Sic Semper Tyrannis

Uncategorized 5 Minutes

Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and I found an article on the History.com website detailing some little-known facts about that horrible event.

Booth initially planned to kidnap Lincoln.

After meeting with Confederate spies in the summer of 1864, Booth spearheaded a plot to abduct Lincoln, bring him to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of rebel prisoners. On March 17, 1865, Booth and his fellow conspirators hid along a country road in Washington, D.C., intending to commandeer the presidential carriage that was scheduled to carry Lincoln to a matinee performance of a play at Campbell Hospital to benefit wounded soldiers. Lincoln, however, had a change of plans and never showed. Some of the co-conspirators abandoned the plot thereafter, and Booth soon had a change of plans as well. After the fall of Richmond and Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, he decided to kill, rather than kidnap, Lincoln with help from the remaining co-conspirators. 

Ulysses S. Grant was originally scheduled to be at Lincoln’s side.

Just days after accepting Lee’s surrender, the Union general accepted Lincoln’s invitation to attend “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865. The general’s wife, however, had recently been the victim of Mary Todd Lincoln’s acid tongue and wanted no part of a night on the town with the first lady. Grant backed out, citing the couple’s desire to travel to New Jersey to see their children. Lincoln had a surprisingly difficult time finding a replacement. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax and even son Robert Todd Lincoln turned down the tickets before Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris, and her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone, accepted.

Lincoln’s murder was part of a larger plot to decapitate the government.

Booth and his conspirators plotted to not only kill Lincoln, but Grant, Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Grant’s unexpected departure removed him as a target, and George Atzerodt lost his nerve and failed to follow through on his assignment to slay Johnson at his residence in the Kirkwood House hotel. At the same time Booth shot Lincoln, Lewis Powell stormed Seward’s house and repeatedly stabbed the cabinet member, who was bedridden after a near-fatal carriage accident. Seward somehow survived the savage attack.

The lives of the Lincolns’ guests at Ford’s Theatre ended in tragedy as well.

After shooting Lincoln, Booth slashed Rathbone’s left arm from his elbow to his shoulder. Rathbone recovered from the stab wounds but not from the trauma of that night. After marrying Harris—who also happened to be his stepsister—in 1867, he grew increasingly erratic and perhaps suffered from post-traumatic stress. Two days before Christmas in 1883, he fatally shot and stabbed his wife before stabbing himself repeatedly in a suicide attempt. Once again, however, he survived the knife wounds. Rathbone lived out the remaining three decades of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane. (The fourth member of the presidential box on the night of the assassination, Mary Todd Lincoln, was herself institutionalized in 1875.)

Lincoln’s death was not universally mourned in the North.

As Martha Hodes recounts in her book Mourning Lincoln, some Northerners who thought Lincoln too dictatorial and some Radical Republicans who thought him too lenient toward the Confederacy welcomed news of his assassination. After a meeting of Radical Republicans hours after the shooting, Indiana Congressman George Julian recorded in his diary that the “universal feeling among radical men here is that his death is a godsend.” Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler wrote to his wife that God had permitted Lincoln to live only “as long as he was useful and then substituted a better man (Johnson) to finish the work.”

Mary Todd Lincoln thought the vice president was involved in the conspiracy.

Hours before shooting Lincoln, Booth had mysteriously called on Johnson at the Kirkwood House and left a handwritten calling card that read: “Don’t wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.” The first lady, as she wrote to a friend, believed “that miserable inebriate Johnson had cognizance of my husband’s death. Why was that card of Booth’s found in his box? Some acquaintance certainly existed.” Atzerodt’s failure to attack the vice president was even seen by some as proof of Johnson’s complicity.

Lincoln and Booth had a previous encounter at Ford’s Theatre.

On November 9, 1863, the Lincolns watched a performance of “The Marble Heart” starring John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. Mary Clay, one of Lincoln’s guests, recounted after the assassination that “twice Booth in uttering disagreeable threats in the play came very near and put his finger close to Mr. Lincoln’s face.” After Booth gestured menacingly toward the president a third time, Clay said, “Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you.” The president replied, “Well, he does look pretty sharp at me, doesn’t he?”

Lincoln’s deathbed quickly became a tourist attraction.

In the hours after Lincoln died in the back bedroom of William Petersen’s boardinghouse across the street from Ford’s Theatre, souvenir hunters ransacked the property and snatched numerous relics of the martyred president. Deciding to cash in himself, Petersen began to charge admission to the hundreds of curiosity-seekers who came each day to see Lincoln’s bloody deathbed, which incredibly continued to be slept in by tenant William Clark each night. Petersen fell into financial difficulty in 1871 and died after being found on the lawn of the Smithsonian Institution following an opium overdose.

Robert Todd Lincoln was in close proximity to two other presidential assassinations.

Sixteen years after being bedside for his father’s death, Robert Todd Lincoln was serving as President James A. Garfield’s secretary of war when he witnessed Charles Guiteau fire two gunshots that mortally wounded the chief executive inside a Washington, D.C., train station. On September 6, 1901, Lincoln arrived in Buffalo to attend the Pan-American Expo at the invitation of William McKinley only to learn that the president had just been shot. Lincoln visited McKinley’s bedside several times before the president ultimately succumbed to his wounds.

Another deadly tragedy struck Ford’s Theatre during the funeral of Booth’s brother.

When John T. Ford attempted to reopen Ford’s Theater to performances on July 10, 1865, Stanton, who was “opposed to its ever being again used as a place of public amusement,” dispatched heavily armed soldiers to prevent the show from going on. The federal government eventually purchased Ford’s Theatre for $100,000, gutted the auditorium and converted the building into war department offices. On June 9, 1893, at the precise moment when funeral services for Edwin Booth began inside New York’s Church of the Transfiguration, three floors of Ford’s Theatre collapsed into the basement and killed 22 federal workers.

SOURCE: https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-lincoln-assassination

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179 thoughts on “Sic Semper Tyrannis”

  1. As an example of the overall genre of military industrial complex companies like Booz-Allen – there are TONS of these companies around the beltway and in DC and they ALL do this! This article is from 2021 – IDK what the final decision was.

    EXCERPT: “One Navy officer, identified with the alias Capt. John Jones, is a former program manager for readiness at the Navy. A second officer, alias Capt. Sam Smith, was the program manager for training and also for the Navy. (Side note: As a kid I was a big fan of the TV western Alias Smith & Jones, about two outlaws trying to go straight.) The Navy compiled monthly reports with information on labor rates, employees, and numbers of hours worked by name and position as part of the task order. As program managers, Smith and Jones had access to these reports.

    In May 2018, Booz Allen began preparing to pursue the task order through a recompete. That same month, Jones left the Navy and went to work part-time for Hepburn & Sons LLC as director of advisory services. Booz Allen signed a teaming agreement with Hepburn in June 2018. Jones immediately began meeting with Booz Allen officials, who would later prepare the company’s proposal. Jones shared several criticisms of Serco’s performance such as vacant positions, inconsistent delivery, and a claim that the company “doesn’t do cyber well,” according to the GAO report.

    Booz Allen also started teaming arrangement with CDI Government, where Smith was hired in July 2018 as operations center manager and capture manager. Smith provided information about manpower requirements at SEA 21 to Booz Allen. Smith and Jones eventually met to discuss staffing. Smith subsequently left CDI and went to work at Hepburn. The pair continued to work with Booz Allen and helped confirm key personnel for the proposal.

    Another area where Booz Allen received extra information was at a meeting with the contracting officer’s representative, who told them that Serco was going to exceed the ceiling of the current contract. The COR also told Booz Allen the next award would increase to $400 million and that a specific contract line item number would surge by 20 percent to $80 million. That meeting took place before the Navy issued a solicitation.
    —————-
    GAO’s decision against Booz Allen is consistent with other rulings. When a company hires “former government officials who have had recent access to competitively useful information, and uses those officials to assist in proposal preparation efforts, our Office will assume that the offeror benefited from the information,” GAO wrote. “Disqualification is appropriate based on the appearance of an unfair competitive advantage.”

    GAO went on to say that based on the record of the procurement, Booz Allen “obtained an unfair competitive advantage in preparing its successful proposal.” The watchdog agency recommends that Booz Allen be disqualified, but nothing more will happen until GAO rules on the reconsideration. A decision is due March 23.”

    https://washingtontechnology.com/opinion/2021/12/gao-navy-should-disqualify-booz-allen-400m-navy-win/360067/

    Liked by 1 person

      2. “Is Broccoli Man-Made? The short answer is yes, broccoli is man-made. Broccoli as we know it did not always exist as a plant but was created by humans through an extensive process.

        It is not known exactly how many years ago broccoli emerged, but it is believed that early varieties of this plant appeared more than 2000 years ago. It was initially grown in Italy and was shipped to America and England in the 1700s and then to the rest of the world.”

        https://backgarden.org/is-broccoli-man-made/

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Parler is gone
    entire article

    Alexandria, VA – April 14, 2023 – Starboard (Formerly, Olympic Media) announced today that it has concluded the acquisition of Parler, the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform.

    No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more. By refocusing on the cloud and IT infrastructure space George Farmer has done an exceptional job at successfully leading Parlement into a critically important industry where it has already begun to excel.

    Starboard is the perfect home for the Parler brand and its longtime loyal users. “Parler’s large user base and additional strategic assets represent an enormous opportunity for Starboard to continue to build aggressively in our media and publishing business. The team at Parler has built an exceptional audience and we look forward to integrating that audience across all of our existing platforms.” said Ryan Coyne, CEO of Starboard.

    While the Parler app as it is currently constituted will be pulled down from operation to undergo a strategic assessment, we at Starboard see tremendous opportunities across multiple sectors to continue to serve marginalized or even outright censored communities – even extending beyond domestic politics.

    Advancements in AI technology, along with the existing code base and other new features, provide an opportunity for Starboard to begin servicing unsupported online communities – building a home for them away from the ad-hoc regulatory hand of platforms that hate them.

    The terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed although Starboard expects the deal to be accretive by the end of Q2 2023.

    About Starboard: Founded in 2018 by Ryan Coyne, Starboard (Formerly, Olympic Media) is a digital media conglomerate that houses business lines focused on digital advertising, fundraising, publishing, and consumer brands. The publishing vertical has expanded aggressively with several recent acquisitions amounting to several-hundred million engaged content consumers annually. Starboard was named the 13th fastest growing company in the nation on the INC 5000, and the fastest growing in advertising / media in 2021. Starboard is based in Arlington, Virginia.

    https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/04/read-parler-is-no-more/

    Liked by 1 person

  7. o’leary wants to partner with a state to build an oil refinery in the US…he wants American energy independence

    FTA
    Kevin O’Leary thinks the U.S. isn’t going to ditch fossil fuels any time soon.

    “Unfortunately, no matter how much you think we’re getting off hydrocarbons, it’s not going to happen for 50 years,” the investor and star of the television show “Shark Tank” told Fox Business’s “The Big Money Show” on Tuesday, dismissing renewable energy options as “not going to work.”

    O’Leary also pledged to invest in a new oil refinery in the U.S., saying that he wanted to support the country’s energy independence. He suggested that he was looking for “a state that wants to work with me” to build the new facility, which he expected to cost $14 billion.

    The U.S. government is trying to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles through new subsidies passed through bills like the Inflation Reduction Act. Federal and state subsidies have encouraged some car manufacturers, like Toyota and Hyundai, to build new EV manufacturing plants in the U.S. And some states, like California, are also planning to ban sales of gas-powered cars in the coming decades.

    But O’Leary on Tuesday dismissed a complete rejection of hydrocarbons as impossible. “You’re not going to have a wind aircraft take you across the ocean,” he said.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shark-tank-kevin-o-leary-074210446.html

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Big Pharma’s Co-Pay Coupon Racket
    BY MARC ANG APRIL 10, 2023 POLICY, SOCIETY 4 MINUTE READ

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “New polling shows that over three-quarters of Americans are dissatisfied with the total cost of healthcare in the US. No one knows this more than the small business community I’m part of, and I lay a lot of the blame for our unmanageable healthcare costs at the feet of Big Pharma.

    Drugmakers rely on shady promotional gimmicks to keep the cost of brand-name medicine high, and you’ve seen them in action. In the many, many, many television commercials you’ve seen for various drugs—and Big Pharma is the second largest advertiser by industry—consider how many mention a coupon the manufacturer offers. In fact, the share of brand-name prescription drug spending that included a coupon rose from 26 percent in 2007 to 90 percent in 2017.

    Coupons are complicated and unnecessary since drug companies could easily lower health care costs for patients by reducing the prices they set for prescription drugs. Instead, Big Pharma offers co-pay coupons to steer patients toward their own, more expensive brands and away from cheaper options. Later, they stop honoring the coupons, leaving the patient with significant out-of-pocket costs. Once their deductible is met, the employer or health plan has to cough up the rest of the price of the expensive drug, which ultimately leads to higher insurance costs for everyone.

    In order to keep prices down for payers like employers and unions, prescription plans, called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), have devised a way to make the most of these co-pay coupons. Through cost relief programs called “co-pay accumulators and co-pay maximizers,” they apply the value of the coupons over the full calendar year and subsidize the rest of the cost. In other words, they let patients have their cake and eat it too—letting them choose a name brand drug and at the same time escape Big Pharma’s big gimmick.

    Frustrated, the drug industry is trying to get legislators across the country to prohibit these cost relief programs. Last year, Big Pharma spent more than any other industry on lobbying. In fact, they spent about as much as the second- and third-highest spenders combined. Now, they have activated their army of lobbyists to push through measures that would prohibit the critical cost relief programs used by PBMs to combat Big Pharma’s sneaky pricing practices.

    Recently, Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), joined by other colleagues, introduced a measure in Congress to ban the use of the cost-saving co-pay accumulators. In typical DC speak, they’re calling it the Help Ensure Lower Patient (HELP) Copays Act but the ones being helped are Big Pharma, not the patients.

    Researchers from Harvard and Princeton universities studied how drug co-pay coupons distort the pharmaceutical market to increase prices. They used eight years of claims data from the independent nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute, which provides data to health care researchers, to analyze medications that treat multiple sclerosis (MS). They estimated that banning co-pay coupons would lower MS drug prices by 8 percent, which would reduce spending in the US by approximately $1 billion—on MS prescriptions alone. If coupons were banned for all brand-name medications, the savings would be astronomical.

    Study co-author Leemore Dafny, an economist and Harvard professor who has studied healthcare costs for over a decade, is calling for expanded co-pay coupon bans, saying, “We need to do much more to reduce out-of-pocket drug costs for patients requiring medications, but relying on pharmaceutical companies to decide which drugs are subsidized is not the way to do that.” She continues, “I’m just saying that co-pay coupons are contributing to higher drug prices, and that’s not helpful in light of our steep health care spending right now.”

    As I stated already, drug manufacturers don’t have to offer coupons; they could simply lower their prices. But they don’t want to. They want to pad their profits. And while drug makers add millions of dollars to their already packed coffers, Americans face higher medical costs at a time when financial security is a top concern.

    If legislators want to lower costs for patients—and they should—it’s not that complicated. The use of co-pay coupons is already banned in Medicare and Medicaid. Lawmakers could take the next step and ban them in the commercial health insurance market as well.

    If they’re not going to do that, the least they can do is continue to allow PBMs to protect patients from the Big Pharma’s pricey gimmicks. Americans already spend more per capita on prescription medicine than residents of every other developed country. If legislators want to change that, they should push back on the shady tactics of Big Pharma, not the measures that businesses and insurers use to fight them. That would only hand yet another victory to an industry that has proven time-and-again to be the one major roadblock to lower health care costs.”

    Liked by 1 person

  11. EXCERPT @ DailyMail: “President Joe Biden received a warm welcome from Irish President Michael Higgins on Thursday. Less so from his dog. As the two leaders made their way into the grounds of the Irish president’s residence for a tree planting ceremony, Higgins tried to introduce his American counterpart to Misneach, one of his enormous Bernese Mountain dog.

    But Misneach — named for the Irish word for ‘courage — was having none of it. As Biden moved in to show it some love, the two-year-old did its best to upset U.S.-Irish relations by barking at the president and backing away. Social media users were quick to seize on the moment, claiming Misneach only responded to commands in Irish.

    Or maybe it just knew the president’s history of inappropriate kissing and fondling of anyone he meets. It is not the first time Misneach has stolen the show. Two years ago, the then puppy nibbled away at Higgins’s hand to get attention when the Irish president was delivering a somber message to mark the death of actor Tom Hickey.”

    Liked by 1 person

  14. WeThePeople2016
    April 14, 2023 12:51 pm

    America First Legal

    @America1stLegal
    “Equity” is racism. It is left-wing bigotry and we are fighting everyday to stop it.
    @StephenM

    We’re filing civil rights complaints with the EEOC against companies that engage in discriminatory hiring practices.

    Help us defeat the “equity” agenda: http://aflegal.org

    “Equity” is racism. It is left-wing bigotry and we are fighting everyday to stop it. @StephenM

    We’re filing civil rights complaints with the EEOC against companies that engage in discriminatory hiring practices.

    Help us defeat the “equity” agenda: https://t.co/4k9jMBh50f pic.twitter.com/920KkB4BhI

    — America First Legal (@America1stLegal) April 14, 2023

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Blackmail, pure and simple!!!

    “Hungary exits bank hit by US sanctions. The move was reported by the Világgazdaság newspaper and later confirmed by Hungary’s Ministry of Economic Development”
    April 14, 2023
    editor: REMIX NEWS author: VILÁGGAZDASÁG

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “”Shortly after the sanctions announced by the United States in Budapest against the Russian-led International Investment Bank (IIB), the Hungarian government decided at an emergency meeting to quit the bank, business daily Világgazdaság reports.

    U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, announced the sanctions on Wednesday against Hungary at the same time that he detailed a range of new sanctions against more than 50 institutions and individuals, with the majority of the sanctions focused on Russia. The U.S. diplomat argued the bank is controlled by Russian interests.

    Pressman announced the United States had imposed sanctions because the institutions and individuals involved were believed to be “taking Russia’s side.” The sanctions are intended to reduce Russia’s access to the international financial system. He said that the U.S. does not agree that “Hungary should host” the financial institution, whose senior officials have diplomatic privileges. He also added that the U.S. considers Hungary an important ally and wishes to maintain a constructive relationship with it.

    The IIB, founded in 1970, was originally a bank for the Comecon nations, lending to companies in the member countries. Its current core activities are to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the bank’s member countries and to finance socially significant infrastructure projects. The IIB has been based in Budapest since 2019. This follows unanimous support for the move by member states at a meeting of the board of governors at the end of 2018. Hungary signed a memorandum of understanding on the planned renewal of its IIB membership back in October 2014 after the bank’s activities had been radically transformed in the early 2010s to meet modern international standards.

    Russia is currently the largest owner of IIB with 45.44 percent, followed by Hungary with 25.27 percent. Cuba holds 2.83 percent, Mongolia 1.8 percent, and Vietnam 1.26 percent. Until recently, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were also members of the international financial institution, while Bulgaria and Romania are currently members, although according to reports, the Romanians will cease to be shareholders from June and Bulgaria will leave the bank by Aug. 15.

    The Ministry of Economic Development later confirmed the information about the Hungarian withdrawal in a statement.”

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Poland = bought and paid for!!! For shame!

    “Poland will back proposal to withdraw from the NATO-Russia Founding Act — Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau has said that Poland will support withdrawing from the NATO-Russia declaration of 1997 because of the conflict in Ukraine”
    April 14, 2023
    editor: REMIX NEWS author: INTERIA.PL via: PAP

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Zbigniew Rau has revealed his government would support withdrawal from the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act because NATO should no longer be limited in terms of its troop deployment on its eastern flank following Russia’s actions in Ukraine. During his annual foreign policy address to the Polish parliament, Rau claimed Russia has already broken the most fundamental principles of the agreement.

    He confirmed that NATO is now central to Polish foreign policy and that, as a result of Poland’s location on the eastern flank of the alliance, its government now has additional responsibilities with regard to ensuring it is adequately armed. The minister signaled that at July’s Vilnius summit, the alliance would make the necessary commitments to ensure it is capable of defending NATO territory against any aggression. This would reduce the risk of further aggression after the conflict in Ukraine, argued Rau.

    “NATO and its member states cannot feel constrained in terms of decisions on the location of their troops by the NATO-Russia declaration because it is Russia that has broken the commitments it made in that declaration,” Rau said, adding that “any unilateral constraints on the part of NATO in terms of troop allocations on its eastern flank would be perceived as weakness and serve as encouragement for further aggression”.

    Poland’s top diplomat assessed that NATO had been “unwise” to give Russia the right to make demands for the limitation of NATO forces on the territories of NATO’s new member states. He continued to say that NATO’s decision to unilaterally maintain that position, even after the annexation of Crimea, has sent Moscow a message that NATO will accept Russian demands for each side to have spheres of influence. It is this that led Russia in 2021 to threaten Ukraine and demand that NATO should withdraw its troops from its eastern flank.

    Rau believes that the NATO-Russia Founding Act in its present form is defunct, and warned that even if Russia begins to respect international law once again, a new agreement between the country and NATO will be required.”

    Liked by 1 person

  26. 04/14/23 • COVID › NEWS

    “45 Times as Many Deaths After COVID Shots in Just 2 Years Compared With All Flu Vaccine-Related Deaths Since 1990, Data Show: The authors of a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of national and international COVID-19 vaccine adverse events during the first two years of the rollout said their findings highlight the importance of reevaluating public health policies that promote universal mass injection and multiple boosters for all demographic groups.”
    By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

    EXCERPT: “The cost of injecting healthy people, “especially children,” with a Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine “outweighs any claimed though unvalidated benefits,” according to researchers who analyzed adverse events data from more than 10 regulatory surveillance and self-reporting systems during the first two years of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

    “Our meta-analysis of both national and international vaccine adverse events emphasizes the importance of re-evaluating public health policies that promote universal mass injection and multiple boosters for all demographic groups,” said the authors of a peer-reviewed study published this month in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research.

    Eliana Romero, Ph.D., director of clinical research at the Neurodiversity Foundation, Shawn Fry, founder and chief science officer of the Neurodiversity Foundation and Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense and associate professor of biology at Simpson University in Redding, California, authored the paper.

    The researchers looked at adverse events specifically related to cardiovascular and fertility health — such as myocarditis and menstrual abnormalities — that went overlooked during the “expedited safety analyses” that took place in the “accelerated approval process that allowed the manufacturers to fast-track their products,” they said.”

    https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/deaths-covid-shots-versus-flu-vaccines-vaers-dmed/

    Liked by 1 person

  28. “A Church in Washington state put up a billboard…”

    “Black Sapphire grapes…”

    (Black sapphire grapes are black seedless grapes with one unusual characteristic: they are elongated.. They actually look more like a log in shape than a grape. These types of grapes have been grown in the Middle East. This picture is from Syria.)
    “Bullet resistant tiddies. I did not see that coming… In 2018, silicone breast implants saved a woman from a close-range gunshot in Canada. Doctors noted that the implant deflected the bullet’s trajectory, thereby saving the woman’s life. Her only injuries were a fractured rib. There was no harm to her vital organs…”

    “Solar halo at Chichen Itza, Mexico”

    “One-year-old Australian shepherd Nanuq, in the middle with Brooklyn Faith, was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6 after he disappeared for a month and walked on the Bering Sea ice 150 miles to Wales, Alaska. On the left are Brooklyn Faith’s sister Zoey with Starlight and on the right is brother Ty with Kujo.Mandy Iworrigan via AP”

    Liked by 1 person

          1. “Sweet Sapphire grapes are an impressive dark grape variety with a signature tubular shape. However, this is far from its only unique attribute. Below, we’ll take a closer look at this exciting grape exploring its features and how they taste. Plus, we’ll share their health benefits and where you can buy or how you can grow your own Sapphire grapes right at home.

            History of the Sapphire Grape

            Sapphire grapes are the product of International Fruit Genetics (IFG). This company is responsible for creating many of the newer varieties of grapes you see in your local grocery store.

            One concern people have is that they believe grapes like Sapphires are GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms. However, IFG explains their breeding methods stating they are not involved in genetic engineering. Instead, the company takes traditional breeding practices such as cross-pollination and uses sophisticated technology to reach new levels of success.

            They also perform embryo rescue in their laboratories, and they have over 80 acres of vineyards and test fields where they practice traditional breeding of stone fruits and seeded grapes. Every year, they hand emasculate over a million blossoms and pollinate them with valuable genetic traits.

            Of course, they are involved in lab work, but they are not manipulating RNA or DNA. The IFG uses fashioned techniques such as plant breeding while infusing them with cutting-edge technologies.”

            https://minnetonkaorchards.com/sapphire-grapes/

            Liked by 1 person

  30. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

    1. we have opossums here…hubby thinks they’re ugly. I don’t. and they never stray close to the deck…I usually see them in early early morning

      Liked by 1 person

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