Sunday, February 28, 2010

Wild Peppers in Texas - Chile Pequin

Chile Pequin

There are several native edible plants that grow wild in central Texas. Texas is home to and part of the natural range of a wild chile pepper, Chile Pequín (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum) is a small and very hot pepper that is the mother of the majority of our cultivated varieties and bears fruit almost all year long when winter temperatures are moderate. It is quite tasty and easy to find. Known affectionately as “bird peppers”, they come up most anywhere birds have deposited the seeds, especially mockingbirds. You can also find dried ones for sale in many ethnic Latin American grocery stores and markets.

The most common uses are in salsa, soups, vinegars, beans, and pickled. They are used mainly for a liquid hot pepper. The green peppers are usually pickled in vinegar and the red ones are usually dried and crumbled for use as a seasoning.

The Pequín is the smallest of all chilies and is only about a third of an inch long and wide. Do not let its small size mislead you. They are extremely hot and have a Scoville Heat Unit rating of anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 heat units. They also have a very complex and nutty flavor which may account for their popularity with birds. Just two of these small peppers smashed in a bowl of beans will get the party started!

There was a time when every South Texan had a bottle of chile pequins in vinegar sitting on the dinner table. The usual custom was to add vinegar as you used the pepper sauce. Later, when a new crop of chile pequins were available, you got rid of the old chiles and made a fresh batch.

Chile Pequin Liquid Sauce

Ingredients: (depending upon the size of your sauce bottle)

1/2 cup chile pequins

1/2 cup white vinegar

Directions:

Clean a previously used pepper sauce bottle with boiling water. Pack the chilies tightly in the bottle. Make sure they have been thoroughly rinsed and cleaned.

The next step is to heat some vinegar in a small pan over low heat until it just begins to steam. Pour your hot vinegar over the chiles to the top of the jar.

Allow the mixture to sit until cooled and wait for at least a day before using your sauce. The bottle can be refilled with vinegar several times.

You can get additional information here:

http://www.pequin.us/


Be aware. Be informed. Be prepared.

Riverwalker

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Day the Dollar Died - new installments

http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/02/20/chapter-xxi-burning-fields-of-cotton-the-day-the-dollar-died-series/

http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/02/20/chapter-xxii-your-application-needs-revision-the-day-the-dollar-died-series/

http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/02/21/chapter-xxiii-birdsong-the-day-the-dollar-died-series/

Monday, February 15, 2010

Chapter XIX: No Sharing Allowed (The Day The Dollar Died Series)

15

02/10
Chapter XIX: No Sharing Allowed (The Day The Dollar Died Series)
22:38 by Administrator. Filed under: The Day The Dollar Died Series
by John Galt

February 15, 2010

February 26, 2010 4:54 P.M. Mountain Time

Wendy was exasperated. After six hours of being put on hold on the telephone, when it worked, and yelling at clerks like herself at various levels of the bureaucratic tree, she thinks that all of the proper approvals have finally been received and was going to try to get some peace so she could sleep well tonight. She pressed the number on her phones and as soon as the ever friendly voice spoke on the other end of the phone Wendy piped up, “Ms. Steinburg, can I see you before I go? I have an update from the meeting we had this morning.” Candy sounded pleased on the phone and in her ever cheerful voice replied, “Of course Wendy, but let’s make it quick. I have a one hour drive and curfew time is approaching!” Wendy grabbed the file, all of her notes and swallowed the last of her warm Diet Pepsi and ran down the hallway, pausing for no chit-chat and knowing her mission was to clean her record up so she could go shopping without being harassed ever again. She knocked on the door and was pleased to see Candy open it for her saying, “Please Wendy, sit down and calm down. I know you’ve had a full day,” and with that she shut the door and locked it.


http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/02/15/chapter-xix-no-sharing-allowed-the-day-the-dollar-died-series/

Saturday, February 13, 2010

“Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Prepper, Too?”

Feb 11th, 2010

| By Linda Brady Traynham | Category: Featured, Morning Whiskey

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/wouldnt-you-like-to-be-a-prepper-too/

An old prune-juice-based soft drink commercial began running through my head as soon as I fired up my laptop today. With attribution, “I’m a Prepper, he’s a Prepper, she’s a Prepper…wouldn’t you like to be a Prepper too?”

While I was catching up on political news an article by Mona Charen on TownHall put the matter beautifully. The power went out, the wood pile is low and buried in snow, her family is making coffee clumsily in the fireplace, last night they burned an old table, and the kitchen chairs are the backup line of defense. And this is in modern day America in what is clearly an “upscale” neighborhood.

The Editor of Taipan Daily is apologizing because travel conditions prevent most of the employees from making it into work…and the firewalls on their computer system prevent work from being done at home. Protection can be as expensive in unexpected situations as it is to prevent the possible which we hope unlikely, no?

Round Three of the Great Snow Storm of 2010 is headed towards the political and financial bases of our country, and in some areas workers had just barely gotten down to street level before the second onslaught of white stuff. By this time budgets and crews are strained…and it just may be there is a limit to how much sand and salt was stored. That’s the problem: most prepare, at best, for average conditions, and are faced with the storm of the century eventually.

Whiskey & Gunpowder is a respectable financial publication, not a survival blog, so I cringe over how frequently the most useful thing upon which to comment is the necessity to be prepared. Still…why do we fuss with researching stocks, trends, P/E, social conditions, foreign affairs, and political threats to our economic well-being? It would be so easy to buy government savings bonds and sit back and watch the pennies mount up while rewriting old songs. “Green shoots are my heart’s delight…”

The answers are obvious: because we can’t trust anyone else to look after our best interests. Because what is occurring in Greece, Spain, and China has bearing on our financial health. Because at any given time there are winners and losers and he who sits and does nothing has a better chance of being on the bottom of the pile. Our physical well-being is at least as important as the status of our portfolios, collections, and bank balances.

It shocks us, in our post-modern world, to be at the mercy of the elements. Live with it, as humanity has done since the days of the Neanderthal. Snow storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes, droughts, and tsunamis are beyond our control.

Some have faith in government and will demand to know why the ten dollar taxi ride to the airport costs a hundred bucks during a vicious snow storm the city is battling futilely: because the drivers willing to face the conditions can charge that. Prospective passengers have a choice: pay up or stay where they are. It is their decision whether to go back to their expensive hotels and costly restaurant meals or chalk it up as a cost of doing business and get out of that Nordic vision of hell. There is no contest in my mind whether to pony up without a blink or risk getting caught in a hotel which may have a generator and sufficient fuel and wonder if the “just in time” inventory will make it to room service. I have been in Rome when the hotel workers and others were on strike and there was no elevator/room service or even hot water. Horrors, there wasn’t even valet parking. Chortle…John and I were camping that week because we had a pair of Old English Sheepdogs with us, at 3% of hotel cost, and all we suffered was cold water.

All of our lives being without the necessities of life has been something that happens in third world countries or temporarily to strangers in New Orleans. A trite but true observation is, “That was then, this is now.” One of the things that “fell through the cracks” of the infamous “social safety net” and absurd regulations to make dirt clean enough to eat (something only Haitians do) is the ability to keep city streets clear and power on when Global Warming dumps five or so feet of white stuff on power lines and closes roads. I haven’t taken time to find out the conjectured reasons a power plant under construction blew up recently, but while that may not be attributable to snow eventually something will give way from the accumulation of weight. Snow is a lot heavier than it looks when falling to the ground so prettily. You will be horrified by how quickly your cozy seventy degree house can fall into the forties.

Some of us only need to be caught once in a situation–however unlikely–to take precautions ever after. It has been sixty years since we had the ice storm of the last century in Brazos County and were confined to the ranch for over a week. All roads to town were closed, power lines were down, Daddy hauled water from our artesian well daily using the tractor, and Mother cooked some pretty good meals in the fireplace. What really saved us was having two big diesel floor furnaces. When we moved to Kansas I already knew the drill: keep the larder and wood pile stacked high and don’t go outside until that stuff melts.

Signature chuckle…now that I count, four times in my life–five, if you count the tornado in Wichita in summer–I have been in situations where only the caution I had learned when I was ten kept my family safe and comfortable for the week it took to get the ravages of nature under reasonable control–and now we’re facing “man-made disasters,” too. On an average every twelve to fifteen years something has threatened to disturb the tenor of my life, and in every situation prior planning has prevented very unpleasant possibilities. In all of them other people died.

I’m kicking myself now because our “new” gas stove (1938 Wedgewood in mint condition!) has not been installed yet because the new kitchen hasn’t gotten that far. Our safety backup to central H/A at present is one big gas wall furnace for the bedroom wing and one fireplace…so it behooves me to go to town today and buy some stovepipe so that the two small wood-burning heaters can be put into service quickly if we lose power. ARE you aware that even your gas appliances may not work if they have electronic ignition? A sensible precaution for those of you in the snow zone, particularly, would be to go turn on one stove burner now and turn it down to simmer…although there was that time in Ft. Sill when the heads of the gas wells froze…The simple and very inexpensive act of being certain you can have gas heat at least in the kitchen may save your lives and will at the very least provide a lot of comfort if you all end up on sleeping bags and comforters scattered in front of the dishwasher, refrigerator, and sink. If you have gas logs light ‘em up now, cowboys. They’ll add quite a bit of cheer. At the very least go pull all the circuit breakers and find out which gas appliances work when there is no power. My darling Charles adds that many such things have a thermocouple which must be heated and to pick up one of the long gas “matches” used with fireplaces and grills.

When the chips and the power grid are down you, your mind, and the precautions you have taken are all that stand between you and at least misery–and quite possibly death. Half the year disasters lead to rigor mortis from extreme heat or cold. Your all-electric MacMansion isn’t the refuge you probably thought it was.

Take advantage of your snow days to improve your chances of survival even in the “best” of times. Right now sustainable heat and supplies of food are most urgent, but I wouldn’t take water for granted, either. Go fill the bathtub in the third bathroom and all of the empty milk jugs (SURELY you save those for times of need?) and big pots you have. You can always use the water later for something else–and no, you cannot melt snow efficiently. Mountain climbers and Artic explorers learned long ago that the heat necessary to produce much water is inordinate.

Use this break in your work routine to inventory what you have and monitor consumption. How are you fixed for candles, fire logs, a Coleman lantern and stove (and fuel), matches, and even hot cocoa mix and marshmallows? Have you put off refilling the prescriptions that are low? Whatever your idea of the indispensible is, other than the ability to keep yourself and the hound puppies fed, warm, and watered, do you have it?

I hate to be dreary, far less a bore, but in time the snow will melt and the death toll will be tabulated. Going on past experience, a lot of people will die in the next few days because they went their happy grasshopper ways. Don’t let it happen to any of you, please. If the only way to get to the nearest grocery store is put on your pony skin boots with the Ho Chi Minh treads and pull your child’s sled, please go now. Don’t count yourselves “safe” unless you know that you can survive at least five days without electricity or resupply of anything including reading material. You Shooters are too dear to me not to nag you to do what is sensible even if it isn’t convenient.

Please?

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

February 11, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

A Must Read - Failure to Follow the 4 Rules

From Carteach0:

What follows are the words of Glen Rhodes. He tells of his experience... and it's a story that every shooter should listen to.

Glen and I have traded a few E-mails, and he was kind enough to tell me his story. I suggested it's something more people should hear about, and offered 'Carteach0' as an outlet. Glen acquiesced and granted permission to share his words. I have not changed what he wrote, more than formatting it to suit the blog.

Glen's story...........


I was shot point blank in the chest Friday the 13th of July 2007, the bullet entered near the front edge of my left armpit about 4 in. to the left of my left nipple and about 2 in above it. The bullet traveled through my left lung destroying about 30% of it then the bullet nicked my aorta and heart sack it then ricocheted of of the inside front of my ribcage. It then tore through my diaphragm leaving a 3 in by 2 in hole in my diaphragm. From there it tore through my stomach destroying 3 acid ducts and causing me to lose about 20% of my stomach. From there the bullet nicked my liver and spleen then it traveled through the back third of my spinal cord canal from about the middle of T11 on my left side to about the middle of T12 where it exited my spinal canal and traveled about another inch to my right parallel with the skin of my back and came to rest. The bullet was a Speer Gold dot 9mm that was fired from a Glock model 17.


Thank God Glen survived.

the rest is here:

http://carteach0.blogspot.com/2010/02/glens-story-cautionary-tale-for.html

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

NEW PATRIOTISM: RESTORING OUR REAL FREEDOMS

NEW PATRIOTISM: RESTORING OUR REAL FREEDOMS
February 4, 2010 by Gordon Duff · 71 Comments

NO MORE CORPORATE RUN “MILITIA” GROUPS

NO MORE CONTROLLED PRESS AND “POLITICS AS USUAL”




By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

I am sick and tired of what I see around me, like most Americans. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives and we have more enemies, with better weapons every day. Every time I listen to the news or pick up a paper, what I am told is either less than half truth or entirely a lie. Every time I open an email or hear from an American swearing an oath to stop seeing our country stolen from us, I find they are getting paid off by the same people who pay off the reporters, the politicians and, I am beginning to suspect, pay the people who dress up and play “terrorist” to keep the whole lie going.

It’s all a lie, all of it. Everything that is on TV, everything said by a “group” with fancy email and lots of expensive, well paid “fatass” writers, everything we hear from a “pundit” or TV talking fool is all paid for. We aren’t paid. If we still have food, money for a dentist or to keep tires on a car, we are doing better than average. Why then are millionaires telling us how bad things are? It’s simple. Lying to Americans is a growth industry. Paying the liars is a group that would see this country burned to the ground if the money was good enough. Who are we talking about? We are talking the bankers, the Wall Street scammers, AIPAC, the “televangelists,” our defense industry, every lobbyist in Washington and the two crooked political parties that have turned Washington DC into a “disneyland” for thieves.

THE PEOPLE “IN BETWEEN”…THOSE WHO TELL US HOW TO THINK

All of these clowns have one purpose in life. They steal enough money to buy a huge house, join a fancy country club, fly around on private jets, send their kids to fancy private schools and hide enough money to make sure their families never have to do any real work for generations. When that is done, then, and only then, will they work to do something for America. Funny thing, that “time to do something for America” never comes, never has, never will.

These are our generals, our Senators, our “regulators,” those meant to protect and manage, and paid, very well paid to do it. They don’t work for America. They work for “their” peers, the people who take our tax money and pay themselves hundreds of millions in bonuses, rewards for losing money, rewards for stealing and getting away with it, rewards for using the press, the political parties, and the phony “activists” led by well paid thieves that get Americans blaming each other instead of going after those responsible.

Study the “revolving door” in and out of government. Today you work inside government helping the rich steal from the poor. Tomorrow you are the rich. Where does the money come from? Guess.

FOXES IN THE HEN HOUSE, HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Who leases buses and sends “tax protesters” around the country? Big bankers pay the bills, them and insurance companies, crooked banks and defense contractors, paid through their lawyers who pay lobbyists who put up websites with “proxy servers” so “patriots” don’t know they are dupes. Who complains about the suffering of the poor? Is it cigar chomping millionaires with private planes, overseas bank accounts and tearful pleas for America’s unemployed? Who owns their TV networks? Have you ever checked?

Look behind the ownership of your newspapers and networks. You will find Israel primarily followed by a collection of defense contractors, and ‘financial institutions.” What do they have to gain by blocking real news or lying? I don’t know, does a decade of war have something to do with it? How does “Mr. Monk” figure out who commits a crime? He goes after the person who has the most to gain.

WHY? IT’S THE MONEY, STUPID!

Israel gains when we fight wars for them? They pay a few million in Washington, actually money we give them, and they “rent” the biggest army in the world for free. We even give them more money to boot. Not only that, they make billions selling weapons. Who makes the MRAPs (mine resistance ambush protected vehicles) for the Marine Corps? Israel does. Can Americans make their own, better and cheaper? Of course they can. When India bought new AWACs make with American technology, technology to be used against Pakistan, our primary military ally in Asia, who made the money? Israel! When Iran gets the important weapons upgrades they need, who sell them? You will love this. Israel, but they do it thru “cut outs” so nobody will know they are supplying their own enemy. Remember “Iran/Contra” when all those weapons were traded to Iran and America only got cocaine in return? Israel cut the deal and armed the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard” they now want us to attack for them. What a great world we live in.

Have you read any of this in the papers? Have you seen it on Fox News? Do you know who owns Fox News and pays Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? Check on it, you won’t believe it. You also won’t be reading that in the papers either. In fact, the only thing you can be sure of when you turn on the TV is that you are either being told a lie or something important is being kept from you. Otherwise, why would they report it at all. There is no money in telling the truth. You don’t get rich unless someone is being cheated, having their kids killed in a war or their pensions stolen by crooks. That “someone” usually a normal, everyday American citizen.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A PATRIOT BUT DON’T KNOW HOW?

Let’s lay out some common sense rules for ourselves:

1.If you read it in the papers or see it on TV, know something is being left out and somewhere, someone is making money lying to you.
2.If someone is telling you that “socialists” or “liberals” are your enemy, its usually being paid for by a bank somewhere and you are being laughed at.
3.If someone is telling you that your guns are going to be taken away, find who is really sending the message. When the time comes to fight for freedom, they are the ones you will want to go after first.
4.When you start feeling afraid of terrorists, remember this: There are more murderers on the streets of Detroit than in all of Afghanistan. How about your town? Why do you think you own guns and have locks on your doors?
5.If you want to find those responsible for the next big terrorist attack, don’t look in a cave somewhere. They will be sitting in a leather chair, probably speaking English and have golf clubs in the trunk of their car.
6.If someone tells you to arm yourself against America’s enemies, they are either an FBI informant or waiting for a cash offer from Fox News or a book deal from the Heritage Foundation. Expect to eventually see them on Dancing with the Stars.
7.If someone is telling you “don’t vote for any incumbent” it’s usually because they were thrown out of office themselves.
8.If someone tells you “that’s just a conspiracy theory” it means it isn’t.
9.If someone has been photographed standing next to troops, carrying a bible and saluting a flag, they probably belong in prison.
10.If someone is telling you who has made things “bad” for you, it was probably them.
HOW DO WE START WINNING BACK AMERICA?

Lets lay our some common sense ideas for ourselves:

1.Smedley Butler said that if war didn’t make money for the people that control our government, all wars would end. Read Smedley Butler like his words were a Bible, Koran or Torah. You can’t be a real American without knowing Smedley Butler. It simply isn’t possible. If you love heroes, this is your man!
2.When you pick up the newspaper or turn on the TV news, say over and over to yourself: “This is a bunch of crap.” Laugh as loud as you can. This may keep you alive.
3.If you are in your church, mosque or synagogue and a “holy joe” starts talking politics, head for the door. Don’t look back and never return. G-d doesn’t tell people how to vote, nor do his prophets. Preachers, priests, mullahs or rabbis should stick to that “divine plan” themselves.
4.Don’t listen to what a politician says, see what they do. Check with the Federal Elections Commission to see who pays them. Then go to Project Vote Smart and see who they are really working for. For instance, if you are a veteran and your representative is supported by the American Legion but not the Disabled Veterans of America, they are a “flag waving phony.” If they take money from and are supported by the US Chamber of Commerce or National Association of Manufacturers, “run like hell.”
5.Stop worrying about poor Israel. We pay them billions and they have more money than we do. They whine about being defenseless and are the 4th most powerful country on earth. They have nuclear missiles that could destroy the United States, much less deal with Iran, a country they do hundreds of millions in weapons business with. Stop being suckered.
6.If you want to start looking for political crooks, start close to home. Check who “appoints” your local judges and see if they work for banks who are foreclosing homes, businesses that aren’t paying their taxes or people poisoning your water, food or cheating you with shoddy goods and services. Look at your school board, county commissioners or mayor. Big thieves all started small. Sometimes “nipping a problem in the bud” is best.
7.Next time someone starts talking about “niggers, Jews, Arabs, socialists or liberals” understand this right away. You are standing next to a Nazi. Half a million American heroes died to save us from people like that. Letting them run their mouths without a “smack-down” is the definition of being unpatriotic.
8.You can still be an American and want to keep jobs home and foreigners out. If you want to know why your job is in China and you have a hard time using English in your own town, look at the folks who made money bringing this about and blame them. Our borders were opened and our jobs were shipped overseas by the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Republican Party, the people who made money from cheap labor and the people who don’t pay taxes for providing services to illegal aliens. Rich stopped paying taxes in the United States when “little” Bush took over. Any idiot knows this. You can be an idiot too, just start paying attention more.
9.Our political parties and everything that goes on in Washington is a racket. If a real leader stood up and tried to change things, he would die in a mysterious plane crash pretty quick or be shot by a “lone gunman.” Read your history. Also remember that most “3rd parties” are simply a scam started to rig elections. You can’t play in a sewer and come out without stink. The entire system has to go, anything less is a joke.
10.Law has to be restored, not just for poor people but for our politicians and their bosses. Every government contractor, every appointed official, every US Attorney, every lobbyist, every banker, all of them for the past 10 years need to be put in front of a jury of “their peers.” In some ways this is impossible. We don’t have that many rats. Let a jury decide. We know the money is gone, the kids are dead and it was all a setup. Let real law and order take charge in America.
AMERICANISM, NOT STUPIDITY

With decades of being duped, you would think we would be getting tired of it. The 9/11 Commission claims they were “duped” by the Bush administration but nobody wants to ask any of the hard questions. Now, after years, we seem to be talking to the Taliban. Why couldn’t we do that 9 years ago? When America woke up “flat broke and busted” in 2008, why did a country that spends billions on “intelligence” not know that it was a “basket case” itself? The Pentagon claims the Bush administration “misplaced” $295 billion during the Iraq War, mostly on payments made for things we never got. Are we too shy to ask for our money back?

If we can’t believe our government, and nobody does, who can we believe? When those close to us send us emails filled with hate and lies what do we lose? Maybe we can start by defining truth. Truth is something that isn’t a lie, no matter how many people choose to believe it because it makes them feel better, safer or lets them blame others.

Anyone who lies is an enemy of truth, whether its a newspaper, a politician, a judge or your pastor. Lies always seem to have one message behind them. Don’t look for thieves, blame each other, don’t ask too many hard questions and trust the rich and powerful, G-d chose them to take care of us and make all our decisions. There is one real truth:

THE ENTIRE WORLD LOOKS TO AMERICA FOR JUSTICE, SAFETY, STABILITY AND LEADERSHIP. WHATEVER ANYONE SAYS, EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE IN AMERICA AND BE AMERICAN BECAUSE OF WHAT WE HAVE STOOD FOR IN THE PAST AND CAN STAND FOR AGAIN. THE PEOPLE WE THINK HATE US ARE REALLY TELLING US: BE AMERICA AGAIN, WE NEED YOU.

Ummmm, like have we really fallen this much???

No joke: South Carolina now requires ’subversives’ to register

By Daniel Tencer
Friday, February 5th, 2010 -- 11:49 am

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Five-dollar registration fee for persons planning to overthrow US government

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

By "subversive organization," the law means "every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State."

A PDF of the registration form can be found here, courtesy of FitsNews.

http://fitsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SubversiveAgentForm.pdf

The law also gives subversive organizations "subject to foreign control" 30 days to register with the state after setting up shop in South Carolina.

While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at Islamic terrorists, it's unclear in the law's wording whether it can be applied to right-wing militias, some of whom have reputedly called for the overthrow of the US government. The law states that "fraternal" and "patriotic" groups are exempt from the law, but only if they don't "contemplate the overthrow of the government."

While the law is clearly redundant -- there are plenty of statutes at the state and federal level through which terrorists can be prosecuted -- it reflects a not-uncommon pattern in some states of "doubling down" against particular crimes.

For instance, South Carolina is among those states which require drug dealers to declare their illegal income, or face additional criminal penalties on top of the already established penalties for buying, possessing and selling drugs.

The South Carolina blog FitsNews describes the new law as "bureaucracy for terrorists."

"In the long and storied history of utterly retarded legislation in South Carolina, we may have finally found the legal statute that takes the cake for sheer stupidity, which we think you’ll agree is saying something," the unsigned blog posting scathingly commented.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Wild Tea in Texas - Yaupon Tea

Yaupons are a native species of holly found in Texas and are a known species among holly native to North America that contains caffeine. It is also the only wild tea that grows in many parts of Texas. Yaupons grow profusely in many areas of the state and are very hardy plants. In its native environment, yaupons are practically indestructible once established. The amazing thing about yaupons is that the dried leaves and stems of yaupons can be used to make an excellent tea.

Very few people know this interesting fact about yaupon (Ilex vomitoria), also known as Texas holly. This is a relative of the South American maté (Ilex paraguayensis) and provides the only wild tea with caffeine in Texas and occurs in other areas of the southeast coastal plains of the United Sates.

The Latin classification, vomitoria, comes from the ritual practice of coastal Indians who made and consumed a tea made from the leaves, berries and bark before going into battle. This very strong tea was called "black drink" and caused vomiting which was viewed as a ritualistic way to cleanse the body and soul. During hard times, many coastal residents made a tea by drying the young, tender leaves and stems and then steeping them to make a tea. Yaupon tea is still enjoyed by many long term residents of some of the more remote coastal areas in the United States. A word of caution about yaupon tea, don’t use the berries as they can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. It’s the berries that are emetic not the leaves and young stems.

The leaves can also be used as a stimulant when chewed directly but are somewhat bitter in taste. Roasting or drying the leaves and steeping the leaves in hot water makes a much more palatable and enjoyable drink.

The main use of yaupon tea was in the southeastern United States where Spanish, English, and French explorers described its use among Native Americans from southern Virginia to areas west of the Mississippi. It was also called “Spanish tea” by many people. Native Americans that used yaupon tea included the Cherokee, Choctaw, Natchez, Seminole, and Caddo in Texas. It was also used as a coffee substitute by Southerners during the Civil War when the supply of coffee was often limited. The use of yaupon tea, also known as the “black drink”, appearred to have reached its limit in the interior areas of Texas among the Caddoan Indians. Jean Louis Berlandier, a French biologist, was a member of a scientific expedition that was sent to Texas in 1827 who discovered that Caddoan Indians used an infusion (tea) of Ilex vomitoria for medicinal purposes.

Got yaupons? Make some tea!

Be aware. Be informed. Be prepared.

Riverwalker