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CANCER/EVOLUTION

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The January 6 Insurrection Hoax

What really took place on January 6. No deaths by intruder violence. No insurrection.

by Roger Kimball

Notwithstanding all the hysterical rhetoric surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, two critical things stand out. The first is that what happened was much more hoax than insurrection. In fact, in my judgment, it wasn’t an insurrection at all.

An “insurrection,” as the dictionary will tell you, is a violent uprising against a government or other established authority. Unlike the violent riots that swept the country in the summer of 2020—riots that caused some $2 billion in property damage and claimed more than 20 lives—the January 6 protest at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. lasted a few hours, caused minimal damage, and the only person directly killed was an unarmed female Trump supporter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. It was, as Tucker Carlson said shortly after the event, a political protest that “got out of hand.”...

...Read the full article at imprimus.hillsdale.edu

How Is Joe Doing So Far?

 Andy Kessler wrote an interesting Opinion piece in the Wall St. Journal last Monday entitled "How to Be an Anticapitalist". He finds some significant parallels between an anticapitalist and the current USA President.

Citing a few:

1. Pay people not to work. According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 1.8 million workers have turned down jobs, due in part to the extra $300/week the federal government is offering to states.
   
   
2. Shut down pipelines that lower the cost of fuel, which creates a rise in almost all consumer goods prices, as crude jumps to over $73/bbl. It was $56/bbl when Joe took office in January. Meanwhile let your foreign government finish its gas pipeline, causing European countries to be more dependent on Russia, while leaving Ukraine holding the bag (due to its loss of gas transit revenues). A blue state governor joined in with the shutdown of a nuclear power plant in New York state, while New York city residents have been asked to cut back on energy use during a summer heat wave.
    
3.  Slow down business capital formation by raising the top tax rate on capital gains. President Biden has asked for an increase from 24% to 43%. That should work if passed, especially if you could call it "infrastructure", and use reconciliation to pass it so no Republican members of Congress need participate.
   
   
4. Waive Covid vaccine patents so big pharma won't have the incentive to create a vaccine for the next pandemic that (allegedly) comes from Wuhan. That could slow down the economy just like the current pandemic did.
   
   Then pile on some extras:  limit speech, open the borders, mess up healthcare, defund the police, don't enforce crime (have you seen San Francisco lately? Absurd!), and have your Treasury Secretary make like OPEC and get the G-20 together to come up with a minimum international tax. Wow--whose side is she on? 

Sad part--this will impact low-income families most, robbing them of what could have been a better life. With socialism we will all be equal, heck Cuba, Venezuela are both excellent examples of everyone being equal. Sadly, to get there most people got their standard of living LOWERED.

My Epson XP-960 Attempts to Die

 A member of my family owns an Epson XP-960. It is used most every day to print photos. It's been in the family about 18 months. Suddenly a couple of weeks ago it stopped working. When one turned on the printer it displayed a message indicating that "service was required".  The scanner was still operable (I controlled it from the computer)  but the printer would not print.

This article is not an explanation of how to correct the problem but merely to point out that you can "save" this printer--you don't have to take it to an Epson Service Center or buy another because of this error. And to provide a recommendation for the site I needed to get it all to work.

The Epson XP-960 has a "waste information counter" or WIC. Every time you print, this counter is incremented, until one day you've reached 100% of your number, in which case, with little warning, it causes the printer to stop. It is designed to prevent overfilling the waste ink pads inside the printer.

You can easily access these waste pads--they're in a plastic container held in by two screws, located on the bottom of the printer--just flip it over and it is obvious where the container is located. The main problem is that a user has no ability to reset the WIC. I also do NOT recommend trying to empty the saturated ink pads--it just doesn't work.

So to get the printer working, one needs a program that can reset the WIC, and around the same time, find a way to replace those waste ink pads.

Every place I looked online in the U.S., the ink pads were out of stock. This is not a small issue, I surmised. I found a site in the U.K. octoink.co.uk. I took a chance and bought a WIC reset ID (about $11), and ordered a set of ink waste pads to replace the current ones.

 The WIC program (and the unique ID) came immediately after ordering. I did get it working without incident (Windows 8.1 PC) within the next hour or so. Then it was a matter of waiting for the waste ink pads to arrive. They sent two sets--it included the plastic container box (you do need to keep the screws from the old one). It took six days for my order, I selected "economy air" or something similar. That part was around $33. In retrospect, I think you can easily get by taking the cheapest shipping option. 

In the end it was well worth it. I get to use the same printer, same drivers, and a product I am comfortable with.

The old print container and waste ink pads

Having Trouble with Excel (Office 2013) on Windows 8.1? KB2976978

I've learned (I thought) from past experience to be wary about system updates for Windows. Everything is tagged  'Important' it seems.  Here's what I have today for example:

21 'Important Updates'--and here they are:

Starting off, I don't have any Microsoft Office 2007 on this computer. That eliminates all the Office 2007 stuff--shouldn't be on the list, obviously.

Next up are these Windows 8.1 Updates. I had previously 'installed' some updates on a prior time, and many of them failed, except ONE-----> KB2976978

That little gem said successful. About three days later my Office 2013 (specifically Excel) didn't open properly. First time it was a bunch of vertical lines where the info should be, the next time it was blank in the info area. Scared to death something had corrupted my Excel files. Stopped right there. Went through the 'repair' stuff in the programs page. No luck--came back with some kind of 'error' note. Luckily I still had my Office 2013 Program ID so after some contortions with logging on with Microsoft etc. I was able to reload Office. One hour+ lost to history, but I thought all was fine.

Three days later the SAME THING HAPPENED! I had created a store point after the first break, so restored that. Nope, still broken. Last thing I wanted to do was do all that download stuff again. I remembered then that little ol' KB2976978 was the only thing to update in my last go-round, so I went in and 'uninstalled' the update. Of course you know what happened.

Excel worked just fine again. Talk about avoiding a bullet.

Curiosity led me to check out - just what was this update supposed to do anyway? (Besides breaking Excel).  Well here's what the support page says:

"This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The diagnostics evaluate the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem, and help Microsoft to ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows. There is no GWX or upgrade functionality contained in this update."

Wow, who else feels more confident now about Microsoft products? (Don't all raise your hand at the same time)...

DO NOT Transfer Delta SkyMiles (with rare exceptions)

1/25/2020
If you've been around as long as I have, you probably have some Frequent Flyer miles that have been hanging around for some time. Realizing that these miles (many earned in the 1990's and 2000's) have become worth less and less over time. At many on-line frequent flyer blogs they are in fact referred to as "SkyPesos", probably not a favorable term. A recent experience reconfirmed that.


In the 1990's (as I remember them) you could only use your miles for someone else if they were a relative. I don't recall if miles were transferred or just what the mechanism was. There is a transfer mechanism today for SkyMiles, but it costs so much to use that it essentially makes the miles valueless! 

In my example, I was looking to transfer some miles to a relative so they could visit me in the next month or so--a round trip from Seattle to Austin. First up, I checked to see what the miles would amount to for a First Class ticket--here's what I found:

Mileage chart for Week of Feb 19-26

So the MINIMUM miles for anytime that week would be 62,000 miles + $11.20. That seemed like a lot of miles, so I checked the airfare. Here's what I found:

While the amount ($734.80) wasn't cheap, I had seen fares on this route ranging from $500 to $1100, depending on time of year, etc. Using miles instead of $$$ for this trip would value the miles at 1.17¢/mile. Not worth much at all!

But it turns out that transferring miles to another person costs money--a lot of money. Here were the latest "rules" for transferring miles:

 Under the "Transaction Terms", we find that the cost to transfer 62,000 miles is $661.20. Here is how that breaks down.

But I could buy a ticket (and earn about 4,000 miles!) for only another $73.60.  This example shows you what Delta thinks of you!

The only time it might seem reasonable to transfer miles is if the transferee is 5,000 or fewer miles short in their account. But otherwise--NEVER TRANSFER MILES WITH THIS SCHEME!

So far the only mechanism I've seen to get around this is for the original holder of the miles to buy the ticket for the user. There are no additional mileage charges in that case. I've seen questions about having the credit card used available at check-in but I'm not sure on the details for that.

Here's a link that might be helpful.  Good luck.

Walgreens -- Intentional High Prices -- What a Strategy!

USA Today and others posted in the last few days that "200 Walgreens Stores Closing".  It's no wonder with their pricing policies.

I needed some Amlodipine to fill a prescription.  I knew that walking in off the street Walgreens would soak you. I just didn't know how much. On my initial visit, they were going to charge me $58 for 30 tablets 10mg. I had just recently learned of GoodRX.com where I had cross-checked prices and they were nowhere near this number. I mentioned it to the pharmacist, then had to dig out the coupon on my phone. They dropped the price to around $19. Still high compared to others, but I thought $3-4 for convenience was ok.

So recently I went back for a refill. Now the price is $28! With the coupon! I went to check GoodRX.com Here's the list:


Wait--most expensive was Walgreens "WITH MEMBERSHIP"? What does that mean?


So with a $20 annual membership, you can then get it for $10, according to GoodRX. But I can walk in off the street at H.E.B. and get it for $12, and not be tied to their pharmacy. But to do that at Walgreens?  Fork over your $69.78!

Forget that. I hope my local Walgreens closes and I can get a replacement store with reasonable pricing.