Is Iran About To Fall? January 8, 2026.

 Locator: 49846IRAN.

Mars mission: 6- to 9-month mission for manned spacecraft to get to Mars. 

Yesterday, NASA launched a manned mission; was canceled less than 48 hours later due to mysterious medical mystery. Yeah, we're going to send a manned mission to Mars. LOL. Influenza? Covid? Herpes? NASA won't say. More and more I feel strongly that public officials give up their right to medical privacy in most situations; there may be exceptions but I don't know what they would be.

Iran: is Iran about to fall? Link here. Folks are asking the wrong question: they're asking if Iran could fall this year, or 2027? In fact, if Iran doesn't fall in next five days, it won't fall.

Minnesota: outcome still not known. Surprisingly, not getting much national attention, from what I can tell. Franchised McDonald's puts up sign saying ICE not welcome. Quickly taken down. That speaks volumes. McDonald's: IYKYK. And McDonald's knows. Somalis welcome. ICE not. Doesn't play well in Peoria. 

Tariffs: Chief Justice will up-end the GOP again. Never quits. But Congress had the opportunity to make this discussion moot but did not. 

Three Minutes To Go -- If You're Not Watching The Miami (#10) Vs Ole Miss (#6) You're Missing An Unbelievable Game -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49845FOOTBALL. 

Three minutes to go.

Miami needs to put together a 3-minute TD drive. Otherwise, it's going into overtime. 

24 seconds to play.

2nd and goal to win the game. Two yards.

Time out.

Miami will win. Easy run touchdown.

Up by three points.

After TD attempt? Good.

Four-point game.

Ole Miss needs a TD in 18 seconds.

NFL? Possible.

College football? Nope. 

Down to five seconds. One last play, possibly two if incomplete pass.

Ole Miss could actually win.

 It’s over. Miami wins.

ChatGP Atlas -- For MacOS -- Exactly What's Going On Here? January 8, 2026

Locator: 49844ATLAS. 

Is "privacy" a real problem. Some think so. Link here. My hunch? Tim Cook hates it. Will stick with Siri -- whatever that means?

MacRumors: link here. Atlas is not an Apple product. It's an OpenAI product. I have no idea how Apple will market this or how this will play out. 

Link here. 

I've just spent the last half-hour with ChatGPT discussing this. I think this is a huge deal; it's now a question of how Apple markets this.

What ChatGPT Atlas is all about. Link here to essay posted back on October 22, 2026. 

MacRumors: link here. Atlas is not an Apple product. It's an OpenAI product. I have no idea how Apple will market this or how this will play out. 

Top Five Most Powerful Air Forces In The World -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49843USAF. 

From Polymarket today, the top five "air forces" in the world:

I think I would reverse #4 and #5.

Phoenix Operating With Five New Permits -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49842B. 

Venezuela releasing political prisoners: reminder -- Trump, Rubio, Chris Wright are "running" Venezuela now. Link here. This is not trivial. This tells me who is in charge, and it's not the Venezuelan "vice president." Trump is in charge. 

Still has a lot of clout:  

Axios: unable to discern the difference between "oversight" and "photo ops." Link here.

Waste: in the big scheme of things, no one in the US is really serious about government waste. Despite the Minnesota-Somali health care scandal, Republicans are joining Democrats to extend questionable health care benefits even before the current situation is resolved. Oh, that's right, this is an election year. And, of course, no one wanted DOGE. Didn't last six months. AI prompt: is DOGE still operating in Washington? 

Business as usual. Eagerly waiting for the college football game tonight. 

Minnesota: based on what little I know, it appears the Feds are handling the investigation just fine. Thank you, very much, Mr Trump, Ms Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, and Pam Bondi. Mr Walz has said the Minnesota National Guard has been given approval to "move into action" if necessary. No further details provided. 

Implausible: DNI, Ms Tulsi Gabbard, was completely unaware of the planning for the extraction of Venezuela's Maduro. At the time of the event, she was in Hawaii sending selfies to friends of herself on the beach. Marco Rubio was in charge of keeping Ms Gabbard out of the loop. Source: The WSJ. Marco Rubio seems to have his wits about him. It raises the question, of course, what was she doing when she was at work? Since last summer:

Keeping secrets:  DNI, Ms Tulsi Gabbard, was completely unaware of the planning for the extraction of Venezuela's Maduro. At the time of the event, she was in Hawaii sending selfies to friends of herself on the beach. Marco Rubio was in charge of keeping Ms Gabbard out of the loop. Source: The WSJ. 

Largest military operation in quite some time, and caught Maduro completely off-guard. This suggests to me that DOD finally has some discipline. No "Deep Throat" with an anonymous phone call to The New York Times; no anonymous phone call to Bernie Sanders. This speaks volumes about DOD discipline. Hegseth is not being given the credit he deserves. Apparently this operation was being planned since last summer and not even DNI was aware. Marco Rubio, kudos to him also. And when we say "Hegseth" or "Rubio," we also mean their staffs. 

***************************
Back to the Bakken 

WTI: $58.37.

Active rigs: 24. 

Five new permits, #42623 - #42627, inclusive:

• Operator: Phoenix Operating
• Field: Grenora (Williams County)
• Comments)
• Phoenix Operating has permits for five Peterson wells, SESE 22-159-103, 
• to be sited 375 FSL and 1183 / 1303 FEL.

Seven permits renewed:

• Enerplus: two Fort Berthold permits; one Widgeon permit, one Enduro permit, one Hobby permit, one Checkered permit, and one Crested permit, Eagle Nest, McGregory Buttes, South Fork oil fields in Dunn County.

Canceled permits:

• Based on name changes, it appears three Oasis Bullsnake permits, Dunn County, have been canceled. 

Nothing To Do Today But Enjoy 81°F Weather And Wait For The College Playoff Game Tonight -- January 8, 2026

 Off the net. Going biking.

Back later from the earlier ride, and then a second ride after dark.

It is amazing how nice the weather is for biking. The local area has endless bike paths.  

U-Haul And United Van Lines Annual Summaries -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49841MOVES. 

United Van Lines: national movers study. Link here. Interesting to see that huge blue state next to North Dakota. 

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 migration: ZeroHedget has short blurb on the "U-Haul Growth Index." Link here. 

 

Minnesota has a net negative migration state-to-state but it's overall population is increasing due to number of folks from foreign countries moving to Minnesota. The Mideastern population (Yemeni, Iranian, Syrian, Somalian) must feel right at home there with the never-ending protests and calls to kick the US government out of the state. Texas and Minnesota are competing for bragging rights with regard to number of Muslims in-state but we certainly don't hear much about protests down here. Maybe it's just a matter of time. Our daughters took a summer course in STEM -- software coding -- during their middle school years in a mosque in Irving. Funded by the state. 

Micron -- Again -- Barron's -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49840MICRON. 

Link here. 

Thirty Best School Districts In Texas -- Many Of Them Suburbs In The DFW Area -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49839SCHOOLS. 

 

Texas is a huge state. With more than 1,200 independent school districts in Texas, it is amazing that almost all of the top 30 are located on the north side of the DFW metroplex. Glaring exception: Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. There's a reason ATT is moving its Dallas operations / headquarters from downtown Dallas to Plano. 

Link here. 

#1: Carroll ISD. Up the road from us.
#3. Coppell ISD. Serves portions of Grapevine, Irving, Dallas, and Lewisville.
#4. Frisco ISD. North of Dallas. Serves Frisco, Little Elm, Plano, McKinney.
#5. Fort Worth ISD.
#7: Plano ISD. North of Dallas, south of Frisco.
#10: Richardson ISD. North of Dallas.
#13: Southlake Carroll  ISD. Where our granddaughter trained in water polo. 
#15: Lewisville ISD. North of Dallas. Also where our granddaughter trained in water polo. 
#17: McKinney ISD. North of Dallas. In the line of suburbs north of Dallas -- Plano, Frisco, McKinney.
#18: Flower Mound ISD. Shares water polo facilities with Lewisville.
#19: Allen ISD. Serves Allen, McKinney, Plano, and Parker.
#20: Prosper ISD. A bit farther from us, but northeast of Dallas.
#23: Denton ISD. North of us. Where the majority of our granddaughter's water polo tournaments were held.
#25: Irving: north of Dallas, just south of us.
#26: Garland ISD: Dallas.
#28: Northwest ISD: DFW metroplex; fastest-growing school district in North Texas; along the I-35. Bucc-ee's. NASCAR Texas Motor Speedway.

Foreign Exchange Reserves -- Russia, Saudi Arabia, China -- Posted January 8, 2026

Locator: 49838SAUDI. 

Locator: 49838CHINA.

Locator: 49838RUSSIA.  

Foreign exchange reserves: Russia, Saudi Arabia, China.

Russia, link here: posted December 23, 2025, no update since then:

Saudi, link here: posted January 8, 2026:

China, link here, posted January 8, 2026: 

Cleaning Out The In-Box -- Thursday -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49837ARCHIVES. 

Market: first ten minutes of CNBC/Cramer --

• Palantir to surge? Link here. Cramer warns those shorting the stock. 
• BE -- Bloom Energy -- up $16.42 in pre-market. Trading at $124. At open: up $12; trading at $120.
• military / defense stocks surging

 
North Dakota pipeline: Intensity partners with Coal Creek; pipeline to move forward.
earlier post on the blog: link here.

Minnesota activity: news incredibly muted, considering all that is going on.

Grandparent 529 legal loophole: in the news overnight. New / not new. Links everywhere. The changes applied to the FAFSA forms submitted for the 2024 - 2025 academic year and beyond. There's a bigger story here and one I've commented on many, many times on the blog. There's one demographic regarding the US Congress that suits investors. The demographic? They're "all" grandparents.

 

******************************
Religion

Simcha Fisher: how did I miss this blogger all these years? Recent post. Will add on my "Links" page.

Movie review: Released over 20 years ago. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, released February 25, 2004. Link here.

Chatbot prompt: what was the Mel Gibson and the Aramaic issue all about?

Aramaic: wiki. 

From my reading lists, summer reading program (2025) and winter reading program (2025 - 2026): 

• The Jewish Annotated New Testament, NRSV, Amy-Jill Levine And Marc Zvi Brettler --  c. 2011, with new preface, 2016.  
• Life in Ancient Egypt, Adolf Erman, c. 1971; Translated by H. M. Tirard with an introduction by Jon Manchip White; notes here.
• Assyria: The and Fall of the World's First Empire, Eckart Frahm, c. 2023.
• Stories From Ancient Canaan, Second Edition, Michael D. Coogan, c. March 15, 2012. Notes here.
• The Invention Of Hebrew, Seth L. Sanders, c. 2009. Notes here. 
• Who Really Wrote The Bible? The Story Of The Scribes, William M. Schniedewind, c. 2024, Princeton University Press. Notes here.
• Thutmose III and Hatshepsut Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives, Aidan Dodson, February 18, 2025.

Aramaic: unlike in Hebrew, designations for Aramaic language in some other ancient languages were mostly exonymic. 

In ancient Greek, Aramaic language was most commonly known as the "Syrian language", in relation to the native (non-Greek) inhabitants of the historical region of Syria. Since the name of Syria emerged as a variant of Assyria, the biblical Ashur, and Akkadian Ashuru, a complex set of semantic phenomena was created, becoming a subject of interest both among ancient writers and modern scholars.

Thursday -- January 8, 2026

Locator: 49836B. 

WTI: $57.02. 

New wells reporting:

• Sunday, January 11, 2026: 16 for the month, 16 for the quarter, 16 for the year,
• 41386, conf, Hess, GN-Stundal-LE-158-97-1819H-1, 
• 40581, conf, KODA Resources, Stout 1831-4BH, 
• Saturday, January 10, 2026: 14 for the month, 14 for the quarter, 14 for the year,
• 41349, conf, Iron Oil Operating, Patten 3-27-15H, 
• Friday, January 9, 2026: 13 for the month, 13 for the quarter, 13 for the year,
• None.
• Thursday, January 8, 2026: 13 for the month, 13 for the quarter, 13 for the year, 
• None.

RBN Energy: Boardwalks Kosci Junction to reorder deep south gas flows. Link here. Archived here. 

All roads lead to Louisiana in the natural gas market, and those roads have become increasingly crowded as LNG demand sucks in gas from other states, increasing competition for supply and raising reliability concerns for downstream utility customers. Despite being home to most of the Haynesville, the country’s third-largest gas production basin, Louisiana has been bringing in more gas from the north as demand surges, an arrangement that will change drastically in just a few years. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss Boardwalk Pipelines’ Kosci Junction project and how it will impact the gas market in Louisiana, Mississippi and beyond.

Boardwalk announced more than a year ago that it had reached a final investment decision (FID) on the Kosciusko Junction Pipeline Project (known by the shortened form of “Kosci Junction,” in contrast to the typical gas-market spelling of “Kosi”). The project (dashed pink line in Figure 1 below) is scheduled to be completed in 2029 and consists primarily of 103 miles of new 36-inch-diameter pipeline in Mississippi to connect Boardwalk’s Gulf South Pipeline system (yellow lines) to its existing Texas Gas Transmission pipeline (TGT; dark-green line) via the Greenville Lateral (light-green line), plus an 8-mile lateral to Columbia Gulf Transmission (CGT; light-blue line) at Inverness and multiple compressor stations. The Greenville Lateral, as well as the lateral to CGT, will be integrated into the Kosci Junction expansion. Kosci Junction is designed to help Southeastern markets reach farther back into the supply stack, reducing their reliance on constrained Gulf Coast pathways and mitigating head-to-head competition with LNG for the same molecules. In filling this supply to the Southeast, it will indirectly affect the way southern Louisiana is supplied.

Midnight Notes -- January 8, 2026.

Locator: 49835ARCHIVES. 

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 migration: ZeroHedget 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.