Monday evening reading - June 2, 2025
More goodies from the stack of stuff I read on a daily basis here on Substack.
When I get to between six and eight posts (or so) I think are worth sharing, you’ll get Monday evening reading. It won’t be every week, but likely more often than not. There’s nothing wrong with link love! Once again, I culled this down from about 15-20 posts to the ones you see here, all from authors to whom I subscribe (and maybe you should too.) You should also know: I decided to flip-flop so the Monday Memory will be next week - I already had a plethora of good stuff for this post so I made that executive decision.
It’s also going to be a bit shorter than planned because I’m promoting an item for a future post, like I did for one of my odds and ends (and for the same reason.)
Go ahead and read these pieces, then come back and see what I have to say.
I’m going to lead off with the category of “duh” as expressed by my friend
: who was really running the show from 2021-early 2025?
You know, it’s really strange that we only learned about this cancer diagnosis when the Tapper book came out, although Joe Biden apparently alluded to having cancer three years ago in a speech back home in Delaware about emissions from oil refineries. But no one dared ask him the question.
Now to the present day. It’s going to harder for me to put my two cents in unless I find my old change jar, according to
.
He may be right as far as his thought that this is step one toward digital currency, but I’m sure cash will be king for at least a little while longer. Interesting (but not surprising) that we “lose” money with each penny or nickel created, though. Makes me wonder why we don’t use tinfoil or some other cheap metal since it’s all fiat currency anyway.
But at least it’s a somewhat bold move unlike the “pale pastels” my erstwhile peeps in Ohio seem to prefer, much to the consternation of
.
The unfortunate reality for Ohio and Ohioans is that Ohio simply isn’t a smart location for new manufacturing. I read a lot of news and analyses on economic competitiveness across the fifty states. Literally no one, and I mean no one, talks about Ohio positively. There is a reason the label of “being Ohio” on social media is intended as a slam.
There’s a reason I’m an Ohio native but not an Ohio resident. The people are great, but government there is not on the ball. (And I say that as a fellow Republican now.)
So let’s talk about wasting money. Here’s hoping the end is near for subsidizing unreliable wind and solar energy, courtesy of the pair known as the
.
Love the title and the meme, by the way.
Unfortunately, the $66 million is already gone on this boondoggle that
covers in Philadelphia. Surely it’s a nice view, but at a laborer’s annual salary per foot?
The government spent $48 million to reduce walking distances by 1.2 miles. According to the narrative, the designers aimed to minimize riverbed disruption to lessen the impact on fish migration. They claimed the bridge’s design “avoided significant interference with the aquatic ecosystem.” This statement is preposterous; the same trail could have easily been built along the riverbank using sheet piles and fill, with minimal impact, at a fraction of the cost.
On the other hand, if you’re not choosy about lifestyle and want to put in a little sweat equity you can live on a modest income, says the author of one of my newest subscriptions,
.
For though I personally find the area to be among my favorite in the United States, and in spite of having some of the lowest housing costs in America — the combination of distance from the rest of the US, a sub-optimal job market, a conservative culture (too conservative for the liberals), a liberal state government (too liberal for the conservatives), and perhaps above all, the endlessly “dreary” weather (which has far more upsides that it is presently popular to admit) has altogether conspired to make this place a totally forgotten hinterland.
Now, if people decided to come here and fix it up, do business, and make it “great again,” as certain politicians have ever said they’d do across this country at large — why, you’d have a generation of people coming in who’d be privileged with a very low buy-in in what is effectively a sleeping empire.
I looked up the town he’s referring to, and indeed it’s at the very top of New York state, closest to Ottawa, Ontario and Montreal. But he makes a good point: with something like Starlink, a winter cold weather lover would be in hog heaven.
(Come to think of it, there are probably parts of Ohio and other states that are pretty cheap like that, too. But not Delaware.)
Maybe there you can find the sort of peace that
posts about in what amounts to a photo essay.
And speaking of photos: if you like my photo this week, wait two weeks and you’ll like the next MER. That and you’ll have more good reading.
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.
Great article on living life cheaply. It can be done.
Great selection again Michael. Thanks for the mention.