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Can you think of how funny it would be if the October surprise is Obama getting into trouble because of flowers? It sort of fits libs. Here are some tidbits from the story: A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

Obama state senate grant probed By Chris Fusco and Dave McKinneyChicago Sun-Times reporters A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent. The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads...

The media and the Obama campaign (but I repeat myself) are comparing the "experience" of'the Democrats' presidential nominee to that of the GOP's vice-presidential pick -- meaning, one must assume, that the debate over his experience vs. John McCain's is over, in McCain's resounding favor. Let's look back a couple of months at a post I put up on July 14 (with minor revisions) that gives a, uh, concrete example of one of Barack Obama's management "experiences" -- one that the national media has (of course) totally ignored. ______________________________________________________ Barack Obama's $100,000 Gazebo Here's an interesting story I found in...

Farmyard manure contaminated with residues of weedkiller is stunting the growth of vegetables in gardens all over the country, the Royal Horticultural Society has said. Cases of manure contaminated by herbicides used on grassland to control weeds appear to be a new phenomenon, according to the Society, with more instances reported this year than ever before. The most common crops affected are tomatoes, peas, beans, potatoes and lettuces, though ornamental plants such as delphinium, phlox and roses may be susceptible. Gardeners have complained to the Pesticides Safety Directorate which says that the manure they have been buying is likely to...

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in...

MIDDLEVILLE, Mich. -- It was around midnight one evening in November when Aaron Wissner shot up in bed, jolted awake by a fear: He wasn't fully ready for the day when the world starts running low on oil. Yes, he had tripled the size of the garden in front of the tidy white-clapboard house he shares with his wife and infant son. He had stacked bags of rice in his new pantry, stashed gold valued at $8,000 in his safe-deposit box and doubled the size of the propane tank in his yard. "But I felt panicky, like I needed more...

The quest for the perfect tomato began in New Brunswick nearly 50 years ago and ended, for now, in a field south of Tel Aviv, Israel. After eight years of taste tests from chefs and tomato lovers, agricultural scientists at Rutgers University say they have resurrected one of the most delicious Jersey tomatoes ever. The elusive "Ramapo" tomato seed has been reproduced in Israel and 572,000 certified organic seeds were shipped this month to New Brunswick. The Ramapo tomato, named after a New Jersey Indian tribe and developed at Rutgers in 1968, will be back for this summer's growing season...

This is my Vanity post of the year, so bear with me. :) The Game project I've been working on for the past few months has finally been released, so I thought I'd share it with all my free republic buddies. It's called "Garden Defense" It's basically a Tower Defense game geared towards a casual market, and its fun for the whole family. So if you love video games and have an hour to kill, I'd love it if you could check it out and tell me whatcha think. It's over at iwin.com. So download it, give it a shot,...

Got these at the St. John's County Arboretum, just up the road.

FORT HUACHUCA — A Tuesday fire on this Southern Arizona post was caused by a ricocheting practice round from a 40mm machine gun-like grenade launcher that hit a tank hulk being used as a target, post officials said. As of early Tuesday evening, the blaze, which is being called the Range 9 Fire, had consumed between 350 and 400 acres since it started about 10:30 a.m. Using the special range on the post were soldiers of the Arizona Army National Guard’s 860th Military Police Company, according to fort officials. The company, whose headquarters is in Casa Grande, is at the...

SYDNEY, Australia - What's in a gnome? For surprised Australian customs officials, the answer was snakes and lizards. During a routine check of international mail on June 10, an officer discovered two snakes and three lizards stuffed inside three of the diminutive garden figurines in a shipment from Britain. "When the package was opened, the officer spotted several snakes moving about. The package was immediately resealed," Australian customs said Tuesday in a statement. A day later, officials at the same facility X-rayed another package from Britain and found five snakes and five lizards stuffed inside pottery figures and other ornaments....

Debate Rages Over Altering Zone Map For Gardeners By MICHAEL MILSTEIN — Tuesday May 08, 2007[Portland, OR] -- New Zealand flax, a decorative plant with swordlike leaves, used to have a hard time surviving Oregon's winters. But the past dozen years have been so mild, the plants now flourish, lending an exotic touch to more and more Oregon backyards. Global warming, as it nudges temperatures up and eases winters, increasingly appears to be helping gardeners grow plants once frozen out of their region. The trend is altering the rainbow-colored plant hardiness map that splits the nation into zones based on...

300 now report illness after eating at Indianapolis Olive Garden By CAROL DRUGA Associated Press Writer Published December 15, 2006, 2:44 PM CST INDIANAPOLIS -- More than 300 people say they became ill, and at least three have been hospitalized, after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant last weekend, health officials said Friday. The restaurant on Indianapolis' north side was closed temporarily while health officials and the company investigate what caused customers to complain of nausea, vomiting, fever and diarrhea, a company spokesman said. Steve Coe, a spokesman for the Orlando, Fla.-based chain of Italian restaurants, said health officials are...

Zatta Melon

On a mild October morning, the child who turns up her nose at broccoli pats the seedlings into the ground, later mulching and watering the tiny plants. Over the next month, she'll tend them, watch them flower and finally cook them just lightly enough to eat. “We're going to change your mind about broccoli,” Paul Gates tells his second-grade class, in response to the girl's complaint. “You've never had good broccoli until you've had Mr. Gates' broccoli Nationally, celebrity chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., has expanded an organic gardening project to encourage local schools to buy...

TIKRIT, Iraq, Aug. 10, 2006 — Any war veteran can tell you how important personal time is and how it helps soldiers cope with the separation from home and family. Sgt. Otis C. Wells, base reaction force, 122nd Engineer Company, South Carolina Army National Guard, uses his personal time to grow a garden in the middle of a desert. “I used my time between missions to work on my garden,” Wells said. “That’s what I like to do … I do it every year back home.” The native of Wagener, S.C., had to create all the tools needed to work...

OK, Freepers, tell us about your garden. What works, what doesn't, successes, failures. Anything peculiar to your location that might help others. This is NOT a cannabis thread!!!

Front garden yields ancient tools Only one other handaxe of this type has been found that is bigger The Britons of 250,000 years ago were a good deal more sophisticated than they are sometimes given credit for, new archaeological evidence suggests. It comes in the form of giant flint handaxes that have been unearthed at a site at Cuxton in Kent. The tools display exquisite, almost flamboyant, workmanship not associated with this period until now. The axes - one of which measured 307mm (1ft) in length - were dug up from old sand deposits in a front garden. "It is...

Tue Feb 7, 2006 12:11 AM GMT166 Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants. "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea. Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 metres, said they did not...

One woman's garden lands her a $73,000 lien on her home. South Tampa, FL -- For 18 years, Patricia Davies has tended to her botanical garden on the corner of Dekle and Albany in South Tampa. "I have over 200 varieties of wildflowers and herbs. I'm here daily, there's not a weed here, I pluck any weed that may show up," says Patricia Davies. But it's grown a little too much, according to Tampa Code Enforcement officers. In 1997, they cited Davies for overgrown plants that were obstructing the view of drivers and pedestrians on the street. Davies says she...

Resident was angered by critter nibbling on his vegetables By STAN MADDUX Tribune Correspondent STILLWELL -- Fed up with his vegetable garden being nibbled on, a resident grabbed his rifle and fired shots at a hungry groundhog, according to police. Police say the man's next-door neighbor also ended up under siege when one of the bullets sailed through his son's bedroom window. The 72-year-old man could now go to jail. About 2 p.m. Saturday, he spotted the groundhog eating in his vegetable garden in the 100 block of West Glendale, according to LaPorte County police. He went inside his house,...

A family in western Norway was hit by an unusual theft at their home in Sædalen, Hordaland County, this week. A newly planted hedge in their front yard was rudely uprooted and carted away. "After the initial shock, I just felt very sad," Kristin Molvik Botnmark told newspaper Bergens Tidende on Tuesday. Her husband, Børre Botnmark, has a few theories on the disappearance of the 32 plants that made up their new hedge. "It may be a theft ordered by someone wanting a new hedge," he said. "Or it could be a band of thieves who drive around and offer...

Good Morning all...........I had originally planned to start today with a topic of camping andother outdoor activities, but it is raining to beat the band and the weather was a bucket of water on my plans :) So, since my outdoor activites for the day have been drowed, I'm back to my drawing pad and am going to try and finish the planning of the rest of my garden. What kind of gardening do you all do? Do you like structured landscaping with beds and plans or are yu willy-nilly? Trees and shrubs, or just flowers? Or are you like...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The President and First Lady are at their Crawford ranch, where they will host the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia next week. The First Lady plans to attend the wedding this weekend of Mexico's billionaire beer baroness Asuncion Aramburuzabala to Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. THE WEEK AHEAD: From yesterday's WH press gaggle aboard Air Force One. Monday, the President will welcome the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia at his ranch. Tuesday, GWB will participate in a roundtable on strengthening Social Security in Galveston, Texas. He will return to Washington that afternoon. Wednesday,...

A grandmother knocked out a burglar by hitting him with a garden gnome. Jean Collop, 69, woke at 5am to find an intruder clambering on her roof. She yelled at the man, then picked up a gnome and hurled it at him, reports The Sun. It bounced off his head, leaving him lying dazed on the roof in Wadebridge, Cornwall. Jean dashed to fetch her rolling pin and a camera, and then took photos of the burglar as neighbours called the police. Officers arrived to find the man still on the roof and half a dozen locals standing guard. Jean...

Mary Garden is a garden, filled with flowers, plants and trees named for Our Lady and Jesus, designed to be a place of beauty that reminds us of our Lord and our Lady, allows one to experience God's creation, and invites prayer and contemplation. St. Benedict had a rose garden ("rosary") at his monastery in the 4th c., but the first garden we know of that was specifically dedicated to Mary was one created by the Irish St. Fiacre in the 7th c. The earliest record of a garden explicitly called a "Mary Garden" involves a "fifteenth century monastic accounting...

The owner of Madison Square Garden, after spending many months and millions of dollars trying to prevent the Jets and the city from building a football stadium on the West Side, played its boldest card yet yesterday, offering to pay far more for the land than the Jets have proposed. Cablevision, which owns the Garden, said it would pay $600 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the right to build office buildings and housing at the 13-acre West Side railyards. The offer includes the price of a $250 million deck over the yards for the development. The Jets, on...

COSTA MESA, Calif. - The thieves struck at night and knew just what they were after. In minutes, they ripped two plants from the lavish landscaping at a home in this Los Angeles suburb, then fled when the homeowner woke up and turned on a porch light. Total haul: $3,500. The thieves were after cycads, palmlike plants so prized that a rare specimen can fetch $20,000 or more on the international black market. Some species have been around since the time of the dinosaurs but are now close to extinction. The plants have been targeted in a wave of thefts...

Last Saturday night brought His Imperial Highness Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam, Regent of the Imperial Dynasty and President of the Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League, to Cornell. The Prince, a member of the Vietnamese imperial family gave a lecture, entitled "Revival of Vietnamese Culture: The Nguyen Dynasty," before a crowd of about 50 people. Maria Nguyen '05, vice president of the Cornell Vietnamese Association sang the American national anthem and then played the national anthem of South Vietnam. Aided by PowerPoint slides, Prince Buu Chanh then began his lecture speaking from a podium draped with the American flag...

The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam is politically pressuring the government of Vietnam to protect the liberty, religious rights of the Vietnamese people as well as the culture, traditions, languages of the Montagnards and Khmer Krom in Vietnam. (PRWEB) October 23, 2004 -- Today, Vietnam is experiencing a minor period of outward growth. Even the most dedicated Communists are abandoning old communist economic policies, which have proven to be ineffective and sometimes harmful. Capitalism is being introduced, with the Communist Party maintained only as a vehicle to exercise absolute control of the elite Party leaders over the common people. The...

Aurora,IL (PRWEB) September 8, 2004 -- OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS - From the Office of the Leadership of the The Imperial Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam & Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League: His Imperial Highness Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam, Regent of the Imperial Nguyen Dynasty and President of The Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League denounces the Communist Government on the return of United States Servicemen MIA or possible POWs’ and Human Rights Record. It has been stated by American Marines and Army Soldiers who are in Vietnam searching for MIA's, that there is corruption within the government of Vietnam. They stated that...

Garden's set to rock Final touches in place for one huge party BY MAGGIE HABERMAN DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU Madison Square Garden is ready for a Republican party. The star-spangled balloons are blown up and bagged; the cherry-red carpet is nailed in place; the blue delegate seats are nailed to the floor, and the confetti with pictures of GeorgeW. and Laura Bush is set to go. There's one stage for the speakers and a separate, hydraulic platform for the entertainers. Then there's a secret stage for the President himself that won't appear until Thursday night. That was the view...

More financial institutions than previously disclosed may be at risk of attack and an Al Qaeda operative has told British intelligence that the groups target date is early September, intelligence sources said yesterday.The operative, described as credible by British intelligence, told his debriefers that the attack would take place '60 days before the US presidential election' on November 2, according to a former National Security Council official.On September 2 President Bush is expected to address the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden. Counter terrorism officials are analyzing data from a computer siezed in Pakistan last month to see if...

Macbeth's castle unearthed in Inverness garden? LOCAL history enthusiasts believe they have unearthed positive evidence that a former King of Scotland maintained a castle in Inverness. Tradition has persisted that Macbeth had a stronghold at Auldcastle Road in the Crown area of the city - hence the name. Now an archaeological dig by members of the Inverness Local History Forum in the garden of the appropriately-named house Dun Macbeth has uncovered what could be the most important finds to date. Some artefacts, including pieces of medieval glass and what are thought to be whalebone and porpoise or dolphin bones have...

Dutch garden may hold Musketeers' skeletons Wednesday, May 5, 2004 Posted: 2:18 PM EDT (1818 GMT) AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- Are the three musketeers and four swashbuckling chums buried under an unassuming Dutch garden in the town where legendary swordsman D'Artagnan was killed? Police plan to turn over an investigation into the discovery of the seven skeletons to archaeologists in the southern Dutch town of Maastricht, which has a history of battles going back to Roman times.

Opening Prayer Mary, my Mother, you were the first to live the Way of the Cross.You felt every pain and every humiliation. You were unafraid of the ridicule heaped upon you by the crowds. Your eyes were ever on Jesus and His Pain. Is that the secret of your miraculous strength? How did your loving heart bear such a burden and such a weight? As you watched Himstumble and fall, were you tortured by the memory of all the yesterdays-His birth, His hidden life and His ministry?You were so desirous of everyone loving Him. What a heartache it wasto see...

Famine and despair take over the lush garden of Africa (Filed: 12/01/2004) Peta Thornycroft, in Darwendale, traces the seizure of 90 per cent of Zimbabwe's land and the destruction of more than 4,000 businesses in the process that has left a million black farm workers and their families without jobs or homes. To anyone familiar with the formerly well-tended, red-soiled farms of Zimbabwe, the lands which once fed a nation, the sight of barren land is devastating. A few patches of short, yellowing maize, enough for a small peasant family for a few months. A couple of scraggy cattle, infested...

Prehistoric pines coming to a garden near you September 19 2003 at 09:12AM Sydney - The Wollemi pine is so precious that anyone attempting to find the secret stands of the 150-million-year-old "living fossil" in Australia's south-east corner risks a fine of AUS$220 000 (about R1,6-million). But botanist Sally McGeoch said Friday that before the end of next year saplings of a species once thought extinct would be on sale in garden centres around the world. The pines are in commercial cultivation and 150 000 of them will be ready for release in 18 months. McGeoch, spokesperson for Wollemi Pine...

British victims of the September 11 attacks were being remembered on the second anniversary of the terrorist atrocity. Families of the 67 Britons who died when two hijacked passenger planes slammed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre were gathering at a garden dedicated to their memory. More than 750 relatives and guests were visiting the site in London's Grosvenor Square, which is overlooked by the United States Embassy and which was the focus of grief in the aftermath of the tragedy. The Princess Royal was officially opening the garden of remembrance which contains a small pavilion...

Ananova: Jail inmates triumph at Chelsea Flower ShowA group of prisoners have triumphed at the Chelsea Flower Show.Nine inmates from Leyhill open prison, near Gloucester, spent the last week building their garden which focuses around a boathouse.The piece, called No Time To Stand And Stare, inspired by the William Henry Davies poem Leisure, won gold in the show garden awards.Jez, 24, who is due to be released from prison next month, said it was a "once in a lifetime achievement"."It is a feeling like I have never felt before - it is absolutely incredible," he said.Having achieved an NVQ in...

In response to the Unity in the Spirit of America service program, in support of which Sean Astin will be appearing in Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2002, BitofEarth.net would like to announce Project Elanor. With the tear-stained excavations of Ground Zero now turning toward talk of memorial parks and rebuilding, and with the Pentagon scarred but standing, it is time for rebuilding, for planting, for new life and togetherness. As a fan community ostensibly organized in honour of a gardener, a father, a comrade, a companion, a servant, and a community, leader we see this call...