the mellow tigger's musings

I got home from work today, picked up the mail at my front door, and opened up the Minneapolis Assessor's Office letter.  This coming year, they will increase the estimated value of my property by 19.7%.  Minus my homestead exemption, that's an increase of 33% of "taxable market value" from the previous year.

Such a rapid increase sounds like robbery.  It sounds illegal.  Near as I can tell from this document (page 11), however, it sounds like Minnesota has the worst laws in the USA on this issue, and maybe they increased the cost by the maximum allowed by law.

Does anyone know a tax lawyer?  I want to contest this valuation, if it's reasonable to do so.

I also went looking online for help, only to discover instead WHY this is happening.  Because the original light rail plan failed, the new proposals all surround my area.  Look at those green and orange segments.  They surround my Jordan neighborhood.  I will live about 4 blocks from a light rail path, no matter which choice wins.  No wonder I've been flooded with offers to buy my house.  No wonder the city is trying to jack up the price of living here.

If I don't get priced out due to property taxes, I just hit the jackpot.  This house was never meant as a financial investment.  It was always a "live here in peace until I die" choice for me.  I intend to make bayberry candles for Christmas one of these years, from bayberry seedlings that I planted in my back yard years ago.  I do not want to move.  This is my home.

A nearby light rail station (not part of planning yet) would be immensely useful, since I already intend to ditch my car soon and live with public transit.  Light rail is a very nice public transit option.  Gentrification is still frustrating, though.  I might be too poor to endure the inevitable demographic shift.  I may end up leaving with all of the other poor people, because the taxes eventually make it too unaffordable.

I've been trying (and frequently failing) to check the stories about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). The Republican liar-in-chief has heavily promoted it, which is reason enough to doubt it.  Now, though, a Yale doctor is doing the same, so I figured it's worth a second look.

The best reason I can find for the WHO recommendation against the use of HCQ is a faulty dataset.  They added a misclassified hospital into the dataset.  I can't find the same review recalculated with the better/repaired dataset.  What happened to it?  I admit, that's suspicious.  Sure.  When my local University of Minnesota ran a well-controlled study of patients given HCQ, however, they notice no effect, neither good nor bad.


I finally located a single specific complaint levied by the anti-HCQ camp: that the noted antiviral benefits are not studied in epithelial lung cells, where it is most needed.  That information would help the argument, but it doesn't seem like a requirement here.  There are also general procedural complaints about lack of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, which the Yale doctor simply waves away as unnecessary during this emergency.

But the pro camp insists that hospitals around the world are noticing huge benefits in giving HCQ plus azithromycin (not an antiviral, but an antibiotic) very early after the onset of symptoms.  Sure, there could be some kind of synergy effect.  But when a doctor at Henry Ford Hospital (the one referenced by the White House trade advisor who is pushing HCQ) looked at some of those combined trial results, she found only "encouraging" observational information, but again lacking the rigor of proper studies.


So, still, the positive benefits might just be an accident of randomization.  Those hospitals lucked out in the patients they received, and their treated subjects fared better but not necessarily because of the drug combination.

Why is it that only the observational studies that cut corners are finding positive results, while the rigorous studies are finding no significant benefit?  It smells.  It smells like somebody has a chance to profit from pushing HCQ onto the market.  Like the trade advisor (not a medical expert) promoting HCQ.

Somebody here is selling something.  Who would act so unethically?



Update 2020 July 28:  Twitter just suspended Trump Junior's account for promoting HCQ nonsense.

Trump claimed from the White House yesterday that 99% of COVID-19 infections "are totally harmless".  He lied.  You do know that he lies, right?  About everything?  Even if we go strictly by the available numbers, the USA on 2020 July 04 currently has 119,252 corpses and 2.8 million infections due to COVID-19.  Those numbers give a fatality rate of about 4% in the USA.  We know that we're still not testing fast enough, but that problem is beside the point.  Trump lies, even about this deadly reality.

I remain concerned that this infection (even an unnoticeable, asymptomatic case) will become a permanent, lifelong infection.  I haven't seen any articles on this topic, but I base my assertion on the following logic.

1. SARS-CoV-2 infects human cells using the ACE2 receptor pathway.
   https://www.drugtargetreview.com/news/56895/scientists-demonstrate-how-covid-19-infects-human-cells/
    
2. The ACE2 receptor is used in the human body in cells of the lungs, arteries, heart, kidney, and intestines.  These organs coincidentally match the sites of the most common symptoms of disease during COVID-19 infection.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_2
    
3. The human body has only a few methods of negating viral infection within a cell.  It can destroy a cell externally, it can infiltrate a cell chemically to order its own self-destruction, or it can produce interferons that prevent the cell from producing more virus.  This last option leaves the cell infected, but it stops spreading infection as long as the interferon signal remains in place.
   https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immunology/pathogens-and-disease/immune-responses-viruses
    
4. The body cannot simply destroy heart cells.  Those cells include a mechanism to prevent such destruction by the usual chemical signals from natural killer (NK) cells. "NK depletion had no significant effect on heart infection".
   https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.4023 (paywall)
    
5. The body must not destroy heart cells, because they are replaced at a rate of only about 1% per year, hence the need for a protection mechanism against destruction.
   https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/heart-muscle-can-regenerate-itself-in-very-limited-amounts-scientists-find
    
6. Even if my speculative heart cell pathway is ignored, it's still unclear if SARS-CoV-2 is infecting brain cells.
   https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200630/Mini-brains-can-be-infected-by-SARS-CoV-2-virus.aspx

If I'm right, it means that COVID-19 will join the ranks of permanent diseases in the human body.  Cold sores and smallpox become permanent infections by remaining within cells of the nervous system.  The nervous system is another example of cells that cannot simply be destroyed and regenerated as needed.  Both of those infections resurface as disease later in life when the immune system is depressed by age or distracted by some other active infection.  I suspect that the same will happen with COVID-19.

If so, it means that any other stress to the immune system could produce a sharp spike in blood clotting problems, leading to an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks for the rest of your life.  It would require lifelong treatment, since there would be no cure.

Wash your hands.  Wear a mask.  Maintain social distance.  Wait for an effective vaccine.

Oh, and happy July 4th holiday.  We're still putting kids in cages.