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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...

Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 13:24–30 Friends, our Gospel today is the parable of the wheat and the weeds. God sows his good seed, his word, his love and compassion, but his project is met with opposition. And the evil is such that it insinuates itself right into the very fabric of the good. In classical theology, we speak of evil as a privatio boni, a privation of the good, meaning that evil is always and everywhere parasitic on the good. Just as a parasite is living off of a healthy body (and thereby weakening it), so moral evil...

As we reported previously three people were killed and two others injured after a shooter opened fire in the food court of a Greenwood, Indiana, shopping mall Sunday evening, police say. Around 6:00 p.m. local time, multiple people called 911 to report an active shooter at the Greenwood Park Mall, Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison told reporters. During a media briefing Sunday, police said the shooter was armed with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition. The type was weapon was not described beyond being a long gun. “It appears that he had a rifle with several magazines of...

“This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases’” (Matthew 8:17). Even excluding the miraculous healings, Jesus’ ministry was unprecedented and amazing. “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks” (John 7:46). The man born blind, whom Jesus healed, told the Jewish leaders, “Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man [Christ] were not from God, He could do nothing” (John 9:32–33). When Jesus healed the paralytic, the onlookers “were awestruck,...

IPray For The Peace of JerusalemGenesis 43The Second Journey to Egypt 43 Now the famine was still severe in the land. 2 So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.” 3 But Judah said to him, “The man warned us solemnly, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’ 4 If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you. 5 But if you will not send him,...

A federal judge on Friday dismissed five former FBI officials -- including former director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe -- from a lawsuit that former President Donald Trump filed against them and other political opponents related to the Russia investigation. Judge Donald Middlebrooks granted the Justice Department's request to substitute itself as defendants for the former FBI officials, after finding that Trump's lawsuit covered actions that they took while acting within the scope of their government employment. This is a victory for the former FBI officials, who no longer have to battle Trump in the civil litigation, which...

Leftists claim it’s anti-LGBTQ+, a charge that is very funny once you stop to think about it. Next to American Thinker, the best site on the internet has got to be Libs of TikTok. Chaya Raichik, who created and curates it, brilliantly exposes the cultural extremes of the Democrat party, not by writing about those extremes, but by allowing leftists to state them in their own words. It’s largely through her efforts that Americans got a chance to see how teachers are working hard to sexualize America’s children—or in other words, to “groom” them. No wonder leftists are now cracking...

Dion Middleton, 45, was arrested and charged for the murder of Raymond Chaluisant, 18, after the teenager allegedly fired at him from a car on Thursday with an air rifle using Orbeez soft gel balls. It is the same type of weapon used in the viral 'Orbeez Challenge' videos, The New York Daily News reported, with the challenge depicting unsuspecting strangers being fired at by pranksters. Police said the shooting took place at around 1:35 a.m. on Thursday, near the intersection of the Cross Bronx Expressway and Morris Avenue Chaluisant died in a bloodbath after being shot while traveling in...

Intended as a hit piece, it reads like an important section of Trump’s 2024 campaign manifesto to his supporters. Just yesterday, Axios carried a piece provocatively entitled “A radical plan for Trump’s second term.” The following are key excerpts from the article: The heart of the plan is derived from an executive order known as “Schedule F,” developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election. (snip) Trump signed an executive order, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” in October 2020, which established a new employment...

After all the COVID horrors the government has put us through — and continues to — you'd think we'd at least get some form of apology for all the failures. The beauteous Ali McGraw, in the movie Love Story, tells us, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." As the latest variant of COVID-19 sweeps the land, that movie line is also the mantra of federal, state, and local health officials. They're doctors, some of them much like "Dr." Jill, and they love you, John Q. Citizen, so much that, even when they totally botch the U.S. response to...

The Defense Department is standing up a new organization to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena, particularly where it potentially affects military activities, the DOD announced July 20. The move was directed by Congress. The new organization is the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which replaces the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group. AARO will report to the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, Ronald S. Moultrie. The AARO itself will be under the direction of Sean M. Kirkpatrick, most recently chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s missile and space intelligence center. The organization is mandated by the National...

Senegalese Minister of Economy Amadou Hott has urged the global food industry not to boycott the trade of Russian and Ukrainian food products as the food crisis rages on in vulnerable countries. Hott said at the Group of 20 meeting of financial leaders in Bali last week that without immediate resolution, the crisis — which involves both a food shortage and high prices — would kill more people “than during Covid times.” The war has seen many countries such as the U.S. and those in the European Union sanction the use or trade of Russian goods. But while staples like...

An example from Mexican history demonstrates that concerned parents can overcome a Marxist school indoctrination program. Parents across America (and other Western nations) have become increasingly aware that our children from kindergarten through college are being led to believe they can be any gender they want in “modern” sex-ed classes that are designed to normalize ungodly sexual acts, intentionally destroy Biblical morality and discourage heterosexual two-parent families. The battle by parents in America to get public education back to basics is making some headway, but this past Wednesday, the school board in Hanover County, Virginia (just outside the state capitol)...

Edinburgh professor claims latest data confirms ‘causal relationship’, as he calls for the Scottish government to re-open public inquiry. Retired Edinburgh professor Richard Ennos says official data for 2021 and 2022 ‘provide very strong evidence for a causal relationship’ between the vaccinations and a huge number of excess deaths in the country, wrote Graham Crawford in an article published by Holding the Line. Professor Ennos has written to Siobhian Brown MSP, convener of the Scottish government’s covid-19 recovery committee, calling on her to re-open a public inquiry into the deaths which can only be partially explained by the virus. Earlier...

On Nicolle Wallace's show on Friday evening, MSNBC analyst Neil Katyal gave a prime example of a deplorable human trait—schadenfreude—as he gloated over the prospect of Steve Bannon serving jail time. Stopping short of the soap-in-the-shower scenario, former Obama appointee Katyal reveled: "So he’s looking at, possibly, as much as 24 months. He'll finally get the one thing Steve Bannon has always wanted: a captive audience. It just happens to be in jail."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

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Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is overseeing a relief effort for some 60,000 families in the state hit hardest by rising inflation with a one-time payment of $450 per child. “These letters are real,” DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, said in a tweet with a copy of the documents families will receive. Pushaw also pushed back against claims that these payments are hypocritical because of criticism by conservatives that Biden’s excessive federal spending is the cause for inflation.

As Moderna's profits soared during the Covid-19 pandemic, their executives and even their employees have been reaping the benefits in the form of pricey real estate close to the company's headquarters in the Boston-area. According to a new feature in the Wall Street Journal, one unnamed Moderna executive put in an offer to buy a unit on the 17th floor of the St. Regis building overlooking Boston's harbor for $4.9 million on the same day a Pfizer exec bought a condo in the same building on the 16th floor for $4.8 million. The sales director for the building, Cathy Angelini,...

Hours after he was convicted on a misdemeanor contempt of Congress charge, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon made an appearance on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to declare: 'If I go to jail, so be it.' During the interview on Friday night, Carlson asked the former Breitbart editor how he felt about the possibility that he might be going to prison. Bannon remained defiant, telling the host: 'If I go to jail, I go to jail. I will never back off a second like I spent eight years as a Naval officer. I've committed my life to this program to get this...

Former Vice President Mike Pence threw shade at Donald Trump by suggesting the GOP will lose if it continues to focus on the 2020 election as the two held dueling rallies in Arizona. Prior to his speech in Arizona, Pence issued what appeared to be a condemnation of Trump's fixation on the 2020 election, tweeting: 'Democrats would love nothing more than for Republicans to take our eye off the ball and focus on days gone by. 'If the Republican Party allows itself to become consumed by yesterday´s grievances, we will lose,' he added.