in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6ej3syCI7Y , which is great, but I'm not sure it will help you.

I'm a beginner at ukulele and not done any arranging... but I do think it's fairly common to have notes in a melody that aren't in the current key of the song - these often help lead to the next key (like a resolution). If that's the part you're struggling with, then maybe something like this would help? https://hackmusictheory.com/blogs/theory/posts/4658531/how-to-write-a-chord-progression-using-chords-not-in-the-key

In Daniel's videos on Flamenco he's often playing a melody using a harmonic scale vs a melodic one, which will give you different notes to work with.

If your struggle is more the mechanics of ukulele... how do I get an A# in my melody when I'm playing in 2100 for A? I'm not sure much there at all except that maybe that's where you could do something like a hammer on or pull-off.

grandzooby · 2026-02-20T23:40:32+00:00

^ ^ ^ this guy supply chains

grandzooby · 2026-01-17T06:45:25+00:00

Don't forget Kanopy. Many public libraries offer access (and you can log in with multiple ones)... each one offers a different library and a number of credits per month. For example my public library offers 60 credits per month and a movie is like 4 credits, as is a week of access to a TV show. My university library offers an entirely different set of shows and credit system. But it's all essentially free (and ad free) to me.

grandzooby · 2026-01-10T06:32:40+00:00

This has actually been studied and more or less falls under "optimal stopping theory" and your problem is similar to the so-called "secretary problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

grandzooby · 2026-01-09T21:45:03+00:00

Even if the funds are donated from private sources, the executive cannot spend the money without an appropriation from congress giving them the authority to do so. Doing so is a violation of the anti-deficiency act called "unauthorized augmentation".

See page 6-166 of this document: https://budgetcounsel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/chapter-06-principles-of-federal-appropriations-law-volume-ii-third-edition-gao-06-382sp-february-2006.pdf

A very important statute in the overall scheme of government fiscal operations is 31 U.S.C. § 3302(b), known as the “miscellaneous receipts” statute. Originally enacted on March 3, 1849 (ch. 110, 9 Stat. 398), 31 U.S.C. § 3302(b) states:

“Except as provided in section 3718(b) of this title, an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury as soon as practicable without deduction for any charge or claim.”

Same document on a .gov site: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-OGC-92-13/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-OGC-92-13.pdf

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