Great Real Estate Deal

The Hunter House.

WOODBRIDGE STAR B & B. NHR HOME. STATELY 1 OF A KIND 7 BR/7 BA HOME IN HISTORIC WOODBRIDGE. LG LR, PARLOR, DR. GREAT FLOW. LG MASTER BR W/BATH, SEVEN BR SUITES, INCLUDING MOTHER IN LAW. STAINED GLASS WNDWS, HW FLOORS THROUGHOUT. MANY UPDATES. THIS COULD BE USED AS A PRIVATE HOME OR B & B. BATVAI, SOLD AS IS W/BUYER TO SIGN OFF ON COD ACR. CLOSE TO DOWNTOWN, SHOPPING AND XWAYS. THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN AND MOVE IN READY. SUBJECT TO 3D PARTY APPROVAL.

• Status: Extended
• County: Way
• Area: 05101-Det South Of Grand River
• Subdivision: Avery & Murphys Sub (Plats)
• 7 total full bath(s)
• 1 total half bath
• 3 stories
• Type: 3 Story, Historic
• Family room
• Kitchen
• Master Bedroom is 21x20
• Kitchen is 14x14
• Basement is Partialy Finished
• Laundry room is 12x06
• Parking features: Detached, Electricity
• Forced air heat
• Inclusions: Dishwasher, Refrigerator, Stove, Washer
• Approximate lot is 48X130X48X130
• Topography: Irregular
• Utilities present: Municipal Water, Sanitary Sewer
• School District: DETROIT
• 2 car garage(s)
• Cooling features: 2 + Window Units, Central Air,Cooling
• Basement
• Fireplace(s)
• Dining room
• Laundry room
• Master Bedroom
• LivingRoom

It even has its own Wikipedia Entry.

The Price?

$249,999!

The catch?

It's in Detroit.

The Orang Pendek

From here.

What is Orang Pendek?

"Orang Pendek" literally means "short person" in Indonesian. This is the name given to an animal that people have been seeing for hundreds of years in and around Kerinci-Seblat National Park in central Sumatra. Stories and sightings of this animal are intriguing enough that National Geographic has funded an expedition to Sumatra to capture the first photographic evidence of its existence.

The Animal

Without fail, local witnesses and legends describe Orang Pendek as: 1) an ape, 2) about one meter (~ three feet) tall, 3) with a strong chest and arms, 4) short hair covering its body, 5) that walks bipedally (on two legs). Even though its name means "short person", everyone will tell you that, "Of course it's not a person, it's an animal!" Consider orang-utans, whose name means "forest person". Apes and monkeys have been ascribed human-like qualities throughout history in this region of the world. Consider also that Orang Pendek is almost never described as being magical or spirit-like in nature. We think this is an important point in that, while legends of forest spirits and magical beings abound in the local culture, Orang Pendek is described matter-of-factly as just another animal of the forest.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this animal is its bipedality. Can you guess the only ape we know of that walks primarily bipedally? Us humans! The existence of another bipedal ape could force us to reconsider fundamental questions about our own evolution.

The Witnesses

We divide Orang Pendek's witnesses into four groups: 1) the Suku Anak Dalam, a group of people who have lived throughout their history in the area's forests, away from towns and cities; 2) local villagers, 3) Dutch settlers of the early 20th century, and 4) recent Westerners.

Suku Anak Dalam. Orang Pendek has been part of the Suku Anak Dalam's world for centuries. As long as outsiders have been documenting their culture, this forest-dwelling tribe has described the animal as a co-inhabitant of the forest. They know when they are entering and leaving Orang Pendek's territory, and they will often leave offerings of tobacco to keep it happy.¹

Local Villagers. These Indonesians provide by far the largest wealth of lore and information we have on Orang Pendek. Everyone knows someone who has seen the animal, and it seems everyone has heard all the stories. This can be a disadvantage to our information gathering efforts, because most people seem to have adopted into their own beliefs a common story about Orang Pendek. For instance, many people we ask about the animal say its feet are put on backwards so that when it walks no one knows which way it's moving. We consider descriptions like this highly unlikely and use them as an indication of whether witnesses are speaking from personal or collective experience. In general, we find it difficult to decide what to make of this group of witnesses. While they are by far the most numerous and therefore likely group to have seen what we're searching for (and many provide very convincing, realistic, detailed descriptions), they also share a very strong tradition of a mythologically oriented view of their world. Many people we talk to ask us earnestly if we're afraid of ghosts while traveling in the jungle.

Dutch Settlers. In the early 1900's Indonesia was actually a Dutch colony (if you travel in Indonesia today you'll see Dutch influences everywhere from the architecture to the Indonesian language itself). A few settlers provided Westerners with their first introduction to Orang Pendek as they described several first- and second- hand experiences with the animal. Among the most famous of these witnesses was a man named Mr. Van Heerwarden, who while surveying some land in Sumatra in 1923, described this encounter:

I discovered a dark and hairy creature on a branch...The sedapa was also hairy on the front of its body; the colour there was a little lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on its head fell to just below the shoulder-blades or even almost to the waist...Had it been standing, its arms would have reached to a little above its knees; they were therefore long, but its legs seemed to me rather short. I did not see its feet, but I did see some toes which were shaped in a very normal manner...There was nothing repulsive or ugly about its face, nor was it at all apelike.²

Another man, Mr. Oostingh, described another firsthand encounter with a strange animal. While walking through the forest, he saw what looked like a man, sitting on a log, facing away from him:

I saw that he had short hair, cut short, I thought; and I suddenly realised that his neck was oddly leathery and extremely filthy. "That chap's got a very dirty and wrinkled neck!" I said to myself. His body was as large as a medium-sized native's and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all...he seemed to be quite as tall as I. Then I saw that it was not a man. It was not an orang-utan. I had seen one of these large apes a short time before. It was more like a monstrously large siamang, but a siamang has long hair, and there was no doubt that it had short hair.²

These accounts are poorly documented, the witnesses obviously cannot be questioned further, and the descriptions they give differ significantly in some respects from the consensus of recent witnesses. But, regardless of how believable they are, these stories provide another piece of the complicated puzzle surrounding Orang Pendek.

Recent Westerners. As Western scientists ourselves, this group of witnesses provides us with the most accessible source of evidence. Most notable amongst this group are two British researchers, Debbie Martyr and Jeremy Holden. Both have been working more or less continuously to photograph Orang Pendek since 1990, so far without success. Both also claim to have seen Orang Pendek personally on several occasions. Through their "Project Orang Pendek", funded by Fauna and Flora International (www.fauna-flora.org), Debbie and Jeremy engaged in a multi-year effort in part to: a) systematically characterize local lore and witness accounts of Orang Pendek and b) employ camera-trapping methods to capture a picture of the animal. Their efforts and ultimate frustration have been a valuable source of expertise and caution for us.

Several other Brits have involved themselves briefly in the search, with no conclusive results. Adam Davies and Adam Sanderson are two of these, who recently received some press coverage on BBC after finding a footprint and hairs that may have been from Orang Pendek.

Missing Link?

Some suggest that Orang Pendek could be a missing link--a distant relative of ours representing an intermediate stage between us humans and the ancient ape-like primates from which we descended. Could it be a remnant of the genus Australopithecus--a very early, bipedal, hominid ancestor of ours? Orang Pendek's bipedality is certainly a very interesting characteristic to consider. Many paleoanthropologists say that, if members of Australopithecus were alive today, they would be described as bipedal apes. Interest in this question was piqued further after the recent discovery of fossils from a new species of our own genus Homo on Flores, another island in the Indonesian archipelago. These small people, named Homo floresiensis were around a meter tall, created and used fire and tools, and still lived 12,000 years ago--almost yesterday in evolutionary terms.

Honestly, we can't answer this question. We do know this, though: to every witness we interview, we ask, "Is Orang Pendek a person or an animal?" Consistently, people insist that it's an animal. Debbie Martyr and Jeremy Holden, as well, maintain that Orang Pendek is a great ape and not a hominid. However, we're not going to speculate either way, and there's no need for us to at this point. There just isn't enough evidence about where Orang Pendek will fit on the evolutionary tree.

Mistaken Identity?

There is certainly plenty of ammunition here for Orang Pendek skeptics. As an example, many locals say Orang Pendek's feet look like those of a seven year old child, and that they know this because of foot prints they've found while walking through the forest. However, another forest dwelling animal, the sun bear, is a likely source of these sightings. Bears in general are known for having feet that look quite human-like, and the sun bear's would match those of a child fairly well. So could Orang Pendek be nothing but the product of mistaken identity applied to the imaginative human mind? After all, gibbons and siamangs, who populate the forests in this area, are known to occasionally descend to the ground and walk for a few seconds at a time on two legs.

While we can detect a definite thread of realistic, believable, matter-of-fact documentation in the body of folklore the local people have developed surrounding Orang Pendek, we are continually impressed at how fantastical claims about Orang Pendek's appearance and behavior are often blended seamlessly with the mundane. And the variety of descriptions lets us know that not everyone is reporting their own personal experiences with photographic accuracy. Some claim Orang Pendek has a shoulder- or even waist-length mane of blonde hair. Some say it has black fur, some tan, or brown, red, grey. There are the backwards feet stories we mentioned above. Some say it can upend and break tree trunks in half effortlessly. Some Suku Anak Dalam have even claimed that Orang Pendek, learning from its more advanced neighbors, has learned how to smoke.¹.

Additionally, the name "Orang Pendek" itself leads to confusion. We have had people come to our house and excitedly tell us they saw five Orang Pendek cross the road the other day as they were driving along a forest road. We in turn excitedly start taking notes and asking for descriptions, and eventually our witness begins describing the yellow shirts these Orang Pendek were wearing. We realized very quickly that many locals interpret the name more literally as referring to short people. Combine this with the tendency in the area among less educated people to muddle the difference between apes and forest dwelling people like the Suku Anak Dalam, and we have another possible source of mistaken identity.

So with all the confusion and myth surrounding this animal, why don't we just dismiss Orang Pendek as a complex case of mistaken identity? We don't dismiss it primarily for three reasons: 1) as mentioned above, in the midst of this fascinating body of folklore about Orang Pendek, there is a strong thread of a rational effort by our witnesses to genuinely communicate the existence of a realistic animal actually witnessed; 2) Debbie Martyr and Jeremy Holden, two researchers whose work shows strong scientific merit, insist that they have seen the animal personally, and it is something not yet documented by the West; and 3) hard evidence in the form of footprints and hairs have been found that, while they have not been completely analyzed, suggest the presence in these forests of an unknown animal fitting the description of Orang Pendek.

As a scientific endeavor, we must maintain a sense of healthy skepticism. And so we can't claim to know the answers, or even to be certain that Orang Pendek is nothing more than the creation of our incredibly imaginative minds. But along with skepticism, good scientists always keep their minds and beliefs open to a new understanding of our world. So what if Orang Pendek exists? How would you find it? And what new understanding would it give us of the world in which we live? Read about our project to find out what we think.

Related articles

• Things to Come (paulcornell.com)
• Summer 2008: Our Monsteriest Season Yet [Listicle] (gawker.com)

South admits firing first shells in row with North Korea

I can't find this anywhere in the western media, so I'm posting it here.

Related articles

• "South Korea admits firing first shells in row with North Korea" and related posts (geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com)

The Kennewick Man

Image via WikipediaIn 1996 a skeleton was found on the shore of the Colombia river, it's been dubbed The Kennewick man. Subsequent tests have dated the skeleton at 9300 years old. The only unusual feature is that the skeleton is of a Caucasian.

This has caused a great deal of controversy, and the local Native tribes have demanded possesion of the skeleton for 'proper burial'. It seems they have taken an unusual interest in this particular skeleton, as many have been collected and the local tribes reacted with disinterest.

Apparently they don't like the idea of not being the original peoples of the North American continent. A great book to read on this subject is "America B.C." by Barry Fell. Fell presents proof on Ancient Celtic writings and monuments all over New England.

There is a great deal of emerging evidence for a pre-historical world civilization. It's a subject of great interest to me, and I'll be sure and post a good number of follow up posts in this area.

Related articles

• Columbia River bone turned over to tribes (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Human bones near Richland turned over to tribes (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Columbia River bone turned over to tribes (thenewstribune.com)

The Power of Classical Music

Image via WikipediaClassical music is easily the highest art form ever created. I am disgusted what passes for music today. I wonder how bananas would taste if exposed to rap or hip hop.

From here.

NOW here's a story with a-peel: A Japanese fruit company has been playing Mozart to its ripening bananas, claiming it produces a sweeter product.

And that's not all - the paper says a wide variety of food and beverages in Japan have been enjoying exposure to classical music, including soy sauce, udon noodles, miso and even sake, the Japan Times said.

In fact, the sake is downright picky when it comes to composers. At Ohara Shuzo brewery, senior managing director, Fumiko Ohara told the paper the classical musical experiment began over 20 years ago when the president, Kosuke Ohara, came across a book about brewing with music. They experimented with jazz, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, among others.

"We found Mozart works best for sake," Mr Ohara said, "and that's why we use only his music."

But back to those bunches of Mozart-loving bananas. The Japan Times reported they arrive as ordinary unripe, and presumably unmusical, fruit from the Philippines at the Toyoka Chuo Seika fruit company. But then their whole existence changes.

Mozart's String Quartet 17 and Piano Concerto 5 in D major, among other works, play continuously for one week over speakers in their ripening chamber, the paper said.

A representative from the fruit company, Isamu Okuda, said the company believes it makes the fruit sweeter.

And apparently consumers agree - the "Mozart bananas", which made their debut last July, are sold locally for the equivalent of $3.60 a bunch and sales are up over last year's non-music listening bananas.

Related articles

• Mozart's symphonies grow 'sweeter bananas, tastier sake' (news.bioscholar.com)
• You: Mozart's growing influence on food (search.japantimes.co.jp)

The Wild Man and the Jungle Girl

Villagers hunt the mystery man who seized jungle girl

Villagers celebrating the return of a young woman 18 years after she disappeared into the jungle are planning to hunt the “wild man” who may have kidnapped and held her captive.

The naked and long-haired man was spotted, apparently armed with a sword, along with the woman as they tried to steal food in a remote province in northeast Cambodia.

The villagers chased them both, catching her, but reported that he was able to escape into the trees. They now plan a manhunt for the mysterious figure, and also hope to find the woman’s younger sister who also disappeared 18 years ago, it emerged yesterday.

The young woman — believed to be Ro Cham H’pnhieng — returned last week with scars on her wrist, possibly from being bound with a rope.

It had initially been thought that she may have lived alone in the jungle like an animal. She grunts and shrieks and so far has only been able to say the words for mother, father, and stomach ache.

The man who claims to be her father, Ksor Lou, a village policeman, aged 45, from the Jrai ethnic group, is convinced that the woman is his daughter, miraculously returned, after identifying her from a childhood knife scar on her arm.

She had vanished with Ro Cham Noeung, her younger sister. At the time a search was held but the girls’ father concluded that they must have been eaten by wild beasts.

Ro Cham Chanthy, the younger sister of the two girls, told Cambodia Daily that villagers were afraid of the “wild man”. She said: “He had a long sword and villagers could not capture him. He had tattoos and made his eyes very wide, so the villagers were very afraid.”

When the young women vanished the region was covered with dense forest but it has been steadily cut back in recent years for cashew and rubber plantations, leading to speculation that the “wild man’s” home is shrinking and perhaps forcing him to make foraging raids.

The region is one of the most remote in Cambodia, home to minority tribes, and has a long history of legends of people living in the forest, including wild men. The forest also provided shelter to refugees from the Khmer Rouge and the civil war that followed its fall.

The young woman was said to be becoming more responsive to her family yesterday, with whom she is now living, although she has made at least one attempt to escape back to the jungle. “This is my daughter, I am sure of it,” Ro Cham Soy, Mr Ksor’s wife, said.

Since she was captured the young woman has spent much of her time watching DVD movies. Large numbers of well wishers have travelled to see her and left donations but her family had to be vigilant after local police talked of exhibiting her in a cage and charging the curious to see her.

Many villagers believe that she was taken as a sacrifice by the jungle gods who have returned her for their own reasons. Buddhist priests have been called in to cleanse her of evil spirits. District Police Chief Mao San said: “They are praying that the jungle spirit is finished with the girl and will allow her to stay here.”

Ro Cham H’pnhieng may be traumatised as she is described as having “sad eyes”, is said to be afraid of people and refuses to touch rice or porridge, only eating meat or fruit.

Police in the area have responded to the case with bemusement. Mr Mao, the district police chief, told villagers that they could look for the wild man if they wanted to but said there were no plans for a police search of the jungle.

Adhoc, an NGO based in the province, has promised to get psychological help for the woman.

Rescued jungle girl finally escapes and returns to the wild

A woman who lived in the jungle for 18 years has run away from her family and returned to the wilderness ten months after being found.

Ro Cham H'pnhieng, 27, was discovered on the edge of the Cambodian jungle in January after she was caught trying to steal food left under a tree.

Despite being able to speak only three words - mother, father and stomachache - she was identified as a local village girl who had disappeared aged eight.

Her father Sa Lou had not seen her since 1989 but says he instantly recognised her from a childhood scar.

He had thought his daughter had been killed by wild animals after she went missing herding buffalo.

Earlier this year, her mother, Rochom Soy, said Ro had found it difficult adjusting to life with humans.

"Our biggest fear is that she will escape back to the jungle," she said. "She is clearly baffled by her surroundings. She hardly sleeps and mostly sits in a corner looking quickly from left and right.

"She can't speak more than a few grunts and she still walks hunched like an animal."

Mr Lou, a village policeman in Rattanakiri province, northern Cambodia, where the family live, said his daughter had tried to escape several times but relatives had always been able to stop her.

He also warned Ro may have run away to find "her wild man". When she was captured, some witnesses claimed to have seen a naked, ape-like man who managed to slip away into the undergrowth.

"This time, she has got away," said Mr Lou. "We know where she's gone - she's gone back to the jungle. Perhaps she has gone to find the wild man who was living with her."More here.

From Wikipedia here.

Oxygen atmosphere found on Saturn’s moon Rhea

Image via WikipediaAstronomers have announced that an oxygen atmosphere has been found on Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea.

At about 527,000 kilometres from Saturn, Rhea orbits inside the planet's magnetic field. Rhea's oxygen atmosphere is maintained by the ongoing chemical breakdown of water ice on the moon''s surface, driven by radiation from Saturn's magnetosphere.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Saturnian system since 2004, detected the oxygen atmosphere around Rhea during a close flyby of the icy moon in March.

Cassini's data show that molecular oxygen (O2) forms inside the moon's surface ice when water molecules (H2O) are split by energetic ions, a process known as radiolysis. The oxygen then gets ejected from the surface ice and captured by Rhea''s gravity to form the atmosphere.

"The major implication of this finding at Rhea is that oxygen atmospheres at icy moons, until now only detected at Europa and Ganymede, may in fact be commonplace around those irradiated icy moons throughout the universe with sufficient mass to hold an atmosphere," National Geographic News quoted study leader Ben Teolis of the Southwest Research Institute, as saying.

"A loose analogy might be carbon dioxide dissolved, or trapped, in a carbonated beverage, except here we are not talking about liquid water but rather frozen ice at extremely low temperatures," said Teolis.

The amount of oxygen gas produced per second across Rhea's surface weighs about 130 grams, the study team reported.

Cassini also identified the distinctive chemical fingerprint of carbon dioxide in Rhea's atmosphere, indicating the presence of carbon on the moon''s surface.

"You would expect a very small amount of gas [around an ice moon], but the fact that there is enough to be measurable is what is surprising and indicates that the energetic processes that must be occurring are more widespread than previously thought," said Robert Carlson, of the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California.

The new study may have scientists looking with fresh eyes at Rhea-like moons around other gas giant planets.

"The discovery of Rhea's atmosphere is extremely fortuitous, as it will allow us to anticipate what we might expect to find at Jupiter's moons and design the spacecraft instruments accordingly," said Teolis.

The findings were reported in the journal Science.

Related articles

• Oxygen atmosphere found on Saturn's moon (news.bioscholar.com)
• You: Oxygen found on Saturn moon (nation.com.pk)
• Cassini tastes oxygen on Saturn's moon Rhea (guardian.co.uk)

Emerging Nano Tech

It's frightening how quickly the technology world is changing. It's moving much faster than our abilities to digest the ramifications of its implementation. In the next 20 years we are bound to see rapid and unexpected changes, for better or worse.

Healthy Eating Disorder

Image via Wikipedia(NaturalNews) In its never-ending attempt to fabricate "mental disorders" out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they've invented yet: Healthy eating disorder.

This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you're "mentally diseased" and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs. The Guardian newspaper reports, "Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder" and goes on to claim this "disease" is called orthorexia nervosa -- which is basically just Latin for "nervous about correct eating."

But they can't just called it "nervous healthy eating disorder" because that doesn't sound like they know what they're talking about. So they translate it into Latin where it sounds smart (even though it isn't). That's where most disease names come from: Doctors just describe the symptoms they see with a name like osteoporosis (which means "bones with holes in them").

Getting back to this fabricated "orthorexia" disease, the Guardian goes on to report, "Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out."

Wait a second. So attempting to avoid chemicals, dairy, soy and sugar now makes you a mental health patient? Yep. According to these experts. If you actually take special care to avoid pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified ingredients like soy and sugar, there's something wrong with you.

But did you notice that eating junk food is assumed to be "normal?" If you eat processed junk foods laced with synthetic chemicals, that's okay with them. The mental patients are the ones who choose organic, natural foods, apparently.

What is "normal" when it comes to foods?

I told you this was coming. Years ago, I warned NaturalNews readers that an attempt might soon be under way to outlaw broccoli because of its anti-cancer phytonutrients. This mental health assault on health-conscious consumers is part of that agenda. It's an effort to marginalize healthy eaters by declaring them to be mentally unstable and therefore justify carting them off to mental institutions where they will be injected with psychiatric drugs and fed institutional food that's all processed, dead and full of toxic chemicals.

The Guardian even goes to the ridiculous extreme of saying, "The obsession about which foods are "good" and which are "bad" means orthorexics can end up malnourished."

Follow the non-logic on this, if you can: Eating "good" foods will cause malnutrition! Eating bad foods, I suppose, is assumed to provide all the nutrients you need. That's about as crazy a statement on nutrition as I've ever read. No wonder people are so diseased today: The mainstream media is telling them that eating health food is a mental disorder that will cause malnutrition!

Shut up and swallow your Soylent Green

It's just like I reported years ago: You're not supposed to question your food, folks. Sit down, shut up, dig in and chow down. Stop thinking about what you're eating and just do what you're told by the mainstream media and its processed food advertisers. Questioning the health properties of your junk food is a mental disorder, didn't you know? And if you "obsess" over foods (by doing such things as reading the ingredients labels, for example), then you're weird. Maybe even sick.

That's the message they're broadcasting now. Junk food eaters are "normal" and "sane" and "nourished." But health food eaters are diseased, abnormal and malnourished.

But why, you ask, would they attack healthy eaters? People like Dr. Gabriel Cousens can tell you why: Because increased mental and spiritual awareness is only possible while on a diet of living, natural foods.

Eating junk foods keeps you dumbed down and easy to control, you see. It literally messes with your mind, numbing your senses with MSG, aspartame and yeast extract. People who subsist on junk foods are docile and quickly lose the ability to think for themselves. They go along with whatever they're told by the TV or those in apparent positions of authority, never questioning their actions or what's really happening in the world around them.

In contrast to that, people who eat health-enhancing natural foods -- with all the medicinal nutrients still intact -- begin to awaken their minds and spirits. Over time, they begin to question the reality around them and they pursue more enlightened explorations of topics like community, nature, ethics, philosophy and the big picture of things that are happening in the world. They become "aware" and can start to see the very fabric of the Matrix, so to speak.

This, of course, is a huge danger to those who run our consumption-based society because consumption depends on ignorance combined with suggestibility. For people to keep blindly buying foods, medicines, health insurance and consumer goods, they need to have their higher brain functions switched off. Processed junk foods laced with toxic chemicals just happens to achieve that rather nicely. Why do you think dead, processed foods remain the default meals in public schools, hospitals and prisons? It's because dead foods turn off higher levels of awareness and keep people focused on whatever distractions you can feed their brains: Television, violence, fear, sports, sex and so on.

But living as a zombie is, in one way quite "normal" in society today because so many people are doing it. But that doesn't make it normal in my book: The real "normal" is an empowered, healthy, awakened person nourished with living foods and operating as a sovereign citizen in a free world. Eating living foods is like taking the red pill because over time it opens up a whole new perspective on the fabric of reality. It sets you free to think for yourself.

But eating processed junk foods is like taking the blue pill because it keeps you trapped in a fabricated reality where your life experiences are fabricated by consumer product companies who hijack your senses with designer chemicals (like MSG) that fool your brain into thinking you're eating real food.

If you want to be alive, aware and in control of your own life, eat more healthy living foods. But don't expect to be popular with mainstream mental health "experts" or dieticians -- they're all being programmed to consider you to be "crazy" because you don't follow their mainstream diets of dead foods laced with synthetic chemicals.

But you and I know the truth here: We are the normal ones. The junk food eaters are the real mental patients, and the only way to wake them up to the real world is to start feeding them living foods.

Some people are ready to take the red pill, and others aren't. All you can do is show them the door. They must open it themselves.

In the mean time, try to avoid the mental health agents who are trying to label you as having a mental disorder just because you pay attention to what you put in your body. There's nothing wrong with avoiding sugar, soy, MSG, aspartame, HFCS and other toxic chemicals in the food supply. In fact, your very life depends on it.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to join the health experts who keep inventing new fictitious diseases and disorders, check out my popular Disease Mongering Engine web page where you can invent your own new diseases at the click of a button! You'll find it at: http://www.naturalnews.com/disease-...

Related articles

• Choosing Healthy Foods Called A Mental Disorder (bimchat.wordpress.com)
• Introducing a New Eating Disorder for Self-Righteous Locavores: Orthorexia (blisstree.com)

A pill to block out the bad memories

Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via FlickrFrom here.

How has it come to this? Now we feel we need to block out bad memories? This is simply soma.

There are some things everyone would rather forget – and scientists believe they may be able to help us do just that, with a pill that would block out painful memories.

In a medical breakthrough, researchers have discovered that proteins can be removed from the brain’s fear centre to wipe out traumatic memories.

Their findings could be of benefit to soldiers who have experienced distressing events and victims of violence. They could even help us get over the hurt of a painful break-up.

The U.S. research has parallels to the plot of the science fiction film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, which starred Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey.

In the 2004 film, a couple’s past is wiped in a fictional procedure called ‘targeted
memory erasure’. For the U.S. study, scientists at Johns Hopkins University used rats to try to focus on the part of the brain that copes with fear.

They discovered a ‘window of vulnerability’ when unique receptor proteins are created in the brain as painful memories are made.

Because the proteins are unstable, they could be removed with drugs to eliminate the memory forever.

‘When a traumatic event occurs, it creates a fearful memory that can last a lifetime and have a debilitating effect on a person’s life,’ said researcher Professor Richard Huganir.

He said his findings ‘raise the possibility of manipulating those mechanisms with drugs to enhance behavioural therapy for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder’.

Although the scientists used mice in the tests, they believe the results would be the same in humans.

Breakthrough: The idea of wiping out traumatic memories has parallels with the plot of the film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

The rodents were conditioned using electric shocks so they would fear a tone. The sound then triggered the creation of the proteins, which formed for just a day or two in the fear centre, or amygdala, of the mice’s brains.

The Johns Hopkins scientists are working on re-opening the window by artificially recalling the painful memory and using drugs to get rid of the protein.

Professor Huganir believes the window may exist in other centres of learning in the brain and the treatment may one day be used to alleviate pain or combat alcohol or drug addictions.

However, Kate Farinholt, of a mental health support group in Maryland, warned there are still many unanswered questions. ‘Erasing a memory and then everything bad built on that is an amazing idea,’ she said.

‘But completely deleting a memory is a little scary. How do you remove a memory without removing a whole part of someone’s life, and is it best to do that, considering that people grow and learn from their experiences?’

Paul Root Wolpe, of the Centre for Ethics, at Emory University in Atlanta, said: ‘Human identity is tied into memory. It creates our distinctive personalities. It’s a troublesome idea to begin to be able to manipulate that, even if for the best of motives.’

Related articles

• You: A pill to wipe out painful memories (nation.com.pk)
• A pill to block out the bad memories: Experts make breakthrough to help people forget their past (dailymail.co.uk)
• Experts make breakthrough to help people forget traumatic past events (dailymail.co.uk)
• Scientists may be closer to erasing bad memories (northjersey.com)

Young Americans flock overseas to teach English

Image via WikipediaFrom here.

Now, I've got a bit of a different take on ESL teaching. I believe we are not so much teachers as cultural insurrectionists. Teaching English is secondary to introducing our culture and values. While over there, I got endlessly tired of hearing English teachers drone on about 'backward Korean values", "diversity" and "women's rights".

I love diversity, and I think other cultures should be left alone, not badgered into alignment with Liberal Western thinking. The world would be a boring place if it was consumed by a sprawling monoculture, and you can already see it beginning everywhere.

Out of college, out of money and out of luck in a lackluster economy with millions of people out of work, Jeremy Salzman felt trapped after college graduation, facing a certain loss of freedom and an uncertain stretch under the watchful eyes of his parents.

So when the newly-minted graduate of the University of Michigan had to choose between returning to Atlanta to look for a job or signing on for a hitch as an English teacher in South Korea, it was a no-brainer.

He’s now teaching kids in a private school 7,000 miles away, with no professors or parents to answer to, no homework, and maybe best of all, no rules and no curfew.

Like tens of thousands of young Americans with degrees, but few job prospects, Salzman, 23, took off for South Korea to teach. The only requirements — no criminal record and a bachelor’s degree in anything.

And the school paid his airfare, is putting him up in a small apartment and will buy him a ticket home when his contract ends.

South Korea is the hot spot for such jobs, but untold thousands of new grads are teaching in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and China, where parents are gung-ho for English.

“These schools are interested in pronunciation, being able to make conservation, not rules of grammar,” says Dave Sperling, 48, who runs a Web-based business in Los Angeles helping foreign schools and recruiters find teachers.

And in an economy still shedding jobs, it’s boom-time for Asian schools looking for U.S. grads and a boon for young people like Salzman.

“I have been going to school since I was four years old and was burned out from attending classes, taking exams and worrying about my future,” says Salzman, who has been in Daegu, South Korea, since last fall. “I did not want to get a mediocre job and live under my parents’ roof. So instead of worrying about finding a job or getting into graduate school like most of my friends, I decided to teach in Korea.”

So far, he’s having the time of his life, and also, he feels, providing invaluable help to youngsters there. He works at least eight hours daily, then parties by night, often into the wee hours, with other expatriates, most from the U.S. or Canada, but some from Britain, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.

He goes to a gym daily, swills SoJu, a stiff vodka-like drink, fills up on Korean barbeque and sees “amazing” sights.

“I am not an English major, and people in America would not want me to teach their kids English…what I am good at and enjoy doing is helping kids become successful at something.”

He adds: “I came to live out a once in a lifetime experience that I won’t have the opportunity to do again when I have a real job.”

The money’s pretty good, and in countries like South Korea, a salary of $24,000 -- paid in won - and with a free apartment, many Americans are able to save a lot.

Stephen Gronsbell, 26, of east Cobb, who has a bachelor’s in psychology from UGA and a BS in history education from Kennesaw State, took a job in Seoul because he couldn’t find a gig back home.

“The beginning teacher salary in Cobb County is around $39,000 and I am being paid 2.2 million won ($1,900) per month,” Gronsbell says. “It is not as much pay, but when you figure everything else out, things look different. I was provided round-trip airfare and free housing in a furnished one-bedroom apartment about 10 minutes walking distance from my school. Income tax is only about 3 percent of my salary.”

The government covers most of his health care.

“I knew how important education was in Korea, and as a teacher, I wanted to see what it was like working in a country that valued education,” Gronsbell says. Salzman went with his best friend, Max Holland, 23. Both plan to stay for one hitch, though others stay for more or hopscotch from one country to another.

Sperling, one of the top experts in the ESL (English as a second language) field who runs the authoritative Dave’s ESL Café job board, says most youths return home, but a few never do.

William Mallard, 47, of Decatur, is “on the 22nd year of my one-leave of absence” from a job in Atlanta he’d landed after graduating from Harvard.

“I wanted to see the world on somebody else’s dime,” he says.

He answered an ad posted by the Japanese government and signed a one-year contract to teach, then re-upped. Now he’s married to a Japanese woman, and they live with their two children in Singapore, where he works for Dow Jones & Co.

“I never meant to be away from the U.S. this long,’’ Mallard says. “But that’s the way it worked out. Now I barely recognize the place. You folks changed a lot with your three wars and your reality shows.”

Thousands of expats teach in Korea’s biggest cities, most in Seoul, which has a population of 10 million. Koreans are convinced that the only way their kids can get ahead is to learn “conversational” English, says Randall Davis, who coordinates a program at the University of Utah for youths interested in teaching abroad.

Greg Dolezal, president of the Association for Teachers of English in Korea, which helps if problems arise, says 24,000 Americans hold Korean visas, that “American standard dialect is preferred,” and that it’s the first full-time job for many.

Dolezal, who has a master’s in journalism from Middle Tennessee State University, is engaged to a Korean citizen and plans to start a business after his tour. Like Sperling, he urges grads to thoroughly investigate offers.

But it’s often more of a shock to the parents than their adventure-seeking children.

“I certainly miss hanging out with him,” says Jeremy’s dad, Martin Salzman, 55, an Atlanta lawyer. He says his son doesn’t really know what he’s going to do when he comes home but “I don’t think he ever wants to be a teacher.”

Jeremy’s mom, Beth, says she’s proud of him but that he “needed to clear his head.”

Jeremy knows it’ll be weird when he returns but doesn’t miss much, except deli food.

“I would love to eat a turkey sandwich from Publix about now,” he says.

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Bosnian Pyramids

I got interested in this story because it seemed to be an older news clip, and I haven't heard anything about it recently.



After a bit of searching around I found Semir's website. The forums are closed, and it hasn't been updated since October 15th, 2006. It seems a bit strange to just abandon the site and the excavations which seem to have been done by volunteers.

I dug around a bit more, and it seems that Semir fell out of favour with the scientific community with quotes like these:

It is my theory that the Maya should be considered watchmakers of the cosmos whose mission it is to adjust the Earthly frequency and bring it into accordance with the vibrations of our Sun... Their ancestors, the civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, erected the first temples on energy potent points of the Planet. Their most important function was to serve as a gateway to other worlds and dimensions.

But it seems as if he initially had great results, it sure looks like a pyramid to me.

Twenty days after the beginning of the ongoing geoarcheological project – the excavation of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun - the results are amazing. The key evidence of the existence of the stone blocks creating the pyramid walls is found in all excavated areas: east, west and north sides of the pyramid.

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Mind Reading Machines

Image via WikipediaThere have been some recent news articles recently about computers that can read minds.

They believe the breakthrough could give a voice to paralysed patients who have lost the power of speech.

'We were beside ourselves with excitement when it started working,' said Bradley Greger, a bioengineer who led the research at Utah University.

'It was just one of those moments when everything came together. I would call it brain reading.

'We hope that in two or three years it will be available for use by paralysed patients.'

Currently those with 'locked-in' syndrome - following a stroke, disease or injury - communicate by blinking an eye or twitching a finger to choose letters or words from a list.

The new technology is being celebrated as a way to help stroke patients and others who have lost the power of speech. It's funny that no other applications are mentioned in this article. It's also questionable that years of dedicated and expensive research were conducted with only the end goal of helping a tiny, yet pitiable portion of the population.

This article, from the same paper, is a little more balanced, and points out some of the potential misuse of the technology.

All this aside, however, there is a sinister side to any form of mind-reading. Already, our legal system seems to be drifting uncomfortably close to the notion of the 'thought crime'.

People have been prosecuted, for example, not for blowing-up planes or abusing children, but for writing about, drawing pictures of or emailing friends about such crimes. That is not, many would argue, the same thing at all.

This is bad enough, but imagine what would happen if the police were to have mind-screening at their disposal.

If images of abuse or torture, or brain patterns suggestive of fanatical religiosity, or perverted sexuality could be revealed by a future mind-reading machine (and it may turn out that the minds of fanatical madmen are quite easy to spot), it would be incredibly tempting to simply lock the suspect away and throw away the key.

This is a superficially attractive, but deeply-flawed argument, one which was explored rather well in the 2002 movie Minority Report.

Perfectly law-abiding people think all sorts of things, not all of them wholesome and certainly not all of them legal.

But thoughts are not deeds, and once certain thoughts become illegal, then we have entered a hellish world.

Good points against the use of such devices are made here, however I can think of a few benefits.

Why not test these machines on people who have real influence and power in our society?

Related articles

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• 'Mind-reading machine' can convert thoughts into speech (telegraph.co.uk)

Independence Housing

I have always loved alternative home construction. Earthships initially interested me, but I have been a bit put off by the sheer amount of brute physical labour required to erect one. It's simply impossible to slap one up in a season.

Straw bale is probably a better choice, and it can be done without post and beam as I learned many years ago in a seminar with Chris Magwood.

Recently, I have been looking into it again and have discovered tiny homes. I like the concept; they are small, energy efficient, easy to build and portable. The only drawback is that you have to live in a small space, but that doesn't bother me too much. I have lived on a sailboat and in a small Korean apartment for nearly a decade. In such a small space, solar and wind are viable energy options. I'd be willing to bet that if insulated well, even a candle could heat one of these in the winter.

Here's a nice video that an old gentleman with a noble philosophy has put up on youtube.

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The Greek Creation Myth

In the beginning, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god Oceanus, was the domain of a goddess named Eurynome, which means "far-ruling" or "wide-wandering".

She was the Goddess of All Things, and desired to make order out of the Chaos. By coupling with a huge and powerful snake, Ophion, or as some legends say, coupling with the North Wind, she gave birth to Eros, god of Love, also known as Protagonus, the "firstborn".

Eurynome separated the sky from the sea by dancing on the waves of Oceanus. In this manner, she created great lands upon which she might wander, a veritable universe, populating it with exotic creatures such as nymphs, Furies, and Charites as well as with countless beasts and monsters.

Also born out of Chaos were Gaia, called Earth, or Mother Earth, and Uranus, the embodiment of the Sky and the Heavens, as well as Tartarus, god of the sunless and terrible region beneath Gaia, the Earth.

Gaia and Uranus married and gave birth to the Titans, a race of formidable giants, which included a particularly wily giant named Cronus.

In what has become one of the recurrent themes of Greek Mythology, Gaia and Uranus warned Cronus that a son of his would one day overpower him. Cronus therefore swallowed his numerous children by his wife Rhea, to keep that forecast from taking place.

This angered Gaia greatly, so when the youngest son, Zeus, was born, Gaia took a stone, wrapped it in swaddling clothes and offered it to Cronus to swallow. This satisfied Cronus, and Gaia was able to spirit the baby Zeus away to be raised in Crete, far from his grasping father.

In due course, Zeus grew up, came homeward, and into immediate conflict with the tyrant Cronus, who did not know that this newcomer was his own son. Zeus needed his brothers and sisters help in slaying the tyrant, and Metis, Zeus's first wife, found a way of administering an emetic to Cronus, who then threw up his five previous children, who were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Together they went to battle againsImage via Wikipediat their father. The results were that all of his children, led by Zeus, vanquished Cronus forever into Tartarus' domain, the Dark World under the Earth.

Thus, Zeus triumphed over not only his father, and his father's family of Giants, he triumphed over his brothers and sisters as well, dividing up the universe as he fancied, in short, bringing order out of Chaos.

He made himself Supreme God over all, creating a great and beautiful place for his favored gods to live, on Mount Olympus, in Thessaly. All the others were left to fend for themselves in lands below Mount Olympus.

Zeus made himself God of the Sky and all its phenomena, including the clouds as well as the thunderbolts. Hestia became goddess of the Hearth. To his brother Poseidon, he gave the rule of the Sea. Demeter became a goddess of Fertility, Hera (before she married Zeus and became a jealous wife), was goddess of Marriage and Childbirth, while Hades, one of his other brothers, was made god of the Underworld.

Zeus did indeed bring order out of Chaos, but one of his failings was that he did not look kindly upon the people, those creatures that populated the lands over which he reigned. Many were not beautiful, and Zeus had contempt for anyone who was not beautiful. And of course they were not immortal, as the Olympian gods were, and they complained about the lack of good food and the everlasting cold nights. Zeus ignored their complaints, while he and the other gods feasted endlessly on steaming hot game from the surrounding forests, and had great crackling fires in every room of their palaces where they lived in the cold winter.

Enter Prometheus, one of the Titans not vanquished in the war between Zeus and the giants. It is said in many myths that Prometheus had molded a race of people from clay, or that he had combined specks of every living creature, molded them together, and produced a new race, The Common Man. At the very least he was their champion before Zeus.

Fire for cooking and heating was reserved only for the gods to enjoy. Prometheus stole some of the sparks of a glowing fire from the Olympians, so that the people below Olympus could have fire for cooking and warmth in the winter, thus greatly improving their lot in life.

Zeus was furious at this insult to his absolute power, and had Prometheus bound and chained to a mountain, sending an eagle to attack him daily.

Adding insult to injury, Zeus had his fellow Olympian, Hephaestus, fashion a wicked but beautiful creature to torment Prometheus. It was a woman, whom they named Pandora, which means "all gifts". She was given a precious and beautiful box, which she was told not to open, but curiosity got the better of her, and out flew "all the evils that plague men." The only "gift" that stayed in the box was "Hope".

So, from "far-ruling" Eurynome to the creation of the Common Man, Greek creation myths are inextricably filled with difficulties, though often ameliorated by the gift of Hope.

Fun LSD Facts

Should I take LSD?

A very good question. The decision is not one to be taken lightly. LSD is no arbitrary street drug. It was used for nearly two decades in experimental psychotherapy in clinical conditions. One of the pioneers of this LSD Psychotherapy in the sixties was Dr. Stanislav Grof. The Czechoslovakian doctor made some interesting observations on the responses of different people to LSD. This may help your decision.

Grof observed that people who react badly to LSD are often: "in their everyday life... constantly concerned about maintaining perfect control over their feelings and behavior. They are afraid of temporary or permanent unleashing of instinctual energies, especially those of a sexual or aggressive nature, and of involuntary emotional outbursts. There is frequent preoccupation with the issue of loss of control and fear of social embarrassment, blunder and public scandal resulting from the ensuing behavior." (LSD Psychotherapy, Stanislav Grof (Hunter House, 1980) p. 55)

Most dangerous, however, are those who feel they have "few alternatives left in life" and are gripped with a "potentially dangerous eagerness and strong motivation to have a psychedelic session." He explains: "They find themselves in a subjectively unbearable situation of intense conflict associated with great emotional distress and tension. Typical characteristics include serious questioning of the meaning of life, toying with suicidal fantasies, and a careless and risky approach to various life-situations in general... In their fantasy LSD becomes the magic tool that will give them instant relief, either by mediating a miraculous cure or by precipitating self-destruction." (LSD Psychotherapy, Stanislav Grof (Hunter House, 1980) p. 56)

Is LSD poisonous?

No. LSD is one of the least toxic chemicals in the world.

Can a urine drug test detect if I've used LSD?

LSD is not usually tested for in standard or advanced drug tests. Because of the tiny amounts involved and its rapid removal from the body, it is very difficult to detect. It stays in the urine for 24-48 hours.

Will LSD make me want to jump out of a window?

No, LSD will not make you think you can fly. This is a myth. However, LSD is a very, very powerful conscious-altering drug and if you are ill-prepared or in a strange environment, you may experience panic attacks, extreme anxiety, paranoia, or even feelings that you're about to die. A bad trip, basically. See our guide to avoiding a bad trip.

I'm on anti-depressants -- is there any danger?

Studies show that selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) type anti-depressants such as Prozac (Fluoxetine) and Zoloft (Sertraline) decrease the effects of LSD. Trycyclic antidepressants (such as Tofranil or Norpramine) increase LSD effects.

Mono-amine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressants should never be taken alongside LSD and other psychedelics (including Ecstasy/MDMA) as the combination can provoke severe physical effects. You can find more information here.

Can doing LSD destroy your reproductive system?

No. This is a myth, which originates from a study dating back to the LSD hysteria period (1967) which showed that LSD caused "chromosonal breaks," or damage to DNA, and it was inferred that LSD could cause birth abnormalities.

The study failed to mention that nearly all drugs, legal or illegal, can cause chromosonal breaks -- including aspirin, caffeine, antibiotics and artificial sweeteners -- the majority to a greater degree than LSD. You can read an examination of the study here.

However, like all drugs, LSD should be avoided during pregnancy. Ergot, the fungus from which LSD is synthesized, can induce uterine contractions.

Is it safe to take LSD during pregnancy?

Absolutely not. LSD can induce uterine contractions.

What is a bad trip and how do I avoid one?

A bad trip occurs when the euphoria of an LSD trip changes into something more sinister and frightening. It can be triggered by a threatening or adverse environment, the surfacing of difficult unconscious memories or material, a sense of being overwhelmed by the power of the drug and by attempting to resist its effects, or by problems between you and anyone you may be sharing the experience with. People hostile to LSD are more likely to have bad trips.

Bad trips are characterized by intense feelings of paranoia, sensations of dying, fear, and anxiety. This maybe accompanied by threatening or frightening visual hallucinations: spiders, blood, insects, monsters, skulls etc. It is a deeply uncomfortable and traumatic state. See our bad trip guide.

What should I do to help someone having a bad trip?

Change something, like the music, the setting and/or the lighting. Reassure them that they have taken a drug and the effects will wear off. Give them a time scale and a sense of when it will end. Above all, be calm and do not panic.

Is it true that LSD is often mixed with stuff like strychnine?

This is a myth. Strychnine is not a by-product of the synthesis of LSD. Strychnine has never been discovered in over 2000 analyzed samples of street LSD. The argument often is that there is not enough space on an LSD blotter to contain enough strychnine to poison you.

What are "flashbacks"?

Flashbacks are the involuntary reliving of an LSD trip or state of mind days, weeks or even months after an experience, usually after some auditory or visual clue triggers a passing memory of the experience. They are, however, very rare.

Can LSD make you insane?

There is evidence that underlying mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, can be "activated" by LSD use. Therefore people with any history of mental illness should avoid LSD.

However, when used clinically in the 1960's, psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Cohen surveyed a sample of 5000 individuals who had taken LSD twenty-five thousand times. He found an average of 1.8 psychotic episodes per thousand ingestions, 1.2 attempted suicides, and 0.4 completed suicides. "Considering the enormous scope of the psychic responses it induces," he concluded, "LSD is an astonishingly safe drug."

Doesn't LSD cause chromosonal damage and other genetic defects?

This is a myth, originating from a single flawed study in the 1960s in which scientists exposed cells in a Petri dish to massive concentrations of the drug. In the same experiment, caffeine and aspirin caused greater chromosonal damage.

Can you become perma-fried if you take LSD too much? Is there a limit to how many times you should take it?

There doesn't seem to be a set limit to the amount of LSD an individual can take, physically or psychologically. "Acid casualties" from the 60s and 70s do seem to suggest that repeated chronic use of LSD can have long term effects on your brain and your mental well being. At the same time, however, practitioners like Dr Timothy Leary took LSD over one thousand times in their lifetime with no apparent long term physiological damage. Although if you read his later books, you might disagree.

Perhaps what is important is less how much you take, but more how you take it. People like Leary were very careful about "set" and "setting" when taking LSD, ensuring their environment and people around them were relaxing to guarantee a pleasant trip and to lessen the chances of "freaking out."

If you take LSD a lot (like every weekend) you may find it increasingly difficult to come back to normality, or may become increasingly isolated from those in your circle who do not take it. As always, moderation is recommended.

What is the addiction potential of LSD?

Physically speaking, LSD is not an addictive drug. The typical amount of LSD ingested is microscopic (100 millionths of a gram) and tolerance builds up quickly -- you have to wait 3 or 4 days before LSD will work on you again.

However, like any drug, you can get captivated by the way it makes you feel and the insights you may have under its influence. It is possible to become psychologically addicted to LSD rather quickly for these reasons. And if you're doing it twice a week or every weekend, it will become difficult to relate to the "real world" in many ways.

On LSD, I occasionally get body twitches and uncontrollable shakes. I am curious as to why this happens and if it is a problem/harmful?

There are two possible reasons why this may be happening. Many users of LSD report energy surges or ripples in their body when tripping, often accompanied by psychological "flashes" or "insights" or sensation of deep relaxation. If you're interested, Eastern mind-body systems like Yoga call this energy "prana" and through practice, it can be channeled and controlled. LSD can sometimes make you aware of this energy.

Alternatively, another explanation is that these shakes are a symptom of distress or fear -- a warning sign that you may be getting into deep water.

What happens to a person when they use LSD every single day for about one year? Are there any long term effects?

First you couldn't use LSD every day. Tolerance builds up rapidly and lasts for three to seven days. Two or three times a week is possible but that is seriously heavy LSD use. Repeated doses of LSD can have a profound psychological effect, leaving you detached from normal reality, especially if taken in a recreational, rather than therapeutic setting. You may want to ask yourself: "Why am I taking LSD so often?"

How is an LSD blotter tab physically taken?

Most users swallow it with distilled water, not tap water, as even small amounts of chlorine can destroy LSD.

Can LSD put holes in your brain?

No.

Will an alcohol blood test show up LSD use?

It is unlikely that an alcoholic test would be extended to cover LSD. LSD is rarely tested for in a urine or blood test unless specifically requested. It is also difficult to detect, due to the microscopic amounts usually ingested.