For Sunday -- September 6, 2026

Locator: 51676WOOLF.

Page views: with a current run rate of 1.3 million views / 24 hours, the blog has just gone over 93.25 million cumulative page views. 

First, climate change, global warming, and the Great Barrier Reef. Link here. Australia's annual summary of coral reef condition, 2005 / 2006. Link here.

Australia’s marine scientists released their annual audit of the Great Barrier Reef last month, and it contains news you almost certainly haven’t heard: Coral cover held steady or increased across most of the reef. The scientists measure the percentage of living hard coral cover, and in the 40 years of systematic study, the five best years on record are the five most recent. That is the sound of a catastrophe not happening.

• In 2026, hard coral cover across all three regions of the GBR increased slightly or remained similar to levels recorded in 2025, signalling the start of recovery from the impacts of the 2024 mass bleaching event.
• In 2026, 16% of surveyed reefs underwent a decline in percentage coral cover, 56% showed no net change, and 28% had an increase. 
• Of the 121 reefs surveyed, only three reefs had hard coral cover between 50% and 75%, and there were no reefs with cover >75%.

Investing in September. Link here. 

Thought for the day: those folks who obsess on Trump's renaming of certain bodies of water need to get a life. LOL. Now, they will obsess about the apparent change in the color of Trump's hair, and, no, it's not a wig, again, something about which these folks obsess.

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The Book Page

Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway: link here. 

A prose poem. Link here. The full poem here.

Another interesting note from "a" Mr Edmund de Waal, link here. From the 2025 Charleston festival in Sussex, England. Besides the content, the article caught my attention because: 

Edmund de Waal is an artist who writes. 

Much of his work is about the contingency of memory: bringing particular histories of loss and exile into renewed life. 

This has been materialized in exhibitions worldwide, including at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the British Museum, London; the Frick Collection, New York; and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 

De Waal is also renowned for his bestselling family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), as well as The White Road (2015) and Letters to Camondo (2021). 

I've read both his books on porcelain: The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), as well as The White Road (2015). Absolutely fascinating, which ultimately led me to my notes on "White Earth" in North Dakota. 

Never quit reading. 

Apple's A20 Chip -- 2nm Process -- iPhone 18 Chip -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51675AAPL.

Tag: Apple AAPL 2nm 2 nm 

Some of this is speculation since the iPhone 18 has not yet been released.

Link here. 

The M6 is Apple's first chip built on TSMC's 2nm (N2) process, with the second almost certain to be the A20. Being a smaller manufacturing process, N2 has higher transistor density, allowing Apple to pack more performance into a smaller area. 

Link here. 

Huge ICE Action Across The. US Today — Sources — September 5, 2026

Locator: 51674ICE.

Geiger. Link here. 

Query:

It is very confusing. Lots on x (twitter) today regarding ICE operations but it appears to be old news. Is ICE active this Labor Day weekend, September 5, 2026, or is that simply old news?

Reply: 

 

Mideast Update -- The US Is Getting Much Closer To Taking Out Kharg Island -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51673IRAN.

I track the current Mideast War here: link here.

Tea leaves: it's getting dire in Iran. Really dire. 

• some say only two months of gasoline currently in storage; highly questionable;
• nonetheless, it’s not good

To clarify my terminology on the blog:

• Tehran: the "official" Iranian government 
• IRGC: the "revolutionary" arm 

Latest: 

• some say only two months of gasoline left
• tit-for-tat continues
• both sides will probably up the intensity
• Iran getting desperate; time is no longer on their side:
• small tit by Iran;
• larger tat by the US.

What to watch for:

• major strikes on Pickaxe Mountain;
• end of "fast boat" swarms.

Today:

U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers after US Navy warships were targeted with missiles, the American military said Saturday, September 5, 2026, warning that it would "if necessary, destroy Iran's limited and exposed oil fleet." Link here. I think the US needs to change that last bit to "destroy Iran's limited and exposed oil sector" -- the entire oil sector, starting with Kharg Island. 

Israel: 

• stronger than ever; day-by-day taking out Hezbollah and getting control of Jordan. 

FLASHBACK: ObamaNation: Anything to Destroy the Energy Industry -- Initial Post October 25, 2009

Locator: 10001OBAMA_NATION. 
Locator: 51672OBAMA_NATION. 

June 26, 2011: Wall Street Journal -- $4.00 gasoline ends the fantasy. 

April 25, 2011: Mainstream media (ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not mention the permitorium when talking about the high price of gasoline/oil.

April 25, 2011: EPA shuts down Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic. How much oil are we talking about? Two and a half times all the oil that has flowed down the Trans Alaska Pipeline in the pipeline's 30-year history. That's incredible. And the EPA has shut it down.

April 14, 2011: The permitorium continues and the net widens.

March 25, 2011: Great op-ed in San Angelo Standard-Times (Texas).

March 14, 2011: BLM land grab in Bighorn Basin, Wyoming.

February 14, 2011: Shell announces it will not drill in Alaska's Beaufort Sea due to delay in obtaining air quality permits from the EPA.

February 4, 2011: US federal judge blasts the Obama administration for "determined disregard" of his order to lift a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling last year. Last year? The permitorium continues.

January 23, 2011: No new refineries on President Obama's watch. Not if he has anything to say about it. 

November 30, 2010: New York State halts hydraulic fracking.

September 12, 2010: The EPA could end up regulating all facets of the oil industry.

July 18, 2010: Now that the cap is working and containing (at least for the moment) the BP spill in the gulf, the Coast Guard wants the cap removed so that oil can continue to be brought to the surface for skimmers to remove the oil. Why in the world was there an effort to put the cap in place if they now want to remove it?

July 17, 2010: Obama's administration now threatens the Wyoming coal industry which supplies 40% of coal for America.

June 20, 2010: Never waste a crisis to make policy. Obama's BP spill commission made up of policy makers, not environmental engineers.  Another opportunity to destroy the oil industry.

June 1, 2010: Feds announce criminal probe of BP. Dow plummets. Anything to destroy not only the oil industry, but the entire market. There will be some retail investors who will probably never come back.

May 31, 2010: This may not destroy the national oil industry quite yet, but this will certainly destroy the economic lifeblood of Louisiana. Obama administration declares a six-month moratorium on new deep water drilling in the gulf. Can you imagine what would happen to the economy of North Dakota if all new planting was not allowed for six months?

May 27, 2010: As Obama's poll numbers continue to plummet over his handling of the BP spill, it is interesting that he said he's not overly fond of the language Salazar used in the early days after the spill, when he said that the federal government has its "boot on the neck" of the oil company.  I agree: it doesn't sound particularly presidential; kinda reminds me of the Nazis in 1939 keeping their boot on the throat of the Czechs.

May 27, 2010: I forgot to post this earlier, the administration's intent to keep "its boot on the neck of BP" until the spill is resolved. Can't we all just get along? It seems like there should be a common interest in solving the problem first and foremost.

May 21, 2010: US Army Corps of Engineers to limit water taken from Lake Sakakawea. This will put the kabosh on fracking in the Bakken. [Later: it did not.]

May 21, 2010: It appears that after paying the ransom, the BP expansion of the Whiting, Indiana, refinery will continue but I can't tell if the EPA is satisfied with new compliance requirements. It's a clever new tactic: give oil companies the go-ahead on new projects, and when the projects are nearly finished, go back, review them, and put them on hold until a ransom is paid. In this case, the city is issuing bonds to pay the costs.

May 21, 2010: Congress to quadruple taxes on oil to pay for a Spill Liability Trust Fund.  Yes, quadrupling. Not doubling the tax rate, or raising it a hundred percent, but quadrupling it, 400%. Four times the current rate. The nice thing about this: I assume the oil companies will pay first for any oil spill before the fund would kick in, and if the fund is not needed, Congress has a whole new slush fund to play with.

March 26, 2010: By delaying new off-shore leases until the end of Obama's term, the administration has essentially banned any new off-shore drilling. The leases were to begin going on sale this July but have now been pushed so far in the future, one might as well move on. The goal to move the US toward independence from overseas oil is dead, again. The price of oil will continue to creep up. As an investor heavily weighted in oil, I don't mind. But what's really going on? My opinion: there are those in the administration who would like to see $150 oil. One, they could blame this on the "big bad" oil companies, and second, windfall profits tax will kick in at $100 oil. Ultimately "Big Oil" is going to pay for Obamacare.

March 18, 2010: The EPA is ready to begin its study of the safety of horizontal drilling and fracture stimulation. The EPA says this will be a scientific study but based on their "global warming" stance, the study will obviously become a political endeavor. After all, even if the process is safe, the end result is the production of ever-more hydrocarbons for use as energy. And we certainly can't have more oil and gas production in this country. This is not rocket science. 

March 6, 2010: Occasionally there's some sanity: for the time being, the sage grouse will not be declared endangered.

February 9, 2010: Now it's the "cutest" bunny that has environmentalists upset. Groups looking to have pygmy rabbit declared endangered in eight (8) western states.

October 29, 2009: COP denies plans to sell US refineries. Yeah, right.

October 27, 2009: "Cap and trade" could destroy US domestic refinery industry. Nothing new here.

October 25, 2009: Surprise! BP refinery expansion in question.

While pundits keep repeating the mantra that no refinery has been built in the United Stated since 1976, when an oil company finally decides to add refining capacity, the current administration puts it on hold. The refinery had met all regulatory requirements and was surprised when the EPA said BP had 90 days to submit new information on air pollutant emissions. BP spokesmen say that this does not mean the project is scrapped but they are disappointed. Everyone thought the regulatory obstacles had been cleared. Not in ObamaNation. [Later: December 18, 2013 -- BP announces completion of the refinery expansion --

BP announced today all of the major new units associated with the Whiting modernization project have been successfully brought on stream.  The start-up of the new 102,000 barrel per day coker in mid-November marked the last major milestone of the multi-year, multi-billion dollar modernization project at the facility in Northwest Indiana.

The refinery is working through post-start-up troubleshooting activities and expects to be ready to begin the ramp up of progressively higher Canadian crude processing from year-end through the first quarter of 2014 as previously announced.]

Early Production Data For Wells Soon To Be Reporting -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51671WELLS. 

The BR Hazel and HBU Badlands wells in HBU Haystack Butte are tracked here. 

The wells: 

• 41731, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 10S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41723, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 5N MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41730, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 9S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41722, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 4N MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 42026, conf, Oasis, Milkweed 5302 14-36 3B, Indian Hill, 

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
7-2026	20858	14280
6-2026	23275	14735
5-2026	21494	13538
4-2026	20912	13874
3-2026	7749	4631

• 41729, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 8S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41639, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 10S MBH-ULW, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41721, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 3N MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41638, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 5N TFH-ULW, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41728, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 7S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 41637, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 9S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd,
• 42027, conf, Oasis, Milkweed 5302 14-36 4B, Indian Hill, 

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
7-2026	19440	12627
6-2026	24181	14886
5-2026	23657	15155
4-2026	21095	13384
3-2026	9795	6078

• 41720, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 2N, MBH, Haystack Butte, npd, 
• 41636, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 8S MBH, Haystack Butte, npd, 

New Wells Reporting Soon -- September 5, 2026

 Locator: 51669WELLS.

Wednesday, September 23, 2026: 47 for the month, 127 for the quarter, 484 for the year,
41731, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 10S MBH,

Tuesday, September 22, 2026: 46 for the month, 126 for the quarter, 483 for the year,
41723, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 5N MBH,

Monday, September 21, 2026: 45 for the month, 125 for the quarter, 482 for the year,
41730, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 9S MBH,

Sunday, September 20, 2026: 44 for the month, 124 for the quarter, 481 for the year,
41722, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 4N MBH, 

Saturday, September 19, 2026: 43 for the month, 123 for the quarter, 480 for the year,
42026, conf, Oasis, Milkweed 5302 14-36 3B,
41729, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 8S MBH, 
41639, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 10S MBH-ULW, 

Friday, September 18, 2026: 40 for the month, 120 for the quarter, 477 for the year,
41721, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 3N MBH, 
41638, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 5N TFH-ULW, 

Thursday, September 17, 2026: 38 for the month, 118 for the quarter, 475 for the year, 
41728, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 7S MBH,
41637, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 9S MBH, 

Wednesday, September 16, 2026: 36 for the month, 116 for the quarter, 473 for the year,
42027, conf, Oasis, Milkweed 5302 14-36 4B, 
41720, conf, BR, HBU Hazel 2N, MBH, 
41636, conf, BR, HBU Badlands 8S MBH, 

The Most Interesting Technical Advance In Social Media Is Now Here -- Literally Introduced With No Fanfare -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51668SOCIAL_MEDIA.

I discovered this "technical social media" advance simply by accident. In the big scheme of things, I think very few people understand how it works, but much more importantly how powerful it is and how much more powerful it will become.  

And for all those hyperscalers -- this is how a lot of money is going to be made: monetizing these chatbot threads. Holy mackerel. And it appears the hyperscalers don't have to share any "royalties" with the contributors.  

Link here. 

When you click on that link, you will get a "blank page" for about five to eight seconds. It will appear that nothing is going to appear ... but wait for it -- it will appear. It is truly amazing. 

The combination of the following three will be a huge game-changer. I'm not quite sure what it will look like but my hunch is that it replaces Reddit:

• open source AI (Hugging Face);
• blogs; and,
• chatbot threads.

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Another Example

Look at all the ads on the short thread at the link.

Query:

Over at the WSJ, who has "replaced" Walt Mossberg and Joanna Stern? 

Link here. 

Wow, look at this, from March 17, 2026: 

As NBC News ramps up its subscription streaming product, it is beginning to turn to independent journalists and creators to help it maintain relevance in key areas.

The broadcast news division on Tuesday announced a deal with the popular technology journalist Joanna Stern, who will contribute to NBC News platforms even as she builds out her own independent media company.

Stern left her longtime home The Wall Street Journal last month to launch her own venture.

Stern will become chief tech analyst & contributing correspondent for NBC News, according to a memo to staff from president of editorial Rebecca Blumenstein (who notes that she hired Stern back at the Journal to succeed the legendary Walt Mossberg).

Streamers / content providers see the benefit of "human contributors / personalities" over robots.

Link to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Where Are All Those New Jobs Coming From? September 5, 2026

Locator: 51667CONSTRUCTION.

Query: Most recent jobs report; was great jump in construction sector?

Reply: 

 "Nonresidential" = LDCs.

Link here to x.

 

Or go direct to The WSJ, link here. 

From the linked article:

President Trump has drawn condemnation for suggesting that communities that block data centers will end up “backwards and poor.” His remark was hyperbolic, but he’s right that areas embracing data centers are enjoying more jobs and faster wage growth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics last week published industry-level data on state and county employment and wages through March of this year. We compared growth in Loudoun County, Va.—known as Data Center Alley—with other Washington, D.C., suburbs since early 2020 before the pandemic. The disparities are striking.

Loudoun has long been a hub for data-center development because of its easy zoning, relatively low-cost energy and geographical proximity to telecom network exchanges. It’s an exurban county with more land for growth than older suburbs closer to D.C. But it has also embraced growth, unlike those older suburbs. Construction growth has accelerated amid the AI boom, with permitted data-center space increasing by some 150% between 2020 and 2025. Jobs have followed.

Most counties surrounding the capital have experienced little job growth since the pandemic. Loudoun is the exception, with employment surging 17.4% since early 2020. Jobs increased by 1% or less in Fairfax County, Va., and Prince George’s County, Md. Virginia’s Arlington County (-7.3%) and Maryland’s Montgomery County shed jobs (-5.6%).

Construction jobs increased 63% in Loudoun, far more than in Fairfax (6.3%), Arlington (8.2%), Prince George’s (8.3%), and Montgomery (a 12.8% decline). Job growth from data-center construction also appears to be having positive spillover labor effects in other industries.

Employment in leisure and hospitality increased 6.8% in Loudoun while declining in other D.C. suburbs since early 2020. Average weekly wage growth for leisure and hospitality workers in Loudoun over this period (69%) was double that in Fairfax (26%), Arlington (29%), Montgomery (31%) and Prince George’s (27%). 

Yesterday, Steve Liesman, et al, were unable to explain the jump in new jobs month/month. LOL. Link here. Job growth, month-over-month, accelerated 3x expected. 

Data centers can help to spread prosperity without government intervention and income redistribution. Could that be the real reason America’s political class is turning against them? 

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Chatbots -- Continuing The Thread

Link here. 

Without Question, The AI Story Of The Week -- Hugging Face -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51666HUGGING_FACE.

Better than the Nobel Prize: three guys share in a $13-billion payday. 

The story of the "Hugging Face" emoji, released in 2025, no one claiming credit for the design: link here. 

x: link here. 

direct to The WSJ article: link here. 

 

From the linked article:

A trio of nerdy Frenchmen came to New York to build a sassy chatbot for teens. A decade later, their startup has grown into an artificial-intelligence platform that is a pillar of the tech ecosystem, and a linchpin in the strategy of the world’s most valuable company.

Nvidia agreed on Thursday to buy their AI company, called Hugging Face, for roughly $13 billion, doubling down on the chipmaker’s effort to challenge the dominance of proprietary AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic. With the deal, Nvidia is helping foster the ecosystem Hugging Face built for so-called open-weight AI tools that can be downloaded and tweaked by anyone.

But when Clément Delangue and Julien Chaumond first arrived at the Manhattan offices of venture capital fund Betaworks for its “BotCamp” startup program in the sweltering summer of 2016, their goal was more modest. They wanted to build a general-purpose chatbot that wasn’t boring like Apple’s Siri. 

It was more than seven years before the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“It won’t always give you the right answer, but it will always give you a funny one,” Delangue, the chief executive, said during a demonstration that summer, in which the app traded selfies with Chaumond, the chief technology officer. “And of course, it’s always very sassy.”

The name of the app—Hugging Face—was a placeholder they had put on their application for the program, based on the title of their favorite emoji. They intended to change it later but never did.

The following spring, Thomas Wolf, a physicist turned patent lawyer, joined the founders as the chief science officer.

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Lego

What's new?

I no longer buy Lego sets. I'm maxed out.

But there are exceptions. LOL.

#11376.

Link here. 

It's Not Sexy, Not Easy To Understand, And Lots Of Narrative But In General, Little In The Way Of Facts And Figures On The Blog -- Elecricity -- September 5, 2026

Locator: 51665ELECTRICITY.

Pageview run rate: 2 million pageviews per 24 hours overnight, 2330 - 0530.

For the first time in decades, U.S. electricity demand is growing faster than supply additions. 

We'll try to rectify the problem with a lot of links today.

Best place to start: AI query, "electricity demand US total by GW.

Electricity generation by source, world, 1900 to 2025: it's still mostly coal and natural gas, link here. 

Electricity demand by state, a really, really good site, link here. The demand surge, NOW:

Wind energy by state; amazing where North Dakota stands, link here. Excellent site. 
top ten states by share of electricity from wind and cost per kwh, link here:

• South Dakota leads the list at 52% -- amazing, simply amazing; 12.25 cents:
• Iowa: 51%; 11.25 cents;
• Kansas: 48%; 12.46 cents;
• Oklahoma: 44%; 10.8 cents;
• New Mexico: 36%; 9 cents (dropped y/y)
• Colorado: 35%; 14 cents;
• North Dakota: 35%; 9 cents;
• Wyoming: 30%; 10.10 cents;
• Nebraska: 25%; 10.25 cents;
• Montana: 24%; 11.8 cents;

Wind turbines by state, link here. Nice interactive map. In round numbers:

• Texas: 20,00
• Iowa: 6,500
• Oklahoma: 6,000
• California: 5,000

Nothing new in this article, but most recent, link here.