Large German Insurance Companies Hoaxed By Global Warming

Posted: 8/5/2018

Trigger

Read this article today in the online Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: SORGE VOR KLIMAWANDEL : Munich Re steigt aus der Kohle aus (German language only). One of the largest reinsurance companies in the world, i.e. Muenchener Re, announced it would not longer insure or invest in coal related businesses. This article also mentions that the Allianz, i.e. the second largest global insurer, has been disinvesting from coal, even from harbors that process coal.

Global Implications

If the top managers from two global powerhouse insurance companies, both happen to be German companies, are foolish enough to think that to give in to the Global Warming hoax is good business, then this is highly alarming. Many countries and many people around the globe still depend on coal as a source of energy.

One can only hope that the shareholders of these two public listed companies will fire these top managers! The earlier, the better!

Further, one hopes that the competition will pick up this business ASAP!

The Invention Of The Telephone Or Why Patents Are Bad

Posted: 8/1/2018

Introduction

I have written several posts regarding intellectual property rights (see bottom of post) and why they really are not a good idea. Intellectual property rights e.g. should be entirely abolished or considerably shortened!

How Many Roughly Simultaneous Inventors?

Today, I came across this article The Game of Telephone That Became a Battle History books may credit him as the sole inventor of the modern device, but Alexander Graham Bell was only part of the story that mentions Elisha Gray and an Italian named Antonio Meucci.

Since I was born and grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, we celebrate yet another inventor of the telephone, our Philipp Reis. According to this Wikipedia article about Reis, there were perhaps even others planning to or inventing the telephone.

There is no need to go into the details of each of these telephone inventors for the purpose of this blog post.

Something Was In The Air

What is clear is that around 1850-80 it was imminent that something like a telephone would be invented. So it happened that perhaps as many as half a dozen inventors in three or four different countries developed a telephone within this period of time.

Only because one of them (i.e. Graham Bell) was very clever, if not worse, faster to the patent office, and a better businessman than perhaps the other co inventors, one man and his company were awarded with the patent …

Conclusion

The invention of the telephone is probably one of the best examples why intellectual property rights are actually harmful to humanity. More competition would certainly be better for technical and human progress!

My Previous, Related Blog Posts

1. Pastiche In Classical Music
2. Abolish Copyrights
3. Intellectual Property Rights Are Not Exclusive
4. Was Amadeus Mozart A Plagiarizer?
5. Challenging Innovation Is Expensive, Imitation Is Cheap, And Exclusion Is Difficult
6. Urgent Reform Of Copyrights
7. What Is Wrong With Intellectual Property Rights?

Will Trump Trump Reagan

Posted: 7/28/2018  Updated: 9/8/2018; 9/7/2018

Update Of 9/8/2018 & 9/7/2018

Perhaps, I should have added a list of President Trump’s accomplishments that would qualify him to to be on par with or trump President Reagan (in no particular order or ranking; probably I forgot something):

1. Major tax reform to lower taxes (e.g. dramatically lowering corporate income taxation)
2. Move of U.S. embassy to Jerusalem (finally a U.S. president who does not shirk)
3. Withdrawal from the horrible Paris Agreement
4. Withdrawal from the horrible Iran nuclear agreement (stupid Europeans helped to sign and still defend)
5. Ends funding for UNRWA (for decades overdue; this and Jerusalem embassy might be the opening for a more realistic peace agreement to end the 70 year long Israel-Arab war)
6. Ends ObamaCare (somewhat incomplete; the GOP failed the president on this subject, e.g. late Senator McCain)
7. Demands European NATO members pay more for their defense in no uncertain terms (too many U.S. presidents wavered on this)
8. Review of Obama’s many National Monument designations under the Antiquities Act of 1906 (Such a review was long overdue! Presidential vanity and posterity has led e.g. Obama to use the Antiquities Act excessively! In my opinion, the Antiquities Act should be repealed)
9. Cancellation of quasi automatic pay raises for federal employees (according to a number of studies, federal employees are very well compensated, often better compensated than comparable private sector employees plus incredible job security)
10. Issued Executive Orders to ease firing of federal employees (long overdue; but opposed by federal courts. Why did federal courts not prevent the incredible dismissal protections of federal employees?)
11. Revoked Obama’s harsh CAFE standards and proposes reform of CAFE standards (First of all, CAFE is an utterly unconstitutional act, which SCOTUS failed to nullify! CAFE is pure socialist central planning!)

To me this is already a very impressive list of achievements!

Wild Speculation Into The Wide Blue Yonder

Some speculation on the significance of the current U.S. President Donald J Trump on the history of the U.S. and beyond.

If President Trump continues at this pace and produces more achievements of the kind we have already seen, then Trump could easily become the greatest U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. Of course this depends on many factors e.g.:

1. Winning the upcoming midterm elections
2. Seeking and winning reelection in 2020
3. Prevailing in all the (mostly trumped up) legal charges against him or persons affiliated with him

If Trump succeeds in further making progress towards a much needed much smaller and limited federal government in the U.S., then Trump will become the new standard or frame of reference of presidents who lived up to the dreams of the Founders!

Obama’s Watergate II

If it turns out to be true that under President Obama’s watch a Watergate II was perpetrated against a presidential contender that was then even masterfully prolonged by the Deep State into the current president’s term, then Obama’s already awful legacy is blackened toast! It is has been highly disturbing that the former President Obama seems totally oblivious to the possibility of a Watergate II. A man with character (Obama never had character) would have already publicly supported to have this matter thoroughly investigated just to clear his name!

Most Leftist U.S. Court Of Appeals Decides In Favor Of 2nd Amendment

In a recent, stunning decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed en banc that hat the Second Amendment protects a right to openly carry loaded firearms in public for self-defense and that a restriction to one’s home only is unconstitutional. Individual liberty triumphed that day!

The Trump era is having already effects beyond wildest imagination! :-)

Road To Canossa

Just these days the EU President Juncker made his Road to Canossa (ahm travelled to the White House) to concede to Trump’s demands of more free trade between the U.S. and the European Union.

I think, the global reverberations of this very astonishing outcome in the trade spat between EU and the U.S. have not yet been seen.

The Totally Unhinged Opposition To President Trump

This incredible political theater against Trump is a sure sign that President Trump is doing something right. Finally, a non career politician and businessman fights back against the rampant and pervasive Socialism spread and constantly expanded by big government in the U.S.

Fascinating Human Fascial System

Posted:

Trigger

Just watched this outstanding documentary about the fascial system on YouTube. My jaw dropped. I had no clue about the overall importance of this head to toe connective tissue that permeates the whole body.

Relevance

Caveat:

1. I am not a doctor. This is still very preliminary information. This topic is still under research by me.
2. At the time of this writing, I still have not been able to obtain a concise history of research done or description on the fascia system. I have even emailed the Fascia Research Society and Professor Carla Stecco (the author of the Functional Atlas of the Human Fascial System), but have not gotten any responses yet. Still hopeful though!

The fasciae are part of the connective tissue and are an important part of the locomotive and muscular skeletal system. “Fascia is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body. It forms a whole-body [head to toe] continuous three-dimensional matrix of structural support. Fascia interpenetrates and surrounds all organs, muscles, bones and nerve fibers, creating a unique environment for body systems functioning. ” (Source 3)

Dr. Carla Stecco appears to be one of the foremost living experts on the fascial system that permeates our entire body from head to toe. She is reported to be the first to explain the various fasciae and their connections with muscles, joints, bones, organs, vessels, and nerves. The atlas of the human fascial system she published in 2015 is the first accurate and comprehensive description.

Terra Incognita In Medicine

It appears as though the medical profession & science has for several centuries ignored or neglected to research the significance of the fascia system. To err is science!

The excuses or rationalizations given why this extraordinary neglect and lack of understanding lasted for centuries are scarcely convincing, fascia is everywhere and could not be localized or it was cut away to study bones, muscles, tendons etc.

In 1543, Vesalius published his famous human anatomy book De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Only in 2014 was perhaps the first atlas of the human fascial system published. This is absolutely shocking!

The quantity of medical publications about the fascia system is still rather disappointing. Pubmed lists under 20,000 publications between 1789 and 7/23/2018 when searching for the term fascia ; over 365,000 for breast cancer; and more than 23,000 for erectile dysfunction. In recent years about 900 per annum for fascia; about 19,000 per annum for breast cancer; and about 900 per annum for erectile dysfunction.

The brief and superficial english language article in Wikipedia gives you also the impression that the the fascial system has been widely ignored (Source 2).

Sources:

1. Functional Atlas of the Human Fascial System (behind a paywall)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia
3. https://web.archive.org/web/20081119150323/http://www.fasciacongress.org/2007/about.htm
4. https://fasciaresearchsociety.org/sites/default/files/frc/still-100yrs-findley.pdf
5. http://www.cmbm.unipd.it/members/pages/stecco.html
6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=fascia

Plastophobia Is A Serious Disease

Posted: 7/22/2018  Updated: 5/4/2019, 2/17/2019, 12/22/2018

Update Of 5/4/2019

This could be a breakthrough we have been waiting for!

Here is the article: New family of polymers can be easily recycled and even upcycled (published by the Royal Society of Chemistry on 4/29/2019)

Quote (emphasis added): “A team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, US, has developed a new family of polymers that brings us closer to ... closed-loop, zero-waste plastics. ... they used a family of molecules called polydiketoenamines, held together by dynamic covalent bonds that, while very strong, can be easily broken down using small amounts of acid.”

Update Of 2/17/2019

Just read the abstract of this research article Use of Supercritical Water for the Liquefaction of Polypropylene into Oil (Here is the MIT Technology Review article about it). Human ingenuity is already taking care of this manufactured plastic crisis.

Some salient quotes (emphasis added):

1. “Synopsis: We develop efficient methods to convert polypropylene waste to oils, which can be used as feedstocks for fuels or other chemicals.”
2. “About five billion tons of plastic waste have accumulated in landfills and the natural environment over the past 50 years. Polypropylene (PP) waste accounts for about 23% of the total plastic waste”

Update Of 12/22/2018

Just read this article Mumbai’s Plastic Ban (12/19/2018), which featured under subject “Pollution”: “In June 2018, Mumbai became the largest Indian city to impose a ban on single-use plastics.”

It seems more this ban has less to do with pollution and much more with political incompetence. What do incompetent or inept politicians do when they cannot handle a situation? They reach for simplistic, drastic solutions like prohibition.

Original Post

Same Script Every Time

The pandemic of plastophobia is spreading rapidly in the Western World. This is just the latest of dozens environmental scares and demagogueries I have been subjected to and had to suffer through in my five decades living on planet earth. Again humans are caught up in tremendous irrational folly and superstition. Our elected representatives follow right along passing one stupid measures after the other (e.g. ban on plastic straws, bags etc.)

Previously, it was e.g. smoking; conventional candescent light bulbs; genetically modified organisms; global cooling/warming and many more …

Human Ingenuity & Individual Liberty

When will humans finally have more trust in human ingenuity and their fellow humans to take care of these issues without resorting to irrational, statist, paternalistic measures? It may take another several centuries if history is any guide.

Pleading With The Powers That Be

God have mercy on humans!

Women Who Dared Succeeded In History

Posted: 7/22/2018

Prologue

This blog post is more of a draft or brief summary. I hope to add the names of many such women as time goes by or will add posts on some of these women here on my blog.

Trigger

Just watched on YouTube an excellent BBC documentary on queen Elizabeth I. A four part series hosted by David Starkey, who wrote a book on Elizabeth I (watch part I here). This story reminded me that many women played a very significant role in human history unlike e.g. feminists have been wanting us to believe for almost a century.

Historical Perspective

History is actually full of women who became very successful or who were very influential in their time and beyond. Anyone who cares will find the stories of these women in all epochs, in many fields of human activity, most geographical regions, and basically all cultures on this planet.

In many cases, contemporary men were extremely cognizant and supportive of those women who dared, were talented, and were competent.

YouTube Annoyances

Posted: 7/20/2018  Updated: 10/1/2019, 8/30/2018, 8/22/2018

Update Of 10/1/2019

5. Annoyance: Why the heck is YouTube constantly turning on the autoplay feature, although I have turned it off several dozens of times. I hate this! Grrrr!

Update Of 8/30/2018

4. Annoyance: Recently, YouTube decided to add new videos to the Watch Later list at the end instead of the beginning of the list as was customary for a long time. This is terribly annoying!

If you want to watch something you have recently added to your Watch Later list you have to scroll down all the way. This is painful as you can only scroll down 100 videos at a time!

Update Of 8/22/2018

3. Annoyance: If you have already commented on a video you previously watched, the YouTube does not show or indicate that you have already commented or not commented on a previously watched video.

Terribly annoying!

Original Annoyances

1. Annoyance

Why is YouTube suggesting the same videos over and over again although I have either already watched that video before or that video is already on my Watch Later list

Terribly annoying!!!!

2. Annoyance

I have probably dozens of videos in my lists that are marked as deleted or have changed their status to private etc. Why is there no function to delete those videos from my various lists?

The Real Trade War Of EU Against U.S.

Posted: 7/18/2018  Updated: 7/20/2018

These days we saw following headlines in the news:

1. EU Commision is going to investigate AirBnB
2. Much worse, the EU just fined Google over $5 billion and this is subsequent to another fine of $2.4 billion in Summer of 2017 (a total of $7.4 billion). We hope that Google has the spine to persevere and go after the EU. Hope, President Trump will respond to that as well

That is not all:

1. Qualcomm was fined $1 billion in January 2018
2. In 2017, the European Commission has ordered Ireland to collect up to €13 billion ($14.5 billion) from Apple, plus interest
3. Microsoft fined over $0.5 billion in 2013
4. Intel fined over $1 billion in 2009
5. Microsoft fined over $0.9 billion in 2007
6. Microsoft fined about $0.5 billion in 2004

This is a habitual and serial highway robbery by the European Union! The charges against these U.S. companies appear to be rather trumped up (no pun intended). It is high time the EU and its members lower their excessive taxes on businesses and individuals!