gingerbread-man

Why not a pigouvian tax on jet fuel (and other fossil fuels?)

Does a ‘shallow article’ even merit a dismissive comment? Wouldn’t it be better simply to ignore it and find another thread on which to engage?

Gross daily trading volumes are a poor gauge of how much capital investors have deployed in a particular market, seeking returns. A single international transaction may induce several forex trades, such as when the sale price of goods is denominated in USD or some other non-local currency. Combine that with the complex, usually leveraged hedging strategies employed by banks and multinational firms, and it’s easy to see whence such a massive figure comes.

Am I crazy, or is this a reference to one of the cheat codes on Age of Empires?

Alzheimer’s is a neurological disease with a well-documented physiological pathology and terminal prognosis. Mental illnesses generally lack both of those things. The ethics of assisted suicide for terminal patients are distinct, I think, and it’s understandable than terminal patients were the first to have this right recognized under law.

Wouldn't the lack of means to contact all of your users, immediately and directly, create other compliance challenges? You would be unable to notify users of a data breech until their next login; former users might be left permanently in the dark. Similarly, being unable to push legally mandated notice of policy updates could be an impossible challenge. I can see how this proposed scheme could work day to day, but you would likely be well served to retain un-hashed emails in cold storage.

Speaking only for myself, I found this article to be particularly difficult to comprehend. If there are any physicians or molecular biologists who could more plainly summarize the authors' conclusions, I would greatly appreciate it.

From what I can gather: — SARS-CoV-2 uses ACE2 in the alveolar epithelium as an entry receptor. ACE2 may also be involved in regulating cytokine activity and in viral replication. — "Pro-inflammatory cytokines have a central role in the progression of COVID-19 infection." — Anti-cytokine therapy may help reduce pulmonary inflammation in C19 patients. — ACE2 is also present in the leydig (testosterone producing) cells of male rats. — Long-term smokers express higher levels of ACE2 in their lungs. COPD patients are more likely to have low testosterone levels. And low testosterone has been linked to increased Pro-inflammatory cytokine activity. ——> Maybe testosterone reduces inflammation and, by extension, mortality, in COVID-19 patients? (I still do not really understand how the production of ACE2 in the leydig cells is related to this.)

Or, on the high-testostetone side: — Androgen receptors activate the transcription of TMPRSS2, a transmembrane serine protease found primarily in prostate epithelium. — "TMPRSS2 activity is regarded as essential for viral spread and pathogenesis in the infected hosts." ——> Elevated testosterone in some young men may increase TMPRSS2 activation, and be a common cause in the relatively small number of severe cases in that age group.

That's a rather misleading statement. Discretionary spending makes up less than a third of the federal budget. Defense spending works out to about 15% of federal spending overall. Confusion seems to arise because mandatory spending programs (like social security, medicare, medicaid, and the VA) are budgeted separately, as is the interest paid on federal government debt.

The United States spent $609 billion on defense last year. Surely it's possible to make the case for DOD cutbacks without misleading statistics.

Most ad tech companies (Google, FB) likely devote well under 10% of their engineering might to work directly related to the advertising that forms their revenue stream.

Newspapers and magazines are ad-funded, too, but few would consider the work of journalists to be wasteful.