Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Words of the Weasel Part 56.



How to Weaponize an Existential Threat.  The title of a piece in the Wall St Journal Op-Ed page.  The author, Joseph Epstein is out to trash a lot of vague words, popular with newsies and pols, which have been creeping into English.  He mentions focus, issue (bland word for bug or problem), charisma, prioritize, weaponize, incentivize.  Word for Window spell check chokes up on weaponize and incentivize
   The author finishes off with “existential threat”.    A threat is a threat, when you are on the receiving end of a threat you have to either knuckle under, or get ready to fight.  The existential part is a fancy way of making the threat sound more dangerous.  Me, I will stick with “deadly threat”.   
   Mr. Epstein doesn’t mention “holistic”, a general purpose sounds good but means nothing word.  When I hear or read “holistic” I know I am wasting my time with this person or article.

Monday, April 29, 2019

Star Wars The Force Awakens 2015


The Force Awakens.  Following up on my Stars Wars refresher, getting ready for the coming Christmas new Star Wars movie, I popped my DVD of The Force Awakens into the player last night.  I’m getting them out of order, The Force Awakens came out for Christmas 2015, and Rogue One came out the next Christmas 2016. 
   They had a better sound man in Force.  All the dialog was audible.  And I picked up on a few of the new character’s names.  Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8.  Never did catch a name for Darth Vader, Jr.  And everybody knows Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker by sight.  In this movie they kill off Han Solo.  He will be missed. 
   Camera man was into the dark look, he turned out the lights in a lot of scenes.  Not quite as annoying as Rogue One camera work, but annoying.  Even out door scenes in broad daylight were dim.  Indoor scenes were black. 
   We have a plot of sorts.  Poe has a star map showing where the long lost Luke Skywalker is hiding/meditating.  It is programmed into his droid, BB-8, smaller and cuter than R2D2.  They need to get the map to the Resistance, who then launches a one person search party (Rey) to find Skywalker.  Rey is pretty good; we meet her on desert planer Jakku where she is making bare living scavenging wrecks out in the desert.  Rey has a vehicle nearly as cool as the air car from the first Star Wars flick.  It floats a bit higher off the ground and looks like a John Deere farm tractor without the wheels.  Noisy and smoky internal combustion engine (still surviving in the high tech Star Wars universe?).   Rey is lean and tough, fast on her feet, and a natural born pilot.  She and Finn escape Jakku in the good old Millennium Falcon which they find and steal right off the planetary boss’s back yard.  With Rey in the pilot’s seat and Finn manning the guns, we see a lot of low level flying with TIE fighters in pursuit.  Millennium Falcon is built tough in this flick; we see her scraping the ground and crashing thru trees, and still airborne.  I found these scenes a little jarring, in the Air Force, touching the plane to the ground, even lightly, was a crash, excepting touched the landing gear to the runway.  And, they can kick in the hyper drive and go faster than light before even getting clear of the hanger. 

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Swap the keyboard and Control-C, Control-V and Delete work again

This is Win 10 Pro, running on a reconditioned (used) Dell Optiplex 990.  Changing out the Dell USB keyboard for the old Compaq  keyboard with the old PS2  connector  and everything works!!  I was unable to find anything useful on the net to fix the problem.  Youngest son was up for the weekend and he suggested trying a PS2 keyboard.  That did the trick. I'm still looking for info to get the new USB keyboard to work, it has a nicer keyfeel than the aging Compaq keyboard. 
  I think this is a Win 10 or a driver problem.  The PS2 keyboard uses a different driver.  I don't think the problem is defective hardware, 'cause both Control AND Delete were broke on the USB keyboard.  That's an unlikely hardware failure. 
   Strange that I could not find anyone else on the net complaining about the problem.

Beat the Press.

Chuck Todd had the day off, some newshen I don't know filled in for him this Sunday morning.  All they talked about was the Mueller report.  Apparently nothing interesting has happened anywhere else in the world.  A lot of grieving on air that the Mueller report failed to nuke Trump.  More opining about impeaching Trump.  Not a word about the horrible massacre of Christians in Sre Lanka (Ceylon it used to be called).   Not a word about the engine explosion on the Space-X crew capsule.  Stick with the Drudge Report, you will gt some real news, rather than NBC longing to nuke Trump.

NH Senate doings week of 22-26 April 2019


Ed Committee Hearing.  23 April.  Five bills were heard.  We started off with HB 383 “Relative to the prohibition on unlawful discrimination in public and non-public schools”.  Couple of interesting phrases in that title.  “Unlawful discrimination”, is there any other kind?  Does “lawful discrimination” really exist?  And “non-public schools”.  In plain English those are called private schools.   I asked the representative introducing the bill if “discrimination” included preventing boys from using girl’s restrooms, locker rooms and showers.  She said it did.  She also said preventing boys from competing in girl’s sports would be discrimination.  I plan to speak against and vote against this bill when it reaches the Senate floor.  Can you say stealth transgender?  The bill makes no attempt to define  discrimination, which means it could be anything.
    Now for HB 435, this is a harmless paperwork bill, changes a few names, but otherwise harmless. 
    And HB 447 “Relative to school calendar days”.  This bill merely states that local school boards can set the school calendar as they please just so long as they squeeze in 180 school days.  This is what the law is today. This bill is to kill off a Senate bill passed earlier, that required all schools to start AFTER Labor Day. Most NH schools now start in August.  Administrators and teachers like that.  Personally, I feel that starting school before Labor Day is child abuse.  But that’s just me. 
   And HB 448 another harmless paperwork bill of no consequence.
   And finally, HB 652 which would require two hours of suicide prevention training for everyone, teachers, administrators, bus drivers, secretaries, everybody except coaches.  No funding was provided.   Training could be merely watching some instructional video on the Internet.   No requirement for training students to recognize suicidal thoughts in their friends, or what to do should they feel a friend might be suicidal.   



Short Senate session today.  Started at the usual time, 10 AM and we had all the business on the calendar done by 11 AM.  Opened the show with the Fast Track (consent) calendar.  Ten bills were Fast Tracked.  All of them were harmless and no account.  One was amusing and makes you wonder how anyone does business in New Hampshire.  That was HB 259 that now requires that building inspectors writing up a building or job must quote chapter and verse of the fire code that has been violated when they write up a violation.  Dunno how we have gotten along without that all these years.  Anyhow one quick voice vote and ten more bills, already passed by the House, are passed by the Senate and off for the Governor’s signature. 
   Now for the regular calendar.  We killed (Inexpedient to Legislate, ITL in legitative speak) HB 309 which made complicated changes to the procedures about foreclosing a mortgage.  We passed HB 511 which subjected vaping to the same controls as ordinary cigarette smoking.  No vaping on school property, no vaping in no smoking areas.   Seemed reasonable to me.  Did not get into taxing vaping stuff as hard as we tax cigarettes.  And we voice voted HB 684, concerning rent disputes about “manufactured housing: Ought To Pass (OTP).  I asked the bill’s sponsor if “manufactured housing” was what ordinary people call house trailers.  He conceded that it was.  I then asked him why rent disputes over house trailer rentals deserved special protections at law that ordinary landlord tenant disputes don’t get.  Answer was so vague as to be no answer at all.
   And then HP 663 concerning some obscure language changes about the definition of agriculture and agricultural land use.  We used to call that farming and farms.  Dunno what the lawyers dreamed up to complicate life and raise their billable hours. 
   And HB 118 which would require notifying a child’s doctor of reports of abuse.  This could be a little touchy.  Down in Massachusetts they have a lot of doctors reporting ordinary child accident injury from falls and such as child abuse.  Anyhow HB 118 passed on a voice vote. Zap.
   And HB 396 requiring the bureaucracy to get the lead out and respond to right to know requests within 5 days.    OTP voice vote. 
   And HB 427 made some opaque change to the law about filing protective orders on behalf of minor children.  OTP voice vote.
    And HB 437 concerning “family alienation” was tabled on a voice vote.  This bill would have allowed divorced parents to sue each other for bad mouthing each other in front of the children.  Let’s leave it on the table forever. 
   And a weird one, HB 518 which allows the state to recover the costs of imprisoning someone from that someone.  Apparently we have a wealthy prisoner in slam right now and we want to sock it to him harder.  Senator Lou D’Alessandro spoke in favor of this.  I never heard of this before.  We send a guy to jail, he serves his sentence, or is a good little boy and gets parole, and he is out.  I never heard of a state dunning such a person for room and board in the big house before. 
   And we closed by passing HB 700 concerning taxes on utilities.  I did not understand just what the deal was in HB 700.  I do know New Hampshire utility rates are totally unreasonable, partly due to taxes on utilities, RGGI, another hidden utility tax and more such.   
    

Name Signs for Pundits.


What’s in a name?   I watch a lot of TV talking heads, opining upon nearly everything.  Camera will cut in on one or another of them as they talk.   Leaving me wondering About the name of the speaker.  Some names I know and respect.  Other names I know are turkeys.  A lot of names I never heard of. 
   What the TV people ought to do is place a good sized name sign on the table in front of each participant.  Then the news junkies in the audience, like yours truly, would know who is who and be able to sort out good opinions from the not-so-good opinions presented.  And perhaps learn a few new names in the process.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Talking to people with information on your opponent

Now that Mueller has fizzled out, the democrats are scratching around for something else to throw at Trump  (dump on Trump).  They are talking up a meeting at the Trump Tower in New York back in 2016.  A woman, later identified as a Russian agent, turned up, claiming to have some dirt on Hilary.  They listened to her.  They decided that her information wasn't good enough to use, or leak, but they did listen to her.  Which is perfectly normal.  When you are running for office, and someone offers dirt on your opponent, you listen to them.  You may decide, like the Trump people did, that the dirt isn't solid enough to use, but you want to know what is on offer.  Nothing wrong with this.  Except to democrats and the MSM (democratic operatives with bylines)

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Words of the Weasel Part 55

Blanding down the language.  Must not offend snowflakes, or anyone.
Substance.  One of the most general nouns in English.  Any solid or liquid is a substance.  So now the newsies use "Substance abuse" or Substance abuse disorder"  in place of the more informative and straight forward "Drug Addiction".  Makes you think they are in favor of drug use. 

Rogue One 2016

There is talk about yet another Star Wars flick coming out for Christmas.  So I thought I might re watch the last batch of them, the later ones after the three "revival" ones of some years ago.  Started with Rogue One.  I had the DVD.  I saw this one live in theater, with my daughter, back in 2016 when it came out.  Medium speed for a Star Wars movie.
   No names.  Watched the whole thing and when the credits finally rolled, I could not think of any character's stage name.  Not like the good old days when names like Leia, Skywalker, Obi-wan, Vader, and Han Solo were on everyone's lips.  Major problem is no character ever addresses another one by name.  Secondary problem, junior sound men who aren't very good at their jobs and the dialog is often inaudible.  Good sound requires good microphone placement, good mikes, and actors who don't mumble their lines.  And good sound mixing.  They must mute the score and the sound effects when dialog is happening.  Anyhow, the sound in Rogue One was mediocre to poor.
   As bad as the soundtrack was , the camera man was worse.  It was 2016 and the cult of the unlit scene was raging thru Hollywood.   A good third, maybe a half, of the scenes were dark, so dark I could could recognize who was in the scene.  Just plain annoying. 
   And the writers missed a few good ideas.  Opening scene where slimy Imperial Count whats-his-face, dressed in white, swoops in to arrest the father, a high powered scientist involved in Death Star development, who has fled the project and is living on a remote farm with wife and young child.  Didn't get his name either.   If the old man is such a hot shot scientist, he should have brought some wonder weapon into play and vaporized Count whats-his-face, rather than submitting to arrest.
   Young chick protagonist acts a pretty good part.  Didn't catch her name either.  Handsome guy is OK but his acting is no better than ordinary.  The writers left out a scene that I would have enjoyed, a scene were the two of them get a chance for a quiet talk, uninterrupted by bad guys with guns,  where we hear what she thinks of him, and vice versa. 
   The was an A movie, huge budget, great box office.  But re watching it makes me understand why Hollywood is dying. 

Friday, April 19, 2019

75 miles of Mueller

Yesterday (Thursday, Mueller report release day)  I set out for Concord.  Turned on the car radio.  NPR talked about Mueller and his report, steady, all the way down, some 75 miles.  I'm tired of Mueller.  Surely something important has happened somewhere in the world?  All we get is Mueller talk.  The newsies love the Mueller story, it's easy to cover, since little has happened.  All the newsies have to do is sit down at the keyboard and pontificate.  That's easier than getting out of the office and talking to real live people.
  I hear the released report, after strikeouts, is still 450 pages.  I don't have the energy, or the interest, to plow thru 450 pages of legal gobble-de-gook.  It would be nice if some trustworthy newsie would do a nice evenhanded summary.  Trouble is, about the only newsies that I see as trustworthy are Brett Bair and Britt Hume.  Somehow I don't think either of them will take on the read-and-report-Mueller job.  Too tedious.  

NH Senate doings.


Senate session 18 April.  Started off with the Fast Track (consent) calendar.  18 bills, including HB 540 which sets up a complex deal to finance the Balsam project.  We pulled HB 369 off the Fast Track.  It allowed HHS workers access to the prescription drug monitoring program.  We felt it was a big privacy violation.  NH keeps a list of people obtaining opioid prescriptions largely so that doctors can check to see how many opioid prescriptions a patient has before writing a new prescription.  Needless to say, opioid prescriptions are something of a black mark with employers and others, so we ought to keep this information confidential.  Allowing HHS people access to it doesn’t help the patients, and may well hurt them. Five of the Fast Track bills were to set up more study commissions.  And then a quick voice vote passed all 17 bills left on the Fast Track.   
   Then we ran thru the 14 bills on the regular calendar.  Passed them all on voice votes.  Only bills of interest were HB365 which raised the amount of power a net metering generator can get paid for to 5 megawatts, up from 1 megawatt.  And HB 572 proclaiming second Saturday in June as Pollyanna recognition day.  Very important bill, trust me on this, cause Pollyanna was written by a Littleton author, and we put up a Pollyanna statue in front of the Littleton public library. 
 After all this heavy lifting we finished up and adjourned by 11:30. 
  

Monday, April 15, 2019

Fixing Win 10 shutdown failures


Fix shutdown failure.  15 Apr 2019

This problem has been with my laptop, Flatbeast, since a Windows update a year ago.  Flatbeast would not shut down all the way in software.  Right click on the Windows icon,( lower right hand corner of screen) select  "Shut Down or Sign Out"  and then select "Shut down" and Win 10 would tell you he was shutting down and the screen would go dark.  But the LED in the power button would stay on.  You could not restart with the power button.  Only way to get the machine running again was to hold the power button down for the count to 9, and wait for the LED to go out. 
Fix.  Turn off "fast startup".  Here is how.  Go to control panel.  Select System and Security.  Select Power options.    Select "Choose what the power button does".  Select "Change settings that are currently unavailable.  Uncheck "Turn on fast startup"  .
Finish up by clicking on "Save Settings".  Done.  Now clicking on shut down makes Win 10 really shut down.  Another Micro$oft "feature" fixed.

So how do you pronounce Buttigieg?

As in Mayor Peter Buttigieg just announced as running for president.  Seems like a nice young guy from what I have seen of him on the tube.  Me, I would pronounce his last name butty-gig from the spelling.  The TV newsies are pronouncing it Booty-judge which sounds better.  Poor guy must have taken a lot of flak over his name back in grade school.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Spring computer migration


I finally bought a new computer.  Trusty Desktop, a Compaq Presario SR 1750 NX, is ten years old, and is still running Windows XP.  My web browser and my anti virus and my TurboTax vendors all say they don't support XP any more.  It's time.  I found a used Dell Optiplex on the net at Amazon for $206 delivered.  Came with Win 10 Professional, the fast I5 processor, and acres and acres of RAM and disk space. Hardware is ten years faster than poor old Trusty Desktop.  The Dell keyboard has nice key feel.    Win 10 is so much slower than XP that the new machine is little faster than the old one.   Migration was sluggish.  My photos filled THREE DVD disks.  Thunderbird took most of the day to get working on the new machine.  The menu entry to point Thunderbird to your email file is deeply hidden and concealed beneath an obscure label.  And what little documentation Google found on the web is wrong. 
    I looked at my patch file from Win 10 laptop and put in most of them.  Some of them, mostly removing frill programs, were unnecessary on Win 10 Pro.  Most stuff is now working EXCEPT control C, control V. and Delete (strike out forward) doesn't work.  Web searching turned up a number of fixes, none of which worked.  Web fixes, re install keyboard driver and update keyboard drive didn't fix it.  I'm still working on it.  

Picking your college major

Everyone has to pick a college major, English or history or French or chemistry or so on and so forth.  Colleges usually ask you to commit to a major by the end of sophomore year. To do this important choice right, you have to have some idea as to what you are going do to make a living after graduation.  Except for the very lucky and the very few who are independently wealthy, or stand to inherit some real money, you gotta make a living.  You will spend much of your time, for the rest of your life, making your living.  Life will be better and happier if you like your career choice.  When we are little kids we all have ideas of what you want to be when we grow up, a fireman, a railroad engineer, a pilot, a nurse, a cowboy, etc.  By the time we get to college, a lot of us have no idea what we want to do for a living after graduation. 
   Get over it.  Do some research.  Start with friends and family.  Ask them what they do at the office.  Read up on the career.  Read some biographies, see if  what they did sounds interesting.  Pick a career that will be fun to do.  Temper the fun to do with some practicality,  being a Hollywood actor is good fun, but the competition is fierce and your chances of making it work are low. 
   After you have thought about your career, pick a major that makes you employable in that career field.  Colleges offer a lot of majors that are of no use what so ever in any field at all.  For example, gender studies, black studies, just about any kind of studies, sociology, art history, anthropology,  won't get you a job, anywhere.  Political science won't get you a job in business or industry, although it helps if you plan to go to law school, or into politics, or both.  All the STEM subjects  are good for employment. 
   College is expensive, you owe it to yourself to come out of college employable at something. 

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

NH Senate Ed Committee hearings 9 April


Tuesday, Ed Committee hearings.  We heard four bills, none of them very important in my view.  There was HB 689, a bill to set up a system of educational savings accounts for most, perhaps all students in New Hampshire.  The state would kick in $250 per kid.  This would be funded by a $100 per account tax on brokerage houses.  This is enough to drive most brokerage houses out of state.  Advocates claimed that kids with an educational savings account were seven times more likely to go to college than kids without.  Tied in with the savings account deal was a requirement to teach “”financial literacy” starting in SECOND grade.  I asked about that, when I did second grade we were still learning to add and subtract.  How do you teach balancing your checkbook, or discuss how interest hurts you on loans and helps you on savings (when the banks pay interest on savings, which few do today). 
Next was HB 489 setting up rules and procedures for children to change schools.  The system in HB 489 seemed unobjectionable.  I asked why we needed this bill this year.  Surely kids have been transferred over all the years the Republic has stood.  Why do we need to re write the rules now?  No good answer was forth coming.
And yet another fund creeps out of the woodwork.  There is a “Public School Infrastructure Fund”.   HB 357 would extend the life of this fund.  From the testimony, the money has mostly gone to hardening school buildings against school shooters. 
And another house keeping bill that should have been handled administratively.  Apparently the state collects as stores higher ed transcripts, in case the higher end institution goes out of business, graduates will still be able to get a couple of their transcript.  The state has been keeping the transcripts forever.  HB356 would let the state throw the transcripts away after 40 years.  We amended that to 50 years. 
  So fresh bills all heard, we went into executive session and declared previously heard bills HB 357 HB 171 HB 356 and HB 719 ought to pass. 
   I went to the afternoon senate commerce committee meeting and spoke in favor of HB 540, a deal to finance restarting the Balsams resort up in Dixville Notch.  The entire North Country is in favor on account of the jobs and the tourists involved.   After hearing all the testimony, Commerce voted it Ought To Pass 5-0 and put it on the Fast Track calendar, which means to bill is almost sure to pass the full senate. 
  And for my last trick of the day, I testified in favor of SB 138 over in the House.  This bill would grant degree granting authority to Signum University, a small new startup offering courses over the internet.  I have spoken with the Signum people, and they mean well, they are not a diploma mill. 
   It was snowing north of Concord.   I 93 was unplowed and slippery.  I spun out, did a 360 and wound up in the ditch.  Luck was with me, I didn’t hit anything, car was unbend, and I was able to pull out backwards onto the shoulder.  It got worse; snow was 3-4 inches deep at Plymouth. 

Monday, April 8, 2019

737 MAX, the engine swap that become a nightmare

The Boeing 737 is the plain vanilla single aisle airliner that flies most airline routes, the ordinary routes that don't, will never, generate enough traffic to fill up a bigger plane.  It's been in production for decades.  Under competitive pressure from Airbus, Boeing decided to do an engine swap on the trusty long serving 737.   Metallurgists have come up with better hot section metals over the years, the better metals allow the engine to run hotter, which gives better fuel mileage, as much as 10% better.   And, Boeing and the FAA promised that the re-engined 737 would fly just like the good old 737 and not require retraining pilots to fly the new aircraft.
   The new engines are good, and do deliver better fuel economy.  They are also bigger, so much bigger that they almost drag  on the runway.  Which means the new engines mount lower beneath the wings.  Which means you get a stronger nose up motion when the throttles are advanced.  Boeing, with FAA approval, decided to modify the autopilot to apply some nose down force using the trim tabs to make the 737 MAX fly like the good old 737.   And something went wrong, and two brand new 737 MAXs dove into the ground right after takeoff, killing all on board.   Aviation Week hasn't told us just what went wrong, but two smoking holes in the ground are enough to convince most of us that something is wrong. 

Thursday, April 4, 2019

NPR talks about lowering drug prices

NPR did this piece a few days ago.  They described a number of complex deals that might or might not work.  They totally failed to talk about one simple act that would lower US drug prices a lot, right now, and it is 100% legal. 
   All we have to do is allow duty free import of drugs from any reasonable first world country, Canada, Britain, the EU, Japan, probably some others.  Drugs are cheaper overseas because the national health authorities are permitted to bargain over price.  The US medicare and medicaid are not allowed to bargain, by law they have to accept whatever price big pharma asks.  Result, a lot of drugs, many of them manufactured in the US, are a lot cheaper overseas, like half the US prices.  If we allowed import, we could take advantage of those lower prices here at home.
   FDA will cry and scream, but they don't get to vote.  They will claim that foreign drugs haven't been inspected, and their makers haven't been  harrassed by FDA.  Far as I am concerned, if the authorities in any reasonable first world country think the drugs are good enough for their own citizens, I think they are OK for US citizens as well.
   Big pharma would go into orbit.  but they don't get to vote.  They do spread a lot of money around in DC, and they would threaten the pols with a cutoff of  "campaign contributions/bribes".  The intelligent pol would vote his district, and with some support from the MSM, the districts would be in favor. 
   That NPR totally ignored this issue is a measure of either their ignorance, or big pharma has got to them.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Migrating Thunderbird Email to a new computer



I wanted to bring years of  Thunderbird email, addresses, mail folders, macros to sort incoming email in the proper folders, lotta stuff over to the new computer.  Thunderbird keeps all this stuff in “profiles”, disk files, stored in each users space.  This way each user of the computer can have his own email, address book and all that other stuff.  The executable Thunderbird code is kept in Program Files (86), but the mail and address data are kept in a folder name Thunderbird in Documents and Settings in XP renamed Users in Win 10.  The Thunderbird profiles are folders in the Thunderbird folder. Along with a key file named profiles.ini.  Profiles.ini has a pointer to the profile that Thunderbird has been using.  There may be more than one profile, but the one you want to move to the new computer is the one Thunderbird is using at the minute.  The other profiles are older ones, or ones copied in from other computers, or just plain obfusticators.  No matter, bring them all over to the new computer.  I assume you understand how to move files from computer to computer using flash drives or CDs or DVDs or network connections.  Assume the new computer is running Win 10.  Put the Thunderbird folder in the users/your name/appdata/roaming/ directory on Win 10.  Copy the entire Thunderbird directory. 
   Now you need to get the Thunderbird code, the executable, onto the new computer.  I would just download the whole thing from the Mozilla website (Google will find it for you).   That way you get the latest code.  If you are migrating off something really ancient like Win XP, you want the latest version, which they probably have not been making available to ancient OS’s.   Run the new Thunderbird.  It will pop you to a new accounts page.  Cancel that.  Click on the nameless “Bars” button to get to the Thunderbird functions.  Click on Help.  Click on Trouble Shooting.   This displays a bunch of obscure data about Thunderbird.  Go to “Profile Folder”.  Clicking on “Open Folder” opens a window with explorer.  Navigate to the Thunderbird folder on the new machine’s hard drive, the folder that contains profiles.ini.  This points Thunderbird to your profile.  Then exit Thunderbird.  Count to ten.  Start up Thunderbird again.  Navigate  Help/Trouble Shooting Info like you did before.  Check “profiles” the very last entry.  Click on “about: profiles” and you ought to see Profile Home pointing to the Thunderbird folder you brought over from the old machine. 
This ought to be all you have to do to get Thunderbird to see your old email, your email addresses and start working like it always did.