Free Republic

BALTIMORE, MD – Charm City is once again among America's "Rattiest Cities," according to a new report from pest control company Orkin, although it has shown progress in each of the past two years. Baltimore comes in at No. 9 on the company's 2018 rankings released Monday.This is the fourth year that Orkin has compiled the rankings, which are based on the number of rodent treatments the company performed from Sept. 15, 2017 to Sept. 15, 2018. It includes both residential and commercial treatments.Baltimore dropped one slot from last year, when it was ranked eighth; two years ago it was...

WORD FOR THE DAY(1/8/18)Ubiquitous : existing or being everywhere at the same time : constantly encountered : widespread • a ubiquitous fashion — ubiquitously adverb — ubiquitousness adjective First Known Use: 1772 Examples of ubiquitous in a Sentence 1. Hot dogs are the ideal road trip food—inexpensive, portable, ubiquitous. —Paul Lucas,  Saveur,  June/July 2008 2. Shawarma is the new street meat. Both a late night favourite and a quick lunch classic, the Middle Eastern dish is now ubiquitous on the streets of Toronto. —Chris Dart,  Torontoist,  8 Feb. 2007 3. In major league locker rooms, ice packs are ubiquitous...

Mao is back, not with a vengeance but in an uncanny and pervasive way. Try to knock Mao down here, and he pops up there. The symbolic game of Whack-a-Mao has been going on for some time; his portrait transformed into avant-garde art, his Little Red Book -- real and counterfeit -- unloaded on hordes of undiscriminating tourists. By and large, the Mao statues that were once so ubiquitous in Beijing are gone, but Mao never really went away. In fact, one can hardly make a purchase in China without seeing his dreamy visage, especially on the 100-yuan bill, the...