Free Republic

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...

The province of Alberta, Canada, home to more than four million people, is under a state of emergency, as nearly 100 wildfires burn, dozens of them out of control. Since the first local state of emergency was declared on 4 May, over 782,000 hectares of land - 1.9 million American football fields or more than 3,000 square miles - have burned, local officials said. -excerpt- Still, there are 93 active wildfires in Alberta as of 12:00 EST (17:00 BST) on Friday, and experts say the end is nowhere in sight

WASHINGTON, Tuesday, May 19. Gen. GRANT, under date of May 11, telegraphed to Gen. HALLECK as follows: "My force will be this evening as far advanced along Fourteen-mile Creek, the left near Black River, and extending in a line nearly east and west, as they can get without bringing on a general engagement. I shall communicate with Grand Gulf no more, except it become necessary to send a train with a heavy escort. You may not hear from me again for several days." Gen. GRANT also telegraphed Gen. HALLECK from Raymond, Miss., 14th, as follows: "MCPHERSON took this place on...

The twelve apostles included "Thomas" (Matt. 10:3). The follower of Christ will have an intense desire to be in Christ’s presence. When you think of Thomas, you probably think of a doubter. But if you look beyond his doubt, you'll see he was characterized by something that should mark every true believer: an intense desire to be with Christ. John 10:39-40 tells us Jesus and His disciples left Jerusalem because of threats on Jesus' life. While they were staying near the Jordan River, Jesus received word that His dear friend Lazarus was sick. He delayed going to Lazarus because He...

VIDEO"Liberalism is a mental disorder." And if you doubt those words, then take a look at Nebraska DEMOCRAT state senator Machaela Cavanaugh in action. Just when you think she can't get any nuttier, she gets even nuttier. The most astounding thing about this video is the sad realization that people in Nebraska, of all places, actually voted for this very very disturbed person.

(Daily readings from the USCCB)“I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father.” John 16:25When is it that Jesus will speak clearly about the Father? When is that “hour” of which He speaks? First, this “hour” can be understood to be the time after His death, Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven. It is then when the Holy Spirit will come upon them at Pentecost to open their minds to understand all that He has taught with much...

There is a war on food. As an absolute necessity of life, this seems like a ridiculously counterintuitive thing to do, but there you go.Why is food suddenly a bad thing? Easy peasy: Farming uses nitrogen, and nitrogen is being blamed for global warming, so of course it must be eliminated. In the name of saving the planet, huge swaths of global food production are being targeted."Rice is to blame for around 10% of global emissions of methane, a gas that over two decades, traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide," intones the AP. "Scientists say that...

If we don’t fix this, will the retail industry be able to survive? There has always been shoplifting, but in the old days it was at a level that made it only a minor nuisance to the big box retailers. Unfortunately, now everything has changed. Highly organized gangs have developed extremely sophisticated plans for how to rapidly loot our major retailers, and the best ones can be in and out in just minutes. Those goods are then resold online or in the streets, and the amounts that we are talking about are absolutely staggering. In fact, as you will see...

Former President Donald Trump launched a hail of attacks directed at Gov. Ron DeSantis Friday morning as rumors continue to swirl regarding an impending DeSantis presidential run. Trump criticized the Florida governor over his state’s “very average” handling of the coronavirus pandemic and pointed to former Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the situation. “How about the fact that he had the third most deaths of any State, as Governor, on the China Virus. Even Cuomo did better,” Trump said on TRUTH Social. Cuomo reportedly oversaw his state’s health agency “misle[a]d the public” on nursing home deaths.

The fascist far left have always had to lie to survive. They've always been on the wrong side of history, and the only way they can remain viable is by gaslighting people on a full-time basis. For decades, their biggest lie has been that the supposedly pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, imbued in the precepts of individual liberty and limited government, is somehow connected to totalitarian collectivist regimes that displayed the exact opposite of those values. Anyone who has debated leftists for the past few decades has been subjected to the same bluff abuse in their trying to maintain...

ATLANTA — Brian Kemp, the 59-year-old son of an Athens farmer who was once trampled by a 750-pound bovine in a cattle chute, has developed a way of casting calm in the fiercest of storms.Six months after soundly defeating Democrat Stacey Abrams in their second matchup in four years, he remains undaunted by everything that has happened to him in the past few years, from Abrams refusing to admit she lost that race four years ago to the strident national media criticisms of how he handled COVID-19, MLB's meltdown over his state’s new voting laws, the money spent to undo...

The State Department is steering over $37,000 to a Bolivian nonprofit group to launch a "campaign against disinformation" training program for journalists in the South American country, funding documents show. Thwarting alleged "disinformation" has remained a top priority of the Biden administration, which has come under fire from Republicans for bankrolling left-leaning entities taking aim at conservative websites over their advertising revenue. President Joe Biden's State Department is now in the process of granting taxpayer dollars until April 2024 to Fundacion para el Periodismo, which translates to Foundation for Journalism, so the Bolivian entity can create a "network of 150...

'I deeply regret the confusion and distress this mistake caused our workforce'The State Department will offer counseling to any employee "who feels hurt or upset" by a system-wide email glitch that temporarily assigned random and often incorrect gender pronouns to staff.The State Department is offering free therapy to "any employee who feels hurt or upset as a result of this unfortunate mistake," according to an internal email that went out to employees on Friday. Many State Department employees were "triggered" on Thursday, when emails from colleagues suddenly began to include random pronouns, like, "She/her/hers" and "He/Him/His" in the "from" line....

Summary of WHO 2022 Financial Details The World Health Organization has net assets of $5.02 billion. In 2022k, the World Health Organization had revenue of $4.354 billion, and expenses of $3.848 billion, with a net surplus of $506 million. Voluntary contributions ($3.656 billion) made up 84% of the revenue received by the World Health Organization in 2022. These contributions often come with “strings” attached by the donors. The 194 member nations contributed a total of $496 million in assessed conributions. Please note that the assessed payments made by the member nations were less than the net surplus! The United States...

To borrow a phrase from The 5th Dimension’s hit Aquarius, when you “let the sun shine in,” sometimes it warms the cat on the windowsill, charges the solar panels on the roof, and helps the potted palms grow. Other times, its illumination of things you’d rather keep tucked away turns inconvenient, and it winds up scorching all your big plans. That looks like what’s happening in Europe right now, almost across the board. The frenzied, climate hysteria engendered, end-of-days rush to save the earth from ourselves is finding its movement crashing under the weight of its own failures – both...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemLuke 8 Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman 40 Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 41 Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 42 because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[c] but no one could heal her. 44...

The United Kingdom has been rocked by a cluster of deadly cases of myocarditis in babies. The World Health Organization issued an alert Wednesday, indicating that there was an "increase in severe myocarditis in neonates associated with enterovirus infection in Wales" between June 2022 and March 2023. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed the report, noting that a "higher than average number of cases" of enterovirus had been seen in "very young babies" in the fall and winter months, reported the Telegraph. The biggest spike in myocarditis cases occurred in November. The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses noted...

Despite assurances from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that the military isn't supporting drag shows on military bases, it appears that there's at least one show that has slipped through the cracks.

Do you remember the homosexual? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? He was, for a period, a key figure in the conversation about gay rights. He was Will in “Will And Grace,” or Keith in “Six Feet Under,” or Cam in “Modern Family” — a normie-enough dude randomly distributed across the human population and country. Once invisible and closeted, the AIDS epidemic exposed him without mercy in every state in the country. With this unexpected visibility, and in the wake of hundreds of thousands of young corpses, the survivors built a movement that won every gay and lesbian the right...