To help "buff the 'brain-mind complex' ", check out a generic aid to problem solving and decision making called the 'One Page Management System' (OPMS). Software is available entirely free.

You choose a Mission (ANY Mission of current interest), then, the problem solving aid will ask you a set of well-designed 'trigger questions' to elicit your current ideas about the Mission, in respect to various 'dimensions' of the Mission:

-- THINGS TO DO to accomplish the Mission;

-- BARRIERS/DIFFICULTIES/THREATS that may hinder/prevent accomplishment of the Mission;

-- STRENGTHS (available/required) that could help accomplish the Mission;

-- OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE that could help accomplish the Mission; Preparation required to help avail the opportunities

-- WEAKNESSES that may hinder/prevent accomplishment.

Then the tool will help you design models showing how the various factors in your Mission impact on each other, in terms of specific transitive relationships such as "contributes", "precedes", "has higher importance than", and so on and so forth. You are enabled to create graphical representations of your 'mental models' showing how, for instance, Barriers prevent accomplishment of the Mission, and how to design further THINGS TO DO that would help overcome the BARRIERS. Putting all those elements together would lead to effective Action Planning to accomplish the Mission. The process enables correction and modification of mistaken ideas, hased environmental inputs discovered as one works to accomplish the Mission.

Write to me at gs (underscore) chandy (at) yahoo (dot) com - and I shall direct you to a site where you can get the software downloaded and installed.

The 1-month free trial can be indefinitely extended - also for free.

However, "Help" is currently somewhat limited, but the software is quite easy and very intuitive to use. In due course, there will be a website that would provide more help, guidance, etc. There will always be a free version available, even when it goes commercial. (The free version may lack some of the 'bells and whistles' of the commercial version - and no customization would be posible on that - but it will be a powerful and highly usable package free though it be).

The process as a whole is a powerful 'brain-mind exerciser' that surely helps very significantly to "buff the 'brain-mind complex'" (though empirical studies are currently not available).

-- GSC

What an excellent piece of advice from "cabdriver"! (Wednesday, April 2, 2008 09:42 PM).

I was once totally, TOTALLY seduced by maryjane - and that led to a serious, really intense addiction to tobacco for me! Fortunately, never was tempted by any heavier drugs. I have now been off completely off maryjane (and tobacco) for over 20 years, and I never ever feel the slightest discomfort or desire even in a room full of pot or tobacco smokers.

Exercise of the body; associated with appropriate exercise of the brain-mind complex that gives a much better high than maryjane ever did.

-- GSC

It really is time, US citizens, to honor your real heroes like Lt. Cmdr. Mathew Diaz, and to impeach the war criminals, GW Bush and Gang - and put them in jail where they belong. A good location for GW Bush would be Guantanamo for the rest of his miserable life.

-- GSC

You US citizens sure live very complicated lives! Really much more complex than anything I could have dreamed of back here in India.

And reading LW's letter, I think I begin to understand just how you guys have gotten yourselves into a situation where you have war criminal GW Bush and his Gang 'leading you' to become a criminal nation since 2000, when you allowed this Gang of (to- be) War Criminals to steal the election - and Al Gore and you US citizens did absolutely nothing about it! And then you guys just did it again by electing a proven war criminal - despite the whole world knowing he is a war criminal!

Very much as LW let a proven alcohol abuser back into her life despite knowing better.

Just throw him out LW! Change the locks, get the cops in, get a restraining order, the works!

And, US Citizens: simply impeach GW Bush and everyone else impeachable in this mal-administration of your nation, throw the whole sorry bunch of them into jail for the rest of their miserable lives! The world will be very much better off, and perhaps we can even think of starting work on our real problems, over-population of the globe by humans; resource depletion due to over-population; global warming; etc, etc.

-- GSC

So why is an honourable soldier like General David Petraeus doing obeying the commands of a war criminal like GW Bush?

-- GSC

What is an 'honorable' soldier like General David Petraeus doing following the orders of a war criminal like GW Bush?

-- GSC

Put the whole bunch of Chinese political leaders in jail, alongside war criminal GW Bush and his Gang - and throw away the keys for the rest of their miserable lives.

If not, just shoot every Tibetan in sight who dares to protest at the cultural genocide that China is practicing in Tibet.

-- GSC

What a marvelous review that was by Stephanie Zacharek! I do not often watch movies, but now, after this review, I shall certainly be waiting for "The Visitor" to be released in India!

-- GSC