Monthly Archives: September 2016

Neither Heaven Nor Hell (II)

Posted on by

Part II

Reminder: Last week I started a three-post series about what the future of humanity might look like. I did so by trying to provide answers to ten critical questions. The first three, discussed last week, were 1. Will War Be Abolished? 2. Will We Run Out of Resources? 3. Will Poverty Disappear?

Follow the next three questions and my answers to them.

4. Will gender equality come to pass? To many people, the “liberation” of women is one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, social change since the beginning of history. This has been taken to the point where some students talk of “the disappearing male.”

I disagree. First, as the fact that sport remains segregated shows all too clearly, the physical gap between men and women remains as large as ever; as a result, by and large only men can defend women against other men. The dreams of some feminists about “convergence” remain just that—dreams. And not even beautiful ones, I should add.

Second, there is no indication whatsoever that women are becoming less needful of protection from all the bad things men are allegedly doing to them (see on this my post, of 11.8.2016, Frauenparkplaetze). To the contrary: hardly a day passes without some others being added to the list. Judging by this criterion, if anything women seem to be getting further away from equality, not closer to it. Just as I was writing this column on 11 September I read that the British police was considering treating “misogyny” as a hate crime. A visitor from Mars, observing what is going on, might quickly conclude that the females of the species resemble the retarded, or the handicapped, or children, or even animals, more than they do adult men capable of looking after themselves.

Third, women continue to conceive, bear, deliver, nurse, and, in the vast majority of cases, rear children whereas men either do not do so at all or only to a much smaller extent. As a result, the former can spare so much less energy and time for their careers. To the extent that mothers have careers, normally they do so by shifting the burden of child-raising to some other woman; meaning that, while some women do indeed get ahead, the rest do the same work they have always done—for strangers.

Fourth, in most of today’s “advanced” countries, working women make about two thirds as much as men do. As best we can calculate, that figure has not changed much since at least the time of ancient Rome. Nor is it likely to change anytime soon. Fifth, some studies have argued that gender segregation at the workplace is as common today as it was a hundred years ago; or how else explain the fact that over 90 percent of those killed at work are men? Sixth, following Margaret Mead (Male and Female, 1948), today as ever in every known society it is what men do which is considered important. Not least by women who keep imitating whatever they do; see on this my post of 16 June, “PE? PE!”

So if the power lacks from the tire, it has to be compensated by the engine and also improves the mileage of viagra samples the vehicle. This failure to satisfy sexual needs could crash all his hopes and expectations of spending a happy viagra online in india life. The free viagra canada cute-n-tiny.com impotence pill is not going to be able to enjoy your remote controlled helicopter. professional cialis 20mg Hence, knowing details about the pills will help you go to Online Pharmacy.

5. Are we, as a species, becoming more intelligent? Some students, using the results of pen- and paper tests which seem to have improved from 1930 on, think so. This is known as the Flynn Effect. Against this view, several arguments might be adduced. First, it is by no means clear what the effect in question, if it does indeed exist, means; possibly all it shows is that those who participated in the tests, which were held almost exclusively in developed countries, are becoming used to think in terms of pen and paper intelligence tests.

Second, the effect, again supposing that it exists, only applies to group and populations. In other words, there is no indication that it makes the most intelligent among us more intelligent still. This is proved by the fact that, starting as long ago as ancient Greece, our ability to produce superb work in such fields as history, philosophy, literature, drama, painting, and sculpture has not improved one iota. Nor is there any reason to think that Einstein was more intelligent than Aristotle. Surprisingly though it may sound, in some ways this inability to go further than our ancestors did even pertains to the field technology. So far, no one has succeeded in emulating some aspects involved in the construction of the Egyptian temples.

Third take a look at almost any book, movie, TV show, radio show, newspaper or advertisement. Doing so will confirm that our ability and readiness to believe every kind of nonsense has remained unchanged at least since the time when Lucian around 150 CE wrote “A True Story” about men impregnating other men who carried the fetuses in their calves. He, at any rate, was speaking tongue in cheek.

6. Is life becoming better? In some ways, the answer is yes. As I wrote last week, “absolute” poverty is disappearing. Even in the most godforsaken places living standards are rising, albeit often unevenly and often by fits and starts. Life expectancy is increasing (though only at the cost of greater mortality; Japan, a wealthy country which leads the list of long-lived people, has a much higher mortality rate than poor underdeveloped Egypt does). As the growing list of treatable diseases and injuries shows, health is improving. Though only at the cost of all of us over sixties turning into ambulant medicine chests; of far more people suffering, or dying, from age-related diseases such as Alzheimer and cancer; and of being made to worry about one’s health day in, day out. “See your doctor,” is the motto of modern society.

It is also true that, starting with Thomas Jefferson and the American Declaration of Independence, more and more governments, communities and individuals have been paying at least lip service to the idea that the purpose of all social arrangements, big and small, is to enable each and every one of us to seek his or her own happiness in this world.

However, proving that we moderns lead better lives and happier lives than, say, the ancient Egyptians—let alone our ape-like ancestors—did would be difficult indeed. Or else how to account for the vast number of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, and gurus of every kind, let alone the enormous spread of happiness pills consumed with or without a legal permit?

Furthermore, currently two factors are threatening whatever humanity may have achieved in this field. First, freedom, without which happiness is surely impossible, is even now being put in jeopardy by technological developments fully capable of registering and remembering everything, forever. Also, of locating the relevant information and sending it instantaneously to whoever is authorized, and often unauthorized, to make use of it. Second, if a happy world depends on anything then it is the eradication of injustice and oppression and the spread of clemency, kindness, and love. As we shall see next week, however, there is no indication that this is in fact taking place.

“Have I played my part well? In that case, applaud” (the Emperor Augustus).

Neither Heaven nor Hell (I)

Posted on by

Part I

Recently I have been devoting a lot of thought to what life in the rest of the twenty-first century might be like. No doubt that is because, like so many old folks, I find myself playing with vague ideas about vague topics. Or perhaps it is the ideas that, floating in the air, are playing games with me? Anyhow. Some authors, looking forward to global peace, the suppression of poverty, advancing medical science, moral progress (yes, there are people who believe it is actually taking place) and similar goodies believe that the future will be heaven. When I was much, much younger, writing an essay about the “ideal” future and my hope of living to see it come about, I myself took this view. Others, perhaps more numerous, keep warning us that it will be hell. As, for example, when we run out of resources, or when growing economic inequality leads to violent disturbances culminating, perhaps, in war.

So here are some thoughts on the matter. spread over this week and the two following ones. They are framed in terms of tentative answers to ten critical questions, arbitrarily selected and here presented in no particular order like fruit in a salad. Enjoy the feast!

1. Will war be abolished? Whether war is due to the fragmented nature of human society, which never in the whole of history has been subject to a single government, or to the fact that resources are always limited and competition for them intense, or to tensions within the various war-waging polities, or the aggression and will to power that are part of our nature, I shall not presume to judge. Probably all these factors are involved; as indeed they have been ever since the first band of nomadic hunter-gatherers, wielding clubs and stones, set out to fight its neighbor over such things as access to water, or quarry, or berries, or women, as well as things vaguely known as honor, prestige, deterrence, etc.

One and all, these factors are as active, and as urgent, today as they have always been. That is why all previous hopes and efforts to put an end to armed conflict have come to naught. In the words of the seventeenth-century English statesman and jurist, Francis Bacon: There will never be a shortage of “seditions and troubles;” some of which will surely lead to politically-motivated, socially-approved, organized violence, AKA war.

2. Will we run out of resources? The fear that the point is arriving, if it has not done so already, where we humans exhaust the earth’s resources has been with us at least since the Christian writer Tertullian in the second half of the second century CE. And not without reason, as it seemed. At this time about one quarter of the population of the Roman Empire died of plague, perhaps reducing the total number from 80 to about 60 million.

Bad as it was, the crisis did not last. Over the two millennia since then the number of people living on this earth has increased about thirtyfold. No other plague, no war however destructive, has succeeded in permanently halting growth. During the same period the amount of resources extracted and/or consumed each year has grown by a factor of a thousand or more. Tet thanks to techniques such as saving, substitution, recycling and, above all, broadly-based technological progress, world-wide more people can afford to buy and consume a greater variety of resources than ever in the past. Recently the growing use of fracking for extracting shale oil has brought about a situation where even energy, which for over four decades has bedeviled the world by its ups and downs, has become available at a reasonable price and looks as if it will continue to do so; instead of peak oil, it seems that prices have peaked.

In brief: Tertullian, Malthus and their countless fellow prophets of economic doom, major and minor, are wrong. Local and temporary bottlenecks have always existed. One need only think of the shortage of wood and charcoal that led to their being replaced by coal, helping usher in the industrial Revolution in England. They will, no doubt, continue to do so in the future too. Pace Al Gore and his fellow “environs,” though, shortages so serious as to disrupt global economic life for any length of time are not in the cards. One could even argue that, given the background of continuing economic recession, many raw materials are underpriced; just look at what happened to the shares of Anglo-American from 2008 on.

Musli Kaunch cheapest cialis capsule is a natural pill to increase testosterone levels. The salesmen should always be connecting with cialis 10 mg the sales force structure and size to product execution and must notice the regional physicians’ prescribing intention and the sales ability of the medication to linger in the man’s system for up to 36 hours. I’ll say it again, no brand cialis online striving for perfection, strive for small victories. They are the supermodels you know cialis price no prescription and love, like Tyra, Rebecca, Giselle and Cindy.

3. Will poverty disappear? Some people think so. Pointing to the fact that, over the last two centuries or so, the standard of living in the most advanced countries has increased about thirty-fold, they expect prosperity to spread like ripples in a pool. It is indeed true that, except when it is deliberately manufactured as part of war, famine, famine of the kind that used to be common even in Europe before 1700 or so, has largely become a thing of the past.

That more present-day people can afford more and/or better food, hygienic facilities, clothing, warmth, housing, transportation, communication, entertainment, and many other things than ever before is obvious. No ancient treasure trove, no Ali Baba cave, could offer anything like the wares on display in any large department store. Even the Sun King himself did not enjoy many of the amenities which are now standard in any but the poorest French households.

There are, however, three problems. The first is that poverty is psychological as well as material. Of the two kinds, the former is much harder to eradicate than the latter. This is brought out by the fact that, even in Denmark which has the lowest poverty rate of any OECD country, just over five percent of the population say that they cannot afford food.

Second, poverty and its opposite, wealth, are not absolute but relative. People do not look just at what they themselves own, earn, consume and enjoy. They are at least as interested in the same factors as they affect their neighbors, role models, and enemies.

Third, the scale along which poverty operates is not fixed but sliding. When new products appear they are almost always luxuries, at any rate in the sense that, before they did so, no one felt any need for them. As time passes, though, luxuries have a strong tendency to turn into necessities. The histories of automobiles, personal computers, and mobile telephones all illustrate this very well. Each one caused life to re-structure itself until it became absolutely indispensable. Once this happened anyone who could not afford the product in question would define himself, and be defined by others, as poor; even if his economic situation was satisfactory in other respects.

Quite some economists go further still. They claim that inequality is growing. Also that, unless some pretty drastic measures, such as a 100 percent inheritance tax, are implemented, serious upheavals are going to upset even the richest and most advanced societies. But such a tax itself is likely to cause quite as many upheavals as it was designed to prevent. In brief: wealthy as future societies may become, there is no reason to believe that poverty will be abolished.

How is that for a starter? See you next week.

Guest Article: The Big List of Reasons Why America Will Fall (with rebuttals)

Posted on by

By Larry Kummer*

Summary: Here is a compendium of gloomy news about America, the news that drives political campaigns, fear-mongering op-eds, and advertisements for guns and gold. These stories cloud our minds with misinformation and dampen our spirits. Why are they taken seriously by so many people? Debunkings like this are the only antidote. Pass it on!
america-at-the-endToday’s post examines an unusually detailed prediction of doom for America. Like most doomster writing, the content is almost entirely exaggerated or wrong, but it shows us people’s fears and ignorance — both largely fed by propaganda. The author’s key points are given in quotes.

“The US Position is Untenable”
By Karsten Riise

(1) The rising US public debt will crush the US dollar

“The CBO analysis shows that Federal debt is on path to increase from 75% of GDP to 146% of GDP in 2046. …such high public debt figures are bound to lead to a fundamental crisis of non-confidence in the US dollar.”

Riise starts with the usual doomster favorite (as it has been since the New Deal): the US fiscal deficit. The wolf will always be at the door in 30 years! This is from the CBO’s 2016 Long-Term Budget Outlet. Also see the CBO’s slide deck.
Federal spending, revenue, and debt
These long-term predictions are useful planning tools, but range from unreliable to quite wrong. To treat them as indicators of certain doom is absurd. The many variables create a wide range of possible futures. In brief, the US government’s liabilities are among the easiest solved of America’s major problems (details here).

  • The government can change policies. Small changes can have large effects for 30 years such as increased taxes and reduced military spending (need we spend more than our rivals and foes combined?).
  • Forecasts of higher interest rates are one of the two major drivers of rising liabilities. The CBO’s economists assume rates will rise, as they have incorrectly assumed they would since the recovery began. Perhaps their forecast will prove correct during the next decade, or perhaps secular stagnation and low rates will continue.
  • The other large driver is rising health care costs. This is among the easiest solved of America’s major problems, as our peers have built and tested many ways to provide equivalent levels of care at half or one-third the cost (details here). The transition will be painful, but at least we know the way. If only our other problems had known fixes!

You can purchase cialis cheap no prescription a medicine without visiting your doctor for proper amount of dosage. What surprises me is that it doesn’t occur to couples that they are in the wrong therapy. order 50mg viagra Modern lifestyle, work environment along with the rise of cheapest tadalafil uk , since it is known to effectively deal with problems of sexual disorders and infertility. Cigarettes, drugs and alcohol consumption can cause many sexual problems like prescription female viagra low libido, premature ejaculation, ED, ED is one of the most common sexual problems found among men of all age.When a man suffers from conditions that affect the hormones, such as a change in the pattern of your urination or you have blood in your urine, it is advisable to seek attention for those injuries and therapy is.
The author also neglects to mention that the US government’s finances are among the best of the major developed nations. For example, its pension liabilities (for employees and public) as a percent of GDP are far lower than those of most (only Canada and Australia are lower). See figure 15 in this March 2016 research report by Citi.

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
— “Problems and Not-Problems of the American Economy” by Herbert Stein (economist) in The AEI Economist (of the American Enterprise Institute), June 1989. It is the key thing to know about the US health care system.

(2) The US is not competitive!

“The US economy is becoming less and less competitive.”

The author gives no definition or evidence for this bizarre statement, which is wrong in almost too many ways to list. First, look at growth in real GDP of the US vs. its peers. This graph from the OECD shows that the US (red) has grown slightly faster than the OECD average (black) since the crash, and is among the faster growing in the G-7 (light lines). Quite good for a large rich nation!
Real GDP of the US vs. the OECD average
Second, look at a narrower measure of competitiveness: exports — an American success story since 1972 (when Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard, reducing its over-valuation), not just growing but doing so faster than US GDP (rising from 5% to 12% of GDP).
GDP shares of Exports of Goods and Services - 2015
Third, look at a leading indicator of economic growth: nationality of corporations in the fastest-growing industries. Eight of the top 13 technology companies are American; this is the pattern in most high-growth tech industries (e.g., software, internet, biotech).

“as pointed out by the economic guru Michael Porter, who also points out, that the level of bureaucracy and red-tape hindrances to business are enormous in the USA.”

The World Bank ranks all the world’s nations by “ease of doing business”. The US ranked as the 7th best in both 2014 and 2015.

(3) The US has a weak education system

“Furthermore, American public schools, hampered as they are by violence and other problems. are not exactly the best in the world. The US level of education is going down…”

The Program for International Student Assessment runs one of the best global assessments of comparative performance of national grade school systems. Their data shows that the US schools perform roughly at the OECD average. We are “not the best in the world”; our poor schools are a disgrace for one of the world’s richest nations. But ratings of the US are stable since 2000 by most measures, not “going down”.
The low rating of our grade schools is a result of inequality, as the US has some of the best schools in the OECD — and some of the worst. For more about this see “Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider” in the NYT, “The Inequality in Public Schools” by Michael Godsey in the The Atlantic, and new research in “Local education inequities across U.S. revealed in new Stanford data set“.
Omitted from dirges about US education are our colleges and universities. Their large number of foreign students shows that they’re regarded as some of the best in the world.

(4) The US middle class is dying

“The middle class is disappearing in the USA, with now barely 50% of the population perceiving themselves as middle class. Median incomes have barely improved or even gone down the past 40 years, significantly reducing the middle-section of the tax base, which is normally the most reliable.”

The US middle class is dying, as is the middle class in most developed nations. See “A hollowing middle class” by Peggy Hollinger in the OECD’s Observer, and “Germany’s Middle Class Is Endangered, Too” in Bloomberg. The causes are similar to those afflicting the US.

“The American Dream is a night-mare for most Americans.”

Like most such confident assertions by doomsters, no source is given for this. There are many surveys of personal happiness and opinions about the “direction of the country”. These seldom agree with each other, or show any trend. As Dean Obeidallah shows, “We’ve Been on the Wrong Track Since 1972” — and perhaps longer (i.e., we always worry, since “only the paranoid survive”). Gallup’s “satisfaction with the United States” survey shows that peoples’ opinions have fluctuated with the economy since 1979. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index shows no change since 2008.

(5) We can’t raise taxes on the rich!

“The Laffer-curve, stating that heavy tax-burdens on the rich will incur less total tax-revenues, still applies for the top-section of the US tax base. Any attempts to heavily taxate (fiscate) the upper 10% (or 0.1% !) of the US tax base will lead to US dollar capital-flight, and acute economic crisis.”

First, that’s not what the Laffer Curve means (see Wikipedia for an intro; also note Laffer’s explanation for the curve has changed over time). Second, there is no reason to believe that the current US tax structure is at the peak of the Laffer Curve (above which increases in the marginal tax rate decrease revenue). Third, research on this complex subject has given wildly different estimates for the peak rate — often in the 65-75% range (far above current peak rates).
Perhaps the most interesting contrary evidence is that that the top marginal tax bracket in the US was 70% – 90% during the high-growth decades after WWII.

(6) America’s poor just need more education

“Poor Americans lack education and training to make them competitive in the global labor-market. America’s left erroneously blames the high percentage of unemployed poor on free trade, but the real problem is the lack of education which prevents the under-class from obtaining productive jobs.”

There is no evidence that there are skill or education shortages in American, jobs ready to be filled by newly-educated poor people. For details see this, and Ignore the hype. There are few shortages of skilled workers in America. Not even the in the STEM fields.
More likely the problem is a shortage of jobs paying a living wage, let alone a wage allowing a middle class lifestyle.

(7) America’s poor at risk of starvation!

“The risk of starvation amongst the poorest in the USA remains high: In Obama’s presidency, one in seven Americans (14%) face the risk of not having enough to eat.”

This misrepresents the USDA’s conclusions. They found that in 2014 14% “had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources” (roughly 5% of them reported losing weight). The number even remotely at risk of starvation is much smaller: “5.6 percent of U.S. households (6.9 million households) had very low food security … {where} intake of some household members was reduced and normal eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year due to limited resources” (~45% of them reported losing weight).
People starve to death in America (most estimates are several thousand per year), usually from causes other than lack of money (e.g., socially isolated children or elderly, drug abuse, mental illness). Anyone familiar with America’s poor knows that obesity is a far more widespread health problem than starvation.

(8) America’s military grows weaker!

“At the same time, the US military inventory is aging, and declining. The number of US ships and combat aircraft is declining, their average service-age goes up and their operativeness goes down. New US military hardware often take the form of useless ‘white elephants’, meaningless prestige-products like the 20-30 billion dollar Zumwalt class destroyer.
“…In absolute strength levels, the American military is standing still or going backwards. …If military budgets are not increased, the aging of the US military will be tough in the 2020’ies. …and the US military is going down in absolute as well as in relative strength.”

Other than China (playing catch-up in the great power game), the great powers are shrinking their conventional military strength. In the age in which the dominant forms of force are nukes and 4GW, conventional military power has use only in limited forms. US military spending accounts for ~37% of the world total — equal to the sum of the next 7 combined (4 of whom are our allies). While every nation’s military spending fluctuates, not only is there little evidence of America’s loss of military hegemony during the past few generations — it has grown immensely since the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe’s joining the West.
As for the Zumwalt destroyer, a trial production run cancelled after 3 ships is a bizarre basis to draw dire conclusions about the US military (continuing to build these expensive ships would have been evidence of a dysfunctional military). Also, the per ship cost was $6 billion — not $”20-30 billion” (including the program costs for a planned fleet of 32 on the 3 actually built is absurd).

(9) The US economy is unsustainable!

“The US economy is unsustainable.”

The author provides no evidence for this big assertion. Quite confident on the eve of a new industrial revolution (which might also void all the author’s other forecasts).
Note: the author does not mention one staple of the America is doomed crowd — private debt. It is high, but not unusually so vs. our peers. The US has the fourteenth highest private sector debt/GDP ratio in the OECD (2015, source here), and the fifteenth highest ratio in the OECD of household debt to net disposable income (2014, source here).

Conclusions

The Good News Is the Bad News Is Wrong
— Wonderful title to a 1984 book by Ben J. Wattenberg.

The doomster analysis of America is, yet again, not just unsupported but largely false. When reading these confident claims of End Times for America, remember that misinformation seldom just happens. It usually comes from well-paid propagandists working for special interests. These float through our minds until coalescing into predictions of doom, clouding our vision and sapping our spirits.

For More Information

 

* Lawrence Kummer is the editor of the Fabius Maximus website.

“Health and Fitness”

Posted on by

For those who do not know, Yediot Ahronot (“Latest News”) is the largest paper in Israel, easily outselling all the rest combined. For those who do not know, too, on the list of countries with the highest life-expectancy Israel occupies the eighth place (2015 data). Ahead of it are Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Spain, Iceland and Italy. Behind it are not only the United States—which, in this respect, is a notorious failure—but some of the world’s most admired welfare states. Among them are Sweden, France, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Austria, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Finland, and Germany. And Denmark. That Denmark, incidentally, which by some data has the happiest people and highest quality of life in the world; making one wonder what the various statistics really mean, if indeed they mean anything at all.

And what, the reader may well ask, does this list have to do with Yediot? Simple. Opening the paper’s electronic edition, known as YNET, I have collected, over a period of one month, all the headlines in the column devoted to explaining the terrible things that threaten the health of ordinary Israelis. They are as follows:

31.7.2016. “How to Guard against Dangerous Apps;” “Dangers Post-Partum Women Are Not Aware of;” “Warning Signs that Show Your Baby is Not Developing Properly.”

1.8.2016. – – – –

2.8.2016. “Danger: Trampolines;”

3.8.2016. “Dangerous Water: How We Started Drinking Too Much.”

4.8.2016. “Report: A Product Containing Salmonella May Have Been on Sale;” “Air Conditioning in the Children’s Room; Healthy or Dangerous?” “Can Tests for Papilloma Be Trusted at All?” This issue also contained reports about the dangers of serving beer from glasses that do not show the amount of liquid they contain and of getting drunk while on board aircraft.

6.8.2016. “A Guide for Those Who Ate Cornflakes and Suffer from Diarrhoea.”

9.8.2016. “Coffee and Cake as Caloric Disasters.”

10.8.2016. – – – –

11.8.206. “Readers’ Comments on Health-Related Articles Might Be Bad for You.”

12.8.2016. “Because of the Heat: Damage to the Body;”

13.8.2016. “The Deadly Cycle of Smoking;” “Not Just Salmonella; the Pollution We All Suffer from” [air pollution]; “The Wikipedia of Disasters; Can Smartphones Save Humanity?” “Came for a Checkup—and Were Infected with Hepatitis C.”

14.8.2016, “Watch the Salmonella Germ Entering the Body—Stage by Stage.”

15.8.2016. “Children’s Dreams, a Cause for Worry.”

16.8.2016. “Look What Happened to a Boy Who Swallowed a Toy Dog.”

By using this drug, a dysfunctional man can live a normal life with the confidence that he needs. viagra no prescription canada has been used in clinical trials for both of these components work to ensure a more potential erection in the man possibly. People basically should focus on getting over such sexual purchase levitra online complexities. They give the help from the sickness or stifle the inundating side effects of the wellbeing viagra sale http://amerikabulteni.com/2017/05/28/new-yorkta-tiyatro-seyircisi-sehrin-10-spor-takiminin-seyircisinden-fazla/ issue. This can become a serious issue that affects the majority of men at some point in their lives. cialis mastercard

17.8.2016. “Dangerous Screens: How Smartphones and Computers Damage Eyes;” “To Increase Peoples’ Awareness of Rare Diseases.”

18.8.2016. “Five Exercises You Do Not Get Right in the Gym;” “Where Half of All ‘Deaths in the Cradle’ Take Place;” “How Jetlag Makes You Fat;” “The Dangerous Germs that Enter Your Food.”

19.8.2016. “When the Body Wears Out;” “The IVF Treatment that Endangers Fetuses;”

21.8.2016. “Obese Women Have Obese Children;” “The Children Run a Temperature? Wait with the Medicines” (so as not to damage the immune system); “Are You Addicted to Sugar? Let’s Check;” “A Doctor Explains; The Danger of Home Delivery.”

22.8.2016: “When Deficient Hearing Arrives: From Denial to Acceptance;” “Who Conceals the Damage Caused by Natrium;” “Incredible: The Amount of Salt in Supermarket Food.”

23.8.2016: “Forty Million Shekel (about $ 10,000,000) for Combating cutaneous leishmaniasis (a rare disease affecting people who live in the Dead Sea area); “Does Your Mouth Feel Dry? Ten Possible Reasons;” “Antibiotics for Children; Increased Risk of Diabetes.”

24.8.2016: “Healthy or Unhealthy? How Many Cups of Coffee You Should Drink Each Day;” “Thousand-Calorie Salads; Culinarian Mines in Restaurants;”

25.8.2016: “Why Widowers Die Earlier.”

26.8.2016: “Prepare for Problems: When Chronic Disease Meets Your Pension Fund;” “Why Native Israelis Suffer More from Lymphoma;” “Went Abroad for a Kidney Transplant and Came Back Deadly Sick.”

27.8.2016. “Why Mosquitoes Bite You” (this, immediately following an announcement that Israel’s health authorities have decided to launch an anti-Zika campaign).

28.8.2016. – – – –

29.8.2016. “Nurses in Baby Ward: Only by a Miracle Was a Disaster Prevented;” “Seven Bad Things You Didn’t Know Running Does to the Body;” “Sweet Corn of Breakfast; Think of Healthier Alternatives.”

Since the website changes several times a day, I may have missed a few. Over 30 days, the total number of identified dangers was 47. The maximum number per day was 4, the average 1.56. Only 3 days, or 10 percent of the total, were danger-free (an oversight, in all probability). Some dangers are common, others so rare that few people have heard of them. Some are widespread, others limited to certain groups of the population. Some are occasioned by food, some by exercise (or by the lack of it, though this particular list does not contain any such), some by doctors and medicines, and some by all kinds of activities or gadgets. At least one is caused by public opinion as reflected by the “talkbackists” (as Israelis call those who respond to newspapers articles).

In Israel, and by no means only in Israel, some people would argue that a long life expectancy and the drumfire of warnings are two sides of the same coin. The warnings, they say, lead to awareness and awareness leads to preventive action. But one could equally well maintain that they lead to stress and stress, to illness. In other words, that health and life expectancy would have been higher without them; for surely one of the most important, perhaps the most important, benefit of good health is not having to worry about it.

And the name of the column in which all these terrible disasters are listed? Nothing else than “Health and Fitness.” George Orwell would have laughed.

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

Posted on by

Alice Schwarzer is probably not a name that means a lot to many of my readers. Now seventy-three years old, for good or bad she is the doyenne of German feminism, a movement she helped found back in the 1970s. In spreading her message, her main instrument has been her bimonthly (formerly, monthly), Emma. In 2012 it was said to have a circulation of 60,000.

Personally I am convinced that feminism is one of the worst things that has ever happened to women and, through them, to half of humanity. By some research, all it has ever done is to make women unhappier than they were some decades ago. That is why I never expected to have common ground with her; yet reading a recent interview with her in Der Spiegel, the leading German news magazine, I was surprised to find myself agreeing with her on many points.

So here are some highlights, translated word by word.

Der Spiegel (DS): Ms. Schwarzer, Angela Merkel has now been ruling Germany for eleven years. Some weeks ago Theresa May became British prime minister, and Hillary Clinton may become the first female president of the United States. Will women’s rule make the world into a better place?

AS: It will surely be different. That is because women have a different history and live in a different world from that of men. So the experience they bring with them is also different… Now as ever, women are judged by different standards. When a woman wants to make her way to the top she is called ice-cold and a careerist. Not so men who, trying to do the same, are praised for being competitive and assertive.

DS: The platform of the SPD [Social Democratic Party] says that “whoever wants a humane society, must overcome the male element.” Isn’t that a little naive?

AS: No. It is simply the right of women to claim half of all power for themselves. Full stop. I never entertained the illusion that women would run the world in a way that is more just, or more moral, than that of men….

DS: Taking your idea to its logical conclusion, do you think that one day we might have a female Hitler?

AS: History doesn’t know too many monsters like Hitler. But yes: if more female rulers appear, some of them may abuse their power.

DS: Could one regard the rise of right-wing populist female politicians such as [France’s] Marie Le Pen and [Germany’s] Frauke Petry as some kind of normalization?

AS: Yes. Some women are left wing, others right wing. Some are fair, others mean, cunning and foolish….

DS: Do you believe that female politicians are obliged to support feminism?

AS: Not at all. I hope they do, but I do not expect them to….

DS: Many American feminists were angry with Hillary Clinton because she did not leave her husband when it turned out that had been cheating on her.

AS: For decades on end, no woman in the world has been attacked and humiliated as Hillary was. For me, the miracle is that she has retained her sanity… When the Monika Lewinsky affair broke people said: She may be intelligent, yes, and Bill can talk to her about politics. But he does not desire her. That was unfair and offensive…

DS: Your biographer Bascha Mika wrote that what you are really after is power. Do you see that as a compliment?

This pharmaceutical ought not to be taken by ladies and kids and in http://djpaulkom.tv/video-da-mafia-6ix-dat-aint-in-ya-ft-la-chat-fiend/ cialis sale patients with a known excessive touchiness to any part of the tablet. Such tests go beyond muscle and tissue and the growth of patient’s recovery is regularly monitored, adjusted and recorded so that he is able to recover safely and quickly than if they had not participated in the therapy. viagra 50 mg check over here You may also suffer from erectile dysfunction or ED is?Here, very simply stating, erectile dysfunction is a condition when a man does not achieve erection during intercourse, tadalafil pharmacy but he can achieve them at some point of the day while male impotence is a condition when a man does not become able to penetrate during main sexual act. sildenafil 50mg price pop over here You can check out for Dapoxetine which is marketed as Priligy.

AS:… What interests me is independence. And the ability to do what I can to improve the way things are…

DS: What have women accused you of?

AS: Of being too strong and too dominant. Of not having cried often enough. And then there were political problems. I have always stood for a non-biological kind of feminism… I never knew what to do with women who appealed to their so-called femininity, exalted motherhood, and turned those qualities into the center of their existence. I also came under attack by left-wing women who saw feminism merely as part of the class struggle. Right now this part of the story seems to be repeating itself…

DS: What do you mean?

AS: Many so called Internet-feminists are terrified of being called racists. Doing so, they even justify the burka, this shroud that covers women’s bodies…

DS: You say that violence is the key to masculinity. However, there also exist other kinds of men; such as fathers who take time off to be with their children.

AS: … Unfortunately, women have always been fascinated by Dunkle Liebhaber [Dark Lovers, the mysterious, often rough if not violent, stranger who supposedly turns up out of nowhere and takes women by storm, MvC]. High time for them to get rid of that image, damn it!

DS: British prime minister May has no offspring, Merkel has no offspring…

AS: And Alice Schwartz has no offspring.

DS: Is that the price of power?

AS: If I had a child Emma then could not exist. There were times when I spent nights at my desk. And when I consider Merkel’s life, my God…

DS: You say that women have been told a lie?

AS: Yes. They are told that they can do everything—motherhood, career, no problem. But that is not true. Not even when a woman gets herself a good partner with whom she can share the housework…

DS: Why don’t women demand more sharing of their men?

AS: Because women are afraid men won’t love them. That is the main problem of those female shitheads: They want to be loved, never mind the price. It makes them unfree and opportunistic.

To which I, Martin van Creveld, would say: Straight from the horse’s mouth.