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From the Wall Street Journal today:

"Nearly 20 years ago, Texas shifted from using full-service regulated utilities to generate power and deliver it to consumers. The state deregulated power generation, creating the system that failed last week. And it required nearly 60% of consumers to buy their electricity from one of many retail power companies, rather than a local utility.

"Those deregulated Texas residential consumers paid $28 billion more for their power since 2004 than they would have paid at the rates charged to the customers of the state’s traditional utilities, according to the Journal’s analysis of data from the federal Energy Information Administration."

The deregulation created competition like the airlines. That lowered prices. I pay less for electricity than the utility that serves my home would charge me because of deregulation in NJ.   How does the writer of the article know what the rates would be if they never deregulated?

If I was an attorney in Texas, I'd consider starting a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone that was affected based on gross negligence by the State of Texas and the utilities that failed. This has happened before in 1989 and 2011 and they both failed to take action to prevent what occurred to citizens and customers despite clear warnings. I would seek reimbursement for any utility payments and cancelation of any unpaid balances plus damages.

They're already are lawsuits.  But the question is whether sovereign immunity applies and that is up to the Texas Supreme Court.
Link

Josh Hawley, everyone's favorite Capitol riot advocate, has suggest that instead of a minimum wage hike, low paid workers should get a refundable tax credit, paid quarterly, for one-half the difference between their hourly wage and roughly what they would have gotten if Congress had raised the minimum wage. Of course that would be limited to 40 hours a week, i.e., it wouldn't apply to overtime. So basically, the government pays the difference instead of businesses paying higher wages. This guy claims to be a Republican. If you are going to have the government pick up the tab, it seems like it would be easier to raise the minimum wage and give the businesses the tax credit, but what do I know. There is additional complexity in the bill, but that's what jumped out a me.

https://www.axios.com/hawley-minimum-wage-tax-credits-2087ac1e-a007-4095-b2b8-c0aa6d202dc2.html

While 17 million people will earn more money, raising the minimum wage to $15 will be at the expense of others as 1.4 million jobs will be lost  This is according to the Congressional Budget Office.  The CBO is a non-partisan congressional group that's responsible to calculate the cost and effect of legislation.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-would-reduce-poverty-but-cost-jobs-cbo-says

Hawley's recommendation is just another move by Republicans to buy votes.  In a sign of moving to the left, frankly, they're wasting their time. They'll never out-promise the Democrats in giveaways who have been playing that game for decades.  Unfortunately, the whole country is moving there for free stuff for everyone.  That will break the bank and impoverish the country. 

It's also a stupid idea.  All that will happen is that employers will keep wages down telling their employees that the government is making up the difference in their pay.  Of course, the rest of us will have to make up the difference for $200 billion dollars when we already are paying half the budget with printed money.   Who thinks of these things? Hawley should become a Democrat.

Yes, it's been out for months and there's a distinct absence of independent information on this, even now.
I think the 55mm was/is a bigger liability to the system than the 80 mm mk1 and a fast optically correct 55mm that allows subject isolation would be far more valuable.
Sadly my experience is that the German word for 'deaf' is "Schneider"...!

Yes, it's been out for months and there's a distinct absence of independent information on this, even now.
I think the 55mm was/is a bigger liability to the system than the 80 mm mk1 and a fast optically correct 55mm that allows subject isolation would be far more valuable.
Sadly my experience is that the German word for 'deaf' is 'Schneider"...!

No rush bump!

Some roads were just meant for manual shift !

Sale pending on 90mm Lens, Sinar P3 adapter

Glad you had a chance to look through the links. I'll just add a quick note that besides controlling the X & Y directions the Z direction (height) can adversely your readings. The thicker your guide base is the greater the cross-talk from adjacent column patches.   

If I was an attorney in Texas, I'd consider starting a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone that was affected based on gross negligence by the State of Texas and the utilities that failed. This has happened before in 1989 and 2011 and they both failed to take action to prevent what occurred to citizens and customers despite clear warnings. I would seek reimbursement for any utility payments and cancelation of any unpaid balances plus damages.