Thursday, January 8, 2026

Midnight Notes -- January 8, 2026.

Locator49835ARCHIVES. 

Most amazing story: link here. "Caterpillar taps Nvidia to bring AI to its construction equipment."  Who wudda thought?

Weather: here in north Texas the weather was so incredible today, took a long, long bike ride and blogged outside. Will get cooler / colder starting this weekend. A high of 81°F is forecast for today (Thursday). Wouldn't surprise me. The state of Texas is getting a lot of preventive maintenance done that would normally have to wait for better weather in the spring / summer.

State-to-state migration: U-Haul Growth Index has just been released. Link here. Awesome interactive map of the US. Will get a stand-alone post later today. Entirely coincidental: I just mentioned that index a few days ago. 

State-to-state migrationZeroHedget has short blurb on the "U-Haul Growth Index." Link here

Minnesota: I've completely lost the bubble on that state. Link to PowerLine blog. And all this time we thought California and Portland were outliers. LOL. My only takeaway: it was a miracle that Lincoln didn't lose the war. It seems 50% of Americans are taking the side of criminals these days. My biggest fear: when the pendulum swings back after the end of the Trump administration.

Vance: 2026 should be the year he starts acting like a player. Rubio is getting a lot of exposure. 

Silver: I just received the most recent issue of GOVMINT. The 2026 gold and silver eagles are now available. Whoo-hoo. I'll continue adding to my collection. I've gotten used to the prices. 

Copper: prices seem to be getting a bit more volatile than usual but I don't follow copper closely. Advice: add "copper" to your search over at x and then scroll through quickly to get "feeling" for what copper is doing. One can only imaging how much copper would be costing / surging if EV sales were still growing. The hype would have been unbearable. Scrolling through x, I see I posted a link to the Bakken blog back in April, 2024, and again, August, 2025, with regard to copper. I don't post often on x. Link here and link here.

Word for the day: "targum." See wiki. I first came across this as "targumim" as used in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Second Edition, Fully Revised and Expanded, editors Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, 2016, first edition, 2011. My interest in this goes back to the languages in use in the Middle East at this time.