Aloe vera is perhaps the most genuine and versatile cure-all plant there is, offering a plethora of health benefits - the word 'vera' after all, does mean true or genuine. In the past, it was considered to be the plant of immortality by the Egyptians, and has been used since time immemorial for its soothing and curing properties.

The Aloe vera plant is luscious with thick, fleshy stems and spiny leaves. The plant's miraculous benefits are located within the stems, which contain aloe juice and gel - a substance that is used in numerous medicinal, cosmetic, and health treatments.

Aloe vera juice can be bought (preferably organic, and pure) from a health shop or a well-stocked supermarket. Alternatively, if you've got a couple of plants at home, you can just as easily make your own juice.

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Making Aloe Vera Juice

Cut and open a few stems of the plant from the middle section. Opt for the outer stems as they are the most mature, and have the highest concentration of antioxidants. Upon squeezing the stem, aloe gel will ooze out. Store it in a bowl, then put the gel in a blender and add 1 cup of water. To get pure aloe vera juice, blend the ingredients and consume within 3-4 days, before it loses its antioxidants.

What Makes Aloe Vera so Nutritious?

Aloe vera (both juice and gel) is packed with antioxidants and antibiotics and works as stimulators of cell growth. It also has scar and pain inhibitor properties. The entire leaf is at times used to treat ulcerative colitis, metastatic cancer, infectious disease and chemotherapy treatment. The plant is also rich in the following vitamins and minerals, making it a highly nutritious ingredient.

Calcium Sodium Iron Potassium Manganese Zinc Folic Acid Vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C, E Amino Acids

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15 Health Benefits of Aloe Vera

Aloe juice can be consumed internally, or applied on the skin and hair. It is also a general health tonic that you can consume every morning to reap all of its benefits.

1. Use it to cure bowel problems

Due to its high anti-inflammatory properties, aloe vera is just the thing to take if you suffer from bowel problems. It promotes good bacteria in the gut and keeps all digestive disorders at bay.

2. Use it to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis

This auto-immune disease attacks the body tissues, especially the membranes lining the joints, causing inflammation and stiffness. Drinking aloe juice for two weeks however, can help reduce inflammation in the body. Aloe also contains anti-inflammatory compounds that help to reduce the pain and stiffness to a great extent.

3. Use it to treat acid reflux

If you suffer from severe digestive problems, drinking aloe vera juice reduces the symptoms of acid reflux, and stabilizes the alkaline levels of the body. Aloe juice has a soothing effect on stomach walls and reduces heart burn and discomfort. It is also an ideal treatment for constipation, due to its laxative properties.

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4. Use it to reduce cholesterol levels

To keep your cholesterol levels in check, as well as increase levels of good cholesterol, include fresh aloe juice in your daily diet.

5. Use it to regulate blood sugar levels

When consumed regularly, aloe vera helps to regulate blood sugar levels. On this note though, it is important to consult with your doctor, for the correct dosage. Often times, aloe can interfere with the medicines that you take to curb blood sugar.

6. Use it to relieve sinus and chest congestion

If you tend to suffer from constant sinus problems, opt for aloe vera. It is rich in magnesium lactate that works as an antihistamine, which helps in reducing the problems of sinus and chest inflammation due to various allergies.

7. Use it to help fight cancer

Aloe juice contains high levels of anti-carcinogenic properties that hinder the growth of tumors.

8. Use it to build immunity

Consuming aloe juice on a regular basis, replenishes the amino acid deficiency in your body. Due to its high vitamin content, aloe boosts your body's immune system and self-defense mechanism.

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9. Use it to fight the common cold and cough

Aloe juice is the best natural solution for anyone who suffers regularly from colds, coughs, flu, stuffy nose, bronchitis and other respiratory disorders. Aloe contains a good dose of Vitamin C, which ensures protection from common colds that occur with environmental changes.

10. Use it to combat signs of ageing

Aloe contains anti-ageing properties, keeping the skin supple and rejuvenated. It also lightens blemishes. The gel can be rubbed directly on your face.

11. Use it to remove dead cells and stretch marks

Aloe vera moisturizes the skin, and helps to remove dead cells, wrinkles and fine lines. The juice may also be used to remove stretch marks.

12. Use it to heal wounds

The blend may be used to heal cuts and wounds. It can also be used for dermatitis and insect bites when applied externally.

May also interest you: Relieve Your Cold and Flu Symptoms with these Natural Oils Use Coconut Oil Daily for these Outstanding Health Benefits 14 Reasons to Love Life After 40!

13. Use it to reduce eye irritation

It's easy to create your own natural eye wash with aloe vera gel - just mix 2 teaspoons of aloe gel in a cup of water. You can also add a teaspoon of boric acid. It's also the perfect remedy to reduce reddening and irritation in the eyes.

14. Use it to maintain gum health

Fresh aloe vera gel can be directly applied to the gums, reducing pain and inflammation. It can also be used to treat gum bleeding, caused by bacterial infection.

15. Use it to promote healthy weight loss

If you'd like to lose weight naturally, try aloe vera - an easy and natural weight loss solution that reduces weight by stabilizing the metabolic rate, reducing the lipid levels, and helping burn fat.

Disclaimer: You should not consume more than 4 ounces of aloe vera juice per day. Excess intake of aloe vera can cause nausea and liver inflammation. It should also be taken with caution when taken with water pills, diuretics, and blood sugar lowering drugs. If any feelings of discomfort arise upon taking aloe vera, report to your doctor - some people may face allergic reactions.

Easily Restore and Refurbish Old Furniture

Views: 4713

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Source: Sam O.

Like everything else in life, our furniture cannot escape the hands of time. Be it the coffee table with its water-rings, our cupboard that has become lackluster, or the sofa pillows that look disheveled. While most people take these as a sign for “Out with the old, in with the new!”, you can save a lot of time and money by following these 14 simple tips that will restore your furniture to its former glory. 1. Cover scratches in wood using walnuts or ground coffee

You’ll need to get a cotton swab, dip it in moist coffee grounds, and then apply it to the scratches in the wood. Wait for about 10 minutes and wipe the surface with a dry cotton towel. This works mainly for darker wood furniture. For light-colored wood, simply rub a walnut over the scratched area and let it sit for a few moments before wiping it with a dry cloth. 2. Remove stains from wood with oil and vinegar

If your wooden furniture has stains that won’t go away, prepare a solution of ¼ cup of canola oil and ¾ cup of white vinegar. Mix the solution well and apply it to the stained surface with a cotton or microfiber cloth. After a few minutes, you’ll notice that the stains are fading away, and the old furniture regains its luster. 3. Fix cracks in the varnish with nail polish and sandpaper

If your wooden furniture’s varnish was damaged, but the paint is still intact, you can fix it with clear nail polish. Apply the nail polish to the damaged area and let it dry for about 10 minutes. Afterwards, use fine sandpaper to flatten the area until it shines again. 4. Make old furniture look new again with wallpaper Some furniture becomes damaged beyond conventional repair, be it from scratches or deep stains. A great solution is to cover the surfaces with wallpaper, giving the piece a new, chic look. Simply cut the wallpaper to match the surfaces, apply wood glue to the wood using a brush and gently place the wallpaper on it. Once it has been set, use a ruler to push any air bubbles that may have gotten trapped underneath the wallpaper. 5. Polish and shine wooden furniture with olive oil

If your wooden furniture has lost its shine from years of use or sun-damage, you can give it a cheap, non-toxic polish that will protect the wood and make it shine again. All you need to do is apply olive oil on the wood, using a microfiber cloth and watch how the old piece shines like new again. 6. Remove water rings with mayonnaise

Not everyone likes coasters, and the results are often unsightly water rings on your coffee table. What most people don’t know is that the solution is very simple: apply mayonnaise on the stain and leave it there for about half an hour. Once you wipe it off, you’ll see that the stain is gone. 7. Bleach plastic garden furniture The longer plastic furniture stays outside, the more stains and sun damage become visible upon it. Before you decide to throw the old thing in the garbage, try bleaching it first: Fill a bucket with hot water, pour in ¼ cup of bleach and scrub the piece. Make sure to wear gloves, as bleach is not good for your skin. Once you’re done, wipe the whole thing with a piece of cloth. (Better use a white one because a colored one will become bleached). 8. Bring life back to leather with WD40

Your favorite leather couch or La-Z-Boy may have collected many stains during the years. The good news is that leather can look like new, simply by spraying it with WD40 (a lubricant). After spraying, wipe the WD40 off with a dry cloth to remove any stains and grime. 9. Restore wood paint with coconut oil

If you have an old piece of wooden furniture that has lost much of its color, you don’t have to repaint it. Use a small amount of coconut oil and dab it on the piece, and then rub it into the wood in circular motions. You’ll notice how the deep color returns and the oil adds a layer of protection to the wood. 10. Fix dents with water and an iron

Wooden furniture can get dented easily, and these dents often feel like there’s nothing you can do about them. However, there is a technique for fixing dents in wood, which takes some time but works wonders: First, pour water over the dented area. Place a kitchen towel or an old shirt over the area, and place the hot iron over the towel. The heat will cause the water to be absorbed into the wood, causing the wood to swell. After a few minutes, check the area and repeat if necessary. Once the dent is barely visible, use sandpaper to smooth the area out. 11. Use a furniture repair marker In cases of deeper cracks and scratches, or when there’s a particularly stubborn stain in the wood, you can use a special repair marker. Make sure that the marker matches the color of the piece and lightly apply it to the affected area. Take care not to apply the marker to areas that don’t require fixing. 12. Use hair conditioner to buff stainless steel

By rubbing hair conditioner on to stainless steel surfaces using a damp cloth, you will be able to restore its shine with ease. 13. Restore squashed sofa pillows

The longer you use them, the more your sofa’s pillows get squashed and lose their shape. There’s no need to run to the store and buy a new sofa. Unzip the pillows or open the seams if there isn’t a zipper, shake the stuffing well (if it’s worn out – replace it) and add more stuffing if needed. It’s that simple. 14. Use lemon to polish copper knick-knacks  Picture frames, door and drawer handles, vases and other copper knick-knacks that have become dull and tarnished can be restored. If you are unsure if the metal is indeed copper, test it with a magnet (copper is not magnetic). Now, mix the juice from ½ a lemon with 2 tea spoons of baking soda until the solution is consistent. Rub the mixture onto the copper until the grime comes off, and then wipe the solution off with a microfiber or cotton cloth. ......................................

The New York Times' bizarre story on Osama bin Laden's death

By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

Updated 2352 GMT (0652 HKT) October 18, 2015

9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A demolition crew works to dismantle the compound on February 26, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A Pakistani woman fills a container with water at the site of the demolished compound on April 25, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Shakeel Ahmad Yusufzai, a Pakistani contractor who worked to dismantle the compound, walks through the rubble left behind from the demolition on May 1, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Contractor Yusufzai looks at a bathtub left over from the demolition on May 1, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Children play cricket near the site of the demolished compound.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011, at a compound near Abbottabad, Pakistan. Click through to see images of the compound where he spent the last days of his life.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

The compound where Osama bin Laden was killed is guarded by Pakistani police on May 4, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A closer view of one of the buildings in the compound is seen on May 7, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A general view of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is seen on May 5, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A demolition crew works to dismantle the compound on February 26, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A Pakistani woman fills a container with water at the site of the demolished compound on April 25, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Shakeel Ahmad Yusufzai, a Pakistani contractor who worked to dismantle the compound, walks through the rubble left behind from the demolition on May 1, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Contractor Yusufzai looks at a bathtub left over from the demolition on May 1, 2012.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Children play cricket near the site of the demolished compound.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011, at a compound near Abbottabad, Pakistan. Click through to see images of the compound where he spent the last days of his life.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

The compound where Osama bin Laden was killed is guarded by Pakistani police on May 4, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A closer view of one of the buildings in the compound is seen on May 7, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A general view of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is seen on May 5, 2011.

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9 photos: Osama bin Laden's compound

A demolition crew works to dismantle the compound on February 26, 2012.

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Story highlights

• Peter Bergen: Times magazine cover story says incorrectly that we don't know truth about the bin Laden killing
• Participants in raid and U.S. officials would have had to agree on massive cover up if story they told is false, Bergen said

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad." This piece draws on a story from May 20, 2015.

(CNN)The New York Times is the greatest newspaper in the world, so when the current cover story in the Times magazine is headlined, "What Do We Really Know about Osama bin Laden's Death?," readers are surely going to pay attention.

The story was of particular interest because we actually know a great deal about bin Laden's death, not only from three books written by participants in the operation -- one of the U.S. Navy SEALs who was on the raid and the two top CIA officials who led the hunt for al Qaeda's leader -- but also from many news articles about the operation written by reporters working for The New York Times.

Anything that might add to the hundreds of thousands of words that are already on the public record about bin Laden's death would, of course, be of great interest to the American public and, indeed, to people around the world.

My interest was particularly piqued because I have written a book about the long search for al Qaeda's leader and his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs, so I was anxious to find out more from the newspaper of record which is, after all, based in the city where the terrible 9/11 attacks had killed so many Americans in an operation that was, of course, ordered by bin Laden.

So it was an unpleasant surprise to find that Times reporter Jonathan Mahler, in his more than 7,000 word piece, had discovered little new about the hunt for bin Laden and the raid that killed him, but also made the following claim: "It's not that the truth about bin Laden's death is unknowable; it's that we don't know it."

Mahler also asserted that it was "impossible to know what was true and what wasn't" about the story of bin Laden's death, which is now "floating somewhere between fact and mythology."

Really? That is only if you accept at face value the work of the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who wrote a lengthy piece in the London Review of Books in May that set out to challenge the "official" story of bin Laden's death.

Seymour Hersh's story

Let's recap the principal claims that Hersh's article made, which largely relied on the assertions of an unnamed, retired senior U.S. intelligence official:

-- That the 2011 raid on the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan was not an intense firefight involving 23 SEALs, but a Hollywood-like set up in which Pakistani officials simply handed over bin Laden to the SEALs for execution.

-- The only shots fired the night of the bin Laden raid were the ones that the SEALs fired to kill bin Laden.

-- Pakistan's military had been holding bin Laden prisoner for many years and a "walk in" informant to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad tipped off the CIA that bin Laden was living in the Abbottabad compound.

-- It was false, despite the statements of multiple U.S. officials after the raid, that the CIA had traced back one of bin Laden's couriers to the Abbottabad compound and built a circumstantial case that bin Laden was living there.

-- A Pakistani army doctor obtained DNA from bin Laden that proved he was in Abbottabad, proof that was provided to the States so that all the supposed uncertainty -- cited by Obama administration officials after the raid -- about whether bin Laden was actually living in the compound was a lie.

-- The "most blatant lie," according to Hersh, was that, "Pakistan's two most senior military leaders -- General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI -- were never informed" in advance of the U.S. raid on the bin Laden compound.

In short, according to Hersh's account, President Barack Obama and many of his top advisers lied about pretty much everything concerning what is considered one of the President's signal accomplishments: authorizing the raid in which bin Laden was killed.

If Hersh's account were true, it would be an outrageous betrayal of the public trust by Obama and his most senior advisers on the scale of Watergate.

Secret documents provide portrait of Osama bin Laden 02:44

During the course of reporting for my book about the hunt for bin Laden I spoke on the record to, among many others, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta; John Brennan, now the CIA director and then President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser; then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen; then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Cartwright; then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Michael Vickers, who was then the civilian overseer of Special Operations at the Pentagon; Tony Blinken, who is now the deputy secretary of state, and Denis McDonough, who is now Obama's chief of staff.

I also spoke off the record to some dozen other officials from many different agencies across the U.S. government and to multiple officials in the Pakistani government and military. The story told by all those officials was remarkably consistent: that the Pakistanis did not know where bin Laden was hiding; that the case that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad was built up thorough circumstantial evidence; and that the SEALs went in to a dangerous situation at the compound and fought their way past two bodyguards to get to bin Laden, killing a total of five people, including an unarmed female.

Either all these many dozens of officials were all lying in great detail and have kept up this pretense collectively for the past four years, or they were telling the truth.

Give Hillary an Oscar

One of those supposed liars would also be the woman who may well be the next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton. By the way, give her an Oscar for acting for her performance when the iconic photograph was taken at the White House as the bin Laden raid went down, the one in which Clinton has her hand over her mouth in disbelief and anxiety so uncertain was the outcome of the raid.

While the story about the hunt for bin Laden has been exhaustively reported and the key sources and witnesses are in agreement about the main points of the narrative, of course, it's still possible that we could learn new details about the story that would add to the narrative.

Still, as I wrote in May when Hersh's story first appeared, his account of the bin Laden raid is a farrago of nonsense that is contravened by a multitude of eyewitness accounts, inconvenient facts and simple common sense.

Let's start with the claim that the only shots fired at the Abbottabad compound were the ones that killed bin Laden. That ignores the fact that two SEALs on the mission, Matt Bissonnette, author of "No Easy Day," and Robert O'Neill have publicly said that there were a number of other people killed that night, including bin Laden's two bodyguards, one of his sons and one of the bodyguard's wives.

Axelrod: Bin Laden report 'just plain wrong' 01:28

Their account is supplemented by many other U.S. officials who have spoken on the record to myself or to other journalists, including Mark Bowden, who also wrote a book about the bin Laden raid and whose book "Black Hawk Down" is the definitive account of the fiasco that unfolded in Somalia in 1993 when a U.S. Special Forces mission to capture a Somali warlord ended up with 18 American servicemen dead.

I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.

The compound was trashed, littered almost everywhere with broken glass and several areas of it were sprayed with bullet holes where the SEALs had fired at members of bin Laden's entourage and family, or in one case exchanged fire with one of his bodyguards. The evidence at the compound showed that many bullets were fired the night of bin Laden's death.

U.S.-Pakistani relations

Common sense would also tell you that if the Pakistanis were holding bin Laden and the U.S. government had found out this fact, the easiest path for both countries would not be to launch a U.S. military raid into Pakistan but would have been to hand bin Laden over quietly to the Americans.

Indeed, the Pakistanis have done this on several occasions with a number of other al Qaeda leaders such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander of 9/11, who was handed over to U.S. custody after a raid in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi in 2003. So too was Abu Faraj al-Libi, another key al Qaeda leader who was similarly handed over by the Pakistanis to U.S. custody two years later.

Hersh defends bin Laden report 13:46

Common sense would also tell you that if U.S. officials had found out that the Pakistani officials were hiding bin Laden, there is no reason the Americans would have covered this up.

After all, around the time of the bin Laden raid, relations between the United States and Pakistan were at an all-time low because the Pakistanis had recently imprisoned Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who had killed two Pakistanis. What did U.S. officials have to lose by saying that bin Laden was being protected by the Pakistanis, if it were true?

The fact is that the senior Pakistani officials who Hersh alleges were harboring bin Laden were as surprised as the rest of the world that al Qaeda's leader was living in Abbottabad.

The night of the bin Laden raid, U.S. officials were monitoring the communications of Pakistan's top military officials such as Kayani and Pasha, and their bewildered reactions confirmed that the Pakistanis had not had a clue about bin Laden's presence there, according to a number of U.S. officials.

In his article, Hersh correctly pointed out that in the immediate aftermath of the bin Laden raid, White House officials initially made some false statements about the raid -- for instance, that bin Laden was using his wives as human shields during the raid -- but these were quickly corrected.

Little support for Hersh

The only source Hersh referred to by name in his 10,000-word piece was Asad Durrani, who was the head of Pakistan's military intelligence agency, ISI, during the early 1990s, around two decades before the bin Laden raid occurred. Hersh portrayed Durrani as generally supportive of Hersh's various conclusions.

When I emailed Durrani after the Hersh piece appeared, Durrani said he had "no evidence of any kind" that the ISI knew that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, but he still could "make an assessment that this could be plausible." This was hardly a strong endorsement of one of the principal claims of Hersh's piece by his only named source.

Bergen rebuts claims that Obama lied about bin Laden 02:58

Durrani added that he believed that the bin Laden "operation could not have been carried out without our cooperation."

This glossed over the fact that the SEALs were flying in stealth helicopters through blind spots in Pakistan's radar defense and the Pakistani air force had virtually no capacity to fly at night when the raid took place, so in fact the bin Laden raid was relatively easily accomplished without Pakistani cooperation, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of the bin Laden operation.

One of the only journalists who has "stood up" any element of Hersh's story is Carlotta Gall, a reporter for the Times whose 2014 book, "The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan 2001-2014," was excerpted in the Times magazine.

Gall wrote that she had been told by a Pakistani source that "the ISI actually ran a special desk assigned to handle bin Laden. It was operated independently, led by an officer who made his own decisions and did not report to a superior. He handled only one person: bin Laden ... the top military bosses knew about it."

This would be big news, if true, but strangely the aggressive reporters at the Times who cover Pakistan and also the U.S. intelligence community, including Pulitzer prize winners such as Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, have not substantiated an iota of Gall's reporting, nor any of Hersh's.

Times' reporters 'patsies'?

Are Times reporters such as Mazzetti and Schmitt patsies for the American and Pakistani governments and militaries? Hardly. Mazzetti co-authored a massive Times investigation earlier this year that was quite critical of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6, which carried out the bin Laden raid, while he and Schmitt shared in the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for their aggressive Times coverage of Pakistan.

The only kernel of new and interesting reporting done by Mahler in his Times magazine cover story was to find Aamir Latif, a 41-year-old Pakistani journalist who went to Abbottabad, the day after bin Laden was killed, where he reported for a couple of days. Latif said he had spoken to half-dozen neighbors living near bin Laden's compound, and they had told him that Pakistani security personnel a couple of hours before the raid had told them to turn off their lights and remain indoors.

31 photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout

Certainly very interesting, if true, but Latif is the only journalist who has reported this story, while the many dozens of Pakistani reporters and reporters from around the world who were in Abbottabad after the raid did not find this.

It has been established that U.S. Navy SEALs took a translator with them to Abbottabad, and during the raid, he spoke to curious neighbors in the local language and told them to go back inside their houses because a security operation was under way.

I spent several days in Abbottabad and interviewed Ihsan Khan, the local journalist who first broke the story of the mysterious helicopter crash in Abbottabad, which was the one of the stealth helicopters carrying the SEALs crashing inside bin Laden's compound. Khan was one of the first at the scene and spoke to multiple eyewitnesses. Khan made no mention that any of them had told him that Pakistani security personnel had been going door to door before the raid warning neighbors to stay inside.

The newspaper of record is now in the curious and uncomfortable position in which its own magazine is fanning the flames of conspiracy theories about the bin Laden raid. This is a very strange place for the Times to be.

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