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March 2016

THE ORIGINS OF EASTER

What are the ancient origins of Easter and does it really matter?

Easter3In the ancient heathen world there were gods and goddesses for everything. There were gods for the sun, moon, trees, animals, love, and so on. And as Paul found out, there was even a god called the “unknown god”, just in case they missed any. Some of these gods were at one time real human beings and after death were glorified to the status of a god or goddess. The people did not necessarily worship the sun or the moon but the god that was “in charge” of the sun or the moon, etc… Even the great Caesars were given god-like status even while some were still alive!

The greatest of all of the gods throughout all of history and all civilizations was virtually always the “sun-god”. And the first god worshipped as the god of the sun was Nimrod, the very same Nimrod from the book of Genesis. And from the book of Genesis we learn that Nimrod was a great grandson of Noah, an incredible hunter and became a mighty king on the earth. Genesis also records for us in chapter 10 that he was responsible for building the kingdoms of Babel and Nineveh along with many other cities.  But his most famous accomplishment was the “brilliant” idea to build a “tower whose top would reach the heavens”. This in turn provoked the LORD to come down out of heaven to confuse their language and scatter them over the face of the earth. This infamous tower became known as the “Tower of Babel”. Nimrod was said to be the most powerful ruler of all time and when he died, Babylonian legend says that he ascended into the heavens and he became the sun-god.  The name that the people of his time would call him would be “Baal” which means “lord”. The wife that he left behind was named Semiramis, who would now become the “Queen of Heaven” since she was the wife of the sun-god Baal.

Years later Semiramis became pregnant. She declared that she had become pregnant by the rays of the sun of her deceased husband, Nimrod (Baal), and nine months later she gave birth to a son in which she gave the name “Tammuz”.  Because of the god-like status of his late father Nimord, baby Tammuz was quickly haled to be the reincarnation of his father Nimrod. Tammuz, like his father, also became a mighty hunter on the earth.  But, when he was forty years of age, he was killed by a wild boar on one of his hunting expeditions.  Because he was revered to be the reincarnated sun-god, his death brought great despair upon the people of Babel.  So, they set aside forty days of weeping and fasting for Tammuz each year in the Spring to commemorate each year that he was alive. (This tradition has been passed down through the ages to the church and is where we get the forty days of fasting before Easter Sunday.  This is where the Catholic original tradition of “Lent” came from until Catholic leadership changed the origination to the 40 days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness.)  After the forty days of weeping, they would kill a wild boar (getting back at the boar that killed Tammuz) and eat the ham on the first Sunday after the Spring Equinox (This is where the tradition of eating ham on Easter Sunday came from).  Also as a side note, one of the ancient statues of Mary holding baby Jesus in the Vatican is actually a REAL statue of Semiramis holding baby Tammuz!  The Catholic Church just changed the names to Mary and Jesus!

Many years later, as the legend continues, Tammuz’s mother Semiramis dies and ascends into heaven. But as the luck of the Babylonian legend would have it, when she ascended into the heavens, the gods sent her back down to earth in a giant egg at sunrise on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox (first day of Spring). She landed in the Euphrates River, the egg busted open and she turned a bird into an egg laying rabbit.  (Have you ever wondered where the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs came from?  Well, now you know.)  Eggs were very symbolic of many pagan religions as many believed that the earth itself came from a giant egg.  Furthermore, the rabbit was looked upon as the most fertile animal on earth and the egg was also viewed as a symbol of fertility and new life. This is why these two symbols were attributed to the new “Queen of Heaven”, Ishtar.

It is also important to note that the process of deifying someone included renaming the individual after they had died. Many times they would be given a name that represented whatever they were going to be the god of.  The new name of Semiramus according to the Babylonians was Ishtar, the god of fertility and the god of the East, or sunrise. Later, the Phoenicians and the Greeks in their language called her Astarte, the Zidonians called her Ashtaroth (Judges 2:13 “And they forsook the LORD and served Baal and Ashtaroth.”), the Philistines in the time of Saul kept the name Ishtar and the Celtics called her Eostra.

(Judges 10:6, “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served Him not.”)

But all of these names were referring to the same goddess: the bare-breasted fertility goddess of the Spring.  And guess what the Anglicization of the Babylonian name “Ishtar” is?  You guessed it---Easter.


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OBAMA: Socialist or Fascist

image from sp.yimg.comIt bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism. What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector. Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.

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Obama: ‘There’s Little Difference Between Communism and Capitalism’

"Just choose from what works"

image from sp.yimg.comPresident Obama has stoked controversy after he suggested to an audience of Argentinian youth that there was no great difference between communism and capitalism and that they should just “choose from what works”.

Obama responded to a question about nonprofit community organizations and the necessity of attracting funding from both the public and private sectors.

“So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate,” Obama said.   MORE


FBI says they may be able to hack San Bernardino shooter's iPhone After

LIARS LIARS LIARS and the Americans Still believe them! (FBI that is)  

The government has been adamant for weeks: FBI investigators need to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, and Apple Inc. was the only one that could do it.

In a stunning reversal on Monday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to halt a much-anticipated hearing on their efforts to force Apple to unlock the phone. The FBI may have found another way, and Apple's cooperation may no longer be needed, according to court papers filed late Monday, less than 24 hours before Tuesday's hearing.

'An outside party' came forward over the weekend and showed the FBI a possible method to access the data on Syed Rizwan Farook's encrypted phone, according to the filing.

'Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook's iPhone,' the filing said. 'If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple.'

If it's viable, that also means the government has significantly undermined its arguments against Apple, said Kristen Eichensehr, a visiting law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

'If they found another way into the phone, that doesn't just weaken their case. It means they can't satisfy the legal standard to sustain the court's order,' said Eichensehr, referring to Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym's February 16 ruling compelling Apple to create software that would disable security features on the phone.

Pym granted the government's request to postpone Tuesday's arguments in the case and stayed her previous order. She ordered the government to file a status report by April 5.

The development raised more questions than it answered. It's unclear who is helping the FBI with the phone and why it took so long for a possible solution to be identified. 

In a stunning reversal on Monday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to halt a much-anticipated hearing on their efforts to force Apple to unlock the phone. Above, a stock image of an iPhone 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3503899/FBI-Attackers-phone-possibly-accessible-without-Apple-help.html#ixzz43dC3ZsJI 


BREAKING NEWS: At least 28 dead after 'suicide bombers' attack American Airlines check-in desk at Brussels Airport

Carnage in Europe

Brussels Airport explosions leave many dead and second ‘attack’ hits Metro station

Brussels is under attack today after a series of bombings in the Belgian capital. At 8am local time there were two explosions close to the American Airlines check-in desk in the city's packed airport. Local media are reporting that 13 may be dead and 50 injured (left) there and witnesses heard shouting in Arabic and gunfire before the 'shockwave' of two blasts, carried out by suicide bombers. Firemen who entered the shattered building (inset) are said to have found a third unexploded device. Pictures show the terminal windows blown out and roof tiles littering the floor after falling from the ceiling from the force of the explosions (right). At 9.19am a new explosion was heard at Maelbeek Metro station in the centre of Brussels - and at least ten are believed to have been killed. Maelbeek is the gateway to the Eu Quarter of the city, which houses its main institutions. The pavement outside is littered with injured commuters. Citizens are being warned to stay at home as the Belgian Government raised its security level to 'maximum' and sent soldiers onto the streets. The city was already high alert following the capture last Friday of Paris massacre suspect Salah Abdeslam, the world's most-wanted man, in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of the city, known as Europe's cradle of terrorism. BREAKING NEWS: At least 28 dead after 'suicide bombers' attack American Airlines check-in desk at Brussels Airport - as SECOND blast hits Metro station just yards from EU headquarters


GOOGLE WORKED WITH CLINTON TO OVERTHROW SYRIA

GOOGLE = Govt Ooogling!   Google is part of the USA Govt.

A story largely ignored by the corporate media reveals the tech company Google offered to help Secretary of State Clinton overthrow Bashar al-Assad by developing an app to track defections from the Syrian government.

Google Idea‘s Jared Cohen emailed Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan and offered help when Clinton was secretary of state, according the Hillary Clinton Email Archive posted on the WikiLeaks website.

“Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool  that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from,” Jared Cohen wrote in a July 2012 email to several top Clinton officials.

“Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition,” Cohen said. MORE

 


Betraying Our Founders and our Nation

A monumental task was before them. Should they succumb to colonial tyranny, or should they fight for their freedom and make a reality of that cherished vision to establish a country without a king and a church without a pope? Their choice was the correct one. They fought and overcame.
Signing the Constitution, September 17, 1787
On September 17, 1787, in the city of Philadelphia, the company of  Jefferson, Franklin, and Co. signed a document that has become the foundation of the greatest experiment of human civilization. In composing U. S. Constitution, is evident that the the Founding Fathers perceived it as a strong bulwark against the religious/political tyranny from which many of them fled and they all vehemently resisted. 
 
Sadly, the inherent principles of freedom, liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness of the founding document are stealthily being attacked. The attack is coming not from a destroyer from without as many believe, but from a usurper from within; one that the Founding Fathers passionately warned against. But, have they been betrayed?  Find out who is the enemy.

Bermuda Triangle mystery: Missing ships victim of enormous methane blowouts on ocean floor?

image from d.ibtimes.co.ukScientists may have discovered the secret behind the notorious Bermuda Triangle: methane bubble explosions. Giant craters on the seabed around Norway's coast have been discovered by scientists, marking areas where massive bubbles of methane may have exploded.

The large chasms on the ocean floor are around half a mile wide and 150ft deep. They could have been caused by gas leaking from deposits of oil and gas buried deeper in the sea floor. The gases are thought to accumulate in sea-floor sediments before bursting through the sea bed and into the surrounding waters. MORE


The incredible true story of Colonel Sanders

Colonel SandersColonel Sanders (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today KFC stands as a defining symbol of the American Dream - born from one man's bloody-minded perseverance, 19,000 stores worldwide now generate $23billion in revenue.

But behind this remarkable success story lies one man - Harland Sanders, a bad-tempered perfectionist who spent decades tweaking his secret chicken recipe that ultimately revolutionized fast food.

Sanders first developed his love of cooking as a child. Born in Henryville, Indiana, in 1890, he was forced to care for his siblings after his father died when he was five.

With his mother away working, he sometimes looked after them for days at a time - before quitting school altogether at age 12 and leaving his mother and stepfather's home to find work.

During this time he jumped between jobs on farms, railroads, and as a cleaner before meeting Josephine King at age 19, who he soon married.

After this - sometime around the early 1920s - he spent three years practising law, though this ended when he had a brawl with a client in a courtroom.

Further ventures into ferry boat sales, lamp manufacturing and a job with Michelin Tires ended similarly before he settled in Corbin, Kentucky, in 1930 to run a service station.

It was then 40-year-old Sanders and his wife Josephine began their first foray as restaurateurs.

Located close to a highway in order to entice passing travellers, they soon opened a diner and motel next to the service station where they sold home-cooked meals.

However, the pressure cooker which would ultimately allow him to cook the chicken quickly and to order had not yet been invented, nor had he finalised the last of his 11 secret spices. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3494851/The-incredible-true-story-Colonel-Sanders-creator-KFC-shot-business-rival-served-dinner-scientists-worked-Hiroshima-bomb.html#ixzz435yZD57g 


The Ides of March: The assassination of Julius Caesar and how it changed the world

The Death of CaesarThe Death of Caesar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Caesar's death paved the way for the Roman empire after a bloody cycle of civil wars, and secured him the hallowed immortality he always craved

At the great festival of Lupercalia on the 15th of February 44 B.C., he was a worried man. While priests were running around the Palatine Hill hitting women with thongs to make them fertile, Spurinna was chewing over a terrible omen. 

The bull that Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome, had sacrificed earlier that day had no heart. Spurinna knew it was a terrible sign: a sure portent of death. 

The following day, the haruspex oversaw another sacrifice in the hope it would give cause for optimism, but it was just as bad: the animal had a malformed liver. There was nothing for it but to tell Caesar. 

In grave tones, Spurinna warned the dictator that his life would be in danger for a period of 30 days, which would expire on the 15th of March. Caesar dismissed the concerns. Although in his scramble for political power he had been made the chief priest of Rome (Pontifex Maximus), he was a campaign soldier by trade, and not bothered by the divinatory handwringing of seers like Spurinna. 

The Ides of March...... Read the rest


Fact in 18 Months: 2,000 people have been killed by police

image from cdn.theatlantic.comOver the past 18 months, nearly 2,000 people have been killed by American police. Several thousand more men and women have died in jails and prisons across the country during that time. In all, every single day in the United States, three people are killed by police before they ever get to a jail and at least eight die in jail.

Of those 11 people who die per day in some form of police custody, most of us never hear or learn the name of a single one of them. Every few months, a story breaks out and completely grips us, and we learn the names and faces of men and women like Sandra Bland or Freddie Gray or Tamir Rice, but on most days, while the deaths pile up, the stories behind them slip through the cracks of newsworthiness and never really get told.

In fact, the average American would likely struggle to name even a single victim of police brutality from the past few months. While I absolutely think our ability to tolerate the constant death has worn on all of us, I also think the sheer volume of injustice in America has made it nearly impossible for us to keep up.

Read More here

 


Chris Matthews at center of NBC scandal - guests on his show gave his wife at least $79k

Despite saying last June that he would be 'transparent and fair in our coverage' when his wife announced she was running as a Democrat for the open seat in Maryland's 8th District, it seems MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews has gone back on his word.

Guests on his long-running cable-news show - mainly current and former prominent politicians - have contributed at least $79,050 to Kathleen Matthews's campaign - and her husband hasn't uttered a word about the money.

As the New York Post reported, he said last year: 'As a journalist, I also know how important it is to respect certain boundaries on my support for her [Kathleen] both in my public role and here on MSNBC.

'And while most of you know that our show doesn’t typically cover congressional races, I will continue to fully disclose my relationship with her as part of MSNBC’s commitment to being transparent and fair in our coverage.' 

However The Intercept has compiled a list of some heavyweight poiticians making contributions just before or after their appearances on Chris's show.  

When Kathleen Matthews announced her run for Congress this summer, her husband and MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews assured his viewers he would maintain transparency and balance

According to the Bible: When Does the Day Start?

Day

By Bob Barney

Christ warned us to be aware of false religion, customs and laws. These warnings have basically fell on deaf years but the most important "sign" that we can look for, as to the coming of Jesus again back to this world is the spread of false religion and religious practices that are contrary to God. Over the years, God's Law (THE TEN COMMANDMENTS) has been replaced by man's law. Our theologians call it "saved by grace" when truly nothing of the sort is biblically true.

Christmas, Easter, Sunday worship actually pre-date the earthly ministry of Jesus! Yes you read that correctly, these holidays have nothing to do with Christ and were being followed long before GOD became a man and walked among us. Even in the garden of Eden, the very first religious lie promulgated was the "immortal soul" doctrine. To this day, we believe the devil and that "we shall not die, but be like God" and live forever as some spirit in heaven or hell. That is Satan's lie and almost every false religion has adopted it.

 

Continue reading "According to the Bible: When Does the Day Start?" »


The Legend of Red Ghost A real life spooky mystery!

image from www.weirdca.comCan you imagine seeing a huge monstrous creature that you have never seen before, that has trampled people to death under it's weird cloven hooves? Worst yet, it leaves evidence of red hair at each crime scene, and even worse yet, people swear that they see a headless human riding on it's back! Fantasy you say? No, it was a fact that happened in the United States in the late 1800's... The monster was a camel, the likes of which most westerners may have read about in the Bible, but never actually seen! There wasn't Google, or even too many encyclopedias around in those days with pictures in them... Here is the fascinating story from: www.legendsofamerica.com

 

In 1848, the importation of camels for military purposes in the southwest was suggested to the War Department by Henry Wayne, a Quartermaster Major. Two years later, Secretary of War and Mississippi Senator, Jefferson Davis, tried to persuade the Senate to look into the use of camels for the U.S. Army.


During this time period, the southwest territory of the United States was greatly expanding and it was thought that camels could be used to carry at least twice the amount of weight as horses or mules, and might also be used in tracking and pursuing Indians, as they could travel without water or rest for much longer than horses. It was also suggested that the camels might carry the mail and that fast camel passenger trains might be developed to run from
Missouri River points to the Pacific Coast. 

Initially, the Senators voted the idea down, but after California newspapers began to promote the idea, they finally agreed in 1854, passing a bill to appropriate $30,000 for the camel experiment.

 

 

Continue reading "The Legend of Red Ghost A real life spooky mystery!" »


Wash Roger Babson Right? The Plain Truth about Our Economy's Future

30 years ago Herbert Armstrong wrote a small piece about something he had learned back in the early 1900's about morality and the economy. Roger babson was a good man that lived a good life, helping others where he could. Building businesses and schools that provided inspiration and education to a great number of people. (see website devoted to him here).

image from www.rogerbabson.com

"It is not knowledge which young people need for success, so much as those basic qualities of integrity, industry, imagination, common sense, self-control and a willingness to struggle and sacrifice. Most individuals already have far more knowledge than they use. They need inheritance and development of a character which will cause them properly to apply this knowledge... Real business success comes through the qualities above mentioned, not through money, degrees, or social standing."
- Roger W. Babson

 

Continue reading "Wash Roger Babson Right? The Plain Truth about Our Economy's Future" »


Edward Snowden says FBI's claim it can't unlock the San Bernardino iPhone is 'bulls***

It's obviously BS.  It's an attempt to convince terrorist to use the apple devices thinking that they can't be hacked.  I suspect Apple is in on the scam...  It's called disinformmation 

Edward Snowden has hit back against the FBI amid its current battle with Apple, calling claims that it cannot unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without the tech company's help 'bulls***'.   The FBI is pressing Apple to develop a system that would allow the law enforcement agency to break into the locked iPhone, a demand Apple claims would make all its devices vulnerable.The NSA whistleblower was speaking in the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference in Washington DC via video link from Moscow when he waded into the controversy.'The FBI says Apple has the "exclusive technical means" to unlock the phone,' he said.  'Respectfully, that's bulls***'.  

Edward Snowden has hit back against the FBI amid its current battle with Apple, calling claims that it cannot unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without the tech company's help 'bulls***'
Following the conference, Snowden tweeted out a link to a piece by the American Civil Liberties Union that argues the FBI's fears of the phone's 'auto-erase' feature are unfounded 

 

Following the conference, Snowden tweeted out a link to a piece by the American Civil Liberties Union that argues the FBI's fears of the phone's 'auto-erase' feature are unfounded. Snowden then said the government agency has been aware of methods 'since the 90s' that would allow it to access information on the iPhone 5c used by gunman Rizwan Farook, according to Time.  Following the conference, Snowden tweeted out a link to a piece by the American Civil Liberties Union that he wrote explained 'why the global technological consensus is against the FBI'. 

The article argues that the FBI's fears about the 'auto-erase' feature, which wipes a phone of all information after 10 failed passcode guesses, are unfounded. Such a feature isn't enabled by default on most iPhone devices, according to the article, and even if it was on Farook's phone there are other methods through which the FBI can bypass it.  The government agency could back up the phone's 'Effaceable storage' before making attempts at the passcode, according to the article.  When the phone is wiped, it doesn't physically erase all the data but instead destroys the 'file system key', which then renders everything permanently unreadable. 

This file system key is stored in the Effaceable storage - thus the FBI would merely need to back-up the phone's flash memory, where it is included, and would be able to restore it as many times as possible with as many passcode attempts as needed. 

Snowden joins a number of tech companies who have defended Apple, including Microsoft, Facebook and Google.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3484420/Edward-Snowden-FBI-s-claim-t-unlock-San-Bernardino-iPhone-bulls.html#ixzz42RQug3sb 


Limbaugh: 'Impeachment on Day 2' if Trump becomes Obama

JOE KOVACS About Email Archive

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh

PALM BEACH, Florida – Responding to a caller’s fear that Donald Trump could be an authoritarian president in the mold of Barack Obama, radio host Rush Limbaugh said both the Republican and Democratic Parties will “be talking impeachment on Day Two” of any executive order should Trump win the White House.

“I’m telling you that if Trump gets elected, you’re gonna see more unity between the Republicans and Democrats in stopping any Trump authoritarianism than you have ever seen in your life,” Limbaugh said on his national broadcast Tuesday.

“Because they’re gonna hate it, they’re gonna despise the guy, and they’re gonna align together to stop him if he tries executive orders.”

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Limbaugh noted there are many establishment Republicans still in office, and they would fiercely oppose any executive orders from Trump, despite the fact the current GOP-controlled Congress is giving Obama a free pass.


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/if-trump-wins-theyll-be-talking-impeachment-on-day-2/#DRCt6PM5GR5IIyRd.99


Ultimately, Who Has All The Answers to deal with Our Mess?

The world is filled with wars and rumors of wars. It seems as though a new conflict is breaking out by the second. There is conflagration on every corner of planet earth. Nation is rising up against nation. People are fighting against people. Tribe is rising up against tribe. 

There is unrelenting moral and social declension. Diseases and pestilences are rampant. Economic collapse seems to be lurking around the corner. Nature has strayed from its course.  It is verily just as Jesus Christ predicted it would be before His second coming (Matthew 24:6-7). 
The Hope of Every Human Heart
Religious leaders, politicians, and statesmen offer their remedies for the apparently insurmountable problems that confront the human family. Yet none have the answer to mankind's seemingly inescapable predicament. The world appears to be heading to is date with a destructive destiny.

But Jesus Christ is still the Only answer. Question is, Are you one of them? He is the Desire of All Ages.  Accept Him now.

Test positive for pot? Blame that darned diet you are on!

CANNABIS smokers beware: stress or dieting might trigger "reintoxication", resulting in a positive drug test long after you last used the drug.

The main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and once in the body it is readily absorbed into fat cells. Over the next few days it slowly diffuses back into the blood. Since THC is taken up by fat more readily than it diffuses out, continual intake means some THC can remain in the fat cells.

It has been suggested that stored THC can be released at a later date in situations where the body's fat is rapidly broken down. This is based on anecdotal reports of spikes in blood cannabinoid levels in people who have not taken the drug recently but have experienced extreme stress or rapid weight loss.

Jonathon Arnold at the University of Sydney, Australia, cites the example of an athlete who swore he hadn't smoked cannabis in months but who had rapidly lost 4 kilograms just before a positive drug test.

To investigate whether rapid breakdown of body fat could have been responsible, Arnold and colleague Iain McGregor first exposed THC-laden fat cells taken from rats to the stress hormone ACTH. They found that the hormone increased the speed of release of THC from the cells.

Then they injected rats with 10 milligrams per kilogram of THC (equivalent to a person smoking between five and 10 cannabis cigarettes, depending on their strength) every day for 10 days. Two days later, they injected a third of the rats with ACTH, deprived another third of food for 24 hours, with the rest as controls.

Subsequent blood tests showed that rats that were food deprived had double the blood level of THC acid, a metabolite of THC, compared with the controls. Those that were exposed to ACTH also showed a statistically significant increase in THC acid levels. The study has been accepted for publication by the British Journal of Pharmacology.

However, the new work did not find evidence of increased THC acid levels more than two days after the last THC dose. Arnold thinks this could be due to the short-term nature of the experiment. He suspects that if doses were given over a longer period of time, sufficient THC levels could build up in body fat to explain abnormally high levels of THC metabolites in people who claim not to have taken the drug recently.

The main implication of the work could be for legal cases in which athletes or employees have tested positive for cannabis but claim they haven't recently consumed it, Arnold says. "But the clincher would be for us to show these results in humans."

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Your Smartphone Knows when you are having sex and everything else.

TURN THE DAMN THING OFF!   Get your life back!

image from s16-us2.ixquick.comYour phone knows more about you than you think.

It knows where you’ve been and who you were with, the birthday gift you bought your mother and who you plan to vote for. Sex last night? It knows that too if you’re using one of the applications for couples trying to conceive.

From pre-installed apps that count your steps to saved passwords for banking accounts and social media, smartphones have evolved from devices that make calls into digital repositories for the most intimate details of life. 

"You can extract enough information on a typical person’s phone that you can construct a virtual clone of that individual," said Elad Yoran, executive chairman of Koolspan Inc., a communications security company. "They are the windows not just into our personal lives but they are equally the windows into our professional lives."

And, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s battle with Apple Inc. shows, they have become a goldmine for investigators. The agency has won a court order demanding Apple’s help unlocking an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who shot scores of co-workers at a December office event in San Bernardino, California in December, killing 14.

Apple is fighting the order, mounting a highly public case against what it calls government overreach and in defense of privacy. It warns that anything it does to override the encryption of its smartphones could help hackers. MORE


Former First Lady Nancy Reagan Dead at 94

Rest in Peace- You did your husband and the country proud...

Former first lady Nancy Reagan has died, according to a spokeswoman with the Reagan Library. She was 94. 

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to her rep Joanne Drake. "Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who died on June 5, 2004," Drake wrote in a statement. 

Image: Nancy Reagan, decked out in red lace dress & gold
Nancy Reagan, decked out in red lace dress & gold earrings & necklace set, at "president's dinner" (Reagan endorsement of Bush's candidacy). Diana Walker / Time & Life Pictures via Getty Image, file

"Prior to the funeral service, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to pay their respects at the Library." 

In lieu of flowers, Mrs. Reagan asked that contributions be made to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation at www.reaganlibrary.com, Drake said. 

Reagan was an actress when she met Ronald Reagan, then an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild


Long lost papyrus scraps reveal life in Egypt 2,000 years ago

Hangover cures, plays about Moses and a doctor's report on a drowned slave girl

A long-lost speech from a play about Moses has been discovered on newly translated papers found more than a hundred years ago on an ancient Egyptian rubbish pile. The speech explains how he was given the name Moses because he was found on the riverbank, written in a Greek-style tragedy about the Biblical character written in the Second Century BC. It means that the classic Biblical story would have been performed more than 2,000 years before Charlton Heston played Moses in the 1956 blockbuster The Ten Commandments. 

Also discovered by the Ancient Lives project was a transcript from known playwright Euripides' lost play Andromeda, a tragedy first produced in 417BC. There is additionally a doctor''s note from the 3rd century AD, describing the 'twisted and lifeless body' of a drowned slave girl. But the most interesting to many will be the fragment of a long-lost rendition of the Book of Exodus, written in the style of a Greek tragedy by little-known author called Ezekiel.

Volunteers have helped uncovered a speech by Moses in an original play about the character written in the Second Century BC, found in 1896. File picture
Pictured is one of the 500,000 documents found during the excavation

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