Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Enjoy.

The Renewable Future

I used to be a pretty big skeptic of renewable energy, probably due to the Greta Thurnbergs of the world being ridiculously annoying and the belief that nuclear energy is a much superior option.

I still believe nuclear is the cleanest:

cheapest:

and most efficient:

form of energy we have today. To not use nuclear to its fullest extent is a jailable offense.

However, if for whatever reason nuclear energy never takes off, then renewables would still have us in pretty good shape. The technology, especially with solar and batteries, is getting a lot better and cheaper:

The result has been stories like:

And:

And:

Spoiler alert: the answer to the above was an easy yes.

Again, this is not a call to abandon nuclear. That should still be the priority. All I’m saying is let’s be a bit pragmatic. Nuclear energy is supported by 57% of the country. Solar is supported by 82%. Wind by 75%. It’s going to be a lot easier to push renewable projects through while we’re waiting to make nuclear a thing.

And there’s no reason not to, considering how cheap and efficient renewable energy now is.

NYC’s Migrant Cuts

If abortion is the ultimate loser issue for Republicans, then illegal immigration is the ultimate loser issue for Democrats. I really can’t think of a way to spin stories like NYC having to significantly cut funding to the police, trash pickups, pre-k, and firefighters in order to pay for their migrant crisis.

The ads literally write themselves. Your beloved city streets are now going to be less safe and dirtier because of people who don’t even legally live here.

And instead of taking responsibility for keeping NYC as a sanctuary city, Eric Adams, who was elected with the express purpose of cleaning up the streets, is blaming the Feds, other city Democrats are blaming the fact they spend double on migrants than on regular homeless people (which is fair tbh), other other city Democrats think that Adams is faking the whole thing, and the federal Democrats would really just like to keep the migrants in Texas.

If you’re the RNC, you should be foaming at the mouth.

Be More Ambitious

It might just be my social circle, but I don’t know any really ambitious people. It’s not like my friends are completely devoid of ambition. They all work in banking or consulting or medicine or law or whatever other white-collar career. But they are all cool with going to work, collecting a check, and chilling.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s how most of the world lives. But a part of me still just doesn’t get it. Why wouldn’t you be as ambitious as possible? Especially when you’re young. What’s the worst that can happen? If you fail, you go back to the life you would’ve lived anyway. Not too bad of an outcome. And trying is the only way you’ll potentially succeed.

Obviously, there are legitimate questions to be asked surrounding work/life balance and knowing when you have enough. But ambition doesn’t have to be just about money. Maybe you can get ambitious about being the best partner possible. Maybe you can aim to bench 315. Maybe you can set a goal of traveling to every continent. It doesn’t really matter what it is. Just aim for something.

Because if you aim high, the only thing limiting you is your ability. And that’s much preferable to being limited by your imagination.

Extras

• The debt interest bill is at $1T a year. 

• Is anything still true on the Internet?

• Oregon might be having 2nd thoughts about their decision to decriminalize hard drugs.

• Nepal banned TikTok. 

• Don’t renew Section 702. 

• The robot police force is coming quickly.

• Trust in science keeps going down. 

• China really hates Muslims.

• And they might force people to have kids. And that’s after forcing people not to have kids. There’s a lesson here.

• Nikki Haley’s threat to get rid of anonymous accounts is so stupid and dangerous and just absolutely unnecessary.

• Law 3.0 is still bad.

• Americans really just don’t walk anymore.

• National security agencies are using your digital advertising data to spy on you.

• AI is taking away jobs from freelancers, even those considered top performers. I don’t want to say I told you so….

• I ragged on NYC this edition, but banning noncompetes would be a good move.

• Sweden is massively expanding their nuclear energy efforts.

• The Pentagon has failed its annual audit for the 6th year in a row.

• We gotta do something about sports betting. 

• There’s a secret surveillance program that gives cops access to trillions of phone records.

Until next time, ✌️

Hit me up on Twitter!

S