Arthur Conan Doyle Estate Sued To Show That Sherlock Holmes Is Public Domain

from the go-get-'em dept

A little over three years ago, we had a discussion concerning whether or not Sherlock Holmes was in the public domain. By our understanding of the law, the character absolutely is in the public domain. There is one remaining book -- The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes -- which contains a few stories, that are still covered by copyright, but the characters and most of the written works, are in the public domain. However, the legal representatives of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate use the fact that one book is still held under copyright to argue that the character is still protected until (at least) 2023. Of course, as with things like Happy Birthday, even if it should be in the public domain, if there's some corporate entity insisting that it's covered by copyright, you'd have to go to court to prove otherwise. And most people don't want to bother.

Thankfully, that just changed when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes scholar, Leslie S. Klinger, was working on a book (with Laurie R. King) called In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, detailing "major mystery/sci-fi/fantasy authors inspired by the Holmes tales." However, the Conan Doyle Estate contacted their publisher, Pegasus Books, demanding a license fee, and saying if they weren't paid, they'd make sure that no major distributors would sell the book. Specifically, the estate directly threatened that:

If you proceed instead to bring out Study in Sherlock II unlicensed, do not expect to see it offered for sale by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar retailers. We work with those company's routinely to weed out unlicensed uses of Sherlock Holmes from their offerings, and will not hesitate to do so with your book as well.

Like too many publishers, Pegasus freaked out and refused to publish the book at all, so Klinger has taken it upon himself to file for declaratory judgment. You can see the full filing posted here (and embedded it below).

The lawsuit points out that Sherlock Holmes characters have long been in the public domain, and even that remaining book of stories includes two that are clearly in the public domain, as they were published prior to 1923. But, most importantly "none of the Sherlock Holmes Story Elements first appeared in any of the stories that were collected in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes." In other words, the entirety of copyright protected elements in the character were published outside of that one book, and are now in the public domain.

The lawsuit also notes that Klinger and King's publisher on an earlier book, A Study in Sherlock did, in fact, pay a license to the estate, but they did not concede any of the legal arguments. When the estate threatened Klinger, he correctly explained that no license was needed, but he's still dealing with the fallout from his publisher getting cold feet. Thus, he's asking the court to state, definitively, that the character is in the public domain. Kudos for Klinger for taking this on. We need more people willing to stand up for the public domain. Also, jeers to Pegasus for not being the one to take this on and for freaking out over the bogus threat.         http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130215/15093722002/arthur-conan-doyle-estate-sued-to-show-that-sherlock-holmes-is-public-domain.shtml

Senate Gun Grab Bill Could Be More Disastrous Than Feinstein Bill

By Tim Brown
FreedomOutpost.com 
February 15, 2013
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 54 on January 22, 2013.
The bill, titled Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013, is a cleverly disguised gun grab.
How so? According to Gun Owners of America (GOA) the bill “could end gifts and raffles of firearms, and possibly ‘necessitate’ gun licensure across the country.”
GOA’s Michael Hammond writes,

At its core, Section 3 would send a person to prison for 20 years if you ATTEMPTED or PLANNED (“conspired”) to buy a firearm as a gift for another person or to conduct a raffle of a firearm, and negligently failed to note that the gift recipient or the winner of the raffle was, for instance, a veteran with PTSD who had been placed by the Department of Veteran Affairs onto the NICS list.
Note that you don’t have to actually transfer the firearm to go to prison for 20 years, nor do you have to know that the proposed recipient is a prohibited person.
It is enough that you acted negligently, that you planned to gift or raffle the firearm, and that you engaged in one “overt act” necessary for conspiracy to take effect (e.g., getting in your car to drive to the gun shop).
In fact, the veteran or “prohibited person” doesn’t even have to be on the NICS list and doesn’t have to know they are a prohibited person.
A marijuana smoker is a “user of … [a] controlled substance.” If you buy a gun with the intention of gifting or raffling to one of those, you can go to prison for 20 years, be subject to draconian forfeiture provisions (933(a)), be prosecuted and sued under RICO (933(c)), and be prosecuted for money laundering (933(d)). In other words, unless you’re “feeling lucky,” the bill would effectively outlaw gifting and raffling firearms.
Finally, buying a gun for any other person — even though it’s perfectly legal for him to own a gun — is illegal under all circumstances except for a gift or a raffle.
Hence, if a person buys an AR-15 in another state where he has a vacation home (under 18 U.S.C. 922(b)(3)) and leaves it with a friend in that state for safekeeping — 20 years.

But there are other issues in the bill.
For instance Section 5 could theoretically prohibit anyone in the country from owning a firearm without a license.
Yes, it’s bizarre to say the least seeing that this would be state legislation that would cross state lines.
The text of Section 5 reads,

Section 922(d) of title 18, United States Code, is amended–
(1) in paragraph (8), by striking `or’ at the end;
(2) in paragraph (9), by striking the period at the end and inserting `;’; and
(3) by striking the matter following paragraph (9) and inserting the following:
`(10) is prohibited by State or local law from possessing, receiving, selling, shipping, transporting, transferring, or otherwise disposing of the firearm or ammunition;
`(11) intends to sell or otherwise dispose of the firearm or ammunition to a person described in any of paragraphs (1) through (10); or
`(12) intends to sell or otherwise dispose of the firearm or ammunition in furtherance of a crime of violence or drug trafficking offense or to export the firearm or ammunition in violation of law.
This subsection shall not apply with respect to the sale or disposition of a firearm or ammunition to a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector who pursuant to subsection (b) of section 925 is not precluded from dealing in firearms or ammunition, or to a person who has been granted relief from disabilities pursuant to subsection (c) of section 925.’.

So if you are a person who is prohibited by State or local law from possessing a firearm, according to the emphasized portion of the legislation, you are not banned by federal law and presumably it would be mandated that you were placed in the NICS system.
I suppose the laughable part of the legislation is Section 7, which deals with someone who “smuggles or knowingly brings into the United States, a firearm or ammunition, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined under this title, or both.”
I’m guessing this would apply to the Obama Justice Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Eric Holder and many subordinates, maybe even Barack Obama himself. Yeah, I’m not holding my breath on that one.
GOA also pointed out, in an action alert, that “Gun Owners of America today submitted testimony at the request of the Ranking Member of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee.
GOA took a strong stance against all the gun control legislation on the table and urged the Senate to put forth real solutions to school violence — like letting teachers and principals protect their students.”
The pro-Second Amendment group also warns,

The Judiciary Committee bill will probably not contain the Feinstein semi-auto gun ban, and it may or may not have a magazine ban which would render most of the nation’s guns unusable, at least for the foreseeable future.
But the Judiciary Committee bill will almost certainly ban all private sales of firearms — or any private exchange where the gun buyer does not first get permission from the FBI. And it’s this background check requirement that will inevitably set up a framework for a universal gun registry.
The Leahy bill will most certainly have a “gun trafficking” section that is based on other legislation (S. 54) that he’s already introduced.
This would turn everyone who lives under repressive state gun laws into a federal “prohibited person,” as well. Hence, if your state requires a license to possess a gun, you would also become a federal prohibited person.
Oh, and the Leahy bill would also send you to prison for 20 years for unknowingly selling a firearm to a marijuana user. So, the next time you’re thinking of selling a gun, all we can say is: “Are you felling lucky?”
Anyway, here’s Harry Reid’s strategy: He has at least eleven Democratic senators running for reelection in pro-gun states in 2014 — and they don’t want to SEEM anti-gun.
The eleven Democratic senators in pro-gun states are: Mark Begich (Alaska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mark Udall (Colorado), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Al Franken (Minnesota), Max Baucus (Montana), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), Tom Udall (New Mexico), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Tim Johnson (South Dakota), and Mark Warner (Virginia).
All of these Democrats will vote for the national gun registry and gun licensure. And, in exchange, Reid will allow them to vote against the Feinstein gun ban, which will be the sacrificial lamb to the more important gun control which Democrats really want.

The solution to the wave of gun control legislation is simple. GOA concludes, “First, we cannot allow one word of gun control to move to the Senate floor; not one word.”
“Second, the way we keep gun control from reaching the Senate floor is to defeat the “motion to proceed” to the Leahy Bill,” GOA adds.
(The “motion to proceed” is usually offered by the Senate Majority Leader — in this case Harry Reid — to bring up a bill for consideration. The Senate quite often brings up legislation under a Unanimous Consent agreement, but if there is not unanimity, the “motion to proceed” can usually be debated, if not filibustered.)
Contact your representatives a message that you oppose any and all gun control legislation here.

Related Articles and Interesting Reports

• Washington State Bill Would Make Almost all Gun Owners Criminals
• Red Alert: Nationwide Plan for Gun Confiscation Exposed
• Feinstein Permanent "Assault" Weapons Ban Planned for Over a Year
• Draconian Gun Control Bill Set for Introduction in Illinois

You Think Jobs Are Scarce Now, Raise the Minimum Wage and Watch What Happens

Eric Blair
Activist Post President Obama proposed raising the national minimum wage to $9/hour during his State of the Union address drawing cheers from the left.
Unfortunately they have little understanding of economics. Forced minimum wages will destroy or offshore many more jobs in America.
The left doesn’t seem to understand that the state can’t raise the standard of living for a populace through wage legislation. Additionally, raising the minimum wage doesn’t address the root of the problem of why the standard of living is declining in the first place.
Those who genuinely care about social justice look for someone to blame for the declining standard of living; greedy business men, illegal immigrants for driving down wages, politicians who oppose minimum wage laws and so on. None of these are the real enemy.
As G. Edward Griffin wrote in The Creature From Jekyll Island;

The American people have no idea they are paying the bill. They know that someone is stealing their hubcaps, but they think it is the greedy businessman who raises prices or the selfish laborer who demands higher wages or the unworthy farmer who demands too much for his crop or the wealthy foreigner who bids up our prices. They do not realize that these groups also are victimized by a monetary system which is constantly being eroded in value by and through the Federal Reserve System. (pg. 33).

Our fractional reserve fiat monetary system has inflation built into it, causing higher prices for all goods and services. When wages aren’t increased to match the higher cost of living, workers feel the pinch and demand that lawmakers do something.
However, the answer to social justice isn’t raising wages through legislation, because that will in turn just raise the cost of living even more because businesses will have to pass those costs on to customers. Not because they’re greedy, but because they have to survive.
For those who really want social justice, the solution is addressing a blood-sucking monetary system and restore sound money. Until then, all actions will be counterproductive to their good intentions.
Here’s a short video that clearly explains the consequences of raising the minimum wage in global economy:  

Edgar the Exploiter   

Occult Holidays And Sabbats

As we have repeatedly stated, the Satanist believes that numbers contain inherent power. Thus, they literally order their lives by occult numerology – such numerology also is a key component in astrology, another system of divining that Satanists observe very closely. The occult calendar is divided into four (4) segments of 13 weeks each. The number, “13” is considered divine by the occultist for a couple of reasons:

1. The Bible assigns ‘13‘ the meaning of “rebellion against constituted authority”, plus the depravity that caused Satan to rebel against God.
2. The occultist assigns ‘6‘ to represent the number of man, and the number ‘7‘ to represent the number of divine perfection. Thus, as a person climbs that “Jacob’s Ladder” toward self-perfection in the realm of the occult, the number ‘13‘ represents the state of divine perfection, self-achieved perfection, and Illumination (6+7 = 13).

Thus, the occult calendar is comprised of four periods of 13 weeks each. We list these periods for you, below.
Then, after listing them, we shall come back to talk about each of them in detail.
1. Winter Solstice – 13 weeks – Minor sabbath

a. December 21 – Yule
b. December 21-22 – Winter Solstice/Yule. One of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
c. February 1 and 2 – Candlemas and Imbolg, a.k.a. Groundhog’s Day. One of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
d. February 14 – Valentine’s Day

2. Spring Equinox – 13 weeks – Minor sabbath but does require human sacrifice

a. March 21-22 – Goddess Ostara – Note: Easter is the first Sunday after the first new moon after Ostara. March 21 is one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
b. April 1 – All Fool’s Day, precisely 13 weeks since New Year’s Day!
c. April 19 – May 1 – Blood Sacrifice To The Beast. Fire sacrifice is required on April 19.
d. April 30 – May 1 – Beltaine Festival, also called Walpurgis Night. This is the highest day on the Druidic Witch’s Calendar. May 1 is the Illuminati’s second most sacred holiday. Human sacrifice is required

3. Summer Solstice – 13 weeks – When the sun reaches its northernmost point in its journey across the sky

a. June 21 – 22 – Summer Solstice
b. June 21 – Litha is one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
c. July 4, America’s Independence Day, is 13 days after Day of Litha and 66 days from April 30
d. July 19 – 13 days before Lughnasa
e. July 31 – August 1 – Lughnasa, Great Sabbat Festival. August – One of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights

4. Autumnal Equinox – 13 weeks – Minor Sabbath but does require human sacrifice

a. September 21 – Mabon – one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
b. September 21 -22 – Autumnal Equinox
c. October 31 – Samhain, also known as Halloween, or All Hallows Eve. This date is the Illuminati’s highest day of human sacrifice

Isn’t it interesting how the “profane” – you and me – are led like a flock of sheep to observe the important festival days of the Mysteries’ Religion?
You may not understand that you are ordering your year after pagan holidays, but you are! The annual calendar for the entire Western world is ordered by these Satanic festival times and days.

Now that we have seen the entire occult calendar, let us go back to the significant holidays to see how the Western world has slipped into a worship of the same pagan holidays and are using many of the same pagan symbols that are so important to the pagan worshipper.
The human sacrifice required during many of these occult dates needs to contain the following elements, each one of which is exaggerated to the highest possible degree:

1. Trauma, stress, and mental anguish, sheer terror
2. The final act in the drama should be destruction by a fire; preferably a conflagration.
3. People must die as human sacrifices, especially children, since Lord Satan looks upon a younger human sacrifice as his most desirable

---

SPECIFIC DATES WITHIN…

THE OCCULT CALENDAR

1. Winter Solstice – 13 weeks

a. December 21- 22
– Yule - When the sun begins its northward trek in the sky, and days began to grow longer again, pagans celebrated the Winter Solstice by burning the Yule log.
Since the sun had reversed itself and was now rising in the sky, pagans believed this was a sign that the human sacrifices carried out in Samhain (Halloween) had been accepted by the gods.
We continue to sing:

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly … troll the ancient Yuletide carol … See the blazing Yule before us. Fa la la la la la la la.”
["Pagan Traditions of the Holidays", David Ingraham, p. 71]

The Roman Catholic Church later changed the day of celebration to December 25, calling it Christmas.
Consider the pagan roots of our popular symbols of Christmas:

(1) Christmas Tree – The sacred tree of the winter-god; Druids believed the spirit of their gods resided in the tree. Most ancient pagans knew the tree represented Nimrod reincarnated into Tammuz! Pagans also looked upon the tree as a phallic symbol.
(2) Star – Pentalpha, the five-pointed star. The pentalpha is a powerful symbol of Satan, second only to the hexagram. The star is the sacred symbol of Nimrod, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.
(3) Candles represent the sun-gods’ newly-born fire. Pagans the world over love and use candles in their rituals and ceremonies. Certain colors are also thought to represent specific powers. The extensive use of candles is usually a very good indication that the service is pagan, no matter what the outward trappings might be.
(4) Mistletoe is the sacred plant of the Druids, symbolizing pagan blessings of fertility; thus, kissing under the mistletoe is the first step in the reproductive cycle! Witches also use the white berries in potions.
(5) Wreaths are circular, and so they represent the female sexual organs. Wreaths are associated with fertility and the “circle of life”.
(6) Santa Claus – Former Satanists have told me that “Santa” is an anagram for “Satan“. In the New Age, the god, “Sanat Kamura“, is most definitely an anagram for “Satan“. The mythical attributes and powers ascribed to Santa are eerily close to those possessed by Jesus Christ.

(7) Reindeer are horned animals representing the “horned-god” or the “stag-god” of pagan religion! Santa’s traditional number of reindeer in his team is eight (8); in Satanic gematria, eight is the number of “new beginnings”, or the cycle of reincarnation. The Illuminati views the number “eight” as a symbol of their New World Order.
(8) Elves are imp-like creatures who are Santa’s (Satan’s) little helpers. They are also demons.
(9) Green and Red are the traditional colors of the season, as they are the traditional pagan colors of winter. Green is Satan’s favorite color, so it is appropriate it should be one of the traditional colors for Christmas; red is the color of human blood, Satan’s highest form of sacrifice – for this reason, Communism adopted red as it main color!
(10) December 25 is known as the “nativity” of the sun. This date is the birthday of Tammuz, the son, the reincarnation of the sun god. Traditionally, December 21 is known as Yule. The Roman Catholic Church moved the celebration of Yule to December 25.
(11) December 25 is also known to the Romans as “Saturnalia“, a time of deliberate debauchery. Drinking through repeated toasting – known as ‘wassail’ – was a key to the debauchery of this celebration. Fornication was symbolized by the mistletoe, and the entire event was finished with a Great Feast, the Christmas Dinner.
(12) Even the name, “Christmas” is pagan! “Christi” meant “Christ“, while “Mas” meant Mass. Since all pagan Masses are commemorating “death”, the name, “Christmas” literally means the “death of Christ“. A deeper meaning lies in the mention of “Christ” without specifying Jesus. Thus, Antichrist is in view here; the pagans celebrate “Christmas” as a celebration of their coming Antichrist, who will deal a death blow to the Jesus Christ of Christianity.

Early American Christian Pilgrims refused to celebrate this day.


b. February 1 and 2
– Candlemas and Imbolg, popularly called Groundhog’s Day.
The popular “Punxsutawney Phil” groundhog comes out of his burrow to divine the next few weeks of weather. If he sees his shadow, we will have 6 more weeks of bad weather until Spring finally arrives; if he does not see his shadow, the next 7 weeks before Spring will be good weather. Notice this pagan tradition features both the number ’6′ and ’7′, which when added, equals ’13′.
What most people do not realize is that the pagan view of Groundhog’s Day (Imbolg) represents the Earth Mother.
Consider these uncanny parallels between the Groundhog and the Earth Mother:

1. As the Earth goddess sleeps inside the earth during the winter season, so does the Groundhog
2. Both the Earth goddess and the Groundhog bridge the two time periods: Winter and Spring
3. Both the goddess and the Groundhog are “earth” creatures
4. Both the goddess and the Groundhog “awaken” in Springtime
5. Both the Earth goddess and the Groundhog complete the “cycle of reincarnation”
6. Annually, both the Earth goddess and the Groundhog represent the cycle of “rebirth” and “renewal”

The name, “Groundhog” was substituted for the Satanic name of the holiday, Imbolg, a night requiring human sacrifice.


c. February 14
Valentine’s Day – is a pagan festival that encourages love and physical lust.
It is celebrated precisely 13 days after Imbolg, thus imprinting upon it the number ’13′, Satan’s number of extreme rebellion. While most people view this day as the day to honor your wife or your lover, this celebration is steeped in paganism
Consider the camouflaged occult gods in Valentine’s Day:

1. Cupid, the son of Venus, is really Tammuz, son of Semiramis
2. Venus, daughter of Jupiter, is really Semiramis herself. Jupiter is the head deity, a sun god – Nimrod, Semiramis’ husband, is considered a sun god in the Babylonian Mysteries.

Listen to a pagan author describe February, the month in which Valentine’s Day falls.

“The name of this month comes from the Roman goddess Februa and St. Febronia (from Febris, the fever of love). She is the patroness of the passion of love … Her orgiastic rites are celebrated on 14 February – still observed as St. Valentine’s Day – when, in Roman times, young men would draw billets naming their female partners…
This is a time of clear vision into other worlds, expressed by festivals of purification. On 1 February is the celebration of the cross-quarter day, or fire festival (Imbolc) a purificatory festival. It is followed on the 2nd by its Christian counterpart, Candlemas, the purification of the Virgin Mary.”
["The Pagan Book of Days", Nigel Pennick]

Valentine’s Day is a day of “orgiastic rites” in which the pagans encouraged the flow of lustful passion.

2. Spring Equinox – 13 weeks
Minor Sabbath but does require human sacrifice

a. March 21-22
Goddess Ostara (Ishtar, also spelled, “Eostre”), for whom “Easter” is named – March 21 is one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
Easter is a shifting date using the common practice of Astrology; it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first new moon after Ostara.
This date also has nothing to do with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ! Rather, this day in the pagan tradition celebrates the return of Semiramis into her reincarnated form of the Spring Goddess. The pagans even have an equivalent to our Good Friday! It is “Easter Friday”, and has historically been timed to be the third full moon from the start of the year. Since the marrying of pagan Easter to Jesus’ resurrection, Good Friday is permanently fixed on the Friday prior to Easter.
Easter is steeped in the Babylonian Mysteries, the single most evil idolatrous system ever invented by Satan!

All throughout the prophetic Scriptures, we see God declaring His final judgment upon wicked Babylon! Yet, every year, Christian pastors intone “Easter” as though it were Christian. Many Independent Baptist preachers have begun referring to this day celebrating Jesus‘ resurrection as “Resurrection Sunday”, in order to separate the day from the pagan celebration.
The Babylonian goddess, Ishtar, is the one for whom Easter is named; ["Pagan Traditions of Holidays", p. 9] in reality, she was Semiramis, wife of Nimrod, and the real founder of the Satanic Babylonian Mysteries. After Nimrod died, Semiramis created the legend that he was really her Divine Son born to her in a Virgin Birth. She is considered to be the co-founder of all occult religions, along with Nimrod.
Easter – the day of Ishtar – is celebrated widely among various cultures and religions on earth.

  1. Babylon – Ishtar (Easter) also called the Moon Goddess
2. Catholics – Virgin Mary (Queen of Heaven)
3. Chinese – Shingmoo
4. Druids – Virgo Paritura
5. Egypt – Isis
6. The Pagan Ephesians – Dianna
7. Etruscans – Nutria
8. Germans (Ancient) – Hertha
9. Greeks – Aphrodite/Ceres
10. India – Isi/Indrani
11. Ancient Jews – Ashtaroth (Queen of Heaven)
12. Krishna – Devaki
13. Rome – Venus/Fortuna
14. Scandinavians – Disa
15. Sumerians – Nana
["America's Occult Holidays", Doc Marquis and Sam Pollard]

The Babylonians celebrated the day as the return of Ishtar (Easter), the goddess of Spring.
This day celebrated the rebirth, or reincarnation, of Nature and the goddess of Nature. According to Babylonian legend, a huge egg fell from heaven, landing in the Euphrates River. The goddess, Ishtar (Easter) broke out of this egg. Later, the feature of an egg nesting was introduced, a nest where the egg could incubate until hatched. A “wicker” or reed basket was conceived in which to place the Ishtar egg.
The Easter Egg Hunt was conceived because, if anyone found her egg while she was being “reborn”, she would bestow a blessing upon that lucky person! Because this was a joyous Spring festival, eggs were colored with bright Spring colors. [Ibid.]


The Easter Bunny

“The Goddess’ totem, the Moon-hare, would lay eggs for good children to eat… Eostre’s hare was the shape that Celts imagined on the surface of the full moon…”
["Pagan Traditions of Holidays", p. 10.]

Do not bother to tell me that bunnies do not lay eggs, for I know that; we are dealing with a legend here, and an occult legend at that. These types of legends traditionally play loose and fast with facts.
Thus, “Easter” – Eostre, or Ishtar – was a goddess of fertility. Since the bunny is a creature that procreates quickly, it symbolized the sexual act; the egg symbolized “birth” and “renewal”. Together, the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg symbolizes the sex act and its offspring, Semiramis and Tammuz.
Thus, it is a very serious spiritual matter, indeed, when christian churches incorporate “Resurrection Eggs” as part of their Easter celebration. At the very least, these churches are confusing the minds of their precious young children, by blurring the dividing line between pagan symbols and their meanings and Christian meanings of Resurrection Day. Young children who participated in “Resurrection Eggs” in church will be conditioned later in their life to accept the fullness of the pagan tradition revolving around the same symbols.
At worst, a church participating in the pagan Easter tradition by promoting “Resurrection Eggs” and perhaps an Easter Egg Hunt, is guilty of combining Christianity with paganism, the very lethal cocktail the Lord Jesus will always reject!
Remember our key verse:

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing”

If your church has “Resurrection Eggs”, that is a church you should consider leaving immediately; if the Senior Pastor is Liberal enough to use “Resurrection Eggs” in his Resurrection Day celebrations, he is probably Liberal in Doctrine and Theology, but may not be far enough along for you to see it yet.


Other Pagan Ingredients
Easter Offerings are derived from the tradition where the priests and priestesses would bring offerings to the pagan temples for Easter.
They brought freshly-cut Spring flowers and candies to place on the altar of the idol they worshipped. They would also bake Hot Cross Buns, decorating them with crosses symbolizing the cross of Wotan, or some other pagan god; these crosses were not originally the cross of Jesus Christ.
This is another instance where Satan counterfeited a pagan tradition that could later be passed off as “Christian” in a church seriously compromised by Syncretization.
In fact, the first instance of Hot Cross Buns can be traced back to about 1,500 BC, to Cecrops, the Founder of Athens [Marquis, p. 18] Later pagans used not just the shape of a Pentalpha star, but also the Hot Cross Bun.
Another popular Easter offering were freshly made or purchased clothes! The priests would wear their best clothes, while the Vestal Virgins would wear newly-made white dresses. They would also wear headgear, like bonnets, while many would adorn themselves in garlands of Spring flowers. They would carry wicker baskets filled with foods and candies to offer to the pagan gods and goddesses.
Easter Sunrise Services were originated by the priest serving the Babylonian Ishtar to symbolically hasten the reincarnation of Ishtar/Easter. Once again, we see how Satan knew that Jesus’ rising from the grave would be discovered in the early sunrise hours, and that the Christian Church would want to hold Sunrise Services to celebrate.
Satan and his demons know and believe God’s Word and its prophecies literally, and they are allowed a certain amount of foreknowledge. Just as Satan counterfeited the Divine birth of a male child to a Virgin Mother fully 1,000 years before Jesus was actually born, so he counterfeited this Sunrise Service.
Lent is purely pagan, and yet has been accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and apostate christian churches as “christian”. If the church you are attending celebrates Lent, you need to inform the Senior Pastor of the pagan roots of this tradition; if he will not listen you should leave that church, for if they will accept Lent as “Christian”, you can bet they are very Liberal in critical Biblical areas as well.
Lent is a commemoration of Tammuz’ death; the legend of his death says that he was killed by a wild boar when he was 40 years old. Therefore, Lent celebrates 1 day for each year of Tammuz’ life. [Marquis, "America's Occult Holidays"] Participants are to express their sorrow over Tammuz’ untimely death by weeping, fasting, and self-chastisement.
Lent was commemorated for exactly 40 days prior to the celebration of Ishtar/Esotre and other goddesses by the following cultures: Babylonians, Roman Catholics, Koordistan, Mexicans, Ancient Israel, and today, Liberal, apostate Protestant churches.
We can see God’s anger over this commemoration of Lent in Ezekiel 8:14-18; God’s judgment for this commemoration is described in Ezekiel 9, a chapter we suggest you read carefully, for God has stated that He will similarly punish any nation who does not “hear and obey” His commands (Jeremiah 12:17).


b. April 1
- All Fool’s Day, precisely 13 weeks since New Year’s Day!


c. April 19 – May 1
- Blood Sacrifice To The Beast, a most critical 13-day period. Fire sacrifice is required on April 19.
April 19 is the first day of the 13-day Satanic ritual day relating to fire – the fire god, Baal, or Molech/Nimrod (the Sun God), also known as the Roman god, Saturn (Satan/Devil). This day is a major human sacrifice day, demanding fire sacrifice with an emphasis on children. This day is one of the most important human sacrifice days, and as such, has had some very important historic events occur on this day.
Remember, the Illuminati considers war to be a most propitious way to sacrifice, for it kills both children and adults.
Some of the very important historic dates that were staged according to this blood sacrifice day are:

(1). April 19, 1775 – Battle of Lexington & Concord, which made the Masonic-led Revolutionary War inevitable
(2). April 19, 1943 – After trapping the last Jewish Resistance Fighters in a storm drain in Warsaw, and holding them for several days, Nazi Storm Troopers began to pour fire into each end of the storm drain, using flame-throwers. They continued pouring the fire into the drain until all fighters were dead. Blood sacrifice brought about by a fiery conflagration.
(3) April 19, 1993 – 50 years later, to the day, government troops, tanks, and other military equipment stormed the compound of David Koresh and his followers at Waco, Texas. Certainly, this operation fulfilled the basic requirements for a human sacrifice: trauma, fire, and young sacrificial victims.

(4) April 19, 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing – Once again, many young children were killed this day

April 19 of any year in the 20th Century is a day of fearful contemplation, for it seems that, as we head into the final stretch of time, Satan is becoming more and more bold, and is using April 19 more often.


d. April 30 – May 1
- Beltaine Festival, also called “Walpurgis Night“.
This is the highest day on the Druidic Witch’s Calendar, while May 1 is the Illuminati’s second most sacred holiday. Human sacrifice is required. Since the celebration officially began the night before Beltaine, the tradition has developed among occultists to celebrate Beltaine as a 2-day ceremony. This tradition was strong enough that Adolf Hitler decided to kill himself on April 30 at 3:30pm, thus creating a “333″ and placing his suicide sacrifice within the Beltaine time frame.
Great bonfires are lit on the Eve of Beltaine, April 30, in order to welcome the Earth Goddess. Participants hope to gain favor with this goddess so she will bless their families with procreative fertility. We find it interesting that the Royal House of Windsor lights a Beltaine “Balefire” every year ["America's Occult Holidays", Doc Marquis, p. 30]
The “Maypole” originated from the celebration of Beltaine. Since fertility is being asked of the Earth Goddess, the Maypole is the phallic symbol and the circular dance around the pole forms the circle that is symbolic of the female sex organ.
Four six-foot alternating red and white ribbons were connected to the pole; the men would dance counterclockwise, while the ladies danced clockwise. The union of the intertwining red and white ribbons symbolized the act of copulation – remember, this is a “fertility” celebration day!
To demonstrate their occult, Illuminist ties, Communists have always celebrated “May Day”. If you have not been taught how the Illuminati created Communism, and for which purpose, you need to hear our Seminar 2, “America Determines The Flow of History”.

3. Summer Solstice – 13 weeks
When the sun reaches its northernmost point in its journey across the sky

a. June 21 – 22 – Summer Solstice
b. June 21 – Litha is one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights
c. July 4, America’s Independence Day, is 13 days after Day of Litha and 66 days from April 30
d. July 19 – 13 days before Lughnasa
e. July 31 – August 1 – Lughnasa, Great Sabbat Festival. August – One of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights

4. Autumnal Equinox – 13 weeks
Minor Sabbath but does require human sacrifice

a. September 21
Mabon – one of the Illuminati’s Human Sacrifice Nights


b. September 21 -22 – Autumnal Equinox
From this date through Halloween, occultists believe the veil separating the earthly dimension from the demonic realm gets progressively thinner, with the thinnest night being October 31; this thinning of the separating veil makes it easier for the demonic realm to enter the earthly dimension.
Thus, on Halloween, evil spirits, ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies, and demons of all sorts were believed to be running amok across the land. They had to be back in their spiritual dimension before midnight, Halloween, for the separating veil would then get thicker.
Once again, I reiterate, this is occult belief, not mine! October is a most propitious month to the Illuminati.


c. October 31 – Samhain
Also known as Halloween, or All Hallows Eve as designated by the Catholic Church. This date is the Illuminati’s highest day of human sacrifice
Halloween has been changed over the past 30 years in two important ways. First, children have been encouraged to participate by donning such inoffensive costumes as Barbie, Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman. Secondly, adult costuming and parties have reached a tremendous apex and has become a most macabre day of celebration.
Historically, Halloween is the deadliest holiday ever celebrated in human history. This Satanic night is dedicated to the Celtic Lord of the Dead, also symbolized by the Horned-god and the Stag-god. The Druids celebrated Samhain as a 3-day fire festival, building huge bonfires, thought to ward off demons that roamed around; additionally, the fires provided the means by which the required human sacrifice would be presented to the sun god. In enormous wicker baskets, the priests caged both human and animal sacrifices, which they then lowered into the flames.
The priests would carefully watch the manner in which the victim died in order to predict whether the future held good or evil. ["Pagan Traditions of the Holidays", p. 71]

Origin of Popular Halloween Traditions

Sweets and Trick or Treat
This pagan practice is over 2,000 years old. For the sake of their safety and well-being, people put outside their home sweets, the best mutton legs, vegetables, eggs, and poultry, honey and even wine, so the wandering evil spirits would consume them on their way back to the netherworld. Failure to “treat” these evil spirits might result in a curse being put on the home!
The people literally believed that, when these spirits came to your door, they would trick you if you did not treat them.

“The American version of Halloween came from Ireland … The potato famine in 1840 brought thousands of immigrants from the Emerald Isle. With them came goblins, jack-0-lanterns, bonfires, apples, nuts, and pranks …
The Irish are also responsible for bringing trick or treating to great popularity in America. In Ireland on October 31, peasants went from house to house to receive offerings to their Druid god, Muck Olla. This procession stopped at each house to tell the farmer his prosperity was due to the benevolence of Muck Olla … or else misfortune might befall the farmer and his crops.
Few farmers risked any such displeasure of the pagan deity, so the procession returned home with eggs, butter, potatoes, and in some cases, coins … To the Irish farmers this was no joke; they greatly feared the Celtic god might destroy their homes and barns … Trick or treat is part of this pagan heritage.”
["Pagan Traditions of the Holidays". p. 78-79].

Horrifying Costumes
People would also take burning wisps from the bonfire and wave them around to frighten the many evil spirits roaming the earth; in case the burning wisp alone would not work, revelers clothed themselves in the most hideous and terrifying costumes.
These people believed that, if you dressed in a terrifying costume and went trooping around with the spirits all night, they would think you were one of them and would leave you alone.
["Halloween and Satanism", Phil Philips, p. 26-27]


Huge Bonfires
Satan’s obsession with fire has produced human obsession with building huge bonfires. As we stated earlier, these bonfires were practical, in that they provided the means by which the priests sacrificed the human and animal sacrifices so crucial to Halloween.
When the last fires died out, people would race each other down the hills shouting,

“The Devil gets the last one down”.
[Philips, p. 27-28]

Divinations
Samhain (Halloween) was also the time to engage the Devil’s assistance in divining the future. Questions concerning marriage, luck, health, and the time of one’s death were most popular subjects of divination.
In Scotland, young people assembled for games and pulled shoots out of the ground to ascertain which of them would marry during the coming year, and in what order the marriages should occur.


Snap Apple Night
Apples have long been a token of love and fertility. At Halloween parties, people bobbed for apples in tubs of water. If a boy came up with an apple between his teeth, he was assured of the love of his girl. The Snap Apple game was one in which the boys delighted. Each boy, in his turn, would spring up to attempt to bite an apple that was being twirled on the end of a stick; the first boy to succeed would be the first to marry.
Apple seeds were also used to tell fortunes. Peeling an apple in one long piece was supposed to tell a young girl about her future. The girl would swing the apple peal three times around her head, then throw it over her left shoulder.
If the peeling fell unbroken, the girl would examine the shape into which it fell to see if she could ascertain the initials of her future husband!


Witch’s Familiar Spirits
Owls, bats, cats and toads are an essential part of Halloween, and for a very good reason: they are known as “the witch’s familiars”. A divining familiar was the species of animal whose shape Satan would assume to aid the witch in divining the future. A witch would closely watch the animal’s movements – whether slow or fast – and she would see the direction in which the animal moved and the kinds of sounds it made, in order to foretell the length of life and/or an impending illness.
Other “familiar spirit” shapes include hens, geese, small dogs, rats, butterflies, wasps crickets, and snails. Witches considered these creatures to be demon-possessed and controlled. If you look closely at most Halloween decorations, you will see these animals, but now you know they represent demon possessed creatures! ["Pagan Traditions of Holidays", p. 75-76]


Jack-O-Lantern and Trick-or-Treat
Various names for Jack-O-Lantern were ‘Lantern Men’, ‘Hob-O-Langer’, and “Will-O-The-Wisp”.
The ‘Lantern Men’ got their name from pale eerie lights that appeared over bogs and marshes in England. These ghostly lights, which bobbed along like a lantern in someone’s hand, were called ‘Corpse Candles’. Candles were said to be signals from the souls of men lost at sea.
["Halloween and Satanism", Philips, p. 33-34]

Celts often hollowed out a turnip and carved a grotesque face on it to fool demons. They carried such lanterns to light their way in the dark and to ward off evil spirits … While the turnip continues to be popular in Europe today, the pumpkin has replaced it in America. ‘Jack’ is a nickname for ‘John’, which is a common slang word meaning ‘man’. Jack-O-Lanterns literally means ‘man with a lantern’.
[Pagan Traditions of the Holidays", p. 79-80]


Druid Trick-or-Treat
The Druids originated the practice of hollowing out the Jack-O-Lanterns and filling them with human fat. Whenever a raiding party came to a home to demand of the husband that someone inside be surrendered as a human sacrifice, they would light a Jack-O-Lantern filled with human fat; if the husband relented and provided one of his loved ones as a sacrifice, the Druid party would leave Jack-O-Lantern on the porch.
This lantern would be tell the other raiding parties and the demonic host that this party had surrendered a human for sacrifice and that the remaining people inside were to be left alone. Guaranteeing that no one else in the house would be killed that night was the “Treat”.
If the husband refused to surrender one of his loved ones, a “Trick” would be placed upon the house. The members of the raiding party would draw a large hexagram using human blood on the front door; they got the blood for the hexagram from a dead body they dragged around with them using a cabletow.
The demonic host would be attracted to this hexagram and would invade the house, causing one or more of the inhabitants to either go insane or die from fright.
["America's Occult Holidays", p. 20]

This is the true origin of “Trick-or-Treat” and the Jack-O-Lantern. Do you really want to take your kids “Trick-or-Treating”?


Forbidden Practices Specially Associated With Halloween
God lists Satanic practices that He absolutely forbids, on the pain of death!
Every one of them is uniquely associated with Halloween!

1. Enchantment – Act of influencing by charms and incantation using the practice of magical arts.

2. Witchcraft – Dealing with demonic spirits, using their prescribed methods, commonly called rituals and the “magick arts”. The Bible forbids it, as in Galatians 5:19-20. Today, thanks to “Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, witchcraft is skyrocketing in popularity. TV shows that depict witches are “Bewitched” and “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, to just mention a couple. Go to a video store sometime and walk down the “Horror” aisle, where you will see the popularity of Witchcraft in America today.
3. Sorcery – Use of power gained from the prescribed rituals demanded by the demonic host. Once the witch or wizard performs the particular ritual correctly, the demonic host is required to provide the power to accomplish that action desired by the witch.
4. Divination – Fortune telling and seeing into the future. God wants us to trust in Him and His power, and not worry about tomorrow. Satan, on the other hand, loves to get people consumed by the idea that they can know what lies ahead of them.

5. Wizardry – The art or practices of a wizard, sorcery. A wizard or witch is one skilled in the magick arts, a sorcerer.

6. Necromancy – Communication with the dead. Specifically, conjuring up the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events.

7. Charm – The practice of putting a spell on someone in order to change or control their mind and/or behavior. Wizards love to get their enemies “one-on-one” because they can “charm” them through the use of ritual done before the meeting, and by the demonic host residing within him.
Adolf Hitler followed this practice closely as he dealt with the leaders of Europe, Britain, and Russia. British Prime Minister Chamberlain was totally charmed by Hitler as he sought to appease the German dictator in Munich in 1938; Chamberlain was so totally “charmed” by Hitler, he enthusiastically proclaimed after returning from Munich that he had achieved “peace in our time”.
When dealing with a powerful member of the Illuminati, do not attempt to meet with him, nor place any confidence in the testimony of people who have met with him. A “charm” ritual is easily performed and results in the leader exuding confidence, character, and sincerity they most assuredly do not possess.

8. Stargazing or Astrology – Divination of the supposed influence of the stars and other heavenly bodies upon human lives and the affairs of nations. Occultists literally order their lives according to Astrology and numerics.

9. Soothsaying – foretelling events and prophesying through a spirit other than the Holy Spirit.

10. Prognostication – To foretell from signs and symptoms, also prophesying without the Holy Spirit.

11. Magic – Tapping into the power of the demonic realm through the use of prescribed ritual so that the action carried out is accomplished through demonic power.

All these activities are uniquely associated with the activities and traditions of Halloween!
Christians have no business participating in Halloween. To do so is to act against a great number of Scriptures in which God uses the strongest possible language to forbid it. In fact, in most instances, God decreed that people practicing these activities be put to death!
Yet, we see many churches having Halloween parties in which many of these pagan practices are followed! The Apostle Paul gave us strong warning that should stop us dead in our tracks.
Listen:

“Let no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and groundless arguments for these sins, for through these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience.”
Ephesians 5:6

Stop listening to people giving you “empty excuses and groundless arguments for these sins”, for if you go ahead and participate in this most evil holiday, God shall surely not look away.
One final note on Halloween: if you have been paying attention, you will know that these practices form the heart and soul of the Harry Potter novels and movies. Harry Potter is a wizard, and he comes from a family of witches and wizards [Generational Witchcraft].
His entire existence within these novels revolves around the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, where Harry and his friends learn all of these 11 forbidden practices.

Source

'House of Cards' political drama from Netflix, starring Kevin Spacey, is an instant hit

naturalnews.com

Originally published February 15 2013

'House of Cards' political drama from Netflix, starring Kevin Spacey, is an instant hit

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) When you think of TV series production studios, you don't normally think "Netflix." But the company has just produced and released a full season of a new political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and called "House of Cards."

Let me cut to the chase: House of Cards is an instant hit. It's smart, fascinating and a quantum leap better than the typical dumbed-down series shows you find on cable TV. When it comes to accolades, the real question is: Where to begin?

The acting is all top notch. Spacey is, of course, a master of the art and plays the role of a deceptive congressman perfectly. Robin Wright (from Forrest Gump fame) plays his wife. She's outstanding for the role: Chiseled, firm, authoritative and yet graceful. Kate Mara pulls off her role as a nosy, manipulative reporter willing to do almost anything to scoop the next big story. Every actor on the show holds their own. Nobody fails.

The writing is absolutely superb. This drama is obviously written by a top-notch team of talented professionals with amazing insight into the machinery of Washington politics. (Beau Willimon is the lead writer.) The storyline is just saturated with raw authenticity, and it exposes the dark side of human nature that most TV and cable networks are hesitant to portray.

Sets and screenplay are both award-winning virtuoso performances. This series looks authentic, feels authentic, and requires no suspension of belief on the part of the viewer. It's as if you're actually watching a real-like political drama unfold while being given a backstage pass into the minds of the players.

House of Cards doesn't preach a political philosophy, thank goodness. It's not a propaganda piece pushing an agenda. The message is far more powerful than that: Everybody's a wheeler-dealer in Washington, regardless of political affiliation. Although the story is told through the eyes of a deceptive Democrat (played by Spacey), it's clear that almost everybody in Washington is willing to cast aside morals and ethics if it moves them higher up the pyramid of power.

Innovative storytelling

There's also a lot of storytelling innovation in this Netflix original series. Kevin Spacey's character, congressman Frank Underwood, breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the camera with surprising frequency. This narrative technique works! It allows us a peer into the mind of a master deceiver, and the contrast between what he says to the people versus what he's thinking (and therefore verbalizing to the camera) is shocking and informative.

Netflix also chose to use text pop-ups on the screen to depict cell phone texts. I've never seen this in a TV drama before, but it's an eloquent solution to the narrative challenge of trying to show cell phone texts without breaking the continuity of the scene. Like everything else in the series, this works, too.

No waiting and no commercials

One of the best things about House of Cards is that you don't have to wade through commercials to watch it. Even better, you don't have to wait week after week for the next episode to come out. The entire first series is already available FOR FREE to all Netflix subscribers (www.Netflix.com), and once you watch episode one, you won't want to stop watching. By the last episode, you'll be begging for season two.

Natural News readers know I'm not a TV junkie. In fact, I don't even subscribe to cable or broadcast television. Netflix is the only video service I use, and this series is proof that Netflix can beat the networks at their own content game.

In fact, I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how Netflix stays in business. Seriously: How does this company stream so many terabytes of video across the internet -- while also paying video owners for usage rights -- all while charging just a few bucks a month? Either they are running at a crazy loss or they've figured out how to deliver terabytes of data for practically nothing.

This House of Cards series, I'm guessing, must have cost at least $50 million to produce, probably more. The investment shows. This series just rocks, even if politics normally bores you to death.

You've got to watch this series. Become a member at www.Netflix.com to see it for yourself.

Why Netflix will continue to beat out Google, Apple and other video streaming wannabes

On the business side, there are legitimate questions about whether Netflix can continue to dominate the video streaming market. The company is relatively short on cash, and earnings have been hammered in the last year. Does Netflix have a bright future?

Here's my answer: Nobody wants to watch video streaming services from Google because Google is the Big Brother of the online world. If you watch videos from a Google service, it will psychology profile the films you watch, cross-reference that with all the text of all your emails on Gmail, and then add in another psych profile layer of what you're searching for on Google.com. The result? A total invasion of your privacy and a spooky surveillance grid that violates the privacy of your mind while turning over that data to the U.S. government. (Can you say "1984?")

Apple has a different problem: It's arrogant and proprietary. If Apple tried to launch a video streaming service like Netflix, it would probably involve swearing an oath to Apple, wearing an Apple cult bracelet and performing full moon Apple animal sacrifices to the Apple gods. Plus, you'll have to log in, agree to the bewildering terms of service, and repeat this process every two weeks when Apple secretly updates its terms of service by adding things like, "You agree to be used as a human experiment in our Human Cent-iPad Project." (South Park reference, FYI.)

Netflix delivers streaming video without the Big Brother surveillance. Netflix doesn't make you join a cult to enjoy their service. And don't even get me started on Amazon's video service, which is a navigation nightmare that's so clunky and frustrating, you actually want to throw your remote at the screen over and over again until something shatters.

For a few bucks a month, Netflix delivers an incredible collection of streaming videos, movies, documentaries -- and now this House of Cards drama -- without making your life difficult in the process. You pay the nine bucks or whatever it is, and you get unlimited video streaming, period.

If you aren't already a member, join up at www.NetFlix.com

What's next for Netflix?

I hope House of Cards is a successful model that Netflix will expand into other realms. Personally, I'd love to see a really well-done sci-fi series produced by Netflix. The last decent sci-fi series was Battlestar Galactica, and it was well-written and professionally produced, but since that series ended, all us sci-fi fans have been in a programming drought.

If House of Cards becomes enough of an economic success, Netflix will likely green light other original dramas, and we may then see the unleashing of a whole new model for how "TV dramas" get produced and distributed.

Because, let's face it: Commercial television is for the dumbed-down masses whose time is so worthless that they don't mind being interrupted every few minutes with insultingly stupid commercials. The rest of us want quality shows written for a higher IQ audience, and we don't mind paying cash for it. I've always found it fascinating that people would pay for a cable TV service and then sit there and watch commercials. Do they not realize they just PAID for the privilege of being marketed a bunch of crap they don't need?

I won't watch television commercials, period. Any service that comes with commercials gets the boot. Life is too short to waste it away 60 seconds at a time listening to some mega corporation try to install brand viruses in your skull. The only video programming I will watch is the kind that's commercial-free, and that's Netflix.

That's why the name of this series is so funny, by the way: House of Cards. That's the perfect name for the mainstream media, if you ask me. The mainstream media's business model is quickly eroding and will ultimately collapse. Cable TV news is largely a total joke, and outfits like CNN are routinely caught faking and staging their so-called "news."

The advertisers who support mainstream television are all sellout corporations pushing garbage like high-fructose corn syrup soda that's making us all diabetic and obese. Or a brand-name perfume formulated with twenty cancer-causing chemicals. By producing and distribute its own content, Netflix avoids dealing with advertisers altogether, and as a result, its content is smarter, more honest and not subject to advertiser censorship.

Plus, Netflix doesn't have to push a bunch of crap products every few minutes to pay its bills. The viewers pay its bills, and that's a cleaner and more honest business model for streaming video. I love it!

Don't miss House of Cards. Five stars. Must-see.

www.Netflix.com

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Carbon nanotubes make it possible to grow human hearts

• By Graham Templeton on February 15, 2013 at 2:40 pm
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One of the most fundamental problems with growing organs in a petri dish (metaphorically speaking) is that organs don’t grow in petri dishes. That is to say, the naturally grown organs we’d like to replace were themselves grown in and amongst organs, which were themselves grown in and amongst others.
This nature-nurture dichotomy highlights how much our genes rely on environmental constants for their mechanisms of action; all the fancy collagens in the world can’t anchor a cell to a basement membrane that isn’t there. Time and again we’ve seen admirable work in cell biology undone by the simple fact that these meticulously engineered cells are without the proper world in which to grow, and some organs have posed more problems than others. A bladder is a relatively simple thing, just a balloon with a couple of special openings. A heart, on the other hand, needs significantly more nurturing to grow up big and strong, precise enough to replace the body-grown version from which it was cloned. This week, the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano printed an article detailing the use of carbon nanotubes in a growth scaffold for rat heart cells. The result? The closest we’ve come to creating a beating heart on demand.
Heart cells share many of the problems of neurons, from a research perspective; they are woefully inept at directing their own growth through space, requiring virtually every effort be made on their behalf, and even when led to the right place require all sorts of special genetic and chemical allowances. It was once thought impossible to regrow neurons, but lately we’ve come to realize that it’s just very, very finicky. Not the least of the reasons for this is conductivity; neurons cannot work unless they somehow come to meet one another such that an electrical signal can propagate between them. Heart cells are much the same — a cluster of so-called pacemaker cells keeps the whole thing contracting as one. This requires not just that the pacemaker signal pass between the cells, but that it happens fast enough for the heart to act seemingly as one coordinated unit.
In pursuit of this, the heart has a class of myocytes that form Purkinje Fibers, long cords that ferry pacemaker signals at a rate unsurpassed in the body. When a contraction signal leaves the pacemaking cells, its order reaches the furthest cells in the heart at an imperceptibly short time after it reaches the closest ones, and so the heart cells seem to beat as one. This ability is absolutely essential to a working heart, and has proven very difficult for organ transplant researchers to overcome.
Enter carbon nanotubes. As anyone familiar with the little critters will know, their important feature is a combination of strength, flexibility, and conductivity. Some combination of these virtues has made them of import to virtually every advanced research and manufacturing sector, from space elevators to flexible computers. Now, we must add conductive tissue development to that quickly growing list. By laying the conductive carbon nanotubes coated with a growth medium, researchers were able to create a scaffold that mimicked the utility of the Purkinje Fibers. By coating the scaffold in rat cardiomyocytes, they were able to create a colony of heart cells capable of contracting properly.
This isn’t the first time science has taken on such a problem in recent times. We’ve already used heart cells to power a small and rather clumsy 3D printed biorobot, and elsewhere used 3D printing to create the sugar scaffold needed by liver cells. We’ve also made smaller steps toward printing conductive materials. As a result, it seems like only a matter of time before this innovation can even be handed off to the Next Big Thing in manufacturing — and in fact, that’s already happened. As with so much of modern research, the sheer volume of work being done has already furnished us with the next step in the series. This paper recently proved that printing gel structures with inlaid carbon nanotubes might not be necessary — predicting and possibly preempting the needs of studies such as this.
As our understanding of cell development continues to advance, it’s increasingly going to be the more mundane concerns that limit our abilities. Providing the physical scaffold for growth might seem like a trivial challenge compared to the nuances of metabolism, but it is no less vital for that. This study produced a small patch of working tissue which contracted spontaneously and as a unit, coordinated enough to swim through a growth medium. See a video here.

INCOMING!

Posted by George Freund on February 15, 2013 at 9:40 AM

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In a timely event a 10 ton meteorite arcs through the sky over Chelyabinsk an area of Russia north of Kasakhstan. This was quite the event. It preceeds the larger 130,000 ton asteroid 2012 DA14 which will pass the Earth tonight at abuot 7:30 p.m. Eastern. This piece above is just a pebble by comparison. The main event if it ever happens would have the explosive force of a thousand nuclear weapons and would level any large city to dust. The impact crater would be a talking point for millenia. Life is a very fragile existence. It is here; then it is gone in a heartbeat.
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Spectacular sky: The Urals region was struck by falling meteorite fragments which fell in the city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border


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Before and after: A video showed a street scene in Russia before the meteorite shower struck. Seconds later the street was lit up in a haze of bright white as the large fireball exploded
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Interception: According to an unconfirmed report in Russia Today, the meteor was intercepted by Russian air defense
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Medical treatment: Many injured had bloodied faces from being hit by shards of glass broken in the explosions
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Hurtling through space at speeds of five miles a second, eight times as fast as a speeding bullet, it will come within 17,000 miles of Earth at 7.24pm tomorrow.

BitTorrent Starts Cyberlocker / BitTorrent Hybrid, Without Limits

• Ernesto
• February 15, 2013

BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the popular file-sharing clients uTorrent and BitTorrent, launched a new file-sharing service today. Branded SoShare, the new platform is a hybrid between BitTorrent and cloud based storage, allowing users to send files up to dozens of terabytes. SoShare is free of charge and without limits, making it an appealing competitor to more traditional file-storage sites.
Traditionally, BitTorrent and cyberlockers are seen as two entirely different file-sharing platforms. San-Francisco based BitTorrent Inc. hopes to break down the barriers between them.
The company’s newly launched SoShare service is a file-sharing platform that allows users to upload and share as they do with cyberlockers, but with transfers that are boosted by BitTorrent.
One of the advantages compared to most competitors in this field is the absence of storage or sending limits. SoShare users can send files of any size, and as many as they want.
“There really is no limit,” BitTorrent’s Catherine Meek told TorrentFreak in a comment.
Sharing a file using SoShare is pretty straightforward, but requires a browser plugin to add the BitTorrent functionality. Once the plugin is installed users can upload files and share these privately via email or a public link. Recipients don’t need an account to download the files, but do need the SoShare plugin.
BitTorrent chose to add centralized hosting to guarantee that the files remain available, even when the sender turns off his or her computer.
“SoShare accommodates distributed file transfer while the service maintains one master copy in the cloud for reliable access. The more people who have access to a file, the more the SoShare plug-in can help with the availability of bandwidth,” Meek says.

SoShare files

The lack of paid plans and data limits is what sets SoShare apart from traditional cloud based file-hosting services. “The capacity of what you can send, is way more,” Meek tells us.
The company says it will also add encryption to its arsenal, a feature which Mega has heavily promoted in recent months. However, BitTorrent doesn’t view SoShare as a direct competitor to most cloud storage services.
“We’re focused on sending, not locker storage, so the workflow is pretty straightforward. Again, we identified a need for the creative community during the alpha and that is what SoShare aims to address,” Meek says.
For the time being SoShare will remain completely free and BitTorrent Inc. has not yet decided how to monetize the service in the future.
“For now, we’re going into the public beta without fees. We’ll be looking at a few options along the way, but building something that is reliable and adds value to the user is our primary objective.”
One of the downsides, aside from the beta bugs, is that there’s currently no support for Linux. SoShare works with Chrome, Firefox and Safari on Mac, and Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows.
For those who are interested in giving it a spin, SoShare is open to the public since a few hours. Here are some Dan Bull tracks we’d like to share.