Grady //

Writing, content strategy and digital marketing pro. 🏞️🎶🍻✈️🌍
Follow me for #B2B #freelancewriting

[Grady // @GradyLocklear]

In 2015 an @Oregonian staffer came up to the sales & marketing floor and asked for ideas for their recipe section. I suggested Recipe Box and they're still using that brand today! 🗞️

[Kevin Carpenter @kejca]

Warren Buffett: "The bottom 2% in terms of income in the United States, the bottom 5%, and for sure the top 1% all live better than John D. Rockefeller was living when I was six years old."

"John D. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world and, today, you can get better medicine, better education, better entertainment, better transportation. You can do everything better than he could."

"When I was born, the dentist didn't use novocaine!"

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

You can crash your yard's mosquito population without spraying a single chemical with a Mosquito Bucket of Doom.

Fill a 5-gallon bucket about two-thirds with water. Drop in a handful of grass clippings, leaves, or hay. Let it sit for a day, then drop in a Bti dunk (also called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, sold at any hardware store as "mosquito dunks," about $10 for six).

Mosquitoes are powerfully attracted to fermenting water and will lay their eggs in your bucket. Bti is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces a toxin that kills mosquito, blackfly, and fungus gnat larvae only.

This method doesn't harm bees, butterflies, fireflies, fish, frogs, birds, pets, or people. BTI dunks are EPA-approved for organic use and safe in animal water troughs and birdbaths.

One dunk lasts about 30 days. Top off the water as it evaporates. Cover with 1/2-in Mesh Hardware Cloth to prevent animals from getting trapped and put the bucket somewhere shady where pets and kids won't get into it.

The bucket becomes a mosquito magnet and a dead end. Compare that to fogging the entire yard with pyrethroids, which kills every insect in it, including the predators that eat mosquitoes.

Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park has been running the "Mosquito Bucket Challenge" since 2021. The more buckets in a neighborhood, the bigger the dent. One bucket per yard is a great start.

[Jason Kint @jason_kint]

NYT out with a jaw dropping investigative report on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 60 Minutes reported last Sunday on some of this, too. The NYT report is a must-read, the 60 Minutes report should then be watched. 1/3

[Kelsey Piper @KelseyTuoc]

My ancestors buried half their children. All mine are alive. My ancestors' house had a dirt floor. Mine is wood. I have indoor plumbing, I have hot water, I have never in my life hauled a full bucket half a mile and I probably never will. Do you know how rare it is, in human history, for small children to wear shoes? Mine have multiple pairs. I can speak to my relatives who live thousands of miles away, for free, at any time. Video, if we want video. With machine translation, if we speak different languages.

The original Library of Congress had 740 books in it. I have more than that. If I run out of books in my home my local public library has 350,000. If I want to take a hundred books with me on vacation, they all fit on a device that fits in my purse.

I have heat in the winter and AC in the summer and a washing machine and I have never, ever, ever had to scrub a dress clean by hand in the stream. I can look up recipes from more than a hundred different countries and I've tried dozens of them. I ride a clean and modern train across my city for $4, or take a robot taxi if I'm out too late for the train. I donate $40,000 every year to the cause of getting healthcare to the world's poorest people and even after the donations I never have to think about whether I can afford a book, or a pair of shoes, or a cup of coffee.

There is a great deal more to fight for, of course. I hope that our descendants will look back on our lives and list a thousand ways they're richer. Maybe we ourselves will do that, if some of the crazier stuff comes true.

But the abundance is all around you and to a significant degree you aren't feeling it only because fish don't notice water.

[Nature Is Nonpartisan @NINP_org]

The National Park Service ran on a $3 billion budget and generated $56 billion in economic output in 2024. That’s over $17 back for every $1 invested.

With a record of 332 million visitors last year, Americans clearly care about their parks and expect them to be funded.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

“Corporate farming methods” are why you don’t have to do backbreaking work as a farmer anymore and why starvation is the exception rather than the rule around the world today

[Grady // @GradyLocklear]

Opening keynote at #B2Bmx loading…

[Sadanand Dhume @dhume]

The 1979 Iranian revolution was a hinge point in history that dramatically set back the values that progressives claim to care about, including women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and rationalism in public policy.

In “Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi recalls the story of Niloufar, an 18-year-old communist activist sentenced to death by the clerical regime. The religious jurists have no problem with the death penalty for Niloufar, but they worry that as a virgin she may go to heaven. So they arrange for her to be raped by a prison guard before her execution. Later the authorities send Niloufar’s family a small dowry to commemorate this “marriage.”

Ali Khamenei led this murderous medieval regime for nearly forty years. This is a regime that beat women for showing their hair and publicly hanged gays from cranes. It’s a regime that ignored the needs of its own people to fund jihadist groups in, among other places, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian Territories. It’s a regime that committed murder in dozens of countries, including Germany, France, India, Australia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Just weeks ago, it slaughtered thousands—possibly tens of thousands—of its own citizens for protesting its repressive policies.

Because the Iranian revolution offered a template for Islamist rule, albeit a Shia variant crafted by Ayatollah Khomeini, Islamists of all stripes took inspiration from it. Few countries adopted the extreme measures favored by the mullahs of Iran, but the revolution’s malign influence was felt from Morocco to Mindanao. In the 1980s it also sparked a theological arms race with Saudi Arabia, which spread its own regressive brand of Islamism around the world.

Progressives in democratic countries who mourn the death of Khamenei come in different flavors. Some are simply Islamists or Islamist adjacent. Their ideology conceals the deeper religious passions that motivate them. Others are so blinded by their hatred of America and Israel that they reflexively oppose any action by them. Yet others are simply so ignorant of the nature of the Iranian regime that they can’t see the absurdity of comparing Khamenei with Dumbledore from Harry Potter.

But all of these people have one thing in common. They spit on the suffering of the talented Iranian people who have had to endure nearly 50 years of brutal clerical rule.

[Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok]

From Gorsuch concurrence.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a golden age for America is going in reverse https://t.co/mXcqndcze3

[Jeremy Horpedahl 🥚📉 @jmhorp]

15% of the population of Ireland entered the US between 1851 and 1860

9% of the population of Norway entered the US in the 1880s

6% of the population of Italy entered the US from about 1900-1910

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

This is why it’s funny that the White House keeps taking credit for crime falling. The decline was already noticeable in 2024, and Trump said that data was “ridiculous” and “a lie.” Now the numbers are magically reliable. That’s…not how this works.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

The Constitution isn’t optional.

The point of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement is to hassle the government.

It’s supposed to be difficult to search or arrest people. That’s not a bug; that’s a feature of our American republic.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: ICE/Border Patrol agents illegally demand a woman prove her citizenship, then lie about having a warrant for someone connected to her home, and refuse to show it, in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

In the video, ICE agents confront a woman outside her home and demand she hand over her ID to “prove” she is a U.S. citizen, something they have no legal authority to require without reasonable suspicion of a specific crime.

She asks why they need her ID.

They tell her they have a “target” who lives at the address.

So she asks, “Who is the target?”

An agent responds, “We have to make sure you aren’t our target,” then immediately asks, “Do you live at this address?”

She says yes.

The person filming points out the obvious and tells her she should call 911, because she already stated she’s a citizen and ICE has no jurisdiction over U.S. citizens.

That’s when the agent says, “She never said she was a citizen. Calm down.”

The woman corrects him. She clearly states she is a citizen, and explains they never asked her about her status, they just demanded ID, which again, is not legal.

The agent repeats himself, claiming they have a target connected to the home and want to make sure she isn’t that person.

She then asks the only question that matters: “Do you have a warrant?”

An agent says, “Yes, we have a warrant for their arrest.”

She asks to see it.

They refuse.

Instead, the agent says, “I’ve got to make sure you are the person.”

That’s still not how warrants work.

If ICE actually had a valid warrant, they would already know who they were looking for, would not be guessing, and would be legally required to present it on request.

Standing outside a home doesn’t change that. You don’t have to identify yourself just so federal agents can decide whether their claimed warrant applies to you.

This is a textbook ICE intimidation tactic… demand ID, lie about warrants, deny proof, and hope people don’t know their rights.

ICE/Border Patrol agents are harassing U.S. citizens in their own neighborhood, fishing for consent they are not entitled to.

And this is how rights get erased, not all at once, but slowly, through lies, pressure, and people being told to “calm down.”

[Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert @KMooreGilbert]

The @nytimes has compiled an incredibly detailed and comprehensive account of the massacre committed in Iran, by direct order of Supreme Leader Khamenei. It was so graphic and so harrowing that I was unable to read to the end. If you know someone downplaying what happened or peddling conspiracies please show them this. @farnazfassihi
https://t.co/K7C09yPMOL

[U.S. Senator John Fetterman @SenFettermanPA]

I strongly reject this dangerous rhetoric.

Do not threaten Members of Congress.

Republican or Democrat.

It’s deeply wrong with no exceptions—ever.

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Tim Ferriss just revealed his exact system for learning ANYTHING faster than 99.9% of people on Diary of a CEO.

After mastering languages in weeks and advising Uber, he broke down the DSSS framework.

Here's how it works + 8 other principles for superhuman performance he revealed:

The DSSS Framework:

Deconstruction - Break goals into parts
Selection - Pick the 20% that gives 80%
Sequencing - Right order matters
Stakes - Create incentives

"If more information were the answer, we'd all be billionaires with six pack abs."

His language hack is wild:

Spanish has hundreds of thousands of words.

Tim reached fluency in 8-12 weeks using just the 500 most frequently used words.

Stop learning random vocabulary. Learn frequency lists.

Tim's career planning rule:

He's NEVER had a 5-10 year plan.

"If you have a reliable 5-10 year plan, you're playing so safely you're selling yourself short."

Instead? 6-12 month projects with 2-4 week experiments inside.

How he picks projects:

Two criteria ONLY:
1. Relationships (new or deepening)
2. Skills that transcend the project

Example: StumbleUpon advisor → friends with founder → years later founder texts about "taxi problem" → becomes Uber advisor.

The "mini retirement" rule:

Once a year, disappear for 4 weeks.

No laptop. No phone (except Maps/Uber).

Forces you to:
- Build systems that run without you
- Test if your business needs you constantly

"If you panic, that's your wakeup call."

His relationship rule from annual reviews:

"Did I spend enough time with my top 5-10 people last year?"

If NO → Reinvest in them FIRST

Only overflow goes to new relationships.

He's had the same annual reunion for 25+ years.

Why most quit before winning:

"People expect linear progress. It doesn't work that way."

There WILL be plateaus.
There WILL be dips.

If you know they're coming, you weather them.

If you don't, you quit right before the breakthrough.

Tim's ONE optimization rule:

Energy over passion.

"Passion is imprecise."

Energy is simple:
- More awake or sleepy?
- Can you do this 5 more hours?
- Want to stop in 15 minutes?

Optimize for biological energy, not philosophy.

His sequencing secret:

Learning swimming? Forget breathing first.

Learn gliding. Kicking. Get comfortable underwater.

THEN add breathing.

Most try everything at once.

Tim asks: What's the FIRST domino that unlocks everything else?

My key takeaway?

Stop treating subjects as silos.

Swimming, Spanish, startups—same principles.

Master the FRAMEWORK once.

Apply it to anything.

"Develop ONE framework you apply to ANY subject."

Bottom line:

Pick the right 20%.
Sequence properly.
Create forcing functions.

Compound over 6-12 month projects for YEARS.

That's how you go from suicidal college dropout to world-class performer.

[Grady // @GradyLocklear]

https://t.co/3XYKWxK6Jr

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Bitcoin is officially a $2.5 trillion asset, the 7th most valuable asset in the world.

[GoDucks @GoDucks]

Duck fans, appreciate you! #GoDucks