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Showing posts from September, 2011

Reaching for The Sky? #FamilyLife

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The Great Pyramid of Cheops, Ulm Cathedral, St. Peter’s, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower….for millennia, the world’s tallest buildings have been occidental. As we approach the first quarter of the new millennium, however, the tallest buildings in the world are no longer in Africa, Europe and the United States, but in the rapidly growing cities of the Far East (Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong and Chongqing) and the Middle East (Dubai) are shooting skywards at a pace that makes the great New York and Chicago building booms of 1900-1930 appear almost tame. Not only are the tallest buildings soaring but brand new cities are also reaching for the sky. Shenzhen, to the north of Kowloon, is a special economic zone in the People’s Republic of China. It is also one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The scale of these skyscrapers is astonishing. The Petronas of Kuala Lumpur is designed by Cesar Pelli, the Argentine-born, New York-based architect, the

Why Not Make Your Fortune the Easy Way? #FamilyLife

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It isn’t easy to make a fortune the old-fashioned way, no matter what you’ve heard. It means learning a trade, then slogging your way up the corporate ladder from mailroom to first broom to vice president, and so on. Nor is it any easier getting a bright idea and starting a business. Bright ideas by themselves are worth nothing. Even if the idea is brilliant – like making small cars with giant rubber bumpers to reduce the danger and severity of accidents on the freeways – it is a long road between conception and making a fortune. So, why not make your fortune the easy way, by osmosis? No having to develop real estate, or drill for oil, or trade options – all those things you don’t have the foggiest notion about. All you have to do is sidle up to a proper billionaire, and “presto transfuso” you will make a fortune by osmosis. Here’s how: 1) Selecting the Target: Identifying your target billionaire is the first order of business. This is complicated by the fact that many

A Compendium of Bizarre, Idiotic and Lurid News from the Past (Series 1) #FamilyLife

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Colonel Qaddafi Hooked On three Stooges: According to a former friend of the Libyan dictator, Muammar Qaddafi is still so infuriated over the United States’ bombing of Tripoli that he prefers to remain in his tent and watch old Three Stooges movies. “He just sits there, watching his Stooges videotapes and pouting like a spoiled child,” says Ali Adjina, who has defected to France. “He used to idolize world leaders and men of war like Napoleon and Alexander the Great. Now he looks up to nobody but Larry, Moe, and Curly!” After a friend gave Qaddafi three racing camels in an effort to cheer him up, the colonel had them killed and stuffed, then placed them outside his tent with signs around their necks bearing the names of the Stooges. “The colonel has gone off the deep end before, but I’m afraid this time he’s gone for good.” states Adjina. “The other day he started laughing to himself in that idiotic way the fat Stooge does….I tried to tell him it wasn’t right for a man of his s

A Compendium of Bizarre, Idiotic and Lurid News from the Past (Series 2) #FamilyLife

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Doomed Cannibals Ate AIDS Victim: A Brunei, Borneo, cannibal tribe may be doomed after feasting on a scientist infected with AIDS. Gerard Voisard, 28 of Geneva, Switzerland, had been diagnosed as having AIDS-Related Complex before he entered the country; and his journal revealed that the disease had fully matured. “This is a tragedy beyond measure,” says Ian Brinsdon, a Brunei Health Official. “Our government has spent a fortune trying to preserve and protect the primitive people of our jungle. Now, in one swift and cruel stroke, an entire tribe has been doomed to extinction. It’s only a matter of time before they all have AIDS.” Although the government is currently trying to persuade the tribesmen to undergo testing for the disease. “The outcome of these negotiations is still in limbo,” adds Brinsdon. “The cannibals are wary of outsiders to begin with. And they have absolutely no conception of the seriousness of AIDS.” (Weekly World News – submitted by C. Kaplan, New York

Understanding Chinese Yin and Yang in the Field of Medicine (Chapter 1) #FamilyLife

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Some patients regard acupuncture needle pricks as pain. In China, a doctor would be thought of as incompetent if the needles did not cause a certain degree of discomfort. The fact that this discipline has survived thousand of years, through so much change and so many upheavals is regarded by many as proof of its efficacy. The Chinese method of healing is more than 2,000 years old, and, like the rest of China’s history, meticulously recorded; its discoveries, methodology and application being handed from generation, making Chinese medicine today the sum total of the accumulated experiences of past masters of the art. The earliest medical classic in China, now extant, is the Huangdi Neijing, or Canon of Medicine, dating back to 500 – 300 B.C. It states the Chinese belief that imbalances in the body’s circulatory system are the cause of all diseases. The body says Chinese tradition, is mapped by meridian lines (or channels) which carry energy and are connected to 1000 pressure p

Understanding Chinese Yin and Yang in the Field of Medicine (Chapter 2) #FamilyLife

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Chinese doctors have a set of diagnostic rules to detect the various types of pain. An ache at the back of the head is usually characteristic of stagnation in the channels governing the urinary bladder and top of the liver. Chinese techniques, acupuncture in particular, is especially suitable for most kinds of sharp or acute pain. Relief is often instantaneous and permanent. Chronic pain usually takes some time to respond to treatment. To understand the principles of Chinese medicine, it is essential to grasp the essence of Chinese philosophy and its central concepts of yin and yang forces in nature, at once opposing yet independent – male and female, negative and positive, call them what you like. Every object or phenomenon in the universe is compounded of these two aspects. The Chinese masters describe a complex law of the unity of opposites that operates between yin and yang. If the masculine force, yang, embodies fire and all that is bright, hot, upwardly mobile, and a

Understanding Chinese Yin and Yang in the Field of Medicine (Chapter 3) #FamilyLife

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Massage plays an important role in treatment for maladies as varied as fractures and arthritis. Massage seems to have been commonly used even in the Sui and Tang dynasties (158 – 907 BC). During the Ming dynasty, it was considered one of the 13 major branches of Chinese medicine, and its numerous therapeutic qualities were widely enumerated in many texts. According to Chinese records, massage was introduced to the West as a method of healing only about 1,000 years ago. Cupping and bleeding are other widely-used procedures. Cupping uses vacuum suction to activate the functions of the organs, while those with excess yang are made to bleed with a seven-star needle to restore balance. The doctor also may suggest changes in the food the patient eats and even the place he lives in. Summer diseases are treated in winter and vice versa. Once the balance is restored the patient is fully cured, but future imbalances may call for a fresh round of treatment. How much of a scientific b