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The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

A high-level federal health official told me recently that a mainstay of the response to the increasing rates and hospitalizations due to COVID was going to be increased availability of rapid testing along with the promotion of Paxlovid. I agree with this approach. Paxlovid is an amazing antiviral drug that has worked incredibly well to decrease symptoms and severity of all variants and subvariants since it was first authorized for emergency use in December 2021 and then received full approval for adults in May 2023. Little clinical resistance has developed.

I took a flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and was picked up at the airport by a black driver. His name is Davis. He looked mid-20s, but it turned out he was 39. He was charming, soft-spoken, friendly, and became talkative once he realized I wanted to talk. During the drive to my hotel, he told me he liked sports. I asked whether he knew the Los Angeles Lakers were originally based in Minneapolis. He was surprised. “Really?” “You didn’t know that—and you’re a sports guy? Why do you think they’re called the ‘Lakers’? There are no lakes in...

WASHINGTON — The story was as tawdry as they come: The president of the United States had been having sex with a former White House intern in the space off the Oval Office and now was being investigated for lying under oath and obstructing justice to cover it up. The newspaper that landed on doorsteps around Washington that morning, 25 years ago Saturday, kicked off a furor that led to the first presidential impeachment trial in 130 years and transformed politics in the capital as President Bill Clinton battled for survival. A quarter-century later, the lessons are still being debated...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there were lessons that could be learned from what happened to us on September 11, 2001 and we should be “very aware of during this time in our country.” Clinton said, “Every time we approach September 11, I do think about everything that I saw, all the people that I met, the families of those who lost loved ones. So it is indelibly part of my memories, and I feel grateful that we were able to come together as a country at that really terrible...

A government tyranny with top-down leadership and a state-controlled propaganda machine can create an illusion of a powerful military force despite the fact that in other ways the country is a third-world country with a corrupt leadership that rules through propaganda, fear, and intimidation. Corrupt top-down leadership is reflected in all of Russia’s state institutions, including the military, which is just as corrupt and dysfunctional. The result is a military with inferior leadership, poor undisciplined troop performance and morale, and military equipment which is outdated and poor in quality. Tactical and logistics performance is abysmal. The good news is that...

It is now reasonable to draw a number of conclusions from the Wuhan or CCP virus. Conclusions which could also assist in relation not only to this but also future pandemics.Any such conclusions should ideally emerge from reliable sources, seen through the prism of traditional principles and values, and buttressed by a good dose of common sense.Reliable sources are those media sources that are seen to adhere to the first duty of the press, as was well explained by Robert Lowe, the Viscount Sherbrooke, in The Times in 1851. This, he wrote, is to obtain the earliest and most correct...

In 1923, Who Was: 1. President of the largest steel company? 2. President of the largest gas company? 3. President of the New York stock Exchange? 4. Greatest wheat speculator? 5. President of the Bank of International Settlement? 6. Great Bear of Wall Street? These men were considered some of the world's most successful of their day? Now, 90 years later, the history books ask us if we know what ultimately became of them? The Answers: 1. The president of the largest steel company. Charles Schwab, died a pauper. 2. The president of the largest gas company, Edward Hopson, went...

Six minority women quit Elizabeth Warren's Nevada campaign staff this week, due an alleged "toxic environment" resulting in them feeling like "tokenized" minorities, according to a report from Politico. "The six staffers have left the roughly 70-person Nevada team since November, during a critical stretch of the race," says the report. "Three of them said they felt marginalized by the campaign, a situation they said didn’t change or worsened after they took their concerns to their superiors or to human resources staff." One staffer who left the campaign told Politico, “I felt like a problem — like I was there...

Virgil has channeled the thinking of Richard Nixon, as he watches the latest impeachment hearings. Yes, I died in 1994, but I still keep up with the news—especially, of course, news about impeachment. In 1974, after I was railroaded out of the White House by partisan Democrats, hypocritical liberals, and self-righteous reporters, I made a vow: Never again let that sort of railroading happen to a Republican president. That is, I would share lessons learned about protecting the presidency, always—whether I was in this world, or the next. Happily, my advice has been working, both for Ronald Reagan and, now,...

Posted on October 7, 2019October 7, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Reluctant Prophet – The Story of Jonah Of all the prophets, Jonah is perhaps the most reluctant; his struggle with sin is not hidden. We are currently reading Jonah’s story in daily Mass. In the story we see a portrait of sin and of God’s love for sinners. Psalm 139 says, beautifully,Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present. If I take my wings early...

Full header: What politicians can learn from Tolkien, Bill Federer recounts famous author's understanding of evils of human nature The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien describes man's insatiable lust for "the Ring of Power," as Gandalf exclaimed: "Always remember Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found." When Frodo offered the Ring to Gandalf, Gandalf rebuked him, saying: "Don't tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good. ... But through me,...

Did We Learn Anything From 9/11? Or are we still sleeping? Wed Sep 11, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 114 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Two things happened in 2001. Islamic terrorists carried out their most successful attack on America with the murder of 2,977 people. And the number of immigrants obtaining permanent residency passed a million for the first time in a decade. Before 2001, a million plus was a streak that might linger for a few years before falling back. These...

It's now been nearly a full generation since Sept. 11, 2001. There are people currently serving in the U.S. military who weren't born when that act of evil took place -- and the military still has thousands of troops in Afghanistan, the home base of the Taliban-supported al Qaida attack on the United States that took nearly 3,000 American lives. With time comes forgetfulness. The same period of time has now elapsed since Sept. 11 that elapsed between the end of World War I (1918) and the German re-occupation of the Rhineland in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles (1936)....

According to social media rules, the first person in an argument to bring up Hitler or Nazis loses. Well, here goes. Hitler may be overused as shorthand for evil, and name calling is stupid, but this unbending rule would mean we can never impart lessons learned from the rise of Nazi Germany. That would be a terrible mistake, and it’s how the Left would like it.  They want us to forget what National Socialism, Fascism and Communism – not to mention Antifa – have in common.  They all spring from the poisoned root of Marxism.Today, we ignore extreme rhetoric and thuggish threats at...

Seattle and Boston have a lot in common: they are both cities on the water, homes to higher learning institutions and hubs for tech companies. They are connected by Interstate 90 and memories of a Superbowl both cities can’t forget. Now Seattle and Boston are both home to big tunnels that run under the downtown core. Seattle’s tunnel will now face a new challenge: avoiding the problems that plagued Boston’s Big Dig long after it opened. The Big Dig Backstory The Big Dig began as a project to replace the Central Artery, an elevated 6-lane highway that was structurally unsound...

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, double-pane, energy-efficient kind. Today, I got a call from Home Depot who installed them. The caller complained that the work had been completed a year ago and I still hadn't paid for them. Helloooo,........... just because I'm a Senior Citizen doesn't mean that I am automatically mentally challenged. So, I told him just what his fast-talking sales guy told me last year -- that these windows would pay for themselves in a year--- Hellooooo? It's been a year, so they're paid for, I told him. There was...

(National Sentinel) Game, Set, Match: The Democrats showed their true colors — again — over the past two weeks by debasing the judicial confirmation process with gutter accusations of sexual misconduct by non-credible accusers. It was the Left’s latest effort at destroying yet another institution — another pillar of government — by turning the process into a nightmare few people will want to subject themselves to in the future. Nevertheless, thanks to the insanity, Republicans had a good week, as noted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. In an interview with Fox News‘ Laura Ingraham Friday night after the...

A Georgia mother gave her 13-year-old son a lesson in humility after she noticed he was belittling his classmates at school for shopping at stores like Walmart and Goodwill. Cierra Brittany Forney, fed up with her son’s “entitled” attitude, decided to serve him a slice of humble pie by making him shop at the Goodwill store he mocked his classmates for shopping at—and posted about the experience on Facebook. “I don’t tolerate that,” Forney wrote. “Today, he took his own ($20) to the goodwill to buy clothes to wear the entire week to school. Whatever he found is what he...

More than $10 million, a visit by President Donald Trump, the mobilization of the GOP army … all to buy a tie? It’s not just any tie. Republicans fought to almost (but not quite) even in a district Trump carried by nearly 20 points in 2016, and where Democrats had stopped bothering to even field House candidates in recent cycles. Plus, the district won’t even exist this time next year. Whether Conor Lamb assumes a seat in Congress is almost secondary at this point. He already showed that that red can turn purple and purple can turn close to blue,...