It’s not the perfect system, obviously, but the UN may have never been set up if they didn’t believe it was the only way. After the liquidation of the League and the establishment of the UN, Robert Cecil said in a speech:

Let us boldly state that aggression wherever it occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush it…and that every well-disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain peace…I venture to impress upon my hearers that the great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations..The League is dead. Long live the United Nations.

The only way to end war is to target its sources, and there are many. Although more can always be done, this appears to be an unrealistic goal, which is why the League of Nations, the proto-UN, saw the only solution to be through superior force:

[I]f collective action is to be a reality and not merely a thing to be talked about, it means not only that every country is to be ready for war; but must be ready to go to war at once.

South Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon is currently serving as the 8th Secretary General of the UN.

With our fates ever more entwined, our future must be one of ever deeper cooperation… Let us find new ways of governing, partnering and problem-solving. Let us empower the United Nations to be more than a first responder or a last resort.

Former Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sam Kutesa, currently presides over the 69th U.N. General Assembly.

Irony Alert..

Just before Obama took the stand, the General Assembly sat through a blistering address from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff regarding the U.S.’s unilateral decision to commit industrial espionage on foreign corporations and political espionage on our allies, Mexico and Brazil in particular.

Corporate information – often of high economic and even strategic value – was at the centre of espionage activity…Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted..A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation.

In general, the guidelines for reps and sets, depending on training status, are:

From: Essentials of Strength Training

DO NOT look at this as set in stone like the ten commandments. These represent the ranges for optimal results, but there is significant overlap. Also, it’s beneficial to play with you rep/set scheme throughout your program to elicit certain results.

As you’ve already seen, consideration of training status should be taken at just about every turn in program design.

When it comes to volume, it is perfectly reasonable for a beginner to utilize single sets to failure rather than multiple sets. You will make sizable gains while potentially avoiding stimulus fatigue (overtraining) and maybe even cut some time off of your workout.

However, it’s important to keep in mind the principle of progressive overload. Simply put, your muscles will eventually adapt to the stimulus of only one set to failure. Once this happens, you will stop receiving any benefit from this, aside from pure maintenance.

Athletes

For athletes, training volume should be manipulated in a very specific manner based on their seasonal status. Notice how training volume drops of tremendously as the athlete’s sport season begins:

There is plenty of research that suggests single set training (to failure), i.e. performing only one set of each exercise in your work, will produce gains in size and strength. There is little doubt about this.

As far as how these effects compare to multiple set training, i.e. 2+ sets per exercise, it appears that multiple sets may elicit larger gains, but the difference between the two was always found to be negligible. That was, until James Krieger’s 2009 meta-analysis showed that multiple sets produced 46% greater gains in strength and size compared to single sets.

Furthermore, performing 3 sets without going to failure was also shown to be more effective than performing 1 set to failure.

Bukowski would submit the original copies of his poetry to publishers, without making any carbons. When he first began, he would often get them back at some point, along with a brief rejection notice from the publisher.

However, in 1968 he began making, at least a few, carbon copies of his work, at the urging of his new publisher, John Martin.

Though not particularly talented, Bukowski was a prolific painter, creating thousands of pieces over his lifetime.