We have a blissfully short column this morning because the real “deal points” in the news flow this morning market America’s present mass-media-breakdown a prime candidate for diagnosis as bipolar disorder (Refer to your dog-eared DSM-5) although it could enlarge into a schizophrenic break. If I were a mental health professional (which I’m thankfully not) the … Read More

Just when I was hoping the bottom was in on the nearly-incomprehensible decline of American’s critical-thinking, here comes another example of how Musitics and Politainment are wrecking our future. The latest example of the blending of politics and music came with the Grammy’s.  A typical headline from Mediaite?  “Michelle Obama Shows Up at the Grammy … Read More

Charging is harder than you thought.  Regardless of your energy source, whether wind, low-head hydro, solar,  or that noisy old gen-set, there is still the problem of getting the energy into your deep-cycling long-term alternative energy storage battery system. It’s not as simple as it sounds.  This morning, we break down how to do it … Read More

While the long-pending breakdown of modern society has not yet arrived, we have to wonder what we’ll “do for a living” when it does? There are any number of choices, obviously: There will be a lot of openings for contract “musicle” to make sure that people who bother you are reprimanded even if “police” will … Read More

America has a new hot story du jour to come to terms with:  There are reports all over the place about how the parent company of the National Enquirer obtained some (ahem) bawdy photos of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and attempted to bury the story IF Bezos would….well, The Medium has a good run-down on it.  So, too,, does the NY Times … Read More

We see by the early futures that the odds of the market dropping 140 points at the open are better than the odds of remaining governor in Virginia. The technical problem for the market next week is simple enough:  At the time of our January options settlement the Aggregate Index was hovering around 22,681.  As … Read More

I have pushed-back the next chapter on our solar/renewable energy book to Saturday because a couple of readers asked me to take a look at Gold which has popped up over the $1,300 level recently. When I went through the data (which is something we love to do!) I found something that’s definitely worth thinking … Read More

A simple rap today on the fine art of table saw improvement.  The table saw, especially when you match it up with a good set of Shark blades and a nice dado kit, is one of the more useful saws in the shop. This week I went through the process of getting mine set up … Read More

We thought it would be useful to point out some of the Realities of the State of the Union speech which our “bordering on president” will delivery tonight. I say “bordering on president” because Nancy Pelosi and the Schumer types on the hill are practicing medicine without a license; neutering the Trump agenda by failing … Read More

“Huh?  What About the Markets?” I’ll get to that in a second.  But, I woke up this morning at 3 AM with a terrible knowing that the world’s treatment of cottonseed oil represents the crystallization of everything that is crazy in the world today.  Time for a little “long-chain-thinking” exercise. To begin, a long-ago article in Bon Appetit pointed … Read More

Confessions of “A Battery Slumlord.”  As  our “superior prepping” for whatever comes has evolved, we began with a survey of  basic energy economics in a society that literally would starve without lots of power. After that, we ran through the process of “Scoring Power Sources” in chapter two.  On Wednesday, we rolled out some of … Read More

Sure! Nachos and dips, beer, jerky, in fact, you could go through your entire prepping kit and try out all those things this weekend. After all, since SB is the quintessential do-nothing weekend, what better time to pop open some Mountain House Beef Stroganoff 10 Can Freeze Dried Food – 6 CANS per Case.   OK, … Read More

Football in a sec.  Jobs Out: Trump Bump Toast: We’ve been thinking things were headed this way for several weeks, but here’s the data hot off the BLS website: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 304,000 in January, and the unemployment rate edged up to 4.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. … Read More