OK this may be the climate study in question , or one just like it. From January 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/31/european-colonization-of-americas-helped-cause-climate-change "European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth's climate Research finds killing of native people indirectly contributed to a colder period by causing deaths of around 56 million by 1600 ... Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90% in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492. This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation. The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.

Re: ...that accompanied the colonization of the Americas in the 15th century permanently altered Earth’s climate... Am I having brainlock? In Fourteen Hundred Ninety Two Columbus sailed the ocean blue. How much colonization could have occurred in the last eight years of the 15th century? Did they mean *beginning* in the 15th century?

Really, Tom? So everyone is free to steal anything you own, and no one can stop them? Pretty really. If some stranger is rolling down my driveway in my car with a television (or two!) dangling out the back, I'm certainly not going to shoot them. Call it in, maybe I'll get it back, maybe not. But I won't be getting in a gunfight with anyone, or a fistfight (far too old for that now). Or a lawsuit, or a politicized arrest. Threats to my family's safety get a more vigorous response. And I am able to afford to live in a safe neighborhood which has had zero homicides in the thirty years I've lived here. And since you ask, there is a huge gap between your hypothetical of me letting anyone rob me freely and these two vigilantes chasing down strangers on suspicion that maybe they had committed a crime. If these two had stopped the guy as he exited their home with a television in his hands we (the nation) would be having a different conversation. Or more likely, ignored it altogether.

"Re: People in China and South Korea have been testing these drugs for weeks or longer." I am certain they have been *using* them longer - chloroquine went on the Chinese protocol list in late Feb. But actual structured clinical trials? Maybe not. Well, apparently not. Here is a 2005 study of chloroquine versus SARS (in test tubes, not people). Very persuasive as to why it *ought* to work. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/ As to Ignatz, I scour the globe for fun. Also, I have a Brit mother-in-law who passes along funny stuff. And a legacy YouTube account I think one of my kids set up a million years ago.

I've linked to the French study a couple of times. https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf Good call by Extraneus - the authors say 3-6 days showed results. I should add a Full Disclosure on my stocm market advice: another couple of rallies like today and my opportunistic "How MUch Lower Could it Go?" buying of a few weeks back will be vindicated. Ahh, I'm playing for 2025 and beyond!

Re: "Re. the stock market: Time to buy? Gut is telling me it might [be]." Don't fight the Fed! They will put the corporate and muni bond markets on a ventilator if they have to (Sort of a 'Weekend at Jerome's' movie plot). Those assets have still have room to recover back to "normal". And if corporate bonds rally, stocks will. There are plenty of fine companies with perfectly valid business models that will be fine again when we've moved on from this. *IF* you can ride out any bumps in the road, in a few years (or less) buying now will work out fine. (He said, since it always has in the past... then again, no one expects the Spanish Influenza.)

Re: "Actually data should have showed something yesterday in NY. Either some people are being cured or they aren't. Very suspicious that nobody's saying." The trials began Tuesday. The French protocol was ten days. Patience! One Twitter anecdote (a guy I trust trusted it, but who knows) said a patient felt great one day later. In what ought to be a double-blind trial! FWIW, the media has really leaned into making Trump the owner of this drug. IF it is effective, their "See, just like we told you" backpedaling will probably look like ten cornerback prospects trying out at the NFL combine. That concludes out 2020 football coverage.

More than half of all Straw purchasers were BRAND NEW small dollar donors. Straw purchasers? Holder and Lynch are out so alert the ATF!

Someone should ask Kamala if she'd like to be the first woman POTUS. Then slam her for being such a binary, cisgendered, traditionalist bigot. LOL, fdcol.

Hockey season begins in the seventh game of the final round. In about the 2nd period. Ends after one OT,or sudden boredom, whichever comes first.

Peter - re Well, as I learned from reading " A Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived" contrary to popular belief, there is no gene responsible for making some ethnic groups, such as Native American Indians or Irish, more prone to alcoholism. I know I have read about the Asian flush (and had a friend who experienced it. And this looks very scientific. Emphasis added in last bit. Studies have shown that people carrying certain ADH and ALDH alleles are at significantly reduced risk of becoming alcohol dependent. In fact, these associations are the strongest and most widely reproduced associations of any gene with the risk of alcoholism. **As will be discussed later in this article, the alleles encoding the different ADH and ALDH variants are unevenly distributed among ethnic groups**. The Asian flush is described here as protective. VERY basically, in breaking down alcohol the first step is to convert it to acetaldehyde. A certain gene combo makes it very difficult for some people to take the next step, which is to convert the acetaldehyde to something less ghastly. Folks whose genes can't process that acetaldehyde get, essentially, instant hangovers after one drink. Turns out to be a deterrent to alcohol abuse.

On Cuomo and fleeing New Yorkers: It's nothing to do with NY's high taxes and spending, and progressive income tax, it's all Trump's fault for taking the subsidy away. Whingy camels always blame the last straw.

In case you weren't aware, Someone dug up an old John Wayne Playboy interview from 1971 and the SJW's on Twitter got all outraged: I'm stealing the observation that the outrage was so great that John Wayne will never find work in Hollywood again.

I trust Sandmann's attorneys to know what they're doing than AllahSoyBoy. I am a big fan of AllahP but I think he is wrong-ish about this. $250MM won't happen but this is a high-powered law firm clearly working on contingency. They didn't need the publicity - they took this with a payday in mind.

I'm surprised they even let citizens have something as dangerous as electricity in our homes at all. Shocking, isn't it?

1. No gasoline powered device of any kind can be sold to or owned by any man over 50 unless said device has a working electric starter. 2. No electronic device that includes any sort of time keeping function... 3. No electronic device such as a smoke detector which includes a 9V battery shall be allowed to announce a dwindling charge by emitting any sort of "Beep"... If I could only pick one I would pick (1) and (3) because I really want at least two. Frank Sinatra sang about the romance of the Small Wee Hours but I doubt he spent ten minutes with his hands on his hips staring at three smoke detectors within fifteen feet of each other trying to guess which one was beeping once a minute. And of course, he didn't include a verse about having only one 9V battery handy either. Hey, a Bonus Brainwave! These 9V batteries ALWAYS fail at night because the thermostat is turned down and batteries don't like the cold. Maybe... that has to be better than my other theory, which is to Blame Al Gore.

Tom, where would you get even 1/10 of the wealth (unrealized capital gains) tax if your assets were illiquid and indivisible? I suppose it depends on why they are illiquid. Top execs at Uber (still private) can't sell their shares publicly but they can borrow against them or (maybe?) sell them privately to the VC investors. A middle-aged Picasso with many millions of dollars worth of art he produced on his walls might also be able to borrow if he doesn't want to sell. And I keep hammering on the deferred payment aspect, and ought to mention the thresholds as well. Tricky to track the accounting but I would go back to John, holding $100 MM of stock with a cost basis of basically zero. At the outset he has a $100 MM mark to market gain. I would exclude some level (to keep it simple, the same threshold as the wealth tax, $50 MM). So his tax due over ten years is 20% on $50MM, or $10 MM. Therefore he owes $1 MM upfront (or maybe with a two year lag, as I ranted about above.) Next year he'll owe another $1 MM, adjusted up or down for that year's gain or loss from the new $100 MM baseline. So say the stock has fallen to $90MM. His mark to market loss is $10MM; taxes are $2MM due back to him. That loss could be applied all upfront (reducing his remaining deferred payment of $9MM to $7MM), or amortized over some time frame, maybe the same as for payments. So call it an offset of $200,000 per year for ten years. In any case, the numbers shouldn't be that hard to finance, if he really can't or won't sell anything at all. (Yeah, easy for me to say...)

Then again, IIRC Chairman Dick Fuld's Lehman shares went from $1 billion to $50 million when Lehman went bust. Easy to imagine he would have been due a refund for net payments made on unrealized gains over the many preceding years. Ahh. Put in a hardship rule for guys who get to a mere $50 million the hard way. He was unloading swanky residences in tony towns and selling art off the walls. AND no more private jet. The pain was no doubt real.

You can't tax cap gains annually, it would be an unnecessary disaster to try. If you "mark to market" stock portfolios every Dec 31, holders will pay tax on unrealized gains one year, have a new cost basis going into the following year, and could very likely be entitled to a cap loss the following Dec 31. And, of course, as of now taxpayers can only declare a 3 grand cap loss per year - that would have to go out the window. Yes, but... if the tax payment is deferred over ten or fourteen years, subsequent declines in assets values will be captured in the new net deferred tax due calculation. Basically, I owe my 2018 gain over over ten years but my 2019 loss can be offset against nine of those years. Or (try and explain this!) have a two year lag before any payment is due on gains (so, pay them off in years 2 thru 12) but allow immediate amortized offset (yrs 1-10) on losses, subject to no refunds. That ought to help create normal ups and downs from creating huge cash inflows and outflows and spare the government from writing rebate checks on cap gains that become cap losses. The accounting might get tricky, but if this proposal creates more demand for lawyers and tax accountants, that's a feature! Lots of folks will lobby for complexity.

...just as you cannot mix white and black and still have white As a long ago house painter myself I am confident I know a paint metaphor when I see one. However, in the current climate, even with my Metaphor Mangler dialed to eleven I wouldn't have the courage to try that one out.

JUST IN: Jeff Flake says he will not run for president in 2020, signs on as CBS contributor... I don't want to spoil it by clicking the link - please tell me the headline is "Flake Out!". (Lie if you have to...)

1 achieved her success largely by pretending to be a Native American. Don't let her Lying Weaseldom about her heritage obscure her Lying Weaseldom about medical bankruptcies, which greatly elevated her profile. I will credit Gail Heriot, Todd Zywicki and Megan Mcardle with leading the pushback on Warren's "research".

To be fair to Barry, he could have done more to stop fracking than he did, so in that sense, he "supported" it by holding back the crazies in his own party. Obama does a bit of cheerleading in 2013. Proposes some environmental regs with one foot out the door (rejected by a judge and repealed by Trump.)

Again, the press shoots itself in the foot, or maybe in the head. In the foot would be a problem because they couldn't walk. In the head? Damage to an unused organ.

Welcome Garden Gnerd, Garden Gnomes, and anyone else who can sneak past security. So far, mostly so good. For anyone having problems, my correct email is: [email protected]