Traditional Chinese Medicine - TOP 5 Treatments To Keep Around

Throughout China, and premixed 'patent' herbal mixtures are readily available in most reputable herb shops.
Here is a list of the Top Five to keep around the house.
1) Gan Mao Ling - Head Cold Remedy
Even though simple colds are the most common ailment in the West, we really don't have effective ways of treating them, just of masking symptoms. This is for the type of cold that involves a stiff neck, sore muscles, headache, runny nose, and moderate fever.
2)Yin Qiao Jie Du Pian - Flu Remedy
It should be noted that this formula should be taken within the first 24 hour periord that flu symptoms develop. Indications are swollen glands, sore throat, chills, body aches, sharp feverishness, headache.
3)Yunnan Bai Yao - Injury, Bruising, and Shock
Interestingly enough, this was standard issue for Vietnamese Troops during the war. Can be used for almost any type of injury to reduce bruising and increase healing time. A martial artist staple. This comes as both powder and capsules.
4)Bi Yan Pian - Sinusitis
For those terrible attacks of sneezing, sinus pain and pressure, thick yellow-green mucus, and itching eyes.
5)Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Shui - Digestive Upsets
Used for nausea, vomiting, loose stools, excessive wind, and flulike symptoms. Most commonly used for attacks associated with eating bad food. Very good at controlling motion sickness, makes a must ave while traveling.

Hope this helps someone build a good Traditional Chinese Medicine cabinet!!

Using Your TV Guide to Discern Upcoming Google Trends

When you start to talking to talk about trending searches in Google, and any kind of predictive method, you are really walking the line, with hard data on one side and gut intuition on the next. It really is an incredible display of the collective consciousness. Things generally 'trend' after something stimulates the collective consciousness. Those stimuli can come from news, television, weather, and word of mouth (social media is technically word of mouth) buzz. Incident happens and is reported, topics trend, more reporting is done as a response to public interest, and the increased exposure makes the subject matter more popular.
I found a very easy way to say ahead of Google Trends with a TV guide, or the online guide of your cable company, which gives you descriptions of the upcoming shows. It provides you with a good idea of the subject matter for the upcoming day. The news is fickle, and subjects wane quickly, and it's way too much information to take in at once. This method certainly helps you see what's coming.

Medicinal Wine - Boost the Middle Mix

Traditional Chinese Remedy
Medicinal Wine
Boot the Middle Path Mix
For internal cold, poor appetite, nausea, bloating,
and dull stomach pain.



The Wine Procedure:

2 cups of Alcohol (rice wine is traditionally preferred, vodka or gin may be used)
Break up herbs of your choice and put them in a mason jar
Pour Alcohol over the herb mixture
Seal and set for two-three weeks. Shake about once a week.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve,
bottle and cork. (Who said being a wino wasn't useful.)
Dosage is one pull, a half mouth-full.

Boot the Middle Herb Mix
Bu Zhong Jiu

Hui Xiang 50g
Fennel
Shan Zha 100g
Dried Hawthorn Fruit
Sha Ren 50g
Cardamon Seed

North Korea Threatens to 'Wipe US off the Map"

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.


The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the start of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in state of war.

The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect against an outbreak of hostilities.

Tensions have been high since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and then conducted its second underground atomic test on May 25.

Reacting to U.N. condemnation of that test, North Korea walked away from nuclear disarmament talks and warned it would fire a long-range missile.

North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its east coast starting Thursday through July 10 for military exercises, Japan's Coast Guard said.


South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that the North may fire a Scud missile with a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers) or a short-range ground-to-ship missile with a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) during the no-sail period.

A senior South Korean government official said the no-sail ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

U.S. defense and counterproliferation officials in Washington said they also expected the North to launch short- to medium-range missiles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

South Korea will expedite the introduction of high-tech unmanned aerial surveillance systems and "bunker-buster" bombs in response to North Korea's provocations, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified ruling party members.

Meanwhile, a flurry of diplomatic efforts were under way to try getting North Korea to return to disarmament talks.

Russia's top nuclear envoy, Alexei Borodavkin, said after meeting with his South Korean counterpart that Moscow is open to other formats for discussion since Pyongyang has pulled out of formal six-nation negotiations.

In Beijing, top U.S. and Chinese defense officials also discussed North Korea. U.S. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy was heading next to Tokyo and Seoul for talks.

South Korea has proposed high-level "consultations" to discuss North Korea with the U.S., Russia, China and Japan.
----
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul; Pauline Jelinek, Pamela Hess and Lolita Baldor in Washington and Min Lee in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

RIP Ed McMahon

Funnyman and late night TV icon Ed McMahon is dead. McMahon lost his battle with bone cancer last night at UCLA Medical Center. He would have turned 86 today.

McMahon had been admitted to the hospital on Feb. 27, 2009 in extremely serious condition. At the time his publicist stated he was diagnosed with pneumonia.McMahon will always be remembered as the witty sidekick to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, and as the host for TV’s long running Star Search in the 80s. One of McMahon’s last gigs was as spokesman for Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes.

The Keystroke Logger - Your Super Best Friend.

Say hallo to my little friend.
It can be your friend, too. But, friends or not, I would still recommend that you get your ass up right now and make damn sure there is nothing between your keyboard and computer or any occult software in your pc's start up routine. Because sometimes your best friend is your worst enemy.
I've been using keystroke loggers for unauthorized access to, well, all sorts of things ever since high school. In a time when gaining access to a system room is problematic, codes take longer to break, and most of the people 'in the know' have steeled themselves against social engineering, keystroke loggers have consistently been and continue to be my weapon of choice when attempting to gain access to 'unauthorized information'.
Because I don't believe in having information that isn't accessible, and my intellectual arrogance has led my definition of 'need-to-know basis' to encompass everything.
It should be stated, however, that it is better to be quietly 'in the know' once you have gained access to the desired info then it is to wreck havoc. Priority information is like a heavy sword, if wielded stupidly, you will only cut yourself up while delivering glancing blows to your enemy.
Good uses of priority information can involve using it to curry favor with your superiors (eg recommending plans of action similar to plans their own design, giving the appearance of being on the same page), and staying well ahead of any sort of inspection headed your way.
Ethical implications? Decide for yourself. I certainly would never be caught in connection with one. But keeping an eye on those keeping an eye on you is always profitable, and arguably of strong strategic importance.

Blogger Perez Hilton gets Shit Kicked out of Him by Leader of Black-EYED PEAS

The little snot probably had it coming to him.
Renowned celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (real name Mario Armando Lavandeira) was apparently assaulted by artist will.i.am, frontman of The Black Eyed Peas and his security guards, according to messages posted to his Twitter account. I'm pretty sure this really happened, although you never know.

In the follow-up tweets read that the bleeding had stopped, the police had arrived and would investigate the case further, and that today would be a normal day at work for Lavandeira without any mention of the incident on his wildly popular blog until the authorities close up the investigation.

It’s remarkable that he chose to tweet out a message for help rather than contact the police directly (he has over 1 million followers on Twitter). From the looks of it, he needed to effectively ask people to stop calling the police because the department got flooded with incoming calls from his fans.

Or how Twitter can be both a way for people to call for help in real-time, but also a way for them to order a mob.

Where the !@#@! is my GIANT ROBOT SUIT?

OK. I've been a patient guy. I think I discovered Voltron when I was around 5 years old. It was my first exposure to the japanese brainwashing technique known as 'anime.' ((That's right folks, while you weren't paying attention, and during the anti Japanese sentiment of the 1980's, Japan purchased the affinity of a generation, for the price of some really bad cartoons. Everyone born after 1980 basically thinks doing business with Japan isn't just good, it's preferred.))

Even since then I've had private obsession with Giant Robots and Mecha, most especially Mecha. While some guys were hiding their playboys between the mattress and the box spring; I was pouring over schematics, thinking about how to get a nuclear reactor inside a 5 foot long box, pondering if Transformers could fly because of rockets or anti-gravity technology, and studying martial arts and devising military stratagems and tactics to figure out how actually use the damned thing effectively on the battlefield. The science is there. The technology is there. Looks like we are just dragging our feet.

That's right. All my martial knowledge was only every garnered because I wanted to fly a giant robotic mech suit that was at least 5 stories tall. Because it would be totally lame if it was any shorter. LIKE THIS ONE.

So, I've been paitent, and I'm 27 now. So, where the hell is my Giant Mecha Suit at? I can't believe that the military would simply shirk off the idea of a giant walking machine of death and destruction. What with the space elevators that are going to be coming up, how else are we going to get the materials for the solar panels up there?

But I mean come one, what solider on what battlefield would not shit their pants when they see one of these things walking towards them?
Only one condition though. They simply cannot be designed by Americans, or an American company. Otherwise, this is what we will get. It's not like they won't beat us to it anyway.

The winner

Supreme Leader is anything but

Isn't calling your country's ruler "Supreme Leader" just asking for it?

Obama must speak out on Iran!!! Over 150 killed for DEMOCRACY

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/19/navarrette.obama.iran/index.html

I never thought I would say this, but for once I agree with Ruben Navarrette, Jr. While usually I feel it is one of my missions in life to provide the most scathing comments possible to him, I am grudgingly forced to give him kudos for have the cajones to speak out against Mr. Obama's lack of speaking out concerning the situation in Iran.
Personally, I find it a very big let down. As the American Hegemony, we have a responsibility to say no, this is not acceptable. This is not the case of us trying to intervene in a situation that has been fabricated or blown up. This is a serious cry made by a people who one year ago were chanting "DEATH to AMERICA" - now - it is "DEATH to the Dictator." We have nothing to gain here except the redemption and return to our status as 'the city on the hill' in the public opinion of the world. Otherwise, regardless of who was leading us as the time, it simply looks like Americans are only concerned with dirting their hands when there is profit involved. No, our past sins make us responsible for the fate of democracy. We should be making a strong call for UN efforts to put down the civil rest in Iran. A government that has lost the support of the people has no right to rule.

Should Religion be allowed before the Age of Consent?

Should Religion be allowed before the Age of Consent?

 

Author’s note – The following is totally my from my perspective and should be taken very seriously

 

One thing that I think that society has always underestimated is the intricate beauty and wonderful potential that can be found in the mind of a child. Very early in child development, they don’t know much, so they put their attention on the adults around them that do know, those who keep them safe, those who take care of them. Adults then proceed to impress their opinions upon the mind of the child, both consciously and unconsciously drawing lines between what is acceptable and not acceptable. It is really not the fault of the parents. They are simply replicating the process that they experienced when being raised by their parents. The child makes an unspoken agreement of belief concerning the opinion being passed along by the adult. This is repeated with social mores, cultural taboos, prejudices, and religion. Society propagates itself in this manner. I won’t go as far as to say that the mind is programmed, but, it is most certainly pushed very hard to accept reality from the point of view of the adult that the child find themselves most near and dear to. ‘Good’ deeds and right thoughts and actions are met with reward, while ‘bad’ thoughts or deeds are met with punishment. All of this social conditioning takes place with or without religion to establish the parameters. Some might call it brainwashing. I prefer to term it as the domestication of the human spirit.

Religion is the single most damaging force in history. Do the math, investigate the root causes, add up the war dead, and look at the repressive effect that it has had on society, and you will find glaring information that the amount of human suffering generated by religion is so great and far-reaching that it could almost never be measured.

I can speak from a bit of personal experience here. I was raised a Pentecostal Christian. As a child, I was very, very devout. I hung on every word that came out of the pulpit. Later, when I realized that something was fishy, around the age of 14-16, it was almost too late. Now, at 27, I still struggle daily with the haunting echoes that remain in my mind. The experience has cost me psychotherapy, it has cost me medication, and it has most likely cost me a few relationships along the way when I was still a zealous hardliner. This experience is certainly not unique to me. I know of at least one good friend who was raised Jehovah’s Witness, who has experienced the same trauma and had to deal with it the same way. One of the biggest threats to a child with religious upbringing is that if they do not conduct themselves in the proper manner in this life, they will be pay for their ‘sins’ later by not being reunited with the family and friends that they care about in the afterlife. What a horrible thing to threaten a child with, and that threat sticks in the back of your mind for a lifetime.

I cannot quote you empirical evidence, and I don’t think that I ever could, since doing study in this field is something no sane man who wants grant money would touch with a ten-foot pole.

I totally understand the need for stories to help teach children morals. Mythology can be an incredibly instructive and productive tool. Some social mores are universal. Do not steal, do not rape, do not kill… these are tenants that every man from any society can embrace. But do we need a guilt inducing pantheon and the threat of an afterlife to keep our society underpinned? Absolutely not. And as a matter of fact, doing so has provided for us a terrible social situation for the world.

Doing good, being altruistic, taking care of your fellow man – all in all I’d rather my children have those initial impressions handled by fairy tales that convey these ideals, combined with the actual actions that they see me take. And they should always be told that those fairy tales are just that, fairy tales, stories with a moral inside to help learn how to conduct yourself in a society. If fairy tales are not enough, then I can easily find examples in history and make them interesting. There are absolutely no religious undertones needed. No threats, just simple explanations of how such ideals are mutually beneficial for everyone.

Society doesn’t need religion to prop itself up. Should religious teaching be allowed before the age of consent? ABSOULTELY NOT. Those are things that should be left to the individual to decide, after being given enough information to make an informed decision. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are totally subjective terms. Hitler went to heaven. When people understand this, they will understand so much more about life. 

Gay People are Bitchy, Decadent Queens who Understand Little About the Political Process

Today’s commentary is a direct response to an article on CNN.Com. You can find the full text of the article here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/17/obama.gay.critics/index.html

 

When you have a political issue that is as big a hot button as gay rights and partner benefits, you can’t just prance about all willy-nilly and support it. Rallies and such are simply not effective. It is the duty of the President to walk a tightrope act, balancing between representing the will of the majority and the protection of various minority groups.

It is simpy unfair to critique Mr. Obama for leaving much of the issue to a state-by-state decision. Under the ‘full faith and credit clause” Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, which addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings" of other states.

One the beautiful things about this memo is that seems he is invoking the principle of ‘leadership by example,’ which I believe is an incredible political tool. While perhaps only the judicial branch sets precedent, the executive branch helps set tends. In today’s political battlefield, trendsetting can be just was important as judicial precedent. The DEFENSE of MARRIAGE ACT is only a short-term setback because it directly violates the FEDERAL codex for the fundamental way states deal with each other.

I think something else that has to be put into perspective, as well, and it is that we are trying every resource available to us to quell this damned recession – and Mr. Obama has SOO much on his plate. You’ve got to deal with the biggest threats first.

So would really like to know whom I blame for the current state in gay affairs? The little queens who love bitch about the rights they deserve but aren’t willing to make any sort of struggle for. Any rights worth having are worth a struggle for, and I think our efforts need to be stepped up a notch. Where is the togetherness and sit-ins for the 60's? One of the biggest things that hamper this is that we are a community that seems to subdivide itself by nature. Bears, twinks, queens, camp, leather...it's all just bullshit, guys. WE AS A COMMUNITY ARE MORE ALIKE THEN DIFFERENT!!! I believe the most effective tools we have at our hands to change the situation in this country, is in fact each other.

During the civil rights movements, certain men of vision and powerful intellect rose to the occasion as figureheads. Look at our gay figureheads!!! Perez Hilton??? Gram Norton?? Fuck man, give me a break. The Gay Community is leadership starved.

The resposiblity to bring about change is ours and ours alone. Expecting a political figure to one day make everything hunky-dory is incredibly short sighted and irresponsible. It's just passing the buck, not having an actual passion for change. When you want change, you might have to get you hands dirty.  

WE are the people. WE control this government. Gay couples have more money and influence then anyone else. It is time we get off out asses and start really fighting for the rights we believe we deserve. We are all giants, we are all titans. And our playing small doesn’t serve the world.   

The twitterfied battlefield

Today at 8:01am

I've been watching this iran thing intently and if really got me thinking. If standardized code were devised and coupled with gis technology coupled with real- time gps info then ground troops could rely information very quickly on a private twitter-like network, allowing commanders to make quickly implementable decisions on the fly.
I think that the eventual lack of security using this approach could be outweighed by an augmented ability to maneuver with greater speed and make better strategic decisions. By incorporating other feeds, one man could always observe the changing geopolitical environment to garner the support of public opinion, along with battlefield conditions, allowing him a greater and more direct control. This is a fallacy with drone warfare - it's an effective tactically but detracts from public opinion, and is therefore strategically ineffective. We war so that maybe one day, we won't have to.
If we could get guerilla warfare out of the tactics rut and into doing true strategic planning, then the people would have a mighty weapon to preserve their control of their government. Suddenly the people are more connected then the military. We could also stop selling arms to people we want to preform a coup and instead offer them strategic support instead. If you read military theory (clausewitz) you'll get what I'm talking about.
War commutations have always been too complicated by security issues. What if a push was made for more speed, and more disregard for security and hampering protocol? As our culture changes, so does the way we war. We are already making strong steps in the US of fighting war by proxy with drones. I feel this is a much more honorable way to engage.

Differences Between Stratagey and Tatics

Why is 'strategy' difficult to achieve, let alone sustain? When does it ascend from mere tactics? 
With some grateful borrowing and adaptation from Carl Von Clausewitz, I find six connected reasons. 

First, competence in strategy requires mastery of a challenging complexity.

Second, by its nature strategy is more demanding of the intellect and perhaps imagination than any structurally more simple activity—policy, operations, tactics, or logistics for prominent examples.

Third, it is extraordinarily difficult to train competent strategists, let alone outstanding ones.

Fourth, strategy is extraordinarily difficult to conduct with consistent excellence because of the unique physical and moral burdens it puts on would-be strategists.

Fifth, it is worth citing what Clausewitz termed friction, although the previous point can be seen as encompassing aspects of this phenomenon.

Finally, success in strategy calls for a quality of judgment that cannot be taught.

The Day Mainstream Media Died

For most of my adult life, my reading of the news has been a rather obsessive pastime. I follow at least four major national and international news sources, as avidly as possible. And, for a long time, I considered myself one of those guys with his 'finger on the pulse.' A current affairs buff, so to speak. 

Two days ago, I began to realize how very, very wrong that I was. 

Admittedly, I've been slow to adopt social networking technology. 

But the things that I saw concerning the iran situation filled me with both a sickening feeling and great excitement. Twitter, the online networking service that I have only recently adopted, made total bitches out of every major american news network. Even as late at 9pm est last night, they reported the protests were 'mostly peaceful.' Even Obama stayed largely silent as students were killed in their dorms, and one of the largest, most high profile demands for true democracy took place.

I have to tell you, I really believe that the media has become so convoluted with private interests and stupid filler that it is quickly losing it's effectiveness. Newspapers have pretty much gone the way of the dodo. All this talk of journalistic responsibility and objectiveness are moot points now, because you can get more 'real' news from the super subjective reports of anyone with a cell phone. 

A few months ago Rupert Murdoch wrote about news services having to charge for online content to keep themselves afloat in the long run. But who wants to pay for shitty content when you can talk to someone who is actually there for free? The mainstream media, which has been polluted by government and private interests, is no longer a viable source of information, but rather a means of control.