Category Archive

When I checked my blog stats this morning someone came to my blog by searching for “can you eat thyme flowers”.

Oh yes, you can.  And they are really tasty, lovely in salads.  Really beautiful decorating a plate.  Chive flowers are gorgeous too.  Pretty much, any herb you can eat, eat the flowers too.  Squash blossoms can be stuffed with goat cheese and baked.  Rose petals and rose water make a gorgeously scented cake with gorgeously scented frosting decorated with wonderfully beautiful petals.  Mmm.

Just make sure you don’t eat flowers that have been treated with pesticides.  Make sure they are actually edible.  Do a search on the web to find lists of edible flowers.  Anywho, below is the picture of my herb bed with the thyme blossoms and chive blossoms.

Below is the text of the Declaration of Independence.  Read it, read it often.  Remember why we are who we are, don’t forget that liberty and life are precious and worth fighting for, that the freedom to pursue happiness is not a guarantor of actual happiness.  Don’t assume you know the founding fathers just because you saw some movie.  Read, read, read.  Learn to place historical events in the context of the times in which they occurred.  Above all, get familiar with the document below.  Get familiar with the Constitution.  Become acquainted with the Bill of Rights.  Read the notes from the Continental Congress. Go peruse the Magna Carta.  Seriously.  Learn about the democracies in Athens and Sparta, imperfect though they were.  Learn about why representational government developed.  Check out Roman republicanism, why the emperor gained power, why the Senate developed.  Then learn why freedom of speech is so completely vital to our continued liberty, our ability to freely practice our religion.  Learn about the ways politically correct speech infringes upon our very bedrock freedoms and liberties.  Then, after all of that, hold what we have dear, and close.

It is no mistake that, as a Christian, I am deeply attached to my Liberty, the liberty granted by men in the Declaration of Independence and codified by men in the Constitution.  God has granted me all that I am, salvation, life and eternal life.  In this world, before I die, I have to live amoung men in a world governed by men.  Yes, God governs all, but in this life we vote, make decisions and live in countries run by men.  I prefer to live in this Republic under a government that, imperfect though it is, is governed by the people, of the people and for the people.  I appreciate that I do not live under a tyrant like Mugabe or Kim Jong Il.

Below is the full text of the Declaration of Independence.  Enjoy!

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

I’ll bet you didn’t know I speak French.  ‘Cause I don’t.

Here are more pictures of my yard at dawn on Saturday.  Firstly, let me tell you that I love herbs, and I mean LOVE.  The smell alone when freshly picked always makes me happy.  Don’t even ask me about the lemon verbena incident.  Just know I didn’t mean to pack that much up my nose.  (Lemon Verbena is the most divine smell on earth.  Better than roses, roasted chicken, puppy breath, everything.  Go get some fresh and tell me I’m wrong.  Seriously, it’s that good.)  I bought some pineapple sage this weekend, but it’s tiny now and not really very picturesque.  But my tri-color sage?

And some lemon thyme:

I have a confession to make.  Don’t laugh, but I’m a thyme whore.  I love it and cannot resist it’s charms.  I’ve got about a dozen different kinds in the garden right now, the best being my prized lavender thyme.  Like lemon verbena, I command you to go get some right now!  Plus, unlike lemon verbena, it’s an evergreen, so it can be shoved up your nose year round.  I bought some coconut thyme this weekend.  We shall see if it lives up to it’s name.  I hope so.

And, lastly for I must away to work, here are my chives:

This evening, the flowers.  Adieu!

I’m not a crazed environmentalist that believes everyone should be forced to go see Al Gore’s new movie.  Actually, from what I’ve read, it’s a lot of fiction anyway.  I believe that we are currently in a warming trend, that humans impact on the climate can’t accurately be measured, that global warming is a new conventional wisdom that has become a doctrine and is therefore no longer open to scientific questioning.

I also believe that according to scripture we are to care for our world in such a way as to be counted a steward and not a slob.  So that means caring for wild spaces, treating animals humanely, being as organic as possible in farming, supporting business ventures that are ecologically sound (i.e. tagua nut products).  Where reasonably possible, we should be careful of our world because it is a gift to us from a God who loves us, to trash that gift wantonly is sin.  In no way do I think we should worship the earth though, it is not “alive” in and of itself and does not have a spirit, though surely one could think so when observing volcanoes, earthquakes and Hawaiian waterfalls.

I also think we should find new sources of energy and use the ones we have excellently.  Which brings me to the real reason for this writing.  Energy sources.

In order to lessen our dependence on foreign oil specifically, and oil in general we have to source our energy from somewhere.  Coal can be as polluting as anything, but we still use it and it can be found in our own backyard.  There are wind, solar and ethanol options.  But none have as much promise as nuclear energy.  It’s cleaner than coal and oil, produces less waste than either too.  It is efficient and the spent uranium/plutonium  can be recycled.  Carter-era policy regarding recycling would have to be changed, which would also solve the Yucca Mountain issue, and frankly should be changed, it’s wasteful to bury what can be reused simply out of fear.

Nuclear energy is also much more efficient than wind, solar and ethanol.  None of those technologies can offer the kind of power for your buck that Nuclear energy can.  Ethanol doesn’t necessarily show much promise except in small applications because of the land required to grow the crops to turn into ethanol.  I believe that it would actually do more damage to our world to try to grow enough to make the switch from petroleum products to ethanol.  The cost in fertilizer alone would be prohibitive and damaging to our waterways.

The real question is will Americans get over their fear of nuclear energy to allow new plants to be built?  Will we allow them in our backyard?  We should.  If we want to change the balance in the need for energy, the cost of gas, the price of heating and cooling our homes we will enthusiastically embrace nuclear power plants and happily build them all over the place.  That is one area that the French have done so much better than the US.

I heard Cindy Sheehan say she would prefer to live under strongman Hugo Chavez in Venezuela rather than the US.  Frankly, I don’t care where she lives, but she might want to reconsider.

She forgets that visiting someone at home is VERY different from living with them.  VERY.  Sure she’s been welcomed in Venezuela in general and by Chavez specifically.  I’m sure he was a charming host.  I’ve heard that he is very charming.  Almost irresistibly so.  Which makes me twitchy.  Charming leaders don’t inspire a high level of trust in me.  Hitler was irresistible to dogs and children.  Napoleon was compelling, as was Alexander the Great.  Charming men don’t necessarily make the best leaders, they just make convincing ones.

She also forgets that she is newsworthy and valuable precisely because she is an American going overseas making treasonous statements in hostile foreign countries.  Once that status changes she will no longer be a pawn, which is exactly what she is to Chavez, make no mistake.  When she is no longer profitable she will no longer be courted.

She forgets the history of Communists.  One that she shouldn’t considering that Chavez is getting ready to visit the Puffy-Haired Nightmare (Puffy-H) in Pyongyang.  She forgets that the cult of personality that allowed Stalin to murder millions, Mao at least 30 million in his “Great Leap Forward”, Pol Pot murdered one million of his country men and women, one fifth of Cambodia’s population and Puffy-H is currently starving his people to death.  It’s so bad in North Korea that the people there are escaping to the relative freedom of China.  Everywhere communism goes, suffering and brutality surely follow.  Chavez is no different, we just haven’t seen the worst yet.  He is currently setting himself up as a people’s man.  He claims to have the workers and the poor in mind, but the murder rate in Venezuela has risen alarmingly under his rule, and he has aligned himself with several of the most repressive regimes in the world (his friendship with Castro and new found BFF Puffy-H)  If you listen carefully to him, he is encouraging class warfare.  When that comes, he will be the only winner.

She has forgotten in her grief over her son that he signed up for this.  He chose to join the military, with that choice comes a certain group of fair assumptions, one being that death in the line of duty is a distinct possibility.  She can be sad, I would be.  But her son chose to be a soldier, he knew what he was doing.

She also forgets that had her son stayed home there is no guarantee that he would have lived.  There is no guarantee that I will see the morning.  None.  I hope so, but stuff happens.  People are murdered here too.  Often.